"So they look the same then?" Kylo asks. "There's no physical difference between the two species?"
Maz's smile grows. It's a somewhat irritating smile. The old woman seems entirely too pleased to be able to tell the mighty Knights something they didn't know before.
"If you look close enough there will be," she answers, "but only if you pay attention. The deep waters have bigger tails and brighter eyes. They're supposed to be the most beautiful creatures in all the ocean, but I suppose if you're only interests in slicing their heads off and parading them around to boast then those little hints will surpass you."
Years ago, when Kylo wasn't so calm and patient a person as age has worn him into, he would have made the village wise woman regret her veiled insults. Now though he can feel the weight of his men's stares hang heavily, and he dismisses her comments with an offhand wave.
"So these two types of merfolk, they hate each other, yes? Is that why you believe they've been in such a frenzy as of late?"
It was the first solid clue that they had had come across. Two different species of merfolk, now at war with each other. It didn't answer all the questions, but it offered a few answers at least. Kylo had been looking in the wrong direction the whole time.
"There's something on your mind, isn't there?"
Maz's tone has a lilt to it. Kylo narrows his eyes in warning, but the old woman simply leans close and rests her chin on her palm. Apparently, when you get to her age, not even the Master of the Knights of Ren can scare her.
"What else do you know? Tell us everything."
Neither Taleisin nor Ria have spoken a word since the three of them sat down in Maz's home. Their silence is troublesome, though not especially unusual as of late.
"Everything? Everything is too big of a question, my Lord. But I think you know already that I have eyes and ears in places where your men aren't welcome."
Kylo grimaces at his brief flashback to his conversation with Aemon the night before. If anything, Maz's smile only grows more as she waits.
He gives a nod and Ria's hand extends, dropping a sachet of gold coins onto the table in front of them. Maz picks it up and jangles it a few times to test the wight before her hand circles and the sachet vanishes from sight.
"It's the deep waters that are pushing the shallows closer and closer to us, don't be wrong about that. But if you may think they're the problem, you're wrong. Someone has been hunting them. Someone's been poaching and butchering their kind and they've been retaliating. That's what at the root of this."
Kylo's surprise matches that of the two Knights by his side. Both Taleisin and Ria speak quickly and silently through their mental connection, each asking the same question to their leader.
"Someone..." Kylo takes a moment to wrap his mind fully around the implications. "Someone is taking- is abducting- merfolk? Is that what you mean?"
Maz nods, resuming her chin-in-hand posture.
"It's against every law of the land," she agrees. "And, before you ask me who's doing it and how long I've known, I don't know who's responsible. It's not one of our islanders, I can tell you that for sure. I've thought something was going on but it wasn't until this morning before Tall and Handsome came for me that I has proof."
Taleisin and Ria has always been Maz's favorites. It was a good match to send them to find her today. If Kylo had gone alone, he doubts she would have been nearly as forthcoming.
"And what did you find today?" he asks.
Maz's smile drops. She nods again, her thin lips setting into a grim downturn.
"I suppose I don't have to ask you lot if you're afraid of blood, do I?"
She pushes her chair back from the table and waddles over to the other side of the room. Kylo looks back at Taleisin who shakes his head. She hadn't told him, either. If it was to be a grim discovery that would explain the old woman's somewhat uncharacteristic assistance to them.
When she returns, she's carrying a small burlap sack in her hands. The bottom of it is stained with dried blood.
"Gods," Kylo mutters. He opens the parcel quickly, not wanting to delay the discovery.
A severed heart. A mermaid's heart, deeper and bluer than a human's. The tubes from it have been cut cleanly, clearly having been done with great precision with a blade rather than anything one merfolk could do to another.
Before he can stop himself, Kylo flashes briefly back to Rey and the severed head. Both Ria and Taleisin's attention snap from the contents of the sack to him. They'd seen it in his mind but he blocks himself from them before they have the chance to ask.
"Explain," he says, closing the bag.
Maz plucks the sack up and slides a coaster under it to keep it from staining her table. She sits down again, this time crossing her legs primly and leaning forward.
"This was with it," her hand extends with a piece of paper. "WS. That was all it said. The whole thing was wrapped in chain and placed in a hidden box along the black sand beach. One of my boys found it."
Max's 'eyes and ears' were a network of urchins, some younger than others but none older than their teens. All had been made orphans by the Winterton war, and their continued dubious employment with the old wise woman was a holdover from a time before Kylo and his Knights came to the island.
"WS," Ria repeats, "it could mean anything."
"Indeed." Kylo frowns at the package again before turning his attention back to Maz. "I suppose you have a theory though, don't you?"
Despite what she may look like and her eccentric lifestyle, Kylo doesn't doubt that very little of the goings on of the island escape the old woman's notice.
"I'd reckon 'Western Station', but it's just a reckon. That trade ship from Winterton that must've sunk on its way here? Would have gone right by the old western station. Since the war ended nobody's supposed to be at that old wreck, but folks aren't supposed to do a lot of things they do anyhow."
More and more questions. Kylo had walked into this meeting expecting a long winded history of merfolk and why they're as mysterious as they are dangerous. Instead he and his men were gifted with the first lead into what could be a very dark conspiracy. A conspiracy happening right on their doorstep under their noses.
"The boy," he says after a moment of silent deliberation, "the one who found this. We will need to speak to him."
Maz clears her throat, her eyes wrinkling as she frowns back at him.
"My boys are clean of this. They look. They listen. They tell it back to me. They don't have nothing to do with whatever this is."
"Then you should have no problem with us talking to them. Taleisin will go. Have the child show him exactly where the drop box was found. Perhaps there are things the Force can show us that not even your wards can see."
With that Kylo rises to leave, but Maz reaches out and grabs his wrist.
"Show me your hand," she asks.
Rather than waiting for him to do it himself, she turns Kylo's palm over and pinches the tip of his glove to slide it off. Kylo sighs, pushing his annoyance down since a display of anger to the old woman would do more harm and no good.
"You're reading my palm? And here I was thinking you were a woman of intellect."
Maz smiles then, sending him a cheeky glance before leaning down to inspect the lines on his hand.
"There," she points at a spot in the middle of his palm. "Your lifeline. It's going up up up until right there where we are now. Oh? And what's this? Another line about to merge right into it. Folks really do a lot of things they're not supposed to, don't they?"
Kylo closes his fist and yanks his hand back.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you mean. Taleisin. Stay with her. The old woman will show you to the child and then you can meet us all at the hall in town with your findings."
With that he leaves without another word, Ria following close behind him as he yanks his gloves back on and steps out of Maz's hut.
Predictably, Ria doesn't waste any time.
"You thought of a severed head. You were surprised to see the heart, but not shocked. Why?"
She keeps her voice low as they work their way through the afternoon crowd on their way to meet Aemon and a select of the other Knights. Most will still be on their way here, and the village itself is buzzing with activity and preparations for tonight's big celebration in their honor.
"Ria, I will tell you all in time. For now though simply know that I have my reasons and don't question me. It seems we will need to prepare very quickly to depart. Let's focus on that."
They're at the edges of the village square where a bustling market is even more full of commotion that unusual. Aemon is waiting there for them along with Gareth and Balen, their archers. The five of them step inside the village longhouse and go into the rear room that's been cleared for their use for the day. He lets Ria summarize their meeting with Maz once they all sit down.
"The western station? It's on the way to the Ilha Dos Sabios. We can stop by there and kick whatever Winterton scum is squatting there right to the bottom of the ocean."
Gareth and his brother had been slaves during the reign of Winterton's former king. Durign their interference in the war Kylo and his Knights had both freed them and then recruited the highly force-sensitive twins into their ranks. Their old grudge would still return from time to time, despite the war concluding and the cruel old king now long buried.
"We will go there," Kylo promises, "but we will not pass any judgments until we see what we find. Perhaps we won't have to go all the way to the Ilha after all."
The journey to the old western station would take them a week there and a week back if the late season weather would hold well. Aemon could use his abilities to improve their odds, but it would still mean two weeks away from this Island.
Two weeks could be a very long time. So much could happen to anyone, and it would be completely out of his powers to stop it.
"Do you think Winterton's really behind this?" .
Ria joins him at the map of the oceans. Kylo begins to sketch out the possible routes. The most direct would be the most dangerous, though a safer route would add at least another four or five days to an already overlong journey. Both routes would lead right through the deepest waters.
"Winterton?" Her question had almost been forgotten before a poke at his mind reminds Kylo. "No, I doubt it. They'll suffer as much as our Island from the trade collapsing. Worse, perhaps. I haven't a clue who would benefit from these interruptions or want to traffic mermaid parts of all things."
Both Winterton and their Island had strict rules about hunting the merfolk. Only rarely had the rules needed to be enforced since the threat of a terrible death at the hands of the beasts had been a hindrance enough.
"The Sages would know," Aemon says as he joins them. "Signs are pointing us to them, though it could hardly come at a worse time."
"Such is often the ways of the Force," Kylo agrees. "Sometimes I wonder if we aren't being tested."
A ripple of renewed commotion comes from the marketplace outside. It was getting later in the day now. Music was starting to be played, the scent of fresh food and roasting game warmed the air, and the oppressive weight of so many villager's minds buzzing around them began to give Kylo the start of a headache.
"Taleisin should be back soon," he says. "Rowan and the rest are expected within an hour. We'll decide then which of will go and which will stay. I… four will stay, I think. It's not enough. I would like for it to be six and six, but if we split ourselves in half it won't be enough to run the ship should we hit bad weather and-"
A particularly loud scream cuts through the noise outside. Kylo and his Knights freeze, reaching out collectively to send a pulse of the Force. Agitation and confusion greet them back. Not terror, but more screaming breaks out, coming right from the center of the market.
"Balen, go see what it is. If it's nothing, tell the villagers to keep their voices down, I can hardly hear myself think over all that racket."
The twin disappears out the front and Kylo pulls out a second map, this one a more closer zoom in of their island.
"It will have to be two and two then." He points at the small barracks on the outskirts of town and then at the old stone fortification on the far side where the other half of the Knights use as their base. "Constant communication will be essential. We'll have to find a way, perhaps through carrier birds or maybe we can enlist Maz's help with putting her urchins to work for us. The villagers won't like us so close but-"
"Not your tower then?" Ria interrupts. "It would be a better location because we can keep an eye on the north shore where so much of the trouble has been."
Kylo keeps his mind locked very tightly from her. Aemon and the others look up from the map, noticing the mental barricades their leader's clumsily put up.
Another round of shouting from outside luckily offers a distraction. Balen bursts back inside, an exasperated scowl on his face.
"Just some local acting a crazy fool. A girl running around the market buck naked and trying to steal food from the stalls."
Kylo frowns.
"Naked?" Gareth asks, attention now fully removed from the map. "Shall I go out an take a look?"
His brother shrugs.
"Oh she's a pretty thing at that, but she growled at me as I tried to take back a pie from her. Dead crazy look in her eyes, too. She must be on the Skooma if I'd wager."
Ria scoffs, shaking her head.
"Deplorable. Simply deplorable. And here I was thinking we'd rid the island of the evils of the moon sugar by now. Let the local guards take care of her. A day or two in the dungeon will do a world of good for-"
"What sort of pie?"
Kylo pushes away from the table, fighting the urge to just charge past his Knight and see the truth for himself.
"What?" The look Balen gives him for his question is rather priceless. "What does it-"
Another scream, this one with more intensity. Over the rising chaos Kylo can faintly hear someone shout 'she just bit me!'
And every improper word that Kylo knows flashes through his mind as he charges out, shoving his Knights aside as he leaves.
Author's note:
Someone came by to say hi! 'Bout time, huh? Pity she doesn't have enough home training, as they say where I used to be from, lol
Short chapter, but an important one. Next one's going to be quite funny, I hope, as our lovebirds are reunited after but a few hours apart.
And yes, I totally ripped 'skooma' and 'moon sugar' off from Skyrim. That happened. Embrace it. And did you hear the rumor that the next full Elder Scrolls isn't expected until the Playstation FIVE era? Oh Bethesda… you done pissed me off right good. And Blades doesn't count. Eff off with that and get to work, I want Hammerfell but at this point I'll take whatever!
And and AAAAND:
It was suggested to me by the lovely thevagabondthoughts that I make an appendix of who's who in Kylo's Knights of Ren since they all have weird fantasy world names and it'll be easier to keep everyone straight. So far we've met 8 out of the 12 (withy Kylo being the 13th of course) so here's who we've got so far:
Aemon, controls the weather, sort of the 2nd in command though officially there's no ranking within the Knights other than Kylo being their leader
Taleisin, youngest, healer
Ria, one of the two women, very very big and tall, typically dresses to hide her gender
Silas, second youngest and fastest
Mayenne, 2nd female knight, so far only mentioned in passing
Rowan, longswordsman, also only appeared once so far
and the twin brothers Gareth and Balen, archers, they're really close. Maybe a little too close.
4 more to go but I'm breaking up the group for the trip and leaving a few of the Knights behind to mind the island. I'll update this list as things develop.
Comment replies
Guest: I'm really glad you're enjoying this story and it's strange AU setting! I'm having a lot of fun writing it so I hope that shows. Thanks so much for commenting!
.Feathers: Rey and Kylo needed a date day, right? And she was in fine spirits chasing and being chased by her bae. This next chapter's got a little more plot (or, okay, a lot more) but I'll often have some lighter chapters too to break up the tension. Thanks for commenting!