They stepped off the ship nearly two weeks after Moatelus' domain vanished. Sorey almost expected the port to be in shambles, but business went on as usual. In fact, he did not even hear word of anything being different when they disembarked.
"Welp, that's it for me," Zaveid commented once they were on solid ground and said goodbye to the scholars. "Good luck, shepsy."
After almost two weeks trapped on the ocean in impotence and worrying, Sorey's frayed nerves gave out. His eyes narrowed dangerously and he shoved the older man with force. "How about you stop being so arrogant?!" he snarled. Zaveid's baffled expression only lasted for a moment, though it had been there. Then he laughed, which did not help Sorey's mood.
"I meant it, buddy. If you're really going to fight Velvet, you'll need all the luck you can get. She's stronger than when she killed Artorius, and you're not on his level." As right as he was, Sorey simply dismissed the notion and stewed in his anger; Mikleo clapped his shoulder reassuringly, but did not stop Zaveid from walking away.
"What about you?" he then asked Edna, his fellow seraph having watched the proceedings. The girl shrugged.
"I'm staying around for now," was her only comment. Mikleo thought better than to inquire further.
Meanwhile, Rose leaned at a nearby wall with her eyes closed. "There's at least one Bloodwing watching us," she murmured. The winds prevented her words from carrying, though Dezel took a moment to respond.
"I count three and they know I know."
"Yeah, they probably know something's up." She paid little attention to the nearby back-and-forth consisting of Sorey and Edna, the two discussing whether he actually had to fight Velvet. According to their shepherd, the answer was yes because 'she was the Lord of Calamity'. Rose wisely stopped herself from interfering there, well aware how stubborn that man could be. "Maybe we can figure out another solution before he gets himself killed."
That hope of hers died the very next day, when a disheveled Talfryn caught up to them not far out of town. His eyes were sunken and he actually cried at seeing her. "Rose! Thank the heavens you're alright!" Moments later, the perplexed woman received a hug for reasons she did not yet understand.
"Right as rain," she responded nonetheless, rubbing her friend's back a little awkwardly. Her companions shrugged when she glanced their way, though Sorey's expression quickly darkened; Rose felt her own heart sink as the implications of this happening now hit her. "What happened?"
"It, it was horrible," he sobbed. "We got another contract and Eguile gave the go-ahead, but when we got there she, s-she..." he trailed off, all while crumpling against a perfecetly still Rose. 'She', he said.
"Velvet? You went after her?" A soft nod was all she got in return and the clump of ice in her gut grew. "How many?"
"Dozen," he forced out. "She killed everyone else. Gods, she hit Juliette so hard she e-exploded, and Simon got torn apart. Felice and-" "Shh." She shushed the traumatised man and held him tight.
"It's okay, don't say anymore. We'll figure this out." Rose continued to whisper gently, uncaring of the abject confusion from Sorey and Mikleo. She took notice of Edna's blank expression however, and of the anger bubbling in her gut. So much for another solution; Velvet would pay for killing her friends.
"This makes no sense," Mikleo mused quietly while she held Talfryn. He was talking with Sorey and Edna, but Rose listened in regardless. "Why would she go after merchants?"
"She didn't." That comment confirmed it for Rose; Edna knew already, and so she could do nothing to mitigate the damage. The nerds listened attentively while their earth seraph explained: "The Sparrow Feathers are a front for the Scattered Bones assassin guild. From the sound of it, they bit off more than they could chew this time."
"Shut it, squirt." Her quiet reprimand drew a blank look from Edna, though her eyes soon dipped to Talfryn and her expression softened somewhat. While she was already paying attention however, Rose noticed Dezel's condition as well; he stood tense, fists clenched so hard his leather gloves creaked. "Dezel?"
Even when he suddenly became the center of attention, her partner kept glowering at nothing. "I knew it," he growled, "I was not sure until today, but now I know. That girl, Symonne. She is one of Heldalf's agents." The soft breeze which had caressed them on the road so far fell quiet, leaving an eerie silence to his final revelation: "She is the one that got Brad killed."
And suddenly, nothing else mattered. Rose's vision hyperfocussed on Dezel as his words sunk in. Brad. The Windriders' original leader, the man who taught her how to wield the blade. Her foster father. Murdered by a useless prince's plot. Her throat was dry while fire began to burn within Rose's belly; it spread quickly, to the point she even forgot Talfryn for a time. Sorey's quiet inquiry who Brad was, she ignored as well. Only Dezel mattered. "To her be the knife," she growled in response, to which he nodded solemnly. They would kill her, and if it was the last they did.
When her eyes fell on Edna, they narrowed. "Where is she?" Rose demanded, but the seraph girl merely shrugged. "That's not good enough!" she then shouted in Edna's shocked face while shaking her roughly. "Tell me where she is!"
"Whoa, Rose, stop-gah!" Sorey meant to pull her off the frightened seraph, but Dezel pushed him away easily. "What are you doing?"
"What I should have done months ago!" Rose roared in response before staring down Edna again. "Now out with it! Where is that bitch?" She knew even through her boiling anger that it was the wrong thing to say; Edna's expression hardened and just an instant later, a rock pillar slammed into her crotch. Pain flared from her center, overriding all else. Her hands fell slack, as did her legs; Rose dropped to the ground with a pained wheeze, curling up and clutching her lady bits.
There was shouting and rushing wind, roaring earth, but by the time she could focus again, Edna was gone. A faint trail of ochre blood ran along the road, together with several deep gouges and craters. Dezel snarled at Sorey and Mikleo, who held him back from pursuing. "Stop this!" the shepherd pleaded even while deflecting another strike of a pendulum. "This is wrong!"
"No," Rose declared flatly. Her voice stopped the others while she slowly got back up. "What's wrong is that we left them be for so long. I don't care if you disagree, we're going to end this once and for all." She hobbled forward, but soon found her stride as the last bits of pain stopped bothering her. A momentary effort had the squire's pact severed, just as Dezel severed his sublord's pact and bonded with her again. She silently took Talfryn by the hand, glared at Sorey some more, daring him to stop them, and began to walk. The men they left behind merely watched them walk away, toward Pendrago and later for Lastonbell.
. .
. .
When a bloodstained, torn-up Edna limped into the living room, she startled several people. Symonne was thrown off Laphi's lap which she had been sprawled over when her boyfriend surged up; the girl herself corrected the fall and turned fluid to reform upright. Neither of them made it to their girlfriend before Eizen did however; he appeared by her side in the blink of an eye, kneeling with abject terror. "What happened to you?!"
He immediately began weaving healing artes while Edna blew out her scratched cheeks over the fuzzing; her mock pout fell away right quick however. Symonne and Laphi reached moments later to check her over as well, earning a weak smile while the gash on her bad leg began to close. "Rose happened. And Dezel, for that matter." Symonne's heart skipped a beat at the news, fingers clenching around Edna's good hand. She had her girlfriend's grim attention in a heartbeat. "Looks like he decided not to try forgetting you any longer. They're out for blood now, so I made myself scarce."
"What brought this on?" Laphi inquired, his calm tone belied by the scowl he wore; Eizen continued to heal quietly, finishing with his sister's thigh and moving to her broken wrist even though he shook in rage. Others congregated around them while Edna rolled her eyes.
"Turns out Velvet snacked on some assassins recently," she snarked back while throwing the woman in question a look. She shrugged and by the askance stares she now got from Margaret and Alisha, Symonne knew her friends had not been informed either.
"They came after me some time ago," Velvet remarked idly. "It's not like I'm just going to stand there and take it. So I killed them, and I let one get away so the Scattered Bones get the message."
"So that is why you had me keep an eye on them," Enya concluded from the side; even her eternal smile was absent for the moment. "They have gone to ground, not that we can not find them. Um... orders?"
"Annihilate them."
Only Velvet and Eizen did not pause upon hearing the command. Laphi did not hold an ounce of compassion in that moment, to the point even Symonne almost shied away from him. Then however, he leaned forward and gently pushed a stray strand of hair from Edna's face. "Or rather, keep eyes on them until we can do the annihilating. We were ready to live and let live, but that is obviously no longer on the table."
Alisha made to speak, but Margaret tapped her side with a headshake; the therion kept her silence. It was at this point that Eizen finished. "That should be all, at least from what I could see. Any other injuries?" Edna frowned in response as she patted her side, but shook her head.
"Nothing else."
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me-" "No." Eizen stopped, outright glaring at a similarly displeased Margaret. Tension grew between them and no one else dared interfere; they all knew what he was about to say. "What?" Eizen drawled dangerously.
"Not yet," Margaret retorted without pause. She stepped forward to meet Edna's gaze. "I need to know who exactly we are after. Zaveid already returned days ago and left again. Rose and Dezel attacked you." She waited for a nod and Symonne realised what question would follow; she was right: "What about Sorey and Mikleo?"
Alisha inhaled sharply as the line of inquiry became clear. Even Eizen grudgingly dropped his scowl, or at least the one directed at Margaret. Edna sighed, however. "Leave them be. Sorey stopped Dezel from following me. I let them in on Rose being an assassin before I left, so they probably already split up." She received nods from all around, though Symonne's thoughts kept circling about the fact this was her fault; she left her girlfriend with a man who had every reason to hate and want to hurt Symonne herself.
"We'll leave him be," Velvet conceded to Edna then. "More or less, at least. I still need to have a few words with him about what he saw on Titania."
"Is that perchance a euphemism?"
"No, I mean only words," she reassured Alisha. "He is the kind that just won't stop, but maybe I can give him some food for thought. Or intimidate him enough that he folds, though I doubt that."
In the meantime, Eizen carefully groomed his sister's hair; she allowed it wordlessly. Going by the way she held still, Symonne thought she might even enjoy his attention.
Then a small turn of her intact umbrella had the orange, normin-esque plush toy dangle right in front of Eizen's face; upon seeing it, his eyes narrowed. After finishing up, he grabbed the toy with a dark glare. "And why have you not protected her like you promised?"
All eyes were back on Eizen and the plush; Symonne wondered what this was about, though her girlfriend rolled her eyes knowingly. Then a dark, masculine voice answered out of nowhere: "I beg your pardon, old friend. I may have grown negligent in my watch over the centuries. I was readying to protect the fair maiden, but by then her friend had already prevented greater harm." Symonne stared at the plush as it detached itself from the umbrella and grew, suddenly pinging her senses for mana. How had a seraph hidden right there in plain sight?
"Alas, I sometimes forget how fickle the human mind can be," the Normin finished. His orange fur bristled even as he hung his head, trailing the faint scent of smoke. Symonne kept staring at him, as did most everyone else until Velvet huffed.
"You kept your watch for a thousand years?"
"Indeed I did, Lord of Calamity. Or would Goddess of Darkness be more appropriate now?" The Normin glanced to Velvet, who wore a faint smile and shrugged.
"Okay," Alisha chimed in curiously, "would anyone mind explaining just why there was a Normin attached to Edna's umbrella?" Margaret and Symonne nodded along, as did Laphi and Enya. Phi giggled in response even as he crouched to shake the Normin's paw.
"This is Phoenix," he introduced, "the strongest of all Normin. We met him all the way back in the Age of the Gods." The boy then fell silent as he mulled over how to phrase something, though Symonne thought he was sheepish for some reason. "We had a bit of a fight back then, about Eizen and Edna." Glances went to Symonne's girlfriend, who shrugged; she did not know. Eizen, however, did.
"Aye. Phoenix agreed to keep an eye on her-" "Which is going to stop now," Edna interrupted pointedly. When Normin and brother turned her way, she continued to stare at them. "I knew he was there for a while, but had no reason to say anything." The nonchalant revelation shocked Phoenix, Symonne noticed; her girlfriend continued without acknowledging that: "But I can take care of myself now."
"Current incidents notwithstanding," Laphi stage-whispered to his sister; Edna flushed, but forced herself to keep facing them.
"Yes. A-Anyway, I'm alright now." She peered down at Phoenix, who shook his head with a smile Symonne felt radiated pride.
"Understood, ma'am. I shall take my leave then, and leave your safety in equally capable hands." Laphi snorted and so did Symonne a moment later. The Normin offered each of them a nod before toddling away. They silently watched him leave and close the door behind himself.
"That was weird," Margaret commented after a while. Then her expression hardened. "Now back to the matter at hand. I will see to the Scattered Bones in person. Eizen?" She earned a severe nod, the older earth seraph's gaze having darkened again. "Good. Phi? Symonne?" They both nodded as well, though Symonne did so with mixed feelings; she was angry, yet at the same time she understood Rose's and Dezel's anger. Regardless, they tried to hurt Edna and picked a fight with the most powerful beings in the world. It was their funeral.
Into the determined moment however, a calm voice sounded: "I will go as well." Alisha's narrow-eyed gaze reminded Symonne that there was one more to their group. "If nothing else, to stand as witness."
"No," Margaret denied. When the therion made to argue, she raised her hand; Alisha's mouth closed and she allowed the younger blonde to explain: "I want you to go with Edna and talk to Sorey. He is not going to listen to Velvet or Laphi. But to you, he just might. The Scattered Bones are already lost, but he can yet be saved. Can you do that?" Both Empyreans frowned at her simply seizing control, but did not contradict her; Symonne could not help but grin at her boyfriend, not that he noticed.
Alisha pondered the question momentarily, but ultimately concurred. "Very well. That is, assuming you wish to return to them, Edna?"
"Yes."
She did not elaborate, but Symonne could guess well enough; her girlfriend did mention that Sorey and Mikleo grew on her over time. 'Like weeds', she described them at that point, though only to hide her genuine affection. Alisha nodded to Margaret, who in turn addressed Velvet: "I hope you don't mind us taking charge, oh Empyreans?"
"Cheeky brat." Velvet huffed right after, clearly not actually angry. "Go right ahead. Desolation is your business now."
Permission so granted, they headed out.
"Wait." Edna's gaze focussed on Phi, who met it curiously. "Aren't you supposed to be a dragon? Or dead?" She earned confusion from several people before Symonne realised that her girlfriend did not get the news yet. They would have to explain that first.
. .
. .
Even with Dezel's mastery of the wind, having Talfryn along meant they were slower than intended. Yet the anger kept bubbling within Rose, giving every step toward Pendrago purpose. She spent the days making a mental list of targets and tasks to be done; first they had to meet up with the other Bones, then dismantle the Crowe's Nest. Best case, Velvet was already there and could be taken down. Worst case, the strike would draw her attention.
Despite her wrath however, Rose eventually realised a direct strike would be suicide; even if Zaveid exaggerated Velvet's power, she knew what she saw. Innominat was also present and she beheld his past self easily breaking orichalcum.
Before she found a solution however, trouble came to her. Just a day away from Pendrago, Dezel's wind suddenly shifted; Rose was thrown sideways and Talfryn shouted in surprise. They both hit the ground and rolled to bleed off momentum; when Rose turned, she found her partner exchanging blows with empty air. Moments later, Margaret became visible. She seemed to be alone, expression firm as she kept pushing Dezel. Rose surged to her feet and charged into the battle, well aware that the time for words was over.
Talfryn joined her a moment later and the three of them turned the tide; Dezel finally disengaged while Margaret parried and deflected four daggers. Rose grinned, only for it to turn into shock when the blonde sidestepped her, ignored Talfryn whose weapons barely nicked her skin, and ran him through in that same motion. Then she lifted his body to shield from Dezel's pendulums, pulling back smoothly to let the dying man drop. Rose ground her teeth before charging again; Margaret made a half-turn to intercept her, but Dezel's synchronised attack forced the girl to maneuver. Rose leapt over the partly raised blade before it could impale her, planting a hand on her opponent's shoulder. Just before her dagger dug into her throat however, something pierced her arm and she began to fall.
Turning her head, she found Margaret having ducked; the opening she saw was never there. The girl's blade carved a deep cut into her dominant hand. Rose's momentum carried her to the ground with that realisation, forcing her to waste a precious second rolling. The clang of steel on steel right behind spoke of Dezel saving her life. She turned to find Margaret focussing on him and rose to exploit her distraction, only for the earth to break around her. Shining ochre chains broke free and forced Rose to leap aside, only to jump right into a hard fist. Blood followed her ballistic course through the air.
Her head pounded and this time she hit the ground hard, impact forcing all air out of her lungs. Chains lashed out again, catching Rose's flailing legs. Then her arms. Blood ran into one of her eyes, but her vision remained clear enough to see the other assailant; a very tall, very angry man who came right at her immobilised form. Dezel disengaged Margaret and became intangible as he rushed back to her, settling within Rose in a clear demand. The divine artifact glowed as she channeled mana into it in response. "Lukeim Yurlin," she murmured through the haze of her pounding head; the pain was erased when they became one.
When the light died down however, they found that Margaret was not idle. Just like their hair gleamed green, hers was now ochre like the missing seraph. Two child-like seraphim flanked her, one confusing them for he was the boy they once saw following Velvet around, the other sending them into a near-incoherent rage. Symonne's expression was blank while Margaret's armatised form scowled.
They felt mana flow into the earth and leaped even before it ruptured into a sea of chains, but Margaret followed into their domain. A draconic roar sounded as the girl cocked her fist, only for them to send a dozen tiny daggers at her; they grinned momentarily, but then Margaret vanished to their senses. The winds screamed of danger behind, but that small fist crashed into their back even before they turned. "You're wide open!" the girl roared in two voices as she hammered them down, then exploded into flame and followed to grind them through the ravaged ground. "Burn!"
And they burned. The sheer force behind this punch broke their back, several more bones splintered from their ride through the dirt, and their skin became an angry red from the heat as it smoldered. Margaret ignored the daggers burying themselves in her arms and side, eyes full of fury. And then she was gone.
They lay there, blinking at the empty spot where their opponent just was. Their body ached and pounded, ruptured ligaments and organs burning within while remnants of flame burned outside. Another blink and they realised they were surrounded by faint, blue bubbles of mana; they all led back to the blond seraph boy, whose expression was downcast. It firmed up a moment later however. "Insubstantiality!" he called, and their world exploded violently.
When Rose came to, she lay in a crater. Her injuries were slightly less severe, but she could not move. Trying to bend her arm yielded nothing and when she forced her head to turn, Rose found only a bloody stump. Her mind was so hazy that she could not even understand what she saw.
Turning the slightest bit further, she found Dezel not far away in the same crater; the lower half of his body was missing, clothes torn. He still stirred, tried to rise, but a heavy boot crushed his head just then. A speckle of green blood tapped her nose, the dulled sensation making Rose go cross-eyed to see what hit her until movement drew her attention away. Margaret stood over her, the girl's outline blurry. She said something, but no sound reached Rose; she heard nothing at all, merely blinking back at her distraught opponent.
After a moment, Margaret raised the sword she was holding and for an instant, memories tugged at Rose's mind. A crimson night, a group of people arrayed against her, a flower, and Velvet Crowe, devouring her with a large, scarlet claw. Rose's eyes widened just as Margaret sliced off her head. The shock sent her unconcious at last, never to wake again.