Dum Spiro Spero
See disclaimer in part 1
Nessiah woke feeling warm and limber and refreshed, with Roswell's arms close around his chest and waist. His lover still slept deeply, curled up on his side in the nest they'd made of the sheets, his hair still rumpled and damp to the touch. There was something unbearably cute about that fact, and Nessiah was at a loss to what precisely it was until he realized that Gulcasa had been known to go around with his hair exactly as stupid as Roswell's was now—the young emperor had a tendency to forget to braid his hair before he went to bed, and long hair often made quite the mess of itself overnight.
That little shock made Nessiah feel a little strange, almost guilty, and he shifted where he lay only to have Roswell reel him back in, holding him closer than before.
Smiling regretfully, Nessiah leaned in to kiss Roswell's forehead and then set about slowly and gently extricating himself from his lover's embrace. It wasn't that he was particularly opposed to lying still and going right back to sleep; in fact, a large part of him ached to cuddle with Roswell and lose himself for a few more hours in the necromancer's arms. Still, Nessiah recognized that part of himself as the part that had felt lost and wounded at Roswell's thoughtless, sleepy endearments of the night before, and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to trust those feelings.
So Nessiah picked himself free of Roswell and the rumpled bedclothes, blessing Yggdra for putting carpeting and rugs in his room as he shivered and fervently cursed cold spring mornings.
After checking the glyph he'd carefully inked in to see that it had dried perfectly, Nessiah set about gathering up Roswell's discarded clothes and smoothing them out as best he could. As he only had the one chair and he intended to sit in it, he experienced a flustered moment of indecision before deciding to fold and pile Roswell's things on the corner of his desk.
He was hungry. Desperately hungry, he realized as his insides clamored in protest. And, he noticed as he glanced down at himself, he badly needed a bath. Roswell likely would, too. But he didn't want to leave, didn't want Roswell to wake alone. Nessiah knew what it was to find yourself in an empty bed when someone had been there beside you when you slept; the loneliness was crushing.
And besides, Roswell could only use their lovemaking to run away from his despair over Rosary for so long. There wasn't anything very sharp or particularly dangerous in Nessiah's room, but Roswell had a history of being inventive.
It was better to stay, and keep watch.
As he made that grim assessment, there was a soft knock at the door.
Now what? Nessiah wondered tiredly, and picked up his underrobe to hold in front of him as he crossed the room to the door. "Who is it?" he asked quietly.
"Ness, it's me," Kylier's voice hissed from the other side.
Sighing, Nessiah opened the door a crack. "Do you want something?"
"Can I come in?"
"No."
"Why?" Kylier looked baffled by his refusal; Nessiah expected she might well, since when it came to her he had few boundaries of personal space.
"Ordinarily I wouldn't care, but Roswell is in here. He's still asleep, and more importantly, he's naked. I doubt he'd care for you staring."
Kylier heaved a sigh of relief. "So, you picked up damage control? Thank God. He tell you what happened?"
"No, but I'll find out soon enough, even if he doesn't want to tell me. The castle's a sieve for gossip, you know that."
Kylier glanced around. "Okay, then. Yggdra's been really worried about him; at least I can tell her he's okay and under supervision." She leaned in and lowered her voice. "He hasn't… well… you know?"
Nessiah shook his head. "To my knowledge, he hasn't cut himself. And I've seen all of him there is to see over the course of the night, so you can put your mind at ease there." Although there were plenty of other places where Roswell was carrying fresh wounds. While he was that physically intimate with Roswell, Nessiah couldn't close himself off as tightly as he usually did, and he'd seen the grief and the pain and the self-hatred in Roswell's heart as clearly as if they were badges the necromancer pinned to his sleeve.
"That's something, at least." Kylier leaned her forehead against the doorframe. "I've gotta be honest with you, Ness. Rosary messed him up really bad, but maybe she wouldn't have gotten the chance if Yggdra and the others and me hadn't stuck our noses in. It's almost as much our fault as it is hers."
"You know Roswell doesn't lay blame with people who mean well," Nessiah told her, though privately he had to wonder. "I'm looking after him; stop kicking yourself. Make sure Yggdra hears that, too."
"Okay, okay." Kylier grinned good-naturedly. "Guess I'd better shoo, since if you're naked and he's naked you're probably gonna want to put all that skin to use, huh?"
"Ha ha. He's sleeping, and I'm not going to wake him up."
"Your loss." Kylier rummaged with something further past the door than Nessiah could see, then held out a fruit bun. "I brought you breakfast."
Nessiah opened the door a little wider to take it. "Kylier?"
"Yeah?"
"I hope you know I mean it in the sincerest way when I tell you I love you."
--
It took at least another hour for Roswell to stir sleepily and murmur, raking his arm across the impression in the sheets where Nessiah had been, then frowning and blinking when he found nothing there.
"Over here," Nessiah said gently, brushing his fingertips across Roswell's cheek as he turned towards the sound of his lover's voice.
Roswell stretched beneath the sheets, then resettled with a moan. "Nessiah. Good morning."
"And to you. It's barely morning still, though. If you'd woken much later I'd be telling you 'good afternoon' instead." Smiling, Nessiah sat against the side of the mattress, then leaned down to lay his lips softly against Roswell's. Roswell shifted below him, and his hands made their way to Nessiah's hair, lightly holding him there for a few moments longer.
When Nessiah sat back up, he saw that Roswell had closed his eyes again and was lying placidly still with a faint smile crossing lips still flushed and slightly swollen. Everything about his countenance was an invitation, but Nessiah clamped down on his resolve and decided to resist.
As fun, relaxing, and downright satisfying as it would be, he couldn't just lounge around in bed with Roswell all day. Kylier would be hard-put to keep the questions and suspicions from flying, and it was just inviting far too much trouble.
"Feeling better now?" he asked instead.
Roswell had the decency to look a little put out, but he didn't sulk as he opened those hazy blue eyes and smiled up at his lover. "Yes. And thank you, Nessiah."
"No need. You would and have done the same for me, time and time again. It's of course a terrible hardship to spend the night making love with and sleeping at the side of someone dear to me, but we do what we can."
This had Roswell laughing, covering his face and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. "So you say. But, really… all I can do is thank you."
Nessiah sat still and watched Roswell breathe for a few moments. "Do you feel up to talking about it yet, or do you need more time?"
Roswell's smile went bittersweet, but he shook his head. "It's alright. I'm ready."
As the necromancer explained what had happened the previous day, Nessiah listened carefully and patiently. He didn't comment on anything he heard, even when he wanted to openly curse Rosary and her insensitivity, and only made sympathetic murmurs to encourage Roswell to keep speaking.
"It hurts me more than I can say," Roswell finished. "I don't know how well I can deal with the pain… and I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't been here to run to."
Nessiah was pretty sure he knew what Roswell would've done, but neither of them had to say it aloud.
"What will you be doing today?" he asked instead.
"I've lessons with Flone today," Roswell said. "After that… I'm not sure. There are books I'm sure I can go read, or I can work with—my Artifact a bit more."
"I'll come with you to those lessons, then, and we'll find something for you to do afterwards that'll keep you away from people. You're tender yet, Roswell, and you need time to yourself to find your peace and stability again."
Roswell lay still and stared soulfully up at Nessiah for a moment, then reached out to rest a hand along the fallen angel's shoulder. "Really… all I can do is thank you, Nessiah. You've so many other things you need to take care of, and still you devote your time to me…"
"Think of it as a basis of importance," Nessiah replied easily, then tilted his head to the side as Roswell's fingertips danced over his cheek. "…Roswell, you know I wouldn't mind it if you called me Ness or Nessa. I've told you as much before. Why don't you?"
"You have such a lovely name, Nessiah," Roswell said with a smile. "Why would I want to shorten it? It's my opinion that something so beautiful should remain as it is."
Nessiah's cheeks flared brilliant red, and he turned away. "Really. Please don't tease me, Roswell. That's a cruel thing to do, at a time like this…"
"I'm not making fun," Roswell told him, and Nessiah heard the light creak of bedsprings as the necromancer sat up. "I mean that seriously. Nessiah." Gentle hands turned his face back for Roswell to press a light kiss to his cheek.
Nessiah allowed himself to sit back against Roswell's warmth for a moment, then straightened up, giving his lover a slight smile. "Come on—let's get you cleaned up and dressed, and we'll head down. It wouldn't do to have you late for your lessons, not when what you're learning is so important."
--
Before the war—before his parents' untimely deaths—Roswell had studied many different kinds of magic, from battle spells to functional, day-to-day skills. But above all else, he'd been an herbalist—a mage who studied and enhanced the properties of plants for the purposes of healing. And he'd been happy doing that—a happiness that shone through the layers of cloistered depression that hung heavy on him now, whenever anyone found him in his gardens. It was only when you had him there with his hands in the dirt, or bent over an account of some fascinating new spell, when that bright smile came easily and that husky, nearly careless laugh joined it.
He'd set it aside when he'd turned to necromancy; out of desperation, he'd chosen to focus on the dark arts and to put his powers only into them. Maybe that, and not just Rosary, was the reason he'd become so lost, so bitterly unhappy. But with the war over and his attempts to resurrect his parents abandoned, Roswell was finally beginning to ease back into healing again, and Nessiah could easily tell that it fulfilled a part of him that had been left crying and desolate for years.
As long as Rosary and her cruelty weren't at the foremost of his mind, Roswell's healing arts could potentially be the saving of him. For his friend's sake, Nessiah hoped that it was so.
Especially because Roswell had finally found a teacher capable of cultivating all that untapped power in him.
Roswell and Nessiah made their way from the castle to the town that surrounded it, crossing the crowded streets filled with the happy people of Paltina. It was a beautiful city, built of white brick over lush fields and the pure water that served as the castle moat. Great windmills turned slowly in the breeze at the corners of each district, and something about the burnished gold color of the turbines and their lazy wheeling made the day seem bright and crisp to Nessiah, filled with hope and peace. Asgard was beautiful and grand, but beneath its marble and brick and regimented grass and clover, the entrails of the great island were run on cold machinery. The organic feel of Paltina, this city run on wind and wheat and water, was comforting and even freeing in comparison.
Perhaps because of that, and in order to keep the common folk from being intimidated by the ancient grandeur of the castle, Flone had chosen to set up her clinic within the city bounds. She and her husband, Russell the Astral Fencer, were well enough off from their purses of service that she was able to set a fee so low for her attentions that it seemed almost an afterthought.
And that, combined with her reputation and power, meant that whenever she was in town, all the other doctors and healers sighed and kissed their clientele goodbye. Flone was easily the most powerful cleric living, and one of the strongest healers Fantasinia had ever known.
As he and Roswell made their way to Flone's clinic, several citizens smiled and hailed them on their way. Roswell always gave them smiles in return, but Nessiah was too surprised at first to find himself included in their cheerful greetings to do more than nod.
"They may not know much of your story, but they know you're responsible for their Queen's safety," Roswell explained with a light laugh as Nessiah wondered at it aloud. "As it is with the Imperial Army, that's more than enough for them."
Though he was still bewildered, Nessiah was able to give more of a positive response after this. Glancing back at the castle, he realized for the first time that where only the royal White Phoenix had flown upon the pennants for as long as he could remember, the Black and White Roses now rode there, along with the national flag of Embellia, the Bronquian Black Dragon, and his own coat of arms—crossed black and white wings over the face of a timepiece. Yggdra did it to let her people know that her guests were of her own dear fold, and to be treated as such. The people of Paltina happily complied.
When they headed inside Flone's clinic, Nessiah was smiling.
"Ah—so you're here! You're a bit early, but that's nothing to complain about, is it?"
"The longer I can spend here, the better," Roswell said warmly. "There's little more I love than to learn."
Flone spotted Nessiah then, and dropped him a light curtsy. "I haven't acquired another student, have I?"
Bowing to her in turn, Nessiah shook his head. "I've always been hopeless at healing magic, though there was certainly a time when I tried to learn anyway. Knowing better now as I do, I'm only here to watch."
Flone dimpled prettily and covered a laugh. "Well, any friend of Roswell's is of course welcome here. Have a seat wherever you'll be comfortable, General Nessiah."
Whether she knew about the incident yesterday or not, she didn't ask—and didn't even comment on the faintly purple mark across Roswell's cheek, Nessiah noted. And she continued to address him with his rank in the Imperial Army, as she did with everyone she knew from Bronquia. Charmed, Nessiah readily chose one of the plush chairs and sank into it.
Flone was about two years older than Roswell, and had the softly radiant beauty of the dawn. She dressed in a white, blue-skirted gown with puffy sleeves that she'd rolled back, its neckline stitched with violet ribbon, and used an impeccably groomed braid as a makeshift headband, letting the rest of her shiny fawn-brown hair fall in gentle waves past her waist. Her doe's eyes were wide, deep, and bright lilac in shade. Like any good healer, she exuded calm and peace in waves, a tangible aura.
She'd served as Roswell's tutor in the healing arts since almost the end of the war, and had helped refresh his skills with plants and herbs before determining that he had within him a greatness that had the potential to measure near her own. Gently, she was nurturing that potential, bringing Roswell into his rightful power.
Nessiah didn't know Flone very well personally, but he had a great respect for her. Before, when he'd been torn between his attachment to Gulcasa and his need to see his plans through, Nessiah had felt foolish for it, but hadn't been able to help it. Flone was a true healer, and like any in her position, she always did her best by the injured. She'd cared for the Imperial Army and served almost as a member of their medical division when she'd been their captive, and had always done what she could for anyone she knew was in need.
And now that she had the time on her hands, here she was offering her powers to all the people of Fantasinia who might fall under that category.
Over his long years, Nessiah had been in a lot of healers' establishments. Despite his sheer magical power, his constitution had always been a bit frail, and the wounds of his sundering had never completely healed and never really would. Out of every place he'd found himself in, he readily admitted that Flone's simple clinic was probably one of the most relaxing.
Much like the Imperial medical division, Flone now worked out of a house she'd converted for her own uses. With the help of her husband and a few other strong backs, she'd taken out the wall between the living room and the kitchen, and used it as her examining room. The walls were lined with tables and painted a soft pinkish mauve, with potted plants in the corners and on the windowsills and a few dreamy watercolors hung about the walls. Plush chairs that demanded to be curled up in sat along the windowed wall, with a few books scattered along the tables between them. Flone's countertops were covered with lines and clusters of large jars of herbs and medicines, all cheerfully labeled, with deep basins of water and pots of soap beneath them. Her examination table had been a bench in its previous life, and had a long thin pillow-covering tied to it to make it comfortable.
The young cleric had taken an environment that often made patients nervous and made it instead so welcoming and homelike that you found yourself relaxed and comfortable there. Nessiah remembered having been treated in cold and sterile rooms, and worse, dark and rank ones brimming with infection, and he appreciated it.
"Today we actually have a patient coming who I'd like you to help treat," Flone told Roswell. "She's a young girl from this city who's been recovering from a serious illness. The worst of it is long over, and for now we're just helping to ease the inflammation in her lungs until she's fully well again."
"I understand," Roswell replied, then smiled a little. "…I admit I'm a little nervous. It hasn't been long since I've started to heal with energy alone, after all…"
"Don't worry," Flone said, resting her hands on his shoulders. "I'm going to be here supervising you every step of the way; it'll be a while yet until you treat patients without my guidance. I won't force you to work alone until I know you're comfortable with it."
"It's easily within your reach, Roswell," Nessiah put in, and smiled when they both turned to him. "Remember when I tested you two days ago—you were able to heal me without even thinking about it." Turning to Flone, he explained, "In order to see if his Artifact would help him reach his potential for healing, I opened a fairly deep wound in my arm; just by touching it, Roswell was not only able to close it but to repair it as though it had never been there at all."
Roswell made a face. "I still wish you hadn't. If I hadn't been able to heal it…"
Flone also seemed concerned. "He's right, you know," she pointed out. "You could've done yourself severe muscular damage."
Nessiah would have pointed out that even if he had, the injuries and whatever came of them would fade from existence the next time he died and was reincarnated, but he had the feeling that would only upset Roswell more. So instead, he shook his head and said, "I had no reason to doubt you, and you proved yourself more than capable by what you did. So save your if-ing and your worries. You'll do fine; I have confidence in you."
A pleased flush crossed Roswell's face, and Flone smiled. As they stood in comfortable silence, the door to the clinic opened, and a townswoman who seemed in her mid-thirties entered, a girl of about seven or eight trailing after her.
The girl didn't seem all too happy about being at a healer's, no matter how warm and welcoming the atmosphere. However, when she caught sight of Roswell, her big blue eyes went wide and a surprised smile spread across her little face. "Heyyyyy, it's Mister!"
Roswell's eyes widened, too. "Nana?"
The girl giggled and dropped her mother's hand to fling herself across the room at Roswell, hugging him around the waist.
"My…" Flone covered a giggle of her own. "I wasn't aware you two knew each other."
The girl's mother smiled warmly at the cleric. "My Nana first became ill during the reclamation of Paltina," she explained. "Because of that, our family couldn't evacuate with the others. My lord found us, and he defended our home from the Black Cavalry at great risk to himself."
Roswell knelt down to look Nana in the eye, smiling warmly at her. "So how have you been lately, Jôchan?"
"Lots better," the girl proclaimed, beaming a bright smile at him. Nessiah covered a smile of his own; it seemed that no one could really resist Roswell when he was being charming. "Mama and me pressed the flowers you gave us!"
"And we certainly enjoyed your candy," Roswell replied, ruffling his little admirer's hair. "Now, come on up and let's have a look at you." So saying, he scooped her up with an expertise that told Nessiah that this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with small children, and set her down on the table.
"Forgive me, but…" Nana's mother shook her head. "We had no idea you would be here, Lord Branthèse…"
"Just Roswell, please," the necromancer said graciously. "I'm here to learn, and to help. Titles and status don't matter in these walls."
Flone nodded. "I've taken Roswell as an apprentice of sorts… he has great potential to become a healer, and in this time of peace, it seems only fitting that he learn. If you don't mind, I'd like for him to help me in Nana's examination today."
Nana turned a pleading glance on her mother, who laughed.
"Well, I don't see why not. I can hardly turn down someone who's helped us so much already, anyway!"
And so, Roswell's daily lesson began. Flone gently undid the back of Nana's dress, and demonstrated to Roswell how to measure the rhythm of the little girl's breathing, talking him through it as he tried the procedure himself. He kept his touch gentle, and flirted with her sweetly all the while, wearing that same charming, affectionate smile that always made Nessiah's heart stutter.
Flone explained to him how to judge the rate at which Nana was recovering from her illness, then directed him to begin a light touch of healing. Roswell sobered a little and closed his eyes as he rested his hands to her back, his palms glowing with soft sweet light.
"He's a natural," Nessiah murmured as he watched his lover at work, feeling his heart swell with pride. He knew with absolute certainty that this was the work Roswell had been born for.
"He is indeed," Nana's mother commented softly. Nessiah almost started where he sat; he hadn't meant to speak aloud. "Beyond being my baby girl's first crush, he's a good hand for this type of work, isn't he? Gentle, and a pretty face. Whoever it is that wins his heart should count themselves lucky indeed."
Nessiah nodded thoughtfully, picturing Rosary's scorn and bitterness towards Roswell despite his openhearted love for her, then the way that Roswell was always so patient, so tender with him in bed. "…That's very true," he replied at length.
Nana's examination went completely without incident, and once it was finished, the girl was allowed to choose herself a brightly colored sweet from one of Flone's jars. The happy child and her mother bid Flone and Roswell goodbye, then left the clinic.
"She's such a good girl," Roswell remarked with a smile, slightly flushed with his success.
"She is that," Flone agreed. "And you bled for her. She and hers won't soon forget it. I won't soon forget how severe those lance wounds were, when I had the chance to treat them after Karona. Roswell, you seem to make a habit of staking your life until you're within inches of it."
Roswell's blush darkened several shades. "I couldn't have just left her for Leon's men… we all know what he and his were like…"
Flone shook her head. "You're a decent soul. In these days, a thing like that is precious; treat it with the worth it has."
Nessiah stood, stretched, and sat against the arm of the chair. "You're good with children, better than most I know," he said, changing the subject for Roswell's sake. "I hadn't known."
"They're our future," Roswell said simply, then sighed. "…A future that seems to be coming under attack again."
A strange sadness came into Flone's face then, one that puzzled Nessiah. Roswell noticed it too, and he laid his hand on her shoulder, shaking his head seriously.
"We'll fight to protect that future, for as long as it's in our power," he told her gravely. "Every one of us will fight. Russell alone would rather lose his sword arm than allow anything to happen to you."
Flone managed a smile and nodded, covering his hand with hers.
Realization hit Nessiah heavily, making him feel foolish for not noticing before even as his knees felt strangely weak. "…You're pregnant," he whispered, the surprise keeping him from being able to hold his tongue.
Now when Flone smiled, it lit up her whole face, and she rested her hand to her lower belly. "It's only been two months—still not quite long enough to really announce it," she said. "But still, I give thanks every day. Russell and I can't wait to welcome our baby to this world."
Speechless, all Nessiah could do was nod. There were too many things he wanted to say, from how he was sure Flone would make a wonderful mother to his pledge that the world would be peaceful again in seven months if he and the others had any say in things, and he couldn't get any of them out.
There'd certainly been enough children in the orphanage he'd grown up in, but normally angelic couples only ever had one or two children—if any at all—over the course of their long lives. As a result of this, angels didn't conceive or give birth lightly.
Humans were different. Nessiah knew that, knew that some peasant women had as many as five or six children and generally lost one or two to disease or accidents, although in general they doted on those they had nonetheless. Still, he'd never been much involved with human birth or expectant mothers.
Not even with Paltina. He'd avoided her, avoided those memories, given her a wide berth for years afterwards. It had been too soon, far too soon after—that person—for him to welcome intimacy. The conscious realization that Paltineas had to be his hadn't even fully sunken in until he'd left them, though somewhere deep down he'd always known.
Because of all that—or maybe just because Russell and Flone were people he knew, people who'd become part of his motley extended family—a strange kind of awe had come over Nessiah, making it difficult for him even to speak.
"It's far too early for it to move, of course, but…" Flone cast her eyes down and smiled. "For those of us with magic… we can still feel it. It's a beautiful thing. Here…"
And before Nessiah could protest, she'd crossed the room, lifted his hand, and pressed it to her lower belly.
He could feel it, he realized with a shock. There was a warm and steady glow of energy beneath his fingers—energy that would, in seven months' time, resolve itself into new life. A new life, and once it had drawn breath, a new soul, a new consciousness. A person. It was incredible to think, and even more incredible to realize that such a miracle as this was almost commonplace in this world.
It was strangely humbling, and it was a feeling Nessiah doubted he would ever fully understand. Still, his fingers trembled slightly beneath Flone's.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" she said simply.
"It… is," was all he could offer in reply.
--
Nessiah made his way to the highest spires of the castle, his head aching with everything he had to think about. Flone's pregnancy—the growing intensity of his connection with Roswell—what to do about Gulcasa—what to do about Asgard. The impossibility of it all was swelling up until he felt he'd be crushed by it.
And so, now that the option was open to him, he was going to do what had always been best at clearing his head.
Roswell, they'd decided, would stay at Flone's clinic and keep helping her for the next hour or so; with all the new material he would learn, he'd be able to stay busy without thinking too much about yesterday. That, at least, took a great weight off Nessiah's shoulders. Now that he didn't have to worry so deeply about his lover, he could give himself to the sky without preoccupations.
Nessiah climbed carefully up onto the belfry ledge, shifting his weight from toes to heels as the wind pushed at him, and laid a hand to his pactio card.
"Adeat."
Just as it had the last two times he'd released the restorative spell, the force of his transformation sent a wide burst of black and white feathers through the air, and Nessiah stretched his wings with a smile as he watched them drift lazily towards the ground.
Despite how long it had been, some things would always remain instinctive. The wind picked up insistently, and Nessiah mantled his wings, spreading them parallel to the earth below to catch the first few drafts.
Of course, the tower arch was far too narrow. He wouldn't be able to spread them fully and let the wind pick him up from here.
A younger Nessiah wouldn't have cared, would just have flung himself headlong from the small opening and spread his wings to catch himself only ten or fifteen feet from the hard ground. The centuries—and the knowledge that death would take precious years away from his time with these all-too-ephemeral humans—made him a little more cautious.
Stretching to adjust to the lack of weight along his arms, Nessiah folded his wings close to his back and picked his way along the thin ledge to the rough brick and tiling of the outer wall. Old and cracked as it was, it offered a multitude of handholds. Not letting himself think of the drop below, Nessiah swung himself lightly onto it and climbed steadily up to the slightly rounded roof and its oxidized copper weathervane.
As he stretched his wings high and smiled at the sweet feel of the muscles working, another, stronger gust of wind tossed his robes up around his hips. Belatedly, Nessiah remembered he wasn't wearing anything beneath them today, and held them down flusteredly.
Still, it felt nice. It felt free, far freer than he'd been even as a child in the cloisters of Asgard.
Balancing himself with one hand on the vane's cutout phoenix and folding his wings close in, Nessiah bent slightly and removed his sandals, slipping them into the voluminous folds of his robes. Even Kylier would probably be surprised by how often he did this with small things—it was one of the reasons why he hadn't discarded his badly tattered overrobe in favor of newer and nicer clothes.
Barefoot, Nessiah approached the sharp bell curve of the tower roof in delicate steps, then turned his back on the open expanse below, looking out over the castle instead. He rose up on his toes, raised his face to the heavens, stretched out his arms at his sides… and leaned back.
He closed his eyes as he fell, and enjoyed the heady sensation of the fall, letting the wind buffet and tease at his clothes, his feathers, his skin. It felt almost the same as soaring, and had his belly tight with exhilaration and excitement, the same as with open flight. There was nothing but him, and the air, and sweet freedom.
Even so, he couldn't forget that the ground was somewhere below, and so after a time he judged sufficient, Nessiah tucked his knees close to his chest and flipped in the air, spreading his wings dramatically. They strained at the air, but held him on the thermal updrafts.
Opening his eyes, Nessiah glanced down to see that the earth was still a good thirty or thirty-five feet below him, and smiled. Instinct never really faded, and flight had always been one of his great loves during his childhood in Asgard. Celina had teased him about it good-naturedly a few times, and pointed out that he should be thankful for his short stature and delicate bone structure. Even with big wings, big angels never really flew all that well. Nessiah, tiny and bird-boned as he was, freely owned the skies.
That was the way it felt, too, as his wings' muscles made minute contractions and stretches, keeping him aloft. These were not the skies he'd grown up with. But they were skies nonetheless, and after so long, they were his at last.
They were his.
Nessiah tucked and angled his wings, keeping his limbs close in to his body; it was best not to stretch out unless you were in full dive, and better to just let your wings carry you. He flapped them once or twice, reveling in the powerful motion, to change direction or gain height, but mostly coasted on the thermals, flying out over the castle and the city into the fields beyond.
And it was there that he noticed Gulcasa and his dragon heading for the castle below, and banked hard towards them with a call before he could think better of it.
Gulcasa looked up, puzzled, at the sound of his voice; when he spotted Nessiah his expression changed from a look of confusion to one of wonderment.
Only once he was well into the drop and couldn't change his course did Nessiah realize that his aim was off, and he would wind up crashing into Gulcasa instead of landing in front of him. But as he braced himself for impact, Gulcasa held both arms out and scooped his friend out of the sky, holding Nessiah close against his chest.
"Hello there," Gulcasa said with a smile and an upraised eyebrow. Nessiah blushed.
"Sorry," he managed breathlessly. "I—guess I got caught up."
"I saw you once or twice a little earlier, zipping around and enjoying the hell out of it. Please, don't bother stopping on my account." There was a great deal of secretive amusement in Gulcasa's golden eyes, and Nessiah couldn't help but wonder what had sparked it with a bit of trepidation.
Good gods, he wasn't looking—up—? Nessiah thought with a flash of realization and a sudden well of panicked mortification. I was being careful, I'm sure, but—I could easily have forgotten—please tell me I was being careful. And Gulcasa—he's not that kind of man, is he?
"You're getting redder," Gulcasa pointed out mischievously. "There something you want to tell me, Nessa?"
"No." Please, gods, if I deserve nothing else from you.
"We'll leave it at that, then." Still, Gulcasa laughed and shook his head.
The sudden urge rose in Nessiah's chest to rake his hands through that brilliant scarlet hair, to pull Gulcasa to him and explore the sensual angles of the emperor's face with his lips, to kiss them both deaf and blind. Trying desperately to stifle it, he instead rested his cheek to Gulcasa's shoulder and wrapped his hands loosely in the folds of his friend's shirt.
This had been a very, very bad idea.
"Hey, I didn't mean to make fun," Gulcasa said, bemused, and lightly shifted Nessiah against him. "Mind if I put you down? We're heading in, before Bella gets all riled up again."
"Oh—of course." Embarrassed again, Nessiah let go and allowed Gulcasa to set him on the grass. Avoiding his friend's gaze, he retrieved his sandals from the folds of his robes and slipped them back on.
"Hang on, you've got…" Holding Bella's reins with one hand, Gulcasa reached with the other to tease through Nessiah's flight-ruffled hair. After a moment of fiddling with the angel's bangs, Gulcasa pulled a fluffy down feather from them, lightly brushing it over Nessiah's cheek before releasing it to dance on the wind.
Nessiah went scarlet again, thinking wryly that the veins just beneath his skin were certainly getting a workout today. "Th…thank you."
Gulcasa just stood there looking at him with that crooked smile.
A little defensively, Nessiah crossed his arms and blinked up at his friend. "What?"
"Nothing, really. Just thinking… God, it does me good to see you like this. All flushed-up and cute, not just from being picked on, but from having fun again. Just a minute ago, when you were up there? I think that was probably the happiest I've seen you since we met." Gulcasa traced the joints of Nessiah's black wing, then settled his hand on the angel's shoulder. "It looks good on you, Nessa."
Nothing more than sheer force of will was able to keep Nessiah from yanking Gulcasa down to him for that savagely desperate kiss, and it was a closely fought battle. Caught between two dangerously beautiful men who just plowed straight through his defenses as though they didn't exist—Nessiah knew he was wading through dangerous territory.
And he could barely remember why he didn't want to venture deeper.
"Come on." Gulcasa slipped his big hand over Nessiah's, tugged it gently. "Let's get back to the castle. Whether Bella thinks so or not, she needs a good watering down and a rest."
Bella gave an indignant snort at this, but like Nessiah, she followed along readily when Gulcasa began the way back.
--
Nietzsche was heading towards the palace after a solid hour and a half spent splashing with the local children in the river when she felt a pulse from the Transmigragem.
Bewildered, she turned her big blue eyes down to the jewel at her chest. She hadn't felt it react like that for a long time—it chimed a little, sort of, when new Undine souls were brought through it for rebirth, but she only felt it move like a heartbeat when powerful magic was being worked nearby. And not even Nessiah's pact magic had been able to make it stir.
Not sure whether or not she wanted to know but unable to keep her curiosity in check, Nietzsche headed towards the courtyards, where she thought the pulse had come from. And was seriously tempted to just head back into the halls when she saw that crazy Pamela on the edge of a messy magic circle, waving her fingers through the air as she chanted as if she was conducting music.
With a bad feeling firmly lodged in her belly, Nietzsche ventured across the grass.
"What are you doing?"
Pamela turned, and a bright smile spread across her face. "Heeeey! It's my little Undine, come to watch me perform!"
Nietzsche curled her tail flukes in and shrank back a little, the bad feeling sinking.
Not seeming to notice or care, Pamela grinned and puffed out her chest. "Pamela's gonna summon the forest guardians!"
The worried weight in Nietzsche's belly changed quickly to restless butterflies. She and the others had seen the power of Pamela's forest spells as they'd left Marduk, but they all knew very well that when Pamela tried to invoke them outside the boundaries of her homeland, it was as arbitrary as a coin toss as to whether or not the witch's magic would work properly. Pamela never seemed to notice it, though, and kept on cheerfully heaping trouble on everyone's heads regardless.
"Nietzsche doesn't think this is a good idea…" she said slowly, but typically, Pamela had turned back to the circle and was conducting again.
"By the powers of the Great Elm and the Mighty Oak, unveil your magic wings of beauty and mystery," Pamela chanted energetically. "Come to us, O spirits of wood and glade!"
There was a vast explosion of pink and purple smoke which quickly gave away to oily black. Nietzsche covered her mouth and coughed, shielding the precious Transmigragem with her other hand.
"Did it work?" Pamela was shouting gleefully, bouncing up on her toes. Nietzsche moaned. The girl just never seemed to learn…
When the last of the smoke cleared, Nietzsche saw that the thing standing in the middle of Pamela's scribbled circle was no fairy.
It looked more like a wolf. A big blue wolf, with two heads. And a coiled snake for a tail. And red eyes. And drool dripping from its jaws.
It looked hungry.
Pamela put her hands on her hips and pouted. "Whaaaaat? You're not what Pamela wanted. Bad doggie! Go back where you came from!" So saying, she waved her hands at the beast.
Its response was to snarl and slaver and poke its wet black noses out of the circle bounds, snapping at Pamela's fingers.
She squealed and jumped back, her blue eyes going wide and puzzled. "Huuuuh? Hey—I never said you could go out of the circle!"
Even so, the big dog—wolf—whatever-it-was was padding out of it, lowering its heads and bristling, licking its chops as it stared resolutely at Pamela.
While the witch was annoying and kinda scary and tended to think like she was from some kind of weird backwards world, she was still an ally. So Nietzsche barely thought twice before grabbing Pamela by the wrist and yanking her away from her summoned creature, retreating towards the castle halls.
"Come on, you stupid Pamela! Run!"
As the two of them fled for their lives, the beast snorted and gave chase.
--
Nessiah sensed the change in the air immediately, and went stiff with it, his eyes huge with shock and fear, his wings mantling.
"What is it?" Gulcasa turned down to him in confusion, then began to tense. "No—it's not angels again?!"
Nessiah shook his head. "No—this feeling… it's not from Asgard, it's from Utgard! This aura… it's demonic, I'm sure it is!"
"Demons?" Gulcasa repeated incredulously.
"I don't know what's going on, but—we have to hurry!" Folding his wings at his back, Nessiah sprinted towards the castle bounds.
"Well, damn," was all Gulcasa said, but he swung up into Bella's saddle and kneed her after him nonetheless.
The two of them managed to reach the castle halls just as Pamela and Nietzsche plowed by, and the two-headed beast slavered around the corner towards them.
"Bella—let's go!" With that, Gulcasa summoned his Artifact, and he and his dragon were charging down the hall to stymie the demon where it ran. Gulcasa's first strike nearly took off the beast's noses, and whenever it tried to dodge around him, he was there, blocking the thing with his scythe.
It was hard, one of the hardest things Nessiah had ever done, to turn his back on the horrible snarling and look to the girls. Still, he did it, telling himself sharply that if he couldn't trust Gulcasa to hold off the demon for barely a few moments unattended, he wasn't worthy of being his friend's magister.
"How did we manage to get a mid-level demon in the castle?" he asked breathlessly, bending over to give Nietzsche, then Pamela an arm up from where they'd collapsed on the floor.
Arguing even now, they imparted the tale of the botched summoning to him in turns.
Nessiah shook his head helplessly. Only Pamela, he thought to himself ruefully as he ran his hands through his hair, let out a tense breath. "Nietzsche—this is very important. Go find Yggdra. I don't care what you have to tear her out of, I need her here five minutes ago. We'll need her power to restrain and banish this thing. Pamela… stay here, but back, and out of the way. We may need you to help keep it occupied, and send it back wherever it came from. Do you understand?" Both girls nodded, their eyes huge with identical fear. "Good. Then do it!"
Knowing his orders would be obeyed, Nessiah turned his back on them and held his right arm out, concentrating bitterly. There was a rush of power through his muscles, and then white light streamed from his fingers, solidifying into an ethereal blade about two and a half feet long. It hummed with magic, and little pulses of lightning flickered over its length. Holding his hand steady, Nessiah pushed himself off the ground in a few dashing steps, blessing the castle architects for the width and arched ceiling of the hall.
At that moment, Gulcasa broke through the demon's guard and sliced off one of its heads. The severed head vanished into smoke before it even hit tile, and with a sick sound of sinew twisting, flesh surged up from the bleeding stump to form a new head.
"What the hell?!" Gulcasa demanded, backing Bella up a pace as he went pale.
"A demon this powerful needs to have its vital organs completely destroyed to die," Nessiah called from above. "Since we can't do that and we don't have demon-killing weapons, all we can do is hold it until Yggdra gets here! We can use her power to banish it then!"
"Right…" Gulcasa shifted his grip on Bella's reins and whirled Flamma Imperia in a wide circle beside him, shaking most of the demon's blood off the blade.
As Gulcasa kept the heads busy dodging his scythe, Nessiah slashed at it with the power he'd gathered. When the blow connected, no physical wound opened, but a powerful burst of electricity crawled through the creature's body, and it yelped, skittering back. Nessiah dipped and angled his wings to follow up, but something long and sinuous and hard slammed into his body, catching him completely off-guard.
The force of the blow knocked him against the wall with a sick crack. Pain shot through his wings and speared through his skull, and he slid down the smooth stone to land in a nerveless heap on the floor, his vision blurring.
"Nessiah!"
For a moment, it was like the demon ceased to exist when Gulcasa saw his partner hit the ground. He flung himself from Bella's back without even a thought to it or her or Pamela and ran to the angel's side, lightly touching the side of Nessiah's throat. His pulse was thready and unstable, but it was there.
"Shit, shit. Nessa. Nessa, come on, listen. Just stay with me, you can't go under now."
Either in response to Gulcasa's voice or his touch, Nessiah shook his head weakly and moaned a little, his eyelids fluttering.
"Yeah, that's it. Come on. Look at me. At me," Gulcasa repeated, cursing to himself. Nessiah had hit his head so hard against the wall, chances were good he'd hurt something inside. And weren't healers always saying sight was controlled by the back of the brain?
Still, Nessiah's eyes half-opened and fixed on Gulcasa. Their blue was nearly black with dizziness and swimming with pain, but they were focused.
Concussion, Gulcasa decided with a sigh of relief. Oh, baby. Carefully, he pulled Nessiah away from the wall and tried to ignore the convulsive little jerks of the angel's mismatched wings, and would've kept crooning support to him had the demon not snarled, reminding Gulcasa of its presence.
But as he turned, he saw that Bella was firmly in the demon's way, the light ruff of her scales bristling, a low warning hiss rumbling from her chest as she stood guard over her human.
The demon laid its ears flat and backed up, then its heads swiveled around to where Pamela was still standing further down the hall. She gave a little yelp and began to back away, but slipped and fell hard on her behind, folding her legs in close to her body.
But as the two-headed beast began to prowl towards her, another voice rang from further down the hall:
"Sagitta Magica, series obscuris!"
Seven thin bolts of darkness shot towards the demon, several of them striking. As it howled and milled back, Gulcasa stared from it to where the spell had come from. Roswell was standing behind Pamela with both his hands outstretched, his narrow chest heaving.
Seeing the confusion on Gulcasa's face, the necromancer shook his head. "I was able to sense that you two were fighting," he explained. "I came as quickly as I could… is Nessiah alright?"
"Uh? Ah—yeah, he should be better in a little… Roswell, this thing's dangerous—don't take stupid chances if you're going to fight it!" Aside from you getting hurt not being good in and of itself, Nessiah will kill me…
"Don't worry," Roswell said in a tone that was much more steady. He drew his pactio card from his sleeve, and held it out. "Adeat!"
--
Rosary was sitting in a plush windowsill with a book and a cup of tea when she first heard the clamor, and saw people bustling and pushing past each other, heading for the nearby stairs.
"…Now what's this about?" she wondered aloud, a little annoyed. One young courtier spotted her as she said it, and grabbed her shoulder, hauling her up.
"Come on, milady, you'd best be going too—there's some kind of demon loose in the eastern hall!"
"Huh?" Rosary set her tea down to avoid spilling it, and removed the man's hand. "Look, I appreciate the gesture, but I don't need the handling. What do you mean by 'demon'?"
"I don't know, I didn't see it myself! But we have to hurry—the Undine princess is looking for Her Majesty, and my lord Roswell already went down there to help, so it must be serious!"
Instantly, Rosary's mood soured. "…Roswell, huh? …Yeah, right. Demon, my ass." She shook her head bitterly and sat back down, stubbornly opening her book. "They're just playing more stupid, manipulative tricks."
"Milady…" The courtier looked confused, but still worried.
"Go, then, if you must," Rosary said with a disgusted sigh, waving a hand at him. "I wouldn't run if I were in your place, but I don't care, and you're beginning to bore me. You're dismissed from my presence."
He was gone and she'd firmly entrenched herself in her cushions with her tea and novella when she began to feel power building at the edges of her perception, and began to wonder uneasily if there wasn't something afoot after all.
That was when the screaming started.
--
Roswell held out his hands, power streaming from them into the glyph glowing against the floor. His focus was true, and his Ankh burned brightly against the darkness of the hall though the edges of panic roiled at the sudden tightness in his belly. He wouldn't falter. He'd faced down worse.
At least, he was fairly sure the archangel Marietta counted as worse.
It wasn't time for such thoughts, and Roswell stifled them angrily, reminding himself of Pamela cowering behind him, of—God—Nessiah cradled half-conscious in Gulcasa's arms.
"Wretched souls pounding at Hell's gate…"
Darkness was part of the earth, part of nature. And as Roswell knew with the certainty of one who'd wielded it often and well, certain facets of it were best used to heal.
Other facets were perverse, and bent life to its will. Just like any magic could. But Roswell doubted that any other elements offered such wickedly sensual pleasure as this did. There was good and evil in darkness, and the evil in it was seductive. Horribly, terrifyingly seductive.
Maybe what was more frightening than being seduced, being tempted, was knowing how close he'd come to giving in. Because it was like clinging shakily to the edges of godhood. It was glorious.
As a necromancer, Roswell constantly walked that razor-thin line between darkness and evil. And every step was a struggle.
"It is I who hold the key!"
A fissure opened across the width of the glyph, straight through the floor of the castle. Roswell narrowed his eyes against the bright light, and saw the fragments of bone rising from the deep, deep earth, building into human skeletons carrying clubs and maces and whatever other weapons seemed handy to them. The rumbling ended when there were six of them, and the fissure sealed perfectly.
Roswell gestured widely with his left arm. "Go."
But before his skeleton servants could even begin to attack, the demon ploughed through them, scattering them into lifeless bits of bone once more, the fangs of its left head ripping Roswell's arm open from wrist to shoulder.
Shock and a little indignation let him coast past the pain enough to lash out with his magic, send the beast skidding back with a series of yelps, but as the blood began to soak the ruined sleeve of his robe, the agony slammed over Roswell in a crippling wave. He clutched the worst of the wound with his right hand, but knew he couldn't stanch the bleeding for long. And realized bitterly as the demon began a slow prowl forward that he was all but useless now.
"Omne flammans flamma purgatus… domine exctinctionis et signum regenerationis! Flagrantia Rubicans!"
A wave of fire streamed from over Roswell's shoulder to envelop the demon, making it yelp and wail, and an angry hand grabbed him by his uninjured arm, hauling him back a few steps.
"Rosary…?"
Giving him another shove for good measure, the witch assumed a battle stance, her broom in one hand and a Tactics Card in the other. "Next time, call me first and give yourself less chance of bungling things, you stupid Roswell," was all she said.
"While I must admit that was a nice save, I also have to tell you that trying to kill this thing is a bad idea," Gulcasa said flatly from where he held Nessiah. "Where the hell is Yggdra?"
"Here!"
Roswell, Rosary, and Pamela all turned to see that Nietzsche and Yggdra were barreling down the hall.
"What should I do?" Yggdra asked between panting breaths.
On the other side of the room, Nessiah stirred in Gulcasa's arms, pulling himself up painfully on his ministel's shoulder. Gritting his teeth, he reached out towards the demon, gathering his magic and his focus.
"Sagitta Magica, aer capturae!"
Thin lances of wind shot from his hand to wrap around the demon's body, restraining it so tightly that no matter how the creature wiggled, it couldn't break free.
"Cast Banish on it," he managed to call over the demon's frustrated snarls. "Use your scepter in the casting… and it'll be forced back to its own world." It hurt to yell like this; sound drove sharp spikes of agony through his skull—but Yggdra had to hear.
"I-I understand!"
Whether she actually did or not, Yggdra held the Scepter of Wisdom high and called the incantation in a clear voice: "O shepherd with earthly body and heavenly soul, strike down evil with holy light!"
With the staff's power, the simple holy spell was amplified sevenfold, and bold green-white light shone down from the cross at the artifact's head, enveloping the demon's body completely. It howled—a sound more rage than pain—and its shadow within the brilliant light began to fade, evaporating into a little twist of ugly smoke.
Yggdra sagged with relief, as did everyone else. Nessiah closed his eyes and rested back against Gulcasa. His head hurt like all hell, and he just wanted everything to go away until it stopped.
There were explanations, and Yggdra scolded Pamela in a relieved tone, hugging the younger girl close. Nietzsche told everyone else that she'd already sent Kylier off to find Flone, since she'd had a feeling they'd need a good healer. Durant clattered onto the scene in full plate armor, mounted on his charger, and it had to be explained to him that the battle was already over.
Amidst the clamor, Roswell turned to Rosary with soulful eyes. "…Thank you… it seems you've saved me yet again, haven't you?"
Rosary shook her head and ran her hands through her hair to avoid his gaze. "…Don't mention it. Someone's got to be around to keep your idiot head on your shoulders."
"And—about yesterday. I'm sorry."
"Don't mention that, either."
"I mean it—I really didn't—" Roswell continued, that desperation lighting his eyes again.
Rosary held up a hand. "I mean really don't mention it. I'd rather not talk about that, if it's all the same to you."
Roswell fell silent, and they stood not quite looking at each other for some time.
Eventually, Rosary reached out and laid her hand on Roswell's shoulder, letting it rest there as easily as it could. Roswell glanced at her in surprise, then covered her fingers with his.
Gulcasa, who'd been watching, shook his head and turned down to Nessiah, still huddled against his chest with his eyes squeezed shut and his wings folded in protectively.
"I guess all's well that ends well," he said in a low, amused tone.
Nessiah opened his eyes and let his line of sight flick towards the witch and necromancer for a moment before he closed them again, tucking his face back into Gulcasa's shirt.
"…I doubt you could be further off, but I'll wait to argue with you about it later, once we've seen healers."
Gulcasa shook his head at his partner, but put his arm about Nessiah's shoulders nonetheless.
(tsuzuku)