Soul peers through the foliage surrounding the tiny village in front of him. The cursed darkness isn't as thick here, only a dim gloom spreading over the houses and tiny storefronts. His stomach growls loudly, demanding food. It's been two days of traveling between villages since he last ate a real meal and the most he's had to drink has been the condensation he's collected from plants.
Beyond the village looms the shadowy outline of the forest bordering Sathros and Traicor. It'll take him at least a week to travel through the forest, if he's lucky and luck has never been something he's had in spades.
Already in the week since he escaped from the mountain, he's run into obstacle after obstacle. A storm had hit the day after he left and kept up unrelentingly for the entire time he spent traveling to the nearest town, leaving him in clothes so soaked that he had to peel them off by the time he made it to the nearest town and found an inn that he could afford.
When he had woken up, it was to find that the town crawling with soldiers from Arachne's guard. He'd heard the sharp clopping of hooves and the shouts of the soldiers in the square below as they marched into the inn and every neighboring building. Soul had barely made it out with the clothes on his back, his pack and the Kokketsu scythe.
Since then he had kept away from the main towns and limited to only entering the small villages after he had made sure weren't overrun with soldiers.
Soul rolls the handle of the scythe back and forth over his palm as he ponders the best way to steal food from one of the stands he spies in the tiny square. That the scythe had been his salvation was as much a surprise to him as it would have been to anyone else.
Being bound with Oni, he expected the scythe to be as much of a burden on his mind as the demon, avoiding even looking at it. But he gave in the third day, pulling the scythe from behind him.
He'd been filled with the same surety and peace he'd felt when he had first held the scythe. Unlike Oni, who pulled on his magic like a noose around his neck, the scythe was an open conduit, focusing and amplifying his magic and allowing it to come and go as it pleased.
In the freedom the scythe had given him, Soul dared to use his magic for the first time since he scarred Wes. It had been small: a mist of shadow that was hardly darker than the night in Sathros but the rush of release after all the years he had spent suppressing his magic had given him a feeling of lightness he hadn't felt in years.
While he didn't allow himself to use his magic more than that, the mist was enough for him to sneak to the food stands of the villages he came across and steal a piece of fruit or two as well as keep him hidden when he settled into the grasses of the plains to sleep.
Soul watches the village for another minute before casting the mist about him; his head swivels left and right as he picks his way to the square, careful not to step in any place that will leave footprints, and snags an apple and a hunk of bread with a finesse he's acquired over the past few days.
Settling into a narrow alleyway between a house and a store, Soul sits and begins to scarf down his food with a ravenous appetite. He leans back against the wall once his hunger is sated and feels a contented tiredness sweep through him as he observes elves walking by, catching snippets of their conversation here and there. Despite the perennial darkness hanging over their heads, they seem adjusted, even happy living eternal night.
He wonders if he could be happy here. Drowsiness overtakes him before he can answer that thought and Soul dozes, in between dreaming and listening to the quiet pulse of life around him.
The thud of hooves and blare of military trumpets rouses him and he blinks back into consciousness, disoriented and confused.
"We are looking for a fugitive elf that may have come through here," booms a familiar voice.
Tsubaki's voice.
Adrenaline clears Soul's head of any grogginess and he fights the impulse to leap up and run. No one can see him, he reminds himself, taking deep and measured breaths.
All he has to do is wait it out.
Soul rises to his feet slowly and pulls his scythe from its spot on the pack, tensed to run.
The soldiers pass by one by one and every time, he holds his breath and waits to be recognized but no one sees him-one soldier even looks straight through him but says nothing and continues to walk past.
After the steady stream of soldiers peter out to a trickle and then nothing for several minutes, he peeks out tentatively. Seeing no one, Soul comes out and hurries down the path and exits the village, the forest just ahead of him.
It's a mistake.
On a horse, Tsubaki emerges from the forest, in conversation with a soldier riding next to her.
Soul freezes in place. If he moves, she'll hear him, he knows it. Sweat drips down the back of his neck as he watches her ride right past, heart slamming in his chest.
It is only for an instant but she locks eyes with Soul and he knows.
She can see him.
Soul swings out the scythe in a wide arc and from the trees a horde of ravens answer his call, flying down upon the soldiers and he sprints into the forest, stumbling over roots and dodging branches.
From behind him, he hears Tsubaki yell, "He's using a glamour!"
He throws down the mist in case she's tracking him that way and immediately there is the whistle of an arrow whizzing by and the harsh thunk as it buries itself into a tree right in front of him. Soul veers to the right, nothing more than moving limbs, gut instinct and the thought run, run, RUN.
Stars explode in his vision as his nose connects with a branch and he falls backward, scythe flying out of his hand.
The shouts of soldiers ring in his ears, he's down for a breath and then he's scrambling to his feet, moving frantically even as the world is spinning wildly; he stumbles over the scythe rather than finds it and he snatches it up, running blindly- even though his lungs are burning and his head is pounding, he refuses to even pause because if he pauses he will stop and if he stops he will be caught and being caught means he's dead.
And dying just when he's started to live seems like too cruel an ending, even for him.
He leaps over a fallen log and stretches his legs to land on the ground, except his feet don't meet the ground, they meet nothing.
Somehow he bites back a yell and hugs the scythe close to him as he tumbles through the air, pain needling throughout his body when he hits the ground.
Soul only registers the fact that he is alive and he can move before using the scythe to get to his feet. He's at the bottom of a ravine and he spins around in a circle, getting a bearing on his surroundings.
A cave yawns wide in one side of the ravine. Through his panic, Soul can feel something calling him from it and he considers for a beat. It could be trapping himself in a place with no escape but hiding in the cave could also save him, if Tsubaki and her soldiers don't come this way.
Oni's voice is tinny from within the scythe. "When are we going to have some fun?"
"Shut up!"
Soul runs into the cave and prays that it's enough.
An ache radiates down the sides of Maka's palms and she feels the warm wetness of blood oozing from the places her skin split open from hitting the door too hard.
She does not think about her toes.
The room feels smaller than usual as she paces back and forth, a jittery energy running down her legs. Something has been pulling at her all day long, she's not sure if it's a side effect from being alone in the dark for so long but the nagging desire to go seek it out makes it impossible to stay in one place for long.
Her stomach gurgles loudly as she continues to pace the length of the room. There is no way of marking the time in here but her stomach has not stopped rumbling since the light from the crystal shards winked out for good three sleeps ago and when she licks her lips, it's not enough to trick her mind into easing up on the parched feeling lodged in the back of her throat.
But she refuses to give up. Maka sets her jaw-she's had a long time to think in the time she broke out of the crystal and she's spent it mostly chipping away at the grey block lying between her and her memories. What she has been able to remember is very little but she holds onto it fiercely: she's a light elf, she was born in Sathros and the place she was most content are the meadows of wildflowers lying in the shadows of craggy mountain ranges.
What she holds onto the most is the image of the elf who caged her here.
The memory is blurred, no matter how much Maka pushes her mind, although different things about the elf pop out at her every time she remembers: the rough fabric of the scarves covering the elf from head-to-toe as he held fast to her, the gleam of the onyx scythe the elf carried, her desperation to reach something just beyond her.
She had failed.
Maka is not sure how but she knows many others had been counting on her and she had let them down in the worst way. Angry tears sting at the corners of her eyes. And here she was, stripped of her memory, chained to a wall and completely useless.
The energy pulling at her feet rises to a peak as she pounds on the door again, frustration breaking the last of her composure.
She doesn't stop until her hands feel like they're about to fall off. Her chest heaves as she steps back and gives her head a shake. Maka wipes her eyes, shoving back the feeling of despair pooling in her gut. She plays around with the idea of using the shards again. Maybe this time, she'd take a run at the hin-
"Hello?" A soft knock sounds tentatively at the door and the voice Maka heard while she was stuck in the crystal calls out again. "Is someone in there?"
There's a beat of silence as the connection between them solidifies like an invisible cord and she feels the rhythm of his soul fill the pauses in hers.
She scrambles to find her voice. "Yes, I've been trapped here for a long time." They move in time, drawing close to the door; she feels the heat of his body like it were her own. "My name is Maka," she adds.
"I'm Soul." There's a creak as he tries the door. "How did you get locked in there?"
Maka laughs once without humor. "I don't remember." She pauses. "I don't remember much of anything."
The sounds of Soul feeling the door for a weak spot cease. "Well," he says after a moment, "You remembered your name. That's a good place to start."
She smiles for the first time since she woke up. "You have a point."
"As I sometimes do." Warm amusement diffuses from his side of their connection. "Do you remember anything else?"
"I was born in Sathros."
He resumes trying to find a way to open the door. "Good."
"Is that where we are now?" she asks.
Soul doesn't answer right away. "Yes."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"Maybe not for you," he replies. "For me, yes." There's noise as Soul steps back and he changes the subject. "I think I'm going to have to break this down."
She blinks. "If you were able to open the door that way, why didn't you do it in the first place?"
"Creating a racket was something I was trying to avoid but I think they're too far away to hear now." There's a low thwip of metal slicing through air. "Mind standing back and covering your ears?"
Maka keeps herself from voicing her questions for now, retreating to behind the base of the crystal and putting her hands over her ears. "Okay," she calls.
Even with her ears covered, the muffled screech of metal against metal against grinds against her eardrums. It continues for a long minute and then it ceases, replaced by a high-pitched scraping sound.
She jumps to her feet to help Soul in moving the door away. Sweat beads at the crown of Maka's temples as they shift aside the door, muscles shaking with the exertion, and again she wonders how long she was stuck in the crystal.
"All right," Soul grunts. "I think you can fit through there now."
Maka starts to step forward before she remembers the chain around her waist. "Um, I can't move," she says, "I'm chained to the wall."
Soul's voice goes flat. "Chained?"
The door groans as he squeezes through the opening and Maka catches sight of the opaque shadow that is Soul.
"Maka?"
"Right here," she says quickly.
The shadow moves toward the sound of her voice and he runs straight into Maka, grabbing her shoulder to keep her from falling over. Embarrassment radiates from Soul to her. "Sorry!"
"It's okay," she reassures him. She takes his hand in hers and guides him to the chain tethering her to the wall. "The chain goes around my waist but I don't think you'll be able to get that part off."
Soul is quiet as he hefts the chain in his hand. "Is it okay if I see if I can?"
"Go ahead." Maka ignores the uptick in her heartbeat.
His fingers barely brush against her as he feels the chain around her waist. "I think I can do it," Soul finally says. "But you have to be still."
"I'll see if I can manage that."
He laughs nervously. "It's more for me than anything else."
She tries to reassure him. "If you don't want to, you don't have to do it. I really don't mind hav-"
"I can do it," Soul says determinedly, pulling his hand away and stepping back.
Maka goes silent and waits.
There is no sound of metal against metal but instead the darkness seems to weigh more heavily on her and then the chain around her body loosens and falls to the ground.
Feeling around her waist, Maka squints up at the point where Soul's face would be in wonder. "How did you do that?"
He wavers in their connection before answering. "Magic."
"That's some pretty powerful magic," she comments.
"That would be one way of describing it." Soul shifts from one foot to the other. "Ready to go?"
Maka laughs. "More than you can know."
He holds the door while she wriggles her way through the opening and grabs it from the other side so he can get through safely; his body brushes against hers as Soul squeezes by, the connection between them pulses hot for a second and then he's past.
He puts space between them and coughs. "Shall we get going?"
She nods-the dark in the cave tunnel is lighter than the darkness of her cell so she can see more of Soul now. All she can really make out is the flash of silver-white hair and a dim outline of his face but it crystallizes the fact that he's real and not a hallucination.
The soft drip of water coming from elsewhere in the cave breaks up the silence as they walk; Maka steals glances at Soul from time to time, not that she can see much else than his hair. Her fingers fidget at her side before she opens her mouth. "I have some questions."
The smile is apparent in his voice. "I know," he says. It's the first either of them has acknowledged the link between them.
She files that away to ponder later since she can feel that his bewilderment over their connection is exactly like hers.
"Why are people after you?"
"It's nothing too bad," Soul says, pausing. "It just comes down to disagreements over very fundamental things, like whether my heart should keep beating or not."
"Oh." His discomfort with the conversation bleeds through to her and she doesn't push it. "So long as you're not a violent criminal, you don't have to tell me."
He laughs and the tension eases. "That would make things a bit awkward."
Grinning, she moves onto her next question. "So if you're from Sathros, does that mean you're a light elf too?"
The force of his shock stops Maka in her tracks and Soul spins around. "You're a light elf?"
Her eyes widen in alarm. "Yes, aren't there light elves in Sathros?" Memories bubble up at the corners of her mind. "My family are light elves."
"Maka-" Soul breaks off and goes silent.
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not, it's just that-" She feels him struggle to find the words for whatever he's trying to say. Soul starts again, "There haven't been any light elves seen alive in Sathros for nearly one hundred years."
"What?" Fingers of icy dread laces around her heart and Maka shakes her head. "No, no, that's wrong." Panic leaks in her words and her voice becomes high-pitched. "How could I be alive then?"
"I don't know," Soul says. "But I'll help you, I promise."
He hesitates and then he reaches for her hand. "You can't be the only light elf who is alive." He keeps his hold loose. "We're going to figure this out."
Maka tightens their grip and swallows hard. "Okay."
After that, she becomes lost in her thoughts and Soul lets her think in peace, wordlessly leading her through the dark. Her worries are temporarily shoved aside when she spots the mouth of the cave yawning open, dusk already falling beyond.
"Hold on." Soul stops and there's the sound of him pulling out something metallic-Maka can't see what he brought out but she assumes it's a weapon of some sort.
She tugs on his hand impatiently, spying trees and plants in the distance. "Come on!"
Soul lets out a laugh and lets her pull them out of the darkness; she drops his hand and twists around in a circle, tilting back her head and breathing in the earthy smell of the forest. She stays like that for a moment, eyes closed, and then she opens them and turns to Soul, finally gets a good look at Soul's face.
Maka takes in his translucent skin, the droopy slant of his eyes and the deep crimson of his irises and she smiles at him and the anxious look he wears disappears.
He grins back, revealing a mouth full of jagged teeth.
Then she spies the ebony scythe in his hands and her heart shatters.