Revolution's Eve

Faint sunlight filtered through a blanket of silken grey haze gathering overhead, shimmering along the restless surface of the fountain at the center of Elder's market square. As the city's populace spilled out of their homes and into the streets, the early morning's calm broke into the steady din of chatter and footsteps. Shivering, Aisha pulled her cloak around her shoulders and headed over to the fountain where Elsword stood waiting. Once she was standing next to him, a frigid gust swept their cloaks aside and stung their skin.

"Did you find out anything?" Aisha's words froze in the air as the wind carried away the fog of her breath. Elsword nodded.

"Yeah... I found out that Lord Wally's a pretentious moron."

Aisha stifled a laugh and turned away as Elsword glared toward her. "...Are you okay? It sounds like you just choked on a ball of snot"

"Ugh..." Aisha was less than charmed by his imagery and her amusement faded. "No, I'm fine... It sounds like the field of El around the city has grown, so Ruben's El might still be here, somewhere. It'd be nice if we had some kind of idea where it might be though..."

Elsword sniffled, his eyes lighting up faintly. "Then when Rena gets back you two should go look for it. I'm gonna go see if I can get anything else out of the bandits we caught."

"What? We already tried getting answers from them but none of them would talk to us. And why do you have to do that alone? We're not helpless or stupid." Aisha scowled and fumed as the season's first snowflakes melted on her furrowed brow. Reflecting her frustration, Elsword shot her a stare colder than the air around them.

"I didn't ask you two to come along in the first place. I'm a knight, and I can do this on my own, without a stubborn runt calling me stupid every time I get an idea."

"I only yell at you because you're always rude and obstinate and going off to do something stupid and reckless!" The two were beginning to attract the attention of those passing by and the central fountain was suddenly being given a rather wide berth. Elsword stared indignantly at Aisha's disapproving eyes.

"So? Why do you care what I do?"

Aisha opened her mouth but couldn't find the words to answer him. Standing her ground, she collected herself and slapped her hand down onto the cold granite beside her. "Because you're not the only one who has to deal with the consequences! Every time you rush off on your own, we could all get killed and you don't even care!"

"What are you talking about? When were we ever in serious-" Elsword stopped and jerked his head to the left. Aisha followed his gaze to a dark side street, over a heap of broken apple crates, past a shady tavern signboard, and beside a crooked lamppost where she saw an unmistakable face. Banthus walked out into the street and rolled an apple in his hand before taking a huge bite out of its side and turning down a side alley. The clatter of Elsword's feet on the ground rang out in an instant, leaving Aisha to rush after him.

"Elsword, wait!" Her plea did little to hinder him. Glancing back over his shoulder, Elsword called back as he wove through a crowd of merchants and shoppers.

"We can't wait, he's gonna get away!" Leaping over a pile of flour sacks, he tossed his cloak into the air and reached for his sword. Just as he rounded the corner to follow after the fugitive, Aisha appeared before him in a flash of light and grabbed his shoulder.

"Elsword, listen for a second!"

He struggled to break free of her grip. "No! He's escaped already and if we don't hurry, he'll get away!"

Aisha stared straight at him and nodded. "So let's follow him. He might be trying to get back to the El." She held out her hand and offered Elsword his cloak. He reached forward and accepted it, nodding back as they both darted off after Banthus. Peering around corners and hiding among street vendors, they followed the fugitive through a raucous row of money changers as he casually strolled through the gentle snowfall. Turning away from the busy streets of the marketplace, Banthus paused, glancing around himself cautiously before darting off to the outer wall of Lord Wally's castle. From the cover of one of Lord Wally's gaudiest statues, Elsword and Aisha huddled close together and watched as Banthus approached a heavy gate and rattled its bars. After a moment, a guard approached and raised the portcullis.

"Did anyone see you?"

"Nah." Banthus sneered. "Nobody that'd care."

The knight stepped out and looked around, "Fine. Get back inside and wait with everyone else."

As Elsword looked on, his eyes narrowed and he reached for his sword. "What the hell, they're just gonna let him walk around without-" A firm hand on his shoulder pulled his attention away from the castle gates, "Aisha, let go!"

"I'm not-" Aisha soon noticed the presence of a third person just behind them.

"I didn't expect you two to go off eloping already, but..." A warm, lyrical voice drifted over their shoulders and they both turned to meet its owner. "Next time, leave a note though, okay?" Rena grinned as she met their shocked and blushing faces.

"It's not- we weren't running off. We saw Banthus walking around and we followed him back to the castle." Aisha stood and took two steps away from Elsword as she brushed the snow from her cloak.

"I saw." Rena looked past them to the castle walls and then motioned for them to follow her. "Come on, we've got a lot to talk about." Settling down beneath the gnarled fingers of a bare oak tree, the three recounted all that they learned from their morning excursions. Upon hearing about Elsword's plan to interrogate the bandits, Rena tilted her head and blinked.

"Why did you want to do that? I don't think they'd be any more willing to talk now than when we caught them in the first place."

Elsword crossed his arms and stared at the bulging root beneath his feet. "It's cause of what the Lady at the jewelry shop told me. She said she used to run with those bandits, and they were always doing really small, pointless stuff and she didn't think they were smart enough to try and pull anything as big as taking the El. They must've been hired by somebody."

Aisha placed a finger to her cheek, pondering for a moment as she pieced everything together. "Then, if it was Lord Wally that hired the bandits, that's why Banthus was allowed to just roam around town. And if he's got a lot of really big Nasod, they could've carried the El here without using the main roads."

"That's what it looks like right now..." Rena leaned back against the frost covered oak as she turned over their options. First, they'd need to confirm that Lord Wally had the El, and then... "The three of us won't be enough to take on all of Wally's knights and his Nasod, and we can't steal the El back since we've got no way of carrying it..."

Elsword grimaced. "What's that matter? We can figure that out after we get the El back."

"But we don't even know if Lord Wally has the El yet." Rena tried to pacify him, but his eyes were already fixed on the castle keep behind them.

"It m-might..." Aisha fought the clattering of her teeth and pulled her cloak in around her, "It might actually work out... It is the stupidest thing ever, but... Y-You said that the people here weren't happy with Lord Wally, so maybe if we got p-proof that he stole the El, they'd help us out."

Rena smiled uncomfortably at her. "Provoking a revolution might be a bit extreme..." She sighed quietly to herself, convinced that she had never traveled with anyone so blithely willing to undertake the most unreasonable course of action as these two teenagers. At first, she had thought that it was merely Elsword's intense, reckless desire to retrieve the El and prove himself capable that kept them headed into implausible situations, but now Rena realized that it was actually a condition they all shared. They set out to track down a group of nearly a hundred bandits who stole a crystal weighing several tons and no plan whatsoever other than that they had to get the El back.

Rena's eyes softened and she laughed faintly to herself. "In this situation, though... we probably need to be a bit extreme." She pushed herself off of the tree and turned to the towering cliffs of stacked granite beside her. At her right, Aisha looked to her pensively, awaiting her decision. At her left, Elsword glared firmly and clenched his teeth together. Closing her eyes and dismissing her doubts, a keen grin spread across Rena's face. "I wonder if Lord Wally has just as many statues of himself on the inside of his castle... I guess there's only one way to find out."