A/N: Yep, being re-written. Because I can't stand the sight of it anymore. Maybe a little melodramatic about internet fanfiction, but... it's embarrassingly bad! I am compelled. I apologize to anyone who was actually enjoying the bilge. Hopefully you'll prefer the new version – or at least forgive me. I'm also changing the rating to M; I have no intention of writing anything sexually graphic, but it will be darker than the original version.
There's a lot I'm altering, but I don't intend to stray from the original plot. Character development and details may change. A lot.
Safiya had not reflected on how vague her mother's instruction had been until she actually met with the sight of the stranger on the barrow's floor. Either her memory was utterly failing her at that moment, or the specifics – foggy on their own – had been very unclear. The Red Wizard lingered over the body among the runes, scrutinizing detail and trying to recall if her mother had described the stranger as female. She had been convinced of it, but meeting with the sight of a young boy crippled on the floor gave her pause. Safiya knelt by the stranger's body, doubting the mechanics of her mind as she examined him. He was young – younger than she had expected, but then, she had also expected a woman. She wondered how he had reached such depths in the barrow, let alone how her mother knew of his existence – and why she had been tasked with retrieving and protecting him. But she could ponder that later – and hopefully have her questions answered after she guided him back to her mother's vague associate. There were more pressing matters that needed tending to – as judging by the copious amounts of congealing blood soaking into the tattered, green fabric of his cloak and the ground beneath, he was going to bleed out if she didn't do something. That much, at least, her mother had warned her of.
She couldn't waste her spells. Leaving would not be nearly as easy as entering had been. Safiya knew enough first aid to be able to properly administer it, but was loathe to do so. She could detach herself and work from a purely intellectual standpoint, but that did little to diminish the discomfort she felt upon actually touching a stranger. But she had made a promise, and wasn't one to complain – at least, not openly. She gingerly turned the stranger onto his back and brushed aside his bloodied cloak, inwardly grimacing at the wet noise it made when hitting the ground. Squeamish wouldn't be an apt term to describe her – one who was conditioned to ritually turning things inside out and dealing with the remains of experimental failures was not squeamish. But contact, in general, made her uneasy and mortality was a morbid thought – especially concerning someone she was tasked to aid and watch over. As she moved him, she realized that he'd been lying atop a gigantic sword. Flat-wise, luckily, else her job would have been made that more dire. She reached for the stranger's leather armor, but was intercepted by his gloved hand. She yanked her hand back on reflex and watched as he made a fist at his chest, as it clutching at something. There was a strange assortment of rings on his fingers – some leaden and tilted, others fitting perfectly.
Slightly mystified, Safiya watched as he grimaced. She had dissuaded the binding spell upon her arrival, but was surprised to see him awake already. He was lying in a puddle of his own blood, after all, and the loss was reflected in how pallid his face was. As if he had bled out all of his color. It even reached into his hair, pulling great grips from it; the disheveled mess of it was a blond so pale it was almost white. He was rather feminine, Safiya noted, in spite of his gender. Even somewhat... pretty? The surreal observation made her pause, but a faint whispering brought her back. She only caught the cryptic word, "shard," before the boy's voice became inaudible once more. Safiya hadn't quite prepared for him to be awake.
"I'm here," she said uneasily, trying to mimic the rare – and almost conditionally soft tone her mother had offered her as a small child with her own ailments. "Lie still."
The stranger was not as receptive as she had been. He made no response and Safiya felt relief. He wasn't awake – he was merely talking in his sleep. But he would wake soon, and she had to control the bleeding before then, lest he make it worse. She carefully moved his hand and unfastened the straps of his armor before opening it and immediately blanched.
So he was a girl! The bleeding wound on his chest half-outlined one small mound that was just enough to constitute a breast. At least her memory hadn't failed. Safiya regained herself and tepidly inspected the wound, finding it much worse than she had expected. The stitching quality was abhorrent; it zigzagged and lapsed at random, as if guided by the clumsy hand of a golem. The skin was gaping and wide, the interior deep and dark and for a brief moment, Safiya wondered if the unfortunate girl had somehow lived through a wound to the heart itself. The placement was plausible, but the mortality rate...
"Back!" the girl suddenly snarled, startling Safiya. "Don't touch me!"
She was staring at her with wild eyes, one hand groping at the floor – probably for the weapon – and the other reaching to shove her. Safiya effortlessly deflected it and the girl winced in pain.
"I said hold still," Safiya said, returning to the wound. "Without a bandage, you'll bleed to death."
"What?" the girl asked. Her voice was grating in spite of itself, as if it hadn't been used in days. "Wound? What's going on?"
The Red Wizard removed the thread the incompetent healer had used to close it, making the girl hiss aloud. "I don't know how you were hurt, but you are – badly. So let me fix it before you lose anymore blood."
She quieted as Safiya continued to work, something the wizard was grateful for. The stranger's temperament seemed to be insufferable at best. The girl grimaced when Safiya re-stitched the wound and closed it, but otherwise made no protest when she helped her to sit up. Instead, she seemed to have settled into a quiet confusion and blinked slowly as she turned her head. "Where are we? Who are you?"
"We're in a barrow deep beneath the soil of Rashemen," she explained, tying off the thread and withdrawing her needle. She met the stranger's gaze and felt a wave of uncertainty roll through her. At first glance, she thought the girl blind. Her gaze was very nearly empty – the pupils were so faint she could hardly see them within the pools of bright gray. She blinked slowly, furrowing her brows as she seemed to inspect Safiya's face – they trailed over the obvious, and moved to scrutinize the tattoos dappling over her bald head and eyes. From afar, the girl only had only silver – as if her pupils were concealed beneath the surface of non-color. It was a little disorienting and Safiya wondered if her mother had alluded to what the girl's race was, as well as her gender. Some flavor of planetouched, surely. "My name is Safiya."
She retrieved the bandages as the girl continued to glance around. Their surroundings were certainly disquieting. The enclosure was not only circled by pillars featuring runes, but neither were they alone. Not completely. The skeleton of an adult was sprawled across the floor nearby. The girl was frowning at it, but shrugged away her armor and the padding underneath as Safiya began to wrap her torso. The wound on her chest had been carved across a scar – a pale and old scar, it embedded itself into her flesh as a clumsy patch. But that was not the last of her scars. They cut and mottled her shoulders and ribs – some of them burns, some by blade or arrow. Whoever she was, she had seen battle – that much Safiya felt was obvious. When the wizard withdrew from bandaging her, the girl donned her armor again and Safiya helped her to her feet.
"I know you must have questions, but we must leave, now. Before the spirits wake," Safiya said as the girl stooped to pick up her sword.
"Spirits?" she asked, stopping herself in the middle of reaching for a holster – and finding none. She frowned and hesitated. She held out her hands and turned them over, narrowing her eyes as she scrutinized the heavy rings on her fingers. The girl was making for a very strange impression, and Safiya banished a complex wonder – something terribly cliché. Certainly she was only... disoriented. "What kind of place is this?"
"You might call it a grave – a resting place. The locals say that powerful spirits dwell here – hostile to those trying to enter... and those trying to leave," Safiya explained. She was in the middle of turning before the girl very nearly lunged at her, grabbing the red folds of her robe before she could properly react.
"Why am I here?" she asked, and it was very nearly a demand, though she didn't appear to be hostile. Instead, the stranger seemed almost... frightened. Safiya herself was bemused by the entire ordeal; there were so many questions, so many she couldn't answer and so many she wanted an answer to herself. The girl was standing nearly a head shorter than herself, and her pleading expression made her look even younger. Safiya felt an uncomfortable pang of pity.
"I don't know how you got here. But I'll take you to someone who might. I'll take you to her and make certain that she gives us both some answers," she said and the girl released her robes. "But that's after we get out. For the moment, haste is all that matters."
"But," the girl stalled, gesturing to the pillars and floor, "what are these? What do they mean?"
"Yes, they... caught my eye as well," Safiya admitted, drumming her fingers on her quarterstaff as she followed the girl's hand.There's almost nothing about Rashemi runes in the academy archive, but... that rune, there."
Safiya pointed to it and the girl ventured forth, the tip of her greatsword dragging along the earth in her wake. "It's called, 'The Dancing Man.' It depicts a circle of dancers, surrounding an... evil spirit. The runes were part of the binding spell that held you, but I have dissolved its power. Come, we've been here too long as it is."
But she wasn't listening. Instead, she seemed to be enticed by the rune, peering closely at it and turning her head. The girl rose out a hand and a bolt of panic hit Safiya. "Wait! No!"
The girl's fingers had only just brushed the depiction before she seized, eyes widening and hands trembling as something happened. Safiya nearly fell over herself running to her aid, catching her just as her knees buckled. She hadn't known what were to happen if someone touched any of the runes, but the magic was powerful – too powerful for carelessness. Already she had lost control of the situation and already her charge had found a way to harm herself. The focus returned to the girl's pale eyes and she blinked several times.
"What was that? What did you see?" Safiya asked, host to both a terrible concern and curiosity. The girl met her eyes with her uncomfortable stare, furrowed her brows and studied her – as if looking at her for the first time.
"You," the girl said unevenly and Safiya relinquished her hold as the girl steadied herself, leaning to grab the hilt of her sword where it had fallen. Her gaze never faltered from Safiya's face and trained itself with a sharp, paranoid sort of edge. The wizard was nearly incensed to know that a girl she was risking life and limb for didn't trust her – because she had done the very thing she had told her not to. "Or... not you... someone who looks like you. I don't know. She had golden skin like yours, your eyes, and tattoos like the ones on your face."
"They're thoughts... or memories. Maybe from within you, maybe from without," Safiya explained, "the Rashemi claim that runes can trap dreams... or set them loose. It's very possible you only had what was almost... a moment of deja vu, perhaps. As far as I'm aware, we've only just met for the first time."
"There was also a laughing little boy," the girl said after a pause, as if she heard nothing Safiya had said. "And... a wall. A wall of screaming faces."
"This place is... not right," Safiya said, turning to meet the ascending slope that lead out from the pillars. The predicament was deeply unsettling, likely to the both of them. The girl followed after a spare moment to stare at the rune she had touched, as if it may reach out and bite her. The wizard could hardly blame her. "Everything echoes so strongly. I will be glad to leave this barrow behind."
They had hardly ascended the incline when Kaji perked up and revealed himself from the shadows in the cavern.
"Mistress," he said, gesturing to the forks of caves beyond. "I hear something in one of the caves up ahead. Perhaps it is Ispet and Sefi..."
"No, Kaji. I sent them to find Lienna as my mother asked. They could not have returned from the city so soon..." Safiya answered, pausing briefly as the girl glanced up and saw the homunculus for the first time. She nearly tripped backwards over herself.
"What is that monster?" she asked, flinching away as if Kaji would strike her – incidentally, Safiya wouldn't have blamed him.
"Pfft! What did she call me?"
"Monster?" Safiya repeated, marginally insulted. She had shaped Kaji, and she hadn't done so with any superficial notion of appearance. This girl – her eyes were a little strange, her hair was cut and she was covered in scars, but she clearly knew what it was like to be beautiful. On the outside. Safiya had her doubts about the inside. "He's unusual, yes – maybe even repulsive to some, but I like him that way. Between his face and his demeanor, there is no deception – no lie."
Safiya read what might have been a little glimpse of remorse before the ground began to rumble.
"So much for going unnoticed... the earth spirits wake, ready yourself!" she cried as the girl started and drew her greatsword. The girls met the earth elementals with spell and blade with an ease that Safiya had not been expecting. The nameless warrior was clumsy with her attack, and often stepped right in the path of Safiya's spells before darting off – swung mostly by the weight of her weapon as she struck enemy, using the motions as some improvised method of dodging. It was a peculiar combat style, and one that the wizard had not seen before. She had wondered briefly if the girl even knew what she was doing – but they made it through without any mortal injuries, and at least made a successful team.
Yet there was little room for smooth sailing in an underworld so laden of treachery. The girl and Wizard crept through a threshold, a hole in the cavern wall, advancing out before a large, ethereal wolf. It glowed in a lavender sheen, its frame allowing for small deposits of spikes, radiant as her intangible pelt. This was a powerful spirit, an ancient guardian that stood among the feral hierarchy of the elementals. Safiya felt a wave of uncertainty as the beast's luminescent eyes settled upon the stranger and its muzzle contorted with a snarl.
"There you are Red Wizard... we caught your scent on the empty air and it shook us from our sleep," the wolf growled, her hackles risen and head lowered to protect her throat. Dead or not, it was a creature of fierce instinct. "But you were alone when you went below..."
"I don't parley with wolves," the girl, tactless and almost bored by the tone of her voice, snapped. "Get out of our way."
Safiya preferred to take a slightly more diplomatic approach; the beast was much stronger than the others that stood in their way, and should they meet with the lord of the dead...! The wizard knew to pick her battles carefully. "Spirit – who are you?"
"My name... it was Nakata," the wolf said after a brief pause, then shook her head slightly. "Memories flow together in this place... it is difficult to know which are your own. My howls led an army of beasts across the groaning ice of Tirulag... and there I died, struck down by an eater of souls - a monster that wore the skin of a man... now tell me your name, mortal. Or we'll tear our your throat, and pry it from your ghost."
Nakata was speaking directly to the girl, who stared at her for a pause before touching her forehead and squinting. She looked as distant and confused as the wolf had before recalling her name, but the stranger – if she had an answer – didn't offer it. "No. Stay back, and we'll leave peacefully."
"Leave?" Nakata tilted her head, then growled deeply. "No... you will not. Something was trapped in the Cavern of Runes... a poison at the heart of our dream... swallowing memories and names. Anything that emerges from there... cannot be allowed to walk free. Those were the words of our god, before he sank into slumber."
"Then let me meet with this god, and change his mind," the girl said, clearly implying a threat. She brandished her greatsword to add emphasis and Safiya sighed. She had memorized an artillery of spells, but she was still in unfamiliar territory and disliked a gamble.
The wolf's nostrils flared as she rose her head. "What is that scent? Blood... a wound that should have been mortal, but was not..."
The girl's free hand returned to her chest, hovering over her bandaged wound. Her eyes narrowed as one of her feet lingered back, as if she might bolt.
Nakata drew back suddenly, her eyes widening. "No, something deeper... vile... and familiar. Why do I remember - !"
The moment had descended so quickly, but it haunted the wizard, hanging like the fetid touch of a nightmare over her memory. There was almost a sigh in the atmosphere – no, not a sigh. A groan, as the temperature felt to suddenly descend several degrees. Safiya felt a terrible disturbance from the girl, and turned just as the greatsword clattered to the floor of the barrow. The stranger had doubled over, trembling and holding herself as if in leagues of pain. Safiya started, and panicked over what to do moments before the situation escalated and stole away any choice she had. She watched as the girl's shadow warped and stumbled backwards over herself as it rose, twisting itself into an elliptical shape. It verged over her and tendrils began to sprawl out from somewhere within it. They shot out suddenly, reaching towards the panicked Nakata and descending upon her. Light was very nearly stolen as the spirit yelped in either pain, or terror – or both. The lingering loyalists turned tail and bolted, crying as they disappeared through different tunnels as the darkness slowly withdrew, returning to shadow and regaining shape.
"That wasn't a spell..." Safiya began, taking a moment to command her voice as the stranger slowly released her arms. She was pale, but any wound she had contacted through their short journey through barrages of spirits had been healed. "Or a divine incantation. How did you do that?"
"I... I don't know," she admitted, her hands still trembling violently. "It was... something welled up inside of me."
"Whatever it was, you destroyed that spirit," Safiya said, trying to resist the urge to assault her with questions. She had seen spells reminiscent of whatever power that had been, but had never felt anything like it – nor could she understand exactly what had happened. But... she supposed there would be plenty of time for questions on the road to Mulsantir. "Nevermind – we have to keep moving."
The display seemed to, for the most part, ward the spirits away from the both of them. There was little disruption before they reached the threshold to a room encrusted with jewels. Safiya looked around dimly as the girl ventured near a risen slab of stone – the bones of some great beast lied out in perfect formation across it.
"The tunnel was clear when I passed, now it's sealed itself shut. Strange... they have turned the earth against us," the wizard observed, nodding towards a blocked off remnant of some craggy opening.
"We could try smashing through the barrier," the girl suggested, brandishing her sword. Safiya could see that her initial judgment of her temper had been correct.
"The barrier is alive, the soil itself is full of spirits. It will just reform as fast as we damage it... if we can damage it," Safiya explained. The girl frowned, but their setback invited an opening for questions. Something about the stranger – many things, really – had been troubling her, but she wasn't quite sure how to reach the subject tactfully.
"Do you often find yourself waking up in strange lands with unexplained injuries?" the wizard asked and the girl offered a doubletake, clearly taken off her guard. "I'm sure you get that one all the time."
The girl paused, looking contemplative for moment before glancing back to her. "You healed me when you woke me up."
"You're welcome?"
"How did you know I'd be injured?"
The stranger clearly wanted to cut down to business as soon as possible. The sentiment wasn't lost on Safiya, who was beginning to seriously doubt the possibility of any camaraderie. "I was tasked with seeing you out of this barrow safely. Now, if you don't mind – let's keep moving."
"I do mind," the girl snapped and closed the distance between them, glaring up at her. "I'm not going with you until I know why you're here."
Safiya sighed. The stranger was difficult, but she could hardly blame her for wanting honesty – and felt a sliver of respect for her insistence. "I'm guessing you rarely settle for half the facts... That's a good trait to have. A powerful wizard at my Academy - my mother, actually - told me you'd be here and ordered me to find you. My instructions were... rather brief... and given in haste. Trust me when I say I knew only that you'd be here, and likely to be incapacitated. As for why, well... that's something we'd both like to know."
"You don't know anything?" the girl asked and Safiya shook her head. She turned to the bones on the rock, letting silence fill in their space briefly. "Do you know my name?"
"I'm afraid not," Safiya said. "As many of the details of you or your situation, I was spared that one."
"Oh."
"Well... will you tell me your name?"
"I was hoping you could tell me," the girl admitted, thoroughly confusing her. "I don't remember it."
"You don't - ?" Safiya had begun to ask before the stranger rose her greatsword and brought it down over the bones, shattering them. The wizard started as the blockade of earth began to quake and disperse, as the air was filled with the howls of a horde of furious spirits. The wizard defended herself as her nameless ally launched herself into the fray, sweeping and whirling with the momentum of her blade, taking out spirits in the process. Safiya was skeptical, at best, of the stranger's sanity – but in that pause, and nearly ironically, the voices returned.
She had been hearing them for as long as she could remember, and while the timing was usually convenient, sometimes they had a way of cropping up when she needed them the least. Between the snarling and cries of the anguished spirits, there was a whispering of mingled voices – faint at first, but it grew to shouts at random intervals, pulsing with no real rhythm.
"Stop it... leave me alone... not here and not now," the wizard began muttering to herself as they rushed away from dissipating spirits they'd felled. Audibility was meaningless to her at that moment, as her ears were filled with the rushing of the voices. They were so excited by something that she couldn't pick out any clear words in their babbling.
"Are you okay?" there was a final peak in the noise before they silenced, and Safiya was surprised to see the girl standing over her, returning her greatsword to its holster. Safiya looked around, and saw that none of the angry spirits remained. She held her head, muttering to herself outside of the fray – surely making something of a spectacle of herself.
"It's nothing," she said, feeling her face flush with embarrassment – and something a little more vague. The way the girl was looking at her was somehow, almost, familiar. But they had never met before. Safiya ignored her strong curiosity and gestured to the tunnel ahead of them. "Look, the tunnel's angling upward. We're nearly out."
She reached up, touching an elongated, twisting tree root that cropped out overhead. The stranger glanced at her and turned to continue on. "Those bones you smashed – the bones of a great bear. The Rashemi say a god dwells in this place... an angry bear god who rules the barrow. Rashemi tales are colorful but they're always true in part. Be on your guard."
She had hoped that they could avoid him, but as the two neared the exit, the void beyond began to peel away as a varied luminescence began to glow. Safiya grabbed her staff and the girl followed suite, readying her greatsword.
"What stirs the air and smells so foul? Go back... die in the silence and dark. I am tired and ill of temper," a snarl reverberated through the air, deeply baritone and guttural. The wizard and warrior stepped through the threshold, meeting with its owner, the local dead god. His aura was great and shimmering, the long fur of his nape pearly and white, rising to a crest where fire bloomed. He was a living band of color set into motion, touched by thousands of dreams and distorted in a way that reality never could never mimic. From the base of his jaw and flowing out to his nape, thick vines of orange tendrils curled as blue fire encircled his massive, red paws.
"I have no argument with you. Allow us to pass, and we'll leave in peace," the girl answered him, and Safiya noted that her tune changed quickly in fear. The bear god scoffed aloud.
"In peace? You, who smashed the bones of my grandfather?" he thundered. "And who has silenced faithful Nakata? Have her fleas devoured her at last? I think not. I know what you are, little one. I smell the hunger that wakes in you."
And now it was time to return to her duties. Safiya stepped before the stranger, her grip on her staff tightening with a mixture of resolve and worry. "I don't care what you smell, you will not have her."
The god's feverish stare snapped upon her. "What do you care, Thayan? I know your kind. You love your own lives above little else."
"You don't know me. But I know your kind. I know your present form for all its... color... is only a shadow of your true self. And I've shaped and bound far greater things than you," Safiya met the stare, angry at his prejudice, at his accusations.
"And I smell a wild storm in you, Thayan. Does your ally know the secrets you hide? Grief and confusion beyond measure... and something else..." the bear continued, his gaze flickering between the two. All before the wizard could retort, he bore his ethereal fangs and relinquished a furious snarl. "Enough words! By the oath I swore, neither of you will leave my den!"