The Shotgun Approach
Chapter 24: Take Me Home
A/N: Long time, no see. Ya'll gonna hate me at the end of this xD
. . .
Thirty years I hadn't stepped foot in this land of heathens. The bitter biting cold of winter clawed at my cheeks, freezing my eyelashes and the saliva on my lips.
I couldn't feel it.
I often wondered if I was just as numb as this unforgiving place.
"You better have a good reason for dragging me here in the middle of January," I snapped at his back, anger thick on my tongue.
I never wanted to return here, let alone so soon.
But I couldn't disobey Einarr. Not yet. Not until I was able to gather even the smallest shred of hope he knew where my son was.
Anything. Give me anything, you bastard.
Einarr trudged ahead, so arrogant he allowed me to stay at his back. I heard him chuckle deep in his throat and bit back a snarl.
"Did you love him?" He asked suddenly, not bothering to turn and look me in the eye.
For a moment I wondered which he spoke of, but the answer was the same for both.
"Yes."
He laughed fully now, his guffaws being swallowed up by howling wind and snowfall sharp as daggers.
I wanted to scream at him, to run him through with the sword at my waist, but all words failed me when he spoke again: "We are here for your son, as promised."
I sucked in a sharp breath and choked on it.
Einarr huffed out another laugh and trudged on.
. . .
My brother took me far from our family's lands, but it did not give me much relief.
Being here...after so long and with so much at stake...
It made my skin crawl.
This was not home anymore.
It was just miles and miles of treacherous terrain filled with even more treacherous demons. The Elementa were not the only ones who shared this level of their personal hell.
It was weeks later when we finally stopped traveling. Weeks of battles and dirt and snow and grit. I longed for a bath, to peel the gear and armor off my body and sleep completely naked.
The hovel of a hotel Einarr chose was as close to heaven as I would ever find here.
The bath water was lukewarm at best but it was clean. I sunk into it, eyeing Einarr across the short distance of the tub. I kept my feet scrunched close to me, trying to avoid touching him. Einarr did not have similar qualms. He stretched his large body out as far as he was able, swallowing up any remaining space the tub offered.
We spent a long time in silence, just scrubbing the filth off until the water was a murky brown. When Einarr rose from the bath, his skin the color of pale gold glistened and I turned away in disgust.
"Where is my son, Einarr?"
"All in due time, sister. All in due time."
. . .
We traveled another three days before I realized what I got myself into.
Einarr never truly planned to take me to my son. Because my son wasn't here. He wasn't on any demon plain. I would have known, deep in my gut I would have sensed if he was.
I wouldn't have wasted away in the human realm for so many years.
We ended up in a city I recognized from my travels as a Vulva—Berufell. A place full of snobs and demons pretending to be royalty. I covered my face with a heavy fur cowl, the cloak obscuring my body so I would not be noticed by anyone with a good enough memory.
The last time I came through this city Artair was at my side.
Artair whose skilled hands made many of the pieces the nobles wore in this wretched place. Jewels resting in finely made pieces of silver and gold and platinum. Artair's initials would be carved into an inconspicuous spot on the underside of each.
I wanted to rip off and horde every piece I spotted, as if my eyes were magnets drawn to them.
Artair was always so contradictory. A demon hunter who created delicate masterpieces with the same hands he slaughtered with. But he had been mine. And to me, he was brighter and more wonderful than any of the jewels he touched.
The thought of Artair made my skin itch and my mind filled with the buzz of years and years of addiction. I pulled out the leather pouch filled with a mixture of herbs only found in these particular regions. It took a bit of work to obtain them, but they were potent and perfect.
I shook them out in the palm of my hand, froze them to tiny cubes, and swallowed them whole.
My brother, who noticed but never commented on my habits, raised an eyebrow, a smile twisting his lips into a cruel crooked line.
A gave him a hand motion that would have made Yusuke proud.
We spoke in short clipped whispers, slinking through the streets with enough malice seeping off us that no one dared stop to chat. And when we arrived at the lavish house at the end of the biggest street, my nose curled up in distaste.
"I'll wait here," I said, taking a seat on the front stoop, my head foggy but blissfully empty of all thought.
Now wasn't the right time to be consorting with the nobility of Berufell.
"Oh no you don't, you lazy sow," Einarr hissed, pulling me up by my arm and marching us to the large set of double doors.
He threw them open as if he were the house's owner and flung me inside, disappointed when I did not even stumble. I smoothed out my clothes and pulled down the hood of my cloak so I could give him the full brunt of my scathing glare.
"Wait," was all he said, before climbing the grand staircase and disappearing into one of the rooms above.
I shuffled my feet, incensed at being made to wait...and wait...and wait.
Eventually I grew tired of just looking at the furniture, the gilded paintings, and handsome wood work that must have cost obscene amounts of coin.
The nobles of Berufell were disgustingly lavish creatures. Demons who pillaged and raped and joined in the trading of salves. All covered up by gold and silver and lace.
Nothing could shroud the taint. No matter how hard they tried.
I plopped down on the bottom stair, leaning against the bannister, the scent of the wood old and polish alluring. I let my palms run across it, entranced by the smoothness, and drifted.
When I came out of my trance I was no longer in that lavish house in a city full of nobles I wanted to kill and devour for their jewelry alone. The staircase did not exist. The gilded picture frames were no more.
Instead I stood in a desolate forest, burnt to cinders, bright flaring embers floating in the dead air. They landed on my skin, but did not burn, and turned to black ash.
The scent of burnt flesh and the copper tang of blood coated my tongue and the inside of my nose. This smell I knew all too well.
A silhouette stood against the ashen backdrop, tall and resolute.
Instinctually I knew who it was, but I drew closer and closer still, until I could see his face clearly.
It was not Artair who stared back at me.
And suddenly the ground was rumbling, the earth shaking and churning, great roots springing from its depths.
The tree Yggdrasil grew and grew. It's branches spreading towards the grey skies, life energy suffusing through its bark to its very core. It seeped from the ground and to its center until the leaves burst free and then it became too full and crystalline drops formed like dew, just waiting to be drunk.
The man who was not Artair but looked so heartbreakingly like him, stepped towards the lowest branch. He reached up and up, tall as he was, he still stood on the tips of his toes.
He plucked a drop of life from Yggdrasil.
And swallowed it whole.
. . .
I awoke with a throat tight and thick with smog, the scent of burnt earth still so fresh that for a long moment my mind would not adjust to what my eyes were seeing.
I was still no longer at the bottom of that ornate, tacky staircase.
And it was with great trepidation that I realized I wasn't even in the same house. The smells were different, the air stale and stagnant.
I took a deep breath, trying to catch any hint or clue of a location, but other than the smell of mildew and wooden rot, nothing else was noticeable.
The room itself was plain, no furniture besides a desk and small wooden chair pushed off to one side. There were no windows and the only door was carved with so many runes I dared not even touch it. At least one of them would stun, another would burn the flesh from my palms.
I walked near it, studying them each in turn, and they all flared at once. The light crested into a shifting, glowing barrier across the expanse of the door.
Frustrated, I pulled the chair away from the desk and took a seat.
Fucking Einarr.
With nothing to do but wait, I pulled out the drawers in the desk, finding pieces of loose leaf paper and half used pencils. Tiny scraps of erasers and dried out ink wells with broken feather pens.
I made use of the pencils, carefully sketching what I had seen in my drug induced nightmare—the tree, the man so frighteningly similar to Artair but not, the drop of life from Yggdrasil.
It spilled out on the pages, from one corner to another, until I'd drawn the entire scene as if trapped in a fever dream. I pushed the pages together, letting them overlap until you could see it in its entirety. I stared down at them, seeing but unseeing. This man...
A creak outside the door had me gathering up the pages and tearing them to bits until they reminded me of the ash from my vision.
The runes carved into the wood burned, flaring to life again, until they faded to a dull black, their power gone. It opened on creaking hinges, parting to reveal Einarr's rather nerdy advisor.
Pi pushed his glasses up his nose, eyes glinting.
I stood and watched him close the door, biting at the stud in my bottom lip. Once upon a time it was a solid piece of iron hoop, now it was a tiny jeweled stud of demon make and origin.
My last resort, in this situation.
I was weaponless, though still clothed in my leather armor, and I could feel the wards spread amongst the stone walls of the room.
No escape and no way to fight other than hand to hand combat, but the same applied to him. The power wards didn't break when he entered, just the ones on the door.
"Do you know why you're here?" he asked.
His voice was surprisingly deep given his overall look and I frowned at him. Of course I knew why I was here.
"I suppose I've done something Einarr is displeased about. What else is new?" I said, tossing a braid over my shoulder.
How irritating.
He stared me down as I reached up to slowly fiddle with the ball at the end of the stud, making him believe it was out of nervousness.
He thought nothing of it, stepping further into the room, slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "We intercepted a raven carrying a message for you."
I stilled, eyes darting over his face to find a lie that wasn't there.
A message?
My birds were trained not to return unless it was dire. I could see through their eyes, I had no need for messages. Leaving a paper trail was foolish.
I sucked in a deep breath and released it. "Hiei," I growled with a grimace.
It was the only logical explanation. He was the only one fast enough to catch one of my familiars.
"You've been feeding them information." A statement of fact, not a question.
But he was wrong. So very, very wrong.
"Do you truly think they would accept anything from me now? I threw that life away when I chose to join Einarr. They are more likely to kill me on site."
Pi pulled his hands from his pockets slowly and I let the ball at the end of my stud come loose, dropping my hands to my sides as slowly as he lifted his.
In his left hand was a rolled up piece of notebook paper that had seen better days. He held it out to me and I took it with only a little hesitation.
Knowing he was watching, I unraveled it and smoothed it out as best I could.
We are on to you.
That was it. One single line of sloppily written text.
"You have been sending ravens to watch them. Why?"
I ripped up the page and let it spill from my fingers to the floor.
I could salvage this. Pi was stupid to ask such a question, he'd shown their hand too easily.
"I was gathering intelligence for Einarr. Why else?"
"You've told us nothing of the sort."
"Why would I waste his time on trivial things? I don't suppose my brother is all that interested in the King brushing his teeth or taking a shit, do you?"
Pi's face burned crimson, his eyes alighting with anger.
"Who's idea was it to to use Valravyn's Powder in the fireplaces? Yours, I'm assuming."
That was how they managed to drag me here without my realizing it. It was also the reason I'd gotten trapped in that hallucination.
Pi's face only grew redder, until I stalked up to him, fingers quickly working to screw the ball of my lip stud back on. "Take me to Einarr. Now."
He paled and gritted his teeth, but eventually chose to concede. He waved me through the door and I walked out with my shoulders squared and face blank.
The note was in Hiei's handwriting.
They were on to me.
A vicious grin spread across my lips as Pi maneuvered his way in front of me, leading the way through the mansion.
"Einarr trusts you, Shield Maiden," he said as we came to a stop in front of a set of ornate double doors. "Don't make him regret it."
He pushed them open with barely a touch, his small body deceptive given his strength, and let me walk inside alone.
The room beyond was a dining hall full of long wooden tables and chairs. Banners bearing Einarr's made up crest stretched from the vaulted ceilings, softly blowing from the drafty walls.
It reminded me sickeningly of home.
But what it lacked was the normal boisterous noise, the scent of fresh game being roasted, pies being baked and bread and butter being served. There were no clink of platters or glasses. No drunken arguments or brawls.
It was quiet. Save for a single diner at the head of the center table.
His face was hung over his plate, obscured by dark hair, as he cut into a chunk of meat with a hunting knife and crude fork.
He ate like a savage.
Not uncommon for the men here.
I made my way across the room, my steps echoing in the hollowness, and stopped beside him.
A dark colored tattoo peaked out of the collar of his shirt, resting just above his spine. My fingers itched to move it, to get a better look, but he stabbed the hunting knife into the table beside me, his hand a white knuckled grip around it.
I did not sit. I had a feeling I wasn't allowed.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He chewed and swallowed his last bite before pushing away his meal, half finished.
I waited as he wiped his face, cleaning the juices from his beard. And for a split second I felt my chest freeze.
I was afraid.
Afraid for him to look up.
This wasn't one of Einarr's men.
He folded his napkin neatly and sat back in his chair, dragging scarred fingers through his hair.
The face that stared up at me stopped my breath.
"...Artair?"
But no. That wasn't right.
Because the eyes were wrong. They were all wrong.
Because those eyes...they're mine.
That same old moss color, behind thick black lashes, that glinted gold in the right lighting.
My jaw clenched painfully and I took two steps back, shaking. I felt like I couldn't breathe, like any second I would black out and wake up back in that tiny room with its single door.
He rose from his chair, his body strong and imposing. Not thin or frail or weak.
Certainly not dead.
Yusuke was right.
He was right.
A grown man stood before me. A grown man who could have found me anytime he liked.
And it was with grief stricken dismay that I realized the past thirty years were all in vain. I spent all that time searching, wasting away to a shell of my former self, only for him to be here all along.
He never wanted me.
Not when I was not there for him as a child. And certainly not now that he is a man.
My eyes stared back at me with a hatred so fierce that I wasn't sure if it was a reflection of how I felt for myself, or his true thoughts of me.
I hadn't taken a breath in quite some time.
The one I did manage to pull in burned. My eyes stung and my jaw hurt and my throat felt thick—too thick to swallow.
"What do they call you?" I finally managed to ask, my voice so hoarse I didn't recognize it.
He glared at me and it took all I had not to shrink under that gaze.
"For a time it was just bastard. Sometimes boy," he said. "I have no true name."
He would have been Egil. The edge of a blade. Strong, but sharp enough to cut through stone. As bright as the North Star.
"I like to call him Magni!" shouted a voice from the back of the hall, hidden away in the shadows.
Einarr stepped from behind a pillar, a shit eating grin across his face.
"And you?" I asked. "Do you like to be called that?"
The hatred in his eyes only simmered deeper.
"I do not care what anyone chooses to call me. A name means nothing."
Einarr slunk his way between the tables, leaning over to pick at what was left of Magni's supper. "But there you would be wrong, my magnanimous nephew. A name means everything in this place."
Einarr sucked on the bones from the remains of the fowl from Magni's plate, continuing to speak even with his mouth full. "They wouldn't call you an Aesir if what you say is truth."
I held back a damning gasp. Hoping beyond hope Einarr was lying through his teeth.
"You are the one claiming to be the Aesir?"
Magni turned from me, slapping his uncle's hands away from his plate, before picking up a glass of red wine and draining it.
His back still to me, he spoke with words coated in bitterness. "I call myself nothing. A name is a name is a name. I care little for them. It's actions that matter. Actions."
He even sounded like Artair, minus the darkness in his tone.
Magni placed his palms against the wood of the table, shoulder muscles bunching with tension. He was glaring across the table at Einarr. But Einarr looked anything other than concerned. He merely continued to suck on the bones of the bird, trying his best to look innocent.
"Why did you bring her here?" Magni finally demanded.
"I made a promise, oh holy one. And as you well know, I keep my promises."
Einarr knew all along. He knew where my son was. Knew he wanted nothing to do with me. And brought me to him anyway.
My knees began to tremble and I reached back to steady myself on a chair.
My son.
My son.
My son...
He hatedme.
No. Loathed me. Despised me.
Here stood all that remained of Artair and the love we shared. And he was as rotten as all the rest in my kingdom, if not more so.
Einarr knew. And this was exactly what he wanted. He wanted to see me crumble, to fall to my knees and beg for a forgiveness that would never come. To watch me break myself apart to try and salvage anything that remained of Artair in my son.
He loved every second of the drama and I would be damned if I gave him the satisfaction.
My desperate search for my son was over.
He was alive.
That was all I needed.
"And what say you, mother?" The word was spat with vehemence so strong it made me cringe. "Do you also hold such an admirable trait? Will you also keep the promise you gave to your brother?"
Yusuke.
They wanted Yusuke.
I felt the tell-tale itch of need cast pinpricks over my skin—and oh, did it burn so hot I began to sweat. My fingers twitched towards the pouch, my stomach twisted.
But for the first time in over thirty years I choked it back, forcing it to obey me, even just this once.
I reached up and deftly unscrewed the jewel at the end of my lip stud instead.
"I'm so sorry," I said in earnest. "But you'll find I hold no admirable traits at all."
I spat the other end of the stud to the stone floor, the ball rolling from my fingers, long gone beneath one of the tables.
The air around me changed. Shimmered. Heated and cooled and shattered. The earth beneath my feet rumbled, the stone cracking. You could feel it all—the earth, the air, the water...the fire.
And it was with far too much hard-hearted satisfaction...that I allowed the full strength of my demonic energy unleash.
The building crumbled around us, the glow of my skin the only thing casting any light. Runes burned in my flesh, great lines of pure power and decades of drinking from the tree Yggdrasil did me many favors.
But my training did me far more.
"I wanted to love you so badly," I said over the screaming of my energy, the rumble of the collapsing mansion, the stonework giving way to night sky. "You were everything. Everything."
Magni's eyes did not change. He showed no fear, not even in the face of my godlike strength.
Neither had Artair.
I tore open the Aether, hands turned to claws ripping through time and space like they would through silk.
I knew what they needed Yusuke for now.
There was no time to waste.
"If you think I'll allow this to happen, my son or not, you are dead wrong."
Magni's face lit up for the first time, the glow in his eyes so similar to mine that it was no wonder he turned out the way he had. I wasn't there. He was raised by people who were cruel to him and then he rose to such a state. I had no mind to undo decades of set in anger and grief and hatred. I was no saint. I couldn't absolve him or anyone else. And by the look in his eyes, he did not wish me to.
"Good," he growled, pointing a single blackened claw straight at my face. "You are my enemy, Etternia. The day you die will be the day I am finally free of the shackles you placed on me at birth. So do what you do best—run. But next time I see you...be prepared to lay down your miserable life."
The portal closed behind me and I am spat out illegally in the center of Sarayashiki.
I narrowly missed getting hit by a car, dodging out of the way at the last second. A horn and the screech of tires blared in my over sensitive ears, the car veering away and almost causing an accident.
Portal jumping was never easy.
Splitting space and time was even harder.
All my power was drained from me. It took nearly every drop to do something so massively against all things right and normal in the universe. Literally ripping my way through several dimensions.
Koenma would have a field day with this.
Most likely I would be thrown in a Spirit World cell, if not all out executed.
Hopefully the circumstances behind it would sway the King of Reikai somehow. I certainly wouldn't have anyone to vouch for me now, at any rate.
I drug myself up from the asphalt, vision gone blurry and limbs like day old jello, and tried to gauge how accurate my landing was. I noticed street signs and local shops and realized I wasn't far from my apartment building. A block or two, tops.
Everything was exactly the same as when I left. Everything but the blackened remains in the distance, remnants of Sarayshiki's largest shopping district. It was a smudge against the sky, a stark reminder of my failures—of my single mindedness. It took everything I had not to heave up what little was in my stomach at the sight of it.
I told myself again and again that I was a demon. We were bred to be cruel and to use humans as fodder or food. But that was so far from the truth.
The truth was that most demons only hated humans because humans were afraid—afraid of our gifts, of our strength. And with that fear came irrational anger and resentment toward my kind, which eventually led to killing or containing us like some science project.
Humans killed what they didn't understand. That was just the way of things.
Demons were not so different. There would always be some bad apples in the bunch. There just seemed to be more of us than there were of them.
Yusuke wanted to change that though. Was changing that.
I hoped I was around long enough to see it.
I stumbled up the stairs to my apartment, the walk there a long forgotten daydream, and was pleasantly surprised to see my door wasn't broken anymore.
Of course, I didn't have my key at the moment, so it was rather inconvenient.
I picked the lock quickly before a neighbor happened to notice what I was doing, and fell through the door in relief.
Safe. For a second.
I sunk to the floor and just breathed for a good solid minute. Eyes closed. In and out. In and out.
A startled cough made me stiffen but the quietly squeaked, "Ettie?" made me rise from the floor with a drawn out sigh.
So much for a moment of peace.
I opened my eyes to see Kuwabara standing in my living room, a metal watering can that had seen better days clutched in his hand. His eyes were wide and his empty hand was glowing a bright orange—the start of what would quickly become his Spirit Sword.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" he finally barked, coming to his senses, his sword fully manifested now.
"I could ask you the same thing."
I strode by him, unconcerned by his showing of power, and made to put a pot of coffee on the stove.
The apartment was far cleaner than when I'd left it. My plants were healthy, well pruned and fed. There were a few random items in the refrigerator, but nothing that would easily spoil.
I rounded on the veritable giant of a man. "You've been staying here?"
He was still holding his sword and the watering can, which he quickly set down when he noticed me looking, and frowned.
"No, I just come by and...water the plants...sometimes."
He looked almost ashamed, as if he'd told me some dirty secret.
"Thank you," I said and meant it.
The percolator began to whistle, drowning out the sound of the front door being opened but not the voice that rang out a moment later.
"Oi, Kuwabara! I just got a call from Koenma, he's got a job for us."
Yusuke rounded the corner into my kitchen and for a long breathless moment, where I watched his face flash through every range of emotion possible for a human, he said absolutely nothing.
Yusuke had nothing to say to me.
At least not with his mouth.
For the first time I got to witness how truly strong Yusuke was—when he disappeared and didn't reappear until I felt the punch connect with my face...
And knock me out fucking cold.
. . .
A/N: Its only been about, idk, 80 years amiright? Sorry it has taken me so long in between updates for all my stories. I've been dealing with a lot of crap—depressive episodes, anxiety attacks, moving...again (side note, we bought a house, so HELLO stress, but also YAY).
Anyway, lots of excuses, blah, blah, blah who cares xD
I originally didn't intend to introduce Ettie's son this way, but what the heck, the characters do whatever the fuck they want I'm just here for the ride. Also, did ya'll think Ettie's lip ring was just there for the coolness factor? Come on XD
PLEASE SEND ME SOME NICE REVIEWS I MISS YOU GUYS!