Pecking Order
Not long after Rose leaves, or at least Jade doesn't think it's long after Rose leaves, someone else steps into the church. They're tall and broad shouldered, wearing tight black clothing and a strange, thin sword across their back. Their footsteps don't make a sound as they stride towards the front of the church. Jade opens her mouth to call out a greeting, but even though she can feel her jaw moving words do not form, only ragged breaths. The stranger still doesn't notice her, and is already halfway through the room. Jade reaches an arm out to wave, not thinking anything of the fact the newcomer doesn't see her. But suddenly a jolt runs up her arm and a bolt flies through the space between them, so she guesses she must have fired her crossbow instead.
The figure doesn't even react to the sound of the crossbow firing at first, and Jade's mouth goes dry in the anticipation of new souls, the fact she hadn't intended to attack them a forgotten detail. But the strangers' body flickers right before the bolt would've pierced their flesh, and without seeming to have even moved their upper half is leaned back out of harm's way and the bolt is clasped in one hand. Jade blinks, but it must have been longer than a blink because when her vision comes back the stranger is walking towards her with their thin little curved sword out. Jade tries half-heartily to remember whether or not she has any more bolts, and if so, where she put them.
The stranger stands over her and brings the sword around in a wide arc aimed at her throat.
Jade remembers that she does, in fact, have no more bolts.
She catches the blade with her teeth, and when the surprised stranger tries to pull it away Jade tilts her head down. Cracks run up the blade, but it remains intact. Several of Jades teeth do break however, filling her mouth with thick, sour black blood. The stranger is doing something, but she can't tell what it is. Her vision's getting blurry again; she needs to remember to blink.
Jade gets to her feet faster than her own eyes can follow, lunging at the stranger with outstretched hands, deciding that she suddenly wants to hug this person very much. They smell amazing, like the ambrosial smoke produced by a kindled bonfire. She thinks they would feel very good pressed up against her, and of course they want a hug. Everyone wants hugs.
She blinks as she falls forward, and when her vision returns she is stumbling through empty air, the stranger having stepped off to the side. Jade thinks about stopping, but before she decided that was what she wanted to do she runs into one of the four pillars running between the floor and ceiling. Her arms contract around it, her fingers digging holes and grooves into the stone as chunks of it fall to the floor. Suddenly her vision begins to tilt, and she is vaguely aware of a pressure on the side of her head before the blow sends the top half of her body careening over to the right.
Another blow takes her legs out from under her and sends her spiraling to the ground in a pile of uncoordinated limbs. The world turns into a blurry mess for several seconds, and when it resolves itself the stranger is standing over her. She rises up at the same time that the the stranger thrusts forward with their sword, which pierces her chest at an angle and runs right through her heart and out her back. That was alright though. That old thing barely beat anymore anyway.
As she stands the stranger has to struggle to keep their grip on their blade, and before they can retract it Jade is leaning forward down its length. One outstretched hand touches the strangers shoulder, and the contact sends a of flush of heat up along Jade's arm. Her arm jumps, reflexively clawing at the feeling, and when the stranger releases his sword and backs away it is with a significant chunk of their shoulder missing. Their limb hangs limp and twitches at their side, their black clothing turning darker and wet looking all down that arm.
It doesn't occur to Jade that she's injured the stranger. She just knows that it felt fantastic, that it was supposed to feel fantastic, and that it would feel even better if she did it again. She suddenly knows, just knows, that the smell the stranger was exuding was coming from something inside them-
And that if she digs deep enough she can get it out.
But the stranger disappears, even though she didn't need to blink. Her body is pulled forward as the blade in her chest vanishes. She becomes aware that the stranger is behind her, can feel them, but before she can turn her legs give out from under her again and she falls to the ground. Her eyes manage to roll over towards the stranger, who swings their blade sharply to the side to fling off some black gunk stunk to its length. They have some lumpy brown fabric on the ground before them, and Jade was only distantly aware that the lumps were her own severed legs.
The stranger walks off towards the front of the church. Jade tries to follow, but it is only after she fails to rise on faintly bleeding stumps that she fully processes her legs being gone. So she pulled herself along across the ground towards the retreating stranger, her eyes drifting momentarily down towards her hands to remind her where they are, fingers digging holes into the stone floor. But when she looks up, the stranger is gone.
A few seconds later she hears the bell ringing up above, and her wounded heart begins to beat almost in earnest as recognition hits her.
~)
"A long time ago, four powerful heroes ventured from all over the world to the land of ancient Lords, in search for a cure for the curse of Undeath with which they'd been inflicted. Banding together, the four of them, they were able to accomplish many great and heroic feats. The witch slew an ancient dragon and learned the deepest, darkest secrets of magic. The knight attained the weapons and armor of ancient heroes. The huntress fortified her body with the souls of countless beasts and became a juggernaut among predators. And their leader, a simple and earnest traveler, attained the very power of the gods themselves."
Terezi, Karkat, Kanaya, and Sollux all bunch up in front of the wall where blue paragraphs are appearing.
"Can she not just fucking summarize it?" Karkat grumbles, mostly to himself. Kanaya has been giving him a look ever since the witch showed her true colors, and he can tell already she's going to try to round him up into some kind of talk before it's all said and done. Like he needs any help feeling like shit for keeping this manipulative bitch's, well, manipulations, a pseudo-secret. He hasn't so much breathed a word to Kanaya ever since they brought those two chucklefucks to Firelink, and he does not feel himself working up the grit to break that silence anytime soon. Not even to ask for the soapstone, no matter how much he wants to write a profanity ridden tirade towards their absentee captor.
"With assistance from eldritch advisors and heroes both new and old, they managed to complete three great trials and came within arm's reach of discovering the secret they sought. They were, quite literally, mere moments away from ending the plague of the Undead and restoring order to the fractured temporal plane of Lordran. But then, to the surprise and horror of all, an impossibly powerful, bloodthirsty monster crawled out of the depths of nothingness and sought their destruction. Realizing that combat was pointless, these heroes elected to seal themselves away, two above ground and two below, within specially shielded sanctuaries. This was necessary you see, because if the demon were to consume the power these heroes had attained not only would it become totally unstoppable, but it would potentially have access to the selfsame revelations the heroes were about to unearth, potentially fulfilling an ancient prophecy that promises to bring about an age of Dark and Undeath."
"It case it wasn't obvious, the witch was me. And with my not inconsiderable power and my natural connection to multiple dimensions within the complex web of possibility that comprises Lordran, I was able to ascertain that it was you fuckers, you doomed motherfuckers, who somehow managed to unleash the demon on us."
Karkat recoils when Solluxs' arm passes in front of him while he's still reading mid-sentence, the lanky bastard having apparently having both read the eye blistering slab of blue text and formulated an urgent response. His hand opens and closes frantically in Kanaya's direction, and she gives him the soapstone without tearing her eyes away from the words in front of her, those eyes still reeling left to right.
"So what do you want, a fucking apology or something?" Sollux asks, his jagged lettering looking to Karkat like a fucking child drew it, especially next to the witches admittedly flawless hand.
"More like remuneration."
"How? You said yourself the demon's already there in your time. Doesn't that mean we're fated to do whatever the hell it is we do no matter what? For all you know your instigated your own downfall right now by talking to us."
"A very good point, Sollux. But you're operating under a single glaring misunderstanding. The demon does not so much exist in 'my' time as much as it exists in several times; I have in fact not found a single instance, a single thread of time and space, where you and your cohorts do not give rise to this monstrosity. You see the goal isn't to save myself, I am already well doomed. The goal is to guide you bumbling fools into some version of events wherein you do not royally fuck us over, and thereby create at least one iteration of myself and my friends who don't actually need saving in the first place, and who are thereby free to continue their mission to save the world."
"And in order to get us to cooperate you're going to hold something we all want over our heads."
"Yes and no. I'm also going to prove a point."
The four of them wait several minutes, staring at the wall like a bunch of assholes, before Kanaya speaks up.
"I believe she wants you to ask her to elaborate."
Karkat can see veins popping up on Sollux's pale forehead as he begins scratching into the wall with the soapstone, cursing under his breath the whole time. Karkat sympathizes so, so much.
"Prove a point?"
"Eridan and Feferi are alive, and below the graveyard from which you were unearthed. Though I suggest…"
The blue lettering drops off mid-sentence as Kanaya begins writing on the wall herself, it being painfully obvious by the handwriting that the soapstone has changed hands.
"He has already left."
"As I suspected. No worries, he will return in a not too distant future I am sure. Just as well. It's Karkat and Terezi I need at the current moment."
Karkat nearly jumps out of his skin when Terezi speaks. She'd been almost as quiet as he had throughout this godawful proceeding, still standing motionless well behind everyone else, and he really had just totally forgotten she was there.
"Tell her pardoners don't work for free." Terezi instructs. "Unless she's looking for absolution, of course."
Kanaya writes what Terezi asks. Roses reply follows soon after.
"Perhaps another time. And don't worry, I've arranged for you to be well compensated for your efforts. You are, after all, in need of a new blade yes? I've left markings leading to a stash on your way to your assignment."
"Which is?" Kanaya writes in anticipation of Terezi's next question.
"To go below, and ring a bell for me."
~)~)~)
Kanaya is not angry at Karkat for hiding the true nature of their nefarious contact from her. She is if anything simply disappointed in her own naiveté. She feels she should know better than to put that kind of faith in a stranger, irregardless of whatever bond their extenuating circumstances may have engendered. Yes, she thinks, that clearly was the case. The stress of their imprisonment and subsequent freedom can explain her inexplicable feelings of trust. She vows to keep careful watch on such unexplained feelings in the future.
She can feel Karkat bristling next to her as they stare at the parting instructions of a now unresponsive witch. She feels like he's about to try and say something, some harebrained attempt to justify or explain himself no doubt, and Kanaya preempts that embarrassing display by asking the obvious question.
"Well then. Do you intend to give in her to her demands?"
She tilts her head towards Karkat as she speaks, but keeps her voice loud enough that the question could ostensibly be directed at either of them. It's Terezi who answers.
"I am, yes. What about you, shortstuff? You gonna let a poor, defenseless, blind maiden wander around the land of the Undead all by herself?"
"Blind my ass." Karkat mutters under his breath before redirecting his attention to Kanaya.
"Look, I can give you an explanation if you want. But I guess I can also just leave, if you would prefer?"
Kanaya responds in a neutral voice, directing her attention to the writing beginning to fade off the wall.
"I cannot say I much care, Karkat. You have your reasons, no doubt, for whichever decision you make."
She swears Karkat is about to say something, but instead he rises up from where he'd squatted next to her and walks out. She tracks the beat of his feet until they fade into the distance. She turns to see why Terezi is lingering, but sees that she left at some point too.
Kanaya stands up and stretches, her back cracking and her head swimming under a sudden rush of blood. Her shoulders ache a little from where she'd tensed up for so long. She resists an urge to rub at her face her wrap her arms around herself as the reality of her situation hits her. She is a long way from home, amongst untrustworthy strangers in an otherwise empty, unrecognizable land. She tries her best to remember where the sun had been during her last conscious moments while she was in the clutches of the crow, hoping to estimate at least what direction she'd been taken.
More words appear by the stunted flame of the bonfire, near where she'd been communing with the witch before.
"Are they gone?"
Kanaya seriously considers setting the soapstone down and leaving. She loathes the idea of allowing herself to be manipulated in this manner. She thinks over the consequences of denying this witch further contact; she'd lose her only source of information and guidance, yes, but then hadn't she been flying blind ever since being taken from her home? And that girl, who could even say for certain why she's there? For all Kanaya knows she could be some sort of horrible villain, suffering a just penance.
Her conviction wavers before she can finish taking her third step towards the door. Conjecture is not enough for her to resign someone to such a fate. She knows she could not live with herself for long if she did not put forth some kind of effort towards getting some answers. She eyes the blue lettering on the floor, still glowing with ethereal light, a light she realizes she was a bit too quick to trust.
Kanaya kneels down and begins scratching in some words of her own.
"If you are going to attempt to coerce assistance out of me by holding the well-being of a complete stranger over my head, then fine, I guess that's happening. It seems wildly unnecessary, I had reasons for being more than amenable beforehand, but if that's how it is going to be then I demand an answer to a question that I guess I should have asked you a long time ago."
"Wow."
"…What?"
"Nothing, I just wasn't quite expecting so much response from a single query. Your question?"
"Are you the one who saved myself, Dave, and Karkat in the Northern Undead Asylum?"
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. "
"…I see. I realize now I was too hasty in drawing connections between the coloring and diction of your writing and hers."
"So you met a Dave then."
"…Yes? Is that relevant? To my knowledge he's still in the vicinity of the Norther Undead Asylum. A long ways from here I'd imagine."
"Yes well, for future reference, if you see anymore Daves, I'd recommend killing him on sight."
"…okay. That seems, excessive. And...immoral? Why would i just murder an acquaintance with no explanation like that?"
"You'll see why later. For now, we have a great deal of work ahead of us."
"At what point did I agree do a damn thing for you?"
"You're still here. Now, have you ever had any instruction with magic?"