It's good to be young and in love in the springtime.
Aside from the torrential downpours the season tended to bring, spring also brought with it some sort of sweeping romantic wind. It incited young people all over Althena's green planet to make with the moon-eyes, run off for late night escapades, and dig deep into their wallets for money to buy flowers. Young people in the spring, in the springtime of their lives.
Somewhere at that precise moment, a young woman smiled at her boyfriend over breakfast, as a white winged cat (the only odd thing about the picture – most often springtime does not bring odd creatures with its romantic winds; sometimes these things just happen) waxed nostalgic about a fishing town. The boyfriend smiled back, his young face caught somewhere between a daydreaming boy and a heroic man. He was a most fitting soulmate for a woman who was still halfway girl-next-door and yet halfway goddess. The two tended to communicate with smiles and soft gestures until about noon; they understood each other perfectly enough without words, and it made the beginning to each day a bit more intimate. It also left the space completely open for the winged cat to dominate all conversation, which left said creature absolutely happy as a clam, or perhaps happy as a young dragon that knows all ears are at attention.
Somewhere also at that precise moment, two young mages rushed around, stepping carefully in the long robes of their trade, shared a soft conversation punctuated with yawns. Sometimes it seemed as though the long hours of rebuilding had only just begun, and that the amount of work left could have buried them both, if only they hadn't found a secure ground in each other. The young man admittedly was still quick to smirking moments of extreme egotistical grandeur, though nothing compared to what he used to delve in. His affection toward the black-haired female, swiftly stepping by his side with armloads of musty books, had evolved somewhere along the line, though when he occasionally stopped to wonder it was difficult to pinpoint just when. The black-haired female, swift on her feet despite the armload of musty leather-bound books, had no such queries. Her love ran deep and simple as a true color. She found no reason to question it.
All over the planet, indeed, springtime worked its mojo. A young hunting couple ooh'ed and aah'ed over a previous adventure, and the courage and stamina of each other. A plains couple called jokes toward each other as they ran the new herd of horses through their paces, smiles flashing brilliantly white from tan faces. A Meribian lawyer embraced his young wife after a rough sail home. A boy of about twelve shyly handed his neighbor a daisy, inciting an allergic reaction. In the quiet room of an inn, the windows shuttered tight against the rain, a woman sat methodically sewing a shirt, last vestiges of hero worship suddenly fading in the memory of how his face had turned like cold stone, and the eyes like chips of flint, and how the words "murderous rage" didn't quite seem sufficient to describe the phenomena they were meant to.
But perhaps most importantly, at that precise moment a priestess was noticing that sewers really, really stink.
"It really, really stinks in here," Jessica grumbled, resisting the urge to cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve again. That worked fine for the first five minutes or so; now, the stench of muck seemed to have permeated the fabric of her clothing. The last thing she wanted was that putridity even closer to her nose. "I don't think I'll ever feel clean again."
"I sympathize completely," Len replied in his soft voice, "and I must admit that I seem to have some sort of phobia towards rats."
"They'll leave us alone if we make enough noise," she offered.
"And yet stealth was our intention," the mage sighed, shaking his head. In the bare, faint light of their illumination spell, his corpse-like skin tones and wide yellow eyes were even more disconcerting, though Jessica speculated she wasn't exactly Miss Lunar material at the moment either.
"Maybe a fire spell could-..."
"I will simply deal with them," he cut in. His voice was tinged with a desperate weariness. "I feel we've delayed long enough already, you and I."
She opened her mouth, and closed it again. 'You and I'. His was not the mouth she wanted to hear those particular pronouns paired together from. Rather, she didn't want anything to do with his mouth at all.
Jessica did all of her best thinking in the moments just before bed, and halfway between daybreak and noon. It was just slightly past the latter point, and she'd been doing a lot of thinking as she and Len walked through town, tracking an animal that was virtually untraceable in the aftereffects of the second, and more violent, rainstorm of the day. Her tracking skills were nil; she was more suited to sea than forest, afterall. Luckily for the both of them Len seemed adept at reading the tiniest sign in the foliage.
A thought that had kicked her mind into overdrive.
"We should take this next right, up ahead," Len directed, glancing at her.
"Mmn. I'm trying to go over what we know so far," Jess said slowly. "Could you listen to see if I've got any holes you could patch?"
"Alright." He gestured for her to go ahead as they rounded the corner, and started on another long stretch of muck filled grossness.
"Now. Kyle and I arrive yesterday, which would be day 11 of the disappearances. Seven girls had vanished. That night, another gets attacked while in the hotel, and hours after subduing the baboon type creature at fault, another goes apeshit on a young couple at the edge of town."
"Was that a pun?" Len interjected, pausing to inspect a clump of … substance.
"What?"
"A baboon type creature goes apeshit."
"It wasn't intended."
"It was quite funny."
"Len…"
He chuckled, standing back upright and leading the way once more.
"Yes, yes, continue…"
She sidestepped the substance and cleared her throat.
"So we've surmised that the two creatures might be mates, because the absence of one seemed to really irk the other, and it being spring and all maybe the two were in the full swing of heat. Without its mate, the other … thing… has gone feral." She paused. "I wonder if the feral one is the male, or the female…"
"I find females to be quite fierce and rather frightening when provoked."
She aimed a Death Stare at his back, which Kyle often remarked should be bottled and sold as an item for combat purposes. Len didn't seem to notice.
"We should have checked the sex," he capitulated. "I will take the blame for that."
"No reason to," Jessica shrugged. "But can you think of anything I've left out?"
"You seem to have gathered the facts quite thoroughly. Watch the walkway on the left, here, it looks slippery."
"Ugh." She navigated around the shiny spots carefully. "What about how we couldn't figure out how the ape got into Till and Fior's cabin? There didn't seem to be any point of entry, only exit. And beyond that, since when do simian-type animals live in a sewer?"
There was a long silence, punctuated only by the echoing of their own footsteps back at them, and the occasional sick schwicckk sound of someone's heel landing in things they didn't dare investigate after.
And, after a good minute, Len's voice took back up residence in the air between them.
"I have lost hope for my sister and her roommate."
Jess blinked, gaze darting up to his back, shoulders tense and slightly hunched. He said the statement very simply, but a world of other words swam in his voice.
"Len?"
"I can only hope that we can keep this pattern from continuing."
She smiled very faintly.
"We'll do whatever we can, Len."
"Mmn."
"So… where had you been living when your sister called for help? You schooled at Vane, right?"
"For a few years. I had kept touch with her through all the semesters." His head tilted slightly. "Why do you ask?"
"I'm trying to keep my mind off of the smell. This isn't exactly how I planned to spend the day, you know."
"And how did you plan to, Miss Jessica?"
"Well, cavorting through cesspits wasn't high on the list," she said wryly, using the wall to support a quick hop over a spill of some sort, and then gazing at the slime left on her hand ruefully. "I'd hoped to speak to the mayor."
"The mayor. I had met with him, briefly, when I first arrived. He is very young to be head of a city."
"Everyone in this city is young," Jess replied with a shrug.
"What were you hoping to speak with him about?" Len queried, taking a left.
"The list of girls Kyle and I put together – of girls who vanished, I mean, I'm sure Kyle has a list of girls of a whole other sort – it's got some inconsistencies in it."
The mage snorted softly at the reference toward the swordsman, distaste plain in the mere sound.
"It bewilders me as to why you continue to travel with him. What sort of inconsistencies?"
Jess ignored the part about Kyle, focused on the other matter instead. She kept her voice steady and light, almost casual.
"Well, for instance, no two girls were roommates, and none of the girls had the last name of Destine."
Len stopped short, halting his forward progress so suddenly that Jess nearly walked right into him, which probably would have sent them both careening into the river of swill running past the narrow walkway. That, too, she ignored.
"Perhaps you are mistaken," Len suggested.
"Perhaps," Jessica admitted. "Though that doesn't explain why I can list off each of the seven girls missing, and none of them match your description of your mysterious nameless sister, nor her roommate. And if we assume that maybe I just didn't ask the right people, and add on your sister and her roommate to the list, that makes nine missing. You've been following this case right along, yet you agreed with me that it was seven up to this point."
"I may have made a mistake," the mage said smoothly, turning to face the diminuitive priestess. "I am capable of such things, being merely human."
"I agree completely," Jessica continued in her same calm tone. "And those weren't your only mistakes. Last night at the hotel, you claimed that the ape had come in through the window and burst out through the door of Serena's room, yet the door had been kicked inward, not burst outward as it would have been if your story were true. For that matter, for a mage who's spent most of his life indoors, by the look of your skintone, you're awfully good at tracking. And speaking of, you haven't actually looked at anything for the last ten minutes; you've simply walked, because you know where we're going. I haven't had the chance to contact the Premier of the Magic Guild yet, but I really don't think it's necessary. Of all the things you've said so far, that part seems to be the only truth."
"Jessica," Len breathed, shaking his head in slight disbelief. "Jessica, I don't understand you. Why did you come with me at all, if I so obviously can't be trusted?"
"It's simple, really. See, there are two things I'm really good at. Just two. Beating people over the head, and healing people in need. I came with you because I still can't figure out which type you are.
The silence that stretched the seconds was hard to categorize. It wasn't a stunned sort of silence, because both of them were intelligent enough to have seen this juncture before it truly hit. Len held his gaze, the washed-out yellow a deep saffron in the effects of his light spell, fixed on the young blonde. And then, slowly, he smiled: a small, faint curve that held little humor.
"That's just like a priestess," he murmured, turning away from her. "That's why I need you, you know. Do you know that? I knew I would need you, just you, from the moment I saw how out-of-place you were in that seedy, filthy tavern. You glow, Jessica de Alkirk. You're so full of … vitality… and compassion. And strength." He looked up at rough, grimy ceiling, exhaled slowly, and glanced back at her. "We're almost there. Would you follow me, for one last turn?"
"Almost where?" Jess asked gently, making a quick mental check of her status. Healing ability, at the ready. Skirts, smelling awful but easy to move in. Battle mace, back at the hotel under her pillow. Damn it. Left and right fists, ready for face-pummeling action.
She could handle this.
Len had opted not to answer, walking around a corner leaving only the sound of his departing footsteps. Jessica scowled slightly, momentarily warring between common sense and the need to see things through to their end.
Similar to being told that a particular snake may or may not be poisonous, and then left to decide whether or not to take the steps toward finding out. You could walk away and be safe for the moment, but what if you run across that particular type again someday, and you never bothered to find out? Run away again? Run away from snakes forever, across the whole continent, across all of Lunar?
Then the debate ended because Jessica realized that she hated snakes to begin with and there weren't any around at the moment. It was on sheer auto-pilot that she chose to follow him as opposed to running back toward the cleaner air. Not to show up Kyle by solving anything on her own (though that would be an extra special bonus!), not to prove to herself that she was independent (she was both her biggest fan and yet harshest critic). Simply that her legs were going that way and her body happened to be attached. Oh, and that part of her brain was really hanging onto the visualization of beating someone's head in with a fist. Chances were this was the likely path toward good, psychotherapeutic violence.
She rounded the corner after him, and he was waiting, smiling.
---~----~----~---
This was the second time today he'd run all over town in the pouring rain. Granted, as pouring rains tend to go, it was rather a gentle torrential downpour, as he'd grown somewhat accustomed to Nanza's sudden flashfloods, but two before noon was just unnecessary and he really didn't have time to change into dry clothes. On account of the whole 'Save my headstrong idiot girlfr-…'
Sentence headed toward point of no return. Abort, abort, abort!
… on account of the whole 'Save my headstrong idiot CASUAL TRAVELING COMPANION from sickly bastards' issue.
This town seemed a lot smaller when he wasn't sloshing around in the mud in a near panic (that's a near panic, because the great Kyle of Nanza does not fully panic – he near panics). At least a dozen times he must have considered stopping and banging on a door to ask for directions, but then he would always rationale that it would take more time than it was worth and damn it, he would make it there soon enough, maybe just around the next curve… wherever there happened to be. Wherever his Jessica was.
Yes, HIS Jessica. He'd shoved aside the knowledge that such a possessive pronoun would royally piss off the absent priestess in question. It made him run faster to keep it. That was all that mattered at the moment, anyway. They could have a nice long talk after this was over about giving and taking and patience and independence but at the moment all he wanted was to be warm and dry and know that she was safe. And a pale thin mage broken in half.
That particular happy thought made his fingers twitch.
Finally, he stopped to catch his breath under the overhang of a tavern, grunting and sluicing the rain from his eyes.
This wasn't working.
"Alright," he grumbled, shaking streams of water from his hair like an irate hound. "So no luck with the random running around. What now?"
Where would they have gone?
Somewhere that NastySicklyPaleMama'sBoy (the name seemed to be growing) would be able to convince her to go to. That ruled out taverns. Hell, that ruled out most places, because she would want to still be looking for the second creature… if there even was a second creature. Hadn't they mentioned something last night about tracking the ape to its lair?
So where would an ape hide from a rainstorm? And how could a mage walk away with a priestess and both inexplicably vanish from the face of a town?
And for the love of Althena, he was staring right at the upright, door-like entrance to the sewer system for the town, built in the standard 'walk-in' model that Meribia had made so popular.
Here would have been a great moment for some sort of hissed statement of enraged, determined triumph, but Kyle was too busy running into the sewer to care.
Luckily (he would have offered thanks to the goddess but he figured she was at home with a cozy breakfast right now and far better off) the way the rain had ruined all opportunities for tracking in town had no bearing down in the sewers. The stench was vaguely annoying, of course, but it was just another factor he didn't have time for. He followed along the wall carefully, without a torch or a light (being not a mage, and incapable of producing such things), alert and straining for the tiny indications that kept his heart from beating straight through his breastbone and smashing against a wall. The slight mark of a heel in a pool of sludge urged him leftward. The imprint of a few fingers on the wall called him forward. A whole footprint, once, in a substance he didn't really want to identify.
And intermingling scents of priestess cinnamon and mage peppermint.
"Just a few minutes," he muttered under his breath, turning a corner swiftly, somehow managing not to skid through a slick patch of refuse. "Just gimme a few minutes, and I'll be there… just be fine for a few more minutes…" Jessica was good at defense, after all, just as good as she was at screeching, or hollering, or achieving that impossible level of ear-bleed volume.
Or compassion, or healing, or smiling.
Also, swift kicks to the privates.
Kyle bit back a grin and switched his quiet mantra as he turned yet another corner.
"Don't kill him yet, Jess…"
Just a couple of minutes…
"… That's my job."
---~----~----~---
"That… is a big-ass door."
Len quirked an eyebrow upward, either surprised by Jessica's reaction to the door (which was, yes, of an overly large size, though not really pertaining to any anatomy) or by her choice of adjectives. Jessica supposed it might have been the latter, because really, how was he to know she'd grown up around sailors. He couldn't be half as surprised as the other priestesses at Althena's temple had been.
The memory made her snicker, and the snicker made Len's other eyebrow raise, but he didn't ask what was so amusing. Maybe he was too polite. In a sudden, extremely Kyle-ish moment, Jessica wanted to grab him by both ears and shake him until he developed a personality a little less slimy, a little more real.
Worse, she was starting to wonder if she could really help with whatever the hell was wrong with him.
"Despite your findings," Len finally said, turning to look at the door before them, "I do have a sister."
"That's just ducky."
He smiled passingly, resting a thin (and frail, she noted now) hand on the heavy brass handle of the door. Despite being huge (veritably, 'big-ass') and no doubt thick, Jessica took a few steps back as the mage prepared to give the massive portal a shove. It was caked over with grime and rust, and the edges looked half-rotted. She had seen wood take a similar look on ships, after long decades of sea use, though anything that looked that bad would be land-bound.
The door, like a long-dead ship, the enclosed musty air, and the dank echoing dark behind them made it feel like she was walking into a tomb.
"I have a sister," Len repeated quietly, turning the latch in the handle and leaning all of his weight against the door, forcing it open inch by inch. The movement left long streaks amid the slime on the floor – streaks among older streaks, some maybe a few days old. He gave one last Herculean (for his size) effort, making enough of a gap for both of them, and then stood back, catching his breath and massaging at his arm. "And it's far past time you meet her."
---~----~----~---
When Alex was younger, he would spend a great deal of his time loitering around the monument to the great hero Dyne, which happened to be conveniently near his own little house in the small village of Burg. When this great fascination with Dyne started, he could never really place, though some of his earliest memories were of standing against the tall granite tribute, stretching his arms up and wondering when he'd grow enough to reach the top, watching the sun rise and set while sitting against its comforting cool surface. He had all the tales memorized (and annoyed Nall to no end with their endless recitation) by the time he'd been eight, though by ten he was daydreaming his own adventures right along those of his hero. Sometimes he'd even go so far as to imagine traveling with Dyne. One would note he never envisioned Dyne in a kilt.
Now, older and wiser, a Dragonmaster and soulmate to his oldest friend (Luna, not Nall, that'd be a whole different spin on things now wouldn't it), Alex wondered what sort of things Dyne used to imagine after his adventures were through.
After breakfast he'd found himself at the memorial, gazing at the still-sharp lettering on stone. Wondering what prompted Dyne (or Laike, if you must) to lead a life of travel and combat even after the prime of his fighting youth. To keep his skills sharp, or to be there to conveniently lead whoever the next young hero might be? Was it simply because it was the only way Dyne knew how to live?
Alex didn't think he could live that sort of life. He would take up the sword gladly to protect those he loved, and their way of life, and the innocent and the young and all of that… but he was happy here, in a small house near that of his parents, with Luna and Nall and omelets in the morning. They would still make music together, in the quiet hours after sunrise, and he could easily imagine now a life of perfect contentedness, of simple pleasures of family and friends.
And pancakes. The once-Goddess made incredible pancakes.
"Aaaaaaalex!"
He smiled a bit, turning his head to the sound. Nall's voice, once so high-pitched, had settled a bit after he changed to his larger dragon form a few times (a sight that still shocked the Dragonmaster a bit, and each time he thought maybe they ought to tease the creature a bit less often, else be stepped on).
"Right here, Nall," he replied warmly. The little dragon-cat-thing settled to a seat on Alex's shoulder, balancing easily out of sheer familiarity.
"I should have known you'd be here," Nall said with a grin, ears flicking forward with interest. "And I've got such a wicked deja-vu."
"I was just thinking," Alex explained, holding back a shrug at the last moment, not wanting to roll his friend from his perch. "This is the place I come to when I think."
"I know that," Nall tsk'ed. "Thinking about what?"
There was a pause as Alex tried to muddle through exactly what had been on his mind. He liked to say as little as possible, which often meant figuring the precisest way to express what he meant. As his life got more and more complex, that became a bit more difficult.
"I was thinking about Dyne, and what sort of epilogue he'll make for himself, after his story is through," he finally said.
Nall was silent, peering at his face (and as he was very close, he had a great view). After a moment he flipped his wings, resettled them, and cleared his throat.
"I think that maniac will forever wander the continent, appearing out of nowhere to terrify young adventurers with his lack of sense for plaids, because I think that's when he was having the most fun. And I think that you're wondering if there should be something more you're doing with your time."
Alex blinked mildly, gaze turning to consider the creature from the corner of his eye.
"Oh?"
"Uh huh. I think… I know, that you're happy here and now. But I see you staring at the sword sometimes. Or how your hand brushes against the chest where the Dragon Armor is all stored away. Do you miss it?"
Alex shook his head slightly.
"I did it because it had to be done. To save Luna, to stop Ghaleon. Maybe partially, because I thought getting Ramus out of the house for an adventure would be exercise. Now that it's done, I don't miss the danger, or the fighting, or the duty. Only the companions."
"In that case, I bring good news, oh fearless leader," Nall chirped. "Luna sent me here to find you, and this time it isn't about your dirty socks."
"Oh?"
"Yes, oh. She says we're going to Meribia."
"Meribia?" Alex blinked again. "Now?"
"Yeah. She says 'If we leave now, we'll get there just in time'."
"… in time for what?"
"Hey, man, she's your girlfriend," Nall snorted, spreading his wings and taking to the air once more. "You figure her out."
The young man smiled slightly, turning away from the monument to start on the path toward home, his dragon friend gliding carelessly after him.
Figure out Luna? That was an adventure all on its own.
---~----~----~---
The floor of the room beyond the heavy oaken door was pocked all over with craters, pits, and holes looked to have been literally torn from the filthy, dust covered surface. High walls arced around them, six of them, the peculiar shape lending more size to the eyes than what was truly there. Pillars rose from strategic points, though more than half of them had eroded and crumbled to nothing. Worn paths and suggestions of an intricate floor design solidified the theory that Jessica had immediately started, when first she and Len had stepped across the threshold.
This place was a temple.
She just didn't know to what.
Some sense, or taste, or electric feeling hung about the air, brushing against her skin as she followed Len further in, toying at her hair, whispering at her instincts. Some hint of a dedication, of a purpose, of something old and immense that once was but hadn't been seen or heard from for years.
Lying over that sense was an echo of the same entity, but diminished. A pang of a presence that was silkily sinister, and so old it made her teeth ache.
And straight ahead.
"Len," Jess whispered, reaching to try and snag the hem of his clothing and stall them. "I don't think this is a place we should be."
The mage hummed softly, deftly stepping out of her reach as he maneuvered around the gaps in the floor, continuing toward the back of the wide, gigantic sanctum. Pausing to look behind and be sure she followed, he seemed to find her statement morbidly amusing.
"Miss de Alkirk, your warning is a little late."
"I don't think you understand what I mean," Jessica insisted, keeping her voice somewhere between hiss and hush. "There's something…"
"Here," Len finished for her, nodding shortly. "Believe me, I know. Though I wonder how it feels to you, a priestess of Althena. Is it going to stop you from seeing this through? Didn't we come this far?"
"…No," she said softly, clenching a fist. "But you'd better start doing some explaining."
The mage gazed at her for a long moment, perhaps unaware of how his flat, considering stare was making her inch closer toward homicide. Finally he shook his head and exhaled wearily.
"I hope to the gods that I'm right, Jessica. I'm becoming quite attached to you, I fear, and I would much rather be killed by you than have to see your death."
"… What?"
Len pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head, stepping to the side and pointing a few more feet ahead of them. Jessica scowled slightly, but set aside the notion of throttling him (for a moment) to see what he was gesturing towards.
It… may have been, once, a girl of thirteen or fourteen. For all outward appearances it was a normal teenager, curled on a massive broken slab of stone in quiet, restful slumber. Golden-blonde hair pooled about her shoulders, eyelashes twitched slightly, seeing some inward dream that the rest of the world hadn't been invited to. To complete the illusion, small shoes were parked nearby, unlaced and waiting to be worn.
It was a perfect facsimile of a younger sister.
It only lacked a soul.
"Whatever it is that she ran across," Len said softly, "doesn't seem to be fully complete. It runs low on life force every few days, and I can only assume that it lacks a proper form as well, since it took up residence in hers. Do you see the marbled shard of material behind her?"
Pulling her eyes from the girl-who-was-not-a-girl with marked effort, the priestess squinted and strained until she finally found the angle at which to spot it. A bit bigger than her hand, and jagged. Obviously broken off of some larger piece.
"Yeah," she whispered. "But there isn't anything special about it."
"There used to be," Len murmured back. "When I first found her, it was still glowing and she was still half-coherent. It took a few hours for it to completely take her over."
"And then?"
He slid his eyes from the sleeping form to meet with Jessica's. "And then, when it was able to speak, we made a deal."
Jessica stilled.
"A… deal."
"My sister is the only thing I have," Len sighed, gazing upward at the broken, high ceiling. "No one else has ever given a damn for my well being. No one else has ever been there for me… or depended on me. The lives of strangers mean nothing, so long as she is given back to me."
"…Now just hold on a minute, here…"
"If I bring it enough energy, it will be able to coalesce into a form of it's own. I will get my sister back." He looked at her, eyes intent as though he were pleading for her to understand. Jess started thinking that this mystery was heading in a very bad direction and gauging the distance to the door.
"But then I met you, Jessica," Len continued. "And the plan changed."
"Changed how?" she asked slowly, noting all of the objects between her and the entrance to the sewers – holes to avoid, a patch of crumbled pathway.
"As a priestess of Althena, I wondered if perhaps you would recognize whatever this thing is that has taken over my sister." He glanced to the sleeping girl and then back again, smiling humorlessly. "Which you do not, but which is perhaps not important. Aside from that, I was entertaining the notion that you might hold the ability to cast it out of her. Exorcise it. Eliminate it, send it on it's merry way to the afterlife, whatever you may call the practice."
Jessica blinked at him silently while her mind explored that option. Exorcism wasn't widely performed because most possession claims turned out to be more of an illness of some sort, which was usually quite fixable. Illness could be healed, and priestess healed all the time. Jess could heal in her sleep (and had, in fact, many times over journeys).
But somehow she figured there would be a very big difference between "fix this girl's ailments" and "drive out the evil malevolence that took root in there and is trying to eat the townsfolk". Beyond that, she could already guess the next statement the mage was going to say: If she couldn't heal the girl, then she would be an excellent source of lifeforce, being so tied to magic and magical forces. Dinner time, little sis, yum yum.
Len sighed in heavy disappointment.
"I can see this isn't going to work. Those furtive glances to the door betray your opinions."
"I'm thinking, alright?" she snapped. "Who's the priestess here anyhow?"
"That would be you, of course," he replied straightaway, removing from a pocket an old, soiled scarf of a gentle green. "And as priestesses are so hard to come by around here, I do have to insist you stay put."
Jessica allowed herself one moment of shock at seeing the fabric (which she hadn't even realized had gone missing) before deciding that while polite and softspoken and driven by familial affection, she was not going to stand around and argue with this particular mage while he played with her accessories and some horrible evil thing slept near them, waiting to be fed a nutritious morsel of de Alkirk. Unfortunately by the time she'd gotten over the moment of shock, Len had already said a word and her feet decided to disobey by not moving.
"… You son of a bitch. You bound me."
Len shrugged idly.
"I suggest you muster up your best attempt at an exorcism. My sister will notice your scent soon."
"You bound me," Jess repeated incredulously. "Do you know how NOT allowed that is?"
"I did mention I used to study at Vane, did I not?" the mage replied dryly. "The headmistress shared your disgust with the ability."
"Of bloody well course she did, Mia's the one who got it on the 'Do Not Cast' list.
"I never used the spell for its whole spectrum of effect," Len said defensively. "I'm not like those who use it to make slaves of people, or force others to do horrid things. I use it for more of a holding spell, since I never mastered those."
"Forcing me to be eaten is pretty damned horrid, Len."
"If you manage to release my sister, that will not be an issue, Jessica."
She ground her teeth furiously at his complete lack of sense while he walked forward to the sleeping girl, gazing down at her with his back to the fuming priestess.
"Please don't expect your hulking man-brute to deliver a swift rescue, I would add," he said softly. "Should the man appear, he would find himself in a similar predicament as you do."
"But you don't have anything of Kyle's," Jess replied, which she knew simply because Kyle tended to wear everything he owned, which was either clothes or sword, and when she'd seen him so briefly earlier in the morning he'd all things with him. Unless Len had stolen Kyle's underwear, which was simply unthinkable.
Len simply looked over his shoulder at her.
"Of course I do."
She was about to argue again, when she figured out what she meant.
Of all the times to blush.
"If I had fallen in love with you I would have left with you, or found someone else for this," Len continued to explain. "I thought perhaps with your radiance you could make me better than this, or if you were shining brightly enough it would hide the bloodstains I've acquired. All you ever had to do was love me back.
"But I can see you're only for him. You'll never love me while there's someone like him."
"That makes me feel a hell of a lot better," Kyle said from the doorway, unsheathing the Insane Sword from its scabbard by his thigh. "Almost as much as breaking you in half will."
"Kyle!" Jessica cried in surprise, twisting around to look at him from across the wide room(as her feet would still stubbornly not comply).
"I know, I know," the bandit nodded. "'How'd I find you here?'. You underestimate my supreme tracking ski-.."
"What the hell TOOK you?!" she interrupted shrilly. "I've been listening to this lunatic rave for what seems like an hour!"
"Hey! I just went skulking through more crap than I wanna think out, and I only MADE it here because your great big footprints are so easy to spot!"
"There's gonna be a matching set on your ass if you don't get over here!"
Kyle grinned roguishly, hefting his sword and tensing.
"The lady's wish is my command."
"Bind," Len said in a bored tone, and Kyle's rush forward was suddenly a stumble, complete with flailing of arms. Jessica cringed as he fell, leveling a hateful stare at Len as the mage shrugged with a smile.
"So you are his after all," he murmured, reaching out to caress at her hair and frowning when she jerked away. "…Fine, then. Best not watch this, then, since you care for him so. I would imagine watching your loved ones devoured by monsters ranks high on the Trauma list."
"You leave him alone," she hissed. Len shot her an amused look, rolling up his sleeves.
"Never fear. I won't lay a finger on him." He cupped his hands together and whispered something into them, then pulled them apart and clapped. The air shimmered slightly. "Fifth semester class," he intoned. "Summoning. I wonder how Mr. Muscles will fare against the Hydrid."
"You pale, sick, nasty little man," Jessica spat, frantically diving into the anger in order to ignore the terror that shot through her. She could hear the Hydrid behind them, and remembered what fighting one was like. About eight feet tall and vaguely serpentine, the many-headed dinosauric beasts were easy to take down if you could just avoid the strikes long enough to get a clear shot at the neck.
But Kyle had no mobility.
"What wonderful timing this all is," Len droned. "I get to feed two desperately hungry things. Good morning, sister."
The girl/thing had opened her/its eyes, and blinked the flat grey oculars once before sitting up in a jerky, mechanical motion. She… no, it, Jessica asserted, there was nothing female or even human in those eyes, gazed momentarily at Len, as though remembering him and his purpose there. Len simply stared back, looking more colorless than ever.
The Hydrid was roaring and tromping about behind them. Jess stopped caring about the mage and his sister and his stupid tragic motivations completely, and turned as best as she could to look toward Kyle.
If they were both really in for it this time, then she wanted to see him.
She wanted to see only him.
…And, she did see him. Amazingly, she actually saw him running around and, in a blur of movement she recognized as his SleighRide maneuver, she saw him completely eviscerate the Hydrid and then pose winningly amidst its innards.
"You broke the binding spell?" she gaped. Kyle looked up at her in bland incomprehension, kicking aside a heap of dead flesh.
"What spell? And get the hell away from that creep, I don't like him."
"The binding spell! The… the one that makes you not move! He cast it! You stopped!"
"Oh, then." Kyle tilted his head at her quizzically. "I got my foot stuck in a pothole. What, you can't move? And who's the freaky looking girl? Bride of Mama's Boy?"
"Whatever," Len sighed, turning on a heel and walking a few feet away to watch them with flat yellow eyes. "Enjoy being eaten. I just don't care anymore."
"Eaten by what?" Kyle scoffed, peering down at the teenager who was eyeing them with slate grey eyes. "This little missy? No way, she looks too young... that's gotta be illegal."
Jessica elbowed him in the gut sharply, taking hold of his arm and pulling him backward a bit.
"That's not a girl, Kyle. It's a thing."
"That's a little harsh."
"I'm not kidding," she hissed urgently, tugging at his bicep. "We need to go."
Kyle hummed skeptically, looking down at Jessica's serious and pale visage. He gazed at her for a long moment, then pursed his lips and nodded.
"Alright," he said, "but we need to have a long talk later."
The happy couple then linked arms and skipped out of the sewer to live a happy life in the sunshine.
As if.
Actually, at this point the young teenage girl began to grow and reshape, skin becoming a leathery greybrown, the sound of disjointing bones and shifting muscles creating a disgusting cacophony of pops and snaps. A low, inhuman groan (or it could have been a growl, but with a pained sort of quality to it) rebounded off of the stone walls of the hidden sewer temple. A few final echoes of ripping flesh heralded the completion of the metamorphosis.
A long, grey, lizard-ish type creature stretched to a length of at least fifteen feet, flexing the wicked claws that ended its forelegs as it balanced on back haunches with a thick tail. Hissing in a breath through curved, shiny black teeth, it landed back on all fours to peer at the two adventurers with blazing grey eyes.
"Jess?" Kyle asked in a calm voice.
"Uh huh," she replied, staring at the beast.
"Why didn't we run away during that whole nasty transformation bit?"
"Well, Kyle, speaking for myself, I haven't been able to move my feet since Len's binding spell," Jess said evenly. "As for you, I think you may just be an idiot."
He glanced down at her lesser height, dark eyes flashing intently, though her attention was held on the serpentine creature still adjusting to its own skin. She was mussed and filthy and they both stank of the sewer they'd taken to get here. The path had left its mark on her clothes, smudges of grey and brown and green along the hemming of her hook and cloak. This was hardly where he'd expected this case to end up, when they'd first started from Meribia down that dusty, beaten path. At the most he had surmised there would be some random hungry beast, and while he was kind of right, nowhere in his hazy guess of the future was there he and Jessica, fighting a lizard-demon-thing while covered in shit.
She had never looked more beautiful.
A plan had never been so easy to make.
"Do what you can from there," he said shortly, lifting the tip of his sword to a steady angle. "Whatever spells you can think of."
"And you?" she asked curtly, daring to take her gaze from the transfigured girl to shoot him a wary glare. He grinned as their eyes met, a flash of vivid white teeth amidst his tanned face, the contrast only enhanced by the poor lighting of the underground.
"I'm gonna trust you to keep me alive while I skewer us an ancient evil or two." With that he ducked down slightly, pecked a quick kiss onto her forehead, and then rushed forward with sword at the ready.
Jessica hurriedly shook off the shock, watching the bandit try to draw the creature away, and raised her hands with a grim smile. Even if no one knew what they were really facing, she would just cast spells until she ran out of energy or one worked. Things were so blessedly simple when it came down to it like this. Kyle would fight his way, and she would fight his way, and maybe they weren't the most perfect of teams but damned if they didn't give it their all.
Besides, she'd been harping all this time that she just wanted his trust. No way was she going to let him down now that he'd given it.
Smiling fiercely and starting her spell casting, Jess thought hopefully Kyle wouldn't be too irate about that other plan she had going on the side.
----~---~---~----
Len Destine was a scholar.
He had never been athletic, strong, or in any way fit. He tended to have a mild immediate dislike for someone well-built, either from envy or from a youth full of bullying. Had he gone outside more, no doubt he would have just been ridiculed more. Rather he spent his days inside the cramped and glorious corners of his town's library, absorbing information like a pale sponge and waiting for the chance when his own talents would be recognized, and when he could finally make a difference in the world with a role other than punching bag. It was on his younger sister's encouragement that he applied to Vane, and with her faith and endless support in mind that he got through the Trials. She should have been the older of them, really. She was always standing up for him against the other boys, against their parents, against the world. Always sheltering him from that which was harsh.
Just once he wanted to be the one that saved her. That she could rely upon. He wanted to be strong, and to do whatever it took to be able to see her shining blue eyes, not that hideous flat grey of the other who'd slipped inside her.
But Len was a scholar, and as he watched the pair fight in tandem, each in their own way, he seemed to finally understand what he'd known since he saw his sister suck the life out of the first townsgirl.
He wasn't ever going to get his blue eyed savior back.
Len Destine was a scholar and a brother, and abruptly he knew the sort of derision and disappointment she would greet this Len with. "What good is anything to you if you have to be someone else to get it?" she would say, or else snort angrily and ask how he'd become the bully, or maybe she might just kick him in the shins. He'd never disappointed her. Angered her occasionally, and certainly let her down despite his best efforts, but she'd never been disappointed. She would always hug him and forgive him.
He didn't think this was something she could ever forgive.
Len Destine was a scholar and a brother and a mage, and as he was casting his gaze about the ruins idly (anything to avoid seeing the abomination that was his sibling) he spotted the strange shard that started it all, and saw for the first time the slight flicker still weakly proclaiming an inherent magic. Crouching to ghost his fingers over it, he looked up slowly. The man named Kyle was doing his apparent best, whirling the sword with an incredible skill that Len could scarcely process, let alone hope to possess. His teeth were clenched in absolute resolution, and sweat was sliding down his skin, mingling amidst dirt and several slight wounds from shrapnel and close calls that Len hadn't seen. He was doing everything in his ability to keep the thing (it wasn't Jeni, not his Jeni, she was blonde and beautiful after all) away from Jessica, who continued to throw spells despite her mostly healing repertoire. She stood tall and determined, shaking almost imperceptibly with the exertion of so much magic. They were both giving it their all. Both fighting so the other could live, desperate for each other as he was desperate for Jeni, and yet they hadn't become so corrupted as he.
The thing had swatted Kyle with its tail, a lashing he simply didn't have time to avoid, and the blow sent him tumbling across the floor and smashing into one of the crumbling pillars. Another ineffective spell drifted over its skin and it pivoted to lunge at the small priestess, teeth gleaming a rich black in the spell light.
The decision was so clear that it blotted out the rest of the scenery. He assumed Kyle had yelled because it was something Kyle would do. No doubt Jessica (how she reminded him of Jeni!) was readying some last ditch effort. She would fight to the end, he figured. It was endearing. He really could have loved her, perhaps in a different and perfect world where he would have been worthy of her love.
He knew he wasn't worthy of anyone's, not anymore, just as he knew what he had to do now.
Len Destine had never been strong, yet under his hands the fragment of the seal crumbled to dust. He sensed more than heard the startled and pained roar of the creature as it halted almost mid-flight, scrambling to land on its feet a few yards from Jessica and whipping it's head back and forth, screeching in confusion at the severing of the link. The priestess exhaled shakily, sinking to her knees in weary relieved shock, just as the bandit was reclaiming his feet. Len went to disengage the binding spell, and found with only minimal surprise that it had dissipated quite some time ago. He gathered the vestiges of energy left to him, not sparing the time to wonder when the bind had ended or why. Standing, turning, a growing spell between his hands, he smiled at the oncoming monster that was leaping in his direction. He could almost imagine a pair of bright blue eyes.
"I'm saving us all, Jenny-doll," he murmured, raising his hands calmly and waiting for the right moment. "Can you see it?"
Can you see me save you, now that it's too late?
---~----~----~---
"The hell is he doing?" Kyle grunted, reaching out for anything to support himself on – that last swat had nearly knocked him clueless. He shook the tips of his glossy hair from his line of vision, squinting until the blur ran from his eyes, as it should since he is Kyle and he is Fierce. The stupid mage had formed some sort of swirly spell between his hands, and he was just staring googly-eyed and smiley at the girl-lizard as it careened toward him with jaws wide open.
"Suicide maneuver," he muttered, eyes widening slightly. The idiot was going to let the creature overtake him and then release the spell as he died, too close to dodge and probably straight into it's mouth.
Well, it wasn't Kyle killing him, but at least he was going to get killed right?
"Len!" Jessica screamed in futile warning, hands at her mouth and face filled with compassionate dread.
Well, shit.
The things he did for his woman.
"Shoot!" Kyle roared, launching himself straight at Len, rewarded with a blank and confused stare. Incredible Bandit Inertia carried him directly into the mage, plowing both of them out of the path of slobberous jaws that only slammed shut on thin air, inches above the men. "Fire it, you freaky eyed numbnut!" he bellowed, forcefully grabbing Len by the shoulders and manually pointing him and his glowing nimbus of whatever-the-hell at the oncoming beast.
Surprised, speechless, and manhandled, Len simply did what he'd been told, releasing the spell into the creature's face as it came back for another round.
The explosion was massive.
Kyle and Len both curled defensively as a shower of fire and scales and gooey bodily fluids flung about the room, the former bracing knowingly against the shockwave that the explosion would create, and the latter still too dumbfounded to bother, and practically blown across the room since Kyle really didn't care enough to grab at him. Jessica crouched, pulling her hood up above her head and ducking into one of the craters, which provided quite a nice trench, really.
When the dust settled, it was only the three of them, and a large, headless and lifeless serpentine body. Slowly, stiffly, Kyle got to his feet, trying to brush the dirt and ichors off of him before just giving up on his state, stepping right over Len and moving to help Jessica up instead. She peeked up at him from under the hem of her hood, exhausted, spent. He held out his hand and she took it, pulling herself up with his assistance, and then finding with slight tired surprise that she didn't want to let go. Unwilling to waste the energy on another mental debate, she simply held on. Kyle did not protest.
Len had finally regained his senses, sitting aside the smoking corpse that would never in even the smallest sense make anyone think of a teenage girl with blonde hair or blue eyes. He was staring at it, somewhat sad and somewhat resigned, but mostly, Jessica thought, he mostly looked old.
"We'd just entered town," he said quietly, more to the air than to his company, "and the man who runs the market remarked that he'd given his wife a puppy for a wedding present, and the puppy had run away just a night before. 'We'll fix this, Len', she said, as though it concerned us, as though it should matter at all. Simply because some woman we'd never met was hurting. It was all the excuse she ever needed." He wiped his face on his sleeve, not noticing that his sleeve had been far nastier than his face to begin with. "She thought that the dog might have gotten into the sewers, because we just couldn't find him anywhere else. I didn't want to come down here… it felt wrong. But she said we couldn't just half look. We had to look everywhere if we were going to look at all. 'Here's my chance to show you, Len,' she said. 'You can do the right thing like you want to. Didn't you say you wanted to save people?'"
"Len," Jessica started softly. "I'm sure that she-.."
"She was a loving little idiot," the mage interrupted, standing suddenly and turning away from the mess. "And it killed her. Whether it was to help some stranger, or to find the puppy, or to teach me about being who and what I wanted to be, it killed her. Jeni..." He cleared his throat, shook his head, and tried again. "Jeni was all I ever had. It is… it is just my foolish, desperate hope that I did what she would have wanted. That she… that if she was still watching from within that thing, that she was proud. She had no reason to be… but that's never stopped her before." Len looked up to Jessica, pale yellow eyes tinted red with the force of repressed tears. "I was never going to get her back, I realized. And I couldn't let you die because I was being foolishly selfish."
"It would have been nice to have that fragment," Kyle muttered, scratching the back of his head and looking away from the emotional outburst, somewhat because emotional men made him uncomfortable and half because he really wanted to hate the mage but it was turning more to pity. Kyle preferred hate.
"Why did you save me?" Len asked softly. "You hate me."
"Damn straight I do," the thief growled, releasing Jessica's hand to fold his arms over his chest. "But you saved Jess, back there."
"I also brought Jessica down here. I put her in the danger in the first place."
"Oh, hey, good point." He raised his fist, ready to dispense pummeling action.
"Kyle, don't you dare," the priestess warned from beside him, as he knew she would. Grinning at her meekly, he set to cleaning his sword instead (in clear view of Len, so that the meaning could not be missed – these could be your guts I'm wiping off, pal. You lucked out.)
"Miss de Alkirk?"
"What is it, Len?" Jessica replied with a slightly exasperated glance at Kyle, who's threatening gestures were so far removed from subtle it wasn't even funny.
"Why did you merely stand there when the bind was gone?"
She blinked, coloring slightly around the bridge of her nose.
"Oh, you noticed that?"
"I don't understand…"
"Of course you don't," the short female snorted, tossing a few sections of hair over a shoulder. "None of you men ever do."
A grunt hovered from her boyfriend. She ignored it with a grin.
"But why?" Len insisted.
"Same reason I came here, remember? I couldn't figure out if you were a person who needed to be healed or to be hit."
He stood in stillness for a moment, absorbing that, tilting his head to the side and pursing his lips slightly. Finally he nodded.
"You were forcing my hand."
"And hoping it would play the right sort of cards," Jessica confirmed.
"Stupid risk," Kyle huffed, sheathing his sword in a smooth movement and glaring at her in protective disapproval. Jess merely shrugged at him, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
"Then you shouldn't have taught me how to gamble," she said lightly, turning back to look at Len. "The only way to help you heal was to make you choose what sort of person you were going to be by the end of the day: one who tried his utmost to do his best by himself and his family, even though there may have been tragedy, or someone who let another person be killed to hang on to a useless dream."
"So then… I am a person who needed healing." Len said it almost wonderingly. Jessica had heard the tone before, from the mouths of people who believed themselves to be a waste of time. Sometimes she almost agreed.
"Well… of course, every so now and then you come across the rare sort of person who needs both," she informed casually.
"…Both?"
"Healing, and that other option," Kyle filled in, his grin growing at an alarming rate, considering the almost feral way his teeth were gleaming.
"The other…?" Len asked faintly, just in time for Jessica to punch his lights out. The mage crumpled, predictably having a glass jaw, and Kyle picked him up and slung him over a shoulder.
"Well, that completes my week," he declared, glancing around the area and frowning as the flicker of the magelight was cut off. "Crap. He cast that, didn't he."
"I think I'm closer to the door, wait a second. There were torches along the sewer walls."
"You can't move that great big door!" Kyle scoffed, just as the creaking of a heavy oaken door echoed all around him. Faint firelight illuminated the silhouette of the half-beastgirl as she eyed him from the doorway.
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she graciously informed, "Because you've got so many brownie points at the moment and I don't feel like arguing."
"The goddess smiles on me," he muttered, carefully making his way out of the ruins and back into the welcome filth of the sewers.
"She does," Jessica confirmed. "Now, between the both of us, Kyle… why did you really save him?"
"He's from Vane, right?" Kyle asked with a shrug, careful of the dead weight hanging over his shoulder. "We'd have had to ship the body to Vane, and it'd be way too expensive. Hell Mel would kill me."
Muffled giggles rose from his girlfriend. He looked downward at her archly.
"I'm not kidding. Your father scares the shit out of me, and it isn't all that funny."
"That's not it," Jessica snickered, shaking her head. "Vane kicked Len out for working outlawed spells. We could have buried him anywhere."
Kyle stopped dead, the look on his face almost a sulk that sent Jess into a further spiral of giggling.
"Then why'd I bother?! Can I just drop him in the waste? He'd drown, you know, and we could just go and no one would even ask questions!"
"You know we can't!" she laughed.
"Plee~eease, Jess!"
"Absolutely not!"
"I'm gonna go get a girlfriend who lets me vent my frustrations," he teased, the sulk turning into a playful grin that only grew more delighted when the priestess smirked up at him. Jessica was fun when she bickered, but much more fun when she played along.
"You could never manage to keep away," she purred, adding a slight twitch to her hips as she continued down the walkway. Eyebrows raised in appreciation, Kyle fell into step behind her, deciding to just silently enjoy the view.
He couldn't argue with that.
---~-------~--------------~------------------~--------------------------~---------------------------~-------------~------
Very brief author's note, because most of them will be in the epilogue that should go up a few moments after this is posted. If the format here is a little wonky, it's because the upgrade to Word I did is slightly psychotic, so rest assured if this looks like monkeys on crack did the formatting, I will find it and fix it.
Oh, and thanks for coming with me thus far. I hope you're enjoying the ride. Just one little thing left to read and you can go home. :D