During the past Dust has been a crucial part of her existence. Her skills depended not so much on it, however. It was her eyes on the many assignments she had undertaken in the name of the truce, which had been forged so long ago. Chains around her forearms, her waist and her right thigh were a constant reminder of that truce. They were the leash, keeping her in check, the bindings of a prisoner – and Dust was her warden.
They stood before the Council once again – the three entities, tasked with testing her, putting her being to a useful purpose for the greater good of existence itself. Her actions have doomed many, but brought just as much salvation. And the Council had yet another task for her. The chains, as always, locked her in place.
The one on her thigh forced her to kneel.
The one around her waist would keep her on the spot, when she was not forced to kneel.
The ones around her forearms made her stretch out her arms, palms to the front.
Thus, she knelt before the Council, looking down at the floor, as she always did, awaiting her orders. The Council was made up of two male and one female individual, with her seated in the middle.
"You have been summoned here, for we demand a service of you." These words were the beginning of every ritualized meeting the Council held with her. Dust would always be close by, but never in the Council chamber. She was relaxed, used to the devote position she had been forced into so many times. Her attention was with the Council.
"The Council has learned of a disturbance in the balance. Your task is simple: You will venture to a Kingdom by the name of Vale, find the source of that disturbance, and eliminate the threat."
An execution order. The last one was given to her not so long ago. It was a traitor to her kind she had to execute, and she had to travel far and wide to find him, and do, as the Council commanded.
As usual, the Council would give mere clues to the place she was going to go, which she had to figure out by herself – it has always been this way.
After they allowed her to leave, and she was outside the Council chamber, Dust was with her once more. Equipped with nothing more than black, tattered clothing, which included a hooded cape, the chains, which had been useful on several occasions, Dust and her trusty scythe, which was currently shape shifted to a glove-like construct around her left forearm and hand, she went to the Edge once more. The guardians stood there, focusing her, judging her for what she was. The step to begin her journey was like the many others she took before, and thus, she found herself falling again, Dust by her side.
After a brief fall of just a few minutes, they landed in the middle of what had to be ancient ruins.
"Hmmmm… Looks like our trajectory was a little off…" Dust said, after flying up to a branch of a tree. The black crow with red glowing eyes looked around, as his subject slowly rose in the middle of the crater her landing had created. Her eyes were glowing red like his, but her body was that of a being of the light. She looked around the ruins, taking in the new environment. It was a warm day, the sun stood high above the ruins of what seemed to be a temple.
"Where are we, then?" she asked, getting her senses used to the environment.
"By the looks of it, we are in ancient ruins, far away from any civilization – present civilization to be precise. This crumbling building seems to be a temple," Dust answered, changing trees for a change of perspective. "Uh, never mind the far away part, friend! I spotted inhabitants!" the bird suddenly exclaimed. She looked around quickly, and went inside a nearby alcove, which would conceal her in its shadows. The inhabitants were humans, creatures she had seen often during her many assignments. Many a time they were the reason for them in the first place, but never were these creatures able to disturb the balance majorly. And these were merely explorers, with an escort of four warriors by their side, which made a total of seven humans in the ruins. It was bad luck that the annoyingly curious, yet cunning creatures already found the first trace of her presence in their home.
"Look at this, doctor," a female with blonde hair said.
"This crater wasn't here yesterday," an old male responded, who must've been doctor. It was a strange name, if she had ever heard one.
"Eyes open. We're not alone here," another male, hardened by combat, commanded his fellow warriors, before addressing doctor. "You should leave, there are probably Grimm here," he stated.
Grimm was a term for a group of creatures, most likely the enemies of these humans. She knew humans tend to fight each other, so she assumed Grimm to be other humans.
"Yes, yes, you are right. Maybe it will move on during the night, and we can continue our studies here in peace, if it doesn't find us. We should all leave, my friend," the old male suggested, and after a short consideration, the warrior leader accepted the wisdom of the elder. Thus, the humans left as swiftly, as they have shown up in the ruins. She could not get a look at the creatures, or else her red glowing eyes would have revealed her presence. She waited about an hour before re-emerging from the alcove. Dust had hidden himself among the treetops, and just landed on a wall close by.
"Oh wow, that was quick… And I thought we could use these ruins as our base of operations," Dust complained. She only sighed. "Humans… Humans everywhere…" he continued his complaint.
"It can't be helped, and we need to move, before Grimm show themselves here, as well," she answered, and started climbing a far wall, while the sun was behind her. She was saving her strength for the time being, since humans used to pose no actual threat to her at all. They were weak compared to the many monstrosities and abominations she and Dust had encountered so far.
As she reached the top of the wall, her eyes glared at a widespread forest, whichever way she looked.
"I couldn't see any sign of settlement from here. Although the humans must have a camp nearby, they live further away from this temple," Dust explained, while circling around her.
"Then continuing the way with the sun behind us is as good a direction as any, I say," she replied.
"Yes, and we should try if you can use your abilities – just in case."
Dust flew down the wall, while she jumped off of it, landing on the grass with a relatively loud bang. Her armored boots withstood the impact, just as she did, but she had created another, smaller crater in the process. She started walking away from the ruins, and stretched out her right arm. Her essence started flowing between the ground and her hand, creating a brief rift between the plains of existence, so that she could summon her horse, named Ruin – a fitting name for his first appearance in this place. She started running, while Ruin galloped out of the ground, emerging on the plain its master was currently on. Eventually, the summoning was complete, and she sat in the saddle of the black horse with glowing red markings on its neck, and looked at Dust.
"I think my abilities work just as fine as everywhere else we've been so far," she concluded.
"Well, you never know," Dust replied to that, as they started moving away from the ruins and the humans nearby. While she was riding through the forest, Dust flew up ahead, scouting the area. The forest itself seemed to be a lush area, suitable for a variety of life, and it did not take long for her to encounter wildlife on her way. Naturally it evaded her, as she evaded it, but there was something else beyond the trees, which caused these animals to be on guard. A few minutes later Dust revealed the answer. "Over here! You might want to see this!"
After she got off Ruin and ventured through some undergrowth, she found a creature. The black beast Dust had found stood at three meters height on its hind legs, its back turned towards her, and seemed to be looking for something. As it turned towards her, the creature revealed bone plates covering its front legs, head and chest. Its eyes were glowing red, just like Dust's and hers. And before she was even considering it, the creature engaged her in combat, after a threatening roar.
As it charged, she loosened her weapon from her arm, and shifted it into its true form: A scythe, 1.80 meters in length, with a spearhead on the one end, and the blade on the other. She was holding the weapon in her left hand, the blade next to her leg pointed at the creature. In the moment it rose to smash her into the ground, she made a step to the right, guiding the blade towards the attacking beast. To her surprise, the beast shifted its point of balance to the left – from her point of view – and thus dodged her counter attack, and maneuvered itself behind her. She adjusted her position to face the beast again, which already lunged at her. She swung her scythe from left to right, holding the weapon near the spearheaded end, and threw it back onto the clearing it just was. She observed the beast, which was stunned by her blow, and cut by the blade. However, there was no blood to be seen, and neither did the wound influence it in any visible way. To end this pointless fight, she rushed in, slammed the spearhead against the creatures head from below. She grabbed the spearheaded end again, und smashed the scythe blade into its head, penetrating the bone armor and destroying the skull in the process. The fight was won, and the creature started to evaporate into black smoke, which then turned towards her. Before she could react, she absorbed the dying beast's evaporation just by being close. Its essence started flowing through her, and replenished her expended energy, much to her surprise; and even more to Dust's.
"Did I just see that right?" Dust asked, after the creature had disappeared completely. "You just absorbed its essence?!"
"Yes. It's much like my own, in fact," she replied.
"Hm, that explains why it happened, but still doesn't make much sense," he exclaimed, gesturing with his wings as if they were arms.
"The disturbance in the balance may be involved here," she presumed.
"You mean it's one of us?" he asked, tipping his beak with his right wing.
"Wouldn't be the first," she remarked.
"These renegades…" he sighed.
She got onto Ruin's back again, and continued the way, she was going. Dust led the way until the sun eventually set to her left side. The land cooled down quite a bit, after darkness took over. To make things even more difficult, the duo arrived at the bottom of a cliff. She did not even start an argument with Dust, however, but instead dismissed Ruin into the plains where she had summoned him from earlier, and started making her way up the cliff. This time she manifested a clawed hand as an extension of her arm to grapple onto some ledges, which sped up her climbing endeavor a lot. Only a few minutes later she had brought the cliff behind herself, and looked at Dusk, who himself was looking at a clearly formed stone – human work, most likely.
"What did you find?" she asked.
"A grave," he answered, and read the inscription on the stone, "'Summer Rose; Thus kindly I scatter'"
"A beautiful inscription," she said, kneeling before the grave for a brief moment. Dust just nodded, and addressed the spirit of Summer Rose, who was probably in close vicinity.
"Don't mind us, Summer Rose. We're just passing through," he said, spreading his wings in front of the grave, and lowering his head. There was a brief moment of silence. Summer Rose did not respond.
"Why did you do that?"
"Well, Summer Rose could be some sort of guardian spirit, and we don't mean any harm to its subjects, so I thought, telling it would be a good idea," he answered to her question, while she was getting up and started to leave already.
"Alright, I don't think you did anything wrong by that. And now we know, there is a settlement nearby. Thank you." Then they left the grave's area, and she mounted re-summoned Ruin once more. They decided to follow the cliff for the time being, and eventually saw some lights in the distance. As they came closer, the illuminated area turned out to be bigger, than any human settlement they have seen so far.
"Talk about cities… This one is huge," Dust said in amazement, and even she was a bit overwhelmed by the size of this particular one. "We're supposed to find the disturbance in there?" he asked.
"Assuming this city is Vale," she added.
"Good point, good point," he answered.
"Anyway, we should enter this city," she proclaimed after a while.
"Huh? Why?" Dust asked.
"We still need to find Vale, and even if this is not the place, one of the humans in there should know where to find it," she explained, "and by the looks of it, there will be plenty of ways to travel. I can see a large harbor from here."
"Okay, so… Let's find a way inside the walls, then," Dust said, and immediately flew off towards them. She dismissed Ruin once again, since his services would not be needed in this area. The coastline was close by on her left, where the cliff had cut off the land below. To her right was the forest she was riding along, but between her, and the city itself was a big canyon, which made it nigh impossible for any assaulting force to even get close to the wall itself.
Dust took his time, almost an hour, until he eventually returned to her.
"Oh my," he started, "This city is even bigger, than I anticipated."
"Did you find an entrance for us, though?" she asked, as she offered her left shoulder for him to sit on.
"The wall is too well guarded for us to get over unnoticed. Whatever they're walling up against, they surely fear it. We could get in via the waterway. The harbor isn't as well guarded as the wall, as far as I could see – whatever the reason for that may be."
"The waterway it is, then," she said, and ran towards the cliff's edge. A leap and a several hundred meter drop later, she entered the water, and began swimming towards the harbor. In the meantime, Dust was scouting for a good spot to get out of the water again, and showed it to her, after she re-emerged at the surface. Stone walls had been built for ships to dock at, but metal ladders were placed in somewhat regular distances, so that she could literally choose, where to go on land again.
The harbor area was flooded with bright light, originating from several metal poles. Whatever illuminated the area could not be fire – the light was too bright and cold for that. Almost no buildings could be found near the quay walls, which meant there were almost no shadows she could conceal herself in. The closest buildings were several meters, something around a hundred, away.
"Whatever they're defending against," Dust said, while she was still looking for some place to hide herself, "They didn't anticipate someone like us," he finished somewhat proudly.
"Let's get out of here. Look for guards," she said, and made a run for the closest building. Dust flew towards it himself. Finally in the shadows, Dust reported a single human watching some window like things, of which one actually showed her running around. He informed her that the human used a black device, which he held to his ear, and talked to something called 'police'. He assumed that it was a local expression for guards, and thus, she decided to move quickly on top of the building.
"What kind of trickery is this?" she asked, as she jumped off of the building on top of some larger metal housings.
"I don't know, but look over there," he answered, and pointed to some blue and red lights flashing in the distance. They could hear a strange sound being emitted by something in that direction.
"I just realized how high up we are," Dust noticed. She took a quick look down, and agreed with a nod. A wall made of woven Metal separated the harbor from the rest of the city, where the buildings were even higher than the building she used to get on those metal housings. She jumped over the wall like structure, onto the side of one such building with many windows, and started climbing it, using the spirit hand to get to the top more swiftly.
Up at the top, she and Dust witnessed the arrival of strange wagon like metal things without horses, driving by themselves. These vehicles emitted the strange noise they were hearing, and several humans emerged out of them. They started searching the harbor the duo just left.
"Horseless wagons," Dust said, "This place is going to be interesting."
"Humans are full of surprises, I have to admit it," she added, and they started moving away from the harbor via the rooftops. When they could not hear the noisy humans any more, she stopped and took in the environment again. There were plenty of large buildings, some towers made of glass, which were even higher than the buildings she just crossed, glowing letters attached to walls down at the streets, which were made of some sort of cast stone. At the sides of these streets stood many other horseless wagons, in many different shapes and colors. Even humans could be seen down below them during the night, which was unnaturally bright due to the many light sources placed in regular distances. Additionally, there were bridges of several sized scattered across the city, with even brighter lights illuminating them. A hand full of the strange wagons without horses to pull them moved through the streets, as well. On top of the glass towers she could read several signs that read 'Schnee Dust Company – Vale HQ', 'Cinder Industries', among other things, she presumed to be names of organizations.
"This Company thing has Vale in it – maybe we can find the disturbance there," Dust said, looking around himself. "But I think we should not draw any more attention towards us. Observe," he added, and pointed at a horseless wagon with the red and blue lights on top of it, although they weren't flashing. It moved down the street slowly, so that one inside could observe the surrounding area efficiently.
"They're looking for something," she assumed, "probably us. And these glass towers seem important, so I think we can find this trickery there as well."
"Good thinking, friend," he replied.
Thus, Dust and his subject stayed on top of the building they were currently on, and waited for dawn to arrive.
On the next chapter: First contact
Four familiar Huntresses in training go shopping on an ordinary day off of studying the ways of their craft. In the City of Vale they meet a strangely confused individual, not even aware of where she is, with strangely red eyes, and a pet crow.