Chapter 6: An Unexpected Gift.
As the days melted into nights, and nights into days, Rose's body mended itself at a speed that appeared almost inhuman. Rose had explained that over eleven-thousand years of constant damage and repair had hardened her body in the way that hands calloused after years of rough labour, but Zack remained silently dubious. Increased longevity or not, the body could only tear and mend so much before damage became permanent. Zack was sure some other force was at work with her speedy recovery, perhaps magical perhaps not, but Zack chose not to voice these thoughts, at least for the moment. She was a Dragoon Knight after all, and what's to say her mysterious abilities ended with agelessness? She was a puzzling woman indeed, the more Zack managed to glean about her obscure personality, the more questions it prompted.
Four days had elapsed since they had settled in the Rouge outskirts, and judging by the suns close proximity to the threatening storm clouds breasting the horizon from the east, it wouldn't be long until dusk fell, shifting towards a fifth daytime. Rose was walking on her own without aid in three, although she was still very ginger and wasn't able to help with anything more than cooking to Zack's stubborn behest and her helpless frustration. For her the days and nights passed slowly, most of it sleeping or lying awake restless, and when not she spared a few conversation with Zack. Most had been about business, although one particular topic of interest was his comrade Wen. She didn't see him at the forefront of the battle for the most part, and when she asked where he was now he could only offer indistinct answers.
"After he spent most of the battle trying to save the unarmed or wounded, he came down to the shore to see you half dying" Zack said dourly. Upon any mention of the battle his mood turned dark and Rose only then began to realise how from her, a ruthless creature that beared no thoughts or regrets for the lives she took he truly was. A soft kind of innocence Rose had reflected not yet beat out of him by a lifetime of bloodied skirmishes. It wouldn't be long though if he continued on this war-torn path."After that he left with a few troops to try and get in contact with the men situated in Kazas."
Rose thought it rather convenient, but said nothing.
"He suggested we make base here while you recover until we're ready to move and get back in contact with him to plan our next move."
Appearing at least somewhat satisfied with that line of conversation, Rose moved on to another. "Why didn't you transform during the battle?"
Zack rubbed his head sheepishly "I errr... couldn't. I tried, trust me I really did, but as of now I can't transform on a whim. It seems to either happen... or not." Zack shrugged, feeling somehow foolish.
Rose let out a knowing sigh. "If we get the time I'll have to teach you I suppose. It does take a certain mastery to transform at will; it feeds of the users emotions. Adrenaline, the will to live, anger, hate and despair, the spirit feeds of all of these emotions to fuel the transformation."
Zack let out a small laugh when he realised he was being lectured again. Rose appeared to take some kind of offense when he explained it.
"You are in possession of a powerful tool, yet it means nothing if it cannot be relied upon. If you are serious about going head to head with an army that far outnumbers your own, its tools like this you will need to master."
"Yes yes" Zack said, waving it off with a flick of his hand. "However you are in no condition to teach so instead how about we settle for some food?"
Rose, shaking her head and wondering how she got paired up with such a fool, could only sigh once more.
Besides that nothing outside polite banter was exchanged between them, most of it of course initiated by Zack who tried to get a better understanding of his new companion.
Also on the third day Rose had the luxury of bathing in the nearby stream, although Zack was wary of the idea of her wondering off alone. After a not so gentle reminder that despite her apparent fragile frame her tolerance for pain was as good as her body's ability to recover he relented and allowed her to soak in the small mouth of water that connected to the salty sea. She preferred fresh water of course, it was less irritating on the skin and was usually home to much less malign sea predators, but the salt was good for her still closing wounds and she really wasn't in a position or mood to be picky. Water was water, salty or fresh, and it felt heavenly on her sticky, unclean body.
In that very same stream Zack had made work of cleaning her blood-soaked clothes. He was prepared for an arduous task he would likely not complete to perfect, but to his surprise the dried blood, dirt and sand washed off in the water with ease, as if he was washing no more than mild dirt stains. He had wondered how despite all her gruesome battles her garments had remained as fresh new, and he thought he found an answer. They too must have been somehow altered not to stain or fray.
As the fourth day came to a close Rose had conversed with Zack about preparations to leave the following morning. Zack was against the idea to begin with, she was still visibly under duress from her beaten ribs and if they ran into any kind of complications that had to be resolved by combat she would run the risk of further damage or earning new injuries entirely. Rose was firm in reasoning, unable to shake off a foreboding feeling of an ambush. The way the tress shifted in her peripherals and the sudden stop start of native wildlife of late gave her the unshakable feeling of being somehow watched. As diligent as she had become in keeping aware, particularly as she bathed in the river she was not able to find any concrete evidence of her recent sensitivity, but she knew it true all the same. Some things were just beyond explanation. Zack was not so easily persuaded, and the best Rose could achieve on this particular exchange was a re-evaluation of the situation in the morning. Rose had threatened to leave on her own if he was unwilling to follow, but both she and Zack knew it was an empty threat, she was vulnerable without any kind of backup if things turned sour and while it was true she had braved harder journeys in worse circumstances in the past; her stubbornness did not exceed her practicality. Sure they were being somehow monitored, perhaps waiting for a chance to attack them separated (although she thought her trip to the stream would have been a golden opportunity if there had ever been one); she would be foolish to rush off headstrong into a region she was unfamiliar with. Whether she liked it or not (she certainly never admitted it aloud) without unrestrained mobility she would have to rely on Zack for protection.
I the end what prompted them to leave was not of their own violation. Greeted by an unexpected (and dangerously unknown) visitor, this stranger would prove to be the catalyst they needed.
Zack had spotted her as she approached a distances of a couple of hundred yards away. Zack had been near the opened doorway fastening the makeshift hide rope around the base of his spear, an idea Rose had given him after he nearly lost his pole arm during his first hunting expedition, and before that he had been sharpening his barbed tip. Rose sensed more than saw the other presence approach and joined Zack at the front of the cabin.
"Stay behind me" Zack warned, his grip tightening on his weapon. He rose to his full height after hunkering down earlier, watching the stranger with open distrust.
When she was no more than a few feet away her appearance became clearer. She was that of a kind of dark assassin, a piece of dark cloth obscuring her face under her eyes below leather garb fitted over her body that covered her neck forearms, but interestingly fell short of her navel, exposing a small section of deeply tanned skin. The chest piece bore an assortment of strange knots and markings, completely exotic to both Zack and the former Dragoon Knight's eyes. Bracers and fingerless gloves of the same make covered the second half of her arms, and as their eyes lowered to her legs and footwear what they saw was no less foreign. Thick hide leggings with light fur puffing out like an animal's mane surrounded her waste and the tops of her boots, completing her strange outfit. On a closer glance Rose thought she looked more a huntress than an assassin, but she was cautious all the same. She had no visible weapons on her, but Rose didn't doubt for a moment she had them, likely strapped inside her chest or legs by the many rawhide buckles that criss-crossed her frame like an elaborate pattern.
Before she could move into striking distance, were that her aim, Zack pushed forward, bringing the stranger to a premature stop. By the long fall of ebon hair that was tied into a high pony tail, Zack concluded it was a female. This information did not let him relax, as Zack gave a quick glance behind him to Rose, he had come to realise women were just as dangerous, if not more so than men.
"I pray you're no enemy, but forgive me, for I'll have to treat you as one, least till you prove otherwise" Zack greeted with an air of his usual nonchalance. Under that however was a man far from it, a man ready to strike at the first sign of danger. Perhaps with a danger sense not as keen as Rose's, he knew when to be cautious when the situation warranted and this one clearly did. While Zack was still trying to gauge if and how much of a threat the woman could or would be, Rose was able to analyse all that and more after a brief meeting of eyes. Her hazel watch, seemingly warm at a glance, hid a much darker demeanour beneath. Rose had gleaned past her facade a moment when Zack started the verbal proceedings, and what she saw she liked very little: The eyes of one who's no stranger to bloodshed or death, the eyes of a one who was very calculated and deliberate. None of this was evidence that she was necessarily sinister or even an enemy of course, but she hoped Zack had seen it as well and would redouble his caution. As she stood a safe distance behind Zack, hand on the sword that she grabbed on her way out, she was ready to support him if the situation broke down. Yet that didn't mean she wanted to incite the battle, if possible she hoped (although was somehow doubtful) that a struggle could be avoided. It would do neither of them favours to get themselves killed.
The woman held up her hands in an apparent gesture of no ill-meaning. "I am neither friend nor foe" she responded, her accent foreign yet not without the silky softness of an experienced negotiator. "What I am however is both a messenger and a delivery person."
Zack held his piercing stare a moment longer. "Sorry for being somewhat presumptuous but may I ask how you found us?"
The woman shrugged offhandedly. "The same way anyone does. I have sources and tracking people you might say is what I do. But that's neither here nor there, as you may have guess I am a lady of the shadows, and being so far away from said shadows, I feel rather exposed. So I'd like to make this short."
Zack remained uncharacteristically silent. The woman appeared to take that as her queue to continue.
"Firstly the information. Sandora as of late has not been acting of its own accord."
Zack stiffened a moment before falling back into his pseudo-contentedness.
Good, keep yourself as hard to read as possible Rose thought as she continued to examine the visitor for any falsities.
"Sandora you see, it's... or should I say we're having some internal struggles at the moment. The King is being forcefully manipulated into actions at the behest of some rather powerful entities, entities that are strong enough to bend our King's will to their own, which is by no means an easy feat. Once a decorated war veteran, he assumed the throne with hopes to change Sandora for the better, and was well on his way until the intervention of a group that would not see the control of one kingdom but all kingdoms around Endiness."
Zack let out a nervous laugh. "Why should we believe anything you, as the enemy, would say?"
The woman's gaze turned cold, and Zack found it hard to suppress a chill that ran down his spine.
"You don't have to trust a word I say of course; however I do come baring a gift that I hope will show my sincerity." Her attention shifted to Rose briefly, who stood reticent, arms folded. They locked in what Zack thought was some kind of stare down, neither blinking nor filching. In the end the stranger was the first to look away, turning her attention back on Zack. "I am a part of the Sandorian army, and that may make us enemies on paper... however I hope you, as a part of a resistance of your own, would understand. We are only taking aggressive measures of late because we are forced to. If we can stop the man pulling the strings, there will be no reason for us to war, and to that end, our objectives are one in the same."
Zack was at a loss. His cool demeanour quickly crumbled like a fissure in the earth, revealing his internal confusion. Rose saw this and decided that the stranger had targeted Zack for negotiations for a reason that had nothing to do with his position within the resistance, if she even knew of such a thing. No, Zack was specifically targeted because he would be easier to manipulate. Sensing this, and perhaps the fact Zack would need assistance, Rose pushed forward, inserting herself into the conversation.
"This 'man' you speak of, I'm assuming you know exactly who this so called puppeteer is?" Rose said, her eyes a shrewd kind of cunning beneath the icy stare. The exotic woman seemed to detect this at once, her expression shifting slightly. Instead of a cat playing with a mouse it was now a cat facing another cat.
"...Not exactly" she responded. "The details a murky, the mastermind is keeping his identity secret with the promise of death to all those who know it. But I do know two things: he is powerful, very powerful, and he goes by the alibi of Cloke. Something to do with the fact he is always hidden behind a veil or cloak I assume."
Zack appeared ready to comment, but the stranger silence him with a raise of her hand. "My time is running out, I cannot risk this exposure much longer. The other thing I'm here to tell you is that Sandora is targeting you specifically Rose."
Rose raised an eyebrow to this but said nothing.
"You have taken the attention of this Cloke, and subsequently he has put a bounty on you, the death-on-sight kind of bounty. As we speak an elite squad of assassins are inbound, hoping to take advantage of your inured state."
"How can they know where we are and the state Rose is in!" Zack cried frantically.
"We have informants and sources everywhere, even ones within your ranks. I would suggest you comb through your resistance when you get the chance. In any event this, above all else I suggest you trust, lest you wish to join the already piling corpses of Rouge."
"And you're telling us all this because?" Rose inquired, already knowing the answer.
"Because we cannot act directly against Cloke. He is a smart man above all else, and has put forward persuasive measures that make sure we can't. You however, can. We will help where we can, subtly, from the shadows, when it's safe, but ultimately we want you to eliminate him for us. Do that and we'll cease our attempts to conquer Endiness and begin repenting for our atrocities." The woman sighed, looking off into the distance. "Our people suffer, and we would as much as anyone else like to end this pointless bloodshed." She dipped into her leather waste kit and fished out what appeared to be a kind of black stone.
"This is my parting gift, a token of my sincerity in the matter. I know we will never become allies, but if you help us in this goal, you'll be meeting your own, will you not? Remember, we want the same thing." She placed the item on the ground and took a few steps backwards. "Depending on how the situation pans out, will may or may not meet again. For both our sakes, I hope for the former." Her hand dove into her satchel, pulled another round object and threw it against the earth, a plume of smoke erupting on impact. Once the smoke dissipated, she was gone.
"Well that was uhh… weird" Zack commented after the women had vanished. Rose was not listening however. Her gaze was fixed on the item that the women had place not a few feet away from them, a dark stone small enough to fit in her palm shining brightly.
"The Dark Dragoon Spirit" she murmured in disbelief. She walked towards it, appearing to pause a moment, as if transfixed, then hunkered down to touch it. Her hand also paused a moment in front of the orb, as if uncertain whether she should touch it or not, then she grasped it firmly, the stone seeming to come to life as it pulsed a brilliant dark glow.
For the first time ever since Rose parted with the Dragoon Spirit, she felt complete, whole, united.
The moment she lost her Dragoon Spirit she felt she had also lost a part of herself with it, no, more than a part, she felt she had lost herself completely. Reunited with that piece, she felt herself, she felt proper, she felt like her. A feeling of euphoria filled her every sense as the dark orb continued to pulse brighter and brighter, as if it too mirrored Rose's feeling. Perhaps it did, after all the stone does hold the spirit of a dragon.
A smile crept across Rose's face, however this one was very different from the one she had shown Zack a few days ago. This smile had a sinister touch to it, wicked almost in the way a cruel person might smile before inflicting pain on a hapless soul unfortunate enough to garner it's attention. The smile made Zack feel uneasy, like catching a glimpse of an evil someone had managed to hide. It made Zack realise how little he really knew about her, which also triggered another disconcerting thought: Rose's malicious side likely contained a whole lot more malevolence than he'd care to find out. But if they kept adventuring together he would find out, and the idea both scared and dismayed him.
"I thought you said the spirit no longer recognised you?" Zack asked anxiously. While the grin had faded, the look of dark intent etched into her eyes hadn't.
"So did I" Rose replied, putting it back into her pack where it belonged.
"Hm. What do you make of the woman? Do you think this makes her trustworthy?"
Rose let out a humourless laugh. Zack couldn't help but notice even her laugh was starting to sound wicked.
"If anything this makes me suspect her motives all the more. She was open, too open, so no; I certainly don't trust her, fortunate gift or no. She hopes to use us I think, probably kill us when our use runs out as well. Her eyes, try as hard as she might to hide it, show the scars of many years of calculated bloodshed.'
"So what are we going to do?" Zack wondered.
"For now we'll have to believe her. We'll act oblivious until we have something else to go on. I do not plan on being her pawn for long however. This huge political struggle has been blown way out of proportion, and if what that women says is correct, then this Cloke is behind it. And, if she is telling the truth, I wish to find out why he wants me dead" Rose answered.
Zack's recollection was sparked as an important piece of the woman's information crossed his mind. "Oh! What about the assassin squadron!" Zack said sounding alarmed.
To be honest, Rose had momentarily forgotten about that vital piece of information. She considered the question for a moment, and then answered. "I think we should move up a bit, and then set up an ambush."
"You sure? I mean you can't fight in your condition" Zack protested.
"Don't worry, this evens it up a little" Rose replied as she grabbed her Dragoon Spirit and held it out in front of her. It began to resonate with its dark brilliance again, and then Zack's Red Eyed Dragoon Spirit did the same.
"Well, we better get moving" Zack encouraged, walking inside to pack the last of the provisions.
The exotic women had backtracked a few miles, where she stood on a small rocky cliff near the mountain ranges that surrounded the outside of the small island. A Sandorian elite, covered head to toe in an array dark garments that made clear his status, walked up behind her. "So, did they buy it?" he questioned eagerly.
"For the moment I think so" she said her mind in deep thought. "I doubt that will last long though, the woman, Rose, is wary to say the least. Much more perceptive than the buffoon she was associating with."
The elite acknowledged the comment with a grunt.
"Report to the king that, as of my own analysis, I don't think we'll be able to play her as much as he hoped, but as long as she thinks Cloak is the target, then it doesn't really matter."
The Sandorian general nodded. "Anything else to report ma'am?" he asked.
"… No, that is all." The general nodded, saluted then walked off to report to Hytas.
Yet as he left, she couldn't shake the feeling of unease that crept into her mind like an obstinate nail that refused to be removed. I think we are greatly underestimating her she thought be anxiously. Dangerously so, giving her back the spirit may yet turn out to be a foolish move...
Trying her best to cast away such thoughts she began to move back towards the small camp they had set up. It wasn't her business to question the king's thinking after all, and the one thing she could never doubt was the king's brains for strategy. The plan would work, and if it didn't, King Hytas would surely have a back up.
Her confidence restored, the exotic woman began to move towards the second phase of their plan.