A/N: IT'S BEEN 3 YEARS.
To whoever still remembered this story, thank you.
I promise I won't drop this story. I just needed some time to grow as a writer before I felt confident enough to continue on with this.
Once again, thank you!
It was dark when he stepped out of the Sagittarius.
Dahngrest very rarely had clear, starlit nights, and paired with the crisp cool air of night, it would have made for a very good time. It was such a shame, then, for this fine evening to be one of the worst nights in his life. He had plenty of nights that could compete, admittedly, but… regardless, the idea of trying to rank all the bad that's happened in his life is fruitless, and thinking about that right now is not what he needs. What he needs…
What can he even do?
Word travels fast in Dahngrest, so come morning, everyone in the city would know. How they all would react, though, he had no idea. Most probably would revolt, if his experience in the bar taught him anything. And the rest would just watch… damn that's depressing.
A brisk, quick wind broke his thoughts and reminded him that he was still out in the open. Dahngrest nights never had a guarantee of safety, but he didn't feel like pushing his luck tonight. He promised some very important people that he'd stay as long as he could, after all.
After slowly letting out a shaky sigh, he took one shuffling step, then two, and by the third, he knew his destination.
After several minutes of walking and ducking into the shadows of the less frequented back streets, he found himself face to face with the front steps of the up and coming guild "Brave Vesperia". While the outside was a bit rough around the edges, with a bit of paint peeling around the corners, and perhaps not exactly what one would expect from the guild whose members essentially saved the world a few years back, it was home.
While walking here he planned out a script for what he'd tell them so he should be all ready. Just walk in there and explain everything, right? Easy. He just needed a few seconds… a minute.
Just…two more...
He sighed.
This is the hard part. This always was the hard part.
He hated how hard it was for him to go in, and he hated even more how often this happened, where he messed up again and hurt the people he cared about again, but…
With a shaky breath, he turned the knob and walked in.
It was a wonderful day in Zaphias. The sun was shining, and happy songbirds twittered outside the sunlit window Flynn was strolling past as he went through Zaphias' Census data and picked up a choice book, flipped through a few pages, and with a nod returned to the seat he's been working at for the majority of his free day. While some might call him boring for doing so (Yuri), Flynn found it interesting to see how historical events impacted the ebb and flow of humanity's population over the years as both destruction and creation brought both surprising and unsurprising results. It's a project he's been working on during his free days.
After a couple more hours of note-taking, he claps shut the old book, gives a much-needed roll to his stiffened shoulders, and releases a sigh of satisfaction. It was a good day. After standing up from his seat and pushing the chair back in, a glance at the window tells him-
Ah. It tells him it's now quite into the evening.
No matter. He'll have many questions on the history of blastia to ask Ms. Mordio in the morning. Since she and Princess Estellise were staying at the capital for a visit, this would be a good opportunity to answer as many questions he can get before they leave once more for Halure.
After stifling a yawn and wiping away the inadvertent tears, he begins making his way through the dusty leather-back lined corridor to set the book back in its rightful place. Now if only he could find it… Small lights speckle the halls, set in the walls, and separated far enough that one light's ending blends in with the rim of another's beginning and illuminates the dust that dances through the air. Not blastia, and most definitely not torches (can't have fire in an old library after all), but a new technology that runs off of mana, adapted by Ms. Mordio for limited use of the library while Mana research continues. During the day they use natural lighting, and during the night these work their magic. Even so, it was quite dim in here.
It took some squinting up at the low lit library signs to find the corridor that-
Nope, not this one, must be the next one over. After a few more minutes of searching up and down the lane and holding the book up to the light to confirm the author and book number, he finally found the place that probably is where the book goes, a small void nestled next to what looks to be a series of research books on the matter he's studying. After a moment, he pulls out the book and slots it back in its rightful place, the dry rustle of dry wood and dry leather rubbing against more dry wood and dry leather muted by all the dry-
He sneezes.
Ah well, with that finished I can finally head to bed, he thinks, brushing his hands of dust before turning away. And then turning back. Surely they wouldn't miss just one, right? A bit of late-night reading, and then he can talk to the librarian about checking it out in the morning. He eyes the numbers engraved into the leather binding, the subtle scratches that mar the surface, before discovering the book somehow makes its place in his hands. Since it's here, may as well do a bit of quick- Nonono.
He slots the book back in.
Ka-click!
Seconds pass, nothing happens.
And then he hears it.
Gears, muffled and hidden from his sight, slowly start clacking. They speed up, and a section no larger than a door frame of the bookcase jostles and begins grating backward into the wall, stone against heavy laden wood. Everything was quiet around him in the empty library, save clicking, grating, and the blood pulsing in his ears. He's still, but the bookcase continues receding into the darkness until it's lost from view, leaving only a tunnel into the unknown. It quiets, resumes for an endless few more seconds, and then quiets once more.
He sucks in a thick breath. How long he spent staring at the shadows left behind, he didn't know, but one could only spend so much time staring before time eventually seeped back into the world and left one with a decision to make.
Flynn decides to descend into the tunnel, his sword in one hand, and his personal lux mana blastia in the other, held aloft as he crept into the darkness.
The first thing he felt as he walked in was the warmth.
It was cozy and washed over him and made him realize just how chilly the night air outside was.
The first thing you saw was the business and negotiation desk, where they held meetings with plausible clients, and further back, the filing room, the steps that lead upstairs to where Brave Vesperia made home, the door next to the steps which lead to the kitchen, and finally the source of the heat.
The fireplace crackled, and its keeper kneeled before it, poking at the coals as a pot of something delicious simmered above. At the quiet click of the door closing behind him, they turned around, leaving him face to face with Mr. Yuri Lowell. While years have passed and the world has changed, he barely has. Yuri was a bit older and a bit wiser, but physically the main difference was a few more outfits added to his wardrobe, courtesy of their adventures across the globe, and Brave Vesperia's success. But he was still Yuri, still the kid from the lower quarter, the guy with ridiculously long and luxurious hair, the man whose eyes were brighter and sharper for his own good sometimes, and still the friend who accidentally helped change everything for the better, himself included.
"Oh hey, didn't see ya there Old Man," he says, walking closer. "What can I do for you? Have a request for Brave Vesp-"
He stops, his eyes snapping towards the rapidly darkening bruise on Raven's face.
"What happened." His voice is flat, a demand for answers, and not the rambling half-answers riddled with distractions and detours Raven is famous for. He wanted the full truth, no ifs and or buts.
Raven sighs and scratches the back of his head. "I...Yuri-"
"Yeah?" he urges.
"All I can say is I screwed up."
"...Are we talking a drunken brawl kind of screw up or an 'I really need some help' kind of screw up?" Yuri didn't know everything about Raven's relationship with the rest of the guild city, but he knew enough that he was (mostly) well respected, despite the contrast between Raven's sloppy appearance and over-the-top foolishness and flirting and his position as advisor and right-hand man of both current and former leaders of Altosk.
Though it actually isn't that odd. Despite the jokes and jeering, everyone knew that Raven was a highly capable and resourceful man with enough experience to handle just about any situation.
"Umm...Kinda both, I guess? Let's just say..."
He trailed off.
What was he going to say?
His chest panged and it hurt just to breathe, much less say the words, but they don't deserve any more lies. He grimaces, and by the spirits was he shaking, but subtly steels himself with a slow breath and then looks him dead in the eye and tells him.
"Yuri, somehow, someone found out about Schwann. Me, being Schwann."
The easy warm air of the room turns cold and hard in a split second.
"What? How?" he asks, eyes narrowing and voice quick and clipped.
"I- I don't know, but I promise I'll figure it-" he says, almost pleading with Yuri to just let him deal with this.
"You're staying here until this blows over."
"Yuri, this is my responsibility. I don't want you guys-"
"We've talked about this already, Old Man! What happened with you and Alexei is-"
Click!
They both freeze as the entrance door starts opening.
"Yuri. Get over here, now."
Judith's voice ring's through the room as she walks through the door.
The two exchange a glance and force down their tensed shoulders and make their way to the door. "Yeah, I'm here."
"We have a situation," she says, flipping a sign from Open to Closed and locking the door. "We need to find-". She breaks off as she turns around, finding the subject in question standing hesitantly behind Yuri, zeroing on the purple swelling on Raven's jaw. "I see..." Her teeth clench for a second and force a slow breath through her nose. "Are you ok?"
"H-hm? Oh..." he starts, before shrugging. "I'm fine."
He makes a valiant effort to smile and let them know he's fine, that he can take care of this mess, that it's his problem to deal with, but the catch in his voice suggests otherwise, and the smile resembles a different kind of smile that's become far too familiar over the years. It's the kind Karol wore when they first met where he would scrub the tears from his eyes after waking from the nightmares that made him beg to not be left alone again, the kind that Estelle wore for months after being freed from Alexei's torture, and it was the kind of smile that Raven was wearing now.
They've all worn it at one point or another.
Silence swells and engulfs the room.
After a few seconds of eternity, however, Yuri kills it with a sigh.
"Well standing in the doorway won't help anything. Come on," he says, turning towards the back of the guild with a quick wave over his shoulder.
"Actually," Raven starts, his voice rushed and high, "I should be heading back to-"
Yuri stops. "No."
"Yuri-"
"No."
"Aw come on, you too Judith?"
"Just come on, old man," says Yuri, flat and curt, and starts walking again and into a room past the stairs. As Raven starts talking about how he's "honored, really", and he "feels the love but this isn't necessary come on guys" and how he's "gonna miss my appointment, it starts in 20 minutes!", a gentle pat on his shoulder tells him to keep walking, and Judith shepherds him into a room with a long table and benches on either side, the place where they eat their meals together, oftentimes after completing a group mission together.
"Appointment, hm?" Judith hums. A brief squeeze on his shoulder is his only warning before his knees buckle under Judy's hand firmly pushing him down and plopping him on the end of the bench before turning to gracefully slide into a seat to the right of him. "What kind?"
"Uh, you know!"Judith's narrowed red eyes pinned him with the fleeting amusement of a cat playing with a mouse and soon growing bored. "Dentist," he squeaks.
"Mmhmm," she says and crosses her arms.
"So, first things first," says Yuri, stepping around and scooting the bench back before lightly thumping the table and sitting down, thankfully breaking Judith's piercing gaze, before continuing ."Who hit you?"
He flinches. "I'd really rather you didn't try to—look, Joe is a great guy ("His name is Joe, huh? How generic.") and honestly I don't blame him—please, we've known each other since I joined Altosk."
Yuri surges up. "You want us to just let him-"
"Yuri," Judith says, "It's his friend and his decision. I know you don't like what's going on, but I doubt very many people do. No one expected or wanted this, least of all Altosk. "
"...Damn it," Yuri mutters before sitting back down. "Well, the sooner we get this figured out, the better. First things first, what do they know? And how did they find out? "
Raven shrugs. "I know about as much as a person off the street does. Hell, maybe less. He had a picture of Schwann, but as for where he got it? I couldn't say. "
"Can you tell us exactly what happened in The Sagittarius? With as few jokes as possible, please."
He begins detailing the event, starting from his sneak back into town and then his report on his weeklong trip to Keiv Moc on if Mana has had any noticeable effects on the monsters out there to Henry ("He sends me out there every once in a while as a precaution. Not much important work for Ol Raven these days, outside of what yall give me. Not that I'm complainin'") before unpacking and laying down to take a quick nap, and then finally receiving orders to grab a notebook of the Don's from his desk. As he talks about the weird looks, the silence that greets him in the bar, the fight with Joe, and finally being cast out, he notices the pang in his chest again. "- and then I… came here I guess."
"...not to ignore the story but is everything going ok in, uh, Ticker Town," asks Yuri. "You've been rubbing at your blastia off and on for the past couple of minutes."
Oh. So he was. "Nah...Don't worry about that. Miss Genius Mage has been making sure to keep it in tip-top shape. It's...I'm not sure but it's nothing to worry about now." Before they can object, he cuts them off. "I promise I'm not treating it lightly." He quiets for a second and with a bitter twist to his lip's, he says "Now ya see why I didn't want yall gettin' involved? Yall can't-"
"Bullshit."
"I can't hide, Yuri." His eyes are level and serious.
Yuri's jaw clenches and his voice grates out."I'm not saying to-"
"I'm still a member of Altosk and they will have their trial for my betrayal."
Judith's cold voice cuts through their attention. "This is the first mention of a trial, Raven."
"Betrayal deserves punishment."
(Karol would hate him for saying that.)
"Yall can't argue that betrayal is exactly what it is. I know yall do things differently here, but we're playing by Altosk's rules now."
Judith and Yuri fall quiet before Yuri cuts through the thick silence with a sigh.
"To say this shit is complicated is an understatement, huh?" Yuri continues, brows furrowing and scratching the back of his head. "Raven just- stay the night or something, I don't know. We can talk about it more when it's not the middle of the night."
Seconds trickle past before Raven finally stiffly nods.
"Good. First thing's first is to get that bruise of yours patched up, though. We'll figure out the rest in the morning. We all could use the rest."
"Yeah," Raven sighs before carefully standing up. "I'm just…gonna wash up real quick."
"I'll get you a gel."
Silence once more fills the room as the clomp of Ravens boots grows distant.
Raven slowly clicks shut the restroom door.
A moment passes before he sighs and bruskly rubs one hand down his face, shoulders slumping with the weight of all he's done.
He's heavy. They really know, huh? Every one of them. Or at least the vast majority, and those who don't know yet will soon be delivered the news.
It's been a long time coming, but somehow he had the audacity to wish that it would have come at a better time. Maybe when he'd first joined so that no one would have gotten hurt.
...He didn't know what was the worst part of the whole situation.
Was it how he'd been lying to people he's known for more than a decade, living a double life as an enemy? People he's bonded with and sympathized with, made friends with, became the closest thing to a genuine relationship he could say he had for the better part of a decade. "Raven" was always meant to be a temporary facade for Schwann, but over the years he grew to be a little bit more, and eventually...well that's just who he is now.
And the people who helped him through that... Yuri, Judith, Karol, the little ragtag of random people who grew to be so much more. Brave Vesperia, while now running for about 5 years, still was a relatively new guild that had a lot of growth to have. A guild's reputation is no small thing, and now because of his mistakes they might be drawn into it. Not just that, they're doing it willingly. For him...he'll never understand what they saw in him but he's become a better man for it. Which is exactly why he doesn't want them involved. At this rate, he'll just drag them down with him…
And then finally….
Of all the people who've helped him through the years, the previous Don might top the list. Sure when they first met he'd pulled him through a window and thrown him into a wall, but from then on he was allowed to choose, to live and be the closest semblance of a person he would be at the time, something Alexei stripped him of when he made his soldier Schwann. So if Altosk found out during questioning that Don Whitehorse knew, and how if word got out that he'd knowingly let a spy into their midst and give information to the Imperial Knights during the many times they've but heads? His legacy would be tarnished, the founder and long time leader of the guilds who honorably died according to the very same rules he first established as a testament to how firmly he believed in his ideals now reduced to someone held under suspicion years after his death so that he couldn't defend himself.
He's... messed everything up.
For the briefest moment, Raven thinks "Hey none of this information would get out if you don't tell it. Maybe just disappear, forget about everything and people can just-"
No. No…
Guilt slams through his chest. Spirits, what a coward he is. To think that, after everything that he's done, he thought he could just run away from it all? All his hiding, half-truths, and two-faced deception... they deserved better, they all deserved better, and it's high time that he paid for his sins. But there's still the-
Three quick raps on the door fling him out of his thoughts. The door opens slightly, quietly squeaking on unoiled hinges, before a voice flows through the crack, a hand along with it.
"Hey, old man. I brought your gel; don't want that ugly mug of yours to get any uglier," says Yuri, his hand nudging open the door a bit more and setting the bright red apple gel next to the sink before retracting back behind the door. "Don't take too long, ok? Also, there are some leftover croquettes on the table if you want 'em."
"I-...thanks Yuri ."
A snort comes from behind the now-closed door. "Don't you be getting soft on me, old man. Anyway, Judy and I are getting ready to hit the town and see if we can find some info. Get some sleep if you can, ok?"
"I hear ya. Stay safe."
"You too. Later."
And with Yuri's thudding footsteps rapidly quieting, Raven was alone again. He releases a slow shuddering breath.
'What should he do?' It always comes back to that question. The days where the answer to that was 'whatever he was ordered to do' isn't long gone, but neither does he want to just sit around as Yuri says. He can't.
….what he wants. It took him this long for that to pop into his head. Bitter laughter bubbled up at the hilarity that it took him this damn long for that to pop into his head. No wonder he was a puppet for so long.
What he wants, though… he wants the kids to be safe. He wants them to stay away from this drama. He wants no inquiries about the Don or Flynn's involvement. He wanted...no questions asked.
An eye for an eye.
This solution wouldn't make everyone happy, least of all Raven, but it would keep them safe and Raven would finally get his long-due Justice.
Raven eyed the night sky through the bathroom window.
Karol jiggled excitedly as he walked back into Dahngrest up Main Street. With this big job completed, Brave Vesperia will be known far and wide, he thought, treasuring the shimmery cubic metal ore in his gloves. A big name blacksmith from (soul arms? Smithing guild) requested that they get this material for a huge reward, and after about 3 weeks of scouring the Desier sands for a cave that could host this material, he finally returned with his boon.
Soon he'd be able to see everyone again and show off the tan he got while out in the desert. It was just a bit farther until HQ, and then he could-
"Raven?"
A familiar purple figure stood idly in a dark alleyway edging Brave Vesperia's guildhall before whipping around to see Karol fast approaching.
"Oh! It's-Didn't see ya there, Karol," he says, mock-clutching at his chest before turning his eyes on the lump in Karol's gloves. "You returnin' from the Desier mission? Looks like mission well done."
Karol lets himself inflate with pride before noticing the peculiarity of the situation. "So uh, why are you in the alley?"
"I was just headin' back to Altosk." Something about the way he says it seems….careful.
Karol glares at his general position in the darkness suspiciously. "In the alley?"
"You can find all sorts of stuff in an alley," Raven says with a shrug.
Karol snort-giggles and something flashes over Raven's face.
"Hey, I'm proud of ya kid. I mean it."
Shock cuts his laughter short with warmth soon replacing it. Still, this was out of the ordinary. "Wh-what brought that up? You feeling ok, Raven?"
" 'Course I am! Just- never hurts to say, ya know? I'll- see you later, ok Karol?" It was too dark to see the wiggling of Raven's ears. "Gotta get these ol' bones back up to HQ. It's late, ya know?"
"Yeah," says Karol, biting off a yawn with the mention of the time. "Jus' remember we're here for you, 'kay Raven?"
"I know, kid. You get some sweet dreams, ok? Tomorrow is a big day."
"You too, Raven."
As they went their separate ways, Karol noticed that someone left open a 2nd story window in their HQ.