three_Beasts
Thane
\\
The snow is icy needles as you race up the mountain, your horse's breath a constant cloud from her nostrils. Hooves pound the earth, guards and riflemen turning the final bend to reach the breakneck edge of Raskogr Cliff. The road is hardly more than a slippery path carved in the rock face, and when the moon slices between freezing clouds, its faint light reveals chaos strewn along the hairpin turns below.
Wagons are overturned, oxen and mules throwing terror-fits. Your people are scattered and shouting in the swirling snow, and you see a white streak the size of four grown men dart across the rocky cliffside. It is Wes, Moro's wolven trickster of a son, with his human brother who calls himself Soul Eater astride his back.
The two of them advance on a heavy food wagon and dart in like lightning, Soul leaping off the wolf god's back and thrusting his spear into the wagon's side. He clings to the weapon and cleanly flips into the cart, bringing out a bone dagger to fend off those who might thwart him. The scant passengers put up little fight, instead shrieking at the sight of his fanged headpiece- the split skull of a wolf- and his vicious face beneath it painted with streaks the color of blood. The passengers stumble over each other to jump off the sides of the wagon to safety.
You shout orders to Ox, who then commands the guard to gather and defend the scattered people from Wes's snapping jaws while you break away from the soldiers, drawing your sword and urging your mare towards Soul Eater.
"Resorting to petty thievery, beast prince?" you call out, leaning off your horse to roll into the wagon and aim a kick to his legs that he avoids easily. The man in wolf furs quickly grabs anything he can get his hands on and shoves it into a leather sack.
"We will claim what is rightfully ours," he replies, gruff. He cinches the bag shut before fending off your sword strike with his dagger. "Sephtis has ruined much of the forest, so we now take our payment."
"Paym-" You're forced to dodge his singing blade, your ribs protesting. "Payment is a human concept," you remind him.
Soul wears a feral grin. "The Nightwalker has been balancing the scales since long before you were ever a thought. It is humans who imitate the gods," he boasts just before you manage to knock him off balance with the flat of your sword. He falls backwards over the wagon's edge, but not before taking you with him.
The landing is graceless, your throbbing ribs leaving you winded. Soul rolls down the steep slope of the road before skidding back onto his feet with an arm out to support his bag of spoils. "Mother bruised you well, I am certain!" He points his dagger towards you, the feathers and bones on the hilt whipping frantically in the winter storm. "Do not provoke me or I shall finish the job," he declares, twirling the blade with a flourish before sheathing it and dashing to the wagon to retrieve his spear.
The sharp crack of gunfire bounces off the cliff, your riflemen attempting to shoot the evasive Wes. You heave yourself off the snow-covered ground, narrowly dodging a loose and kicking mule as you dart after Soul Eater. He barely manages to wrench his weapon out of the wagon and parry your strike in time, though you hadn't expected otherwise.
Narrow-eyed, he says, "What did I just say?"
"I have a home with many hungry people to feed." You ignore the screaming of your ribs to pressure the man into a slow retreat, your blade cracking against his polearm, forcing him to draw the spear in and fight in closer range. "I will not stand aside and allow y-"
"It's going over," someone shrieks, and you can hear it: a heavy supply wagon up the cliff path crunching through loose gravel and wet snow, its pair of oxen bellowing in fear as they slip closer to the ledge. Then you spot the figure of a young girl trying to climb out of the wagon to safety.
You make a furious hiss of frustration at Soul, disengaging with a rough shove so you can sprint to the teetering wagon. You're beaten to the struggling oxen by the smoke-winged blur of Harvar, only halfway human in his haste to grab the oxen's harnesses. His feet skid in the snow as he pulls, his cloak a smudge of feathers that beats for any extra strength to urge the animals back on the road. You hastily sheathe your sword and go for the wild-eyed girl in the cart, helping her jump from the near-vertical wagon into your waiting hands. She's a strong, stout thing, and her weight brings you both to the ground in a slippery heap. She's shouting into the wind and you can't understand what she's saying, but you do see another young woman struggling to climb out the of the tilting wagon.
Ox has made it to your side, reaching out with his halberd for the woman to grab, and then you hear the bone-splitting howl break through the storm.
There is Moro, standing proud at the top of Raskogr. With a drop of your gut, it occurs to you that Wes's dogged threatening of the caravan and Soul's performance-like flip into a wagon had all been a diversion, because you had forgotten about the worst of this pack. Her white fur blends into the mess of the winter storm as she leaps off the cliff directly for you.
She's after the oxen, a hearty meal even for her, but those beasts are the only things keeping the cart from tumbling down the cliff with a woman still inside. You have a barefooted girl tucked against you and no room for thought. Your hand flies to your waist and closes around the heavy wheel-lock pistol Harvar had left you, drawing it and aiming at Moro's heart.
The gun kicks so hard you feel something in your wrist buckle and snap. Moro twists and contorts mid-air, landing heavily on the slipping wagon.
Dawn struggles to break through the first snow of your twenty-second year, the storm whirling so thickly you nearly miss the shocked eyes of the woman in the cart as she, the oxen, and Moro all plummet out of sight.
\\
You stand with the rest of the wounded near the forge, trying to force some warmth back into your frozen toes. Unfortunately, the warmer you get, the less you can ignore the pain in your wrist- especially with the young girl from the wagon clamping her hand around it and imploring you to do something about her sister. Ox had tried to pry her off you, but he got bashed in the chin by Patricia's hard head and now holds a lump of snow to his jaw.
She wails, "Why are you standing here? Why hasn't anyone gone to look for her? Do something!"
"Clearly he cannot," Harvar says from Ox's padded shoulder armor, feathers fluffed. "To send anyone out in that storm would be a death sentence."
Once Patricia realizes who is speaking, she whirls away from you and immediately takes a swing for the kindred crow, though she's too short to reach him. "You lying beastling!" she howls, Ox hastily sidestepping out of the way.
As she shouts insults at Harvar, Medusa takes the brief moment to sneak into the space the girl had vacated, examining your wrist. She raises a golden eyebrow at you. "Set it quickly," you murmur through gritted teeth, "and tend to the others. I'll take care of the re-urgh."
"I'll make another jar of salve for you," she says breezily before sweeping off to her next patient. You clutch your wrist in your hand, attempting to fill your thoughts with calm, pleasant things, and finding absolutely none. Your desire for a bed and a week's worth of sleep is strong, but a bird, a teenaged girl, and your chief of guard are all blocking the doorway, and by the deadpan look on Ox's face, he hadn't missed your thirty-second doctor visit.
"May the Warbringer roast you on a spit," Patricia carries on, still attempting to knock Harvar to the ground. Finally annoyed with her persistence, Ox grabs her by the collar of her tunic and holds her at bay, which only makes her angrier. "I s'pose mentioning giant wolf gods slipped your bird brain? You snake with wings, you didn't say anything about them!"
"Snake?" Harvar snarls back, indignant. He shifts into a man, though you notice he has gone pale and panting with the effort. "Of course I said nothing to you- you are still a child. I told your sister of the dangers. She understood fully, and agreed nonetheless."
The girl's fury softens around the edges for a few heaving breaths before it suddenly turns to despair. Her arms wrap around herself, eyelashes wet and stuck together. "It shoulda been me," she says, voice hoarse. "She made me go first!"
You step forward, your good hand outstretched to lay on her shoulder, but, as quickly as it had gone, her anger flares again in an instant, her head whipping up with steel in her eyes. "I will find her."
Luckily, Blair has chosen this moment to intervene, grabbing the girl and wrapping a blanket around her before she can take so much as a step. "You mustn't! If your sis makes it back and you aren't here, then where'll we be?" The woman's golden eyes flit to yours with purpose as she says, "We need to make a bed ready for her, because the young master will send out a search party the moment the storm eases."
Patricia looks at you over her shoulder, her face a startling, young reflection of her sister's, which you can still easily see falling beyond the edge of Raskogr. You nod without hesitation. "Goes without saying."
Stone-faced, she says, "I'm going with them."
"Absolutely not," you, Blair, Harvar, and Ox all say in unison, which makes her hiss and toss her head.
"And give me my gun back!" she yowls as Blair leads her away. "At least I can shoot it without breaking my arm!"
You have nothing to say to this. When you glance at Ox and Harvar, it appears they have plenty enough to say in your stead. Harvar speaks first, his voice a careful kind of quiet that makes you grimace. "Thane, when I left that firearm to you, it was not so you could re-"
"I know," you bite out, wrapping your hand angrily around your throbbing wrist. "You needn't say it, I already know what you're thinking."
"Well I don't," says Ox, face pinched with frustration. He nods his bruising chin at your injury. "You need to wrap that, and you-" he snarls at Harvar, "need to sit the hell down, and I'm hungry enough to eat those damned beasts Moro took with her. Let's go." The last is said as a command, and both you and Harvar have nothing left in you to do anything other than follow the the man to the kitchens.
The trek through the cold wind saps any heat you might have gathered from the forge. Numbly sitting on a bench at the table, you do not know how long you sit and shiver before you find yourself staring into the glossy surface of a mug of tea. It reminds you of your father, gunfire echoing in your ears on endless repeat.
Across from you, Harvar leans tiredly on the table with Ox to his right, who angrily eats any and every bit of food he can get his hands on. Mouth full, the guard accuses, "How many times have you shifted today?"
The man next to him lifts his head for a moment, deep in thought. He sighs and gives the barest shrug.
"Too many," Ox declares with a sniff.
You push your tea across the table to Harvar. "You were both man and bird at one point," you say, recalling the kindred with arms and wings on the cliff. "Even I know the spirit isn't meant to be caught between like that."
He's too weary to make his usual wry frown. "It is difficult but not impossible. I did what needed to be done." Harvar regards the tea and finally musters the effort to pick it up. "Not that I did any good," he sighs before taking a sip.
Your laugh is humorless. "The only failure is mine. You are not the one who shot a god today," you say, watching as Harvar flinches at what you know is an open wound, and one you have made.
Ox washes his meal down with coffee. "Not sure you realize it, Thane, but you did technically save our lives."
The unspoken 'but at what cost' hangs so heavily over the table that none of you bother to say it aloud.
"Think she's alive?" you ask.
Your chief of guard takes a knife from his belt and carves a large hunk of cheese off a wheel. He offers this to you, saying, "I suppose we'll find out when another angry god turns up on our doorstep."
"I would rather it not be while we're still repairing the damage from the last one," you reply, accepting the food even if you aren't eager to eat much of anything right now. "But I meant the woman, not the wolf."
Harvar also takes Ox's next offering, though he only looks at it a few seconds before placing it on the table. He slowly straightens, wearily pushing his shoulders back and moving to stand from the bench. "I will look for her. I am faster than any rider, and I'm the one who brought her here in the first place."
"You will not," says Ox, tugging the kindred back to the table by his cloak. "The girl was right to call you bird-brained."
"You're whiter than the wolf right now," you add, guilt twisting your gut. "Get some rest. Both of you. We'll find what's left of the caravan when the storm passes." After forcing down a few bites of cheese, you dismiss yourself with the excuse of needing to mend your wrist.
In truth, there are a great many things you must mend. In an egregious echo of your father, you have shot a god, and if the Nightwalker has taken that young woman's life in payment for your mistake, her blood is on your hands, as well.
Maka
\\
The fine hairs on the back of your neck raise the moment you bow, the crowd in the street abruptly silent before a low murmur stirs like a wind through the onlookers. You look up hurriedly, hoping it was not your actions that had caused this, but no one will meet your eyes, mouths hidden behind raised hands.
Perhaps they have already heard of you: the creature in strange clothes who rips people to shreds when angered. You should take your leave and try to find supplies in some other town, but finding this one had been a miracle with your outdated map. A quick glance to your left reveals a movement behind the crowd, of armed soldiers who could very well see you as a threat.
Crona paws at the earth behind you, his whoosh of breath at your shoulder like a nervous mutter. You think he has the right idea. You reach forward to take back the small bit of loreheart you had placed on the table, but before you grab it, another hand closes around the stone.
A stranger draped with dark fabric holds the loreheart up for closer inspection, light glinting off the metal ribbons embedded inside. Your hand discreetly moves to the dagger under your thick cloak- you don't know what this person wants, but if they are about to steal from you, you will not stand silently, even if the item in question may be worthless in this city.
To your surprise, the tradeswoman who had been shouting at you too quickly for you to understand has quickly become docile, head inclined to the stranger at your side. You give the figure a more critical glance: by the looks of the calluses lining those scarred fingers, they favor the right arm for a recent injury. A supply bag with what looks to be a book inside. No visible weapons. A scholar, perhaps?
"How can I help you, sir," the woman says, voice squeaking in her haste to sound respectful. She then glances fretfully to you, as if you are in some danger from an apparent man who is hardly taller than you are.
The stranger presents the loreheart to the woman's face at a distance you would personally deem too close, though she does nothing but shiver among her trade wares, rapidly blinking. "This," he says, rolling the jagged stone between his rough fingers, "would pay for all the junk in your cart, and your next month of meals, besides. Haven't you seen gold before?"
When the man places the stone back on the table, the tradeswoman hurriedly snatches it up, examining it with wide eyes. Suddenly, all the items you had intended to purchase are shoved into your arms, the stranger swiftly adding several other things you had not asked for to the pile. You attempt to juggle these and Crona's reins without dropping anything, and then the man's hand is on your shoulder, fingers digging in tightly enough to amend your first impression of him.
Under his breath, he says for only your ears, "You are one hell of an idiot. Walk."
Your first instinct, apart from slicing this improper oaf's arm off, is to loudly protest his rough-handling, but he has helped you buy your supplies and removed you from a situation you think could have quickly gone awry, so you hold your tongue. He hauls you along tightly-packed streets, twisting and turning down alleys enough to make you disoriented, and by the time you reach the very outskirts of town, what little thankfulness you had for his assistance has decidedly run out.
Grinding your teeth under your mask, you try to jerk out of his grasp, but his grip is that of a man thrice his size. You call him several choice words, though you belatedly realize he doesn't understand any of them, which only makes you angrier. You spit what little you know of Common Tongue. "Unhanding me, Westlander!"
His cowled head tilts to the side, but he does eventually release you. "Look, 'Eastlander', the Westlands don't exist anymore. We're the Territories now." He shoots a glance over his shoulder and you see an angry red wound on his jaw. He begins taking the topmost items of the supplies in your hands- sharp metal stars and other strange tools you've never seen before- and shoves them in his bag. "Next point: we're being followed by Imperials and Clan lackeys, and I bet they wanna see how much more of that raw gold you have tucked away...among other things." He gives you a rough glare for reasons you can't understand. "We need to leave town."
You don't grasp everything he says, but you do see some unfriendly faces moving along the shadows of the alleyway behind you, and 'leave town' makes well enough sense. You store your goods in your saddlebags and mount your elk, though you hesitate at leaving the wounded stranger behind, who seems intent on making himself just as scarce.
"Lack-ees slow," you offer, scooting forward on Crona's back and gesturing behind you.
The man raises an eyebrow and suddenly laughs. "I don't need your weird beast. I carry my own weight." And then, without warning, he takes off down the road at an astonishing sprint. "See if you can keep pace, Eastlander!" he calls.
\\
Your hands have become a stranger's. You hold them near the fire, but you can't feel the flames at all; the sensation of temperature is lost to the cursed parts of your arms, your fingers deadened and black under your gloves.
The man from Kiarr had led you to a ruined building, which was hardly more than a north-facing wall with some scattered beams and moldy hay. You suppose it had been some kind of stable once. It blocks the winds of the oncoming winter storm well enough at least, and you lean back against Crona's warm belly, who has settled in for the night next to you.
On the other side of the fire, the dark-cloaked man makes disgusted faces in your direction, even while diligently stirring the contents of your tiny cook pot with the practiced movements of one who prepares his own meals regularly. You still can not determine if he wants nothing to do with you or is actually trying to help.
There are many questions you'd like to ask, but you don't know how to say most of them. You venture with the easiest first, though you aren't sure he will oblige you in answering.
"What is name?"
With one look, it's clear he doesn't want to tell you. He grabs your one bowl and fills it with a stew rich with roots and the rabbit he had been very proud to catch when you made camp. As he passes the bowl to you, he grudgingly says, "Blade."
Eyebrows pinched together, you hesitate in taking the bowl. "Is like knife?" you ask, confused, but he shakes the bowl at you impatiently until you take it.
He huffs at you. "...Yeah. Like a knife." He rubs at the line on his face without thinking; winces when he finds it painful. "My father forges weapons," he says, digging around in his bag. "Guess he wanted to name his kids with a theme."
You slowly nod, though you do not know what a theme is. "Maka," you say.
Blade pauses while dipping a chipped cup he had procured from his bag into the stew. "What?"
"Is name. Maka."
"Oh. Uh. Cheers, I guess," he says with that disturbed frown, holding the cup higher as if in tribute to you before bringing it to his lips. You awkwardly imitate the gesture with your bowl.
He doesn't ask, but you supply an explanation anyway. "'Maka' is meaning knife also." You bring your hand to your chin, pulling down your mask to eat as you try to explain your name in Common. "Knife with curve, cutting... grass? No, erm-" You set your bowl in the hay and reach for your dagger- you think you can probably use it to imitate a scythe during harvest- but before you can bring it out, you realize Blade's face is ridden with absolute horror.
"What," you say carefully, worried that moving for your weapon has sent the wrong message.
His finger points at you in accusation. "You- are you a woman?"
You blink. You think, perhaps, you have made camp with a profoundly stupid person. "Yes?"
Blade places his hand over his face and groans. "Of course you are. I've been wrong about everything else, why not?" His hand falls away and he stares at you with narrowed eyes. Voice low, he asks, "And you're kindred too?"
You give up bringing out your knife. The steam from the stew warms your cold nose, so you hold the bowl closer to your face. "Word not knowing, 'kin-durid'.'
"Right." He sighs, frustrated. "Magic beasts? They… they're animals that turn to smoke and look like people."
"Ah-" you blurt, suddenly understanding. You tuck 'kindred' away into your memory, pleased at having learned something new. "You are meaning shape change? Like woman becoming bird-" Your excitement abruptly dies, reminded of your mother. She hadn't been a changeling, exactly, but it was the first example that came to you.
When he nods, frown firmly in place, you reply, "No. I not."
It's Blade's turn to furrow his brows, scrutinizing you while chewing the vegetables in his stew. "Guess you couldn't be. Kindred never fight, only flee." He relaxes back in the straw momentarily before a thought crosses his face and he sits back up with haste. "But why did you do that, at Kiarr? You nearly asked for an execution- dozens of people saw it and I'm sure by now both Arachne and White Star know y-"
You shake your head, desperately holding up a hand. "Please. Ecks-eh-what?"
"When you- urgh." Crona twitches, startled, when the man suddenly stands. Blade glances over either shoulder, checking for an audience before he awkwardly performs the Bloodless Bow while still holding his stew, a display commonly meant to show humility and respect. He looks at you expectantly, blue eyes demanding an explanation while still bowed over. "This," he says, but all you manage to do is choke on a laugh because he's done it so poorly.
Your own voice stuns you- you have not had a desire to laugh in weeks. You'd thought that gone, lost to you like the warmth of fire in your hands. A smile plays on the edges of your lips, your heart twisting with the knowledge that there is still that much more of you left to be taken away.
Blade scowls at you, standing straight. "Well?"
"You are like child," you chuckle again. "Bad."
He is not amused. "It should be bad! Doing that in front of people is a good way to die."
Surely he is mistaken! Yet the way the crowd had reacted to you in Kiarr lends credence to his argument, and you don't like how that bodes. Your smile falls away. "No. Is showing peace, is not for killing."
Somehow, the man looks even more frustrated with you than before, turning a circle in place as if wanting to shout at anyone who might listen. "How did you make it this far across the damned continent without realizing- listen. Only the kindred bow like you bow, Eastlander. And the kindred are hunted here. Understand?"
Crona shifts uncomfortably, feeling your body coil and tense. "A-again, saying," you request, pinning your eyes on the man and carefully watching his mouth.
Very slowly, he repeats exactly what you thought you heard. "Kindred. Are hunted. You know who Arachne is?"
Your mouth has gone dry. "Empress," you hoarsely say, hands clenching around your bowl and feeling nothing of its warmth.
"Right. She collects them- keeps the beasts like pets. And Star Clan," he says, one hand absently holding his shoulder, "eats them."
You bolt to your feet, Crona snorting and stumbling to his as well. Your heart pounds in your ears, the bowl of stew falling from your hands to spill across the ground. "Eat."
Blade's face is grim. He holds out his cup of stew in emphasis. "Yes. My- the Warbringer has called for all kindred to be delivered to him. That is why you must not bow like you did in Kiarr. They will think you are kindred, and they will come for you."
"They are eating people?" The very idea makes you sick to your stomach. Small wonder the Westlands- no, the Territories- had driven Asura mad, with these monstrous humans killing and feasting on changelings. "Why!?"
"Eating kindred gives you power," he says easily, though his eyes do not look at ease whatsoever. The man has settled into a subtly smaller stance, balancing his weight in a way that a panther might before striking. You do not miss the slight movement of his left hand inching closer to the new knife at his waist- he thinks that you are the threat here, that you somehow pose more danger than man-eating monsters!
Ghosts whisper under your skin with your rage. Show him the price of power, they tell you sweetly. Raze his bones until nothing remains.
"Besides, it's not like they're... people," he says, trying to placate you. "Their true shapes are beasts."
Black shadows creep in the edges of your vision, the campfire little more than a distant star in an irrelevant sky. The voice that crawls out your throat does not belong to you, and it speaks the Common Tongue with more skill than you've ever possessed.
"It is not the shape that makes a beast."
The curse is pouring through you again, using your rage as a doorway to take your body hostage. It is a struggle to summon the strength to fight it back, because there is a resignation in you, a despair of the heart that is echoed, matched by the voices eating you from the inside.
You do not wish to hurt anyone, but haven't you always wanted to, just a little? Haven't you wanted to exact revenge on those who abuse life?
And as you think this, an arrow sails in the dark and pierces through your right hand. You lift up your palm, your blood pooling inside your glove and dribbling down your arm, but your hands are a stranger's- when you close your fist around the arrowhead, you feel nothing at all.
You smile.
Mifune
\\
Angela waits for you to pop your shoulder back into its rightful place before taking your hand and leading both you and your horse away. You have yet to decide if you are in the thrall of some illusion.
When the girl threw her body in the path of that unholy blade, you heart had stopped, and you think it's likely it never started up again. It could be that these are your dreaming death throes, and the gods have seen fit to grant you the feeling of Angela's hand in yours, leading you off the battlefield to wherever it is slain warriors go.
The vision persists, as do the aches in your weary body. You and the girl had somehow been spared by that tribeswoman and you can't begin to fathom why. The only thing you are certain of is you are getting far too old for this.
As you walk past the limbless body of that Star Clan assassin, you are surprised to see his chest rising and falling. The woman's curse-magic had burned his wounds shut, and so he lies groaning in the freezing mud. Angela stops short, and you are too drained to keep pulling her along in some futile effort to spare her the gory consequences of battle.
She regards the helpless cannibal, her fingers clenching around yours. "Mifune," she says, calming the nervous horse behind her with only a glance of icy blue eyes. Her voice is tiny in the chill of winter. "Kill him?"
A swift death for the assassin will be a mercy compared to being found later by wild dogs or even his own clansmen. You close your eyes for a long moment. You are reluctant to slay anyone in front of the girl, but after today you suppose protecting her from this part of you had always been a fool's errand.
Your sword is difficult to draw from its scabbard- those demonic scythes warped the strong, Iron Town-forged blade into a hideous, twisted mess. It still has enough of an edge, thankfully, to slice through the man's neck.
The horse shies at the hot blood steaming along the frosted ground, but Angela does not calm the beast this time. You catch a glimpse of her face as she regards the dead man, a weight closing around your chest when you realize what had prompted her request had not stemmed from pity or mercy at all.
It's the first time the kindred has ever asked you to perform violence.
\\
As the both of you wait in the ever-familiar antechamber just outside the throne room, you hear a Song. Your hand pauses in its absent combing through Angela's tangled hair. She raises her head from where she'd been dozing on your arm, and you both grow still as you listen to the bright voice ringing clear and resonant from the throne room.
The Songs were all written in a language you neither speak nor understand, but the lilt of this one suggests an ancientness, reaching from a place where no man has ever set foot. You might be imagining the way the flickering oil lamps seem to dance in unison, how their golden flames throw shadows behind tall, granite pillars, as if the room has become a forest of massive trees.
You glance down at Angela and wonder if she knows its meaning, and there's a rapt attention in her eyes that suggests she may. Before you can ask, though, the music comes to an end, the silence following it feeling somewhat skeletal in your ears. Arachne's footman retrieves you both shortly after.
The four day ride back from Riohdr had not been therapeutic whatsoever. You have a sore hitch in your gait which you attempt to hide as you pass through the massive doorway to the room. On your way in, you spy a young woman standing stiffly beside the throne, waist-length hair a fair red-blonde, its hue much like Angela's. Her eyes are so milk-white you think she must be blind. She had been the one singing, surely; she wears a dress made of bright, vivid colors, hundreds of stories embroidered by meticulous goldwork- the traditional garb of Loresingers.
You stifle the tremor in your aching leg as you kneel before the throne. Angela plops carelessly next to you, but she does gradually fold her legs under her as you've painstakingly taught her. She still fidgets, however, and you are certain she would rather be melded to the shadows to spy on the stranger in colorful clothes.
Perched on the edge of her throne and in a mess of flowing, nearly shapeless black robes, Arachne does not greet you. A scroll is unfurled on a spindly, delicate writing table, and the Empress swiftly moves an owl-quill pen across the paper, its scratching loud in the sprawling room. At her side, opposite the singer, is Giriko, crimson reliquary in hand and about twelve too many weapons strapped to him. His gaze is alight on Angela, and you are suddenly glad the girl stowed away in your saddlebags to Riohdr.
As Arachne writes, you notice that engraved trinket she's so fond of is in her free hand, her fingers spider-like as she idly rolls it in her palm. Without looking up, the Empress asks, "Did you like the Song, Angela?"
Next to you, the girl snaps to attention. "Yes, your Majesty, I did." In your peripheral, you see her curiously glance at the white-eyed woman. "It was very pretty."
"It was, wasn't it," Arachne says amiably. She looks up from her scroll, using the quill to gesture to the young woman on her left. "This is Kimial. Kim, meet Mifune, a mercenary, and his charge, Angela. She's a chameleon."
The woman named Kimial bows, face betraying no surprise or emotion at all.
Arachne sets down the quill and rocks an ink-blotter over the scroll. "Kimial is the last living Loresinger formally trained by Maaba. Do you know who Maaba is, sweetheart?"
Angela slowly nods, and you're not sure you've ever seen her eyes so wide. "Yes, Empress. She walked with Eibon."
"For many years. I've spent a decade collecting and preserving her Songs. When she brought Kim here to me, she left many of her texts for safekeeping. Would you like to read them?"
The girl gives you an unsure look. That frozen moment when she asked you to kill that assassin is still very fresh in your mind. Other than hiding her from those who would harm her, you've done very little in the way of saving her culture and heritage, even if you have wished otherwise. You give her a measured nod and she watches for your careful blink that tells her to disappear if anything seems amiss.
"I'd like that very much!" she blurts, hastily adding, "Please, your Majesty," in afterthought. She sounds exactly how a nine year old girl should, you hope.
The Empress smiles. "Very good. When I am done talking with Mifune, I will send him to fetch you. Kimial, show Angela to my library. Help her with anything she needs."
The young woman inclines her head. "Yes, Kinmother." She steps forward and strides directly to Angela so quickly and unerringly that you realize she isn't blind at all. She placidly holds out a hand to the girl.
Angela blinks, glancing briefly at you in the corner of her eye before slowly taking the Loresinger's hand and standing. You are loath to let her out of your sight, but you've taught her 'trust no one' hundreds of times, and you've taught her 'hide your true feelings' a hundred times more. You must leave the rest to the gods and stars, watching with unease as the woman leads Angela out of the throne room.
Arachne had not given consent for you to stand- in fact, she's hardly acknowledged you at all- so you continue to rest one knee on the granite in discomfort. With that stone still turning end over end in her hand, she rises from her throne for a moment only to sit down once more- but on the edge of the dais, sitting before you in a way that suggests you might be equals while simultaneously honing the point that you absolutely are not.
She rests an elbow on her knee, chin in hand. In a quiet voice that does not carry far, she says, "I can't express how distraught I was to discover the little chameleon missing. I had begun to think, mercenary," she murmurs, wearing a smile as dangerous as a sword, "that you had taken our newest Loresinger to the Eastlands on my finest horse."
Arachne's desire to train Angela as a singer is news to you, though you aren't surprised so much as dismayed- you need to get out from under the Empress's thumb as soon as you are able. "My apologies, Empress," you reply, bowing your head. "I do not leave a task unfinished. The girl tagging along was a surprise to me as well."
Of all the consequences you had been preparing yourself for, you had not expected the Empress to laugh. "An honorable mercenary," she chuckles. "Rest on both knees, sir." She releases her chin just long enough to wave her hand impatiently. "You look a little worse for wear."
You do not miss the condescending smirk on Giriko's face. "As you command, Majesty," you say, gruff. Your irritation lessens somewhat with the relief in your sore leg, at least.
"You did help secure Riohdr for me, as we agreed. And the girl is back home safe, so no harm done. I imagine it is difficult to keep track of one with Angela's talents." Abruptly, her fingers stop twirling the stone in her hand as she pins you with a calculating look. "How did she come into the care of a mercenary?"
This is one subject you had hoped she would never touch on, as you've never been skilled in lying. You can't tell her it was under her banner when you had disobeyed orders and taken the girl under you wing instead of delivering her to the Empress.
"I found her in a raided den during the war," you say truthfully. "Her kin were slaughtered. She had no one." You leave out the part where you had helped in their deaths as punishment for not cooperating with Imperial forces.
"And compassionate. You are a rare man, indeed." You bow your head, but not before glimpsing Giriko and his now murderous glower. "It is a shame, the devastation White Star has caused," she says, glossing over her own heinous crimes during the war. "Which is why I work so hard to preserve their culture. I should like for Angela to train under Kimial in the craft- that is, if you do intend to stay here."
You are surprised she has offered the option to leave, even if only by empty words. Regardless, you do not yet have the means to travel again; you don't even have a decent sword to your name anymore. "For a while longer, if your Majesty will allow it."
"Of course. A girl like Angela should be kept here, where it is safe for her to grow and develop," she says, more empty words that would have fooled you had you not already known her true colors. You know very well she intends to use Angela for her own gain, but Arachne's next words make your blood run cold. "She is powerful, and I am certain you and I both know that an ember that only sees the battlefield can become nothing but hellfire."
Your hands clench atop your knees.
"So," the Empress says, as you attempt to give no indication of just how close to your heart she had stung, "I shall keep careful watch over the girl. In return, I have another task for you."
"...I am yours to command."
Arachne places the stone in the lap of her dress before reaching up to her table and retrieving the scroll. "I trust you heard Kim singing earlier. Have you heard such a thing before?"
"I haven't, Empress." Angela has never sung that one, at least.
"It would surprise me if you had- before today, only kindred have ever heard it, passed down through the mouths of Loresingers. But, times are changing," she says with close-lipped smile, holding up the scroll. "I've translated the better part of it: 'Blood of the undying, his kiss stops time and brings miracles to flesh. His crown swirls with heaven's stars. From his mouth sprouts life; from his feet, death. The Stag of Night walks from the deer forest.'"
She carefully rolls up her scroll, tying a strip of leather around it with a tidy knot. "Do you know of this god of the kindred, mercenary?"
"I have only heard tell of ancient beasts from the west, Empress. Like the salamander which left the Dead Path."
She nods. "Asura was one of the Old Ones, but this Night Stag is the god of gods- a primordial deity of the kindred. It is his 'undying blood' the Song mentions that interests me." Arachne places the scroll back on the table and turns to face you with her hands primly in her lap. "So I send you to Raskogr, where you will find the Night Stag and bring me his head."
Silence reigns in the room for several moments. Whatever expression you have on your face makes Arachne laugh, for she says, "Speak freely, mercenary."
Though she has granted you permission, you keep a wary eye on her over-armed guard when you flatly question the Aranei Empress. "You would slay the god of those you protect?"
"Yes." To your speechlessness, she leans forward, as if disclosing something with an old friend. You find yourself noticing that her black robes seem to not diminish her so much as spread and connect to the shadows of the throne room, giving her a presence like a beast of prey. "You have seen every corner of this war. What have the gods done for the kindred? Where was this Night Stag when White Star tore apart the singers with his teeth? The reach of the gods appears not to extend very far these days- why else would you take Angela into hiding?"
There is little you can say to refute this without incriminating yourself, and she knows it.
She says, "With the Deer God's blood, I will become the undying mother of the kindred." She leans back, a hand pressed to her breast. "Who better than I? My reach stretches from the Cliffs to the Saltkin Islands and now, with your help, Riohdr. Soon the Warbringer and his pathetic clan will be under my heel, and the ivonhalls will once more resonate with Song. I will be the god they need, who can truly protect them."
You take a deep breath, head reeling with the sheer absurdity the most powerful ruler in the country is capable of.
"Your eyes say you think me a heretic," Arachne says with a tilt of her head. Behind her, Giriko shifts his weight and places his free hand on the hilt of one of his many blades, and you tense, a mere blink away from standing and defending yourself with a horribly disfigured sword. But the Empress raises a hand to put her guard at ease.
With an indulgent sort of smile, she says, "I don't blame you. Surely it is blasphemous to murder a god and steal his throne. But answer me this-" Arachne takes the milky quartz from her lap and presents it to you, that fanged mask carved so delicately into its face. "If my plan were truly folly - why, then, did heaven send you to me?"
Black Star
\\
Amateurs, the lot of them.
The three thieves pose no danger to you- you have difficulty believing that anyone who circles around upwind before an ambush poses a danger to anyone- and you had assumed the Eastlander would sense them coming just as easily, creepy demonic voices aside. But you've assumed a lot of things since her performance in Riohdr, so you suppose this is just one more thing you've mistaken.
The thieves' would-be arbalist neglects to take the storm's winds into consideration, and the crossbow bolt wobbles into a poor trajectory, impaling Maka's hand. Immediately after the shot, the three men descend upon the camp, and it's clear they don't recognize you because only one targets you while the other two go after the woman.
You're somewhat offended that he rushes at you headfirst like you're some hapless traveller. Your dagger extends the idiot's navel to his chin and, with an annoyed flick of your wrist, slices through the hot arteries of his neck. He chokes and falls, quickly growing still, and as you step over him you try to decide which of these next two who had dared ambush a Star as bright as you should return to the earth.
To your surprise, the assailants have stopped in their tracks just outside the ring of firelight, their eyes trained on the Eastlander. You watch as Maka slowly raises her hand, inspecting the bolt imbedded in her gloved palm like a curious child who has discovered a beetle. Then, without warning, she crushes the tip as easily as eggshells, the bolt snapping from between her bones.
She looks up at you then, the fire reflecting in her eyes much too brilliantly. You're certain they'd been green before, but now her wide gaze reminds you of harvest moons and burning embers, and something in that gleaming red makes your stomach flip.
Maka smiles, a laugh falling from her lips and slipping into the storm.
'It is not the shape that makes a beast,' she had warned you, and as you see dark swirls of energy curling around her hands, you invest all your effort into turning the hell around and taking cover behind the rubble of the old barn because you, unlike these poor thieves, are not a moron.
The two remaining men hesitate. You don't blame them, but that slight pause will cost their lives. The woman has begun cackling in earnest, hunching over with chattering, sparking power twisting up her arms and around her sloping shoulders. Without a doubt, she is the demon you saw in Riohdr, her black beast at her side bellowing like a war horn. The man with the crossbow finally realizes he is no match for the foreign woman, and turns to flee.
He hasn't even pivoted away completely before Maka hurls those shadowy crescent blades like bullets, his head rolling out of the camp as his body falls bonelessly to old hay. The remaining thief seems to lose his mind at the sight, desperately shrieking and raising his sword against the woman with little thought to consequence. You do not blink, yet you still don't truly see what happens- only that the man is there one moment, and then, with a sound reminiscent of pulling open a melon, he is suddenly bisected at her feet, pooled in steaming blood.
You know it before those glowing crimson eyes dart to yours- you are no friend to her. Her mount paws at the stained ground and dips his head towards you with threat, his curved horns looking more wicked than you recall. The Eastlander hunches even lower, misshapen, stretching to all fours as a creature of pitch and ebony fire, her magic burning around her and whipping in the wind in long, rope-like tails.
Some part of that form makes your stomach twist again, reminding you of something you can't immediately place and spurring you to react on pure, nerve-shrieking instinct. You throw yourself to the side as the barn wall shatters behind you, rubble and crumbling bricks raining down on the campsite. Blades howl past your face as you leap off rotting beams, but now you're faced with her giant elk charging you from the side. You're running out of safe escape routes.
You do the only sensible thing you can think of, your hand wrapping around a hunk of old mortar and brick as you evade the elk, quickly hurling it at Maka's head. Though she destroys it- disintegrates it with a hissing strike of one of those tails- you are already surging straight for her, your fist colliding into her face with all the force you have.
Admittedly, the impact is not as strong as it should have been. Your shoulder is still painfully injured, and the Eastlander doesn't fly much farther than the remains of the barn wall, stones falling over her in a loud crash. Her elk makes a harrowing scream at this injustice to his rider, and you hurriedly turn to fend off whatever the charging beast has in store for you.
But, to your bewilderment, he slowly comes to a halt before he can bowl you over, dancing uneasily in place. Dagger tightly clenched in your hand, you wait, anxious and confused at the abrupt change in behavior. He gives his mighty head a shake, looking in the buried woman's direction and giving a low, nervous warble.
In the mess of the barn wall, you hear a tired moan.
Though you feel you've had quite enough of these insane foreigners, you do not drop your guard. Keeping one eye on the elk, you carefully edge closer to woman. "...Eastlander?" you call over the whipping wind.
She says a low string of words in her language before amending it to, "Ow."
You're unwilling to part with your dagger so soon. You do nudge a brick or two away from her in a cautious attempt to see what's left of her. "You still crazy? Less crazy?"
Maka grits her teeth, shakily pushing a large chunk of wall off her chest. "Mystery," she says. Her hood has fallen off her head, her short, ash-blonde hair sticking every which way. She's hardly injured at all.
You suppose you've seen stranger things. You huff, sheathing your weapon and helping lift the weight off her. "As long as you don't try to kill me again."
She gives you a bleary, green-eyed glare. "Continue talking, might change," she growls. With the the bulk of the wall off her, she rests in the scattered bricks, dazedly regarding the blood on her gloves as one would a recurring dream. Lips pulled into a taut line, she peels off the leather, tossing the gloves aside and revealing hands as black as tar.
"What are you? Truly."
Taking a long breath, Maka closes her eyes and tilts her head back. Snow lands on her face.
"Kishin," she says. Whatever that means.
The storm picks up, snow blowing in hard enough to be nearly horizontal. After determining that the Eastlander probably isn't going to dismember you for the moment, you both move the camp under a giant cedar tree, its boughs sagging heavily with ice and snow enough to provide a shelter of sorts. There's no room for a fire, but it blocks the wind better than the demolished remains of the barn, anyhow, and Maka's mount makes the small space vaguely warm once he stops getting his massive antlers tangled in the branches.
Huddling into your cloak as the tree creaks and moans in the winter winds, you weigh the risks of moving to sit on the other side of the elk to absorb some heat. A glance at Maka advises you against the notion- though the both of you had dragged the corpses downwind and out of sight, she gazes out of the tree and into the swirling night, as if she can still see the bodies. You press your back into the trunk of the tree and tuck your hands under your armpits.
"Is demon, in me," she explains without prompt.
You mutter, "Yeah, I gathered as much," but the remark is lost on her. She simply strokes her mount's nose with those charcoal hands, preoccupied. The wounded hand is wrapped in gauze, the cloth slowly staining black, but she gives no indication that the injury hurts. "Where did you learn such magic?"
She finally looks away from the dark, watching you with an open kind of earnestness that makes you uncomfortable- there's an absence of suspicion there, and you've never once seen that while living with assassins. "No, is curse," she says emphatically. "For killing god."
"Killing a god?" The back of your mind abruptly fits bits and pieces together- the glowing eyes, that feral-like form with tails like a whip- "Eibon's piss, you slayed the salamander?"
A small crease forms between her brows as she tilts her head to one side.
You excitedly gesture with your hands. "Like a lizard, but from the water. He's red, and huge as a building-"
"That." Maka tiredly nods with recognition. Her elk seems to sigh heavily for her. "Asura."
She pronounces the name differently, but you recognize it. This puny woman had been the last thing the Salamander God had seen as he rampaged across the continent? Then again, after what you've witnessed, you have no doubt she speaks truth. She takes on Asura's very countenance when consumed by his magic. "And you killed him?"
"Yes. Attacking my village." She stops rubbing the elk's nose to hold up her hand, fingers clenching around something imaginary. "I taking... blade," she says with a weak smile in your direction, though it fades almost instantly, "and carving his eyes."
You acknowledge that Maka must have been a decent warrior, or at least a very desperate one, to have been able to kill a beast god in combat. Even so, you can't stop the disappointment seeping into your limbs, a frown forming on your face. "And so he cursed you, and gave you his strength?" Doesn't anyone gain power the old-fashioned way anymore?
She grimaces. "Am not controlling. Hate is eating, um," she taps a finger on her collarbone, searching for a word, "eating soul? Asura is very angry. I am dying."
This village woman had strength enough to wipe Star Clan and the Empire both from the earth and rule the country if she wanted, but she was simply the victim of a vengeful god. "Everyone dies eventually," you reply, tilting your head towards the dead men in the dark before slouching further against the tree. Following her had been a waste of your time. Her power was gifted, not sought, and that isn't how you want to find strength. "So what are you doing on this side of the mountains? Apart from... beheading thieves."
Face darkening, the Eastlander seems genuinely troubled by killing those men, though you can't fathom why- it was their own fault for picking their battles poorly. She says nothing about it though, instead reaching inside some hidden pocket in her clothes. "Having no home, now." Then she pulls out a stone as dark as her fingers.
"Knowing this from where?" she asks, offering it to you. "Stone is what making demon god."
You recognize it before you even pick it out of her hand- Sephtis, sitting pretty in his rebuilt fortress, is the only one in the Western Territories with weapons capable of firing bullets like this one, and he is certainly the one who had driven Asura away from Raskogr. Stifling a laugh, you nod. "Have a map?"
You regret you won't be able to see the look on the Lord of Iron Town's face when the vessel of a demon's revenge appears on his doorstep.
\\
There is no appropriate time of day to sneak into a hive filled with assassins, so you hadn't bothered with any stealth.
Carmine has a knee mashing against your neck and shoulder, pinning you to the floor of White Star's quarters with your bad arm locked in the air.
Star Clan's second in command is a grizzled man with long legs and a solid barrel of a belly. The man is cunning, specializing in ambushes, vicious traps, and mind games. An assassin didn't grow as old as Carmine without having quick wits; a shame his son hadn't been gifted any of them.
As cunning as he is, you're still stronger and faster, and the only reason you allowed him to overtake you was for the quick and direct escort to your sire without being ambushed by anyone else on the way there. "What, no poison?" you taunt, mouth gritty from the floor. Blood drips from Carmine's jaw, pooling on rough-hewn stone close enough for you to smell it. You hadn't gone down without a fight- you were certain to give him a parting gift from Jasper.
He digs his fingers into your wounded shoulder and you grind your teeth together.
"So you didn't abandon us," White Star says out of your line of sight. It sounds as if he's enjoying a particularly juicy meal.
You huff against the floor. "We were overrun by Imperials. I had to make a detour, but I've done as you've ordered."
Your sire says nothing, but must have given a signal to Carmine, because the man digs his knee further into your neck in tense rage. "But my son-
"Leave," the Warbringer growls, the room seeming to chill from his voice alone. More amiably, or at least less on the brink of murder, he says, "Have no doubt. We will avenge Jasper Star and all our Clan lost at Riohdr."
Carmine slowly reaches down and proceeds to rip off the top of your bloody left ear, finishing the job his son had started before releasing you and stalking out of White Star's quarters. Swallowing a hiss, you pick yourself off the floor, holding a hand to your ear to stem the bloodflow. This is when you are shocked to discover that the loud eating noises had not come from your father, but from the kindred mouse he usually kept in a cage. She's in some hideous state of in-between, not as large as a human, not as small as a beast, pupils massive and nearly overtaking her eyes as she ravenously feasts on a bit of roasted meat still on the bone. To make everything even more bizarre, she's sitting in White Star's lap like a child-sized pet, grotesque mouse-hands trembling around her meal as she rips into tendons with overlarge incisors.
The Warbringer looks at you blandly, offering no explanation and daring you to ask at your own risk. "I uh… found your book," you say, digging through your supply bag one-handed. You toss the heavy thing on his desk, feeling somewhat empty without its constant weight. "It's in the beastling's tongue."
"I did not expect otherwise," he replies. The book looks unnatural, its intricate designs out of place in White Star's grim and gnarled hands- though you'd rather look at that than the twitchy, half-shifted kindred sitting on his thigh. To the beast, he says, "Tell me which one," and you get gooseflesh up your arms and legs at the lack of command in his tone. You have never once heard him speak pleasantly to anyone, much less a meal, which makes the whole scene that much more riddled with perversion.
White Star opens the book with a blank expression, turning the yellowed pages at a slow and steady pace and watching the beastling for any reaction. While doing this he says, "You are to be executed, by the way."
You realize, after a short pause, that he's addressing you. "What?" It wouldn't be the first time you've been sentenced to death, though obviously it has never been carried out. But the way your sire says this - less like a threat and more like another item on the daily agenda - makes your heart pick up speed. Your eyes search the dark corners of his room for lurking threats. "I did what you told me to do," you remind him.
He turns another page. "Carmine seems to believe you betrayed the Clan at Riohdr-"
"Carmine also believed his spawn would be the next chief," you counter.
"-and that you took advantage of the confusion to murder his son," he says with a smile, as if you've done him a favor. You suppose, with Jasper dead, that there's one less kin-thirsty disaster walking around eating everything in sight, but you're not one to take credit for things you haven't accomplished. Like betrayal.
Exasperated, you spit out, "I didn't kill that idiot, I tried to save him!" You angrily press at the aching split between your jaw and ear. "Listen, Arachne has some new lapdog, and he's more skilled than the majority of the Clan- Jasper was bloodlusting heavy in Riohdr, but this swordsman cut him down like an infant." Your mouth shuts before you can add the part where Maka had finished the job and nearly took out the swordsman afterward, as you don't want to delve into that mess if don't have to. Trying to explain sharing a camp with a kin-lover in Clan territory without killing or even robbing her would bring you more trouble than it's worth. Before you can think of anything else to say, White Star looks away from his pet snack and scrutinizes you, hand paused in his page-turning.
"Was this swordsman light-haired?"
You blink. Every question he's ever asked you has always been loaded or rhetorical, with no right answer and always ending with some sort of violence. You don't see what he's after this time, however, so you answer truthfully. "...Yeah. Undone. I asked if he was the Empress's concubine."
When White Star laughs, you decide all the kinflesh must have finally taken its toll on his sanity.
He says, "That was Mifune, the mercenary. He fought alongside us for a time, then had the audacity to change his alliance." All humor is lost in an instant, and White Star begins turning pages once more. "I am due to meet him again and take his head off his shoulders. The only way to leave the Clan is through a coffin."
You habitually check the dark corners for threats again. "Yeah, about that-"
This is when the kindred in his lap trills unintelligibly, caught between pointing at a gilded page and mashing the haunch of meat further into her mouth. White Star's eyes gleam as he pores over the page, and you wonder how the man who started the Doctrine War can look so excited over a piece of something he has destroyed. "Very good," he says, or maybe praises- you've never heard that before, either- and pushes the book closer to the mouse woman. "Read this carefully, now."
With a manic expression on her partially furred face, the kindred finally stops eating, idly holding the food in her hands while her eyes dart across the text. You become slightly nauseous as your sire gives you a sinister grin, patting the creature on the head as she works.
White Star drawls, "I know you are not the traitor who informed Arachne of our plans. This one," he pats her more firmly, the kindred's neck bobbing with the effort, "had been squealing to her little mouse sister. They are the reason we lost Riohdr."
The Warbringer takes a moment to gently push the haunch of meat in the kindred's paws back up to her mouth. The mouse gnaws unthinkingly, stars swirling in her black eyes.
You have a feeling you know where the sister went. The word 'kishin' pops into your head unbidden, and you recall that unearthly voice telling you that shape doesn't make the beast. You scowl, deliberately ignoring the part of you that wonders how the Eastlander would react if she knew your father feeds kindred to kindred. "If the beastlings are at fault, then why does Carmine want me dead?"
"He doesn't know about them," White Star benignly replies. And, with dread pulling at the hairs on the nape of your neck, it's clear to you that he won't be telling Carmine the truth anytime soon. The only way to leave Star Clan is through a coffin, and your sire appears determined to help you with that.
If Carmine has called for your execution, all sorts of initiates and low-ranking Clan eager for his favor will come calling. Your hands itch for your daggers, your mind running through all possible escape routes before the headhunters come and make things complicated. You've just decided on taking the old mine shafts when the kindred in White Star's lap suddenly tugs on his tunic, pointing at a particular line in the book.
"The Night Stag," she squeaks out, shivering and spitting kinflesh from her mouth as she translates, "th-the Night Stag walks in Raskogr."
At this development, the Warbringer looks nearly delighted. His grin splits his face, something in the back of your mind noting his beast-like appearance. Rewarding the mouse with another cut of her own kind, he turns to you and says, "Good news. I have finally found a use for you, son."
There is only the barest whisper of movement up in the rafters, and you're suddenly deflecting razor-sharp needles headed for your face, relying on reflex. A young woman wrapped in heather-grey gauze and patchwork leather lands on the stone floor with grace. You haven't seen her in some time- not since her first assignment when she came of age.
"Ivory?" you blurt stupidly. She's come to kill you? Now?
She responds with the sound of some grinding mechanism under her cloak, another round of needles bursting forth. You hastily deflect these with your daggers, the needles ricocheting to all corners of your father's quarters, but she uses the distraction against you the same way you had used the tactic on the Eastlander- she's a hair's breadth from you, so much faster than you remember. "Well met, brother," she says as she stabs you right in the inflamed heart of your star tattoo, voice as childlike as it has always been.
As you fall to your knees, your vision tunnelling as poison floods your bloodstream, the Warbringer says, "You are better use to me dead than alive."
Ivory leans over, adding in a sweet whisper, "Everyone dies eventually, Black Star."
\\
In the northernmost part of the Western Territories, there is a massive plateau named Death's Table. It's riddled with all manner of pointy things, like unforgiving nettles, tackweed, buckthorn, and enough juniper to make a grown man cry. It snows nine-tenths of the year there, but that hadn't stopped Star Clan from setting up camp permanently on top, though you think the only reason they hold the territory so well is simply because no one else wants it.
It is somewhere between the stinking boar pens and the sheer drop off the edge of the plateau where you wake up sprawled in an uncomfortable shrub because that is where your half-sister had tossed your unconscious body. Poison never did work on you very long- an assassin without literal intestinal fortitude can scarcely be called one at all- but it's not to say Ivory's handiwork doesn't make you feel rotten while suffering its effects. With uncoordinated limbs, you roll out of the shrub to vomit in the snow, trying to remember what the hell happened in White Star's office.
You've been executed… you think. Cursing, you lift your cloak to see what havoc Ivory had wreaked on your shoulder. Between your hasty sewing job, Carmine's spiteful fingers, and your sister's poisoned needle, the wound isn't in good shape. Your tattoo is swollen, your skin red and hot to the touch.
You wearily flop onto your back, one hand patting for your supply bag to see if there's anything left to your name. To your surprise, you find most of your gear, as well as a note written in your father's hand. You have a battle with your vision before you can make out the words.
It says: "Bring me the head of the Nightwalker in Raskogr, and you shall have your freedom. Until then, Ivory Star will be my eyes. Report to her should you find anything useful. You are dead, so try to stay that way."
Further down the page are presumably excerpts from that damned book you brought him, along with other little bits of information about some Deer God lurking about the forests out west. Honestly, you don't care, too sidetracked by the word 'freedom' to be bothered. You read the the first sentence another four times to ensure you haven't lost your mind.
Not only are you dead to nearly the entire Clan, you have also been given the chance to slay a god. How much more fortuitous can your life become?
You have no idea why your sire wants this god's head or why he is keeping it secret from the entirety of the Clan save you and Ivory, but if he's willing to trade it for your independence, you'll gladly fake ten more executions. The pain in your arm is a distant memory as you sit on the frozen earth and simply laugh.
Your unadulterated excitement is enough to get you up on your shaky legs and down the plateau through one of the old, neglected mineshafts, your stray chuckles bouncing down the tunnels. You sneak away from Death's Table, avoiding Clan patrols and trap runs. The storm is a veritable blizzard now, sending flurries under your cowl as you trudge west through knee-high snow.
Two hours of travel has you at the doorstep of the Black Tower, a giant, skeletal neighbor to Death's Table. This is where White Star had treed the prophet Eibon like a cat at the start of the war, and when the Clan finally broke down its ebony doors and ravaged every floor, they had found the prophet gone, ascended into the arms of heaven like a coward.
Beyond the Tower is the road that will take you straight to the cliffs of Raskogr, but you're tempted to rest here for a bit- Ivory's poison has affected you more than you'd realized. You're actually cold despite having been practically born in the snow and ice, and if you were a lesser man you would admit to feeling dizzy. But you remember that now it's your turn to take a blade and carve out a god's eyes, to fight a worthy opponent without anything to stop you but your own determination- so you keep walking.
It's well past nightfall when you can no longer ignore your fatigue or the deep ache in your right arm. Either that poison is still doing a number on you, or your wound is brewing its own. You need to stop for the night, missions and gods be damned, and it's as you're looking for a place to camp that you nearly stumble across one already made in the shelter of a copse of trees.
You're going to get yourself killed if you can't stay focused. You quietly creep to the shadows, realizing belatedly that the road to Raskogr must not be far at all when you spy the shape of a blanketed horse. It's one of Arachne's glider steeds, bred for long distance travel and tethered to one of the trees.
You had intended on passing the camp by, but if some Imperial lackey is stupid enough to camp so openly in Clan territory, you ought to at least steal something. Careful to avoid the light from the struggling campfire, you stalk around the trees, staying downwind as to not alert the horse. You finally spy a man, but you think Ivory's poison has taken you for another bout because no matter how many times you try to clear your eyes, the man standing by the fire looks like the straw-haired swordsman from Riohdr.
This is a man not to be trifled with, but you can't help but inch closer. He appears to be talking with someone, and you strain your ears to hear him through the winds whistling through the trees.
"Why do you insist on sneaking around so much," he says tiredly, though to whom you cannot say.
"I won't sing for her, Mif," a young girl's voice replies, to your surprise. Mifune the mercenary, your sire had named him. It is the swordsman, after all- but why on earth is a little girl his traveling companion? Is she his get? "I don't like it."
"Neither do I."
"See? And you're old. You gots to have someone protect you." The swordsman grumbles something you can't hear and stalks away, sitting on a felled log and drawing a blisteringly-new sword for inspection. Then the girl says, "Can I practice my words with that paper she gave you?"
"Do not lose it," the man replies, pulling what looks to be a missive from an inner pocket of his cloak.
You see a tiny girl with strawberry blond hair bound into the light, retrieving the note and using the campfire to read by. "Her Imperial Majesty, the Ssssov-"
"Sovereign," Mifune supplies.
"-Sauv-rin Empress Arachne, does entreat Lord Septhis of Iron Town, with the aid of the swordsman Mifune, to track and e-lim-in-ate? The beast known as the Night Stag." Your breath catches in your throat; evidently Arachne also wants the head of this god, which is not good news. The girl then asks, "What does 'compensation' mean?"
The mercenary pauses his stoic scrutiny of his weapon. "It is a reward given to someone for doing something they would rather not."
A silence passes between the man and the girl that you cannot interpret. She then goes on to read the rest of the missive, describing the terms by which Arachne intends to bribe Sephtis to do her dirty work. If the Lord of Iron Town takes her offer- which is, admittedly, lucrative- not only would the near impregnable fortress have formed an alliance with the Clan's enemy, but you would also have to compete with a skilled swordsman and a town with firepower enough to combat huge beasts for the head of the Night Stag.
The best thing you can do is kill these two to prevent them from getting in your way, earning you some time to work until Arachne sends out another emissary. In your current state, however, you're not certain you could come out of that battle in one piece, even if you ignored the illogical voice in your mind that protests attacking both a skilled warrior and a child underhandedly; you have no room for that kind of risk or unprofessionalism. You decide to bide your time and wait for the two to retire for the night so that you can steal Arachne's missive as well as the horse, which should delay the mercenary for a while.
Staying still for so long drops your body temperature to nearly unbearable levels, and you can only muster enough control to stop your shivering in the sparse moments the wind dies down before howling again. Your temples pound with your pulse, and you would give a lot of things to be able to cut off your arm so you could stop feeling the awful ache twisting around your bones.
Your mind wanders, even if you try your best not to let your concentration lapse. You find yourself wondering about the Eastlander and if she's made it to Iron Town and levelled it to the ground. It's unfortunate that she cannot control the power given to her, but it would make your life a lot easier if, when you arrive in Raskogr, the town were simply gone and the Empress would have to hunt the Night Stag by other means. Not to mention that, after all the Iron Town caravans you've led raids against, Sephtis doubtless knows your face well enough to paint a portrait- if he found out you were hiding in the forest around his fortress, he'd send his army of riflemen after you without blinking.
You don't know when your eyes closed, but when you open them you realize Mifune has curled up near the fire, asleep. Your legs vibrate with pain as you slowly, slowly stand out of your crouch and creep towards the camp. The glider horse does not scent you, and if he hears your steps, he doesn't give so much as a sigh.
You're a few paces away from the sleeping mercenary when you realize you can't see the girl. There is a lump under his cloak, however, pressed against his back. Good - she's out of your way so you can stealthily search him for Arachne's missive. Sliding your hand beneath the cloth, your cold-numb fingers seek out where that inner pocket should be. With a steady, gentle touch, your fingertips pinch around the rough paper and slide it out.
Once it's free of the man's cloak, you give it a quick glance to make sure it is truly what you want- only to find that you are staring into your empty hand. You feel a weight there, but you see nothing.
"I remember you from the border town," says a girlish voice, and suddenly a lizard bleeds green in your hand, scales dry and flakey.
You quickly curse and fling it away in surprise before you realize you've been fooled. The lizard lands off to the side, rolling into a human shape with an undignified squeal, and suddenly there's the metallic whistle of a sword coming for your throat. You only just manage to deflect it, your arm igniting with the effort. Backing away from the awakened mercenary, you exclaim, "Is everyone a kinlover now?!"
Mifune snarls, "You will not take her, cannibal," and you offer a rather harried smile, on the defense from his lightning-quick attacks.
"So you remember me, too. I'm- hurgh- glad," you bite out, trying to find your footing. In your peripheral, you can see his spooked horse kicking and dancing in fear, and you try to avoid going near those hooves. The man's strikes jar your arms as you defend yourself with your daggers; he swings with much more fury and force than he had in Riohdr. "Sorry to disappoint, Imperial dog, but I didn't come for the beastling." You attempt a strike near his thigh- your first offensive attack- but he meets it with ease, countering with a stab that comes alarmingly close to your innards. "Give me Arachne's letter and I won't tell the Clan about the tasty pet you're keeping in their domain."
The look of undiluted hatred he gives you could easily measure up to White Star's eternal glower when you are in his sight. "You can't speak if you have no head-"
You roll out of the way of his singing sword, and you're dismayed to find that the world continues to spin in your eyes when you are back on your feet. You need to end this quickly before you make a fatal misstep and get carved like Jasper. Hurling a handful of metal spikes in the mercenary's direction, you kick at the campfire, knocking glowing coals into his face.
He cringes away for only the barest moment, his skin still burning as he comes for you, but you are already upon the girl. She tries to evade you by smoking back to her lizard body and pulling that disappearing act, but you're on to her tricks- no one knows how to vanish better than an assassin. She's mouthy, squirming and cursing you impressively as you hold her by the tail.
Mifune halts in his tracks when you press a dagger against the tiny creature. His sword gleams in the firelight, bits of his cloak still smoldering from coals.
"Come closer and she loses the tail," you announce, blinking away your dizziness. "I dunno what she'd lose in her human disguise, seeing as we don't have those, but I'll bet it's probably something important."
The fury on the man's face slowly vanishes, replaced by an unreadable look, narrow eyes still as glass.
You say, "Give me the missive and the beastling lives."
Your vision is blurring- you can't decide if that is anger or confusion he wears. He opens his mouth to say something, but the lizard in your hand interrupts him. "I'm alright, Mifune," she says proudly. "I can si-"
"No," the mercenary says emphatically. "It's fine." You don't know what exactly this kindred thinks she can do against you, but it matters not. Mifune slowly reaches beneath his cloak and pulls out the rolled paper you'd wanted in the first place. He tosses it on the ground at your feet.
Chameleon still in hand, you keep a wary eye on the man as you bend to retrieve it. The earth seems to lurch beneath your feet when you stand. Taking a steady breath, you add, "I'll be taking your horse, as well. Untie it."
Mifune calms and frees the beast, stepping away far enough to grant you a wide out of reach from his sword. "Release her," he warns, the tip of his weapon ever pointed at you.
You keep your back away from his eyes as you edge towards the horse. Only when you have the reins within reach do you sheathe your dagger and hurriedly toss the lizard kindred to him. He catches her with such devoted care that you're already on the horse's back and escaping out of sight before he can attempt retaliation.
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