A/N:
A). When you reach a certain scene, be sure to have Nina Simone's cover of Feeling Good playing as background music. For anyone who's a fan of Aubrey Plaza… you'll understand.
B) Sorry for the long wait on this, everyone. Real life + Retail part-time-job+ other stuff = time consumed by other things, I guess.
C) Recaps (yay!)
Ruby, Ravnica: The District Five Games have begun. A nervous Ruby, who is also taking dancing lessons from the Rakdos Horatio, among other lessons from the rest of the crew, pays the buy-in fee for the first game, gets a long and large and noticeable tattoo on the entirety of her right arm, and heads up to Floor Fifteen… for a seemingly innocuous game of Poker, or rather the Ravnican equivalent, and where (caught) cheating is met with swift and bloody, if not deadly, reprisal. However, Ruby, somehow, manages to win the pot and the game, thus facilitating her advancement to the next Game. Fresh and relieved from her lucky victory, she is picked up from the Citadel of Sin and Succor by a waiting Anastasia… who informs the shocked Remnentian that more subtle cheating was used to propel Ruby forward… and that such tactics will be a necessity to survive and win the Games, and thus allow the crew to achieve their main objective…
Tai, Zendikar: Having 'safely' landed upon the dreaded Isle of Jwar, Tai, his new feldiar companion Wanderer, and the Crew of the Blade of Iona make their way inland to explore and thus, perhaps, complete their mission's mysterious objective. Along the way, Tai grows more and more uneasy by the island, and then accidently discovers the entrance to a vast underground network of kor ruins, where still-fresh remnants of a battle are found, as well as a room depicting venerations to a being called 'The Lord of Scars.' But then, the ruins, a Skyclave, are activated, rising into the sky high above the Isle, and, upon designating Tai and the others as intruders, unleashes its defenses upon them. After escaping at great cost, including the lives of the twins Jera and Jora, and the archaeologist Ardenn, as well as that of Captain Rarza's legs, the surviving members of the expedition team return to the beachhead to find the rest of the crew under attack by strange, twisted, and faceless creatures. Through the sacrifice of the ogre mate Gintar, Tai and the survivors manage to evacuate off the beach and back to the ship, just as the floating Skyclave activates its Cleansweep Protocols, transporting them away. Upon awakening, Tai and the other survivors find themselves shipwrecked upon the blistering shores of Akoum…
Weiss, Dominaria: Though she and Neptune are safe physically within the estates of Admrial Bo Levar upon the shores of New Benalia, Weiss is still plagued by the uncomfortable realization that she holds an innate connection to the black mana, magics marked by greed, parasitism, selfishness and amorality… traits she had always seen exemplified in the man who calls himself her father. These fears are not helped by her magic teacher Argent, who keeps trying to guide her into accepting this aspect of herself. Even after a calming talk over hot-chocolate between herself, Admiral Levar, Neptune aand Argent following a small meltdown on the training grounds of the estate, Weiss is still left uncertain and unsure of what this connection reveals about herself. Seeking to distract herself by going on a little shopping spree with Neptune in the New Benalian markets, they take a tasty lunch at a madaran restaurant… and are then drugged and taken captive by a familiar foe…
C). And now… on with the (hopefully decent) chapter!
Chapter 16: Rooftop Locks, New Faces, and A Way Home
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Businessman
Orechnik had been a businessman for many successful decades. During that time, he had learned a great many lessons, lessons both important and trivial. One such lesson was 'look confident in all things, even if you weren't.' That maxim in particular had served him well, through times lean and lax, and he held it ever close to his heart and soul. It was why he always made sure to walk tall and straight-backed, cane held at his side, and his gaze straight and unwavering. Show the image, and you became it, after all.
It was also why he traveled without guards. To be guarded by others at all times, to have to rely upon others for things that you could do yourself, that was a sign of weakness. And weakness made for bad business… at least if it was your own weakness, that is. The weakness of others, though, was wholly acceptable-
Then, a knife-ear in middling clothes stumbled past him, almost bumping into his shoulder, and reeking of old drink and bad gambling debts. He had to resist taking his cane to the pointy-eared freak. Cruelty in public was just another weakness, after all.
Orechnik hated elves, as much as he despised the gutter-rats and dirt-snipes that crowded the streets, if not more. He hated their long ears, their long lives, and that pretentiousness they all seemed to be born with. Thus, he also hated the meddlesome Simic, the weak Selesnyans, and the rotting Golgari. He hated the wild Gruul too, but that was not based on anything elf related, they were just barbarians and foul-smelling fools obsessed with lost wilderness. Nature had no place in a city like Ravnica, after all. It lost, and civilization had won. Refusing to accept a loss… just another weakness.
… Though, elf women-whores still made for a good fuck, now and again. It was one of the reasons why he came to District Five, after all, getting them to know their place.
That and the games, as well, when he could.
He kept walking, his destination clear in his mind and memory.
As he did, though… he saw a gathering, near one of the gates marking the borders between the inner and second rings. Despite himself, he grew curious, and drew closer to it.
It was a small crowd of off-duty game pieces and beggars and other lowly folk (including a great man elves) that had gathered around a ragged looking man. The ragged man, he had several noticeable features, one of which was the fact that his right hand had not a single finger left upon it, leaving a malformed stump. Nor did he have a nose, and the entire right side of his face was a mass of burns and scars and brands, his teeth visible through the holes in his cheek and mouth, and that disappeared down the collar of his cloak, while the right eye was barely even a lump of seared flesh. His fingered hand held a long piece of knotted and twisted wood that seemed to serve as a staff.
"Come closhe, come closhe, my brothersh and shishtersh," the man rasped wetly, his words half slurred, coming from his ruined mouth, as he gestured to his face with his stump. "Come closhe sho that you may shee; shee the horrorsh and evilsh that our ten overlordsh have wrought upon ush, and what they continue to bring down unpon our headsh and backsh!"
He shrugged off his cloak, to reveal a thin, reedy form as scarred and bruised and battered and burned as his face. Set upon the center of his chest was a symbol Orechnik had seen graffitied sometimes upon various walls in District 10; the ten guilds arranged in a broken circle, each symbol in turn deface in some way.
"In thish wretched Dishtrict alone, thissh ish what they do to ush! Do you shee? Do you shee? We are made to sherve ash their pieshes, their toysh and playthingsh, over and over until there'sh nothing left to give! Ish thish the life promished to ush, to our anceshtorsh when they forshook the old waysh for the 10 demonsh!? Ish it!? I shay no, brothersh and shishtersh! Aand sho… we musht shtand for thish no longer!
His remaining eye opened wildly, spittlte flying from his ruined mouth as he gestured about with his ruined hand and staff. "Casht off the chainsh of the Ten, my brothersh and sistersh! The chainsh that they have clamped tightly about our necksh! Can you feel it!?"
Around him, Orechnik heard the crowd murmuring.
"Tighter and tighter, they have drawn thish nooshe about our throatsh for the lasht ten thoushand yearsh!" the rambler continued. "They take the very air from out lungsh now! Before, the blesshed Guildpact kept the Ten Monshtersh and their followersh in check, though that wash but a shtop-gap meashure! But now, for the pasht several decadesh, we have been left to fend off the wolvesh at our doorsh by ourshelvesh!
"But theresh a light in thish darknessh, my fellowsh! The Old Waysh shall return! The prophet himshelf hash decreed it sho! The Fashlessh One hash shaid it sho! Sho join him, know him, bear hish shymbol upon yourshelvesh ash I do, and love hish waysh and knowingsh! The time ish approaching! The promished day shall arrive and bring liberty to ush all! Can you not feel it!?"
Orechnik found that this had been a waste of time. Besides, the district's Boros were already arriving, and he had not desire to be lumped in with this… rabble.
As he left, he could hear the peacekeepers plying their weapons and magics to the crowd. Good; best let the rabble learn their place through bruises and blood.
Honestly, the man had been undoubtedly insane. Overthrowing the Guilds? While Orechnik himself was no great proponent of the Ten, he was also a realist. The Ten were integral to Ravnican society. Without them, there was no Ravnica. Sure, many of them had elves in their ranks, and perhaps the Orzhovs were extortionists and the Rakdos a bunch of murder-happy lunatics… but they were integrated into the very bedrock of the Ravnican machine. And one something was integrated, there was no point trying to dislodge it.
Overthrow the Ten? You might as well destroy the world, while you were at it, if you wanted that.
But enough of this rumination and reflection on the follies of his maddened lessers. He could afford no more distractions. He had a store to find, as well as other important appointments to keep afterwards.
Eventually, after a bit more walking, he found the recommended store. The sign above the door read Kobold's Quality Goods.
The doorbell tingled as he entered, revealing an interior that was neither spacious nor constricting, but rather somewhere comfortable in-between, filled with neatly-organized shelves and pieces of merchandise.
Seated at a desk at the far-left side of the room, between two shelves, hunched over a table-mounted magnifying glass and some odd bric-a-brac apparatus… was an elf.
Orechnik had to fight the urge to walk out of the store. An elf-run store was never a good thing, after all… no matter how highly recommended they might be.
Still… business before hatred, after all. Though he would make sure to have a stern word with the fools who had recommended this store in the first place.
Steeling himself and forcing the bile back down, Orechnik cleared his throat, the sound reverberating through the store.
The elf, more wizened that most he had seen (and fucked), looked up from his work, and peered at him through his opaque spectacles, making him look more like some strange, bug-eyed thing than anything else. "May I help you?"
Orechnik walked over to one of the shelves, doing his best not to look the knife-eared freak in the eye unless required. "You make… things, yes?" he asked, running a gloved hand across one of the shelves.
Clean. Hmmm.
The elf, Kobold, he presumed, made a noise of agreement. "Ah, yes. All sorts of things, good sir. Furniture, walls, homes, items for everyday usage and whatnot."
Orechnick then turned towards him, striding to the desk. "Mmmhmm…. Can you name me a few?"
The elf blinked behind his spectacles at the question. "Well… desks, shelves, sextants, clocks, vehicles-"
"And what of vaults?" Orechnik interjected.
"… On occasion, sir, though they are far from my only product, as you can tell."
Was he talking down to him? "And your products, your vaults… they are good work? Strong, sturdy, and dependable?"
The elf nodded, the thin chains on his spectacles jingling slightly. "Indeed. I know enough to make good, solid protection for your valuables, sir, and have done it long enough to continuously improve with every product made… though, as I have just said, it is not my singular profession."
Orechnik hmmmed, fighting the urge to snap at the thing. "Very humble of you."
"One does one's very best, sir, while endeavoring to not let one's ego become inflated. Now… how might I be of service to you, this day?"
Orechnick took a seat, his cane by his side, and his satchel across his lap. "Would it surprise you to know that you come highly recommended in this district, and even beyond it?"
"I don't pay much attention to accolades when it is not necessary to do so, sir. I simply do what is asked of me, and I do it to the best of my humble abilities. If people find my work adequate, then that is more than satisfactory to my mind."
Laying on thick, wasn't it? "A client of mine sings your praises in regards to the products you crafted for her, among which was the vault you made."
"And her pleasure is mine, good sir."
Time to get to brass tacks. "Do you know who I am?"
Kobold nodded. "I do, sir, and I am honored to have you in my shop, Mister Orechnik."
At least the elf knew his betters when he saw them. That proved this one knew his place.
"You have made many vaults," Orechnick then stated.
The elf raised a thin white brow. "Not that I am finding this back and forth unenjoyable, I must ask; are you here to purchase a vault, sir?"
"I am, among other things."
The elf rose from his desk, and Orechnik noted the slight stoop in the knife-ear's shoulders as he shuffled over to the shelf to the left of his desk, pulling down several thick tomes to lay upon the desk... "In that case, I have several catalogs, should you interested to peruse-"
"And what of the Deus Vault?"
The elf stumbled a bit as he took his seat. "…A fanciful tale, sir. Nothing more. Now, as for the catalogs, and, just so you know, I have done work for many high officials in the Orzhov church, at least a dozen of the esteemed Merchant-Lords in District Six, and even a good number of the cells for District Four. Perhaps we might start with some of those, see what catches your eye? Though, things…"
Orechnik felt the need to snarl an interjection at that. "Stop rambling. And stop lying, for I've heard whisperings that you were involved in its creation, Kobold. The most impenetrable vault ever crafted on Ravnica. I need that sort of security. More importantly, I want it."
Kobold blinked at him again. "Sir, I have no real knowledge of what you speak. The Governor of this District would not muck about with the likes of me. Now, here is a grand design, depending on what it is you wish to keep safe-"
Orechnik slammed his hand down hardshaking the desk. "Do not lie to me, knife-ear!"
The elf stared at him silently, shaking slightly as he took a seat.
Orechnik snarled again, and then dipped a hand into his satchel and removed a thick bundle of promissory notes. A single one could have been able to buy a modestly-sized manse, with comfortable amounts of leftovers for all the required furnishings… and there were twenty of the notes.
Slowly, Orechnik place the pile on the desk, and then slid the stack of notes towards the elf, who looked upon it with almost hungry eyes, his own hand reaching out towards it. "Now, I am prepared to offer you a great deal of money," Orechnick said as he withdrew his hand. "And the sum of that, I can assure you, is more than perhaps you will ever earn in your miserably long life. If you choose to refuse, though… I will do my best to completely and utterly ruin you."
The elf was silent for a long moment, his long fingers hovering just above the promissory notes. Then, finally, he spoke, slowly, carefully. "Sir… are you new to District Five?"
Orechnik quirked an eyebrow at the stupid question. "I come here only when it suits my interests. What of it?"
"If that is true, then allow me to impart upon you a word of good and solid advice that is always followed by all here; one does not talk of The Deus Vault openly or casually, sir, whether in public or in private, at least for longer than a few sentences. That is a solid and cardinal rule. Such talk can lead to… unwanted ideas and… unwanted attention…. The sort that leaves one screaming for days… sir."
Orechnik narrowed his gaze at the pointy-eared bastard, doing his best to refrain from striking the wretch down with his cane. "I take it, then, that you are refusing my potential patronage, and all the rewards that it would grant to you?" he slowly said.
The elf calmly slid the pile of promissory notes back towards Orechnik. "I will mourn the loss of your potential patronage, sir, and all the rewards it would have entailed for myself and mine, as I do my best to weather whatever blandishments you will no doubt levy my way to assuage your wounded pride… and then tomorrow, I will move on with my life as it is, mildly content with knowing that it will have the capacity to continue. Farewell and good day."
Orechnick's hand tightened around his cane…
He left the groaning elf nursing a large bruise on the side of his head, and the notes stuffed messily back into his satchel.
The gall, the cheek of that fucking knife-ear!
Now he was in a bad mood. Miserable, fucking, long-lived piece of shit. If only it had had the good sense to take his patronage, then all would be right with the world.
A pox on his other appointments for the day. He was too angry to focus. He needed a distraction, a release.
That one brothel he liked, the one with the readily-available basement. Yes, that would do nicely. Their knife ears were always so deliciously submissive…
Orechnik turned down the alleyway, and as he looked up-
…
…
…
He walked out of the alleyway calmly, almost silently, quickly becoming just another faceless facee in the crowd, the satchel full of promissory notes and any other valuables safely stowed at his side. Meanwhile, the knife he'd used was already clean and secreted away (you never threw away things that were not disposable except when necessary), and the businessman's cooling corpse was hidden neatly in the alleyway, not to be found, seen, or even smelled for a good long while… a year, at most, as per his orders.
A blessing, perhaps, that the man would not be terribly missed, from what he had seen of Orechnik's thoughts. Still… such a dirty business, this, but when was it ever anything else?
Though, as much as it galled him to admit, even to himself… he was mollified by the fact that the woman's intelligence had been spot on.
The store would be something to return to, of course. It and its wizened, evasive owner.
Besides, the businessman had brought his death on himself, even without the little nudge he had been given.
Honestly, but speaking of the Deus Vault, like that, without a care in the world? Such talk and arrogance was liable to drive anyone to a bad end, here in District Five…
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ruby
Inner Circle
District 5
Ravnica
"And bend and stretch and bend and stretch… Touch your toes, touch your toes not your ankles your toes your toes!"
With a slight groan, Ruby reached down as best she could. As it was, the girl from Patch could only barely do that.
Ruby had done backflips and somersaults before, leaping from branch to branch, building to building on a small wave of rose petals, and she could dodge and weave among enemies and grimm alike.
But dancing? That was a whole other ballgame, it seemed.
"A bit better, a bit better," Horatio declared, as Ruby teetered slightly. "I would say you are decent, but that would be a gross overestimation. Rakdo's bulging horned ballsack, but you need to get into the feel of it, and keep your bloody balance!"
Ruby now was trying very hard not to bring that image into her head…. While doing her best to reach down as she balanced on one foot with the other leg curled against her chest. "Doing… my… best," she grunted through gritted teeth, as sweat ran down her nose.
"Also, why… am I here too?" Jace grunted as he tried his best to remain balanced on one foot, all the while trembling as a leaf in a heavy wind.
"Every dancer needs a partner to work and reflect off of," Horatio replied, as he idly cleaned his fingernails with a conjured knife… while idly balancing on one foot. "… And since you're the only one here within Miss Tattoo-face's requirements, you'll have to do."
Almost on cue, Jace then fell over, face-first. "…Ow"
"Then why don't you dance with a partner?" Ruby asked, doing her best to ignore how her own leg and arm were shaking. After a moment, she set the other foot down, and then headed over to help Jace to his feet.
"Because I am not dancing right now," Horatio said, hands on his hips. "I am teaching and preforming. There is a difference. Now, enough fucking chit-chat! To your positions! From the top again, followed by the two-step, and then… handstands!"
Almost in sync, Jace and Ruby groaned. Not the handstands.
It was a long, long, long two hours, after that. And yet… also kind of fun, oddly enough. It also made Ruby wonder if this was anywhere like how Weiss had learned… or Jaune and his seven sisters. Because, again… this dancing stuff was really hard!
Especially the two-step. And to think it looked so easy on those old movies Yang actually lied to watch (not many people knew that Yang was a big romantic at heart).
As the trio rested and stretched (with Ruby and Jace both doing their best to ignore the oncoming soreness) there then came a knock on the gymansium's doors, and in walked one of the hotel's workers… or was he technically one of Anastasia's workers, since she owned the hotel (also, just how many businesses did she own?)?
"Greetings and salutations," Horatio said to the man, bombastically. "How might we be of service? If this is about what happened in the dining room, it was entirely for the sake of performance art, I can assure you… and I was less than impressed with the overabundance of sage in the chef's beurre noisette."
The hotel worker swallowed, though his face remained remarkably placid. "There is no issue with your… performances or…critiques, Mister Horatio," he said. "And the chef has already been well-informed of your dislike. But that is not why I am here."
He then turned to Ruby. Lady Zolatova wishes to see you, Miss Rose," the hotel worker said. "At once. She says it's urgent."
Ruby and Jace exchanged a confused look, while Horatio laughed. "Well, seems the lesson must be cut a bit short today," the rakdosian said. "AAnd I was so looking forward t to the next bit. Well, something to look forward to for the next time."
Ruby could not help but feel a bit unsettled at that… and she was sure Jce felt the same way.
Horatio then clapped his hands together. "Right…Best get on with it, then, Ruby. Can't keep the debtors waiting if you can't set them on fire."
Ruby did her best not to dwell on that last bit of his sentence as she wiped at her face with her towel, and then hurried out.
Clack.
Whirrrrrr.
Ding.
Ruby nodded at the operator, exited the elevator and knocked on Anastasia's door. Mumblechance promptly answered it, and gave her a nod.
"Come in, Ruby," she heard Anastasia say from within the suite, accompanied by her ever-present sound of pen against paper.
The main room's furniture had all been pushed aside to make space for what seemed to me a massage table, a step-stool, and a small table laden with rags, a large bowl of water, and several other things.
Seated at a desk at the other end of the table was Anastasia, scribbling away.
"What's… going on?" Ruby slowly asked.
"Take a lie-down," Anastasia said, as she took a sip from her ever-present cup of tea with her free hand.
"Okay… why?"
"Simple; Mumblechance here is going to give you a massage," Anastasia said, while the aforementioned Thrull waddled up the step-stool, and rubbed a lotion over his hands before cracking his knuckles.
"I'm sorry, what now?"
"A massage," The Orzhovian stated, as she took another sip. "To ease the strain from your no-doubt tired muscles. As a player in the games, I need you in tip-top shape. Now, enough questions. Shirt off and lie down, and let Mumblechance do his work"
"Oh um… okay. Though, can Mumblechance turn around first or something…"
Anastasia looked up at her a long moment, and then glanced towards her thrull manservant. Mumblechance promptly turned around, though he did clear his throat, as if impatient for her to begin.
The massage table was surprisingly comfortable and…
Ruby felt Mumblechance's hands on her back and…
Wow. Wow that… that felt…
"How are you feeling?" Anastasia inquired, as she sipped.
"Tired and worn out," Ruby replied, groaning as Mumblechance's surprisingly soft and skilled hands massaged her back. "Also… sore. Very sore…. And possibly bruised."
Why did dancing involve so much pain!? Also, how was Mumblechance so good at this?
She heard the Orzhovian hmmm at that. "Good. That means you're improving, bit by bit."
"It also means I'm probably gonna bruise, bit by bit."
Anastasia shrugged. "Pain is simply weakness leaving the body. The more pain you feel now, the less weakness that remains."
Ruby craned her head up towards the tattooed woman. "I don't think that's how it works… at all."
"It has, at least in my experience."
Ruby was not the best with the subtleties of human words and stuff and social cues (Weiss had tried teaching her once, alongside how to eat at a prim and proper dinner… and that lesson had then ended up with a wrecked bookshelf on fire, Jaune covered in custard cream, and Blake curled up in a corner rocking back and forth with a haunted look in her eyes… and tears, lots of tears)… but she could tell there was something behind that… and that maybe it was best not to pry.
After an awkward moment, Ruby coughed and then groaned out again as Mumblechance kneaded at a spot between her shoulder blades (and boy, did that felt good). "So… what's next?"
"What's next is that you and Mysl will be going through a training exercise tonight."
Ruby looked up and cocked her brow at the Orzhovian. "…What kind of 'training exercise'?"
All she received was that smile again as the woman set down her empty cup (how much tea did she drink?), all the while she still scribbled away. "An important one. But for now? Now… Mumblechance here shall finish your massage. After… you are to head back downstairs. Sam will be waiting for you in the gymnasium, so take that large transforming scythe of yours with you."
Ruby tilted her head a bit, even as she let loose another groan as Mumblechance continued to knead her back. "Her name is Crescent Rose. Also, what am I doing with Mr. Vimes downstairs in the gym?"
"He will be teaching you how to properly fight, Ruby.…"
Ruby craned her head up in confusion. "Wait, how to fight?"
Half-an-hour later (and with her shirt back on and her muscles a bit less sore), Ruby was back in the hotel's gymnasium, standing across from Vimes and his perpetually scowling face, bare feet on the padded floor, all the while Crescent Rose's comforting weight rested at her back.
"Cards on the table; I don't want to fucking be here," the half-elf bluntly declared, bared and brawny arms crossed against his chest.
Dressed in a sleeveless exercise shirt and pants, Ruby could see that the Boros sergeant was about as muscular as her dad, if not a bit more. Said bared and brawny arms were also pockmarked with a multitude of scars and cuts and faded bruises.
Ruby looked up at the Boros' scowling, bearded face. "Good to know," she replied, resting a hand on Crescent Rose from where it hung at her waist. "Any reason for telling me that?"
He shrugged, still scowling. "Because I have a thing about being honest at the start of all things, girl. Keeps the air bloody fresh and all, whether you're starting a conversation, hauling in a perp, or filling out bloody piles of bloody paperwork. Dishonesty and double talk, that there is Ana's fucking thing, her and that pale Dimiri skulker."
He then sighed, and let his arms hang at his sides. "Right then… let's go and get on with this shite. Show me what you can do."
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
He rolled his eyes. "I want you to take that weird weapon of yours, and show me how you fight. Go through some warm-ups, exercises, whatever you call them. Let's see what I have to work with here."
He then took several steps back, and made a 'get-on-with-it-because-I'm-already-impatient' gesture.
Well, okay then. Time to knock his socks off with her epic moves!
Once Crescent Rose was unfurled and secure in her hands, Ruby began to move, the forms and attacks familiar. Cut, slice, slash, leap, pirroute-
"Stop, stop, stop, STOP!" Vimes yelled suddenly, making her almost stumble.
She then turned to blink in owlish confusion. "What's wrong?"
He looked at her like she was stupid. "Who, in the name of Razia's tireless and martyred gaze, taught you how to fight like that?"
She blinked again. "My dad… and my uncle. Since I was six."
"That's how you've been fighting? Since you were six."
"Yeah."
"And this was taught to you by your uncle and father?"
"Mostly my uncle, but yeah."
"Mhm… and how old are you, girl?"
Where was he going with this? "I'm almost sixteen."
"I see. So, just to sum it all up; you've been fighting like that, with all the leaping and massive scything and dashing all about, you've been fighting like that for almost ten years now, and have been taught said motions and way of fighting by your aforementioned father and uncle."
Seriously, where was he going with this? "Yeah. What's the problem?"
Vimes' face turned stony. "The problem is that it's painfully obvious they did a poor and rather shite job of it, and that they wasted the last ten years of your life teaching you that sort of fighting, girlie."
Ruby reeled back form the blunt vitriol. "Wh-what the heck is that supposed to mean!?" she exclaimed.
He scoffed, almost spitting to the side, even. "All that twirling about… half of it looks like you're putting on a fucking show for some easily-entertained audience, and the other half looks twice as useless and four times as idiotic." He swiftly held up a hand to cut off her response that movement was necessary in combat. "Not. Finished. Now, firstly; that monstrosity you call a scythe… how do you use it in close quarters?"
"Huh?"
He strode over to her. "Close quarters, girl. For instance; say you're fighting a bloke, and the two of you are in between two close walls, little space to move about."
He then suddenly jabbed at her shoulder with a fist. "Well? How do you retaliate, then, with your big old scythe thing, eh?"
He jabbed her again, harder. "Ow! Stop it!"
"No." Jab. "Now answer me; How do you use that thing without the maneuverability it requires?" Jab. "Secondly; what if you don't have a weapon, and you can't turn tail and run?" Jab. "Sure, you also have magic, but there are those who know how to fight mages and wizards and what not." Jab. "So, what." Jab. "Do." Jab. "You." Jab. "Do?"
Ruby darted backwards across the gym's floor in a small burst of her semblance; Crescent Rose held protectively before her. "Stop jabbing me already!"
He grunted. "Alright then… put that hulking scythe aside and throw a punch at me."
"…Huh?"
He walked up to her… and then jabbed her hard again. "You heard me. Drop the big metal monstrosity you call a scythe, and throw a punch, hard as you bloody can. Try and hit me, and, if it's good, if it actually hurts and leaves a bruise… then I'll let up. I'll even sing the praises of your father and uncle from here to Sunhome until they put me in the fucking ground. But only if you punch me."
When she didn't, he narrowed his eyes… and then raised his hand. Only, instead of jabbing her… he instead cuffed her upside the head. As she ran back, he started to chase after her around the gymnasium. "I said punch me, girl, don't run away! If you can't throw a bloody punch, then you've got no right saying you know how to bloody fight, girl! Now punch me go and hard, you scarlet-haired, taught-by-a-useless-father-and-uncle sissy!"
Okay, that was it!
Ruby tossed aside a folded-up Crescent Rose, dashed forward, reared back her fist and threw a punch, as hard as she could.
Almost absently, he batted it aside and rapped her upside the forehead. Bonk!
"Pitiful!" he declared. "Try again!"
She did, and failed. "Again!"
Again. Again. Again. Again. For half-an-hour, this went on, until she was fairly certain she had gained some new bruises. Then… he called for a halt with a raised hand and a shaking head.
"Absolute bollocks," he declared, as he glared at her. "Absolutely fucking bloody bollocks on a bloody boudoir. Your big an' fancy scythe… thing's fine for outside and open fights and all that shite… but bollocks for up close stuff. And since your arms are as spindly as desiccated twigs…"
He ignored Ruby's affronted yelp as he walked over to the weapons rack, and withdrew two wooden daggers, before swiftly turning and tossing one to her as he strode back. "As we work on the punch, we'll start with how to fight with these," he said, as she briefly fumbled with the knife. "And none of your fancy shite here, all that twirling about; yer gonna learn how to bash someone with the flat of the blade, slice them in the thigh and eyes and nose, how to stab. You're also gonna learn how to grapple, how to grab at your opponent's nose and ears and jab at their eyes, knee them in the bloody groin and whatnot, stick your pigsticker in said groin and legs, fight dirty and fight fast. And, most importantly… how to throw a fucking punch and not get bloody distracted!"
Before she could blink, he was in front of her and whacked her hard in the shoulder, and she stumbled back from the hit, only for him to surge forward, knife flashing. Instinctually, she raised her own knife to block, only for him to suddenly blow a bit of smoke into her face. As she automatically rubbed at her face, flailing her other hand about with the dagger and coughing, her flagging breath was suddenly driven from her lungs by a knee to her stomach. Then, she felt the flat of his knife whack against her face, and down she went.
As she laid on the floor and groaned (and feeling several bruises forming about her person), Vimes stood over her, and grunted. "This… is going to need to work. If I was serious, you'd already be dead in the street, fancy scythe by your side, and neck sporting a new smile. So… let's start with the bloody basics, then. Up."
As Ruby slowly sat up, Vimes then held out a hand. When she didn't immediately take it, he glared at her. "You really want to be difficult here, girl? We're supposed to be doing this, and so we are. None of us got any fucking say in the matter, lest you forget."
Still, Ruby said nothing. If she took the hand, he was just going to beat her up again. To drive the point home, she tossed the dagger in her hand away, the wooden weapon clattering against the ground.
Vimes was silent for a spell, staring down at her… and then sighed. "I'm not the best at this sort of thing, kid, but unless you want Ana to add another double-digit's worth of interest to the chain that she already has hanging around our necks… we have to do this, apparently. 'Sides, you're in the Games… and that sort of shite requires you to play for keeps."
"So I've been told," Ruby finally said, still not taking his hand. "But if all this 'training' is just going to be you beating the crap out of me while insulting my family, then I really don't think I want to go through with this."
He tilted his head at her, and then knelt down beside her on one knee. "All right…. Cards on the table?"
She cocked her head at him, briefly noting the dark circles under his eyes. "Yeah?"
"I don't want to be doing this."
"I can tell."
"Be quiet and let me finish. I don't want to be doing this, having to be teaching a little izzet know-it-all how to fight. I don't want to have to be under Ana's thumb again. Hells, I don't even want to be here, in this shitty District, having to muck bout with hypocrites and hedonists and shite… but… fuck it, we're doing this, her thumb is right smack-dab on my fucking head, and we're here, in perhaps the shittiest District on Ravnica… and I'm not about to let a little kid like you just die in a situation beyond her control without a better know-how of how to at least go down bloody-well swinging that might at least net her a chance of getting out the other side alive, alright? Now me? I'm a grumpy and jaded old bastard, I'll admit that without apology, and I've seen and done too much shite in this fucking city to think otherwise… but I'm not a monster who lets kids die."
He stood up, and held out his hand to her again. "So how about we make the best of a bad fucking thing, yeah?"
Ruby looked up at him, and for a moment, she wasn't in a gymnasium in a hotel in District Five on the plane of Ravnica.
…
It hurt.
She hadn't it expected to hurt. They never told you about that part in the stories, how training hurts.
She did her bestnot to cry but…
It hurt.
"You okay, kiddo?" Uncle Qrow asked.
Ruby winced as she wiped at her eyes. "… It hurts," she answered.
From where he stood in Sigil's main sparring arena, Uncle Qrow sighed as he scratched at his head. "I know kid but… look…If you wanna be a huntress, kid, if that's what you really want, then ya have to understand; getting hurt is just… just a part of it. IN this line of work, people get hurt, doing this sort'a thing, training to be the best, fighting criminals and terrorists and grimm. You're gonna get bruised and beaten black and blue, and so will whoever you work with, sometimes worse, even. I won't be able to stop that, me, or your dad or Yang or whoever you end up working with, down the line. Crap happens; stupid pointless crap that will happen around and to you more times than you'll like, and it always will happen, regardless. But… at the very least, we're gonna make sure you don't make it easy, yeah?"
He then walked over and held out his hand towards her, his sparring scythe slung across his shoulder. "So, come on, kiddo. Ready to go another round?"
…
Ruby could help but chuckle as she took Vimes' hand, and he pulled her to his feet. "Heck yeah," she whispered.
The Boros sergeant raised an eyebrow at her chuckling. "What's so bloody funny?"
"Nothing. So, shall we go another round?"
He nodded at that. "Right, now, the first thing about throwing a punch is, of course, the fist. But, before that, get your bloody dagger…"
They sparred for a good few hours after that, until close to six, with fist and dagger. Or rather, it wasn't so much sparring as it was him beating her black-and-blue, and she did her best to remember how he did it, and trying not to get beaten again.
Still… she thought she learned a few things, at least. Like how to throw a functional punch, at least (first two knuckles), and how to use a dagger.
Huh… why had she never really asked Yang or Dad how to throw a good punch before?
As Ruby wiped at her face with a damp towel that she had wetted in the gymnasium's sink, Vimes took a swig of water and grunted. "Well… You're gonna need a good amount of bloody work with this, kid, not to mention building up a shite-load of muscle (though how you lug that scythe of yers is beyond my bloody comprehension)… but… maybe not as much I first thought. Not bad."
Ruby decided to take it. Besides… he wasn't exactly wrong. One was never an instant expert at anything after all… and she was the first to admit that she still sucked when it came to fighting without Crescent Rose.
Dinner was held in Anastasia's room, that evening; a working dinner, to be precise, as they all had been since arriving, the massive chalkboard filling up more and more, bit by bit. Though, the only ones in attendance tonight were Anastasia, Ruby, Mumblechance, Rat, and Jace. Through it all, Anastasia kept scribbling away in her large book.
While Rat busied herself with eating what looked like more than twice her bodyweight in food (most of which was meat), Jace and Ruby chatted. "So, how was the… rest of today?" the mental mage asked.
Ruby shrugged. "Got a massage… and then learned how to throw a punch."
Jace nodded at that as he swallowed a mouthful of bread. "Neat, neat…."
"What about you?"
"Me? Uh…" his eyes then glanced towards Anastasia for a second, and then back at Ruby. "You know… stuff for the mission. Not… not really allowed to talk about it, you know?"
Ruby decided not to press forward. Despite her lack of knowledge in regard to social cues and reading body language (Weiss' words), she could tell that pressing would probably not be a great idea. Sure, he was being paid now, apparently… but the last thing she wanted was someone else shackled with debt. Especially a fellow planeswalker and friend. "Cool," she replied. "Well, whatever it is that you're doing to help, I'm sure that you doing awesome at it," she then said with a smile.
That made him pause in his eating to look at her… and then he smiled back. "Thanks."
"I forgot to tell you earlier but… I had… fun, with the dancing part, earlier today," Jace said.
Ruby blinked. "Oh? Uh, yeah… me… me too. It was fun."
"Glad you both enjoyed yourselves," Anastasia interjected. "Because there are many more lessons coming up."
For some reason… in that moment, that didn't bother Ruby quite as much.
The rest of the tasty dinner passed in relative silence, with Anastasia requesting that Ruby stay behind. After she bid the others goodnight, Ruby looked towards the Orzhovian while Mumblechance busied himself with clearing away and cleaning the dishes in the apartment's kitchen. "So… what is it?"
"There's a change of clothing for you in my bathroom," Anastasia said, pointing in the room's direction with her free hand as she kept jotting down things. "Clean up there and then get changed."
Ruby blinked. "Okay… why?"
"Because I am asking you to, Ruby. Now hurry up, and stop dawdling."
Ruby knew better than to argue, so she did as she was asked, though her mind was abuzz with questions. What she found waiting for her in the bathroom only added to them.
After her bath, she examined the laid-out-clothes. The outfit was a somewhat form-fitting suit of dark, padded leather and silk with expertly-placed buckles and straps to keep it as loose or as tight as needed, complete with sleeveless gloves, and small pouches, a hood, flat-footed boots… and a harness festooned with two dagger sheathes to fit under her armpits against her chest… as well as two daggers for said harness. There was even a small band with which to keep her hair back.
It all fit… rather well, truth be told. It also made her look a bit like a cat burglar… or at least like Blake when she went hunting for overborrowed books (that had been a nerve-wracking day)….
When she returned to the main room, cinching the last buckle into place, it was to find Mysl quietly standing by Anastasia's desk, dressed much the same as she was, save for a tightly-strapped satchel at his side… and Anastasia, still engrossed in her scribbling.
"As I told you earlier, Mysl will be your teacher for this evening," the Orzhovian explained.
"What kind of lesson?" Ruby found herself asking.
"An important kind," Anastasia said, though she did not look up from her writing. "Now, off with the both of you. Chop-chop. Have fun… and try not to topple the guild system while you're out and about, Mysl, yes?"
Ruby saw Mysl blink at that as he and Ruby walked out. Ruby wandered what Ana meant by that, but decided it was perhaps best not to ask.
Ruby followed Mysl to the elevator, and he asked for the operator to take them… up?
"Uh… what are we doing up here?" she asked, as they exited onto the hotel's roof.
Mysl looked out over the rooftops. There were so many that they all seemed to slowly coalesce into a formless, shapeless mass of brick and mortar and metal and wood, stretching far off into the night.
"How agile would you say you are, Ruby Rose?"
"Huh?"
"Answer the question, please," he said. "How fast can you run and leap?"
"Uh… pretty well," she answered.
"Then try to keep me in sight. Try and keep up."
A moment later, he was already running and leaping across the rooftops, so fast that she had little time to react, and he was already far ahead. "Wh-wait up!" she cried out, before hurrying after him with a small burst of her semblance.
Already she could barely make him out in the darkness, even with the lights of the District's inner circle. Seriously, how was he so fast? Magic? But she could still see him, a small blur far ahead. Across rooftops she ran and sped, trying trying trying to keep up. A part of her thought to use her semblance but what if that was against the rules of the lesson!?
In the distance, her silver eyes could just barely make out him turning a corner around a large chimney stack, and she dashed and leaped towards it, banked a hard right and-
Ruby whipped her head about as she skidded to a stop, trying to get some idea of where he had gone. What the… he had stopped here! She had seen it! Man, she had a hard enough time trying to tack things in the wilderness, let-alone city rooftops and-
"Look behind you."
She whirled around, and then only barely managed to avoid the dagger swipe to her head. "Wh-what the-"
The knife flashed again, and Ruby hastily jumped back, awkwardly unsheathing one of her own daggers, holding it in an unsteady reverse grip.
Cling.
Cling.
Cling.
Mysl was fast.
Cling.
Cling.
Cling.
He then swept out her legs from under her, and before she could rush back to her feet or even bring her dagger up to bear, he already had a knife's cold edge resting against her neck.
For a long, horrifying moment, he just… stared at her, passionless blue-and-black eyes meeting terrified and confused silver ones, knife against her throat.
Then, he lifted away the dagger, and hauled her to her feet. "You need to learn how not to get caught off guard," he said, so casual as if he had not just had a knife against her throat. "And watch your legs. Balance means the difference between life and death."
As she rubbed at her throat, Ruby looked at him as if he were insane. "Wh… what the heck was all that!?" she exclaimed.
"Keep your voice down," the vampire said. "This might not be a residential area, but there are still people who live here. You need to learn how not to exclaim so loudly; it can blow your cover in an instant."
"I'm sorry, but you just had a freaking knife to my throat, Mysl," she hissed, while also trying to keep her heart down to normal beats. "That sort of thing tends to stick in a girl's mind, you know. What the heck?"
His expression was flat. "To take a page out of that loudmouth Horatio's
ideologies… the trick is to not think too hard about this, and just take the leap."
"That still doesn't answer the question."
He rolled his eyes at that, and then briefly looked at her as if she were stupid or something. "Learning on the go is much preferable, I've found, to simply listening to rote repletion and lectures. From what I've observed of you, your mind works much the same way."
"That still does not answer the question."
"Because you're not listening, Ruby. In the Games, you have to keep an eye on everything and everyone. Focus on just one thing, lose track of your surroundings, your quarry… and, in the best-case scenario, you will lose. Understand?"
There was actually a bit of stony firmness in his voice, which was enough to surprise Ruby, so she nodded silently.
He narrowed his eyes at her a moment, and then sheathed his dagger and turned. "Good. Now, keep following me… whatever happens. Whichever route I take, you take as well. If leap, you leap. If I climb, you climb. Understand?"
They dashed across the night-lit rooftops, Ruby following his every move as best she could. When he leaped, she leapt as high as she could. When he climbed up, she was like a monkey (not a particularly graceful monkey, but one nonetheless that was decent at climbing, at least).
And not once did she use her semblance.
Then, as they ran… they approached a wide gap, the other rooftop a good number of feet away, noticeable even from a distance. She could also see the faint glimmer of the streetlight below.
She watched as he all but vaulted across the gap, landing lightly on the other rooftop. His instructions ringing in her ears (don't stop don't stop do as I do), Ruby did not even stop and…
For a brief moment… Ruby felt like she was soaring. Closer and closer towards the roof she descended, as if she were sliding up and down a curved arch-
Then she was falling, fast, and her hands and feet flailed about until-
She just barely gripped the edge off the roof with one hand, barely by her fingertips.
There was nothing for her to put a foot on, and a fall from this height would not be great. This was bad this was bad this was bad, and she had no traction to use her semblance SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE-
A leather-clad hand then gripped her arm and wrist tight, and Ruby looked up with renewed hope into Mysl's blue-black eyes. "Thank you!" she whispered. "Help me up, please
As he gripped her tight, and instead of puller her up, he then looked her dead in the eye. "Do you trust me?" he asked her, his voice even and still.
WHAT!?
"Please pull me up!" she cried out
In reposnce to that, he instead rougly pulled her hand away from the rooftop, and dangled her over the edge, his grip a vice around her wrist and arm, making her panic multiply tenfold as she resumed flailing. "Answer the question first," he said, voice as still as ice. "Do you trust me? Do you trust me not to drop you? Right now, I am all that lies between you and splattering on the cobblestones below. Answer it, or I let go and this all ends."
Her eyes were all but bulging out of her skull. "Yes! Yes, I freaking trust you! I trust you!"
At that… he nodded, narrowed his eyes, and then hauled her up with one hand, depositing her safely onto the roof.
She gulped in lungful after lungful of sweet, sweet air as she laid upon the layered tiles of the roof.
"Not bad," Mysl said, as he looked down at her with an outstretched hand. "But it needs work."
"…I figured," Ruby replied, as she was pulled to her feet. "So… why not just tell me we were doing so much rooftop parkour and also what the heck was all that back there with you threatening to drop me like that!?"
He raised an eyebrow at the whispered outburst, almost as if confused by her fearful confusion. "Let me answer that with a question of my own," he replied. "Why do you trust me?"
Ruby felt confused by the question. "Wh… what does that even have to do with anything?"
"Everything. Consider it part of the lesson. Now, answer the question, please. Why do you trust me?"
Ruby took a few deep breaths to steady herself, and then shrugged. "…Because you seem like the kind of person who can be trusted?" she replied.
Mysl shook his head, his thin brows furrowing slightly. "That's a very naïve answer, Ruby. Naïve and foolish, and reeking of unsurity. For all you know, I could be pretending, putting on a calming air to get you and the others to drop your guard, all the better to slit your throats in your sleep. Besides, I had just threatened to drop you, let you die, splattered on the streets below. Try again. Why do you trust me, even after what just happened?"
Ruby recoiled slightly at his reasoning. "Because I… just do?"
He crossed his arms, no looking even more cross as he stepped towards her. "Now you sound even more unsure of yourself, and it's trying my patience. Trust is a precious thing, one that people always seem more than eager to give and receive so wantonly and without forethought. Trust should be only given out under the best circumstances, but instead, you seem to just give it away as if it were just zibs in your pocket. You can't win expect to win the Games if you are unsure of yourself in any way, especially in regards to something like this. So why?"
Ruby was starting to feel a bit afraid. "I… I don't know why-"
"And that is even worse!" Now he was actually shouting, even if it was still in a whisper-like fashion. "Trust without understanding is as good as tattooing a target on your own back with poisoned needles! So why do you trust me, and why do you give it so easily? Anastasia used it to get you into her debt, and yet you still seem to trust her, trust me! So why?"
Ruby couldn't even formulate a response, and instead stammered out noises more than words. "I-I-"
"Just answer the question! Why do you think you can trust me?!"
…
The woman smiled at her with amber-colored eyes.
"This is not an accident."
Mercury smirked. "Let's just keep this between friends."
…
"Because you seem real!"Ruby hissed. "Because you're not fake!"
…
She smiled, humor dancing in her amber eyes. Humor she now realized had been mocking and cruel… the same with Mercury, as he walked around and laughed at her…
Mysl fell silent, and stared at her as Ruby kept going. "Because you aren't trying to get me to trust you, buttering me up with false things. Practically the opposite, whenever you do speak up, which isn't even that much during group meetings, mind you. You aren't… making me think you're my friend, putting on a show, pretending to laugh at my jokes and pretending that your smile when you see me is the real thing (not that you ever seem to smile either). And… you did save my life, back in Agryem, and I don't think you would have let me fall, back there, not really, even if you were really trying to make it seem like you were. In my… small experience, that says a lot. Even Anastasia… sure she did some underhanded stuff but… at least she's upfront about it, and not pretending otherwise."
It was all coming out now, as Ruby sniffed, as cruel miles danced in her memory. "A pretender… they wouldn't do any of that. They wouldn't ever go the extra mile, tell the truth, do something that… real. They'd… they'd just smile, and say nice things to you… right up until the moment they stab you in the back and then laugh about it…. Or just let you drop to the ground dead, as everything around you starts to burn."
She sniffed again, her eyes growing heavy and wet. "But yeah… maybe I am too trusting… but I don't want to be any other way. To trust… it's to live, to embrace the world, to be able to smile and laugh and… the kind of person who doesn't trust at all? That's not a person at all… that's just a lump of paranoia with arms and legs… and that's no way to live… and I want to live."
She wiped at her eyes slightly and then sat down on the rooftop, memories of a smiling girl with green eyes floating in her head, even as she was cut down, and she gloated about it as the grimm poured in, and as her friends burned….
Mysl stared at her a long moment, as if she were some strange, eldritch thing he was unable to comprehend. As he stared, and as she sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, the only sound was that of the gentle night breeze.
"…I am sorry you had to experience that sort of thing, Ruby," he then said, softly, almost gently.
Ruby took a shuddering breath. "… Are you?"
He nodded. "I am. And… I think that way of looking at the world, the way you do… it is admirable. I really think that. I doubt I could ever have such a mindset, truth-be-told. So, the fact that you do… well, that's almost fantastic. Nothing short of a miracle, even after the past few months."
Everything was silent again for a bit, and then a thought occurred to Ruby, making her look up at him. "Do you… want to be trusted, Mysl?"
He raised an eyebrow at her question, as if caught off-guard. "What do you mean by that?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, it's just that… the way you were talking earlier… it almost sounded as if you didn't want people to trust you. Like you go out of your way to make people not trust you, like when you say or do very little, you know? And that… well, that sounds terrible to me, that sort of thinking; terrible and lonely. Is it… is it because you're a Dimir or something?"
Unblinking, he stared at her a long moment with his black-and-blue eyes… and then sighed and held out a long-fingered hand. "…We still have training to do, and very little time to waste," he said. "Follow me, and be quiet unless I tell you otherwise, please."
Ruby looked at the hand a heartbeat… and then took it, letting him pull her to her feet. This time, she did not have to chase after him, as they traversed the rooftops, as he made sure she could keep pace with him, even as they leaped and swung about (though thankfully not anymore large gaps). Granted, he was a good deal more graceful than she was but… oddly enough, it seemed almost fun, in a thrill-seeking sort of way.
Eventually, they came to a stop on a wide and large roof that was at once flat and angled. Mysl gestured for her to crouch low as they approached the rooftop's one, large window, darkened as it was on the inside.
"What are we doing here?" she asked.
"We are going to learn a time-hallowed skill," he explained, as they crouched by the darkened window. "Now, what do you know about locks?"
Ruby cocked her head at him. "That… keys make them work?"
"You're not wrong. But now, we're going to learn how to use alternative methods to manipulate said locks."
Ruby nodded along… and then registered what he said. "Wait are we just breaking into some random place?"
He shook his head as he withdrew a small roll of picks and screws and things. "No. Now pay attention, please… and keep your voice down. We're going to be starting with windows."
He held up a pick. "With windows, the trick is to get the pick inserted into the sill's latch. For most, the latch is at the bottom, in the center. See there?"
He then pointed towards the described area. "But this window, the latch is not at the bottom in the center. Want to know how you can tell?"
Despite herself, Ruby found herself becoming interested. "How?"
"The stress marks, the slight indentation on the sill. On an ordinary window, there would be a slight indentation, small groove in the sill, whether it's wood or stone. But the indentation here is more spread out. Thus, what does that say?"
Ruby was not entirely sure what it meant, but she still thought about it for a moment. "…that it slides from side to side, instead of up and down?"
He glanced at her, and nodded. "Correct. Now, try and discern which side has the latch. Use your fingers."
Ruby flexed her hand, and began to slowly run her fingertips up and down the rectangular window. It was wood, so that meant it would have to be easier right?
She doubted that she would be anything close to good at this (and she also could not believe that she was being taught how to pick a window lock at all), and, for the moment, it was not as if she could feel anything at all…
Then again…
Well, it was kind of like trying to ferret out impurities in components for weapons, wasn't it? Feeling for hairline fractures, picking out the slighting bits of oxidation and whatnot? Huh. Wasn;t that a thing, how similar a bunch of activities could-
Hey.
Hold on.
She glided her fingers back over the area. On the left side of the outer sill, not at its center but in the upper side…
There.
"It's right here," she whispered, as she tapped the point.
Mysl nodded. "Very good, Ruby. Now, to open it…."
He held up a small tool that seemed to have a drill head at the end of it, and started attaching a small crank to the other end. "First, start tapping the area. Feel the point where the middle of the latch seems to be?"
Ruby lightly tapped the window area, her fingers sussing out the thickest point, the point with the firmest resistance. "Yes. I feel it."
Mysl nodded. "Good. Now…Wind in the drill there, through where the middle is, since that's where the main mechanism is situated. Here."
He handed her the drill. She looked at it a long moment as she took it, feeling its solidity in her swallowed, and then… slowly pressed it against the wood, and began to rotate the crank. Slowly, slowly she drilled and drilled, small wood shavings littering the roof, until-
Mysel nodded, once she met a solid thing inside. "Good… you feel that? That resistance?"
"Yeah."
"That's the main latch mechanism. Now, remove the drill, and insert this…"
He took back the drill, and then produced something that looked a bit like a dentist's pick, only with several serrations at the end. "Once inside, jiggle it about, and then you should hear a slight click. That's the sound of the pick's teeth latching on the mechanism's gears. You got it?"
Ruby did so, and, ever so slightly, she heard the click. "It's in."
"Alright, now, test which direction the latch turns. Gently, gently. Too hard and the pick breaks, okay?"
"Got it. It turns to the left."
"Then I think you know what to do."
This time, there was a slightly louder click as she undid the latch. It was still quiet, but it sounded much louder in Ruby's ears. Not a bad sound, perhaps, but just….
…
Yeah.
As the latch clicked open, Ruby quietly withdrew the pick, deciding not to follow that train of thought for now.
"Care to do the honors?" Mysl asked.
Slowly, slowly, the window slid to the right.
"Good, now… before we head in… put on your mask, and this as well…"
As Ruby slipped the straps about her head and the cloth over her lower face, Mysl reached into a pouch at his side, and withdrew two… well, she was not entirely sure what they were.
The little metal objects looked like things crafted solely from spikes and curves, for lack of any better descriptor. The metal was cool to touch, and the object, despite its bulk, was light in weight.
"Like this," Mysl said, as he slipped the device around his right ear.
Ruby looked down her own device for a long moment. Then, she swallowed and did the same.
It wasn't… uncomfortable but-
The moment it touched skin, Ruby felt a strange sensation pulsate through her head… almost like the ripples made in cold and shadowy water, or at least being dunked into a cold bath. Strange, uncomfortable, and yet almost crystalizing.
"Can you hear me?" came a voice in her head.
Ruby had to work very hard not to react. It was Mysl's voice but… muted, in a way, like over a phone.
Quickly, she put two and two together, and looked up at his own masked face. "Telepathic devices?"
"Very astute, Ruby. These should help to keep thigs a bit less… noisy, for what comes next. Now, follow me."
Slowly, slowly, the vampire set foot onto the floor, looked about the darkened space, and then gestured for Ruby to follow him.
The boots were doing wonderfully, as they made hardly a sound on the floor as Ruby entered, her silver eyes flitting about as she did so. The room they had entered… it was sparse, like a storage room for those who had too little to bother using it, perhaps.
They then slowly exited the room into a large corridor-like hallway. The building seemed larger on the inside then what little Ruby had seen of it outside. "Follow," Mysl said quietly.
He seemed fond of that word.
"What exactly are we doing in here?" Ruby 'whispered.'
"I have found a lesson is best learned via a more… hands-on approach," the vampire replied, as they crept through the unlit building, which seemed sumptuously decorated with tapestries and other rich-people things. "And at the moment, the lesson is learning how to remain undetected by others."
That crystallized in Ruby's brain almost immediately, and she stopped in her tracks at the implication. "Wait… are there people in here?"
In lieu of an answer, his head perked up. Then, he suddenly grabbed her, and pressed her and himself against a shadowy wall, a finger against his masked lips for silence as his hand on her shoulder, while his eyes briefly glowing black and blue, before dying down.
A moment later there came the sound of footsteps… and an armed guard walked right by them, girded in a breastplate, and wielding a sharp-looking halberd resting against her shoulder.
Ruby watched the guard go by with wide and fearful eyes. They were right next to her; they were going to get caught and thrown in whatever jail they had on Ravnica and-
The guard kept on walking. Walking right past them. She didn't even stop.
They waited until her footsteps faded away. Ruby's heart, she doubted it had ever beaten so fast before…
After a moment longer, Mysl lifted his hand from Ruby's shoulder slowly, and then gestured for her to follow him.
Ruby swallowed, and then 'voiced' her question. "How…?"
"A bit of perception magic, mixed with shadow manipulation," he answered. "Not enough to be overt, but just enough to work, yes?"
Ruby nodded. "I guess that makes sense?"
"I should hope so. Remember, learn as we go, learn as we go…"
They continued on, after that, passing through more hallways and shadowed alcoves, and creeping down stairways when the coast was clear of armored guards, until they reached one hallway that terminated at a wall. On the left side were huge, drape-covered windows, and on the right side were three doorways.
Mysl tapped her on the shoulder, and then pointed towards the farthest doorway. "Now… I want you to go into that room. Then I want you to, as quietly as possible, look through every inch of it, and take whatever seems important. Leave no stone untunred, as it were , and put it all into the pouches on your belt and harness, okay?"
Ruby blinked… and then looked at him in horror. "We're stealing things?"
"Yes, and be quiet as you go about it. I'll keep watch. Now get going."
Ruby rapidly shook her head. "I'm not okay with this. I am not okay with stealing things from a random house, thank-you-very-much. That sort of thing never ends well. Bad enough people are in her while we broke in, but stealing things? No, no, no."
Mysl started hard and flat at her. "And I told you, this is not a random house. Besides, this is necessary. Unless you want more debt piled on your head from our resident Orzhovian, then I suggest you get moving, please."
Ruby made ready to refute… something in that sentence… and then found that she could not. She really wanted to… but she couldn't.
Right… she could do this. She could do this. She could be sneaky.
… She still didn't move.
"You're not moving."
"I know. I'm about to, but I'm just… not moving."
"… Would you feel better if I taught you the perception and shadow-manipulation magics?"
Ruby gulped, the sound almost deafening in her ears. "… sure."
"Alright. Now, are you aware of black mana?"
Ruby was, and it had not sounded pleasnent, from Professor Ozma's descriptions of its… unkinder aspects (though the parts about it representing those not giving up sounded pretty cool, and who said black and shadows had to be evil anyway black was a cool color oh dust stop mentally rambling could Mysl hear all this get it together Rose!)
"…Yeah."
"Then reach out to it. As you do, think of quiet, of shadows hiding your footsteps, quieting your breathing, and think of the desire to succeed. As you do that, then reach out to blue, and think of being unseen, staying out of the corner of a watcher's eye, keep their attentions on more important things, of using your wits to remain undetected, hidden from their mind. Can you do that?"
Ruby swallowed again. "I'll do my best."
He then lightly pushed her on the back. 'Then get moving. I'll keep watch. Remember, shadows and perception, desire and wits… and stay close to the walls."
Right. Time to do this.
One foot in front of the other. Besides, it wasn't that far away…
She took a step forward, a part of her brain almost expecting the floor to squeak.
It didn't.
So, she took another step… and another, staying close to the walls.
She wove a few small shadows (which was actually not that hard, weird) as she ducked around the other doorframes and closed doors, catching brief auditory snatched of the snores and murmured conversations within, all the while using blue and black to make herself as not-there as possible.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Then… she reached the doorway, and headed inside, taking it all in as she quietly quietly closed the door behind her.
The study was very spacious, though it seemed more of a library than anything else.
Ruby quietly hefted one of the sacks on her belt as she made her way around the room. Anything and everything that were on the shelves, she shoved into the sacks and pouches, all the while being amazed at how none of them were even bulging.
Magic was really cool… and there were a lot of books.
Books with titles like 'History of Ravnica and the Founding of the Guilds' and 'Rosewater's Treatises on Multiple Worlds' and a bunch of other things… all in the sacks.
As she did… it slowly dawned on her why she had seen those empty shelves in Anastasia's room…
But she kept going.
Then, when she was finished with the shelves… she approached the desk. There was what looked like a large ledger set front and center upon it.
Into the sack and pouches, alongside ink-pots and quills and papers and pens and even some knives. Ruby was not sure why she was supposed to take everything… but she went on.
It was oddly easy to do…
Then, as she rifled through one of the remaining drawers, her fingers tapped against the base… and heard something hollow.
Curious, she examined the outside of the drawer and… yep, the inside was higher than the exterior (thank you furniture building with dad… and all those Christine Augusta mystery movies). So, she felt around inside for a latch…
Ah-ha!
Oh man… this was kind of fun!
She quietly lifted back the false bottom and…
A small round thing of silver glinted in the relative darkness.
Ruby held up the silver disk. Stamped into it was what looked like an… eye. A strange eye with five pupils set into where the iris seemed to be, and framed by a triangular upper eyelash, and five, fang-like lower lashes. The other side had small rows of what looked like hieroglyphs etched in.
Without thinking, Ruby stashed it into one of her suit's pockets that she had not yet filled with anything.
Right, this was… a thing, but now it was time to-
CREEEEAK.
Slowly… slowly, Ruby looked up… and the little nightdress-clad girl stared back at her from where she stood in the now-opened doorway.
For what seemed an eternity, Ruby and the little girl stared at one another, silver eyes and brown eyes, each as wide as the other's.
Oh… crap.
After a long moment, all Ruby could find she could do… was wave at the little kid like an idiot.
The moment the girl, who looked to be about Rat's age, began to scream, loud and piercing, there was a burst of black and blue across her eyes, and Mysl (and why the heck had he not warned her about the kind!) gently lowered the now-sleeping child to the ground, before look up at a stunned Ruby.
But the damage had already been done, as a loud clarion sound soon echoed throughout the house, and Ruby was pretty sure she could hear the sound of armored bootsteps.
That snapped her out of it. So, with the tome under her arm and everything else in the pouches, and the alarms blaring through the house, Ruby called upon either her magic or her semblance everything was happening oh dust were they gonna get caught oh no oh no yanking Mysl along in a burst of blue and red, as everything else seemed to simultaneously slow down and seep up in to a strange melding of colors and shapes.
They zoomed back the way they came, slid out the window, pausing to slide it shut as quickly as possible before Ruby dragged Mysl off in another burst of rose petals and red and blue (and ignoring the coppery-and-slightly-acidic taste in her mouth as well as the tingling in her nose).
Swissh.
Faster and faster they had to get away reconfigure the stress on the mechanism REMEMBERIt's a nice viewTHEY THINK I AM BLIND, BUT I AM THE ONLY ONE SEEING THINGS CLEARLY REMEMBER fasterfasteraneyeforaneyeeverwonderwhywe'rehere!
"Ruby, stop!"
Mysl's voice cut through the caucophpny, everything started speeding up and slowed down again, Ruby blinked, the petals and the blue and red faded, and they both skidded to a halt, almost tumbling over one another on the Hotel's rooftop, though Mysl remained on his feet. Ruby felt ready to collapse, distantly heard what sounded like an electrical discharge in the distance, and as she dizzily sat up, she dropped the book and all but yanked the mask and telepathic device off her face as she then threw up onto the roof-top floor, before then gulpingin breath after breath after breath and everything was spinning, she felt so dizzy and why did she taste blood and her head her head-
Mysl reached down and grabbed her gently by the shoulder, and the air was briefly filled with the scent of cold water and the feeling of shade in a winter marsh. "Breathe," he said plainly, and aloud, as the feelings and scents washed over and through her. "Breathe."
…
…
As the world reoriented itself under her feet and Ruby no longer felt woozy, he let go of her, and the two stood on the rooftop of the hotel, vampire and human, taking in the relative silence as the last of the adrenaline dissipated into the ether. Mysl turned to Ruby as he took off his own device and unstrapped his mask.
"Next time, Ruby… don't assume," he said, as he stowed his head-gear away.
She looked up at him in confusion. "… what?"
"Back when I first told you to keep up with me on the rooftops… you did not use your strange speed ability, the one with the rose petals and everything starts to slow. Instead, you kept after me on foot and hand."
"Yeah… so?"
He looked at her flatly, like Weiss used to do when she said 'something stupid'. "You assumed that you were not 'allowed' to use it. At what point did I ever specifically say that? And even if I had… does that really prevent you from doing so? Words, while binding, are also wind, Ruby. There is a time and place for wording and assumptions… and this was not one of them."
Ruby stared up at the vampire in shock as he continued to lecture her. "Always take every advantage you have at your disposal, Ruby. Playing by the rules is all well and good… but can be whole unnecessary. Remember that, please, when you are in such situations again."
… He had all but dangled her off a roof, and then had her break into a house, rob the house's occupants, knocked out a little girl, almost gotten caught and probably killed, showed her how to do the beginnings of shadow and mental magic via blue and black mana all the while hiding from armed guards who would have done the aforementioned capturing and killing…and now he was lecturing her on 'using every advantage she had.'
She had… she had no words. Instead, she wanted to scream, scream loud and long until her vocal cords cracked.
But apparently, he was not finished speaking, as he nodded at her before she could turn away or do the aforementioned vocal-cord-cracking-screaming. "Still… over all? This was a good first foray for you, Ruby. You're a fast learner, and I have no doubt that you will do a good deal better on the next foray."
Ruby blinked at him, her tired brain finally scrounging up some thoughts and words (while trying hard not to linger on the 'next foray' statement). She swallowed… and then nodded with slight determination, as the building tension diffused from said tired brain. "…Thanks, and uh… I'll certainly try, Mysl."
Now that things had calmed down… it was weird but, despite everything that had happened… it had almost seemed a bit fun… and easy.
Though she was not sure how exactly to feel about that.
"I do not doubt it, Ruby," Mysl said, nodding, as he then held out a hand to help her up. "Now, I think it's past time we retired to our beds. You especially need it, as you have a busy day tomorrow."
Ruby groaned at that, her brain feeling a little more normal. "Don't remind me, please. My bones are already aching just thinking about it."
As she then dejectedly headed towards the rooftop staircase, he spoke again. "Mirko," he said, softly.
Ruby stopped, and looked over her shoulder in confusion. "…Huh?"
"My real name," he explained, an unknowable expression in his black-and-blue eyes as he picked up the large book she had dropped. "It's Mirko. Mirko Vosk, Agent of House Dimir. That is who I am, and there is no lie in that, I can tell you. I trust you with that truth, as repayment for your honesty earlier. Though my word is perhaps of little weight, I can assure you that this truth? This is a real thing."
Despite the long night and everything that had happened… Ruby smiled tiredly at him, and waved. "It's nice to meet you, Mirko Vosk. Oh, and uh… goodnight."
Though he did not smile or wave back, the look in his eyes was… not unkindly. "It's a pleasure to… 'meet' you as well, Ruby Rose. Have a good night's rest. Oh… and remember to drop off the contents of your pouches and sacks of holding to Anastasia. I think she'll be interested in their contents."
"Right."
Thankfully… she slept well, the rest of the night. It was nice.
As she tumbled off to sleep, a part of her tired mind wondered what the next Game was going to be…
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Weiss
1
The house was empty, as usual. Empty and cold. It was getting hard to remember a time when that had not been not the case.
Weiss could kind of remember when there used to be more people here, when laughter and light filled the halls. But… these days father did not like having people over, at least those who were not important.
Besides… he told her that she needed to focus, focus on her studying for the exams. Exams were coming up, and she was supposed to get perfect marks, right? No such thing as too much studying, after all. Plus… she did like to learn, so... it wasn't really a punishment if he was making her do something she already enjoyed doing… right?
Though… it didn't help that she had not been sleeping well the past several days. Sometimes, she woke up screaming, seeing swamps and rotting things and tentacles choking her to death… and then Father would order her to go back to sleep, not even letting Klein comfort her. And she felt just so tired…
Focus. She had to focus. Focus on the numbers and history.
Right, so… carry the two, round up the decimal and that will equal twenty-four-
Wait.
She blinked, rubbed at her eyes, and looked down at the figures. That… that didn't seem right at all.
She looked around fervidly, as if expecting… father to be over her shoulder, ready to berate and punish her for making such a stupid mistake…. Or Whitley, ever ready to tattle.
But she was alone. It was just her, in the study. Just her, and the books, and her desk. Father had ordered that no one disturb her until she was done. Even Klein was forbidden from checking in on her.
But at least she was doing something she would have been doing anyway, so it wasn't bad… right?
…
No matter. She'd just… try again. That was fine, right?
She crossed out the lines of arithmetic, and started again. Carry the three, factor in the quadratic multiple, carry the decimal point, and then the answer was Ninety-Nine-
…
Wait.
She blinked again, and looked good and hard at the arithmetic.
That… that still wasn't right. What- what was wrong with her? This… She had done this sort of math problem a hundred times! This exact one, even.
She groaned, and put away the arithmetic pages. Hmmm. Maybe she had done a bit too much math. Best not to get burned out. Instead, she would do start the practice history thesis.
Father… father would understand, right?
She took up the next stack of papers, and began to read and write simultaneously. "The causes of the Great War are varied and, and in many cases, debatable, with a great deal being congruently lost and rediscovered over the years. Some scholars postulate the surges in inflation within the Mantle markets were the driving force, propelling a need for expansion and thus a more diversified and spread-out markets. Others speculate upon the year's marked increase in Grimm attacks, as well as the current's King's desire for certain territories held by Vale at the time. Though all can agree that it was the fault of those wretched, horrid faunus animals may they be locked up forev-.
By the time she realized what she was writing, or how tightly she was gripping the pen, Weiss' pen snapped and tore in her hand!
GAH!
Weiss yanked her hand away, cradling it to her chest, pain-filled tears in her eyes, even as blood splattered over her shirt and skirt, and ink spilling all over her work and papers and books.
She looked at the mess in shock, ignoring the stinging in her hand, even as she shrunk back in her chair. No, no no no no no no no no no no NO!
All…. All her hard work. Not fair… it wasn't fair! Father was going to be angry now, and he was going to make her do it all over again, and again until she got it right and she felt… she felt so tired, just like the time he had punished her for falling asleep during a mandatory all-night study session.
It… it wasn't fair and her hand… her hand, it hurt, it hurt.
She wanted to cry. It's not… it wasn't fair, he was going to be angry at her and she… she felt so tired and hungry, and her hand, her hand it hurt it hurt so much!
What was she going to do? What was she going to-
"Knock knock!" came a voice from the doorway.
Weiss looked up in confusion and a bit of fear. "Who's there?!" she called out. "How did you get in-"
The door swung open and-
WEISS!
…
2
The house was empty, as usual. Empty and cold. It was getting hard to remember a time when that had not been not the case.
Weiss could kind of remember when there used to be more people here, when laughter and light filled the halls. But… these days father did not like having people over, at least those who were not important.
Besides… he told her that she needed to focus, focus on her studying for the exams. Exams were coming up, and she was supposed to get perfect marks, right? No such thing as too much studying, after all. Besides, if she did not do well again, then he threatened to dock a staff-member's wages again, Klein's to be exact. And she didn't want that.
Though… it didn't help that she had not been sleeping well the past several days. Sometimes, she woke up screaming, seeing swamps and rotting things and tentacles choking her to death… and then Father would order her to go back to sleep, not even letting Klein comfort her. And she felt just so tired…
Focus. She had to focus. She had to do well.
Right, so… carry the two, round up the decimal and that will equal fifty-six-
Wait.
She blinked, rubbed at her eyes, and looked down at the figures. That… that didn't seem right.
She looked around fervidly, as if expecting… father to be over her shoulder, ready to berate and punish her for making such a stupid mistake…. Or Whitley, ever ready to tattle.
But she was alone. It was just her, in the study. Just her, and the books, and her desk. Father had ordered that no one disturb her until she was done. Even Klein was forbidden, on punishment of complete dismissal, and she didn't want him getting in trouble.
…
No matter. She'd just… try again. That was fine, right?
She crossed out the lines of arithmetic, and started again. Carry the three, factor in the quadratic multiple, carry the decimal point, and then the answer was Ninety-Nine-
…
Wait.
She blinked again, and looked good and hard at the arithmetic.
That… that still wasn't right. What- what was wrong with her? This… She had done this sort of math problem a hundred times! This exact one, even.
She groaned, and put away the arithmetic pages. Hmmm. Maybe she had done a bit too much math. Best not to get burned out. Instead, she would do start the practice history thesis.
Father… father would understand, right?
She took up the next stack of papers, and began to read and write simultaneously. "The causes of the Great War are varied and, and in many cases, debatable, with a great deal being congruently lost and rediscovered over the years. Some scholars postulate the surges in inflation within the Mantle markets were the driving force, propelling a need for expansion and thus a more diversified and spread-out markets. Others speculate upon the year's marked increase in Grimm attacks, as well as the current's King's desire for certain territories held by Vale at the time. Though all can agree that it was the fault of those wretched, horrid faunus animals may they be locked up forev-.
By the time she realized the horrible things that she was writing, or how tightly she was gripping the pen, Weiss' pen snapped and tore in her hand!
GAH!
Weiss yanked her hand away, cradling it to her chest, pain-filled tears in her eyes, even as blood splattered over her shirt and skirt, and ink spilling all over her work and papers and books.
She looked at the mess in shock, ignoring the stinging in her hand, even as she shrunk back in her chair. No, no no no no no no no no no no NO!
All…. All her hard work. Not fair… it wasn't fair! Father was going to be angry now, and he was going to make her do it all over again, and again until she got it right and she felt… she felt so tired, just like the time he had punished her for falling asleep during a mandatory all-night study session. And then he was going to make Klein or someone else suffer for it too!
It… it wasn't fair and her hand… her hand, it hurt, it hurt.
She wanted to cry. It's not… it wasn't fair, he was going to be angry at her and she… she felt so tired and hungry, and her hand, her hand it hurt it hurt so much!
What was she going to do? What was she going to-
"Knock knock!" came a familiar voice form the doorway.
Weiss looked up, new joy warring with her sorrow and pain as she turned towards the doorway… and spied a tall, familiar-looking figure, standing there with arms open and a wide smile on her familiar and welcome face.
"Room in your tears there for an auntie?"
Weiss looked up and smiled wide, all but leaping from her chair. "Auntie D!" she exclaimed, running over to give her favorite aunt a big hug.
"Hello, hello, my little snowflake!" her auntie laughed, enveloping Weiss in a tight and warm hug, her blue eyes alight with kindness.
"What are you doing here?" Weiss asked, as she buried her head into her aunt's waist and stomach, tears staining the woman's dress.
They hugged a bit more, and then her aunt pulled back, kneeling slightly so that they were eye-to-eye. "Well, as it happens, our Klein went to see me after your dear old daddy sent him away for the night. And well, Klein was just so worried about you, so he gave me his key to the place, and just insisted that I check in on my favorite little niece, made sure that you were all right. And on that note… what happened to your hand!? You're bleeding, dearie."
Weiss sniffed. "… the pen, it broke."
Auntie D shook her head at that, as she gently took Weiss' hand, kindness shining in her green eyes. "Oh dear. That's a bad cut, there. Well, not to worry, let's go and get ourselves a first-aid kit, then we'll make it all better, okay? Then… we'll have some fun, alright? Grab a snack, play some games…"
Weiss wiped at her eyes with her free hand. "O-okay."
Then, those selfsame eyes went wide with fright. "But… wait what about father? He… he told me to stay here until I was done… he'll get angry… and… and then he'll fire another member of the staff, and they'll go hungry and it'll all be my fault…"
The tears came again as she hugged her aunt tight.
Her aunt hugged her back, rocking her back and forth in a soothing motion. After a bit, she pulled back. "It'll be alright, little snowflake. And as for your father and his threats?" She waved a hand dismissively at that. "When the time comes, I'll handle him, like always, make him back down. Now, if I recall, there is not a first-aid kit to be found in this dreary little study. Do you know where one is?"
Weiss blinked in confusion. "What? But, Auntie, there's one right-"
Her aunt put a hand on her shoulder…
Weiss, listen-!
3
The house was empty, as usual. Empty and cold. It was getting hard to remember a time when that had not been not the case.
Weiss could kind of remember when there used to be more people here, when laughter and light filled the halls. But… these days father did not like having people over, at least those who were not important.
He was so mean, so mean, she hated him!
Besides… he told her that she needed to focus, focus on her studying for the exams. Exams were coming up, and she was supposed to get perfect marks, right? No such thing as too much studying, after all.
Even if the reading material so just so boring! And it was stuff she already knew, so that made it even more boring!
Though… it didn't help that she had not been sleeping well the past several days. Sometimes, she woke up screaming, seeing swamps and rotting things and tentacles choking her to death… and then Father would order her to go back to sleep, not even letting Klein comfort her. Sometimes, it also felt as if she had been in this room for days…
Focus. She had to focus… even if it was on boring stuff.
Right, so… carry the two, round up the decimal and that will equal sixteen-
Wait.
She blinked, and looked down at the figures. That… that didn't seem right.
She looked around fervidly, as if expecting… father to be over her shoulder, ready to berate and punish her for making such a stupid mistake…. Or Whitley, ever ready to tattle on her for anything, the little tattletale.
But she was alone. It was just her, in the study. Just her, and the books, and her desk. Father had ordered that no one disturb her until she was done. Even Klein was forbidden to help, which wasn't fair, he helped make the lessons less boring.
…
No matter. She'd just… try again. That was fine, right?
She crossed out the lines of arithmetic, and started again. Carry the three, factor in the quadratic multiple, carry the decimal point, and then the answer was thirteen-
…
Wait.
She blinked again, and looked hard at the arithmetic.
That… that still wasn't right. What- what was wrong with her? This… She had done this sort of math problem a hundred times! This exact one, even.
She groaned, and put away the arithmetic pages. Hmmm. Maybe she had done a bit too much math. Best not to get burned out. Instead, she would do start the practice history thesis.
Father… father would understand, right? Besides, it had been boring stuff, and even he got bored sometimes, so he had to understand, right?
She took up the next stack of papers, and began to read and write simultaneously. "The causes of the Great War are varied and, and in many cases, debatable, with a great deal being congruently lost and rediscovered over the years. Some scholars postulate the surges in inflation within the Mantle markets were the driving force, propelling a need for expansion and thus a more diversified and spread-out markets. Others speculate upon the year's marked increase in Grimm attacks, as well as the current's King's desire for certain territories held by Vale at the time. Though all can agree that it was the fault of those wretched, horrid faunus animals-.
By the time she realized what she was writing, or how tightly she was gripping the pen, Weiss' pen snapped and tore in her hand!
GAH! IT HURT!
Weiss yanked her hand away, cradling it to her chest, pain-filled tears in her eyes, even as blood splattered over her shirt and skirt, and ink spilling all over her work and papers and books.
She looked at the mess in shock, ignoring the stinging in her hand, even as she shrunk back in her chair. No, no no no no no no no no no no NO!
All…. All her hard work. Not fair… it wasn't fair! Father was going to be angry now, and he was going to make her do it all over again, and again until she got it right and she felt… she felt so tired, just like the time he had punished her for falling asleep during a mandatory all-night study session.
It… it wasn't fair and her hand… her hand, it hurt, it hurt it hurt it hurt!
She wanted to cry, to scream and yell and tear up the stuff she had just cut herself over. It's not… it wasn't fair, he was going to be angry at her and she… she felt so tired and hungry, and her hand, her hand it hurt it hurt so much and she needed to get out of here but then he'd catch her and it wasn't fair!
What was she going to do? What was she going to-
"Knock knock!" came a familiar voice form the doorway.
Weiss looked up, new joy warring with her sorrow and pain and anger as she turned towards the doorway… and spied a tall, familiar-looking figure, standing there with arms open and a wide smile on her familiar and welcome face.
"Room in your tears there for an auntie?"
Weiss looked up and smiled wide, all but leaping from her chair. "Auntie D!" she exclaimed, running over to give her favorite aunt a big, bone-crushing hug.
When Auntie D was here, everything was alright and fun and not boring! And that was because Auntie D was the absolute best out of all her aunties and uncles and other people!
"Hello, hello, my little snowflake!" her auntie laughed, enveloping Weiss in a tight and warm hug, her blue eyes alight with kindness.
"What are you doing here?" Weiss asked, as she buried her head into her aunt's waist and stomach.
They hugged a bit more, and then her aunt pulled back, kneeling slightly so that they were eye-to-eye. "Well, as it happens, our Klein went to see me after your dear old daddy sent him away for the night. And well, Klein was just so worried about you, so he gave me his key to the place, and just insisted that I check in on my favorite little niece, made sure that you were all right. And on that note… what happened to your hand!? You're bleeding, dearie."
Weiss sniffed. "… the pen broke."
Auntie D shook her head at that, as she gently took Weiss' hand, kindness shining in her green eyes. "Oh dear. That's a bad cut, there. Well, not to worry, let's go and get ourselves a first-aid kit, then we'll make it all better, okay? Then… we'll have some fun, alright? Grab a snack, play some games…"
Weiss wiped at her eyes with her free hand. "O-okay."
Then, those selfsame eyes went wide with fright. "But… wait what about father? He… he told me to stay here until I was done… he'll get angry…"
Her aunt waved a hand dismissively at that. "Oh, don't go worrying your pretty little head over that, my dear. When the time comes, I'll handle him. Now, if I recall, there is not a first-aid kit in this dreary little study. Do you know where one is?"
Weiss nodded and smiled. "Okay. Yeah, you'll handle him! And yeah… there's one in my room."
Klein always made sure there was one in every room.
Her aunt nodded at that. "Good. Now… I am ashamed that, after all this time, I still can't find my way around this huge castle of yours. I get lost so easily. Can you show me the way to your room, little snowflake?"
Weiss nodded. "Okay. Let's go!"
Holding her auntie's hand, Weiss led her out of the study. "So, how long as your father been making you study this time?" Auntie D asked, as they walked through the empty hallways.
"… all day."
"Has he done this often?"
Moonlight shined through a large window. Why were the curtains drawn back? "… Most of the time now. More since Winter left. And it's always with boring, stupid stuff too. And I don't think he makes Whitley do any of this though."
"I see."
The cut in Weiss' hand was starting to sting now, and she let loose another whimper. Auntie D then put a hand on her head. "Don't worry, little snowflake. The pain will soon pass. All will be well."
Weiss looked up at her Auntie D and smiled, safe in the woman's white eyes-
Wait. Weren't they blue?
She stopped. "Hey, Auntie! Your eyes changed color!"
Weiss, you have to-
Auntie D smiled, and patted her on the shoulder…
…
…
4
The house was empty, as usual. Empty and cold. It was getting hard to remember a time when that had not been not the case.
Weiss could kind of remember when there used to be more people here, when laughter and light filled the halls. But… these days father did not like having people over, at least those who were not important.
But… she had grown used to that. You sort of had to, after a while.
Besides… he told her that she needed to focus, focus on her studying for the exams. Exams were coming up, and she was supposed to get perfect marks, right? No such thing as too much studying, after all.
She had gotten used to that as well…
Though… it didn't help that she had not been sleeping well the past several days. Sometimes, she woke up screaming, seeing swamps and rotting things and tentacles choking her to death… and then Father would order her to go back to sleep, not even letting Klein comfort her. Sometimes, it also felt as if she had been in this room for days…
Focus. She had to focus. She couldn't do anything about everything else. Just here and now.
Focus. Breathe. Let the rest all fade away. She couldn't do anything else about it, anyway…
Right, so… carry the two, round up the decimal and that will equal forty-eight-
Wait.
She blinked, and looked down at the figures. That… that didn't seem right.
She looked around fervidly, as if expecting… father to be over her shoulder, ready to berate and punish her for making such a stupid mistake…. Or Whitley, ever ready to tattle… not that she could really get angry at him for that. It was just who he was.
But she was alone. It was just her, in the study. Just her, and the books, and her desk. Father had ordered that no one disturb her until she was done. Even Klein was forbidden.
…
No matter. She'd just… try again. That was fine, right?
She crossed out the lines of arithmetic, and started again. Carry the three, factor in the quadratic multiple, carry the decimal point, and then the answer was 84-
…
Wait.
She blinked again, and looked hard at the arithmetic.
That… that still wasn't right. What- what was wrong with her? This… She had done this sort of math problem a hundred times! This exact one, even. And she did not make mistakes.
If she wanted to get ahead, be at the head of this company and put it back on track… she could not afford any mistakes!
…
She groaned, and put away the arithmetic pages, rubbing at her eyes. Hmmm. Maybe she had done a bit too much math. Best not to get burned out. Ambition needed to rest to, right?
Instead, she would do start the practice history thesis.
Father… father would understand, right? He might not care, but he would understand…
With that, she took up the next stack of papers, and began to read and write simultaneously. "The causes of the Great War are varied and, and in many cases, debatable, with a great deal being congruently lost and rediscovered over the years. Some scholars postulate the surges in inflation within the Mantle markets were the driving force, propelling a need for expansion and thus a more diversified and spread-out markets. Others speculate upon the year's marked increase in Grimm attacks, as well as the current's King's desire for certain territories held by Vale at the time. Though all can agree that it was the fault of those wretched, horrid faunus animals-.
By the time she realized what she was writing, or how tightly she was gripping the pen, Weiss' pen snapped and tore in her hand!
GAH!
Weiss yanked her hand away, cradling it to her chest, pain-filled tears in her eyes, even as blood splattered over her shirt and skirt, and ink spilling all over her work and papers and books.
She looked at the mess in shock, ignoring the stinging in her hand, even as she shrunk back in her chair. No, no no no no no no no no no no NO!
All…. All her hard work. Not fair… it wasn't fair! Father was going to be angry now, and he was going to make her do it all over again, and again until she got it right and she felt… she felt so tired, just like the time he had punished her for falling asleep during a mandatory all-night study session.
It… it wasn't fair and her hand… her hand, it hurt, it hurt.
She wanted to cry. It's not… it wasn't fair, he was going to be angry at her and she… she felt so tired and hungry, and her hand, her hand it hurt it hurt so much!
But… she knew there was nothing that she could do. He had told her not to leave, but her hand, it hurt so much…
"Knock knock!" came a familiar voice form the doorway.
Weiss looked up, new joy warring with her sorrow and pain and resignation as she turned towards the doorway… and spied a tall, familiar-looking figure, standing there with arms open and a wide smile on her familiar and welcome face.
"Room in your tears there for an auntie?"
Weiss looked up and smiled wide, all but leaping from her chair. "Auntie D!" she exclaimed, running over to give her favorite aunt a big hug.
"Hello, hello, my little snowflake!" her auntie laughed, enveloping Weiss in a tight and warm hug, her blue eyes alight with kindness.
"What are you doing here?" Weiss asked, as she buried her head into her aunt's waist and stomach.
They hugged a bit more, and then her aunt pulled back, kneeling slightly so that they were eye-to-eye. "Well, as it happens, our Klein went to see me after your dear old daddy sent him away for the night. And well, Klein was just so worried about you, so he gave me his key to the place, and just insisted that I check in on my favorite little niece, made sure that you were all right. And on that note… what happened to your hand!? You're bleeding, dearie."
Weiss sniffed. "… the pen, it broke."
Auntie D shook her head at that, as she gently took Weiss' hand, kindness shining in her red eyes. "Oh dear. That's a bad cut, there. Well, not to worry, let's go and get ourselves a first-aid kit, then we'll make it all better, okay? Then… we'll have some fun, alright? Grab a snack, play some games…"
Weiss wiped at her eyes with her free hand. "O-okay."
Then, those selfsame eyes went wide with fright. "But… wait what about father? He… he told me to stay here until I was done… he'll get angry…"
Her aunt waved a hand dismissively at that. "Oh, don't go worrying your pretty little head over that, my dear. When the time comes, I'll handle him. Now, if I recall, there is not a first-aid kit in this dreary little study. Do you know where one is?"
Weiss nodded. "Yeah… there's one in my room."
Klein always made sure there was one in every room.
Another thing you grew used to, quickly enough.
Her aunt nodded at that. "Good. Now… I am ashamed that, after all this time, I still can't find my way around this huge castle of yours. I get lost so easily. Can you show me the way to your room, little snowflake?"
Weiss nodded. "Okay. Let's go."
Holding her auntie's hand, Weiss led her out of the study. "So, how long as your father been making you study this time?" Auntie D asked, as they walked through the empty hallways.
"… all day."
"Has he done this often?"
Moonlight shined through a large window. Why were the curtains drawn back? "… Most of the time now. More since Winter left."
"I see."
The cut in Weiss' hand was starting to sting now, and she let loose another whimper. Auntie D then put a hand on her head. "Don't worry, little snowflake. The pain will soon pass. All will be well."
Weiss looked up at her Auntie D and smiled, safe in the woman's red eyes-
Wait. Weren't they white? Granted, it was not something she should worry about. Klein's eyes changed all the time. But still… and why was there an odd feeling, running down her spine all of a sudden.
She stopped walking, and turned to face her auntie and-
Weiss you have to-
Auntie D smiled, and then patted her on the shoulder-
5
The house was empty, as usual. Empty and cold. It was getting hard to remember a time when that had not been not the case.
Weiss could kind of remember when there used to be more people here, when laughter and light filled the halls. But… these days father did not like having people over, at least those who were not important.
She preferred it when there had been more people here. People here meant people she could rely upon.
But… he told her that she needed to focus, focus on her studying for the exams. Exams were coming up, and she was supposed to get perfect marks, right? No such thing as too much studying, after all.
And he was just so infuriatingly smug about; the power he held over her and everyone else. She knew he enjoyed it, the horrible, horrible man.
Though… it didn't help that she had not been sleeping well the past several days. Sometimes, she woke up screaming, seeing swamps and rotting things and tentacles choking her to death… and then Father would order her to go back to sleep, not even letting Klein comfort her. And what right did he have to order her family butler about? He married into the family!
…
Focus. She had to focus.
Right, so… carry the two, round up the decimal and that will equal forty-three-
Wait.
She blinked, and looked down at the figures. That… that didn't seem right.
She looked around fervidly, as if expecting… father to be over her shoulder, ready to berate and punish her for making such a stupid mistake…. Or Whitley, ever ready to tattle, the annoying, grasping little snit.
But she was alone. It was just her, in the study. Just her, and the books, and her desk. Father had ordered that no one disturb her until she was done. Even Klein was forbidden.
…
No matter. She'd just… try again. That was fine, right?
She crossed out the lines of arithmetic, and started again. Carry the three, factor in the quadratic multiple, carry the decimal point, and then the answer was 84-
…
Wait.
She blinked again, and looked hard at the arithmetic.
That… that still wasn't right. What- what was wrong with her? This… She had done this sort of math problem a hundred times! This exact one, even.
She groaned, and put away the arithmetic pages, rubbing at her eyes. Hmmm. Maybe she had done a bit too much math. Best not to get burned out. Ambition needed to rest to, right?
Instead, she would do start the practice history thesis.
Father… father would understand, right?
She took up the next stack of papers, and began to read and write simultaneously. "The causes of the Great War are varied and, and in many cases, debatable, with a great deal being congruently lost and rediscovered over the years. Some scholars postulate the surges in inflation within the Mantle markets were the driving force, propelling a need for expansion and thus a more diversified and spread-out markets. Others speculate upon the year's marked increase in Grimm attacks, as well as the current's King's desire for certain territories held by Vale at the time. Though all can agree that it was the fault of those wretched, horrid faunus animals-.
By the time she realized what she was writing, or how tightly she was gripping the pen, Weiss' pen snapped and tore in her hand!
GAH!
Weiss yanked her hand away, cradling it to her chest, pain-filled tears in her eyes, even as blood splattered over her shirt and skirt, and ink spilling all over her work and papers and books.
She looked at the mess in shock, ignoring the stinging in her hand, even as she shrunk back in her chair. No, no no no no no no no no no no NO!
All…. All her hard work. Not fair… it wasn't fair! Father was going to be angry now, and he was going to make her do it all over again, and again until she got it right and she felt… she felt so tired, just like the time he had punished her for falling asleep during a mandatory all-night study session.
It… it wasn't fair and her hand… her hand, it hurt, it hurt.
She wanted to cry. It's not… it wasn't fair, he was going to be angry at her and she… she felt so tired and hungry, and her hand, her hand it hurt it hurt so much!
But she would persevere, for she had to get through this. You couldn't succeed without pain, and she needed needed to succeed-
"Ah, so there you finally are!" came a familiar voice form the doorway. "Knock knock!"
Weiss looked up, new joy warring with her sorrow and pain and determination as she turned towards the doorway… and spied a tall, familiar-looking figure, standing there with arms open and a wide smile on her familiar and welcome face.
"Room in your tears there for an auntie?"
Weiss looked up and smiled wide, all but leaping from her chair. "Auntie D!" she exclaimed, running over to give her favorite aunt a big hug.
"Hello, hello, my little snowflake!" her auntie laughed, enveloping Weiss in a tight and warm hug, her green eyes alight with kindness.
"What are you doing here?" Weiss asked, as she buried her head into her aunt's waist and stomach.
They hugged a bit more, and then her aunt pulled back, kneeling slightly so that they were eye-to-eye. "Well, as it happens, our Klein went to see me after your dear old daddy sent him away for the night. And well, Klein was just so worried about you, so he gave me his key to the place, and just insisted that I check in on my favorite little niece, made sure that you were all right. And on that note… what happened to your hand!? You're bleeding, dearie."
Weiss sniffed. "… the pen broke off in my hand."
Auntie D shook her head at that, as she gently took Weiss' hand, kindness shining in her green eyes. "Oh dear. That's a bad cut, there. Well, not to worry, let's go and get ourselves a first-aid kit, then we'll make it all better, okay? Then… we'll have some fun, alright? Grab a snack, play some games…"
Weiss wiped at her eyes with her free hand. "O-okay."
Then, those selfsame eyes went wide with fright. "But… wait what about father? He… he told me to stay here until I was done… he'll get angry…"
Her aunt waved a hand dismissively at that. "Oh, don't go worrying your pretty little head over that, my dear. When the time comes, I'll handle him. Now, if I recall, there is not a first-aid kit in this dreary little study. Do you know where one is?"
Weiss nodded. "Yeah… there's one in my room."
Klein always made sure there was one in every room.
Her aunt nodded at that. "Good. Now… I am ashamed that, after all this time, I still can't find my way around this huge castle of yours. I get lost so easily. Can you show me the way to your room, little snowflake?"
Weiss nodded. "Okay. Let's go."
Holding her auntie's hand, Weiss led her out of the study. "So, how long as your father been making you study this time?" Auntie D asked, as they walked through the empty hallways.
"… all day."
"Has he done this often?"
Moonlight shined through a large window. Why were the curtains drawn back? "… Most of the time now. More since Winter left."
"I see."
The cut in Weiss' hand was starting to sting now, and she let loose another whimper. Auntie D then put a hand on her head. "Don't worry, little snowflake. The pain will soon pass. All will be well."
Weiss looked up at her Auntie D and smiled, safe in the woman's green eyes-
Weiss, please, you have to wake-
Auntie D patted her on the shoulder, shaking away the strange thoughts. "Something wrong, little snowflake?"
Weiss blinked, and looked up at her aunt's grey eyes. "No. Sorry. Here, my room is just this way."
She always loved it when Auntie D came over, even though father didn't like it. Though… Weiss had trouble remembering just why that was… or why, despite being here so foten, Auntie D still did not remember how to get to Weiss' room-
Auntie D laid a hand on her shoulder. "Lost in your head again?"
Weiss blinked. "Sorry. Just tired, too."
"Understandable. After the bandages and snack, you should take a good nap. Now… are we there yet?"
"Yep. Here it is."
Weiss reached out towards the door's handle… and then flinched back, as a bit of electricity snapped from the handle to her hand – DON'T OPEN IT WEISS DON'T LET HER IN-
As Weiss recoiled, Auntie D patted her on the head. "Thanks for showing me the way, little snowflake."
She then gripped her tight and shoved her back to the ground, and started tearing t the door with her bare hands with an exultant laugh. Outside, blue and white and black flashed like wild sirens. As strange and hurtful light began to stream in through the tears, Auntie D turned to look over her shoulder at Weiss with a wide grin. "Thanks. This place was like a bloody labyrinth. But we're done here."
Before she knew what she was doing, Weiss found herself leaping to her feet, and tackling her aunt around the waist, trying to pull her away. "Stop it!" she cried out, as more blood leaked from her hand. "Stop it stop it stop it stop-"
Auntie D slapped her, with a hand that burned and cunt across her eye like a sword, sending Weiss flying away to collide against the wall. Outside, there were the sounds of explosions, and a massive pained roar over the beating of wings. With dazed and horrified eyes, and as Auntie D kept tearing at the door with wild laughter, Weiss saw the shadows on the wall start to twist and writhe like tentacles; tentacles that then latched off said wall, and shot towards her.
As they enveloped her, Weiss
Screamed as she shot awake, only to find her movement suddenly and forcibly arrested by…
There were chains and manacles and clamps around her wrists and ankles and neck, securing her to a wall, arms all but stretched out behind her. Following another moment of useless tugging against her restraints, she let them go as slack as they could, though that was little, as she gulped in lungful after lungful of stressed breaths, doing her best not to scream out again.
Right, she… she had to remain calm. Stay calm, and assess. That had been one of Winter's maxims she had drilled into her head during her training. Stay calm, and assess. Stay calm… and assess.
Taking another deep breath, she looked up and about, and found that she was imprisoned in a room with wooden walls the only illumination that being two torches on either wall, while the area beyond that illumination was pitch black.
In one corner of the illuminated area was a sword… at first glance, it looked like a simple weapon, save for its pure black blade but…
She had to look away she could not look at it she did not want to look at it. Her eyes roamed and….
In the other corner, slumped against the wall, was… Neptune, looking so much like a puppet with cut strings, arms slack at his side. "Neptune!" Weiss cried out, pulled at her restraints. "Neptune!"
He didn't respond. His mouth was moving, his eyes were wide and staring off at nothing, and she could hear him murmuring faintly. "…didn't mean to… sorry… sorry… didn't mean to… stop stop please… had no choice had no choice make it stop I didn't mean to… only way… only way to end it… not real… not real… not real… can't…"
"Neptune! Wake up!"
Why wasn't he responding? "Neptune!"
"Oh, he can't hear you," came a distorted voice, making Weiss's head jerk up. "He's somewhere else, right now. Far, far away; locked up inside his silver-haired head."
Then… out of the shadows, and into the light… strode a familiar sight.
"Sooo… how have you been, my little friend?" Lask asked with a grin, as they stood before her, rocking lightly on heels. "You seem a bit tied-up at the moment, my girl."
Weiss strained against her chains, the manacles and collar digging into her wrists and neck. "You wretched little- where are we!?"
Lask chuckled. "Oh… Somewhere far, far away from the saintly shores of Benalia, I can assure you. Where we are now is a place where we can just unwind. Relax, have a few walks down memory lane, try new things… you know… wonderful activities, all around."
Weiss made to lunge at her captor, accompanied by the pull and rattle of her chains and restraints, unintentionally wrenching her arms further behind her. "You fucking bastard!"
"Such salty language!" Lask said with a mocking gasp and hand to their mouth. "I'm overcome with shock, I am. And here I thought you were such a prim and proper little heiress. You might also want to stop that, or you might dislocate a joint or two."
Lask then plopped down into a casual cross-legged seating on the floor, and looked up at Weiss. "So… what's new? How have you been? Seen anything exciting? Eaten anything tasty? Tell me… just how are you feeling, right now?"
"I'll feel better once I get out of these chains and finish wringing your fucking neck!"
That elicited another chuckle. "Tempting as that be… I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Those restraints are not meant to be easily freed from… which is kind of the point with restraints, when you think about it. But do feel free to struggle all you want, dear Weiss."
Weiss snarled, and then made to reach out to the white and blue, to the plains and the islands, to call to her arma gigas and-
ARGH!
Instead of water and sunlight and order and knowledge filling her veins, instead all there was… was pain and emptiness it hurt it hurt so much.
Lask chuckled as the pain faded and the white spots disappeared from Weiss's vision. "Kind of a jolt, eh?"
"Wh… what just happened?" Weiss gasped. "what did you do?
"Ah but those chains… ~they cancel out white and blue… and fill the void with pain it's true… and once it fades, as you can construe, all that's left…" Lask pointed to Neptune, themself, and then Weiss as they kept singing. "~Is him, me, and you~"
Weiss let herself fall to her knees in a rattle and clank with a gasp, the remnants of the pain searing itself into her mind, her arms slightly pulled upwards. "Are… are you taking us back to the Cabal?" she slowly asked, through the discomfort.
In response, Lask threw back their head and laughed at that, hands on thighs. "Oh, that is a very funny idea, that is. A good little hypothesis, perhaps, and correct under other circumstances… but no. That sad and pathetic little cult of sad and pathetic little idiots and morons have served their purpose. True, Belzenlok is offering quite the hefty reward for you alive, Weiss… but in all honesty? I just couldn't be bothered to serve that self-preening, pretentious pissant of a title-pilfering popinjay in any sort of a meaningful, or even meaningless, way."
Weiss struggled to her feet. "Then what do you want!?"
At that, Lask slowly stood up, still smiling. "That? Well, that is a best and excellent question, Weiss. Finally, we are getting to the real meat of the thing, and thus you shall get your answers."
Lask then suddenly let out a gasp of mock shock. "…. Oh, but where are my manners? All this time, we've been here, chatting and gabbing about like gossiping fishwives with saggy teats at the marketplace, getting to know one another a bit better… and here I am, still in my shoddy work clothes! It's just so utterly rude of me! Why… I am simply abashed, embarrassed, feeling a fool. So, as recompense… allow me to slip into something a little more… comfortable. So that we can really have a good chat… girl to girl."
As they said this, Lask then took a step back, arms spread out, as if in welcome. They let out a long, slow exhalation, and, as they did, their features began to… melt together, like heated wax in a fire. Hair, clothing, flesh, muscle, blood and skin; all boiling nad melting and reshaping itself into something… something else. All Weiss could do was watch with horror as that something else took Lask's place.
It was a woman, and she was tall; tall with long black-and-grey, tendril-like hair, grey skin that seemed to gleam with an oily membrane, and taloned hands, while her eyes were pure black, save for an iris of complete white in the center. From the waist down, she was a writhing mass of tentacles, like a demonic-looking octopus faunus.
The thing that caught Weiss' horrified attention the most though, beyond the tentacles, was the pulsating wound clear and visible upon the woman's chest. It looked to be from a sword wound, and it was leaking dark, viscous liquids in a steady, steaming stream onto the floor; liquids that Weiss hoped was blood and nothing else. In addition, the woman looked… rather old; her grey skin like aged leather, stretching across angular bones, and her back slightly stooped, as well as the fact that her black hair was more shot with grey and brittle white on closer inspection.
"There we are," the demonic-looking woman said, her familiar-sounding voice dry like rancid oil as she leered over Weiss, her wound dripping onto the floor and on Weiss' clothes, the smell making her gag. "Much, much better. I must say; it is so nice to meet you with my true face, Weiss Schnee. And I do hope that the present accommodations are much more up to your standards than that horrible little cage in Urborg. Nothing but the best for my guests, after all."
"Wh… what are you?" Weiss whispered, fighting the urge to wretch at the woman's mere presence.
The creature stroked her chin with a taloned hand. "Isn't that just such a question? So many of those going around today, and you just so good at asking them. Well, I have been called many things over my lifetimes; monster, demon, murderer, queen, tyrant, even goddess (which has always been one of my favorites, truth be told). But… if you were to ask what my name is? Well, I've only ever really had one… and that name is Geyadrone Dihada, at your most humble of services."
She then laughed, and then reached forward and set her hand against Weiss' cheek, her aged skin feeling more disgusting then rotting meat against Weiss' skin, and smoother than silk at the same time. "And I must say; it's an absolute pleasure to meet you like this, Daughter of Jacques."
Before Weiss could react to that moniker, Geyadrone pulled back her hand, giggled… and then slapped Weiss, hard, her claws drawing deep furrows across the former heiress' face.
As Weiss gasped in pain from the blow, Geyadrone cackled again as she flicked the blood from her talons. "I've always been of the opinion that one should have a few more visible scars, be a bit more… beaten down, as it were. Makes you more honest, more beaten down, where all should be. But, enough small talk. I'm sure you're dying to know why you and poor Neptune there are here, hmm?"
Weiss said nothing, instead gritting her teeth against the fear and the pain… and the blood dripping down her face. So… the thing kept talking.
Geyadrone laughed. "Well, ever since we first ran across one another in that swamp… you remember, when I drugged you and Neptune there and then gave you two up to the Cabal for a tidy little sum of money and goods? Well, suffice to say, you had piqued my interest, especially when I had felt your arrival on this plane in the first place. You, your delectable little silver-haired friend over there… and that odd little magic of yours, radiating off your skin. So much that it all just served to absolutely keep me awake at night… and so, I knew that I just had to see you again, my dear."
Weiss stiffened at that, and the monster-woman chuckled. "It's just so delightful, I think, the desire to meet old friends again. And so… here we are."
Weiss swallowed. "Why… why didn't you just take us the first time, then, if you wanted us so much?"
That elicited a clapping of hands and a cackle. "Ah, she speaks again! Risen from the dead and the shock and the fear! Oh, but joyous joy!"
Geyadrone's smirk softened slightly, and she then shrugged her hunched and robed shoulders. "As for the answer to your query? Well, simply because that was then, and I was all by my lonesome, you see, and… well, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I was still just a tad unsure of what you could actually do, what your magic could do, whether or not it was what I suspected it to be, and all those sorts of things, you know? Plus, then, I had also not the time to really examine the pair of you, like I have now. Urborg has, after all, never been the safest of places for a soul to linger… even for me… especially now.
"Besides, if you get to be my age, dearie, then you can't even begin to afford many, if any, false leads and blind leaps of faith. Truthfully, before you showed up, I was in the midst of another plan, one involving some subterfuge, false identities, murdering and replacing the archmage of the Tolarian Academy, and a nice bit of long-term manipulation in order to drive that little Carthalion bastard out of hiding and back to his homeland… but then… well, as an old friend once told me; make many plans, all with loose parts, and with enough lag to let them fade away as needed…."
She chuckled. "Then, along came you, falling right into my lap, and, best of all? The Cabal, like little puppets on little strings, well they went ahead and proved what I needed to know, and they even paid me for it, too! So, extra cash on top of a long-abandoned plan given new life, all thanks to you and your magic! How wonderful and lucky for me!"
Weiss stared at the cackling creature, confusion stitching together the answers in her mind. "So… you just want my magic? All of this… just for that?"
"Well, don't act so heartbroken about it, dear Weiss… But yes, I do require it, and such is the reason for out little meeting here and now. However…"
Geyadrone then reached forward and trailed the back of her bony fingers down Weiss' face again, laughing as she recoiled at the monster's touch. "Hmmm… So pretty, so smooth… so unblemished by age… Ah, but… rest assured that I do have… other uses for you as well, little one. So very many indeed."
Geyadrone suddenly reared back and spread her arms as if to embrace Weiss, and laughed. "But fear not, for I can see plain the horror on your pretty, pretty face, Weiss, Daughter of Jacques. And, of course, since I am such a kind and generous and merciful figure… I am willing to show you the way out of this predicament! That's right! I will show you the key hanging from a hook next to the cell door, the correct answer to the question on the test for a passing grade, the thread leading back to the entrance of the maze, the Deus-ex machina required in every little hero's tale for them to come out on top against those who would dare oppose them and their endeavors! Do you want to know what that is?"
Despite herself, Weiss found that she was slowly nodding.
Geyadrone's fanged smile was like Blake's when she had looked at a caged canary, and she then tapped a taloned finger against Weiss' collar, making the former Schnee heiress flinch again from the reverberations of the metal against her skin. "You can free yourself and him from this little entrapment oh so very easily, you know. Unlock those chains, break your delectable little silver-haired artificer out of the enchantment that I've locked him in, and then stride out into the sun, heads held high, out through that door…."
She gestured behind her, and more light flooded the room to reveal a door of wood and banded iron, and a key in its lock.
"Yes. That door right there," Dihada continued. "And all you have to do, to free yourself, to get to that door and walk out unmolested? Just… reach out to the black."
As Weiss' eyes widened at that, Geyadrone nodded, almost sagely, but mostly mockingly. "That's right, my white-haired dearie; a good and healthy application of that lovely ambition and selfishness and avarice and amorality and disdain for all things lesser than you. Reach out to it; reach out to what calls to you from the marshes and the rot and the darkness, and then channel all of that into the shackles latched upon your form and on the artificer's mind and then… click-poof… you are as free as the little birdies struggling to fly in the wind."
She backed away, and made a get on with it motion. "So… go ahead. No rush. Take your time, so that you may unleash it and be freed! Reach out to it, and know sweet, sweet release!"
Weiss stared at her captor, at the monster in confusions and shock.
This… this was a trick. It had to be. What else could it be? Who… who kidnapped someone only to then tell them how to escape? It had to be a trick, some… some sort of sick and twisted game.
But… if it wasn't? Could… could it be so easy?
Slowly, slowly, she lifted up her hands behind her, rattling her chains, and focused…
She deserved this. She deserved to be free, she wanted to be free. She needed to be free.
Want. Need. Desire. Ambition. Want. Need. Desire. Ambition. Free-
She reached out and… She felt it… like brackish marsh water against her skin, like oily shadow and itchy silk. Keep… keep going keep going you can do it just a little bit more please-
She deserved-
… "We alone are meant and made and born and deserve to succeed, Weiss. Nobody and nothing else matters but us…."
Keep going, keep going-
… "You're nothing but filthy animals!
Weiss, please-
… "Well, congratulations on being the strongest child to sneak your way into Beacon! Bravo!"
Don't focus on that just keep-
… "Not a team lead by you. I've studied, and trained, and quite frankly, I deserve better."
No, Wei-!
…
Selfisness. Uncaring. Ambition. Amorality.
Evil.
Weiss screamed out. Her hands and chains shook, and the sparks faded as she gasped for breath.
Geyadrone leaned forward, her mocking grin wider than should be possible on any sort of a normal face. "But wait… you can't do it, can you? You can't and you won't. You could, and it would be oh so easy for a thing like you but… what would that mean, then? Why, if you used it, then you would as good as admitting that you are really no different than your dear old sire; hateful, empty, selfish, avaricious, malicious, abusive… Truly, you are the daughter of Jacques Schnee."
As Weiss's eyes widened at shock at the monster's utterance of that name, Geyadrone threw her head back and laughed; a deep, full-bodied and throaty thing that sent daggers down Weiss' spine. "It's just fantastic! All those little things you used to think, Daughter of Jacques Schnee, stewing in the back of your mind. All the ones you never told your friends about, right, daughter of Jacques Schnee? Things you didn't even admit to the dear Admiral, to poor Neptune over there, or even to… what's he calling himself now? Ah, yes, Argent. All those thoughts and feelings and words and ideas and suspicions. You remember them, Daughter of Jacques Schnee, don't you? All those slurs muttered under your breath when you saw them walking by, all those suspicious ideas, the little hatreds that've spewed from your mouth at a moment's notice… and all the times you put on a false little smile for the little pissants that daredto call themselves your friends, when, in truth, they were not fit to lick the scum off the bottom of your boot soles. All to make you little else but what you will always and ever be, my dear: the Daughter of Jacques Schnee."
Anger overcame fear and shame. "Stop it!" Weiss screamed. "And stop calling me that!"
Geyadrone then leaned in, colorless pupils locking onto Weiss' terrified ones. "And just why should I stop? It is what you are, for you can't be anything else, Daughter of Jacques Schnee. You are not the daughter of Willow, for at least you are not so weak as to drown yourself in the bottom of whatever liquor bottle is on hand at the slightest prevarication, leaving children to fend for themselves. Nor could you ever hope to rightfully call yourself the granddaughter of Nicholas, for he… oh he was a true hero, right? Loyal, brave, honest, kind, selfless and noble, if perhaps a bit too trusting, doing anything and everything to help those around him, even at the cost of his health and life, all the way up to the bitter end."
How!? How did she know about any of this!?
The monster then tapped a talon against Weiss' forehead, before slowly trailing it down over her scarred eye, digging into her skin, drawing fresh blood. "But you, Daughter of Jacques Schnee? You are none of those things. You never have been… and you. Never. Will."
The talon dug in a bit deeper. "All you can be is the Daughter of Jacques Schnee… and all you have been, all you will ever be, is a self-hating, discriminatory, deceitful, distrustful, self-delusional, and racist little perfectionist forever incapable of ever truly changing for the better or even accepting yourself, no matter how many tearful confessions you unleash upon supportive and understanding shoulders, no matter how many kindly and wise lectures you receive from those who profess to know better than you. And, adding to all of that is the fact that, even now, you would rather doom yourself and your friend here to uncertain fates rather than reach out to the black, and take said fates into your own two little hands. And it's not for any sort of nobly moral or heroic reason, no no no. Instead, it's all just for the sake of your own ego, to prove you are not like your father."
She shook her head, withdrew her talon, and tut-tutted, like a mother about to scold a disappointing child. "Honestly, with all of that… how can you rightfully say you are not like him? That your first instinct isn't to do little else but look out for number one, as a proper Schnee?"
Weiss wanted to scream. She was wrong! She was wrong, she was wrong, she…
She…
…
Weiss collapsed to her knees.
She was right.
"What… do you want from me?" she whispered, as tears streamed down her bloody face.
That earned her another fanged smile. "As I said; I want your magic, daughter of Jacques Schnee. That ability of yours to call up copies of beasts defeated from yourself. I need it… and thus… I could really use you. Mind, soul… and body."
Weiss' eyes widened in horror at the implication in the monster's words, even as said monster leaned in close, and traced two fingers about Weiss' head and face, the contact making her flinch more and more. "So… let me in, daughter of Jacques Schnee; give over control to me, become my new vessel, my new body… and all your problems will vanish as dust in the wind. Wouldn't that be nice? No more worries, no more cares… no more self-hatred and hypocrisy puppeteering your every waking moment."
She then reared back slightly, and shrugged. "Of course… being the kindly soul that I am, there is still another way out of this for you, my dear…"
A blink, and both of her clawed hands were suddenly and tightly gripping the sides of Weiss' head, like a vice, digging into her skin, in her scalp and under her cheeks, drawing fresh tracks of blood and fresh groans of pain from Weiss as she was roughly yanked to her feet. "And so… I see you, here and now; you are standing at an impasse, and with two choices before you, Daughter of Jacques Schnee."
Her grin grew larger, her breath horrid and wrong. "So… Option 1: give in, grab the black tight and acknowledge what you truly are, Daughter of Jacques Schnee, and give me what I want; one of your little constructs, borne of white, blue and black. Then… I will let you and little Neptune walk right out, right as rain, as promised earlier. I'll even give you the location to another plane, one far away from here, nice and peaceful where you and he can enjoy safety and comfort for the rest of your pitiful and pathetic little days. Or, option 2… suffer needlessly as I continue to peel back and rummage through your mind to make room for myself, and take what I want."
She then released Weiss' head, and slithered back. "Well? What is it going to be? Because either way, I still win."
Weiss swallowed, and then disparate dots connected in her head. "That… that dream earlier… you… you were Auntie D. All that time"
"Correct. And, I must admit, your mind is a bit trickier than I was anticipating. Five days now, it's been, and here we are, instead of where we should be. Bravo on that. Of course, I should have realized that is how it would be. Nothing in this multiverse happens outside the numbers of One, five, Ten… or some multiple thereof, little snowflake"
Weiss flinched at the nickname, and disregarded the bizarre statement. "…You haven't told me what you want my magic for."
Geyadrone shrugged. "And just why should that be any of your concern? This is not your home plane, and these are not your people."
She then narrowed her eyes at Weiss with a frown, and crossed her arms, as if disapprovingly. "Do you honestly expect me to believe you actually care, that you hold some bit of actual altruism within your twisted, broken little soul? You, who did and said nothing as hundreds upon thousands of faunus and those deemed 'lower' suffered and died under your family's company, ground to dust by your father's iron fist, even after you reached an age where your voice could be heard? You, who looked with derision upon the little upstart who fate dared to make leader of your little coterie despite your overwhelming qualifications? You, who were always so quick to lump all those 'filthy animals' into one, homogenous, white-masked category? Who pretended to be a better team player to… hmm, now what was it again? Ah, yes… gain points for fixing your defective team leader."
Weiss could not help but flinch at that, as the monster continued. "Stop lying to yourself, Daughter of Jacques Schnee, for it lessens you even further that you already have. Save for when it came to satisfying your own insatiable and titanic ego and achieving your own pathetic ambitions, you have never cared… and you never will."
She then sighed, a slightly phlegmy noise. "Now, as much as I am absolutely loving this smashing little tête-à-tête of ours, this heartfelt rapport that I think has honestly and organically grown between us to bring us so much closer together… I am admittedly growing a bit impatient, as I have important things to do. So… what will it be?"
The monster then held out a hand, as if to help her to her feet. "Truth… or oblivion?"
Weiss stared up at her captor a long moment, at the darkness lurking in the monster's eyes, out the claws of her outstretched hand. Maybe it was the best option… she would never be able to choose the black… and it's not like she deserved any kindness in life anyway…
Silver eyes crinkled at her above a sincere smile, framed by black-and-red hair, as the small red reaper leaned casually against her large weapon.
The tall girl, eager to take on the world with fists of fire, waved at her, and brushed back her mane of sunlight.
Wreathed half in shadow, a cat with eyes of gold, a small grin quirking her lips upwards, beckoned forward, a book held out towards her.
"My father was not the start of our name, and I refuse to let him be the end of it."
Her… her friends all held out their hands towards her. "Come on Weiss! Let's go! Don't give up!" "Yeah! Represent Team RWBY!"
Weiss slowly stood up…and she spat, the saliva slamming against her captor's aged face. Once she did, she then said a single word.
"Never."
That merely elicited a raised eyebrow from her captor as she casually wiped the spittle away with a clawed hand. "So quick to answer, hmmm?"
As she reached forward and stroked the side of Weiss' face again (with the spittle-wiping hand, no less), Weiss pulled away as best she could, and glared at Geyadrone with tear-stained eyes. "I will fight you," she hissed. "With every fiber of my being, I will resist you. I am Weiss Schnee, granddaughter of Nicholas, sister of Winter, daughter of Willow, a proud and loyal member of team RWBY… and I swear that I will end you, you miserable and malevolent monster… I will end you… and I will never give you what you want."
Geyadrone stared at her for a long breath, almost static and emotionless… and then she grinned wide as she gave a round of sarcastic applause. "Bravo! Bravo! A five-star performance! A most heroic declaration, Daughter of Jacques. So full of vim and vigor and valor and wonderful alliteration, my little snowflake! And so believable! Oh, I am very sure that you would and will consciously fight me at every opportunity as I peel away your mind, hollow out your soul and consciousness to make room for my own and claim my inevitable victory. I believe that you would make me pay for every last step gained in pain and anguish and lost time. Truly, I believe you, I do. Only…"
She leaned in close, almost towering over Weiss, and put a hand to the side of her mouth, as if to speak in a conspiratorial manner, while her tentacles began to slowly rise up around them. "There is just a one teeny little fact that you are yet to be made aware of, my dear. And do you know what that teeny, tiny, little, almost inconsequential fact is, daughter of Jacques, little snowflake?"
Before Weiss could do anything, Geyadrone then licked the side of Weiss' face with a horridly long tongue, right over her scar, the residue like acid on her skin, and then whispered, "… Your body, mind and soul are alreadymine."
Before she could register that, the tentacles then shot forward, and wrapped themselves tightly around Weiss' head before she could scream…
The house was empty. Empty, wide and spacious. As was the city surrounding it. Empty, lifeless, uncaring and cold.
For Weiss Schnee, it seemed that it had always been like that, etched and engraved forever into her memories.
Geyadrone supposed that would be considered sad. The pathetic cruelties mortals so eagerly and readily inflicted on one another.
It was just oh so delicious though, wasn't it?
With that, she laughed as she spun and danced about the mental reconstruction of Weiss' homeland, idly rearranging and destroying pieces and props and things to her heart's content. A shattered picture here, torn-up books there, a butchered mental construct there, etc… Oh, but it was wonderful. Little things swelling up to larger changes. She laughed and danced and why shouldn't she?
A new body, a new dawn, a new day, new magics, and it was all hers, now and forever. Oh, but how she just laughed and laughed…
Down, down, far below, she could hear Weiss as the little snowflake screamed and sobbed through the solid coffin Geyadrone had sealed her in, beating her fists against the lid in vain. She listened as Weiss screamed and screamed and sobbed and cried and begged, and it only served to make it all the more hilarious and wonderful as Geyadrone laughed and laughed-
And she kept laughing, as she opened her new eyes.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Taiyang
The Shores of Akoum
Zendikar
The captain died later that next day, just as the sun had started to set.
It had not been a quick thing, sadly, and she had devolved into a delirious and feverish ranting throughout the night, calling out to figures unknown and perhaps long dead. Whether it had been delayed backlash from the teleportation, the accumulation of her wounds, or perhaps just a broken heart, none could truly speak as to the cause.
Tai had stayed by her side as best he could, feeling unable to do much else. At times, he had held her hand silently, and that had seemed to calm her slightly.
He still remembered her final moments; with bloodshot eyes, she had turned to him, drawing him close. "Make sure they get home," she had whispered. "Get them home and far away, Tai, you and Anelyi. And… take… this…"
She had then reached towards her neck and yanked off a small hedron attached to a leather cord. "Will hold… proof… of… expedition…. Take it to…"
She had then whispered the address in his ear, that of a street in Sea Gate, and made him repeat it three times so that it was sealed in his memory.
"Thank you," she had then said, as her eyes had started to dim. "Ah… I am so tired. Tell… tell Anelyi I'm… I'm so sorry… so… sorry…"
They burned her body atop a pyre crafted from the wreckage The Blade of Iona, clothed in simple and peaceful garb, as per her last wishes. Taylie presided over the ceremony with prayers, like Tai had read that the ancient priests would do in the older days of Remnant. There were plenty of tears to be had, and Tai was among them. Even Anelyi wept, a sight Tai had once darkly felt was an impossible thing for the elf to do.
As they all watched the pyre burn down, watching the last remnants of the ship many had called home for decades disintegrate into ash and sending smoke up into the hot night sky, the elf stood before them, hands at her side, Rarza's sword across her back. "…I wish I could make a speech right now," she said, as the crackle of the flames died down. "I truly wish that I could conjure up pretty and inspiring words that would make for a pretty and fine eulogy. But I can't… I can't do that, for how can mere words even hope to encapsulate Captain Rarza's life?"
She swallowed. "She was our captain, our friend, our sister and our mother all wrapped into one. She took us into her crew, she loved us… and she made us better. And we were her family… and now she's gone, gone to wherever it is that Gintar and Ardenn and the twins and Taron and all the others have already made their way to, paving the way for the rest of us to follow when the time comes, so that we can all finally rest. However, … I do know that she would not want us joining her and the others there too soon… not until we've all gotten back home safe and sound."
She wiped at her eyes, and then took a good solid look at all of them. "So… we will do our best to make sure we all get back home, that we do the captain proud." She then raised her fist high in the air. "For we are the crew of the Blade of Iona! We have traversed this world and all its continents a hundred times over. We did not break then… and we will not break now!"
That earned her cheers from everyone, including Tai. She nodded, wiped at her eyes again, and then let steel enter them. "Right…enough dallying. We head out at first light. Pack what you can carry and burn the rest. Hells or highwater… we're going home…"
…
…
…
Tai's Journal
Two months after the wreck
This place… in the old stories about the dead religions, they apparently used to speak of a place called Hell. Supposedly, if you were a bad person, that was where you went and were… tortured or something, I don't know, that part of history class always made me doze off…. Now, as someone who has personally delved into the grimmlands, time after mind-rending time… I would not say that Akoum would be this 'hell', per-se… but it is no cake-walk, to be sure. Most every moment is nothing but hot, and the rest is almost blazing, almost too much to write, really…
Tai groaned as he tossed the remnants of the charcoal pencil away from the now-smudged page, and then wiped the dripping, salty sweat form his brow. Sweat. With how hot it was, the fact that anyone in the crew had any moisture left in their body seemed nothing short of a miracle, to be sure.
He looked up towards the dark night sky, and across the equally blistering landscape. There was no need for a big fire here, lest the crew all but cook themselves alive… or draw attention. But you always needed a fire, so they made do with small ones.
Akoum…
Fuck, but this place… it almost made Tai feel wistful for the heat-blasted sands of Vacuo, truth-be-told. Unlike Jwar Isle, the only variation of the temperature here seemed to be between that of hot and sweltering. And the land… even in the grimmlands, there had been some mockery of vegetation, thorny forests and thickets and whatnot… but here? Here it was almost completely barren, the ground as hot as the air it seemed, with cracks releasing hot gasses and things running across the surface, too hot for sustainable life, at least that of any grand substance.
But what life there was here, that survived and thrived here… everyone had to keep a swerving eye aimed up towards the sky at all times, and keep their eyes peeled for the ground to start shaking, and kept their ears strained for the sound of skyward wingbeats.
A part of Tai had desperately hoped that those last things had been as mythical here as they were back home… the fire that had rained from the sky two days earlier had swiftly and violently disabused him of that notion, though.
Dragons. Who'd have thought?
They had lost Arrik and Fora that day, the two sailors having been too slow to get to cover… and too far away for him to reach them in time, despite rationalizing that he would have ended up dead with them. They had been eager to get home to Sea Gate, just like everyone else, and had served on the Blade of Iona for ten years.
Small mercy that it had been quick, perhaps. He had been thinking that a lot, these days, that it was better that it was quick… and it was, perhaps, fortunate that had not yet been talk of leaving the weakest behind. No one was willing to cross that line yet… let alone follow that particular train of thought to its ultimate conclusion.
The surviving crew trekked across whole areas scorched black by volcanic ash and fire, some of it so thick and steep it was like wading through a horrid, darkened snow. They made their way past (and through) entire valleys filled with nothing but fields of sharp crystalline protrusions, each edge sharp enough to slice straight to bone. There were also days when they could not afford to move, and so remained in huddled campsites, awaiting the time when it was safe to continue onwards.
Two months of this.
Roughly two months in, and they had already lost ten more of the crew to attacks by raiders and the wildlife… and then two more earlier this morning to rampaging elementals…. As well as just simple exhaustion. And they could not stop to even bury the bodies, if ever there was something left to bury. Little sleep was had, for to stop was to perhaps bake, burn, be devoured, or simply die. Tai had begun to run himself a little ragged, using his magic to thwart any attack by the animals and elementals, and only enough to simply ward them off. In doing so, he had learned that over usage of it resulted in migraines and a nosebleed.
Two months trapped in this place. How were they all still sane?
Two months, and he could feel himself growing leaner, his face covered in a ragged beard, and his hair equally messy now. Dust, but he probably looked a sight.
Summer had never been too fond of full-on beards, and neither had the girls…
He chased away those thoughts when they came up. He had to focus on helping everyone else on the crew, making sure they all got home. Two months, and they still had a wys to go.
…
…
Two. Months.
Two. Months.
And. This. Place…
…
…
Tai took a shuddering breath to collect his thoughts.
Still… Tai could not help but note that there was a strange, harsh, and almost edged sort of beauty to this place. Never kindly… and yet not unfair, either. If you could survive it, then you could live. If not…
Above all else, he hoped Yang was okay. At least she was safe, back in Sea Gate. Safe… if perhaps unhappy.
He then glanced at the kor prosthetic he had taken from Jwar Isle. Perhaps it would be something of a peace offering, he hoped. Enough to help her realize he still cared.
Not that he could blame her for feeling the opposite, really. He had still left her behind, and nothing could change that.
…
…
Fuck.
"Two-Legs – Gold-Fur – Listener-Namer upset-sad?" Wander said, butting his head lightly against Tai's side from where he lay next to him, dislodging him from his thoughts.
Tai sighed and stroked the felidar's head, between his horns as he enjoyed. Like everyone else, Wanderer was also growing a bit leaner and a bit more ragged every day. There was still blood on his maw, courtesy of the beasts that they had fought off earlier today, a pair of massive wurms. At least those had made for decent eating.
"Just tired, buddy. So… very tired."
"Aren't we all?" came a familiar voice.
He looked up to see Anelyi. Her hands, for once, not ever-hovering near her sword and daggers at her hip. Instead, they were crossed against her chest as she stared at him with an unknowable expression on her tattooed face. "Uh… evening," Tai said.
"Evening," she replied plainly… before promptly sitting down beside him, briefly looking at the smudged journal in his lap. "You're still writing?" she observed. "Why?"
"It uh… helps keep my mind clear," he answered, his mouth a bit dry. "Keep your thoughts somewhere else, that way they don't keep your mind cluttered, you know? Makes room for important stuff"
"I can understand that," the elf said, to his surprise. "A clear head is a needed thing anywhere, I suppose."
"Yeah…"
Tai's small fire crackled, and the awkwardness slowly grew into an almost tangible thing, like a balloon filled near to bursting.
"I'm sorry," Anelyi then stated, and the balloon deflated.
Tai blinked, feeling almost physically struck. "Uh… what?"
"I said I'm sorry," Anelyi repeated, though she was not looking at him. "I'm sorry… for how I've treated you. You did not deserve that, all the shit I heaped on you."
Tai said nothing, and just continued to stare at her. Meanwhile, the fire crackled.
"It's just…I've never liked it when things… change," she said, thumbing one of her knives almost nervously. "To me… if things are done a certain way, then that's how it is supposed to be. A crew remains how it is, even throughout all the endless death and tribulation and bullshit, you hear me?"
Tai found his voice, and nodded. "I… can understand that. If it makes sense and worked the first time, then why change what doesn't need to be fixed, right? Keeps things sane in an insane world."
She shrugged. "I suppose. And, to me, when it was just me, Taron, Gintar and… and the captain, along with the others who later joined in the beginning? That was how it's supposed to be. First family I ever really had, after I was exiled from Bala Ged. Kept me from drinking myself into an early grave, got me somewhat cleaned up… and we set our eyes on the horizon. All of us, against the whole world…"
Tai found himself nodding at that. "I felt the same too, once. It's a nice thing to feel."
She looked at him when he said that. "How long did you all stand together against the world, then? You and your crew, your family?"
He chuckled sadly. "Less than a decade, truth be told. All over too soon… still wouldn't trade it for anything else, though."
"I recognize that. What happened?"
He shrugged, old sorrows laying themselves upon his shoulders. "One left and chose a darker path to follow… one couldn't find the strength to stay in one place too long, even though it was beyond his control or blame, and the last…" he swallowed, flashes of a white cloak and a kindly smile and silver eyes flitting about in his memory. "…She stayed… and then she died some years later."
She nodded at that, and wiped at her mouth a bit, having taken a sip from her flask. "You loved her."
He took a deep breath. "I did… and at the end…there wasn't even a body to bury…"
Anelyi took another swig, the motion reminding him so much of Qrow, and a far-away look settled into the elf's eyes as she stared at the campfire. "… Me and Taron… the big, silver-tongued goof, we always talked of settling down, yeah? 'One more job' and all that. Save up enough to get some nice house in Sea Gate, watch the sun rise over the harbor every morning… enjoy life when it's not trying to kill you, and so on."
The white cloak faded, replaced with memories of the farm on Patch, of smiling girls laughing and running about, of fresh-baked cookies filling the room with wonderful scents. "It's a good goal to have, I think."
Anelyi shook her head. "Never was going to happen though. We both loved Rarza too much to leave her, her and that big lug Gintar, and all the others. You don't abandon your crew. We all started together, so why break it, that fellowship? Still, we'd talked and talked, 'one more job,' 'one more job…' A nice dream… and then he goes and gets himself killed… and now Gintar and Rarza and more and more, and we're stuck, stuck in this hellhole…"
Her breath hitched, and she put her head in her hands. "Stupid idiots. Stupid, brave, foolish idiots…"
Tai could only sit next to her as the elf wept. Without a word, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, her cries intermingling with the crackles of the fire.
She then sniffed and wiped at her eyes before taking a few shaky breaths. "Well…My point is… I'm sorry, Tai. Sorry I've been a bitch to you all this time, and sorry you had to meet me like that."
He blinked. "Thank you," he finally said. "And I… I'm sorry as well. For what it's worth, I hope I can still meet the better you."
She wiped at her eyes again, and chuckled a bit. "Ah, well… that's that, I suppose. Maybe once we're in Sea Gate. We'll… we'll have a meal or something."
He chuckled a bit as well. "That sounds good."
She then stood. "You and Wanderer there get some rest, Tai. Long day tomorrow, and we all need to be alert. Just… keep doing your part, okay? Keep doing your part, and we'll all get home, okay?"
"You got it."
The fire kept crackling, and as Tai and Wanderer went to sleep, Tai dreamed of a little blonde child, crying out, and wrapped in a tattered white cloak…
They all rose early the next day, and continued on; across crystal fields, and under more skies darkened by ash half the time. Another hot and slow week passed, full of small meals and small sips of water and wary rest. When he wasn't helping bring up the rear, Tai and Wanderer were the designated forerunner scouts, seeking the least dangerous path forward… just as they were doing today.
Wanderer bounded back towards him. Many-Steps-Great-Number coming forward-towards-prowling at pack he exclaimed through the link.
Tai and the felidar hurried back across the land towards Anelyi, the elf holding up a hand to halt the crew's procession. "Someone's coming up," Tai relayed to Anelyi. "A whole number of someones. What do you want to do?"
The elf stroked her chin, looking over her shoulder to the rest of the crew. "Stay alert," she said.
It was, indeed, a large group that soon approached them, outnumbering the crew at least six to one. At first glance, they looked like fellow adventurers and explorers, only rougher, perhaps, more edged... and meaner, even.
Come to think of it, their demeanor reminded him a bit of Raven's old tribe…
…
…
Oh no.
As Tai mentally steadied himself, the larger band stopped before the crew. At the head of this group was a black-haired man dressed in well-worn leather armor. He seemed to be the leader.
"Greetings," the man said, a hand resting casually on his ax as he gave a casual grin.
It did not escape Tai's seasoned notice just how notched the ax's edge was.
"Good day," Anelyi replied evenly. "Who are you?"
The man put a hand to his armored chest, as if making sure she was addressing him. "Us? Why, simple travelers and explorers. That's all. Making our way across land and sea, braving predations both natural and animal so as to make our fortunes… same as you, I reckon. Name's Revak, and I am the leader of this humble and intrepid little band." At that, he gave a small bow. "And who, might I ask, are all of you weary-looking folk?"
"The crew of The Blade of Iona, looking to make their way home," Anelyi said, on hand resting on her sword's pommel.
Revak raised a scarred brow at her answer. "The Blade of Iona you say? Well now, that there is a storied name. And you are its crew?" He then made a show of looking about, before adopting a confused expression. "But… I am a bit perplexed. You claim to be that ship's crew and yet… where is said ship? Have you perchance shrunk it, so as to carry it in one of your packs? Or is it invisible, being towed behind you on equally invisible ropes?" He gestured towards Tai. "That one looks big enough to do so, haggard as he and the rest of you all look."
Several of his fellows laughed.
Wanderer growled.
"What do you want?" Anelyi hissed. 'If you've only come to jeer and mock us, than it's best we part ways now and pretend this never happened."
Revak chuckled and held up a hand. "Why… to give you all aid and service, of course. After all, we adventuresome explorers must stick together, should we not? Help one another in times of need."
"How… kind of you. Though, why would you be so charitable?"
Revak shrugged. "Well, my fellows and I, we all had heard an odd rumor, you see, a while back; one that The Blade of Iona's captain had taken a commission of an expedition… one to the Island of Jwar, no less. Where you've no doubt come across many strange and interesting things… things that are no doubt quite valuable."
It had been a long month. "Get to the point," Tai said, his hands clenching at his side.
Revak glanced at him, and then back at Anelyi. "You let your subordinates speak for you off the cuff? How democratic."
Anelyi grunted. "You heard him. Get to the fucking point. What do you want?"
"We will help you… if you allow us full access to whatever it is you found on that dreary little island… and if you join us in happy conjoining. After all, is not one united better than two divided?"
Lovely. Give us everything, join us, and we'll leave you with the breath in your lungs.
Don't look for me, Tai. What we had is dead.
"Fuck off," Anelyi replied, her sword already in hand. "We don't make deals with opportunistic parasites too lazy to do their own work. So, let's go our separate ways… as fellow adventurers."
Tai raised his fists, glowing with blue and green, while Wanderer crouched, as if ready to pounce. Behind them, the rest of the crew drew their weapons.
The air felt as tense as a bowstring pulled taut, or the hammer of a gun half-way pulled back.
"That was… a most unkindly answer," Revak said, tightly, his jaw working itself. "Unkindly and unfortunate. Akoum is a dangerous place, after all. Never know what sort of trouble might end you here."
"Leave," Anelyi hissed. "Now."
The 'adventurer' tapped the top of his ax as the rest of his band bristled with steel… and then shrugged. "Suit yourself. Let's go, fellows. Mayhaps we'll see each other again in… better circumstances, Captain Anelyi."
Tai and the crew did not stow away their weapons and magic until the band was well out of sight. The moment they did, Anelyi let loose an angry breath. "Fucking hell! Fucking hell!"
The rest of the day passed in a tense and terse silence as the crew made their way further, now keeping an eye out for any sign of the no-doubt irate scavengers, as well as… everything else. It was not all entirely ill, though, for Elri had started to regain a bit of vigor on his skeletal frame, enough to walk upright a bit before having to return to his litter… and they even managed to find what was apparently called a life-bloom; temporary garden-pockets of life and vegetation that randomly bloomed upon the continent following a volcanic eruption. If nothing else, Tai was glad to finally eat some kind of juicy fruit and vegetables after almost a year… as well as some decent shade to rest beneath, and water that was not what could be charitably termed 'tepid'.
"So, what's the plan?" Tai asked, as he sat next to Anelyi at the campsite in the evening, Wanderer having gone hunting for game.
She spread the map as smooth as possible, and pointed to a spot near where the map noted as the northern mountain ranges. "At the rate we are going, we'll have reached Affa within the month, maybe… two or three weeks, tops? Once there, we'll link up with transportation to the coast, barter passage on a decent ship, and head home, all of us."
"And then what?" Tai asked, his eyes flitting to the others.
The elf shrugged at his question. "I really don't know. Retire, I suppose, and/ or go our separate ways. The ship's gone, and the captain's gone… what else is there to do?"
"Try again?"
Anelyi shook her head. "No sense in that, Tai. Like I said... the ship's gone. Best to… best to…"
He understood, why she couldn't finish that sentence. Because then it would be real and final
Anelyi sighed and then reached over and lightly patted him on the shoulder. "Get some rest, Tai," she said. "Another long day tomorrow."
Sleep was not easy in coming, but it did come, after a bit, while he kept the prosthetic by his side, and his armor and gauntlets still firmly upon his self, though he did remove his boots and socks…
He was standing on the hill, and the day was bright and clear and quiet. They were the kind of days that she loved. He was due to meet her hear soon, as he had a question he hoped she was willing to answer.
He closed his eyes and breathed in deep of the clear and clean air.
-p.
He opened his eyes in slight confusion, and he saw clouds, starting to form in the sky; small and white, but there, nonetheless. And what was that noise?
No matter. This day was going to be perfect. It had to be. Dinner, a nice day, and then, the question…
-wake-up – not-sleep – open-eyes.
The wind was starting to pick up, kicking up leaves all about, and there was thunder, in the distance, as fear swelled in his chest.
Get home, he had to get home something wasn't right.
-wake-up-
He ran through the forest, as the sound of thunder intermingled with the laughter of ravens. It was so dark but he kept running he had to get to them.
-kill them all!
"Summer!" he called out, through the rain and the thunder and the raven's laughter and the darkness, as branches tore at his arms and face. "SUMMER! YANG!"
There was the house, and the rain was pelting his face, and the thunder was deafening. "SUMMER! YANG!"
He all but crashed through the door, as the ravens laughed louder. He then looked up and…
A white cloak.
Silver eyes, filled with sorrow.
And the scornful laughter of ravens.
Tai, you have to-
WAKE-UP – NOT-SLEEP – OPEN-EYES!
As his eyes shot open, a great roar split the air, followed by the sounds of screams and bellows and strange war cries. These sounds Tai recognized as he all but hurled himself from his tent, avoiding the spear that almost impaled him through the head. Almost absently, Tai pulled on that spear and reeled in its wielder to pulp their ribcage with a heavy blow. Before he could even survey what was happening around him, Tai's years of battle instinct already knew what was upon them.
They were under attack.
And he'd had not time to put boots or even socks on, but he had to focus.
Keep moving.
Tai parried a spark-producing blow from a wild-eyed human's ax against his bracers, and then all but caved in the man's face with a punch. In his head, he could hear Wanderer's roars, and could even feel as the felidar tore and bit into flesh.
Keep moving. Stand together.
An ax sliced towards his head, and he wove out of the way, slamming a kick between the wielder's legs, the blow sending them off their feet. No time to linger, keep moving, and he let loose a series of rapid blows against the head of a man who carried a long knife in each hand.
Keep moving!
"Make for the hills!" he heard Anelyi cry out, over the din of the combat. "Split up and survive!"
A shimmering knife cut into his ear, through his aura, before he crushed the man's throat. He would but… but first he had to… had to rescue someone. Couldn't let these bastards cordon them off.
At the sound of spells being set off, he turned.
Ekri and Elri were unleashing blasts of lightning and fire upon their opponents. Even weakened, the duo made some headway, leaving bodies in their wake. If he could rech them cling clang crunch Perhaps they could-
There came a roar of thunder, and the bandit's own magicians unleashed a horrid counterattack on the pair, leaving their hands scorched and burned, eliciting pained screams. He had to get to them, had to-
Before he could reach them, all Tai could do was watch in horror as laughing brigands fell upon the married wizards, the duo's screams cutting off abruptly. He swiftly turned away, a yell of horror left Tai's throat, even as he had to turn away, shattering a bandit's sternum and ribcage with a single blow before then dodging a mace blow and retaliating with three swift jabs to the woman's throat.
Too many.
Keep moving.
Keep fighting.
Don't stop.
Blood ran down his face from another cut made with a glowing sword, even as he broke the wielder's arm backwards and bloody with a counterstrike.
There were too many.
He felt the flash of powerful healing magic from around the battlefield, and felt a few of his smaller wounds begin to close up. He turned to see Taylie, a bit away, her staff raised high, chants and prayers deluging form her mouth as she fought. If he could get to Taylie, guard her while she unleashed her own spells and greater healing magics, maybe this could still net them an escape-
Even as he battered and punched, Tai could do little else but just scream out again as Taylie collapsed to the ground, Revak's ax buried in her back, the white glow fading as she was then stabbed, over and over again by a laughing Revak and his bandit cronies.
Too many.
Too many.
Too many!
Then a thought flashed through is brain. The captain! Anelyi, he had to get to her!
Keep fighting! Keep fighting, and save who he could. Save the captain!
Get back to her!
He flashed a thought to Wanderer, and the felidar responded. Keep fighting!
In the distance… he could see her, cutting down bandit after bandit, a veritable storm of cuts and steel.
Just get to her, Taiyang! Just get to her and then keep fighting! Keep! Fighting!
He then saw a massive minotaur armed with an equally large and flanged mace engage with Anelyi.
Get to her, Taiyang, get to her!
Through the madness of the slaughter, he watched as Anelyi unleashed a veritable whirlwind of cuts and slashes on the towering brute, screaming all the while, even as the minotaur seemed to weather and ignore each cut and wound with an almost casual laxity.
She was too far away, and there were still too many.
All he could do was watch as the beast then slamed its mace into her side, and he saw her scream in pain as she crumpled to the ground, spitting out blood, still clutching her dagger, her sword flying from her grasp.
He had to… he had to get to her, to save her, save them, save somebody!
Too many!
"Captain!" he screamed out, as he saw the minotaur drop its mace, and then grasp Anelyi by the torso with both meaty hands.
No, no, no, no, no, NO!
"Survive!" Anelyi shouted, perhaps to him, or to any of the others who were still alive, or perhaps to no one. She shouted it as she stabbed the beast over and over again with her dagger, even as it hoisted her up, large hands crushing her spine and ribcage.
"CAPTAIN!"
She was still too far, still too far away!
"Survive!" she screamed again, wetly. "Survive, and make sure all the other bastards in this shithole of a world remember the crew of The Blade of Iona-!"
A moment later, the towering minotaur ripped her in half.
His mind reeling from the sight, Tai did not see the sword cutting down behind him until it was almost too late. As his back lit up with pain, the huntsman form Patch blindly lashed out behind him, pulping the raider's head to mush. Having overextended, Tai nearly flung himself off his feet, pain filling up his senses until-
THWACK!
A force like a small freight train slammed into him, sending him tumbling front over back over front across the jagged ground, eliciting fresh wound and cries of pain form his bloody moth while the world tilted and spun. And through it, he saw the brute approach, its massive mace back in hand, dragging along behind it.
Tai gritted his teeth, tasting fresh blood on his lips. He had to get up, he had to get up but… too much… too much.
At the beast's approach, Tai awkwardly scuttled backwards across the ground, the sounds of the crew being slaughtered still filling the air, intermingling with the deranged and mocking laughter of the other bandits and killers. The massive minotaur, meanwhile, paused to wipe Anelyi's blood off his free hand on his furry chest, and then resumed lumbering towards him, towards Tai, his massive mace slung across his shoulder, as if bored by the slaughter.
Tai had to get up but he felt… he felt… so dizzy…
There came a screeching blur as something zipped past Tai, launching itself at the brute's face. It was Wanderer, and it collided with the minotaur like a bullet from a gun, if bullets had fur, fangs, claws and horns.
Tai staggered to his feet, only for another three bandits to all but jump him in a flurry of hooks and blades and clubs.
No time for this!
Tai smashed one's jaw to paste, and then sent a fist through the other's club and throat. No time for this no time, he had to… he had to get to Wanderer! Save somebody!
The minotaur had dropped his club again, arms and face and chest covered in scratches, and now held the felidar in a tight, two-handed grip, lifting him up far above his head. Wanderer kept thrashing, yowling and screeching and clawing both aloud and in Tai's head. Tai had to reach him, he was so close, so close, until-
CRACK!
As the felidar's neck broke and tore away, the world shifted and Tai heard himself suddenly screaming and screaming as fire lanced itself through his brain and mind, as Wanderer's final screams echoed over and over in his head, mingling with his own, as Tai thrashed and spasmed and stumbled about the slaughter all around him, as he heard his crewmates die, as Anelyi's final word echoed over and over in his head.
"SURVIVE!"
Tai screamed and screamed and screamed as the world tilted and spun, and he could feel blood leaking from his nose and eyes.
Had to…
Had to… get away.
Get away get away get away, he had to get away to survive get away and the world shifted backwards and there were flashes, flashes of blue and green and red and white and black and then-
Tai gasped as the world seemed to slingshot itself to a halt, and the screaming suddenly stopped, that and the pain. He gasped several deep breaths, in and out, in and out, in and out, as he gathered his wits and looked down to find himself standing… on grass. On wet grass under bare feet in a darkened…
Wait… were those… trees?
Tai looked around in pained bewilderment. What? What- where? What was this place-
Arrooooooooooo!
…
…
Arrooooooooooo!
Huh….
For some reason, the howl made Tai's worries and concerns all just disappear, calling out to a part of himself he had thought long since buried and forgotten.
He… he had to find its source.
Arrooooooooooo!
Almost on instinct, Tai hurried off, following the howl. He had to find it, he had to…
Arrooooooooooo!
Above him, he could feel the moon shining brightly against the night sky (when had it become night… no no matter that did not matter).
For a brief moment, the haze lifted, and Tai's sense returned, letting him find himself by the base of a large outcropping of stone, large enough to form a small cave opening. All around, the trees seemed to swell and bunch together, and above…
Wow. After a year, he still had yet to get used to the sight of an intact moon. And this one… so big, so bright, so silver-
By the time his instincts screamed out for him to turn around, it was too late.
Something massive and covered in fur slammed into him, accompanied by roars and fangs and claws and they tumbled off against the ground, crashing through trees, as claws seemed to tear into his arms and sides, bouncing slightly off his flagging aura. Even through the pain and blur of combat, Tai managed to glimpse what was trying its best to maul him, even as he fought it off as best as he could; some sort of large wolf-thing, like a Beowulf only… brown and grey without protruding bone.
And he could hear more coming, distantly… and more howls as well.
With a grunt, Tai slammed a fist against the thing's shoulder, the bone cracking under his fist, while he used his other arm to ward off the thing's snapping jaws and-
The wolf-thing suddenly gripped him tightly, lifted him up, and smashed him through a whole tree… and then another, and another.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
His aura shattered and splinters peppering his shoulders and back, Tai gave a dazed groan, and his arm slackened for just a moment-
The wolf-thing's jaws clamped down tight on his shoulder, piercing and tearing through flesh and sinew, scraping against bone… and Tai screamed in agony as the thing then started to tear. Even as he kept punching it and punching it and punching it, it would not let go it hurt it hurt and then there was a red… red and black and green colored his vision.
As the red and black and green grew alongside a strange rage, Tai suddenly reared his head up, and bit down hard on the thing's neck.
As his teeth punctured fur and flesh, blood rushed into his mouth and the beast screamed through its clenched teeth, everything felt…
As he kept biting and tearing, his right hand tightened into a fist, and he punched it right in the chest in the chest, so hard that he impaled the thing, all the way past his elbow.
It gasped and then died, and he tore it off his shoulder, off his arm, and the blood felt warm and hot and sticky, and it almost hurt to breath for a moment… and yet he felt strong… so strong.
Arrooooooooooo!
More came, and he screamed as he fought them all. Fangs and claws tore at him, and he in turn bit and punched and kicked and tore and screamed, as blood and flesh entered his mouth… and he hated and loved it all at once.
Arrooooooooooo!
Arrooooooooooo!
…
…
…
How long did he fight and kill and bite? How long?
Who knew?
Crunch Snap Crack Crunch Thwack Thwack
Who cared?
So many bodies littered the ground and he wanted more, so much that he wanted to scream and howl and roar. He wiped at his face, ragged breaths shaking his frame. He wanted to keep going, keep hunting and killing and-
…
…
He saw the white cloak as it fluttered in the gentle wind, and as she looked at him with silver eyes, her hand resting gently on his arm, pulling him away from the arena.
"Tai," she whispered, her voice filled with an unforgettable kindness, over the rors of the crowds. "Please."
…
As the white cloak flashed before his eyes once more, and the beginnings of a blue sky peeked through the clouds above, He stumbled. Indeed, Tai almost fell, as clarity flooded his veins, just as the sunlight splashed across his face, his bloody hands outstretched, as if to ward off the horror.
No.
No, he… he couldn't do this.
He… he had to get back. He had to get… get back to her, to his baby girl, his little golden dragon, he had to… he had to. She was waiting. He would not abandon her, not again, not again.
He'd promised.
As blood dripped from his hands and mouth, across his face and shoulders and legs…Everything flashed in a blast of green and blue and red and black and white and then…
The lights faded, he exhaled, and he…
He looked around, feeling the now-familiar smoldering heat of Akoum about him and beneath his bare feet and then…
…
no.
He saw them, what remained of the camp and… he saw… the bodies. Oh dust the bodies…
The blood was drying on his skin, as the screams died down around him, and the forest grew quiet once more…
…
Tai collapsed to his knees on the hot, sticky ground, and proceeded to puke out a mass of red and yellow and other things too wrong to describe. He puked and puked and puked and puked until there seemed nothing left to vomit, and as he disgorged everything, he cried and wept and screamed and screamed and cried.
He wept for Anelyi, Rarza, Gintar, Ekkri and Elri, Taylie, Ardenn… all of the crew. He wept and screamed, hardly noticing the swirls of blue and green and bright bloody red and white and angry, angry black storming all around him.
Hrrrrrrrrr.
At the sound of the low, rumbling growl, Tai slowly looked up with teary, bloodshot eyes… and found himself face to face with a wolf, gazing back at him.
He had seen wolves before, not the twisted facsimiles of them that were the grimm. Many was the time he had to chase them off the farm, fought a few in his underground circuit days or when traversing the wilderness, and he had caught glimpses of a few on Jwar Isle, their amber eyes flashing in the night.
This wolf was much larger than any of those, as large as a bullhead even, if not larger, and it was staring at him with great eyes swirling with red and green and blue and white and black, with brown fur stained with red blood and black mud and green leaves and even tips of frost and droplets of water.
For what seemed like an eternity, it stood there, staring at him. Not making ready to pounce, but just… staring. Staring, its breath hot on his face. And all he could do was stare back at it… as if both were waiting for the other to pounce, to speak, to do something.
The wolf blinked… then turned and started prowling forward, stepping lightly over the corpses of his fellow crewmates. After four steps, it stopped by a harpooner's savaged corpse (it was Tikora, he could barely recognize her by the remains of the distinctive crest on her head) and turned to look over its shoulder at him, before nodding its head forward, as if to say follow.
And Tai could not help but want to follow it.
As he stood… Tai then saw the wolf had moved further forward to stand by a large swath of tracks, gesturing at them with its muzzle…and the rage began to build. Rage that he had not felt in such a very long time.
He felt blue and green and red and white and black hover at the edge of his vision as he looked at the tracks, and then at the savaged remains of his friends and crewmates.
Those bastards. Those bastards.
Revak's smirks and the horrid laughter of his fellow ravagers as they slaughtered Tai's friends echoed in Tai's head.
…
…
He had to make them pay.
The wolf growled again, a deep rumbling noise, one that seemed to almost shake the very ground, as if sensing his rising bloodlust. It then gestured towards the tracks again, before loping off beside them. Words that seemed more and less than words resounded in Tai's head, while the wound on his shoulder throbbed.
Follow.
Track.
Hunt.
And Tai ran after it, following the tracks, and following the wolf, his rage growing higher and higher with every step.
Keeping pace with the wolf, Tai hurried across Akoum, the scent of blood and leather and steel filling his nostrils, enough that he could even taste it on his tongue, his sight slowly filling up with green and blue and red and white and black. Through lifebloom forests, past mountainous volcanoes both raging and dead, across crystalline plains and sunken marshes and raging rivers he ran. He ran, and never once did he stop, nor did it ever occur to him to do so. He kept going, kept following the tracks, and following the wolf, following the scents and the taste as the hours and the days blended together, all in a wash of green and blue and red nd white and black.
Follow.
Track.
Hunt.
Vaguely, he could feel other creatures following alongside and behind him, many from the sight of the massacre…but he paid them no mind, his eyes fixed dead ahead on the wolf's loping form.
Day turned to evening and he kept running. They all kept running. Past more volcanoes and life-blooms and crystal outgrowths, they all kept running; following, tracking, seeking, hunting.
Eventually, as the moon took the sun's place in the sky once more, filling it with stars and black velvet… they all came to a stop at the top of a ridge, high in the sky. Quietly, the wolf stopped at the edge, and gestured downwards with its head. As Tai approached, he could see the distant edges of firelight, and he could distantly smell cooking food…
He then looked down and he saw…
He saw them, clear as day; the brigands, the murderers who had slaughtered his friends and crewmates, camped at the bottom of the ridge, campfires circling about, lighting up the evening. Even from this distance, this high up, he could see them as clearly as if he were right next to them, and… He saw them laughing.
They were laughing. They had slaughtered his friends and crewmates down to the last over loot and gold, leaving their bodies out to be eaten and devoured by carrion beasts… and they were laughing.
Then, so small he could have missed it... he saw the arm. The arm he had taken for Yang, left in a pile of loot.
As the rage swelled, out of the corner of Tai's eye, he saw the wolf standing beside him, and he saw its lips pulled back, baring large fangs and raised hackles as a single word echoed in Tai's head, amongst the red and blue and green, swirling around him and the other animals that had taken to following behind him, and the wound on his shoulder throbbed once more.
KILL
With a throat-rending scream, red and blue and green and white and black swirling all around him and drenching his eyes, Tai all but leaping off the lip, hurtling down towards the encampment. He yelled, and he could hear it echoed by the other beast he had felt following him. Before the murderers could even react, he had landed, and his fist was already pulping a throat to mush and ll seemed to blend together as he barreled forward.
Here and there, he heard shouts and screams. Whether those were his own or those of the monsters… he did not care enough to be certain.
KILL!
He ducked under one bovine brute's lumbering swing, and leaped up to meet its chin with his knee, yanking down on its horns as he did so.
CRACK!
He landed back on his feet, and then with gritted teeth he heaved, swung and tossed the limp corpse away, barreling over three others and sending them all smashing against the cliff face, before pivoting and tearing away a ravager's jaw with his bare hand. All the while, the wolf tore into several humans, its maw stained red and black with blood, followed by the rest of the animals and beast and elementals… the rest of the pack.
So much… so much red.
KILL!
Tai felt something puncture his side, he lashed out and the attacker's chest collapsed like wet paper. Another tried to wrap their arms around his throat and mouth. Instead, he bit down, blood and bitten flesh rushing into his mouth, and then he yanked them over his shoulder, slamming them to the ground before landing a punch to their face.
He kept punching, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over over and over and over and over and over the red building with each punch and-
A massive fist then slammed into his side, crunching bone, and all but blasting him off his feet.
His bloody fingers dug into the earth as the blow sent him tumbling across the ground, arresting his slide as he righted himself, and then he yanked himself forward, all but bounding forward on all fours towards the brute, bloody handprints and footprints being left in his wake. Nothing else mattered nothing else mattered but killing the monster in front of him.
The minotaur (and he recognized this one, the one that had slaughtered Anelyi and Wanderer) charged to meet him, a fist crunching against aura and the side of his face as Tai tanked the blow and promptly responded with a leaping punch to the killer's sternum… only to then receive a chop to his temple.
Then… it kicked him, shredding his side with its hoof.
The next punch sent him to the ground, followed by a hail of more.
WHAM!
WHAM!
WHAM!
Tai groaned, fresh blood filling his mouth, and it hurt to breath as he twitched from the pain, though the red and blue and green and white and black were still swirling all about him, knitting wounds back together.
"Pathetic," the minotaur snorted as it lifted him off the ground.
The minotaur then enveloped him in a tight grip with both hands… and began to squeeze him. Tighter, tighter, tighter, so much that he could hear bones beginning to strain and crack. The embrace was too tight to escape, as Tai thrashed and screamed with bloody mouth and bloody teeth.
Distantly, he could hear the wolf howl, and, as Tai felt a bone in his chest snap… the red and the black enveloped more of his vision.
KILL!
The minotaur drew him close and leaned his head forward to laugh in Tai's face with rancid breath… and Tai, gnashing his bloody teeth, simply reared back his head, and slammed it right into the minotaur's visage, forehead meeting snout.
Bone and cartilage cracked and crunched and broke, as did his flailing aura, though the blow still stunned the bovine brigand enough for Tai to slip his arms free to slam his open palms against either side of the minotaur's thick head. He then gripped the brute's left shoulder and flipped/ hurled himself around to the minotaur's back, looped his arms around the thing's thick neck, gripping wrist and forearm with opposite hand… and then began to squeeze.
Tighter, tighter, tighter, as the sound of blood began to rush in Tai's ears. Tighter, tighter, tighter.
With a final shout, Tai tightened his arms and slowly squeezed, ignoring the deep gouges the brute's jagged nails tore into his forearms, or how many times the minotaur slammed him against the crystal outgrowths around them, shredding through flesh but Tai kept holding on. He blocked out the screams and roars all around, focusing only on the blood rushing in his ears, and on gripping tighter, tighter, tighter, until-
CRACK
The minotaur kept staggering for one moment more… and then collapsed to the ground with a dull thud. Tai held on a bit longer, breath snarling through clenched teeth, the only thing keeping the brute even half-upright, legs sprawled on the ground. Then, the red began to slowly fade, Tai unclenched his arms, and he shoved the corpse away, staggering back as he did so.
Fiery pain then lit up along his torn-up back as he felt something slice through the brutalized flesh, and the red returned as he stumbled forward.
As he turned and groped for whatever it was that had been lodged into his back, Tai saw the face of his attacker.
It was Revak, and the bastard's smirking visage was no longer smirking. Instead, those mocking eyes were wide with horror and fear at the sight before him.
A second later, after lightly shoving the man away, Tai wrenched the ax out of his back, his blood dotting the edge. As red and blue and green and white and black dotted the edge of his vision, he gripped the ax tightly, and started forward, his teeth bared back in a growl. Around them, the screams were starting to die down, replaced by triumphant roar and bellows and howls.
The wolf prowled next to him, blocking off any potential avenue of escape for Revak. All around them, the screams began to slowly die down, replaced with the sounds of feasting.
Revak's arms were up before him, his mouth gaped in fright as he tripped backwards over a small rock, trying in vain to scuttle away from Tai's approach, as the ax ascended, held tight in Tai's hands above his head.
"Mercy-!"
The wolf roared, echoed by the other beasts all around him.
KILL!
Tai screamed in rage, and the ax fell.
…
Tai stood before the tree. Its branches were bare and twisted, as dead as it's trunk. Still, it was solid and firm, good to use to reinforce the house, and then for a nice campfire outside. The girls would like that. They could make s'mores, even.
He took a breath, and heft the ax in his hands. It was easy sort of tool to use, really, especially if you knew what you were doing. Just hit it with the sharp end, like his parents had taught him.
He raised up the ax, took a breath, and let it swing.
…
THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK THWACK
….
Crack!
The ax split in two at the blade after it dug deeper into the furrowed ground… and the green and the blue and red and white and black faded away, and Tai's senses came rushing back as the howling and screaming faded away, and the wolf's howling tapered off, replaced with silence.
…
…
Ev…everything hurt, even taking in lungful after lungful of air hurt. The bite on his shoulder especially throbbed. Was it still bleeding? Where else was he bleeding?
Oh, right. All… all over. He was bruised and bleeding and battered all over and it… it all hurt.
As if finally realizing he was holding it, Tai then looked down… looked down at the bifurcated ax in his hands, and then at…
…
Oh dust.
Slowly, he took a step back, the ax handle dropping from his limp hand to clatter on the bloody ground, and he slowly looked around, as if seeing where he was for the very first time.
As he looked about at the scene around him, at all the butchered, savaged, and gnawed-upon bodies of the ravagers, at the animals all eating their fill, of the strange elementals roaring to the sky… of the wolf staring at him… and at the unidentifiable lump that lay before him… Tai could not help but let loose a throat-rending scream of desperation and pain and exhaustion, tears streaming down his bloody cheeks. The surviving animals around him, they all raised their heads and echoed his distress as well.
He screamed and screamed and wept and wept at it all, clutching his head with broken-nailed fingers, until his voice gave out and he collapsed to the bloody ground, silent sobs still wracking his body, horror and shame filling his brain.
"I'm sorry," he cried hoarsely as he all but clawed and tore at his face, the memory of a white cloak floating before his tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"
All the while, the wolf simply stared quietly at him, it's breath hot on his face.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Geyadrone Dihada
Corondor
Dominaria
Once she had clothed her naked self, she ran her fingers through her new hair, reveling in the still-silken feeling as opposed to the dry horrid sensation of what she had been forced to endure the past several decades.
Indeed, Geyadrone could not help but luxuriate at the sensation of clean, smooth skin, and not the wrinkled leather she had been encased in for so many years. She then stretched her new arms long and wide, long enough and wide enough to feel that delightful little strain between the shoulder blades where they met the spine, before hugging herself tightly with an excited giggle.
Oh… but how long had it been, really? How since she had last and truly experienced the honest joys, the euphoria, of a brand-new body, of such wonderful youth and vigor? Of a body not encumbered by the many aches and pains of old age, or Dakkon's damnable little parting gift leaking things onto her robes and the ground… at least physically. It was still there, burning at her soul but… after all this was done? She would never have to worry about it again, for it would be as a thing of the dead and distant past… like the madman that had once called himself a god, and who had killed himself trying to invade this plane.
And the feeling of air on her face?
Had she been a simpler being… that would have been enough, perhaps.
But she was more. She needed more.
As she stepped with booted feet onto the defiled ground, Geyadrone then looked up as a familiar and verdant presence approached her, heralded by the stench of a rotting marsh set afire. He was a lumbering hulk comprised of broken wood and burning plants and rotting, rotting fungi and things. Clutched in one massive clawed hand was an equally massive, club-like scepter, the head stained with blood both fresh and old.
She looked up at it, and it stared down at her. Behind it was assembled a vast arry of things and nightmares, all of whom stared at her.
"My queen," Sol'Kanar rumbled, as he and the rest of her assembled subjects, the entirety of the island-kingdom, from warriors and monsters to demons and slaves, all bowed before her en-masse, dropping to the knees and bellies in reverence. "Your presence is grand and good, as always, and we are gladdened that the transfer was such a complete success. You look… resplendent."
That made her smile. "Thank you, my little sproutling," she said, as she patted him upon his splintered brow, while reveling in a voice that was no longer dry and phlegmy and broken with age. "Your concern is touching, as are your complements. Yours, and everyone's here, truly."
He looked up at her and grinned, a rotting, broken-toothed thing of guileless adoring and subservient loyalty, an expression mirrored by all her subject gathered behind and around them, a veritable deluge of mindless adoration.
Honestly, but it was just… astounding.
How long had it been, since she had twisted and broken the Maro-Sorcerer so completely, so thoroughly to her control? So… so very long ago, even by the reckonings and measurements of a true planeswalker. So very long, and yet, even after all those countless centuries… he was still so slavishly loyal. He, and this entire island nation; all of it at her back and call and whisper.
But then, why should she think any different? Why should she feel a waning confidence in her abilities? When she made pawns, she made them to last as long as she wanted them to.
Ah, Corondor. How she had missed it, after all these years.
"Is everyone ready?" she asked her pet maro-sorcerer as she bade him rise.
He nodded his horned head as he and the others all stood. "They are, my queen. We all but await your very command."
"Good. And the girl's weapon?"
"It is here."
He made a gesture, and a mute slave shuffled forward from the hordes, holding up the girl's weapon upon a piece of cloth, their chains rattling with every step. It was glinting softly under the dim light of the darkened sky; a shard of silver ice against all that was dark and drab and hot in the world, perhaps.
Geyadrone took up Myrtenaster, slit the slave's throat with it almost absently, and then held the weapon close to examine it, feeling it's worn grip, well-made grip, and running her free hand up and down its slim blade, the hand's newest scar tingling against the metal slightly, the metal still cool to touch… almost as if it knew that something was different about the body of its wielder.
As she looked at her new face reflected in the still-polished and shined blade, Geyadrone could not deny that Myrtenaster was a truly beautiful thing, this sword crafted on another plane, and one without magic, at that! Such an exquisite weapon, so much like what Weiss had tried to be; elegant, refined, and deadly in the right hands. This was a weapon fit for a knight, a hero, a queen, even. Perhaps even a planeswalker, under the right circumstances. It was, in essence, the sort of thing that could easily end up in any number of epic stories and songs in the far future.
Myrtenaster; a weapon made to slay monsters.
Geyadrone shifted her grip on the weapon, and then tightened her grasp on the bloodstained blade and extended her arms slightly, holding it before her as one would hold a quarterstaff defensibly. So light for such a strong weapon.
Myrtenaster; a blade forged to create a legend.
She gave it another glance. Then… she started to bend it. Slowly, slowly, slowly.
Myrtenaster; a sword created to be wielded by a hero.
A bit more… a bit more… a bit more, accompanied by the music of slowly shrieking alloyed steel.
Myrtenaster; a tool crafted to defend.
Geyadrone watched with a keen and hungry anticipation as tiny, minute cracks began spreading all up and down the blade's steel as she kept bending, radiating out from the center, each new crack making her grin wider, even as she channeled ice and fire into the metal, heating and cooling it rapidly over and over, making it more and more brittle. As she bent it further, it seemed as if the weapon itself was screaming.
Myrtenaster; a thing with such a strong name.
Its screams grew louder and louder, like claws against glass.
It was almost a shame Weiss could not see this. It would have made it all the more delicious, the anguish it would have caused her.
A bit more… a bit more… and a bit-
CRACK-CRESH
Myrtenaster, that elegant, refined, strongly-named weapon and tool and sword and blade… it shattered into many pieces, and Geyadrone laughed deep and loud as she was left with a somewhat large, bloodstained shard of metal in her right hand and the hilt in her left, with the rest falling to the earth at her feet. She kept laughing as she then casually tossed them over her shoulder as she walked forward, being sure to trod over the shards with her booted feet.
Myrtenaster; shards of useless metal, discarded and forgotten forever more.
She laughed at that last thought, and so Sol'Kanar laughed, as did all the subjects and monsters gathered about on the island. It felt good to laugh, it always did, and it always would.
Still… best not to dally any longer.
Time to get to work.
"Make space," she commanded to her subjects. "He will need plenty of room to land, after all, since this will certainly grab at his attention."
As the horde all but tripped over themselves to obey, and Sol'Kanar lumbered around to stand behind her, Geyadrone then lifted a hand, and focused. She could feel a tiny bit of resistance, and it only served to make her laugh. Even dead fires had a few guttering embers left. But those were easily stamped out. So, she brushed it aside, and then brough forth the magic she needed; blue and white and black and green swirling around her as she rooted through the girl's memories.
She could not help the chuckle as she combed over Weiss' talk with Winter, the memories as open to her as a simple book. 'Memories of fallen foes'… accurate, but truly only skimming the surface of what this 'semblance' really was, what it could achieve.
Honestly… but it was like watching idiot children trying to grasp and explain how the sun rose, or how the tides came in; amusing, sometimes there was even a glimmer of insight… and still so very far off the mark.
Through Weiss' innate connection, she drew in the needed power from the deep oceans, the rotting swamps, the endless plains… and the forests, verdant and alive. Such an odd sensation, white and green mana…
The mana coalesced into raw, untampered power, ready and waiting to be used, and she knew just which 'memory' to call forth.
She made her will manifest, and, in a burst of light, the large knight, the 'Arma-Gigas' was summoned, kneeling before her, head bowed in supplication, ethereal sword planted into the ground. Some of the viewing slaves and subjects shied away from its presence and power.
Geyadrone grinned at the sight of the summon before her as she reached up to lay an almost gentle hand upon its bowed helm, taking a moment to feel how clean and clear and cold the thing's 'flesh' felt under her skin, like a thing freshly quenched in the forge, or a glass submerged in ice. Her hand rest there for a moment… and then she let her fingers slide through the brow. The summon actually stiffened, and she could feel it tense and shake, but unable to move without Weiss' orders… without her orders. How delicious. Deeper and deeper she plunged her hand and senses through its exterior, past the physical and into a more… ethereal thing. Deeper, deeper, each motion making the inanimate and immobile arma-gigas shake and recoil in actual pain, until…
Ah.
There it was… the newly-forged spirit, untethered and unburdened by the energy of past lives or matter of the multiverse. Newly-made, fresh and firm, like a newborn baby, perhaps.
Such a rare, almost impossible thing… and precisely what she needed.
When she gripped it tight… it was only then that the arma gigas, a construct without emotion or pain receptors… it actually started to scream.
Such an odd and oddly uplifting sound, that scream, the scream of a newly-made thing, only tethered to this existence by her will, her desire, her power. The scream was as claws on a glass window, or the strum of a discordant harp. Like candy for the soul, perhaps, as this scream was just so, so succulent in its utter wrongness.
All of this power at little Weiss' fingertips, at the fingertips of her sister and the rest of her blood siblings, perhaps… and all they had ended up doing with it was simply to make copies of mindless monsters to fight other mindless monsters and slightly less mindless people for mindless causes. Really, but it was just truly a kindness that such a power was now resting firmly in Geyadrone's infinitely more capable hands. Like taking back a thran-built mana core meant to power a continent after watching it being used to light up a child's bedroom closet.
Pathetic.
Above the flanging, echoing screams of the manifestation as it paradoxically thrashed about and yet remained immobile, as Geyadrone reached her other hand in to crack open and slowly shred the thing's fresh spirit to pieces as one would a walnut or a skull, she felt, more than heard, the sound of shattering chains, of a lock being clicked open, and that not-sound made her smile again.
There it was.
Almost reluctantly, Geyadrone's hands then fully rent apart the spirit within, a motion accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, and the summon, still screaming, began to dissipate, breaking apart into little sparks.
"Thank you so much for your contribution," Geyadrone sweetly said to the fading summon, even as its dwindling screams continued to echo throughout island, amidst the laughter of Sol'Kanar and her other minions, who had all watched the summon's torture with naked glee. "I won't remember you, though."
She then grinned wider as she made a small show of wiping non-existent dust off her new hands as she glanced up towards the sky. "That's one more pesky lock taken care of, my lovelies, and one still to go, done at the source by its own lock-maker. And, on that note…"
She then started walking backwards as she began to count down…
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Mutable
New Benalia
"Has there been any word yet? Any sign of them at all?"
The aven lieutenant shook her head at his inquiry. "I'm sorry, Admiral. Still nothing. It's as if the pair have vanished."
From where he stood in the room, Argent, as he was currently known, watched as the admiral ran a hand through his now-mussed hair. "Alright, alright. Widen the search perimeter and keep looking. Scour every stone and tree branch, even, and let me know the first you see or hear anything, alright?"
She saluted. "Of course, admiral. We'll find them."
Argent watched as the admiral ran a hand through his hair and groaned. He also noted the dark circles under the planeswalker's eyes.
It had been nearly a week now, and Weiss Schnee and Neptune Vasilias were both still missing. With every passing day, Admiral Levar grew a bit more frantic as to their safety.
Argent, as his current name was, could understand, at least from a logical perspective; the admiral had grown attached. It was in the planeswalker's nature, he supposed. Even after over 4,000 years since the man's daughter had passed, he still became so easily attached. One would think that such time would grant a bit of perspective, but… instead that attachment only grew.
Humans; how they always astonished him-
Suddenly, the ground started to shake. But he was unconcerned, even as he went about making sure none of the mansion's more visible antiques and artifacts were damaged. Earthquakes, while rare, were nothing to be overly concerned abo-
He stopped cold, dead in his tracks, and his eyes widened as he felt the lock shatter, the reverberations echoing and lancing up and down his spine and veins. Everything seemed to slow, as the earth shook again before settling.
No. Impossible.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, noNO NO NO NO…
Taking several deep breaths in a failed attempt to steady himself, he reached out with his senses and followed the broken binding through the leylines, tracing the factures all the back to…
…
Corondor.
…
He saw blue-grey skin, stretching into a dreadful, mocking and triumphant smile as the black blade rose high, and he heard her final, heartbreaking scream of agony as twisted metal pierced fiery flesh… and he heard the monsterlaugh as he fled far away…
….
No.
"Admiral," he said, doing his best to keep his tone even, as the aftershocks started.
The admiral turned to look at him, even as he was helping some of the other servants to their feet from the shaking.
Bo Levar had felt it too, he could tell, and so he nodded. The old planeswalker, he understood. He understood. "Go," the admiral declared. "I'll alert the fleet."
Argent, as his name had been for the last few centuries, hurried outside, and he could feel cold and crystal rage slowly bubbling beneath his soul, emotions that had not stirred within himself for so very long, not since the first time he had died, since he had watched her die, spitted upon that wretched blade.
As he looked up towards the sky, the Mutable One whispered an arcane word, and then vanished into the air, accompanied briefly by the sound of wingbeats…
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tai
Zendikar
He hardly remembered staggering the rest of the way into a nearby coastal settlement, and he had no idea how long it had taken, though he did remember gathering up supplies from the ravager's camp… along with the arm. Time seemed so… enmeshed, the days twisting into one another without any recognizable distinction, just as it had when he had run after the wolf. The other animals and elementals had followed him a bit longer before disappearing, leaving only the wolf.
Had he eaten or drank anything?
Tai managed to book passage back to Sea Gate, and spent most of the month-long voyage in his cabin, only emerging to take meals, and never chatting with anyone. Thankfully, the crew made no issue of the wolf. Perhaps because they had seen stranger things than scar-faced man traveling with a massive wolf.
He also was still barefoot.
Luckily, Tai still had the necklace around his neck, and the address Rarza had whispered to him still rattling about in his head, even after everything. So, reluctantly, that address, a rather nondescript-looking, solidly built, one-story-tall house was the first place in Sea Gate he headed to, once the ship disembarked at the city's docks, traveling sack clenched in one hand, pack upon his back, arm looped through his belt, and the wolf padding at his side.
Even on the ship, he had not deigned to put on a pair of boots.
He knocked on the equally-ordinary door sharply, and it was promptly answered by an average-looking-and-average-dressed kor man.
"Can I help you?" the kor asked, looking him up and down with plain eyes.
In response, Tai wordlessly held up the hedron necklace from around his neck, the little charm dangling at the end of the leather strap.
The kor's eyes widened in recognition. "I see… well, come in, come in."
The inside of the house was as nondescript as the exterior, if not more sou. No decoration, no personal touches… like something used entirely for functionality, and nothing else, if even that.
Weird.
The kor's hands were outstretched, all but twitching eagerly. "Let me see it, let me…"
Tai handed him the necklace, and he watched with tired disinterest as the kor cradled it in his hands so gingerly. The kor then whispered a strange word, and the hedron then glowed a soft blue before sending a small pulse outward.
Tai watched as images projected themselves all around them from the hedron; three-dimensional illusions brought to a semblance of life, like holograms, perhaps, and they were all scenes from the expedition.
"The legends and stories were true," the kor whispered, rubbing his hands together as he examined a projection of the floating ruins, no doubt caught before the mass teleportation spell. "By the gods, they were all true… he was right, and the skyclaves… oh joy, oh joy he was right… oh but he will be most pleased by this development; most pleased indeed…"
Tai, doing his best not to look upon the images of the crew being slaughtered… or of him taking revenge, then cleared his throat, loudly.
"Money," he then said plainly, doing his best to keep his voice even.
Outside, the wolf growled.
The kor blinked in confusion at his ramblings being cut short, almost as if he had forgotten Tai was still there. "I beg your pardon?"
Tai felt his free hand clench tightly. "My friends all died to get these… recordings for you," he growled. "So, I think it's only fair that you hold up your end of the bargain you made with my captain. Don't you think that's fair?"
The wolf growled again, enough to make the whole structure shake.
The kor, eyes wide, nodded hurriedly, no doubt having caught onto the threat in his words, and the great growl. "Of course, of course. Forgive me, but I was just so overcome with this. Here, we are… Here you go…"
He bustled over to handed Tai a large stack of promissory notes. "The full amount, as agreed with your captain, good sir. 60 million, ready and waiting to be retrieved and withdrawn from that account at your earliest convenience. How lucky you are, I think, to have been the only survivor, and are thus now a very wealthy man, yes indeed…"
Tai had to fight the urge to rip the man's head off his shoulders at that last statement. Instead, he silently stuffed the papers into his bag, and then hurried out.
He would cash them in later… but he had wasted enough time, after all. He needed to get back to her. She was waiting.
He had promised he would be back. He all but sprinted back to the house he had bought, the wolf loping at his heels, heedless of how the cobblestones cut into his feet.
"Yang!" he called out, as he kicked the door open, ignoring the slight throbbing from the bite scar on his shoulder and the furrows on his face.
He waved the arm clutched in his other hand. "Yang, I'm back! I'm back! It's all done now, I promise! I-"
As he burst in… he then realized how… quiet the house seemed.
"…Yang?" he whispered, as his bag and the arm slipped out of his slackened grip to the floor, and his pack slipped from lax shoulders. "Yang?"
The house was… it was empty. For roughly the whole year, it seemed, judging by the rot in the pantry. The beds were unslept in, the tub as dry as a bleached bone.
"Yang!?" he cried out again, as he kept searching each and every room, growing more and more frantic. "YANG!"
Where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she where was she!?
He all but tore the entire house apart looking for her, even pulling up the floorboards and the cellar ground and ripping through the walls to look inside. "YANG!"
He… he had to find her, he had to find her. She had to be somewhere in the city, right? Where was she? Please, please, please, please not her too not her too…
….
Please…
…
…
WHAT DID YOU DO!?
…
…
…
Tai blinked, and he was already cresting a hill, far beyond Sea Gate's walls, the wolf at his side. When… when had he gotten all the way out here?
He then felt a twinge in his hands, and looked down to see them bruised and bloodied. He blinked, and he saw a flash of something in his mind's eye. He could barely remember walking across the entirety of Sea Gate, calling out her name, asking anyone he came across if they had seen her, the wolf at his side, his mind aswirl with a blend of horror and terror and adrenaline. Then…. He was screaming at someone, a bunch of other people yelling back, a lot of stone, a bar… and then his knuckles hurting. He looked at his bloodied and bruised knuckles again. Had he punched someone? How hard?
Tai then looked back up, and he saw that the sun had all but fully set. Damn it, but he had to get back, he was obviously in no shape to be traipsing about the wilderness and he still had to find her, giver her the arm make it right-
CRUNCH
GAAAAAAAH!
As the wolf reared back and teared away, bloody jaws still open from it had just bitten him on his scarred shoulder, the wound suddenly flared with a new and horrid pain, Tai stumbled in slight confusion, just as a burning pain then lanced itself through his head and then his arms and legs and spine and everything and everywhere. As he clutched at his head with his working hand and a rumbling groan of pain escaped his lips while he dazedly tried to stumble away from the approaching wolf, Tai then happened to look up and…
And…
The pain, it all seemed to vanish as he suddenly found his gaze arrested by the moon. Bright, round, and full…
Distantly, he heard the wolf as it snarled again, and then he looked down just as it reared back and pounced-
…
…
…
…
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Geyadrone
Corondor
Dominaria
As the last remnants of the binding dissipated into the ether, Geyadrone finished counting down….
3
2
1
A wave of pure power flooded the island as he arrived, heralded by the beating of mighty wings and an earth-shaking boom when he landed in the midst of the horde. She watched as, with a flick of his finger, her old pawn vaporized an entire battalion of soldiers and freaks and slaves, hardly even giving them the chance to scream, and she watched as that same power came hurtling and rushing towards her… and she then proceeded to batter aside the blast of power with but a casual wave of her hand.
Such fun.
As the remnants of the blast dissipated into the air, Geyadrone gave a wide, happy smile with her new and wonderful lips as she looked up at Argent's thunderous countenance, and that smile only widened when she saw how his eyes widened when he looked upon her new body. She then gave him a wave of greeting. "Hello there, my darling little wyrmling. You're right on time."
"Perfidious hag!" he spat, new power gathering in his hands, swirling nebulas of white and blue and black, while all her subjects edged away from his presence and naked rage. "Does your depravity know no depths!? I will not let you continue this madness! She will not awaken again! Surrender now and your end will be swift!"
Unfazed, she instead began to casually examine her new fingernails. Weiss had been truly wonderful at keeping them pristine, hadn't she? Even after a week, they still looked good. Almost a shame they were already growing out so swiftly into claws. Ah, well.
Without even looking at him again, Geyadrone replied. "A most kindly offer, my old pawn, truly… though I am shocked that you would even kill dear Weiss here as well to end me. Pragmatic, logical… but so hurtful, especially should you have to explain it to the dear Admiral. And here I thought you had actually a bit of sentimentality lurking in that scaled head of yours. Thus, as punishment for proving me wrong… allow me to respond with my counter-proposal…"
As he snarled and blurred towards her, no-doubt eager to rend and tear and destroy her down to her base atoms… she snapped her new fingers while still not looking up at him, and his momentum arrested in mid-air, dropping him to the ground with a thud. Half a moment later, he began to writhe about in agony, as streams of red and black and blue began to burrow into his flesh… and as he started to scream. Ah, but such a lovely sound. It never failed to amuse; the screams of a powerful thing brought low before her.
She smiled again with her new, bright and white teeth as she idly sauntered over to look down upon one of her oldest pawns, delight dancing in her new and blue eyes. She had always wanted blue eyes… and now she did. How delightful.
She set a hand upon her waist, and tilted her head. "I do like this costume that you have adorned yourself in for the past few centuries, my darling little dragonet. Still… well, call me sentimental, but I have always much preferred your previous visage. Grander, and all that."
As he twitched and spasmed, he managed to angle up his shaking head at her from where he lay, even as his skin began to change. "How… can… you… do… this? My… death…The contract… binding…. was… broken!"
She laughed. "Was it? Oh, you mutable little fool. Over twenty-five millennia that you have lived, so much knowledge and experience you have gained… and you still are so remarkably dim in some areas. You and your darling mate were some of my strongest little pawns in a long time, mutable one. And I always make sure that my pawns can be brought back into my fold at a moment's notice, no matter how many millennia might pass in the intervals, even past death itself. The fact that you would think otherwise? Well, I find it to be almost… insulting. And for that…"
She twitched a finger, and the torrents of energy increased, eliciting fresh screams from her old pawn's lips, and fresh chuckles from hers. Would there ever come a day when she would tire of this?
Ah, but what was she doing, wasting time like this? She did still have a schedule to keep, after all. Work now… play later, perhaps.
With that thought in mind, Geyadrone let loose a long-suffering sigh, while mentally chiding herself for almost losing focus like that. You'd think she'd have learned a bit, after all this time.
She then set her new and lovely blue eyes back on her captive. "Now, while this little disguise of yours is quite an admittedly easy thing upon the eyes, my dear, and, given any other set of circumstances, I would have just indulged myself upon it to no end… I am on something of a tight schedule here. And besides… it is my opinion that your upcoming family reunion should call for much more… suitable attire. So, on that note…"
She lifted up her right hand, and snapped her fingers once more.
He managed one last pain-filled, almost defiant, scream, before his silver eyes became orbs of pure black and blue and red and white, and his struggles ceased.
"Stand," she ordered, and he stood without a word.
A light breeze whistled as Geyadrone smiled, and then took a few steps back. "Now… unleash your true form."
At her command, the power built all around his disguised form, and she watched as his flesh began to ripple about, like water shaken in a glass, or quicksilver in a vial, and he grew larger and larger and larger, as wings erupted from his back, his fingers melded and lengthened into claws, his spine lengthened into a tail and extended torso, and his elongated maw sprouted rows of sharp and neat little fangs.
Where once there was a silver-eyed, unremarkable man… there was now a dragon, all in the span of a few seconds.
The dragon was massive, majestic, and grand, befitting one of his pedigree, perhps. The beast was sheathed in gleaming and seamless metal scales the color of silver and mercury and shining steel, and he was so large that his shadow enveloped nearly the whole of all her assembled minions. He looked much the same as the last time she had seen him, at that council so very long ago…
She looked up with joy at her reclaimed beast, and then held out a hand. "Now kneel before your one true and only master, Chromium Rhuell."
As renewed laughter from her minions echoed across the island at the great beast's humiliation, the Elder Dragon slowly prostrated himself before her, lying flat on his scaled stomach, mud and muck pooling in between the scales of his belly. She ran her hand across his metallic brow, stroking it as one would a loyal dog, reveling in the cool heat emanating from his draconic form. As she remembered… he smelled almost like chilled water.
"There," she said. "Now isn't that just so much better? Doesn't this feel right, my little wyrmling? You, lying in supplication before me, just as you did so very long ago?"
The Elder Dragon said nothing, his mind subdued and shackled once more to her whims, just as it had been all those millennia ago. Idly, she wondered if a small portion of his mind was awake enough to be screaming.
She truly hoped he was. It was always better when they were screaming. More delicious that way.
Geyadrone continued stroking his head, and then turned to Sol'Kanar. "Ready the troops, my little sproutling… It's past time we moved out."
"Yes, my queen," the corrupted maro-sorcerer rumbled, bowing before her.
She then raised a hand. "And… bring me my sword."
He smiled at that, a thing of dark memories and twisted delight. "Of course."
As he went about his orders, Geyadrone then turned back to her reclaimed pet. With gesture and a mental command, Chromium rose from his prostration, and raised his taloned forelimbs up. Then, in a hissing, metallic-flanged voice, he began to chant. As he chanted words that had never been uttered or heard in thousands of years by mortal lips and mortal ears, Geyadrone raised her own new hand and added her own power, hers and the fires of Piru's, to the emerging teleportation spell matrix.
It was… intoxicating.
Such power, such euphoria! Such a feeling as such she had not experienced or witnessed since before that damnable Mending! And though Piru's soul was powerful… it was still not enough.
But soon… soon Geyadrone would have three, instead of one. Three, and she would fear nothing and nobody ever again. Three instead of one, and she would finally reclaim the power lost to her and so many others decades ago, when the Multiverse had been so horribly and horrifically changed.
It was so, so close now. So close; after decades of looking over her shoulder across the planes, of hiding and scurrying about like a miserable rat in the shadows, and of bearing the pain of Dakkon's wound and curse…. The curse that was still gnawing at her soul, even now, barely held at bay by her will and fading magics and Piru's smoldering spirit.
But that was soon to be of no consequence. It was so close now, the freedom and the power… So close that she could taste it, feel it… So close that she just could not help but to let out such a laugh of jubilation that she had not the occasion to let loose in such a very long time.
Even as pain began to creep up a bit higher behind her eyes and in the veins of her body, she kept laughing and laughing. She laughed, even as a few trickles of blood dripped from her eyes and nose and into her mouth.
The crimson liquid landed on her tongue, and it tasted so… utterly delicious.
Then, as Sol'Kanar returned and slid the reforged Blackblade into the sheath on her back, a bell rang out, beyond that of the audible space, such that only she could truly hear it.
As the now-familiar weight of her true sword settled about her shoulders, she smiled.
The spell was ready.
"TO BENALIA!" Geyadrone exclaimed through her laughter, whilst great and powerful magic began to swirl about the entirety of the island. As the dark island-kingdom of Corondor all echoed her laughter with shouts and roars, she raised up her arms, as if to give benediction to the darkened skies and the forthcoming realization of her designs. "TO DESTINY AND ETERNITY!"
To a new day!
A moment later, reality shifted and warped, and the horizon started to change to that of a far more familiar landscape… and through it all, Geyadrone Dihada kept laughing, the taste of blood still fresh and sweet on her tongue and lips.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The Wild Beast
Hungry.
Hunger.
He needed to eat, to hunt, to devour…
Prey.
He needed prey. Food, flesh, blood, devour, kill EAT.
His fangs punctured the flesh of the throat, and tore out fresh meat and blood.
Others came at him, and he leapt towards them.
KILL
EAT
DEVOUR
RIP
TEAR
KILL
EAT
DEVOUR
RIP
TEAR
KILL
EAT
DEVOUR
RIP
TEAR
…
His head perks up. He hears and smells… another.
Another here. Feasting on his prey. He lifts teeth from hot flesh, and roars a warning. Stay away! Stay away! Mine! He then lowers his head to feed again… only to hear a challenge. He hears and smells it, coming up behind him. And that scent…
Female.
He turns to face her. Not as big as him, but he can smell the battleworn scars on her flesh, the loyalty of her pack wafting upon her flesh. This is an alpha, amber eyes glinting, and musk floating about her.
There is a silent rumbling in his head.
NO!
But this is not her lands, her territories. These are his, and this is his kill, his prey, his meal.
He growls. Go away! This prey and kill is mine!
She growls. I stay! I kill and eat this prey too!
He roars. Leave or die!
She roars. I stay, or you die!
They both pounce, claws extended.
Tearing and biting and scratching and clawing and rolling and rolling and howling and licking and howling, blood and musk all about.
…
…
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tai
Zendikar
….
The light through his eyelids was like needles in his pupils, and the sensation shocked him into slow waking.
Uggghhhh.
Slowly, slowly, he opened his eyes, and feeling returned to the rest of his body and..
…
… he was lying back-first on grass-and-dirt-covered ground. He blinked up at the cloudless morning sky. In the distance, he could swear he heard birds, chirping.
Ugh.
What… what happened?
Slowly, slowly he titled his head up, though each bit of motion sent a small and fresh ripple of pain through his cranium. He blinked a few times and…
…
…
Huh.
He… he was naked. He was naked and… covered in dirt.
He was also… drenched in blood.
Naked, covered in dirt, drenched in already-dry blood…. And there was a really odd taste in his mouth. And what… what was that smell?
As he let his head fall back onto the grass and tried to process all of this (mostly the naked and covered in blood part), he then felt a sharp finger poke him in his (naked and bloody and sore) side, hard. "Wake up now," came a voice. "Wake up."
He blinked, groaned again (a bit from the soreness), and then slowly slowly turned his head to the side to see who had poked him…
The first thing he saw was a crossed pair of long bare legs… that seemed to be attached to a pair of equally bare hips and a bare stomach and there was something else right at the periphery-
He (quickly) craned his neck to look up past a bare chest (not that he lingered on that or anything) and…
…
…
Huh.
The woman was as naked as he was, as drenched in as much blood and dirt as he was now that he could focus on something… and appeared to be very much less concerned about any of those facts, it would seem, judging by how nonchalant she seemed to be sitting cross-legged next to an equally naked-and-blood-and-dirt-covered man. Were this any other sort of situation, Tai reckoned that he probably would have been blushing quite furiously. As it was now, though? Well, he did still feel a bit embarrassed but…
"You're awake," the woman observed, cutting through his thoughts.
Her arms rested languidly on her knees as she bent forward to look at him. "How are you feeling?"
He blinked as he processed the question, and not to linger on the fact that she had a nice voice… which she did. "… Naked," he finally answered, not bothering to try and muster any energy to try and sit up at the moment. "Also…Sore. A bit tired…dirty…And… very bloody."
The woman nodded at that. "In some ways, you get used to that. The tiredness dwindles for the most part, in time, but you will always get dirty in uncomfortable places. Though… if this is your first transformation… it was an impressive one, I will admit. Hardly think I've seen the like before, in all honesty"
He craned his neck to look back up at her, doing his best to look only at her face and not… anywhere else. The first thing he saw was her eyes; brown, like chestnuts. The other thing he saw were the pair of long scars trailing down from her hair line to rest over her right eye, visible past the smudges of dirt and blood all about her. Past experience helped him realize they were claw marks. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked. "Also… who are you? And why am I naked, sore, tired and covered in dirt and blood from head to toe… out in some random field?"
She cocked her head and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "…You're taking your current situation a lot better than most do. Usually, there's a good deal more hysterics. And blushing… or the people in your position are usually doing the aforementioned blushing because they can't take their eyes off particular parts…. And due to the fact that said parts are now hanging out in the open."
He shrugged as best he could… which wasn't much. "I'm a recovering alcoholic whose brother-in-law used to play pranks on him when we were younger," he answered, still looking only at her face. "I've also been married… twice. So, I would like to think I know the difference between boys and girls by now… and how to at least be respectful about it."
Not that it was all that easy to do at the moment, given the current circumstances…
She nodded at that. "Good things to know, I suppose," she then said, as she leaned forward a bit more over her crossed legs, the movement making… interesting things happen… which he was doing his utmost best not to look at. "As for your second question? Well… I've been tracking you across this plane for a while now, ever since I first caught whiff of your scent back on Innistrad. The fact that you can turn back from wolf to human on a different plane… that's a good sign at least."
Tai blinked in confusion as memories slowly returned. "Innistrad? You mean… that other place?"
She quirked an eyebrow, as if confused by his question. "'Other place?' You… you mean to tell me that you really don't know what you are, then?"
Tai looked at her, and then at his naked, blood-soaked body (and he just realized that some of the grass he was on top of…was not in a really great place) … and then back up at her. "… I getting the odd feeling that that's going to be something of a loaded question, given the present circumstances."
She laughed a bit at that (and he could not help but notice it was a nice laugh). "I suppose it is. First though… think you got enough strength back to at least sit up? Because this is starting to feel a little uncomfortable." Her eyes then flitted to the right and she chuckled. "… not that I don't mind the view though…"
Oh look, there was the needed energy! He had it all along! He could feel sensation finally returning! Time to sit up right now!
With a groan, Tai slowly sat up (and did his best to close his legs), feeling bits and clumps of dirt and grass fall off his back. As he did so and began to slowly loosen up his neck (and that did not really help with the soreness, truth-be-told), something else caught his eye; namely, the corpse of a…
…
…
He blinked.
He blinked again, and took in the sight of the rather large baloth corpse… no corpses lying nearby. There… there was a good-sized herd of them. The things looked like they had been sent through some combination of a shredder and a meat-grinder, and then gnawed on all over.
"What… what exactly happened here?" he asked as he looked back at the woman (and only at her face), even as it slowly dawned on him just what the taste in his mouth was… as well as the source of the blood… and the smell oh dust that was the smell and why did he feel so full?
The woman shrugged. "My guess, aside from the obvious? You had a bit of a mental breakdown, and, combined with the full moon last night? I suppose you should count your blessings that you were not in that sea-side city when it happened, and that I managed to find you just as the change was occurring. But you can certainly run fast. It was a bit of a chore keeping up with you, that's for sure. And how you attacked those beasts over there… again, rather impressive. Lucky there was anything left for me to take. That, and what happened after? You have some great strength and stamina, to say the least."
She then tapped a finger against her thigh, which Tai was doing his best not to look at. "My hips actually still feel a bit sore from it all, to be honest…"
…
…
…
Oh.
This time, he did blush, enough that it felt as if his cheeks would combust and that his eyes would bug out of his skull. If he had had enough energy, he would have been flapping and waving his arms about. "Wait wait wait, are you saying that I… that we did… here?! Covered in blood…And after I apparently just butchered an entire herd of baloths!? And… why do I not remember any of this?"
She chuckled. "There's the blush, and there's the shock. But yeah… you killed all of them. Tore through them like a hurricane, really. That was rather impressive, honestly. As for the other thing?"
She then shrugged in a matter-of-fact manner, which was both reassuring and somehow a bit moreembarrassing."Well, it didn't transition immediately into that. First, we fought. Two wolves establishing dominance, and all that. Then, after a while… look, it was a full moon, we were in wolf form, and bloodlust and instinct and adrenaline were pretty much superseding all other things and thoughts at the moment. Mix all of that together and… Well, it happens, it's completely natural, and if it makes you feel any bit better, it was completely consensual, so you can calm down in that regard a bit. And besides, you're the one who just told me he's been married twice. With that in mind, I think you would be a bit less shy about acknowledging what tends to sometimes happen between two people, regardless of species or form or gender. As for the memory? Well, I suppose that was because you shifted on a plane other than Innistrad, perhaps… or just it due to being your first transformation. But the memories will return… they always do."
He blinked owlishly at her. That all… kind of helped? He could still feel the blush though… and the uncomfortable grass. "… Okay. So, putting all that aside for me to unpack later… back to my main questions, please? Also, what do you mean by 'wolf form' and 'plane'?"
"Those are the main somethings that you and I need to discuss," she said as she stood up and arched her spine and arms back in a long stretch, which did more… interesting things he did his best not to look at.
She then looked down and extended a clawed hand down towards him. "Here, I think it's time we started moving. I have some bags of clothes stashed nearby. Had to guess your size, but it should work. Oh, and my name is Arlinn, by the way, so as to answer your first question. Arlinn Kord. What's your name?"
He looked up at her and took her outstretched hand. It felt calloused, and her grip was firm and strong as she pulled him to his feet. "Tai," he answered, as they shook and then released, and he noticed she was the same height as him. "Name's Tai. Taiyang Xiao Long"
She gave him a smile, even as she briefly eyed him up and down, her chestnut eyes hovering on the down part just a bit too long…and just at the moment a breeze blew by and the blush seemed to spread all over. As he tried to surreptitiously keep his hands hovering over said down part, Arlinn looked him in the eye again and chuckled.
…. She really did have a nice laugh though.
"Well, it's very nice to meet you in human form, Tai," she finally said, her eyes then darting down and up again. "Very nice, indeed."
Yeah, he was very much definitely blushing now.
…
…
He hoped she thought it was only because of that stupid, stupid breeze, and that he had to pee… which he did, and not that that was making it any better oh dust just kill him now...
Then, Arlinn's face turned serious as she beckoned him to follow, idly twisting her long mane of brown hair into a single braid with what were no-doubt well-practiced measures (and he made sure to still keep his eyes upwards, thank you very much). "Now then, all joking aside; about what's happened to you," she began, talking over her shoulder. "… do you perchance happen to know what a werewolf is, Tai?"
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Weiss
Trapped inside her head
"LET ME OUT! PLEASE! PLEASE!"
She kept slamming her hands against the coffin. How long had it been since she had started, since she had been locked away like this? A minute? An hour?
A century?
But of course, there was no one to hear her. It was just her. Just her in this tiny coffin… in this black, endless void…. In the darkest portions of her mind.
She knew this was in her mind but… she wasn't in control anymore, was she? She could not hear what was happening outside; hear or see or touch or taste. All that there was, currently, was the inside of this coffin… and all she could hear was herself.
She slapped her hands against the coffin lid again. "Let! Me! Out! Please, please…."
She wanted…. She needed to get out, to escape… to be free.
With a despondent sigh, she laid her head back on the… was this even technically wood? It felt like it.
Well, if there was ever a time to have a deep pondering of how interconnected mental constructs and tactile sensations could be on top of how real something had to be to create said tactile sensations… it would have to be done while being stuck in the mental construction of a small coffin while also being trapped inside her own head while some strange tentacle-monster-planeswalker-demon-woman took her body for a joyride.
At that mental reminder, Weiss wanted to cry. She wanted to weep and weep and bang her head against the coffin until perhaps her skull cracked open. But would those tears even be real too, or the afore-mentioned skull-cracking? And besides, what good would any of that even do?
She'd lost, had been powerless before a monster more terrible and vicious than she had thought possible, the sort that, even on a world full of negativity-seeking monsters and such, she had hoped would only stay in storybooks and fables.
And yet… here she was… literally trapped in her own head.
…
Maybe she did deserve this. So, she had been better for what? A few months, compared to over a decade of being horrible and spiteful and self-serving?
…
… Weiss, listen to me. You cannot think that. You are better, and you need to focus. You can and will get out of this, okay? You do not deserve this fate.
She shook her head. No, no, no, she did. She did deserve this. She was a daughter of Jacques ,and unlike Winter, she deserved this. Winter would have been better at this, she would not have let herself get trapped by a monster-
This is not the time for self-flagellating self-pity, Wiess! You will get out of this, you hear me! Because you are Weiss Schnee-ARGH!
…
Oh dust, she was going insane, wasn't she?
Trapped inside her own mind, with nothing to do… but go insane, and talk to inivvislbe voices that were now screaming in pain.
Who could blame her, though?
Thus… she started to cry, laying her head back on the bottom of the coffin. Was she going to suffocate now? What did that mean from a mental standpoint? Death of personality or something? Like brain death?
So, this was how it all ended for her, then.
…
…
Yeah… she did deserve this, after all, no matter what kindly voices said…
Then… she heard something. Somethings, to be precise… coming from right above her, where ever that seemed to be…
"Are you quite sure you know what you're doing?"
"Yeah! 'Course I do! You know me. Now shut up, we don't have a lot of time here."
"Yes, but maybe you should exercise just a bit of caution in this situation, Jaya-"
"Rip and tear! Rip and tear it to shreds!"
"Shut it, pint-size! You're distracting me!"
Weiss blinked, wiped away her tears, and cautiously reached up and tapped the inside of the coffin's lid. "Uh-?"
Before she could finish her sentence, the tip of a sword stabbed itself through the top of the coffin. That… and the long claws.
She could not help but scream in fright at that, especially as the sword (and claws) kept plunging back in again and again, narrowly missing her each time, as well as the strange voices, and as little pinpricks of light filtered in through the holes.
Suddenly, there was a rattling and earth-shaking roar, which did not help Weiss in regards to her screaming. "Oh, shit!" one voice then called out.
"Keep digging, guys! I'll take it out!" the smaller voice exclaimed. "Rip and tear, rip and tear some flesh and hair!"
The sword then kept stabbing into the coffin and Weiss kept screaming, even as she did her best to dodge out of the way, as wooden(?) splinters kept spraying her… and even as the sounds of tearing flesh, pained roars, and demented cackles joined the other sounds. Then… the hole-studded lid was yanked off, flooding her tiny prison with light, blinding her, and she threw up her arms in instinctual defense as she kept screaming.
She then felt something reach down and yank her up by the wrists. "Here! Now let's get moving!"
As she was yanked out and onto her feet, and then dragged about, all as the roars around them began to die down, Weiss could not help but keep screaming ("Uh, excuse me?), even as ("Hey, Weiss?" "She seems to be in distress" "No shit!") her eyes refused to adjust to whatever light there was and what the heck was going on (HEY!) and where was she being taken and who was yanking on her wrist and OH DUST WAS THIS HOW SHE DIED MENTALLY WHAT WAS ALL THIS-
SLAP
As everything came to a stop and Weiss staggered about and tried to ignore the stars dancing in front of her eyes, the voice spoke again. "Okay, okay! We get it; you're rather distressed and having a wee bit of a mental breakdown! Just stop screaming already, yeah!? You want to get us all killed down here!?"
A calmer voice then spoke. "That was wholly unnecessary, Jaya. She's in shock."
"Sorry, Kaysa, but she just wouldn't stop screaming! What else was I supposed to do, huh?"
"Perhaps not slap her?"
Then a third, more distant voice chimed in with a cackle, above the sounds of bloody gurgles. "Yeah, but it was funny seeing her get slapped like that! Were you able to draw a little blood?"
As Weiss finished reeling from the slap, and her eyes finally adjusted to the light, the rowdier voice then spoke again. "Embers and ashes, but you are just loud! I know we're a good singer and all, but for pity's sake, warn a soul before you go shattering her eardrums like that, yeah? Also, have you calmed down yet or do I need to slap you again!?"
Weiss followed the voice to its source as everything came into focus and…
…
…
…
What?
The one who had spoken (and who had apparently slapped her) … it was her but… instead of her usual dress, this one was garbed in scuffed and well-worn pants and reinforced leather armor and robes, metal pauldrons, fingerless gloves, a thrown-back furred hood, and had a simple straight sword with a basket hilt sheathed at her side. Her hair was long and wild and as red as Pyrrha's (though with streaks running through it that were as white as Weiss's own), there were small red-flecks in her blue eyes and… were those goggles around her neck?
All of that, combined with a rather muscular build, the aforementioned goggles and sword, long red-and-white hair tied into a braid, and… well, she looked like… well, like an adventurer, a soldier of fortune, a swashbuckling hero … someone who was free… like someone from one of mother's stories, one of Ruby's comics… or one of Blake's… tamer novels.
As the distant gurgles grew quieter, Weiss' eyes then darted to her right and…
…
…
The other… her had her snow-white-and-emerald-green hair long and unbound, trailing well down her willowy form, with green flecks in her blue eyes, a tall wooden staff in her hand, and was dressed in the sort of clothing one associated with a herbologist… or a druid, from one of Ruby's fantasy stories, perhaps; bare, dirty feet, long-ish nails, clothing crafted of furs and leathers and… leaves, a full satchel at her side, mud and plants plastered everywhere, from hair to foot… and a rather serene expression on her snow-pale, dirt-smudged face… which also included what seemed to be a rather noticeable crescent-shaped scar on her right cheek.
Weiss blinked. "Who… what are you two?"
The green her smiled benevolently, as if they had not been hurrying about just earlier, or that there had not just been what had sounded like pitched combat around them. "Two who are free after a good long while, and thus are here to help you, Weiss."
"Yeah; we're here to help you and to help kick that creepy octopus-bitch's ass right out of here!" the red one declared with a pumped fist and a wide grin on her face. "Also, do not call us 'whats'. We're whos."
Weiss stared at the two flatly following their introductions. "… That explained absolutely nothing to me. And also…"
She then looked around at the nightmarish place she just realized they were in; an area that seemed all at once a hospital and the Emerald Forest, fused together with patchwork walls and open spaces that all seemed fusions of roots and stone and plaster and dirt and things, and a dark ceiling of metal and intertwined boughs… interspersed with portraits of him. Staring at her, everywhere, that damned look in his uncaring eyes. "Where even am I?"
The Red her rolled her eyes and groaned, as if in exasperation. "The hell's that supposed to mean? This is your mind, you self-righteous know-it-all."
Weiss gritted her teeth, her eyes roving about as she took in the sight of what appeared to be some sort of twisted, nightmarish version of a hospital building married with the Emerald Forest. There were also recent signs of battle here (including what looked like full-on head indentations in the wall), though she elected not to focus on that at the moment. "I am very much aware of that, thank you. But what part of my mind is this? Personally, I would like to think that any version of my inner psyche would not be wont to resemble something out of one of Blake's illustrated erotic horror novels…"
And that had not been a well-spent afternoon, to be sure…
The green one cleared her throat and spoke again. "We are currently situated at the very bottom of your subconscious, far below any and all conscious and unconscious thoughts and ideas and feelings. Some could call it the place where memories go to disappear… or die, perhaps. It's how Geyadrone has been keeping our body under her control thus far, burying you, the prime self, all the way down here while her soul and consciousness keep subsuming your soul, conscious mind, and everything else (which is the main reason for how it all looks now)… and it's basically the place where you've kept us for so very long."
Weiss tried to process that. "But… that still doesn't explain who you two are-"
The Red her then flicked Weiss hard in the forehead, making her cry out.
"Us? We're you," she said, while idly rooting the flicking finger around in her ear. "You know, two of the yous that you-you has always kept pushing away all the time, squashing us down here, deep down in here at the rock-bottom of your head. Really mean-spirited of you, to say the least."
"… What?"
The Red her laughed a bit bitterly at the question as she withdrew her finger. "Don't act so dense about it, girl. Here, let me put it to you like this, simple-like; there are parts of you that you embrace more often than not. You let them out, take a walk, sniff the air, take a shit, wave hi to the people that you pretend to tolerate… and then there were the parts that you buried down here, far away from both conscious and sub-conscious… bitch"
The Red her slapped her own chest. "For instance; I'm the you that wanted to go out on adventures, and do all kinds of things! Getting dirty, rolling around in the damned mud, kneeing someone in the groin during a fight to get that extra edge right before punching them in the face, wear a black eye with pride, not freak out when you chipped a nail! The you that didn't care about proprie… propr…" Her face then twisted into a rictus of embarrassed frustration as she turned towards the Green one. "What's that word, again?"
There was a long-suffering look on the green one's face. "I believe it is 'propriety,' my friend."
Red-her snapped her-their fingers. "Exactly! And what happened?"
Weiss dusted her dress and then crossed her arms, already feeling exasperated… as well as the beginnings of a migraine, somehow. "I grew up, and learned that you can't just rush headlong into things, that decorum is necessary for my advancement in life, and that your sort of thinking is useless in all things pertaining to my goals. Now, this conversation is obviously very endemic of the fact that I have completely and utterly lost my mind-"
The Red her snarled and flicked Weiss' forehead, again. "First off; fuck you! And that's not the reason… at least not the main one."
"Indeed."
Weiss, after giving the Red her a stink-eye, then turned towards the Green one. "And which useless part of myself do you represent?"
Green responded with a very even, almost placid, stare. "… It saddens me that, even now, you still refuse to truly acknowledge us as anything except less than vestigial, as parts meant to be shoved aside and locked away. Such pride that is still ingrained into your psyche it would seem."
"That didn't answer my question," Weiss growled, as the migraine behind her eyes began to slowly grow (and, again, she was not looking forward to looking too deeply into that just yet). "Since the red one here is obviously my unwanted urges and impulsivity, then what are you supposed to represent?"
The Green one let out a sigh, while the Red one gave Weiss what was undoubtedly a very rude gesture (though Weiss elected not to look at her). "I'm the you that used to accept that some things cannot be changed; who thought with her heart instead of her head, who took things as they came."
Weiss was not sure how much more lecturing from… herself she was willing to take, especially in the given circumstances. "So… lazy fatalism. I can see why I would cast that aside. But…If I repressed you like you've said… then how are you here now?"
The Red one scowled at her… and then shrugged. "First; fucking rude, bitch. Second, we each have a name, you bitch … you can just call me Jaya and her Kaysa … and third…well, after the tall, dark, sexy, scary and shit-heel octopus monster trapped your base self (again, that's you) all the way down there in that coffin-box in the bottom of this creepy-ass place, she then snapped up Radiant and Treva, the poor, poor bitches."
Weiss blinked. "Who?"
Jaya rolled her eyes at her as if she was stupid. "You know; the parts of you that you actually let out to get fresh air all the time, up on the surface? The ones who think they're always right, and want to things work together under their vision and keep learning, and think they're soooo superior and blah-blah-blah while the rest of us are left down here, without any fucking fresh air…"
The green one, who was apparently called Kaysa (why did they have names, weren't they all just her?), cleared her throat primly, and Jaya got to her point. "Yeah, so, after they got grabbed… everything here went to complete shit, as you can see."
Another roar then echoed all around them. "… and hear."
Weiss swallowed. "But that still doesn't explain how you're even here… even if here is where I've apparently 'kept' you…"
Though Jaya looked at her impatiently, Kaysa was the one to answer this, keeping her apparent friend still with a pale hand on her shoulder once again. "While it's in no way a good thing that they were taken by that monster, or that they were subdued at all… the fact of the matter is that Treva and Radiant were the ones keeping the rest of us suppressed for so long down here, seeing as how you let them prosper and grow, and so, here we are, relatively free and about now, though… that was still not without some help."
"Help? What help?"
At that, Weiss then felt something tug on her frayed skirt.
…
She did not yelp.
She had never once yelped in her life, and she certainly had not yelped and leaped up in surprise when some unseen person had tugged on her dress while she was arguing with what were apparently two portions of her psyche that she had reportedly repressed.
After not taking a moment to compose herself, Weiss pulled her skirt away and looked down at the tugger.
It was a very short and androgynous-looking person, almost child-sized really. They were dressed in rather simple clothes, with pale skin and ragged dark-and-light hair. There was also a long and winding scar going down the center of their androgynous face, disappearing down their shirt's collar, from which seemed to sprout a host of other winding scars, including several 'branches' on their arms. They looked up at her and gave a bright smile and a wave… with a pitch-black, long-clawed, and equally scarred hand… that seemed to be covered in tar-like blood.
"Hi," they said, smiling with pointed teeth and bifurcated lips and bright blue eyes. "Nice to meet ya! You can call me Czarny. But… I have a lot of names, though, so let me know if you want to call me anything else. I used to be broken and one way but then I got put back together again, which kinda hurt but that's all in the past. Hey, are you gonna help us with killing more things in here? I really hope so, 'cause it is just super fun to kill things, especially with the ones that try to make it go all quiet, like what I just killed, though the body is gone now, which sucks since that means no trophey, but it's still super fun! Even if Serra keeps scolding me for it, which is stupid and dumb and stupid and so she's stupid and dumb with her dumb and stupid stuff and stupid face tattoos and white robes and other stupid stuff she's so stupid…"
Weiss was fairly certain the look on her face was more than adequate in demonstrating her horror at… all of that. Especially with how the small figure was alternating between excitedly bouncing on their feet at the prospect of violently killing things and then sulking with crossed arms as they also kept rambling about someone named Serra who apparently kept scolding them about the aforementioned skill.
Jaya blew a raspberry out the side of her mouth as she ruffled the child's head, pulling back as Czarny flailed at her with their claws and a pout. "Yeah, yeah, the little runt's creepier than Blake when she wants you to return an overdue book of hers. But the kid has some uses, I guess - urgh, look, we can stand here yapping our gobs all about 'till the fucking cows come home (and seeing as there are no damn cows in this place, there's no grand chance of that occurring any time soon)… or we can get going! We've already wasted time, we have to meet up with Serra, we've got a long way to go, and it ain't exactly like we're anywhere close to alone in this fucked-up place."
Weiss could not help but feel a tad affronted at that last statement, regardless of the present circumstances.
Czarny cackled and pumped their fists up in the air. "Yeah! Let's go kill some more things! I'm very good at that!"
Kaysa sighed in a way that spoke of a long-suffering school teacher (it actually reminded Weiss a bit of Professor Glynda) as she shifted her grip on her staff, and adjusted her satchel. "Very well. I suppose we should all get going then. We've already wasted enough time as it is, and Serra's waiting above…. Now, there might be a way for us, and thus you, to break free from Geyadrone's imprisonment… but it won't be easy, to say the least. Arduous, is perhaps the better descriptor…. That and very, very dangerous."
"I KNOW! Is it not just grand!?" Jaya cackled, as she drew her curved sword.
Weiss took a deep breath, fighting the urge to cradle her head. "Okay… so what is the plan? How exactly do… we get out of all of… this?"
Kaysa responded with a simple shrug. "This sort of esoteric, self-psychoanalysis is more Treva's territory than mine, among other things, but since we are all still, well, you to an extent…" she then pointed to the ceiling… or rather past it. "From the top level of the surface, a gigantic facsimile of Atlas can be seen, floating high and mighty in the sky. We've deduced that we need to get up there, to the surface and to that facsimile of Atlas. The exit to the surface, and thus to regaining control, should be there. After all, it is the first place you ever truly escaped from, so the requisite symbolism should be in full play, at the very least."
Her face then fell, somewhat. "But, to truly break out of here… Jaya and Serra and myself, we are far, far too weak as we are, now, even with the much-appreciated help of Czarny here. But now that there are five of us… we might have… something of a chance. Even then… even with you, the Prime… we are still going to need the last three. And from what we can tell… they are also… up there, in Atlas."
Weiss blinked, and could not help swallowing as she looked about again at the darkened area around them.
She then blinked again, this time in confusion. Wait, what did Kaysa mean by the last three-
As another roar suddenly shook the area, Jaya laughed and slapped both her and Kaysa's backs quite hard, derailing Weiss' thoughts. "All right! Enough jaw-clacking, girlies (And creepy kiddies)! Time to join up with miss gold-hair, before we all end up dead or whatnot. So, move your finely-shaped asses already, before we're all discarded thought-matter!"
Weiss swallowed, but started forward anyway, though making sure to stay just out of reach of Jaya's hands. Part of her also hoped she would be getting a sword soon… or even just some sort of weapon, something anything. She would feel a tiny bit better going on a journey through her hijacked mental scape alongside two apparently long-repressed aspects of her psyche and a strange little kill-happy child-being (who she really hoped was not another aspect she had repressed) if she was armed-
…
…
Wait a minute….
"Wait," she then said, as her mind caught up with her… mind, and she hurried to catch up with Jaya and Kaysa and Czarny. "Who exactly are Radiant and Treva and Serra!? Why do you all have names!? What exactly is going on in my head!?"
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A/N: Yup.
Yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup yup.
Twists and hints, as promised… and with more to come.
If you look a bit closely, there were a few hints as to Argent's identity in the previous chapters, while Weiss is in for an interesting journey to say the least, alongside repressed aspects of herself and others. As for who the 'others' are, inside Weiss' head, such as 'Czarny,' 'Jaya' and 'Kaysa' and 'Radiant' and 'Serra' and 'Treva'? Well, wait and see my readers… wait and see, though it might be a bit obvious… colors and what not, a band of five, especially if you know your MtG lore.
And meanwhile, Tai meets someone new… while naked and covered from head to toe in baloth blood! And he's also a werewolf now! Fun! And also, his official colors, like his daughter (something I have rectified, and was explained on the SpaceBattles post) are the whole spectrum, white, blue, black, red, green. They will not be the last, of course, and there will be an explanation as to why, and it has to do with one of the many secrets of Remnant that Ozma still holds close to his chest...
Also, what's coming… I am sure you can guess what is coming, but, funny thing…I had this planned way before RWBY Ice Queendom made it a thing so… maybe I can see the future!
…
Nah. Would be cool though.
So, anyway, I may incorporate some elements of that and Ice Queendom into this, or not. We will see how it flows on the page.
As for what's been happing in canon… well, we will see how it goes. Some things might be used, others not… we'll see.
