five_ Risk
Thane
\\
Every decision you make seems to put your home at more risk. Not only is the Warbringer's son a guest in Iron Town, but now an Aranei swordsman has joined as well.
Claws digging into your skin because you lack the padded armor Ox has, Harvar perches on your shoulder, looking down at the paper on the table and crow-muttering in anger. You have already heard about this missive- Ox summarized it when you made accommodations for the kindred girl and her caretaker.
"I trust my healer has seen to you well," you say, gesturing to Medusa, who had escorted the concussed man to your office and now lurks near the doorway. "A miracle you survived that avalanche." Even more a miracle that you hadn't been caught in it yourself.
The swordsman bows his bandaged head. "Yes, my lord, she has. Thank you."
"A question, first: what does Arachne want with the head of the Nightwalker?"
Mifune's face seems a shade more ragged. "It is not for me to say."
Ox huffs loudly at that, armor creaking as he shifts his weight.
"I must discuss these terms with my advisors. You and the young girl are welcome to stay until you are well, but do not consider my hospitality as any sign of agreement or acquiescence on this matter."
"Understood, my lord. We are grateful."
The moment Medusa sees the man out, Harvar darts off your shoulder and twists into smoking shadows to stand opposite the table. "Why are we even discussing this," he says, hidden under his cowl.
"It is a tempting offer," says Ox, picking up the missive and frowning at it again. "For idiots."
You absently fiddle with the splints on your broken wrist. "You don't think she'd keep her word?"
Harvar pushes the hood off his head and blurts, "That's the part that troubles you?"
"She'd keep her word to the letter," Ox replies over the kindred. "She'd pamper you and then ask for something in return, like borrowing our riflemen, say. And then turn them on us and claim it's for our protection."
You nod, glad to have your own suspicions affirmed from someone else. "Of course that's not what troubles me," you say gently to Harvar, hoping to ease his agitation. "What truly is the Nightwalker? Why would she want his head?"
The corners of his mouth pulling into a grim line, Harvar says, "Killing Masamune would not be like killing Asura. The Nightwalker balances the scales; think for a moment what kind of chaos would happen if a god of death were destroyed. As for his head- I don't know."
"Perhaps I can give some insight?" asks Medusa from the door, returned from escorting the swordsman. You feel Harvar and Ox both give you cautious glances, but you wave her in.
"I did not come to eavesdrop," she assures the two of them, rubbing her hands together to ward off the chill from outside. "First, I must warn you of my sister. For many years, she has done unspeakable experiments on kindred, farseers, and even Maaba- rest her soul- to escape the hands of death."
Medusa glances meaningfully over to Harvar, whose eyes are uncharacteristically wide. "Thane," he says, whipping his head to you. "We cannot let her take him-"
"Why, what use is his head?" Ox demands.
"It is believed the Deer God has immense powers of healing and everlasting life," says the healer, pausing to let that sink in. To you directly, she says, "The crow is right- you must not allow the Nightwalker to fall in Arachne's hands. My sister intends to become a god."
\\
No longer able to be left alone, Sephtis had been moved to the long building that serves as Iron Town's hospital. He and all the others cursed by Asura's burns are closed off behind thick curtains, separated from those with more mundane ailments.
Only you and Medusa are allowed to pass through the curtains, but you are the only one present when your father becomes violent. He's unable to control his limbs and laughter, flailing and knocking over dishes and vials, and your broken wrist doesn't exactly help when you try to restrain him.
"Somebody, help!" You fear no one will investigate, assuming your cry to be the crazed hallucinations of a cursed patient, or perhaps too fearful of being infected by Asura's curse to look between the curtains at all. "Anyone, please!" you shout over your shoulder, one of your father's elbows knocking you nearly dead-center in the ear. Bright lights spark in your vision as you wince, but then you notice someone pushing hurriedly the curtain aside and striding into the room.
It's the swordsman. Mifune stops in his tracks when he sees the state of the room, eyes slowly scanning over the numerous patients sporting stained bandages and black burns. His face does not show any trace of surprise or fear, but his shoulders rise and fall as his breathing picks up speed. Then he sees you grappling with Sephtis in the far corner of the room. He steps forward.
"No," you yell, trying to use your weight to keep your father still. "Please get Medusa!" You want to explain he isn't allowed in the room, but you're preoccupied and have just been slapped in the mouth. You're relieved when the swordsman quickly spins on a heel and leaves with purpose.
Many of the cursed are rousing, the hospital filling with a chorus of wailing as Sephtis's deranged laughter sets everyone else off in fits of hysterics. With only one fully functioning hand, you struggle to prevent your father from hurting you as well as himself, and you are grateful when help arrives. You look to Medusa, but are surprised to find the straw-haired swordsman instead.
Before you can protest, he says, "Angela went to fetch her," and firmly pries Sephtis's hands away from your clothes.
Well, if the man is not afraid of becoming infected, you'll accept his help for the moment. "Hold him down," you hear yourself say, calm and authoritative as if the black blood seeping from under your father's mask and fingernails isn't the least bit disturbing. Mifune helps you secure Sephtis's arms and legs to the cot, and by the time you are finished, Medusa has arrived.
She comes with a draught of some kind, but your father refuses to drink it. He only calms after you press a medicated sponge to the mouth and nose holes of his mask, its fumes dragging him into a deep sleep.
Once Sephtis is pacified, you help Medusa with the countless other patients in the room, calming or drugging them until the din of the cursed has died down to an acceptable murmur of agonized groans. It takes the better part of an hour, and you find the swordsman has left at some point during the ordeal; you will have to seek him out and thank him for his assistance later. You tiredly sit on a stool next to your father, arm and ribs aching. You gently wipe away the black blood from his hands with a damp cloth.
Beside you, Medusa is once more working, cutting long, spindly logs of rolled herbs and glycerine into swallowable pills. Quietly, she says, "I fear this sickness is beyond my humble knowledge, Thane."
You nod. All the knowledge in the world is likely not enough to doctor a curse from a god. You do not blame her for your father's lack of improvement.
When you lift your father's mask, there is so little left of his features that you are hard-pressed to remember what he had looked like, before. You gingerly dab at his face with the cloth, though too much agitation only makes the black skin crack and bleed further.
Is this what Sephtis deserved for raising his hand to the gods? Had he earned this torturously slow death with his decisions? You do not wish to be heedless of the forces in Raskogr, but it is unbearable to sit and watch your father suffer for making the choice to keep you and your people alive. You don't know how right or wrong should look anymore.
Checking over her shoulder for any eavesdroppers, Medusa then leans slightly towards you, one hand near the edge of her mouth to dampen her voice. "I know I said we should keep the Nightwalker out of Arachne's hands, but I wonder, my lord, if those healing powers might serve a better purpose?"
It would be a lie to say this thought hadn't already swirled temptingly through your thoughts before now. You wonder if every decision one makes shapes one's life, or if believing as much is to simply play into fate's hands. In a hospital room filled with the ever-suffering consequences of angering the gods, you consider the price of the greater good.
You wipe your father's mask clean and replace it.
Maka
\\
You remember an early memory of sitting by the fire pit; you'd spent most of your life by that fire, hadn't you? When you learned Papa's stories, or taught Tsugumi how to scale fish and shuck corn, it was always with flames warming your face. And it was by the fire that you have the last memory of your mother smiling.
You'd been listening to her animatedly tell a story to a small group of neighbors, making a joke you were too young to grasp, though you were laughing along anyway because you wanted to feel grown. While the other adults continued to laugh, you watched your mother's smile suddenly evaporate from her face, her eyes going wide as she looked to the western sky.
"What troubles you, Suzume?" a man had asked. She did not answer. Skin going pale, she slid her hand up her shoulder and neck, fingers disappearing under her tawny hair. You cried out, alarmed, as she forcibly ripped out a fistful of it. When she brought her hand forward, her fingers were tangled with feathers.
You recall the shape of them so clearly, their fragile shafts gently curving out of the gaps between Mama's fingers, tufts of white and brown and grey lit orange by the fire, but when you try to remember what color her wide eyes had been, before they would become as blue as the sky that stole her away, Asura takes the memory from you.
It is the gods who take, he tells you as you desperately grasp after the empty blank where your mother's face had been. His thoughts runs through you, your blood teeming with bitter voices. We are betrayed. Now we take from them.
There is power rushing in all parts of your body, your throat hoarse as you scream. He is no better than the other gods, taking your eyes so you know neither who you attack nor if they even stand a chance at surviving. What is happening? Where are you? What have you been doing?
You suddenly remember the forest and the strange people you have just met. You try to claim your rage back for yourself, but the demon's hold on you is strong, and he keeps you far from the reach of the waking world.
What if you wake up from this only to find the blood of innocent people on your hands? You need Blade to punch you in the face. Maybe you should carve out your own eyes, blinding Asura once again-
Just as you think this, the demon's anger is suddenly replaced by confusion. It's a moment of weakness, and you seize it, shoving Asura to the depths while you reclaim your body. You gain control of your mouth with a gasp, choking out, "Wolves protect, lizards conserve," as you open your eyes.
You are met with absolute darkness. Knife dropping from your hand, you cry out, vision burning with tears as you try to find anything to see. You fear you've truly cut out your eyes, but they are still there when you nervously touch your face. You slowly lower to your knees in the snow, feeling around with your hands and praying you don't find anyone else's body parts.
"...Crona?" you ask the unforgiving dark.
Cold metal touches your cheek, and you turn to stone. "Do not move," says a deep voice in the Old Tongue.
Swallowing thickly, that blade steadily tracing up your face, you say, "Please. Have I hurt anyone? Is my elk alright?"
The weapon carefully pushes back the hood you wear, the winter air chilling your head. You hear footsteps crunching through snow, and you gasp when warm hands touch your face. They tilt your head up, burning fingers gingerly pulling down your lower eyelids. You struggle to blink, staring into the dark while a cold breeze dries the tears your eyes. You hear Crona nicker somewhere to the right, but when you try to turn your head, those hands hold you still.
"Don't," the man growls in Common. You realize it is the one who was riding the wolf. "Hold still." He tilts your head this way and that, then loudly announces, "Green."
It's Stein's voice that drawls, "You can let her go, Tsubaki."
You wince and cry out when the world snaps into painful existence, bright light reflecting off white snow. The man still holds you steady, and you blindly grasp his arms until you can see clearly again. Your eyes slowly focus on the stranger with fangs, a wolf's skull nestled around his face. His cheeks are painted in streaks of red, bright as the ruby birds in your village, and you're startled to see that his eyes match the hue.
He is not pleased to see you. Releasing you unceremoniously, he backs away, retrieving a polearm from the ground. He keeps this pointed at you, on guard. The wolf god pads up behind him, pointed ears focused on your every movement.
Head free, you anxiously check your hands. The bandages you keep wrapped around them aren't stained in blood, at least. You eyes tear up with relief. Crona picks his way through the snow and presses his face into your chest, and you wrap your arms around him.
"Ah!" Abruptly, you pull away. Elizabeth is not on his back. "Liz!"
"I'm fine!" Over your shoulder, you see her held upright by a woman with hair as golden as the sun- with that missing eye, she must be Marie. "A-are you alright?"
Unable to answer that question, you give a vague shrug. Worried, you ask, "What happening? I hurting people?"
You turn back to the man with fangs when he says, "Tsubaki fell into your eyes. She stopped your rage."
"Su-ba...?" You unthinkingly reach for your face, recalling that infinite darkness.
"We are unharmed," says a voice like midnight. You bolt to your feet, Crona tossing his head in alarm. There is a figure standing in the corner of your eye, but when you turn to see it, it stays out of sight, forever in that far edge of vision.
"Who? What?" You turn in place, snow crunching under your feet.
Angrily, the man says, "That is what we should be asking!" It's his turn to spin about. "Stein! Stop hiding or I will stop stealing coffee for you, coward! Why do you escort a demon through the Nightwalker's forest?!"
You think you hear Marie snort behind you.
"She is no demon, though she bears the curse of one," says that voice again, tingling in your ears. "This woman is Maka, of the Eastlands Grigori."
This is twice today that someone has named the village that your father works to keep hidden from the world. "How knowing this? How knowing name?" you demand, warily backing into your elk's neck.
There is no laughter, but the mysterious voice seems somewhat amused when it replies, "You are the Demonsbane. All the heavens whisper of you, daughter of the brightest winged."
Everyone in the small clearing stands in stunned silence before the man with red eyes blurts, "She's what?"
\\
The man with the wolf skull lurks in the doorway to Stein's hut, refusing to be in the house any longer than he must so long as you and Elizabeth are in it.
"Are you sure you won't have some supper with us, Soul?" Marie asks, holding up a bowl of stew in her paws.
With a scowl, he replies, "I helped you bring the woman inside. You've asked enough of me."
Marie looks at you and gestures to the man. "This is Soul- he is part of the Wolf God tribe here. They protect the forest."
You give a wary glance to Soul. He seems to hold a healthy disdain for humankind despite looking more like you than a wolf or a god. He huffs at your inspection, the bridge of his nose scrunching. To Stein, he asks, "Has Moro been here?"
Slowly but surely, Stein wraps Elizabeth's ankle in a tight bandage. "She has not. I don't suspect she will come for a few days."
"You've seen this?"
"I have."
Soul growls angrily, shutting the door behind him as he leaves without a word.
Sweating with pain, Liz says grips the edges of the cot she's propped up in and says, "Wh-what does he mean? What have you seen?"
"Is seeing future, yes?" you ask, taking the bowl Marie now offers to you. "Talking with gods."
On all fours, Marie walks the few short steps it takes to get to the door and slaps the latch shut with too much force. Her ears flatten, surprised. "Oops. But yes," she says, returning to the cookpot on the wood stove, "Stein is from a long line of farseers. Some divine the future through meditation, dancing, or even simply by dreaming. ...He can only see it when he's looking through internal organs."
Elizabeth's complexion becomes green in the face. Leaning as far away from the man as she can, she asks, "So what you mean to say is, when you 'knew' we were coming, it was 'cause you saw us in someone's guts?"
"A pheasant, to be specific."
You pause as you bring the bowl of stew to your lips, trying to remember what 'pheasant' means.
"How does one even discover such a talent?"
"When you have hallucinations every time you perform surgery on a wounded soldier, you begin to notice a pattern," Stein says blandly. "The Empress tried to augment my farsight through various experiments, which is how I became… as I am." He gestures vaguely to his hunched-over figure and bony limbs. "She ripped Maaba's eye from her face and used it to manipulate the kindred to 'bless' me in various ways. Now my soul leaks out."
You do not understand every word Stein has just said, but you think you caught the majority of it, eyes widening. The young woman points a trembling finger at the trail of smoke coming out of Stein's empty eye socket, unable to voice her question.
"Yes," he answers. He then lifts a long sleeve up his forearm, another plume swirling out of his skin. "Here too."
Elizabeth quietly presses her face into the wall with a groan. Marie says, "Actually it used to only be the one spot, but then the Brightwinged asked for Stein's eye, so he gave it to her."
Your hands clench around the bowl in your hands. "You are knowing my mother?"
Looking for you over his thin shoulder, he says, "I cannot see very far, but piece by piece we have slowly been preparing for whatever it is that has made the gods stir. The Brightwinged shows me these glimpses of the future, and she showed me you."
\\
Four days later, Soul and his wolf-god brother, Wes, return- though the man still refuses to come inside despite the lure of fried eggs.
"You're letting all the heat out," Liz complains, leaning towards the wood stove. Her cheeks are rosy, looking much better with food and rest. "I don't like it any better'n you, so let's just get the trip over with."
Soul harrumphs.
Stein sips a steaming mug of coffee, his hand slowly melding into the ceramic. He hunches over like an ancient man, his soul squiggling out of his exposed arm. "It is only fair. It was your raid on the caravan that injured Elizabeth and separated her from her family. If you don't want them in the forest, take them where they belong," he says with a faint smile.
The other man grumbles, looking pointedly away and focusing on giving you a displeased look because you have come to be on good terms with his giant wolf brother. The snow-white god squeezes his head into the too-small doorway and licks honey off your fingers with swipes of his tongue. You can't feel the warmth of it, but it does tickle, a little.
The wolf doesn't budge when Soul uses a shoulder in an attempt to knock him away. "Stop that licking, she is tainted."
The wolf speaks in Common almost as poorly as you do. "Sister only having scars. Brother having scars, is not tainted."
Soul sighs, rubbing his chest through layers of leather. "She is not your sister."
"Why?" the wolf argues then, this time in the Old Tongue, while accepting a fluffy biscuit from you. Loudly chewing, he says, "She is much nicer to me than you."
"Stop eating everything! You are more pig than wolf."
"'Stop, stop, stop', that is all you ever say. A snail is more exciting than you. Besides, we should take them. We broke that woman's leg and ...other leg."
"Arm-"
"Whatever."
Annoyed at the switch in language, Liz groans. "They're doing it again."
"-and we owe nothing to humans! They shot Mother."
"A human shot Mother, but it was not that one." The wolf snuffles Soul's face, much to his annoyance. "Where are your eyes? Has Tsubaki blinded you as well?"
Rubbing his face with a hand, Soul pushes the god away and reverts to Common. "In any case, we did not come here to be travel guides. We want to know if you have seen Mother."
Marie looks up from drizzling more honey over another biscuit. "Still can't find her?"
Wes's ears droop at this, a whine tinging his words. "We are thinking she comes here, so Stein can fish out the bad stone."
"I am very sorry, boys, but Moro hasn't come to see us," Marie says.
Soul makes an angry noise in the bottom of his throat. "What is she doing? If she lets it fester..."
"Moro is too proud to become a demon," says Stein, staring intently at his coffee as he sets it on a table and attempts to separate from it. "Do not compare her to the likes of the salamander."
"Ah-" You nearly drop your wooden plate of food, pieces of a puzzle suddenly fitting together. Hatred that doesn't belong to you lurks just beneath the surface of your heart, and you hurriedly dig in your pockets for the black bullet that had started this journey of yours. You present it to Soul and Wes. "Being hurt by this?"
The wolf sniffs it, growl rumbling through the earthen floor of Stein's home. Anger clouds Soul's features. "More than hurt- it might be killing her. Where did you get that?"
"Asura." Simply saying his name aloud brings him nearer, and you mutter the virtues under your breath. "Please. Bringing me to man who is making this."
Soul's distrust of humans is evident in his glower. "Why?"
Glowing tail of smoke spinning with interest, Stein peers at you from his dining table. "I imagine our 'demonsbane' has a bone to pick with Iron Town."
You do not understand what he means by picking bones, and neither does Elizabeth, evidently. Sipping a draught of Joy's Tears sweetened with honey, the woman slurs, "None of this secret demon talk makes any sense, but this means you're takin' us to town, right?"
The red-eyed man growls and squeezes around his brother's furry head to leave the doorway.
Wes's ears perk behind him for a moment before his mouth falls open, tongue lolling. "That is meaning yes," he says.
\\
Soul and Wes lead you around the mountain and through the thick forests of Raskogr. They keep some distance ahead of you, Soul unwilling to share conversation though you are in want of anyone who can understand the language of the Old Ones. You do eventually have to call for his help getting Elizabeth off Crona's back when she needs to relieve herself.
Afterward, as you help her limp back to where the others wait, the woman asks, "Why did you come rescue me, anyway? I'm just a brothel girl. I can't repay you, you know."
You furrow your brows, steadying the taller woman in the slick snow. "Word not knowing, br.. brothel?"
She laughs at that, which only makes you more confused. "A brothel is a place where men pay money to sleep between a woman's legs." When she sees how hot your face becomes, she says wryly, "Sure you don't wanna leave me here?"
"No!" You can't simply abandon someone in need. The Western Territories must be even more barbaric than you've already believed. "I am helping because..." You are hard-pressed to express a reason for that in your own language, much less in Common. "Hurt. And alone. No people wanting alone."
Very quietly, Elizabeth says, "There's some truth to that." You help her along a narrow animal trail, and Crona, Wes, and Soul come into view. The man looks like he'd rather be anywhere else on earth, though he still stands by your elk, waiting to help you with Liz. "Thank you, though. You and those weird people saved my life."
"Ah-" That had never occurred to you, but you are suddenly glad to know you've been able to save a life rather simply spare it from your own violence. "W-welcome," you nervously say. "Sorry I am demon. Being afraid for demons, yes?"
"You're no demon, Maka," Liz laughs. "You just gotta bad temper."
You shake your head as the two of you walk to the rest of your traveling party. "No, I am danger! Near me is risk."
Liz gives you a bright smile, her good hand stroking your elk's winter coat. "Crona will protect me. Won't you, kid?"
The elk blows through his nose, bending his legs and lowering to the ground. You and Soul help her climb on Crona's back. Once Liz is secure and the elk is back on his feet, you're surprised to see Soul walking nearby while Wes takes the lead.
"Anyway," Liz says, hissing as she adjusts her splinted ankle for the ride, "That shadow was much scarier than you."
"Oh! You are seeing it? I not."
Elizabeth shivers at the mere thought. "Yeah. It kept changing shape, like some kind of ghost."
"She," Soul interjects, annoyed, "is no ghost. Tsubaki is the Nightwalker's sister. They are the gods who rule this forest."
"I've heard of the Deer God- he's even more frightening."
"What's there to be frightened of? He heals our injuries, and he bears our souls to heaven when we die."
Elizabeth shakes her head vigorously. "Those are two very different things! This place is too much for me and I'll be glad to be out of it."
"I am sure they will be glad when you are gone as well," he replies blandly. Then, giving you a narrow-eyed glance over his shoulder, he asks, "Are you truly the daughter of the Brightwinged?"
You halt in your tracks, surprised not by the question but by the sudden anger that wells in you, and how unsure you are as to whether it belongs to you or the demon. Crona nudges your back with his nose, and you awkwardly resume walking. "...Yes. But, Mama not bird, before. Gods changing her into bird." You carefully glance at Soul's teeth, his wild-looking hair as white as his brother's fur. You wonder if the gods have called him too.
"But she can change back, right? Like Marie does," Liz asks.
You shake your head. "Flying away. I am not seeing her again."
"Oh." The woman frowns, back straightening with a sudden realization. "And you were cursed for killin' that big demon that tore up everything? That's cruel. Are the gods even on your side?"
Your eyes grow wide. It's the first you have ever heard the words in the deepest part of your heart said aloud, but Soul says, "Of course they are," walking unerringly forward. He scowls briefly at Elizabeth, clearly finding the notion ridiculous. "They chose her because they think she can carry the burden. The gods don't make creatures suffer for sport- that is something humans do."
Wes stops at a line of tall trees, waiting for you and the others to catch up. Pointing his massive snout to the horizon, he says, "Big fire is burning again."
Through the trees you see a great stretch of land freckled with snow-covered tree stumps. In its center lies the largest structure you've ever seen, sharpened logs erected around a tall fortress, plumes of white smoke billowing from its highest peak.
"We cannot take you any farther than this in daylight," Soul says, glaring at the town in the distance. "They will shoot us, otherwise. You must walk the rest on your own."
Elizabeth squeaks when Wes noses her and sniffs around Crona's saddle bags. "There's no food for you, you overgrown mutt!" she complains, wiping slobber off her good arm. She urges Crona into the clearing, out of reach of the god's tongue. "Thanks for the escort, may we never meet again." She waves. "C'mon, Maka, I wanna find my little sister!"
"Yes," you call out in reply, then perform the Bloodless Bow to the wolf god and his human brother. "Thank you," you say in the Old Tongue. "I wish you and your mother good health."
"Ah, wait-" Soul shifts his weight uncomfortably while he and Wes exchange a glance.
"Shiny thing?" the wolf asks.
With a grunt, Soul pulls something out from under one of the many layers of fur he wears. "When we fought, you dropped this."
You take a breath, recognizing the stiff bundle of leather Tsugumi had given you the night of your exile. There is a ragged gash, a glint of polished red wood peeking through the ruined leather.
You almost laugh. Tsugumi gave you something so ridiculously sacred you can hardly imagine the uproar she will have caused. Gingerly, you pull out a delicately carved piece of wood the length of your palm. It is inlaid with bits of loreheart, crystals glittering in the sun.
To your relief, it is not cut or cracked, its hollow center undamaged. Attached to one end is a length of braided cord, and you push back your hood so you can tie the cord around your neck.
Soul stumbles forward suddenly, his brother poking him in the back of the head with a wet nose. "Sorry," he grumbles in Common, handing you the shredded leather. Then he asks in your language, "Um... Did I break it?" He seems genuinely concerned, though he tries to mask it.
"It is safe. Thank you."
"What is it?" Wes asks, his vigorous sniffing blowing the ends of your short hair around.
"It is my tribe's soul catcher. My betr- my friend gave this to me when I was exiled. It is sacred... I wonder why she stole it?" You hold it between your hands, inspecting the tiny carved holes all along its length. A breeze blows across its end and makes a faint whistle. "You play it and call on the spirit world."
"Play?"
You bring the instrument to your lips like you've seen the village chief do, cover a few of the holes with the pads of your fingers, and blow. Wes snarls and Soul hastily slaps his hands over his ears when a horrendous noise screeches out of the instrument. You cover different holes, hoping for some kind of improvement, but the sound only gets worse.
"Stop stop stop!" Soul shouts over your horrible playing.
"What the hell was that?!" Elizabeth cries from the clearing, your elk nervously tossing his head.
"S-sorry! It me!" You bow to Wes and Soul again, embarrassed. "Sorry. I am going now," you blurt, tucking the soul-catcher under your clothes and rushing to catch up with Elizabeth.
\\
You do not like Iron Town's chief of guard. He has a pompous air, parading about in his armor with a black bird on his shoulder like some burly mystic man. You've been told his name is 'Ox', a word you are moderately sure is the same word for a stubborn beast of burden, which seems fitting.
The reunion between Elizabeth and her younger sister is a tearful one, and Patricia hugs you so tightly you nearly forget why you have come here. When you ask Ox if you may yet see the leader of Iron Town, he only says, "He is a very busy man. You must wait."
You growl at him and his awful helmet. A woman named Blair takes it upon herself to show you around the town, eventually bringing you to the forge that stands at the heart of it. It reminds you, vaguely, of the fire pit back home, women working and singing a tune to keep them in a productive rhythm.
"These are my girls," she says proudly. "Patti works here, and when Liz is well, she will too. We are so glad you found her- Patti was sick with grief and we feared the worst."
It is warm and stifling enough in the ironworks that you pull down your mask to breathe. "Happy to be helping," you say, eyes roaming over the enormous forge and the women working to keep it lit. Your gaze falls on a corner of the building, marred with scorch-marks and newly-repaired walls. Something in you stirs, someone else's memories lurking under your skin. "You are liking work?"
Blair's catty eyes immediately see where you are looking. "Yes. We were all brothel ladies, once. Sephtis and Thane have paid our debts, so we now work here as free women. There is no place I would rather be." She is as loyal to this town as any person in your tribe would be to your village. It sets your heart to turmoil.
Before you can ask anything else, Ox calls you over from the massive doorway. The bird on his shoulder inspects you with a shining eye for a moment before flying away. "I am seeing your chief now?" you ask.
"Lord," the guard corrects. He doesn't bother to answer your question, merely turning around and leaving without you. "Hurry up, then." You follow him to a long building not far from the forge, and once you pass through its doors, you stop short.
The building is an infirmary. There are rows of bedrolls filled with injured villagers, and in one row you see Liz and her sister again, the former waving as you pass. You nod and trot to catch up with Ox, who passes by everyone to reach the rear of the room, where a thick grey curtain hangs. He holds open one side and gestures you in. "Do not waste his time," he warns you with a growl.
Inside are even more sick people, and it only takes the barest moment among them for you to realize they are just like you. All of them have bandaged limbs, some from head to toe with black blood seeping through the linens, all whispering thin echoes of the madness you hear in your head.
You see a dark-haired young man with white streaks at his temple standing in the furthest corner of the room. He waits patiently for you, a broken arm held inside his robes like a sling.
"I am Thane," he says quietly as you approach. "You must be Maka. I thank you for delivering Elizabeth to us." He bends low, whispering something into the ear of the man in the cot next to him, and then takes his arm from his robes and proceeds to gently pull a bone-white mask off the man's face. "This is Lord Sephtis, my father. He is unwell, so I serve Iron Town in his stead."
The lord's face is as cursed as your hands- dark as pitch, and cracked with the dry, cold air of winter. Black blood seeps through awful sores, and you know with horrible certainty that he cannot feel the warmth of his own breath.
Hatred threatens to cloud your eyes. Teeth grit, you pull the bullet that poisoned the salamander from your cloak. Your hand clenches around the stone as you fight the urge to destroy what's left of Sephtis's face. "He is shooting god with this?"
Wiping blood from the underside of the mask, Thane says, "Yes."
The gods have led you across the continent to a cot, where the man who has ruined your life lies dying. You want nothing more than to rip him apart and burn the remains.
"Why."
Thane motions with a hand to sit on a nearby stool, but your knees refuse to cooperate. He takes it for himself, instead. "My father created powerful weapons. He and his men felled the forest and built this place as a sanctuary for people to escape the war, and used our hand cannons to keep Star Clan and the Empress away. The town works the ironsands on the shoreline, trading the metal for supplies to stay alive." He glances over your bandaged hands and it's clear he knows you are like the other patients in the room. "Asura was furious."
The curse rages in you, memories flickering behind your eyes. You can taste the smoke, can feel your crimson hands touching the walls of the city and painting it in fire, can hear the distinct sound of a bullet shot by this man entering your chest.
Thane says, "I hear you were the one who slayed the demon he became. I should like to thank you for the deed, but I fear doing so would be offensive to not only you but also the gods." He gently replaces the mask on his father's face. "The salamander was right in his anger for what we did to his home… though I do not think my father was wrong to save us from him."
Your blood roars in your ears. "Shooting god, many lives destroying," you accuse.
"Yes," Thane replies, hand clenching around the splints on his wrist. "And it is our fault. Would that I were the Nightwalker and could give those lives back. Many people think we should slay the rest of the gods to bring peace, but I do not wish for us to be prosperous at the expense of more life."
Your breath comes out in a ragged sigh. Soul had said you were chosen for this task, but you don't know what it is. You identify with Asura's agony yet you also see yourself too easily in these people loyal to their own, and the lack of evil to direct your hatred towards makes your insides pull apart.
"Maka, we have caused a catastrophe, but still I must ask you to not kill my father. Surely you know what it is to protect those dearest to you."
The perfectly round bullet in your hand cracks, your cursed hand crushing it to dust. "I am not killing dying man," you say hoarsely, desperate to keep yourself out of Asura's reach. "I am protecting life, n-not... not taking-"
You whirl away, bolting past the guard and through the curtains, blundering through rows of the infirm to flee out the door. Your ears are filled with the screams of the girls in the forge, but that is Asura's memory, along with the flames licking every wall, the felled battlements and charred soldiers. You slip along the slush outside the infirmary building, sliding to sit on an upended barrel and holding your head in your aching hands.
Despite having found the source of the disaster that brought the demon god across the continent to find you, you still hear him, Asura's hatred gnawing your soul to almost nothing.
You cannot swallow this fate the gods have given you.
"Bears are born from strength," you groan into your hands. You screw your eyes shut, trying to block out all the demon's demands for revenge. What comes after bears? You picture your father by the fire pit, his hands casting shadows like wings on a hanging cloth. Crows. "Crows are made from..."
You can't remember.
"Crows are made from wisdom," sings a high voice carried on the wind. You whip your face up from your palms and find a girl approaching you, eyes like the sky and frizzy, red-blonde hair twisting like an untamed flame. "Wolves protect, lizards conserve. Deer live in gentleness, while sparrows breathe with hope." Your head seems to clear dramatically with with her voice, the demon god's many whispers fading away.
"You understand me?" you ask in the Old Tongue, but the girl only squints, face scrunched. Something seems familiar there, reminding you of one of the young girls in your village, maybe.
"What?" the girl says in Common. "D'you know what the lyrics mean? I memorized them but I don't really know the words."
You blink. The girl sings the words so skillfully you are amazed she doesn't understand any of it. "Yes. What is name?"
"Angela," she says, bowing like a soldier would to a king. "You brought Patti's sister, right? They're really happy now."
Mouth twitching with a smile, you say, "Hello. I am Maka. Um…" You twist your hands together, unsure how to explain. "Song is good things being from kin-durid?"
"It's a Song about kindred?!" Angela bounds towards you, floundering in the snow and wild hair bouncing with her excitement. "Bears are born from strength!" she loudly recites. "What's that mean?"
Oh. You had not thought this through- you don't know enough Common to translate the words properly. You hesitantly hold out your hands, crooking your fingers like giant claws. "Bears, yes? Bears being strong." The girl mimics you and giggles out a childish growl. "Next is, um, bird? Black bird-" you search around, and you see a crow perched on a frosty lantern post. You point at it. "That bird. What is?"
Angela looks over her shoulder. "Oh that's Harvar. He's a crow."
"Crow? Black bird is meaning crow?" Evidently she has named it, already.
"Yup."
The girl's smile is infectious, and you find yourself mirroring it back. "Crow is being very... smart. Knowing many things. And wolf is-"
"Angela."
The girl winces, slowly looking over her slight shoulder. "Oops."
When the tall man with straw-like hair rounds the corner of the building with a sword in hand, you suddenly remember where you've seen Angela before.
Mifune
\\
The tribeswoman from Riohdr had recently brought in an injured brothel girl, those rich Eastland dyes she wears stark in the middle of the greys and browns of Iron Town. Recognizing her, you'd forbidden Angela to go near her, because the last time you'd met, she nearly slaughtered you both.
But the girl had inevitably wandered off again, and as you searched every shadowy corner of the city, you had caught her singing voice on the wind and feared Iron Town would soon go up in flames. Then you turned the corner and found something much worse.
The cheerful smile the tribeswoman wears for the girl is quickly wiped clean when she recognizes you.
"Mif, it's alright," Angela says, holding her arms out to defend the woman in much the same way she had saved you in Riohdr. "She isn't angry right now!"
In a swift, sinuous movement, the tribeswoman tucks her arms under her cloak and climbs atop the barrel she'd been sitting on, crouching like a bird ready to burst into flight. She carefully watches your grip on your sword, her own hands ever so slightly moving under her cloak to draw a hidden weapon.
Pupils blown wide in her green eyes, she lowly says, "You are murderer."
Your hands tighten around the hilt of the sword. She's not wrong.
"No!" Angela insists, this time in your defense. "Mifune only kills to protect me-"
"Angela, stay away from-"
All three of you startle when you hear the long, eerie howl of a wolf. Surprise and confusion paint the tribeswoman's face, and she suddenly stands on the barrel, listening.
Then a loud crash of breaking glass is heard, muffled screams sounding from inside the infirmary. The din becomes louder, the shouting closer, and you hear the too-familiar second language of striking weapons. "She is dying!" someone shouts from inside. "Who will take her soul when she becomes a demon?! You?"
You hurriedly grab Angela, the girl transforming without prompt and clinging to your clothes as you back away from the building. The tribeswoman does the opposite- she pulls a curved knife and dashes for the infirmary door, but before she makes it there, two men smash through it, splintering wood flying in every direction. The woman stumbles back, knocking debris away with her dagger and deftly avoiding the struggling men.
One of them is Lord Thane, who fends off the furious attacks of a wild-looking man in snowy furs, a wolf skull masking his face. Stuck on the ground, Thane slides through slush and mud, one-handedly parrying the other man's attacks with a sword that would be better off held by two, cradling his injured arm to his chest. "I was protecting the girl!" he yells, rolling away from a whistling slash of the man's bone dagger. "What would you have done, Soul?"
This is when the chief of guard, Ox, barrels out of the ruined infirmary door, attacking the wolf-like warrior with a sweep of his halberd. The man avoids the attack, rushing in close to counter with his shorter weapon to trade blows.
His assailant distracted, Thane manages to get back on his feet, looking winded while leaning on his sword. "Restrain him! Do no harm!"
There is an awful screech, and a man in black seems to materialize from the air, smoke dissipating from his clothes as he appears behind the warrior. You realize the man is Harvar, one of Thane's advisors, and he is apparently kindred.
Ox pushes forward, striking the attacker with the butt end of his halberd and knocking him back. With a hand at either end of a heavy-looking rifle, Harvar hooks his weapon around the front of Soul's neck, restraining him with a choke-hold.
With guns involved, you are too close for comfort. You keep your sword in hand, circling around to a safer place for Angela, but a crowd has begun to gather, and they block your path. "Stop this, Soul Eater," Harvar says between clenched teeth, struggling to keep the man still. "I trusted you were better than this-"
"Go back to the slog you came from, traitor," the man chokes out, aiming his dagger behind him with a stab that the kindred must avoid. Harvar transforms into smoke, becoming a crow that flies to Thane's side and once more becomes a man, pointing his firearm at the furious warrior.
Thane puts his hand on the weapon, stopping Harvar from firing. "We will perform rites for Moro," he announces. "I did not wish this, Soul!"
Ox once more attempts to stop Soul from going after the lord, but the other man is not weighed down with armor and does not tire as quickly as the guard. Soul knocks the halberd from Ox's hands and takes the opening, shouldering Ox into the mud and jumping over the guard to dash at Thane.
"May the Tower fall a hundred times before you say any prayers for our mother!" he cries.
Now on his feet, Thane is prepared, striding forward to meet Soul with his sword. There is a single crack of blades meeting, but it is much louder than you expect, the winter air shattering with the sound. Suddenly appearing between the two men is the tribeswoman, who has deflected both sword and dagger in such a blur of movement that you hadn't seen it happen.
"Stopping now!" she shouts, and Thane, shocked by her appearance, quickly disengages, Ox righting himself and following Harvar to defend the young lord.
Soul only directs his fury towards her, instead. He bares fang-like teeth at the woman, knife whistling as he aims for her face. "You protect him? These humans are the reason you were cursed!"
The tribeswoman blocks his attacks so easily with her knife it makes your heart race. She makes no offensive attack, only defending herself. "I am not wanting fight," she says, preventing him from getting to Thane. "Revenge is only making demons, Soul! I am one!"
The man still presses forward, slowly gaining ground. "If you ally with the city, then you are my enemy," he hisses, redoubling his efforts.
The gathered crowd closes around the two warriors. People shout, Thane attempts to deliver orders, but above the commotion you hear a trumpeting call from behind you, heavy hooves pounding the earth, and you only just manage to dive out of the way as the tribeswoman's black beast charges through the crowd and leaps into the fray. The elk slams into Soul Eater, headbutting him into the side of the infirmary with a loud thud. Wolf-skull helmet shattered, the man slides to the ground, unconscious.
The woman looks as shocked by this as everyone else in attendance. "Oh!" she gasps, then says a few phrases in a language you don't understand. The elk angrily snorts, but retreats to her side at her call. She signals the beast to stand in place before worriedly calling, "Soul?" and hurrying to the fallen man.
"Medusa, wai-" Thane calls out too late. You hear the snap-click of a crossbow, and a bolt meant for Soul Eater burrows into the tribeswoman's back.
The woman who had tended to your concussion stands in the remains of the broken infirmary door, crossbow in her hands. "She ran in front of it- it was meant for the beast prince!" she exclaims in shock, though her eyes read far colder than her voice.
"Since when does a healer take up arms?!" Ox snarls.
"Mifune," whispers Angela in your ear as you pick yourself up off the ground. "She's angry now."
"What-" Whipping your head back to the injured tribeswoman, you watch as black blood dribbles down her back in thick, viscous ropes. She hunches over, dark magic twisting along her body and wrapping around her face. Her power crackles like thousands of furious birds, and when she speaks, her voice makes your guts drop to the earth.
"Your human city has ruined the homes and lives of thousands," the tribeswoman says, eyes glowing like embers. Red and black sickles burst from her back, shearing off rooflines, and lampposts, and you hurriedly brace your sword against one hurtling towards your face, the steel of your weapon screaming between your hands when you meet it. The force of the Tribeswoman's magic pushes you back, your feet slipping in the slush of the street. Every muscle in your body burning, you deflect the sickle out of the crowd and up to the sky, though doing so snaps your sword at the hilt.
The tribeswoman stretches low, tendrils of magic whipping around her in a storm of fury as she points unerringly to Thane with a hand shrouded in black flame. "You will know my rage and despair."
Angela says, "Go," and with only a hilt in your hand, you dart forward from the crowd, taking a risk you hadn't known you were considering until the girl had urged you to begin. Silent as an assassin and skilled as a soldier, you strike the back of the tribeswoman's head with the pommel of what's left of your sword.
She falls unceremoniously to the ground, her magic turning to dust with a deafening snap. Her elk, furious with your attack, tosses his head and charges for you, but Angela changes into her human body and calms the beast with a few sweet notes of Song.
Your legs are shaking.
"Shall we detain them?" Ox asks, halberd still in hand should either one of the unconscious warriors suddenly awaken.
Medusa secures another bolt in her crossbow. "Better to kill them both. One is a tainted thing and the other should be executed for an attempt on the lord's life."
"No!" says a young woman from inside the infirmary, pushing past Medusa on a wounded leg. She's the one who'd been brought in by the tribeswoman at your feet, her younger sister helping her out of the door. "Both of these people helped save my life in the forest. Please don't kill them!"
Thane holds up a hand, mouth pinched. "Enough. I will not have more blood shed when the fault lies with me and my father."
Iron Town's alarm bells begin to ring. Another howl sounds, so loud and deep that you realize the first one you had heard earlier might not have belonged to a wolf at all.
"We must act quickly, Thane," says Harvar. "Decide."
The young lord looks at you, at the woman at your feet, and at the unconscious wild-man a few paces away, his scowl deepening. He opens his mouth for a verdict, but is interrupted by a woman with dark hair coming out of the crowd, a cloak hastily draped over her shoulders. "Give them to the wolves, kid," she suggests, breathless.
Thane considers this a few moments. "Harvar, speak with Wes." The kindred immediately shapeshifts and flies away. To the crowd, the lord orders, "Have Soul, Maka, and the riding beast brought to the gate. They will not be harmed, but they are not welcome here."
The dark-haired woman and Ox move for Soul, but everyone else is reluctant to touch the tribeswoman, several townsfolk drawing signs on their chests to ward off evil. It is Patricia, the younger sister of the woman who had pleaded mercy, who steps forward, helping you carry the tribeswoman away while Angela follows with the black elk in tow.
Ox orders the posted guards to open the main gate, and you catch the tail end of a conversation between the kindred crow and, to your shock, a massive white wolf.
"I am trying to stop brother, but he is not listening."
Perched on a lantern, Harvar says, "If he returns, he will be killed. The woman stopped him. She took an arrow for him."
The wolf whines, sniffing Soul and the woman in your hands. "I am knowing this she-human," he says curiously. "Putting her on the elk. He will follow." The wolf then carefully picks up Soul in his mouth and trots away from the city.
You help Patricia drape the tribeswoman on the elk's back, but you have no way of securing her. Angela does not seem worried about it though. "Take her to the Nightwalker. She hurts. Understand?" she asks, pressing her hand to the beast's muzzle.
The black beast gingerly follows the wolf, his bleeding master balanced on his back. After they disappear into the forest, Ox turns to you and says, "I imagine Thane will want to have a few words with you, Imperial."
You tiredly sigh. You are without a sword, again.
\\
Repairs echo in the night, villagers boarding up the damage to their homes to keep out the freezing winter winds.
Lord Thane is still scuffed and muddy from the attack. He sits at his desk, the broken arm pressing against his abdomen, suggesting his ribs are tender. "I wanted to thank you for your assistance. As one of the Empress's men, you had no obligation to intervene. You have my gratitude."
You give a brief bow. "It was not with thought of allegiance when I acted, my lord. I know the strength that woman has. This city would have been decimated had something not been done."
Thane exchanges glances with Harvar and Ox, the former perched on the latter. "You've seen the Eastlander before?" the crow asks you.
"At Riohdr. She slayed many. By all rights, I should not have survived." You step forward to Thane's desk, placing your recently shattered sword on the surface. "This was a sword worked by the Aranei Palace."
"That doesn't mean a great deal," Ox mutters. "Anyone can break an Imperial sword."
You nod. Then you draw your old sword still at your hip, working its warped, unrecognizable blade out of the scabbard. You hold it out for inspection. "This was Iron Town's work. She has power you do not know."
With a handkerchief, Thane takes the sword from you with wide eyes, turning it between his hands. "I fear I do have an idea. Maka had the misfortune of slaying the salamander, and is now cursed by his rage," he says, handing the sword back to you. "She has brought him back home."
"Then it is a blessing to let her go free," Medusa says from the doorway, slipping in and making a show of inspecting Thane for further injury, though you think it likely she merely uses him as an excuse to join the conversation. "Perhaps she will take the Nightwalker out for us."
"What," says Harvar, spilling off Ox's shoulder and shakily forming into his human body. He shrugs off the guard's concerned hand and leans on the edge of the desk, voice seething when he says, "You cannot be serious. Thane, you said you understood-"
You are surprised by the scathing fury on Thane's face, eyes narrowed as he stands with authority and glares balefully at the healer woman and kindred. In cold tones, the man replies, "I have agreed to nothing. Ox."
"Sir."
"Take our guest to Jacqueline and see that he is fitted with a new weapon as a token of our gratitude. Medusa, please refrain from entering this room unless expressly invited. You are dismissed. Harvar. A word."
Black Star
\\
The noises that filter into your dreams sound so much like home that it takes you a long while to remember you aren't on Death's Table. Screaming, crashing, the clash of swords- Jasper must be at it again, fighting over kinflesh in the dining hall.
But then you remember Maka carving Jasper up with her cursed scythes, and your eyes pop open, slowly focusing on the patched wooden ceiling of Thane's bedchamber.
"Harvar. A word," you hear Thane's muffled voice say, filtering through the door. You've heard several boring conversations through it; there must be some kind of meeting room on the other side. Footsteps shuffle out of hearing, and a draft of air sucks under the door as another one is shut in the adjacent room. You slowly sit up, listening for any kind of useful information.
Thane sounds angry, which you find interesting. You've never seen the man be much more than tepid in any given conversation. "Do not undermine me so openly in front of outsiders. Should the swordsman report any kind of turmoil to Arachne, she would march up the cliff in an instant-"
"Do you honestly think it is the Empress I worry about right now?" replies a voice you've heard before, though most times he is too soft-spoken to understand through the door. This must be Harvar- and he is apparently heated enough to argue with the young lord. "Asura's ghost showed up on our doorstep, Soul Eater just tried to kill you, Moro is dying, and yet you are still thinking about Arachne's offer? Have you not heard a single thing I've said?"
"I have no intention of giving the head of the Nightwalker to Arachne, how many times must I say it?"
"Until you bloody say no!"
"Harvar-"
"I was loyal to your father because he tried to save my tribe, and though I cannot forgive him for shooting the salamander, I understand why he did it. But you, you should know-"
"You were there when Moro attacked, I had little choice!"
You hear a scuffling of boots, Harvar's voice growing closer. "That is not what I- Thane, you cannot claim to be an ally of kindred while still considering slaying our god."
There is a slam. "I will consider every path before me," Thane snarls. "To not do at least that much would be a disservice to those I am trying to protect!"
"So you will not say no."
"My friend, even when the answer is clear as day, the execution is not."
Something is hissed, and the draft pulls through the bedchamber again, the door in the other room slamming. The voices stop.
You lean back into Thane's pillows with a sigh. You suppose you'll have a report for Medusa, at least, but you were hoping for some violence. Iron Town is a complete bore. Nobody kills anyone.
It's only been two days since you've woken up, and you are desperate to get out of this tiny room. Thane still thinks you too infirm to do much more than stumble to the garderobe to take a piss, and you don't want to give him any suspicions to suggest otherwise, but that has meant a lot of eating opium-laced dumplings just to pass the time.
You think you'll be able to sneak out tonight, though. Just as soon as Thane passes out on his worktable like he has the past two nights, the fool.
Familiar footsteps approach the door, and you wipe your face clean of any sober expressions- you like to pretend you are much more affected by Medusa's medicines than you are, allowing you to say things a normal peasant would not get away with when addressing a lord.
Thane enters the room, unusually wet and filthy from head to foot. Blinking tiredly, he spies you sitting upright in bed. "My apologies if we woke you," he says, voice bland.
You ask, "Lover's spat?" and are unable to stop your grin at the offended glare he gives you- you've never seen anything but death-like calm, or perhaps a bit of mild surprise when you had a pair of knives at his throat.
"Excuse me?" he says, unbuckling the sword around his waist and loudly dropping it on his worktable.
"Ah, forgive me, my lord," you slur, waving a hand drunkenly. "My mouth's run away from my face."
Thane sighs and removes his cloak, carefully working it around his injured wrist. You watch as he discovers a compact little pistol at his waist, as if he'd forgotten it was there. He unbuckles the holster for that too, solemnly placing it in a storage box in plain view.
Idiot.
He moves to a water basin near the lit hearth and disrobes, removing his overgown and pulling free the ties around his hair before bending to pour water over his head. Working the mud from the strands, he says, "Harvar is not my lover. I have no time for such things."
"That's a shame," you blurt- perhaps you should lay off the dumplings a few days. Still, Thane has lithe muscles stretching across the wings of his shoulders as he dries his hair and face, with arms that show his training with a sword. He's not as frail as you had initially judged him, and you realize the way he carries himself is mostly the product of the tight wrappings around his torso.
You've seen an immeasurable amount of bruised ribs in your life, but as you watch Thane unwrap his and slather a poultice over green and black mottled skin, you think his injury looks a bit more like Maka's cursed hands than any kind of bruise. You have little doubt that this is what Medusa meant by Thane following his father into the grave.
You are reminded what a fool he is, so easily manipulated by Arachne's sister. Well, it's none of your concern. An ally of the kindred is doomed to fall to the wrath of your sire, anyway.
Thane arches an eyebrow, wrapping his ribs back up with fresh gauze. He's caught you staring, and you swear off the dumplings for good because they are making you sloppy. "It can't be helped," he says, and for a moment you must remember what you'd been talking about. Pulling on a clean tunic, the man brings water from the basin and a rattling bag of supplies over to the bed, settling on the nearby stool.
You freeze. If he changes the bandage on your shoulder, he will absolutely find the Star Clan tattoo. You cover your shoulder with your left hand. "Uh, the Lady Medusa has already-"
"No. I shall tend to your face. Come here."
You hastily shut your mouth. "Oh." You warily slink over to the edge of the bed.
There's a ghost of a smile on Thane's lips while he dampens a cloth with water. "One might think you were averse to pain, Blade. I assure you I am as light-handed as our healer."
You consider punching that smile off his face. "Honestly, my lord, that does not comfort me in the least. The woman has a violent streak."
Thane gives a wry laugh, wringing out the washcloth. "You are right about that," he mutters under his breath, gesturing for you to lean closer so he can reach the cut Jasper had given you.
Biting your tongue, you tilt the side of your face to him, neck exposed and screaming vulnerability. He works painfully slowly one-handed, and your body winds tighter and tighter, waiting for this to moment to turn life-threatening at any second.
Thane dabs gently at your jawline, slowly working his way up your cheek. He says, "This is looking better, but your ear is taking longer than the rest."
"...My lord needn't bother- a mirror and I could do this myself."
"We have no mirrors," he replies, somewhat distracted as he works around what's left of your ear after Carmine had ripped off the torn bit. "With Star Clan raiding our caravans, they're not worth the expense."
He then takes a needle and lances some type of sore close to your earlobe, which is well timed because you can't quite hide your wince. Eager to say anything that might distract you from your anxious heartbeat, you ask, "Are you going after the Deer God, my lord?"
If you were not as trained as you are, you would have missed Thane's brief, careful pause. This sets your heart beating faster. The man has given no indication that suggests he doesn't believe the story you fed him about being a weaponsmith's son- he trusts you enough to disrobe and unarm himself in the same room, and above all else, he hasn't tried to kill you. But how dimwitted is this prince of Iron Town after all?
Have you read him wrong from the start? You didn't do so well with Maka, so perhaps you should reevaluate the situation you're in more carefully.
"Do you have business with the Nightwalker?" Thane asks so flatly that you can't read him at all, and you worry you have made a grave error in judgement.
You push with the opium pretense, slipping just enough of a heavy tongue in your mouth to sound genuine. "Me? Hells no. Can't care less for kinshit ghosties or whatever else is out there. Beastlings only ever bring trouble to my family." You pause; at least that's not a lie. You swallow thickly, Thane pressing a wine-soaked sponge to the tender parts of your ear. You fake a hiss at the sting.
"Be still."
If he thinks this is painful to you, he must truly not know who you are. "But, uh, seein' as I got nothin' to thank you with for all this, I could help you. I'm a good tracker- if I can repay you by hunting down some oversized deer, I'll do it gladly, my lord."
You feel his eyes on you, but you make no move to back away, head tilted and defenseless in his reach.
Close enough to kill you, he murmurs, "I'll keep that in mind," while gently mending your face.
\\
The idiot never sleeps.
You need to sneak out of town to find Ivory, but Thane seems eternally awake tonight, quill constantly scratching against parchment. You end up falling asleep, yourself, just waiting for exhaustion to claim him.
You wake when the hearth's fire is little more than smoldering coals. Thane is still at the table, tapered candles down nearly to the stick, but finally asleep, head resting on a folded arm.
Creaking out of bed, you inch closer, investigating what the man was last working on. In the watery candlelight, you see it is a partially-completed map of the surrounding forests, Iron Town carefully inked in. You carefully commit this to memory, as anything to help you find the Deer God before anyone else tracks him down is a boon.
"Urmph," mumbles Thane. You aren't alarmed- the man has talked in his sleep the past two nights as well, and after experimenting with thumps, rustles, and other unnatural noises, you've found him deaf to all of it.
You gaze longingly at your pair of daggers, which rest openly on the table. As much as you'd like to take them you can't explain an armed garderobe trip in the middle of the night should Thane wake up and find you missing.
You do take that compact firearm, however. That ought to appease White Star after what he's about to learn from your report to Ivory. Hopefully.
Creeping to the casement window, you slowly push it open, cringing at the rough ice that scrapes along the hinges. Thane does not stir, so you pull yourself out of the room, climbing to the slick rooftop. Your legs are shakier than you'd like, but the open air is exhilarating, the night crisp and clear.
The wind is from the north again, so you head to the southern wall of Iron Town- if Ivory is anywhere nearby, she'd be downwind. After waiting for guard patrols to look away, you scale down the wooden ramparts, your hands frozen and stinging by the time you make it to the bottom.
Sticking to the shadow the moon casts on the fortress, you make for the forest. You're less than twenty paces past the treeline when your half sister tries to kill you. You're short of breath, body struggling to keep up with your demands after so much time bedridden, and the needle grazes past your cloak too close for comfort, embedding itself in a fallen tree.
After the initial attack, there are no further attempts on your life- Ivory's death threats are more of a salutation than anything.
"Tracking you is like tracking an elephant," comes her childlike voice from the treetops. "I've been waiting five days. Watching you fail to die is incredibly boring."
You yank the needle out of the decayed log and toss it blindly up to the trees. It does not come back down. "I've already been executed, what more do you want?" you reply.
"Something useful to the Clan?" She drops down from the pines, nearly invisible against the snowy forest floor in her grey clothing. As horrid as her name is elegant, Ivory Star is twice as power-hungry as Jasper had ever been, but had been blessed with your shared father's patience to keep her from doing anything reckless. "Could you be any more obvious with the kinloving prince? He's not even that good-looking."
"Fall off the Table," you hiss. "The mission has changed. Arachne's sent a warrior to Sephtis to team up and take the Deer God's head, but her sister is holed up here, and she's plotting to overthrow Sephtis and his son to take the town for-"
Ivory growls her impatience, making a half-hearted roundhouse kick in the general direction of your face. "I already know all this. Tell me something important."
You sigh. "To get my ass out of the fire, I told Medusa that White Star will make a deal with her if she helps me slay the Nightwalker. I may have to assassinate a few idiots and put her in charge of the town, and then we kill the damned deer. After that we can kill her, I don't particularly care- actually I do care, because I'd really like to tear her face from her head."
"So you told the Empress's sister our father's secret plan- the one he painstakingly faked your death for- and you somehow expect him to... not murder you?" Ivory gives you a flat stare. "You had one job, Black."
"I think I'll be fine," you say easily, unbuckling Thane's pistol and holster from under your cloak. You dangle it over your half-sister's head. "I have this and more. Just give me time."
Ivory leaps and snatches the weapon out of your hands, a joyous smile stretching across her face as she inspects the firearm. She's testing the heft of it in her hands when you both hear a twig snap. Ivory silently scales a tree while you meld to the shadows behind it, waiting for whatever approaches.
When you spot that pinkish tint of hair, you nearly curse aloud. It's the kindred chameleon that belongs to the mercenary. You quickly leap up into the tree and clamp your hand around Ivory's wrist, her fingers already holding deadly needles to hunt the kindred.
"Stop," you mouth to her, and you wonder just how many times you're going to be forced to spare this little pipsqueak's life. "I need her to find the Deer God. Go."
It's too dark to see her roll her eyes, but her cowled head makes the movement enough to paint the picture for you. "Fine," she mouths back. "I will return on the new moon. Don't expect me to be this nice next time just because we're related."
"Wouldn't dream of it," you reply, letting her arm go. "Give me one of your knives. It's not like you use them."
Ivory digs through her many layers of clothes to find one and proceeds to throw the blade at your crotch before she takes her leave. You sweat- your reflexes are not up to speed, and you almost missed catching the damned dagger.
Peering through the branches, you catch a glimpse of the kindred wandering further into the forest. Where she is, the mercenary is sure to follow... but if what if she led you straight to the Nightwalker after all?
You're not particularly eager to return to Thane's little room just yet.
You carefully follow the beastling, trailing her for quite a distance; she moves quickly for someone with such short legs. As she leads you through Raskogr, the night air gradually becoming warmer, the snows eerily diminishing and disappearing completely as you catch sight of a lake.
Winter is only a dream here- the forest is somehow in the full swing of spring, chattering insects the scent of flowers heavy on the night air. Steam curls off the surface of the lake in eerie swirls, and you press yourself against a tree because this is certainly the work of bizarre god-magic. In the time it takes you to glance around the mossy shoreline for any unwanted company, you discover the girl has vanished.
There's a puff of moonlit smoke where you'd seen her last, and you sigh heavily through your nose. You listen for the tiniest hint of footsteps, and are quickly rewarded with a rustle only a few paces away from your tree. Slowly drawing Ivory's knife from your belt, you crouch and wait, one hand on the forest floor for balance.
The earth is unnaturally warm under your fingers. With shock, you look down and see your hand resting over an enormous print of a deer.
Your attention is once more caught by the nearby rustling, the sound moving away from you and towards the lake. When you lean around the tree to observe, you are shocked to see a silhouette of a small fawn gracefully hop out of the underbrush.
The beast is darker than anything you've ever seen, like a deer-shaped hole punched into the forest, exposing a place devoid of all light behind the world you know. The fawn turns its head to look at you, and you realize you are standing upright without remembering having done so. Though it has no eyes, you feel it staring into you, as if you also have a hole punched through you for it to easily view your soul.
You step away from the trees, into the moonlight, and hurl your knife at the deer's neck. Your blade passes through it harmlessly, plopping into the lake behind it. The deer's leaf-shaped ears twitch in your direction, unperturbed.
Mouth dry, you call out, "Are you the Nightwalker?" And then you are overcome by sudden, unexpected pain, falling to your knees and struggling the breathe.
"Ask that before attacking someone, you dung heap!" The chameleon girl threatens to kick you in the groin again, but you grasp her swinging foot while you attempt to find your breath.
You are one of the strongest assassins in the Warbringer's Star Clan, and this is the second time you've been surprised by a beastling. Gasping, you worriedly look back to the deer, but it is no longer there.
In its place is the shadowy figure of a woman, her long black hair like a river from the underworld trailing behind her. She has no face, but there is a ghostly hint of violet eyes glowing like lanterns. Without a mouth, she says, "I am not the Nightwalker."
"He's Star Clan," the girl says, transforming and escaping from your grip. The chameleon crawls up the shadow-woman's body, slowly becoming just as black. "Star Clan eat kindred. You should eat him back, Tsubaki."
"Whoa, wait-" you wheeze, stumbling back to your feet. "I don't eat beastlings. I get power my own way."
"Yes." The woman tilts her faceless head to the sky, and a sudden mass of living darkness bursts from her, knitting through the treetops to block the moon and shrouding the forest around you in shadow.
Her face appears without light to shine on it. She is striking- both frightening and beautiful, and you somehow feel her words in your bones when she speaks. "I will not eat Black Star," she says to the chameleon. "I want him to live."
"Awww." The beastling sounds disappointed.
You would really appreciate a knife in your hand right now. "How do you know my- If you are not the Nightwalker, what are you?"
"My brother walks the night," she says, voice like dark mineshafts and still water. As she approaches you, the river of her hair blooms with red blossoms, unfurling and withering to die in seconds. "I am his shadow."
Something hazy bubbles to the surface of your memory, and you remember being face down in the snow, held by a starless night until you woke up in Thane's bed.
"It was you," you say, recalling your blood blooming with those crimson flowers. "My Clan is your brother's enemy. I am here to slay him. Why did you spare me?"
She smiles, and something is taken from you, immediately returned and irrevocably changed. "You wish to touch the heavens. I wish to do this, too," she says, violet eyes peering into yours. "I saw the shadows in you."
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