Blah. I've kept you all waiting (Bad me!). This chapter took longer than it should have because I caught a cold, and it suddenly invaded my brain and broke it. All ideas I got during those days were either just weird or...really weird.
Not one of my favorite chapters by a long shot. Eventually decided to just throw it up online and move on...
More fanart by KatherosLibra in my DA favorites. This time it's Letha with Yuri and Repede.
Angelic:
I DENY ANY AND ALL PAIRING SPARKS! Oh wait, no I don't. LUDWIGXSOPHIA FOREVAH! XD Course you'll never believe me anyway. I could have Letha randomly elope with Ioder and you'd probably still believe Yuri and Letha were totally fanfic soulmates. And thanks for also supporting my battle scenes, I'll stop whining about them now~ "Heartthrob with a steely gaze"...actual game dialogue that was. Probably gonna be one of my favorite lines ever from now on. Until the next awesome line comes along. ;p
FlameUser64:
*Shrugs* If it makes more sense to you that way, you can pretend it was coil (skills are another technical detail I'm pretty vague on). I honestly can't find a satisfactory explanation of what the bodhi blastia do, and lack actual ownership of the game to experiment with and develop a good theory of my own. I just assume they allow the user to channel aer into artes and have an added bonus of some stat boosts.
And hmm, now doesn't that sound just like something I would do? You'll just have to wait and see if that's what I am going for here. ;D
x x x
Chapter 37: Practice, Practice, Practice
x x x
I hate endurance running. Heck, I hate anything more than a brief sprint. I simply don't have the right sort of stamina or pain tolerance that long distance running requires. And I kept reminding myself of that as I wheezed along with everyone else after Repede, hot on 'Regaey's' trail.
Goddamn...all marathons...to the lowest pits of...fricken' HELL...and HADES...and Tartarus and...and all the other...nasty underworld type places...I'm too tired to think of right now!
I should get my own canine buddy. A nice dog with three heads, and have all three heads take turns gnawing on Yeager a bit. Yeaaah...
While I fantasized on various ways to get back at Yeager for his growing list of grievances, we kept on running in manner reminiscent to Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli trying to chase down an army of orcs across the plains of Rohan... Yeah, no. Sorry Tolkien and Peter Jackson, but people really can't do that for three days. Or if there are people who could do that, they certainly weren't us. More like, we would run for a period of time, slow down to a less taxing (though still ground consuming) walk, run some more, walk some more...repeat until someone finally just throws themselves to the ground and demands a short break.
It was very hard not to be the one who did that the most.
The Weasand of Cados is not just a skip and a jump away from Nordopolica. It was well over a day away, and I doubted we'd run down Yeager/Regaey before that. Not just because of game events either. Yeager being Yeager, I wouldn't be surprised if he allowed (...would allow...damn chronology and tenses) Brave Vesperia to catch him on purpose.
Why, though, I couldn't hazard a guess. It could just be the stitch in my side talking, trying to rub it in my face that we probably didn't have to hurry quite so much. Shut up, side. Leave my face alone.
"Hey Letha," began Karol, during one of sanity preserving walking periods, "Can you tell us another story?"
"Give me a moment..." Another story...I hadn't yet thought of a good long one that wouldn't raise too many hard to explain questions. On instinct I automatically ruled out all other video games. Just seemed like the irony would find a way to bite me in the ass. Not up to The Lord of the Rings trilogy after The Hobbit... If I could I wanted to take a different direction, though most of what I knew was fantasy. Oooh, wait!
"I could tell you about the Serenity and her crew."
"Crew? So this 'Serenity' is a ship?" Estelle correctly inferred.
"Another pirate story?" It took a moment of blinking at Yuri in confusion before I realized he was referring to when I'd told him about Sinbad back in Dahngrest. Forgot about that.
"Oh, no... Well, actually, yes. Sort of." I grinned at the looks they were all giving me, probably wondering how it was possible to 'sort of' be a pirate. "The Serenity was a space ship that sailed among the stars."
As I'd expected, Karol's eyes flew wide open as he went, "Wooow, really?" in awe.
"I've never heard of anything like that," Estelle said in wonder, "Was there really a ship like that?"
"No, it's not historical fact," I admitted. "Another fictional story, and not a particularly well known one. It's takes place in a hypothetical future. Way way way in the future."
"Huh, sounds like a pretty interestin' future," observed Raven. Though I didn't believe that I had any more than half of his attention. Probably less, as he was walking behind Judith and was observing her with more appreciation than he gave my stories. I kicked a rock in my path so that it flew forward and hit him in the back of his shins.
"Anyway," I continued, ignoring the way Raven was hopping on one foot (We know you're playing it up...), "since it happens so far in the future, a lot of the world had changed in the intervening years. Kingdoms rising and falling, great conquerors come and go, new countries formed and old ones crushed... All the while, science makes new discoveries and crucial break throughs."
Rita perked up. But when she opened her mouth I cut her off with, "No, don't ask what kind of break throughs. It's the sort of stuff that goes way over my head, and very few of the details are actually necessary for the storytelling." Which was how I'd cover up pretty much anything that was taken for granted in Earth culture. Super advanced technology is indistinguishable from super advanced magic, I'd heard it said once. And vice versa. And the word 'science' is beautifully vague, they'd assume it meant blastia or whatever made most sense in their minds.
It served to snap Rita's mouth shut, and she glowered at me for a bit, but at least she wasn't making too much of a fuss. Even seemed like she'd be paying attention, hopefully with minimal interruptions. I'd have her trained as a proper listener, sooner or later.
"As I was saying, science made advances in leaps and bounds. All sorts of things were invented, from luxuries that made everyday life simpler, to weapons capable of destroying entire cities in seconds. Weapons that make the Heracles look like a child's toy." Faces all around paled at that.
"That's..." the princess failed to find words fitting her thoughts. But it was clear that the comparison troubled her.
"It's the way of many things in life," I told her. "Every tool can be used for good and bad, depending on the will of the user. Like how the same things that can be used for poison can be used as medicine to save lives instead of killing them." Yes, that last part was an intentional attempt to indirectly make her feel better about her power and Phaeroh's words about being the 'insipid poison'. I was pretty sure she didn't realize that's what I was doing, but I could see from the thoughtful look in her eyes that my words weren't going to be forgotten so easily. Good, then.
"Right. Getting to the point. With these advances people were able to study space and the stars, learning much about the workings of the universe. Eventually they learned enough to build ships that could leave this world and travel to the distant stars. Many of those stars were entirely new worlds."
"New worlds?" Karol bounced excitedly. "Did they have people on them too?"
"Ah, now, that was a question people had been asking for ages. Theoretically, there must be more life out in the universe. But all the planets they found were like desert wastelands, and supported no life. They still believed it was possible, somewhere even further than their ships had gone, that their could be other sentient life forms." Hee heee... Look at the sparkle in that kid's eyes. He's gonna be a fan of aliens and alien conspiracies now!
A brown and bluish bird like monster (Pidgeoto...) swooped down from the sky where we hadn't noticed it. It was swiftly dealt with, Raven first shooting it in the wing and grounding it so that Yuri could finish it off with a few decisive strokes of his sword.
The whole afternoon had been like that, some random attacks from monsters like we'd seen in the coliseum plus some that could fly. The flying ones were annoying at first until we settled on the formula of ranged attack followed up by whoever was closest to the feathered menaces when they went down making sure it stayed down for good. And after Raven and Rita decimated an entire swarming flock early on, we really hadn't seen many of that type again.
"You were saying?" Yuri asked casually, idly wiping the monster blood off his sword before sheathing it. Judith was pouting, probably thinking if Raven had shot it just a little sooner it would have been her turn to finish it off.
"Um, yeah." These people, hardly batting an eye... "Well, seeing as they'd discovered all these new planets that couldn't be lived on, scientists took up the challenge of discovering how to make inhospitable planets...hospitable. And it was good thing, because the wars on Ea-world were getting worse." Oops, gonna have to be careful about that. Happily, nobody seemed to pay the slip up any mine. "Advancements in weaponry made destruction more widespread and indiscriminate, until the very world was on the brink of destruction."
"How could they do that? If they saw that the world was being destroyed, shouldn't they do something to stop that?"
I had to look away, feeling a bit ashamed. After all, I was actually describing the state of my homeworld rather than giving a simple prologue and fixing the setting. "...People are very reluctant to change once they've settled into a way of life. And frightened, so easily frightened. By change, or the neighboring country that's doing so well, or by the possibility that a weaker country may grow violent in their envy... Give power to frightened people, and you're asking for them to misuse it."
"You can't know that for sure..." the princess objected, though she seemed to become less sure with each word.
I smiled gently at her. "You're right. It hasn't happened yet, after all. Maybe a big enough threat can snap people back to their senses." Though in my cynical opinion, that would have to be a damn huge threat, and it would be unlikely we'd pull our act together fast enough to save ourselves. According to game plot, the Adephagos was a common disaster on a magnitude that could make people change. But who could say, once enough time passed...
Deep thoughts not helping. Get back to yakking. "Well, this story works off the assumption that people were scared of each other enough to pretty much doom the planet. But they realized what they were doing soon enough to try and save their own lives. While a huge percentage of the world population was killed off, many escaped on ships out into space, where they did their best to make the worlds they'd found habitable. 'Terraforming' it was called, and while it wasn't perfect it at least changed the worlds enough that they could support life."
Geez, history lesson and hypothetical history lesson took longer than I'd realized, and it took even longer as I roughed out how the government worked, or lack there of in a larger number of the dirt poor planets. One huge federation with a Big Brother like spin, and planets that weren't in on it had their own individual systems. And were typically like planet wide wild west settings. Oh yeah, the Firefly series was a Space Western! I'm still shocked that I actually liked it so much.
Before I had totally killed their interest with all that exposition, I finally got to the tiny little space craft named Serenity that was crewed by a rag tag group of desperate people scraping a living with any work, honest or not so honest, they could get. Definitely I got their interest back when reenacting the opening scene where the pilot Wash was playing with his dinosaur toys.
"'-We have found this land, and we shall call it...This Land.' Said the stegosaurus, a plant eating monster.
"'I think we should call it your grave!' jeered the carnivorous T-Rex," I gleefully even did my best impression of Wash's T-Rex voice. (And I had explained dinosaurs as mythical monsters, leaving out the fact that there were skeletons to prove their existance...)
"'Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!'" The others snickered as I pantomimed the 'fight' between the two dinosaur toys, the way Wash's actor had performed it. Sure, I didn't have two plastic toys to sic on each other, but hand puppets get the idea across! Such an ingenious way to kick off a series... And despite the grim setting I'd laid out, there were countless humor moments that made the series as much a comedy as action or drama.
Then Yuri decided we had to run again. Curse his sudden but inevitable betrayal...
x x x
I was able to get to most of the character introductions during our sporadic running breaks. Describing Shepard Book as a priest of 'a religion not founded yet' felt pretty weird, but fortunately I didn't have to go into any more than vague details about Christianity.
Karol called the ship mechanic Kaylee a 'nicer, peppier version of Rita,' which struck me as surprisingly appropriate so that I had to laugh. Then both of us had to run to avoid the rain of vengeful fireballs.
It didn't help matters that I cried, "Ack! It's how the dinosaurs died off!" as we fled. Rita did not appreciate that comparison either.
Eventually, when it was almost too dark to set up camp, we had to admit that we weren't going to catch up with Regaey if most of us were about to keel over. As long as it didn't rain during the night, we could get some rest without fear of losing him.
Once we had set up our tents, the smell barrier thing was set, and Judith had dinner underway, I retreated to my own out of the way spot to look through my dao manual more thoroughly. There were basic forms, exercises to familiarize oneself with these forms (some of these pages were dog eared, the creases crisp and new looking. Thanks for the subtle nudge, Ludwig...), some more complicated moves...and, not to my surprise, artes that could be applied to these forms. It did interest me to note that there were brief sections on weapons that had been adapted from the dao. Like a long spear combined with a broad sword*, and Butterfly Swords (rather like shorter versions of daos meant to be used in pairs). Perhaps I could use the Butterfly Swords as a reference for my dagger work, and maybe Judith would be interested in looking over the spear section...
While I studied the images in the book, trying to picture the movements and visualize myself following the instructions, I didn't really notice that the others had taken notice of me. Until Yuri practically materialized right in front of me.
"Something up?" I asked in bewilderment, trying not to jump when I realized he was there.
"So Ludwig left this for you back at the coliseum?" Yuri asked casually, apparently confirming what the others must have told him.
"Yeah," I passed it to him, "It looks like it'll be really helpful." A slight line appeared in Yuri's forehead as it furrowed nearly imperceptibly as he paged through the book slowly. "Did you want to borrow it?"
"Eh, no, I learn better by doing instead of reading," he returned my manual.
"True... It'd help if I could actually try some of this stuff in a controlled environment, instead of on the fly during an actual fight." Hmm, is he...? I tilted my head back and then nodded at the sword casually resting on his shoulder. "May I take that as an invitation to spar?"
"That was the idea," he grinned. "After all, we kind of missed our chance in the coliseum."
"Funny, you never seemed interested in a friendly match before." Even as I pointed this out I still got to my feet and checked that all my own weapons were accounted for. "I figured you'd had your fill back when I showed you how aikido works." I smirked a bit at the grimace the reminder brought to his face.
"Sparring? Sounds like fun," Judith materialized from behind Yuri. Jesus...they'd both be naturals at espionage.
"Weren't you making dinner?" Yuri asked.
The krytian femme fatale smiled sweetly. "Raven was nice enough to help out a bit." Judging by her smile, I'd say Raven let himself get duped into it the way only Judith could pull off. "And it's no fair if the two of you keep hogging all the fun. I barely got to let loose at all back in the coliseum," she finished with a slight pout.
Realizing she wouldn't give up until she got her way, Yuri caved in without a fight. "Fine, fine, you can join too."
"Wait a minute!" Rita rushed over.
"What, you want to join in too?" Yuri asked with some slight dismay. Dismay? That didn't seem like him...
"No," she answered, sounding as if that should have been obvious and we were idiots for thinking otherwise. "But I want to observe. That phenomenon where objects pass through Letha has only occurred during fights so far, and I want to see it when it happens again."
"Ah, so this is what it is to be a guinea pig..." I rhapsodized. "When one's every movement and choice is watched and recorded in the name of science." Eyebrows were being raised at me. "I'll stop now."
Yuri broached the question which my short speech had apparently raised. "What's a guinea pig?"
"Uhhm... Little animals...good for experimenting on..." Continued blank stares. "You know what? Never mind. Where are we gonna fight?"
We left the camp so we'd have plenty of room, and considering the terrain was pretty flat and devoid of trees we could go pretty far without losing sight of the others. Once we decided we'd gone far enough not to risk messing up the camp, but not too far in case of emergencies, we prepared to fight. Rita plopped down and sat crosslegged on the ground, staring intently at me. Yeah, that's not weird or creepy at all...
After some stretching to warm up I drew Oberon. Yuri and Judith were all ready, but patiently looking in my direction.
"You're planning on trying something from that manual, are you not?" the other woman inquired. At my nod, "Is there anything in particular you need us to do?"
"Hmm..." I studied the set of diagrams for the first arte I'd been hoping to master. "I would appreciate if you guys went easy on me, but don't hold back too much." Ehh, contradictory instructions, much? "I guess, both of you keep attacking so that I never quite get a chance to completely stop."
"No problem."
"We can do that."
"And try to get her to do that weird trick again!" Rita added. I had to protest when they both nodded in further agreement.
Yuri and Judith are both mad fast. The first few exchanges were more along the lines slash, stab, ruuuun! Practically all dodging and no counter attacks from me. Soon, though, my mind managed to shift over into combat mode so that I stopped thinking and started doing. Yuri and Judith also had a better gauge of my level and lightened up a bit more so I'd have the leeway to try something unfamiliar.
The move that had caught my eye was clearly designed with multiple opponents in mind. More specifically, with getting mobbed in mind. Exactly what my limited arsenal of artes needed. So to test it I watched for a chance when both of my friends tried to attack me simultaneously from different directions.
Rooting myself so that my weight and balance was centered above my right foot, I shoved off from the ground with my left and twisted my body so that I spun in place. Oberon lashed out around me in a back hand strike, leaving a thick trail of green energy as I channeled aer through the blade. Yuri and Judith both had to jump back to avoid the energy, though not too far as it dissipated into the air quickly. I was left with a dizzying feeling of vertigo and wasn't quite facing the direction I'd started in. Wheew, how does Link manage it?
"Woah, you okay?" Yuri asked in concern. I blinked for a bit until there was only one of him.
"Euh, yeahh, I think I put too much aer into it, or didn't do it evenly enough..."
"Right, and the whole part where you were pretending you're a top had nothing to do with it."
"No, it did not. I learned how to not get dizzy from spinning when I was an idiot kid." Retrieving the manual from where I'd left it with Rita (who seemed a bit put out that nothing she considered interesting had happened yet), I opened it to the page describing the spin attack again. "Used to spend hours just spinning in place, or on a swing, or even in dance class."
"What a surprise. I never would have imagined you like dancing," Judith commented, brushing a microscopic speck off of her halberd.
I pulled a grimace. "Gave up my early plans of being a famous dancer when I realized it meant being watched by a load of people. Decided books and art were the way to go, since I wouldn't have to be around when people felt like appreciating or criticizing those."
"Aw, you're so shy," apparently satisfied that her weapon was up to her standards, Judith leveled it towards me and looked over at Yuri. "Shall we make it harder for her to catch us with that move again?"
"Yeah," Yuri grinned as he shifted his grip from casual to battle ready (a difference you only noticed if you'd seen him in enough fights), "What's the good in practicing if we made it too easy?"
"You both just like picking on me..." Any further complaints I could make were forgotten as I had to duck under Judith's halberd and back pedal to keep from tripping over my own feet. Then threw myself into a roll to dodge Yuri's attack from the side.
This feels less like a spar and more like I'm being bullied...
We spent a good hour practicing after that, Rita quite generously providing us with light by making torches out of dry brush and fireballs. Privately, I think she did that because of boredom and the lack of me doing anything scientifically interesting. After setting the last torch on fire, she'd started looking speculatively at me, as if thinking throwing something more dangerous and fiery at me might have better results.
I eventually got the spin attack down reasonably well. Though not without a few more false tries where I used too much aer, or some when I hadn't used nearly enough and would find myself nursing a bruise from the dull side of a katana or halberd staff. Once I got the hang of it I had the satisfaction that I would never have to worry about being mobbed again. Unless I was mobbed by something intelligent and/or acrobatic, as was proven when Judith took to vaulting through the air over me to whack me in the head mid spin.
It was when I was experimenting with revising the spin attack to fit with my Gemini daggers that Repede and Karol came to fetch us for dinner.
x x x
Feeling pleasantly full with a loose feeling in all my muscles from the day's workout, I picked a seat as near to the fire as I could bear so I'd have enough light to study my manual with. But eventually I found my vision drawn away from the black and white pages to the fire itself. Mesmerized, I stared through licking flames at the coals, watching the shifting play of black with yellow-orange. It brought to mind science class videos of volcanic eruptions, lava flows, sunspots and solar flares...
Heheh, I'm gonna be so behind in my classes. Even if I can get Nevi to put me back when I was (and screw laws of physics, he's a fairy), I'll still be in trouble. Can't remember anything I was studying.
That cynical thought made me uncomfortable, breaking through the hypnotic effect of the campfire. For some reassurance I tucked the manual back into my bag, trading it for my notebook full of Earth anecdotes. Flipping to a random page, I slowly read over my own writing as if I'd never seen it before. The sad part was, if it hadn't clearly been my own handwriting I could have easily believed it was the first time I'd read it.
I was never any good at climbing trees. Not even that one by grandma and grandpa's pond, with the fork in its trunk really close to the ground. When they decided to have it cut down, the family thought we should take a picture of all the kids in the tree first. One of my older cousins had to boost me up, which was embarrassing.
I have cousins...and my grandparents have a pond... On the next page was a rough sketch of what must have been the pond, surrounded by pine trees and with a dock on one side. Under it was a note, scribbled in like an afterthought Peepers were practically deafening at night during the summer. Mom made a recording of them.
Turning the page I found another drawing, this one spanning both pages of the notebook and with more evident care for the details. It seemed the view was from the top of a hill or ravine, looking down. It wasn't steep, and at the bottom a smaller stream joined with a larger one. On all sides of the streams were trees and bushes and flowers growing wild. It looked like just a pleasant nature scene, except for a single touch of humanity in a tire swing hung from one of the trees. Under this picture was the simple caption The Backyard.
Lightly, my fingers touched the inked in lines, as if I could feel the bark of a tree or the water through the sketch.
"Hey, Letha?" Startled, I snapped my journal shut so quickly the sound it made was audible around the camp. Sheepishly, I rubbed a thumb against the spine as I looked up at Estelle with some embarrassment.
"Sorry, was thinking... Did you need me for something?" She looked at me blankly for a moment before remembering what she wanted.
"Oh, it wasn't anything much, I was just wondering if you'd help me practice a bit more..." her eyes had fallen to the book in my lap, curiosity poorly disguised. I tried to make it look like I hadn't noticed as I casually put it in my bag, fishing out the loose papers we'd been using for letter practice.
Estelle had been taking to cursive more easily than regular print, contrary to my expectations, but still made enough goofs that practice was necessary. My favorite was her mistake when writing out a capital S. I couldn't quite hold back the slight snort of laughter as I told her, "No, Estelle you have it backwards..."
"Oh," She scribbled it out a bit, seeming a bit put out that I found it funny.
"Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, it's just that..." I took the pen from her and wrote & again. "This actually does have a meaning to it, though its entirely different. I was laughing at myself for forgetting to mention these shorthand symbols to you." I couldn't think of anything else to call it.
"More symbols? There's more than just the alphabet?"
"Yeah, well, they're largely used when writing the whole word out isn't efficient enough. Like this one here," I tapped on the page, "Is just another way of writing out 'and'." And that launched us into another set of lessons.
x x x
It's a squirrel.
But it's legs are so stubby, they might as well not exist.
Making it look more like a fluffy, furry version of those tadpole things from way back.
...Monsters are weird.
The train of thought was ended by a face full of fluffy, bushy tail. Fluffy, bushy tail was soon beating a hasty retreat as I menaced its owner with both Gemini.
"You better run, before I skewer you on a stick and talk Rita into roasting you for lunch!" Ah, the joys of traveling.
"Why don't you learn to do it yourself?" Rita bit off the last word as she raised a stalagmite under another squirrel that had been taunting her (must've had a death wish). Annoyance dealt with, she turned and gave me a scrutinizing look. "Huh, maybe you should learn..."
"Really? Do you think I'd be any good?" I'd mostly been trying to just concentrate on mastering my weapons without bothering to even think of adding spells to my already full plate, but if Rita was willing to teach me-
"I couldn't care less if you were good at it." Ouch. "But maybe it would help us figure out how you do that...thing," said with obvious vexation that she didn't get to see the permeability thing again the night before, "and control it."
"Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea." Judith was the nearest at that point, and joined in the conversation as the squirrels weren't nearly interesting enough. "Even if it doesn't help, it couldn't hurt to have a better understanding of how spells work."
"Good points," I conceded. Looked like I'd be biting off even more. Hopefully I could swallow it all. "So Master Rita, what's my first lesson?"
"First, don't call me 'master'."
"Gotcha." The fight was over, all the pesky little squirrels either killed or driven off, so we'd all fallen back into a big line of figurative ducklings following mama duck Repede.
For once, Rita and I were walking side by side. "Second, I can't give you any real lessons until I have the time to make some tests."
"Tests?" I was curious and a little nervous about what the little genius had in mind. Was she thinking of something normal, like filling out a simple questionnaire with personal information, or was she going to go mad scientist on me and chase me down with needles and scalpels?
"Nothing much. Just to figure out what your affinity is and what spells would suit your personality best. I already have some idea, but I want to be sure."
"Affinity..." I thoughtfully rolled the word around. "Do you mean, like, elements or something?"
"Well yeah," she said in a d'uh implying tone, "but also if you're more suited to supportive spells or magical attacks. And which spells would work best with that, that passing through things ability."
"Oh, I guess that makes sense." I had to hide a grin at her clear annoyance with not knowing how to classify my anomaly of an ability.
"For now, you should try to focus on controlling aer without putting it in your weapons."
"Huh?" Wait, but... "You use your scroll when casting spells," I pointed out. "So what does that have to do with it?"
"But you use that weird ability on yourself, not your weapons."
"Okay..." I was doubtful though. If aer was used to activate the ability, it would have to be a lot or else it would have happened more than just twice. But I hadn't suffered any aer sickness that would have to accompany it. But I should at least try it a few times, if only so Rita would be satisfied.
Staring at my feet in order not to get distracted by the passing scenery, I tried reaching for aer the way I'd grown accustomed to during battles. It felt odd doing it without the urgency of an actual fight, and odder still when considering less than half a year ago I would barely be able to imagine what it would feel like at all.
The aer came and I gathered it in. But once I had it I had no idea what to do, and without the direction normally provided by my dao or daggers the aer was left to build a slowly growing pressure in my chest. This was a bad idea, I thought, but before I could panic and try to find someway to get rid of the aer something slammed into my side hard.
I flew sideways, throwing up a respectable cloud of dust when I hit the ground. The aer escaped, though it left the painful pressure in my chest as a token reminder that it had been there, and I lay on the ground for awhile with my eyes watering at the dirt falling in them.
"Didn't work, huh," Rita observed clinically.
"No, Rita, it didn't," I forced through gritted teeth. "Let's not try that again. And I think I owe you a punch now."
x x x
The Weasand of Cados was not as dark as I'd been expecting. There were strange luminescent cattails growing at regular intervals. Consistent enough that I'd be willing to believe their growth had been encouraged. Interesting.
But other than lights that may or may not have been arranged for the convenience of travelers, there was no sign of anyone who might have been there recently. We were alone with the echoing drip of water.
"No sign of him so far."
"Do you think he went this way?"
Mage and princess wandered to the front of the group, looking for any small sign of Regaey's passing.
"Maybe he used this ta get through ta the other side of the mountain," Raven speculated.
I pretended to consider that, "It would seem a lot easier than going over, as long as these caves just go straight through." In my mind, however, I was remembering how underground tunnels can go on for miles and miles in an area that if traveled above ground could be a fraction of that distance. The caves under the Misty Mountains, for a good literary example.
"But this cave is the Weasand of Cados," Karol protested. "A powerful monster called Pteropus lives here. It's supposed to be really dangerous." Which of course was meant to make us question why such a timid man would try to escape this way, but only had me making odd mental connection between the words Pteropus and platypus. And when he weakly finished with, "Or at least that's what Nan told me," I was distracted again by wondering just how the two of them got to discussing monsters on the other side of the world map.
"Perhaps he went inside without knowing that," Judith suggested, watching Repede sniffing around the cave entrance and following it deeper inside.
"Woof!" the dog bounded forward suddenly, half lost into a thin crevice that had been practically invisible in the wall, and backed out again with Regaey's collar caught firmly in his jaws.
"W-w-w-wait... P-please l-let me go," he begged.
Yuri nodded at Repede and his prize. "Looks like he was hiding out here hoping we'd just pass him by." If not for our favorite pooch and his nose, that might have actually worked.
"Well now. Let's have a nice long chat." Raven clapped his hands together in a childlike display of excitement at odds with the malicious looking twist to his grin.
Yuri stepped forward, grabbing the front of Regaey's shirt so that the timid man was forced to look him in the face. "What were you trying to gain, setting us up like that back at the coliseum?"
Trying to mess up Flynn's work to make him look bad. Cumore's orders, d'uh. Probably. Wonder if that would make him squirm if I said it out loud... Nah, not tempting enough to risk.
"And give back that case!" Rita snarled, reminding us of her own set of priorities.
Regaey's eyes dropped as much as they could with Yuri up in his face. "You leave m-me no choice." At unspoken command, a group of Red-eyes appeared from more concealed niches in the wall, some even jumping down from higher points near the ceilings roof. To the shock of everyone but me. One struck out at Yuri, caught flat footed he had to let go of Regaey in order to avoid being hit.
"Leviathan's Claw?" Estelle's cry of surprise had echoed barely twice when they rushed us.
I blocked pair of wave bladed knives, catching them on my daggers, and was deadlocked with one of the assassins. Who upon such close examination proved to have a nasty looking scar across his right cheek and the bridge of his nose. Teeth bared in a mocking smile and he laughed at me.
"Fancy meeting you here, little bird!"
"Ah hell..."
x x x
* Umm, I looked up what those are supposed to be called. Just a quick, not very thorough check: Horse Knife, Chai Dao, Thieves' Encampment Sword, Pu Dao... apparently a type of Tai Dao (Long handled broadsword)... If anyone is interested, they can research it some more on their own. I think the name Horse Knife is enough to figure out what it was used for.
Anyone guessed that the sparring suggestion was Yuri's failed attempt to get Letha alone for an interrogation? Better luck next time~
And yeeah, the return of Birdman the Red-eyes! I gotta get around to wrapping things up with him before he become a carbon copy of Zagi.
Letha: Too late.