Welcome to my test thread for all my non-gfx RP purposes! This includes my schedule, plots, characters, and search info.
VISITORS: If you were linked here, I probably talked RP with you. My oneshot/novel samples are in here and on DA, and my RP/post samples begin here and are sorted in chronological order according to the first/oldest sample in the post. Ctrl+F the current or previous year to jump to my most current samples (I don't always update them and I'm a bit attached to my old ones).
Hello! I am Nintendraw. You may call me Nin, Ninten, or any other variation of. I am currently in the mood for (insert), but I'll always listen to your original ideas (in fact, those are usually my favorite RPs), so please suggest! Everything you need from me is contained below. If you're interested in RPing together, PM me your name, relevant nickname(s), samples, and plot ideas. Thanks for reading!
About Me
female university undergrad, prefers writing with fellow college students
has been writing since 7, RPing since 9, and RPing on Gaia since 15 years old. I'm old enough to drink--do the math.
writes around 800-1800 words on average (maximum range: 400-4400); not a mirror-poster is an abysmally slow RPer: Be fine with biweekly (or slower!) posts because that's what'll likely happen. If I love the plot, however, I can post many times in 24 hours. loves plotting: This is how you get and keep my interest in an RP. My favorite RP partners answer my long plotty PMs with equally long plotty PMs. Carry your weight. needs samples: I'm too jaded to take someone at face value, RP-wise. Prove to me we'll mesh. My samples occupy the rest of this page. writes 1x1s almost exclusively: My stamina for group RPs is notoriously low. Advertise them to me at your own risk.
doesn't double, but will play NPCs at need
writes in third-person limited, past-tense only
somehow prefers playing male characters (but can play females as well)
enjoys real, semi-real, and anime face-claims equally
ditch-friendly (but tell me in advance)
violence, abuse, and rape-friendly ONLY if the plot calls for it
swear-friendly (but doesn't use it myself in OOC)
tends towards RPs that'll ultimately pair our characters together, but romance isn't necessary
fades to black on intercourse (that's all I can think of that's worth skipping)
gets annoyed by systematic its/it's, peak/peek/pique, defiant/definite, etc. typos: I understand the odd typo here and there, but repeated errors...
thread >> email = PM >>> offsite
m/f >> m// > f// >>> nb. I simply have the most experience with hetero; sorry.
Themes/Settings
If a theme isn't listed, feel free to suggest. If your idea interests me, I will do the necessary research. Just don't ever suggest BDSM, Dom/Sub, Slave/Master, or MPreg.
You can also suggest a historical era to me and I'll tell you if I know it.
Pairings
Person x Person isn't the best foundation for an RP if all you say is "I want Person x Person", but maybe it'll inspire someone... Slash represents the X; mix and match entities on either side of it.
royal // commoner, knight, magician, mercenary
general, military authority, artisan // apprentice, commoner, knight, mercenary, royal
knight // commoner, mercenary
detective // knight, magician, mercenary
doctor, lawyer, musician, teacher // student, journalist
sniper, soldier // doctor, foreigner
human // alien, angel (can be fallen), demon, dragon, dwarf, elf, experiment, mermaid, robot, werewolf
angel (can be fallen) // angel (can be fallen), demon, mermaid, siren
elf // dark elf
Angel x Mermaid in particular might be interesting... Since neither can enter/is commonly seen entering the other's realm, Earth would probably become a middle ground; and then there are other humans to contend with as well as who knows what else.
Fandoms
Only those I am comfortable RPing are listed.
Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright, Justice for All, Trials and Tribulations, Investigations 1 and 2 (Edgeworth), Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies (convince me)
Axis Powers Hetalia (convince me)
Bravely Default
Final Fantasy: 4 or 7CC only
Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken, Binding Blade, Sacred Stones, Shadow Dragon, Shin Monsho no Nazo, Awakening, Fates
I'd love to explore how Leo met Niles, or a Silas x Corrin sort of dynamic.
Game of Thrones
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks
Lord of the Rings
Pokemon: Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinooh, Unova, Kalos, gijinkas
Stella Glow
Star Wars Star Trek
Wand of Fortune
Vocaloid
Canon Characters I'll Play
LoZ: Link, Sheik?, Zelda
Pokemon: Cheren, Steven
APH: America, Austria, China, Japan, Spain, Vietnam (I have OCs too)
FF: Ingus; Cecil, Edge, Sephiroth, Zack
FE: too many... Throw me a plot or pairing and we'll talk. I enjoy writing royals, soldiers, myrmidons, mercenaries, cavaliers, devoted knights, and intellectuals most.
SG: Alto/Elcrest, Rusty, Klaus, Sakuya?
SW: Obi-Wan, Han Solo
WoF: Est Rinaudo
Plots Click. Be warned that some of those plots have been up for years and you'll need to convince me of them. I won't tell you which ones they are so that you'll try just as hard on all of them to inspire me!
-Received Art- I rarely buy art since I can often draw it myself, but freebies are amazing. Here's what I've collected over the years, in approximate chronological order.
I've collected 174 freebies and 24 commissioned arts on Gaia in my time here.
Half-Formed Prompts (need refining, by me or partners)
Usually when I see you during the day, you look pretty normal, even though you like wearing long sleeves in summer, but one night I saw you at a pub decked out in leather and black and dang, those tattoos explain everything! (Criminal past and/or present, branded fallen angel...)
Dude, did you just transform? (Any Shapeshifter x ___ story; could make a REALLY casual Gabriel x Human)
I had a bad dream about you, so now I’m calling to make sure you’re okay. (Cassandra the prophet-esque)
-Ninten's Drabbles- aka oneshot/novella samples. Many more here.
Star-Crossed
Fire Emblem: Camus x Nyna.
He had slain her father, had done the deed with his own hands to acknowledge a once-honorable man. True, the entire Sable Order had been so commanded by Dolhr; he could have asked Belf or Leiden or even Robert to do so in his stead. But the king of Archanea had himself been a great warrior once, however incompetent (though charismatic) a ruler he was now. It would have been beneath his dignity to be felled by a mere knight and an unstoried weapon. And so General Camus of the Sable Order had gone himself with his legendary Gradivus in hand to finish the kingdom’s sacking. There in the holy palace was where he first met her: Princess Nyna of Archanea.
It had been chance that brought her to him that time. The allied Grust-Dolhr forces had taken the entire castle, surrounded it so that reinforcements could not rescue the captives inside. Unlike the Archaneans, theirs was a capable force. But truth be told, it brought him no joy to fell the enemy soldiers; they were neither as skilled nor as driven for their king as he had been led to believe. No wonder the palace had fallen so easily. Her father had already known that death was on his doorstep, and when Camus finally approached him in the forward courtyard, a trail of bodies in his stallion’s wake, he drew his sword, asking that they fight one last time on equal footing. The Sable Order and the infantry had already secured the castle; there was no hope left for Archanea’s liege. Though he knew that it would have been much more efficient to bury Gradivus in his back and be done with it, Camus obliged and dismounted, trading the lance for his gold and ebon sword. Few were the times he wielded this sword in combat, though his skill with it had not suffered for it, but there was no denying its greater versatility in one-on-one combat. It had been forged specially for him by order of King Ludwik, back when he was still just a rising star in the Grustian army. He only drew it against the worthiest foes—though foe was currently neither, Camus drew it for the man the king had once been, before power and complacency had eroded at his strength.
Time, he found, had not been very kind to the old king at all, but he had expected nothing more. Far too little time passed before he found the opening in his foe’s defenses, disarmed him, and slew him. King Archanea seemed to fall in slow motion, his life force trailing crimson in his wake. Only after he hit the floor and his sword was sheathed did Camus notice that he had been watched.
“Diiiiie!”
“Hah?!”
Instinctively, the general swung his fist backwards. He heard a crack as his fist hit bone, but the flesh upon it felt far softer than he would have expected on a male knight. A feminine voice cried out as its owner fell, and Camus whirled. The sight he saw disappointed him. “Hmm? A woman?” He knelt beside her and inspected her face. Other than the nose she covered with one hand, he had done no serious harm. She should live. “You attacked me so suddenly; I couldn’t hold back. My apologies.”
Her armor bore a golden fleur-de-lis; undoubtedly she was one of the kingdom’s paladins. The general gave her an intense stare. “But I see Archanea’s paladins are fond of dishonorable tactics. To think that they would ambush a foe who’d already put away his blade? As if the Archanean army wasn’t disappointing enough, even its knights have no pride? No wonder your kingdom fell so easily.”
His would-be assailant straightened up, fury blazing in her violet eyes. “Damn you!” she sputtered, her voice nasal from the hand she held over her face. Just below it, he could see the thinnest trickle of blood. “You’re one to talk! I would not resort to such means if my opponent were anyone but you! Pride, you say? Surely you jest! Your country betrayed Archanea and degraded itself as Dolhr’s slave! What are the lot of you but Dolhr’s dogs? And don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done, general!” she sneered. The woman stood, lowered her fists to her side. “Enough of this then,” she said. “Kill me! Kill me now! You don’t need to hold back!”
Her words did not interest him; he had heard this tirade more than once before. Grust the Depraved. Duty was such a burden at times. The woman paladin did not seem to have paused this time for breath, and he raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you quite finished, miss?”
No response. He took it as an unspoken yes. The general simply straightened up, unfolded his arms, and swept past her. “I have no intention of granting your wish, my lady. Princess Nyna is my only concern.”
He did not turn to see what the woman did next.
…
After leaving his horse and his weapons at the stables they had captured from Archanea, he returned to the castle main room to see his soldiers still locked in heated battle with what remained of the enemy army. Neither side had a clear advantage over the other; in fact, both seemed to have reached a stalemate. The Grust-Dolhr unit leader looked up as the blonde approached. “It seems that I’ve arrived just in time,” he noted. Raising his voice, he continued. “Alright, that’s quite enough. Both sides, lower your weapons.”
The Grust-Dolhr leader sounded incredulous. “You! You’re General Camus! What are you doing here?”
“I hear that the princess of Archanea is in this room. Is this true?”
The soldier nodded and gestured at his foes. “Yes sir! They are but few in number, but they have some knights with them. They gave us some trouble, but the princess’s capture was inevitable.”
He would have expected no less of any under his command. Camus nodded in acknowledgment. “I see. Good job. You may leave the rest to me.”
“Yes, sir!”
As he advanced through the mingled Grust-Dolhr and Archanean forces, he gazed at each and every one of them to ensure that they would comply. “Listen well, Archaneans,” he told them. “I am Camus, captain of the Grustian knights. I respect your prowess in battle, but further bloodshed is of no value to you or I. May I request that you lower your weapons? I wish only to speak with your princess. You can trust me when I say that I have no weapons on my person. I swear upon the honor of Grust that I will not deceive you.”
Such was the force of his presence and reputation that he advanced unimpeded into the palace’s very heart. Or, perhaps, it was simply the fact that no one wished to challenge Camus the Sable, a man likened in battle to a demon on the warpath, alone, even when the man was unarmed.
…
She had seemed so fragile beside her father’s body back then, a vision of blonde and silken blue and white marred by her too-pallid face and whitened knuckles. Someone must have brought her father’s body to her; he had left it in the courtyard where King Archanea had at last departed this world. He’d recognized the princess on sight; no one in the army couldn’t. Dolhr had not ordered her death just yet, but he knew as well as anyone that if she roamed free, she would only instigate a rebellion to hinder the empire at a more inconvenient time. Seeing her before him now though, pale and trembling beside an old bishop as she knelt before her father’s corpse, he’d hesitated, watching as she shook his body, crying for him to open his eyes, even though everyone present knew that no words would return him from the great beyond. Camus was nothing if not thorough. Mentally, he was furious with himself. He was a knight of the Sable Order and a general of the Grust-Dolhr allied forces. What business had he now, to halt before an old man and the woman he was to take captive? Finally, his feet regained their mobility, and as he drew near, he could see the knife she clasped to her chest. The old man was trying feebly to pry it from her hands; Camus caught himself wondering how earnest his efforts were. “Princess Nyna, what are you doing?” the bishop protested. “Please, stay your hand!”
“Boah, do not stop me!” He could hear her voice crack, see her shoulders shake as she bowed her head. “Were it only my father, I might perhaps have found the strength to go on, but with Dolph and Macellan gone, and Tomas, and now Midia too, I… I no longer have any desire to live…”
Was Midia that woman who’d thought to ambush him in the palace halls? Camus was surprised. His unarmed strength should not have proved fatal. But this… this would never do. If he allowed the princess to persist, not only would he be deprived of his chance to talk to her, but Dolhr would be deprived of a valuable hostage. Even if Medeus wasn’t furious with him afterward, he would be with himself, for he would have failed his duty as a knight. The general decided to intervene. “You are Princess Nyna, I presume?” he asked. She froze, and he advanced, shaking his head. “Not only your knight, but you as well… Are all Archaneans this irresponsible? In Grust, this kind of behavior is reserved only for spoiled children.”
She whirled on him then, her eyes burning with wordless imprecations. “You…! General Camus!” Perhaps his lack of reaction was what inspired her to go on, for she took a step towards him, her fists more likely trembling now with anger than anguish. He was surprised to find that she was barely a head shorter than he—at six foot two, he towered over all women and most of the men. “Insolent cur! On what grounds are you calling me irresponsible? And what do you mean by spoiled?!”
He sighed. “You are a member of royalty. Now that your king has passed away, you must shoulder responsibility of Archanea. Wishing to throw away your life without considering the consequences… Please, spare me this selfishness. Dying is easy, but what would become of the people you would leave behind? Do you truly intend to throw away your responsibility as royalty?”
“How dare you try and lecture me! You—you drove my father to his death!”
“Forgive me for what I am about to say, but… your father was a failure of a king. He drowned in pleasure, neglected politics, and abandoned his people. Archanea’s ultimate defeat was his doing. King Archanea may have been a good father to you, but he failed to protect his people. My words may be harsh, but I speak only the truth.”
She hesitated. Camus had to strain to hear her next words. “I… I feel pity for my people,” she murmured, most likely to herself. “I warned my father time and time again, but he never listened…”
And then, before he knew what was happening, she threw herself before him, her arms wide, leaving her heart with no defense. “But what am I to do now, when Archanea has already fallen?” she cried. “Dolhr put you up to this, did they not? Why stay your hand now? I have nothing left—Archanea, my knights, my father lay dead by your hand, so kill me now and be done with it!”
Yes, take her now, before she escapes and causes trouble later on. Though he knew in his head what needed to be done, his heart stayed his hand. What feelings were these that the princess had suddenly awakened within him? He was a knight before anything else, had sworn to this path ever since childhood, and yet…
“You are not slated to die just yet.”
His words startled the both of them. Nyna recoiled as if struck, her eyes wide in disbelief. Not even Camus knew why he had told her that. His mission was to take the princess captive, not confide his orders to her. The last thing he needed was to show weakness before the enemy—especially if his enemy was a woman. “We were ordered to depose Archanea’s king and take control of the palace, nothing more. Emperor Medeus currently does not wish to kill you.” He paused. “I hear your citizens love you, Princess. To them, you embody the hope of Archanea. For their sake, if for no one else’s, you must continue to live on.”
What? What reason had he to tell her that? Damn that woman for turning my tongue traitor!
But he had already spoken; the seditious words hung poignant in the air between them. He no longer had any choice but to go on. Camus held his hand out to her, his weaponless hand, still scarcely believing what he was doing. “You will come with me now, Princess.”
“Never! Kill me now, or I’ll… I’ll raise all of Archanea against Dolhr, against Grust, against all of you! I’ll make you all pay for taking my father and my kingdom away from me! I…!”
“Enough!”
The sharpness of his voice forced her to look fearfully at him once more. But for his blond hair, he must resemble the Reaper, standing imperiously over her, clothed in the Sable Order’s black and gold, with her father’s body at his feet. He forced his voice to be calm, forced himself to continue. “I am known as the greatest warrior of this age. With the Gradivus in hand, I do not fear anyone. Not Archanea, not Aurelis, not you all by yourself in Dolhr’s dungeons. Duty alone is my sovereign, and I have completed that.” He bent slightly so that their eyes met. The princess’s eyes were such a clear crystal blue. Camus forced his thoughts away. “With the palace fallen, my duty is done. I have no reason to harm you now. Dolhr has already graciously allowed you to keep your life as a hostage of Grust; I would advise you not to test the emperor’s generosity. Now will you come with me willingly, or shall I bring you along by force?”
“My lady, please, listen to him!” Both blondes turned their gaze on Boah when he spoke. Camus had almost forgotten that he was still here. “General Camus may be our enemy, but he is a proud and exceptionally strong knight. He may even be able to protect you…”
“Boah! I do not wish to be protected, especially by him! Have you forgotten what destruction he has wrought upon our land, our people, my father?!”
“Listen to him; he speaks sense.”
Nyna turned on him once more, her eyes wide and confused. Camus raised his arms to prove that he was indeed weaponless. “As I said, my duty is done. Whatever you may think of me, I do not prey upon the weak and defenseless. Were you my hostage, I would not treat you unkindly. You may interpret that as you will.” He turned as if to walk away, but otherwise did not move from his place. “I must now return to Grust, but I shall return in a few months’ time as commander of the occupation army.” A pause; a quiet sigh. “I am no politician, but watching this desolate land brings pain to my heart. I too do not wish to see this kingdom left in ruins. You may think that you have lost everything, but death will bring you no reprieve, even if you watch the emperor punish me from beyond.” Camus had lowered his hand; he raised it to her now once more. “Now would you deign to be my hostage, that you may live to rebuild Archanea with your people at a later time?”
He had no idea what had driven him to claim her as his hostage. Certainly, with General Lorenz occupied elsewhere, he was the most likely candidate to lead the occupational forces, but those orders had not even been issued yet. For all he knew, he would be sent north to crush Aurelis instead. The princess hesitated, glared daggers at him. Silence. For a moment, he worried that he would have to make good on his threat. Knights did not raise arms against a woman if they could help it, but if her obstinacy stood in the way of his fulfilling his newly self-imposed duty… Camus could not bring himself to remind her, As long as you live, Archanea lives. From the start, he and General Lorenz had opposed Ludwik’s decision to ally with Dolhr, but how would it look to her if he showed her any further sympathy now?
Just as he’d resigned himself to fighting her after all, the princess finally nodded and placed an alabaster hand in his. “Very well,” Nyna said, grudgingly. “I shall give you the benefit of doubt. But do not think for a moment that my hatred towards you has disappeared.”
Even through his glove, Camus could feel her pulse racing. He shrugged. “If you wish to take my life, you can have it anytime, if that's what it takes to satisfy you.” … What am I saying now?
Princess Nyna shook her head. “No. I shall endure for now, for Archanea my motherland. But mark my words: One day, I will lead the Archanean League’s army against Dolhr. Should you stand in my way when that time comes, I will give you no mercy. Remember that.”
So she had some fire in her after all. Despite himself, he smiled. “Understood. … Princess, I thought your people adored you because of your beauty, but it seems that there’s more to it than that.”
“You speak rather impolitely, General, but I’ll accept your praise graciously.”
Camus chuckled. “Heh. Please excuse my rudeness. As but a soldier from the borderlands, I can only manage this rustic manner of speaking.”
The two of them had been holding hands for far longer than was necessary for a warden and his prisoner. The bishop had been staring at them this whole time. The blonde’s cheeks reddened just a hair. What was that old man thinking? To hide his embarrassment, Camus glared at him. “You. You will come with me too. Breathe a word of this to anyone, and I’ll have your tongue. Any more, and I’ll have your head.”
As he had not brought anything with which to bind their hands, Camus led the princess and the bishop out of the palace from behind, all the while marveling at the delicacy of Nyna’s form and the softness of her hand in his. How often, he wondered, had she left the holy palace? He would not have been surprised if she could count the number of times on a single hand.
Belf and Leiden were already waiting for him by the time he departed. The redhead’s eyes widened upon seeing the princess and the bishop with him. “General Camus, what are you doing?” he asked.
“The empire wished only for the death of Archanea’s king. It did not desire the same for its princess. As we have secured the palace, she and her bishop will be our prisoners until the emperor decides otherwise.” The words felt oddly hollow in Camus’s ears, even though he knew them to be true. Medeus had ordered nothing specific as far as Nyna was concerned (he had only specifically ordered her father’s execution and the palace’s sacking), but after their words in the palace interior, the blonde felt as if he had somehow failed in his duty. It was not like him to vacillate like this. Logic dictated that he throw her in the dungeons and leave her alone to rot, but somehow, he simply didn’t feel comfortable with that. Grust was Dolhr’s ally only by its king’s weakness. Fearful for his kingdom, King Ludwik had surrendered to Dolhr with nary a word of protest, throwing away the kingdom’s ties with Altea, Macedon, and Aurelis. Not once had he considered the possibility of forming an alliance against the empire. Along with the kingdom of Aurelis, its oldest ally, Archanea was the strongest in the continent. If any stood a chance against the empire, it was them. But although Camus did not agree with his liege’s decision, he was a knight and duty came before all else, even before his personal misgivings. In these times when old treaties dissolved like the parchment they were written on, he would not let it be said that Camus the Sable did not stay true to his duty to the bitter end.
But the emperor had been vague in his command, and herein would he allow his secret misgivings to take wing.
Belf said nothing, merely leveling a mahogany gaze on Camus’s brown. Unconsciously, he tensed. Belf had always been more observant than his fellows, more alert to what others left unsaid. Ever since joining the Sable Order, he and Camus had been good friends. Just how much of his thoughts could he guess?
The blonde turned aside to avoid his comrade’s scrutiny. Near the edge of the castle town, he could see Robert returning with his stallion. “So we are all returned safely,” he noted. “Come. It is time we quit this place for good.”
"Big Reveal"
Styled after Run 3 of FfG.
“Graaace!”
He saw the girl falling as if in slow motion, a look of fear frozen on her face as she tumbled off the n-story roof to almost certain death below. For a moment, he was frozen in place. Never before had she resembled Annabelle so much… The look of helpless terror on her face was identical to the one Annabelle had worn when the enormous steel bars had tumbled down to crush her.
Back then, he hadn’t been able to save her.
But right here, right now, he could still save her.
Gabriel reacted without thinking, diving off the roof after her and tucking his limbs against himself so as to fall faster and catch up to her. Within moments, he was falling at her side, wrapping his arms protectively around her upper waist. She shot him a panicked look as he pressed her chest against his; but he ignored the thoughts he suspected were going through her head and willed his wings to emerge. Come on, come on…! If this failed him now, the both of them were dead!
A painful rip from behind his shoulder blades, a sudden backwards jolt, and suddenly, they were no longer free-falling. The angel breathed a sigh of relief and, after shooting a glance behind himself to make sure that they were in no further danger, loosened his grip on the woman in his arms slightly to check on her. It seemed that Grace had fainted at some point after he’d grabbed her. Good—that would make hiding all this so much easier. Gently but quickly, Gabriel floated them down on the other side of his dorm building, in a windowless alleyway so that no one could see them. After poking around with his foot for a dry, decent-sized patch of earth, he propped the girl against the building and backed a few steps away from her, willing his wings to disappear. With any luck, she wouldn’t wake up until he had put them away, and she would walk away from this never knowing how it was that she’d managed to survive looking Death in the eye.
Even if he knew now that she was the one he was Earthbound for, she was still an atheist, and angels were not supposed to exist.
***
Nngh…
Everything seemed to stand still around her, with only the wind rustling through her hair to break the silence. Such quiet… Was this what death felt like?
But wait a minute… If she was dead, then how could she feel the breeze in her hair, just as she had when she’d had the misfortune to stumble off that roof in the first place?
Grace grimaced and slowly opened her eyes. It took a moment for them to focus, but she could tell that she had landed in an alleyway of sorts—windowless, but not as shoddy as she might have expected from a place like that. Some distance away to her left stood a tall blue dumpster, filled with recyclables and blocking her view of the street beyond. To her right, nothing. And in front of her… Gabriel Angelo. But something about him was different right now; what was it? The girl squinted… And then her eyes widened.
Those shining white things on his back… Were they… wings?
Grace couldn’t help herself; a sharp gasp of breath escaped her before she could stifle it. The man whirled at the sound, and his startled hazel eyes met her shocked brown ones. He seemed frozen in place as she pushed herself to her feet and advanced towards him.
The Halloween party. Suddenly, it dawned on her. The wings he’d worn that time… They had been real!
“You… You’re…” As Grace advanced one more step, Gabriel snapped his wings shut behind him. If anything, the move only confirmed her suspicions—she hadn’t seen his hands disappear behind his back to push them together, which meant that he had as full control over them as she her arms and legs. The brunette leaned left and right, trying to get a better look (even though there was very little else that it could be), and he turned to oppose her and block her view. Shock gave way to anger, and she rounded on him, her eyes blazing. “You bloody idiot!” she hissed. “What have you done?!”
“I—!” Gabriel seemed to be at a loss for words.
Suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She raised her hand and slapped him across the face.
He’d turned his head aside to absorb the blow. His torso had turned with him, leaving his back exposed. Yes… As she’d feared, the wings emerged from a hole in his shirt near his shoulder blades. She recoiled, fearful and confused, and her eyes happened to meet his once more. “Gabe…” she quavered. “What… are you?”
There was only one possible explanation. But she couldn’t believe it. Angels were not supposed to exist on Earth. If they did, why hadn’t they been able to save her mother all those years ago? And yet, here one stood, in the flesh. Anxiously, she waited for some explanation, some reason to believe that everything before her was just a hallucination. This was all just a crazy dream. This wasn’t happening to her right now…
***
She saw them… She saw!
Gabriel couldn’t stop the fear in his chest from rising as Grace rose and advanced towards him. He wanted to do something, anything, to escape this moment, even if it meant literally flying away from the scene; but instead, he was rooted to the spot, with even his wings refusing to twitch.
“You… You’re…”
She advanced one more step, and suddenly, he could move again. Gratefully, he snapped his wings together in a line behind his back, even though he knew the move was pointless. She had already seen him for what he was; it was too late now. Why hadn’t his wings disappeared this time like they were supposed to?! Had the Lord revoked even this basic ability from him? Was he condemned to live out his days on this plane like this forever, all for the apparent sin of saving a second girl from certain death in his natural form?
And then, she hurried forth, halting just a pace away from him, her blue-green eyes blazing. “You bloody idiot!” she hissed. “What have you done?!”
Idiot? Him? Fury rose in his gut, twisting his words into unintelligible sounds. “I—!”
Before he could even begin to finish, she reached out and slapped him across the face.
Gabriel hug frozen in place for a moment, his head instinctively turned to the side to absorb the blow. When he straightened up again, Grace was backing away from him, her eyes wide and fearful once again. “Gabe…” she quavered. “What… are you?”
“I…” Gabe couldn’t answer. He shouldn’t have needed to answer. Wasn’t it obvious by now? There were only so many things a winged human could be…
It was to his chagrin when the brunette answered her own question. “Monster!” she exclaimed, almost sobbing. “You freak! Don’t you ever come near me again!”
Monster?! “How dare you!” Gabriel exploded. “That’s no way to respond to someone who just saved your life!”
“Monster!” she repeated, tears brimming in her eyes. And with that, she turned and fled without even giving him a chance to reply.
***
I should be dead… I shouldn’t be here now… Why am I still alive? And that man… What is he?
Grace’s thoughts were in turmoil as she left Gabriel far behind. No matter what she could think of, only one answer repeated itself in her head like a twisted mantra.
Angel… Angel… Gabriel Angelo… Why didn’t I see it before?
It was all so obvious now. The Halloween party, his religiousness, his tattoo, even his name. But still, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
Angels weren’t supposed to exist, right? And even if they did, why would one appear to her, an atheist since the day her mother died? Why now and not then, when they might still have been able to salvage her faith?
***
An overwhelming, indescribable mix of sadness and frustration overwhelmed him as he watched her go. Of all the… This was not how he wanted to reveal himself to her!
But, a voice in the back of his head whispered, would you have ever told her the truth anyway?
Shut up, he thought irritably. I would’ve done it eventually. After all, the girl was still his ticket back into Heaven. She was an atheist; that fact had not been kept secret since their early months together at the university. The Lord had told him a century ago that he could reenter the Great Above if he could return someone beyond the fold back to it. Certainly, he hadn’t figured out exactly how to reveal his true identity before one who believed in angels as much as she did ghosts—that is to say, not at all—but this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.
Something tugged gently at his back. Gabriel turned his head to find his wings glowing and retracting into his back like they normally did. Soon, only his ‘tattoo’, peeking through the bifold hole in his shirt, remained to hint of their existence. He stared at it for a long moment before turning away with an infuriated release of breath. After all that time of being unable to put them away, now they disappeared? Why couldn’t they have went away five minutes ago, before she’d ever woken up?
Confused and furious with himself, the brown-haired fallen angel shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked off for the entrance to his dorm building. His wrath was all the worse for the fact that he could normally have done something to prevent this from happening, but something had prevented him from doing so. He couldn’t have, in good conscience, let Grace fall to her death. She was a member of the race he helped protect—and more importantly, she was a friend. But was she still? He wouldn’t have been surprised if she never forgave him for hiding such a secret from her, or for shattering her disbelief that his kind even existed.
Maybe this was why angels normally worked from beyond the mortal plane.
Maybe it simply was better that way.
***
Friday—the last day of the school week. As Grace opened the door to the room of the class Gabriel led, a sense of foreboding gripped her. She had stayed awake last night thinking about their altercation that evening, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, maybe she had been too quick to judge. He had saved her life, after all; nothing could change that. Not even… whatever he truly was… She shook her head. Who are you kidding, Grace. You know exactly what he is; you just don’t want to believe it.
She seated herself in the front row, as she always did, and listened attentively to Gabriel’s words as he lectured about yet another aspect in the United States’ campaign against monopoly. It seemed to her, however, that he refused to meet her gaze, even when facing her general direction, and his words sounded a bit too stiff in her ears. When class finally ended, Grace was the last to leave the room. She took one step towards the door, halted, and turned around. Gabriel seemed to be packing up in a hurry. If she was going to talk to him, now was the time.
“Gabe… could I ask you a question?”
The man didn’t respond immediately, though he did at least pause. His next words injured her. “Why would you care about anything a monster says, human?”
She flinched. He hadn’t needed to put it like that… But perhaps his words were somewhat fair after what she’d screamed to him yesterday. Grace forced herself to calm down. She hadn’t lingered behind to start another fight. “Look,” she began. “I know my behavior yesterday was uncalled for, and for that, I’m sorry, I really am. But I’ve been thinking about things a little, and I honestly just want to understand. So please… May I ask you a question?”
Gabriel didn’t respond, but nor did he make any move to leave. Grace took that as a sign to continue. She bit her lip. “So, um, why did you save me yesterday, Gabe?”
Again, the pregnant pause. His response was still sarcastic; his words still stung. “Maybe it was just part of the job description. Happy now?”
“But you told me before that angels haven’t appeared before man in thousands of years,” she argued. “Ever since the Schism of 1074. Doesn’t that mean you broke some rule by saving me like that? So… Why?”
Gabriel sighed. “I broke no rules by saving you yesterday. No new ones, at least.” He paused then; before she could inquire further, he continued. “You’ve seen the tattoo on my back already, right? That day when you watched me swim? That is no tattoo. It's a scar—a brand, if you will—seared onto the mortal flesh of those of us who’ve Fallen after our confinement to the mortal plane. It seals our powers until such time as the Lord deems us worthy to return.” The man—no, the angel, she corrected herself—paused again, fixing her with a resigned gaze. “This isn’t the shortest of stories, nor should it be told in public. Do you really want to hear the rest? Are you busy right now?”
Grace shook her head. Gabriel glanced away and then back at her. “Alright then… Come with me.”
They found themselves walking side-by-side along a pathway between two of the campus buildings, each buried in their own thoughts. An audible intake of breath drew Grace’s attention towards her companion, and as they walked, he spoke in a quiet voice. “Over a century ago, during the American Revolution, I was still a guardian angel, watching over a girl not much younger than you right now. Her name was Annabelle, and she was working in the textile mills to help raise enough money for her older brother to go to college. It was a hard job for a girl like her, but she never complained—after all, society at the time dictated that women were only to be wives. It was their husbands and fathers and brothers who advanced the world. One fateful day, while she was working late into the night, the accident happened. I can’t imagine that someone harbored ill will for my charge—Someone must simply have forgotten to secure the equipment properly. Whether it was the man handling the steel pipes above her or someone else, I do not know. But suddenly, we heard the sound of something falling.
“I reacted without thinking. Neither angels nor demons can affect the mortal world without taking physical form, you see, so I materialized before her and shoved her out of the way. I’d thought that the shock of nearly dying would have made her forget what she saw then, but unfortunately for us both, she remembered.” Gabriel halted and shook his head. “In the end, my saving her drove Annabelle mad. Whenever things turned sour thereafter, she would always claim, publicly, that I would be there to make things right. The things she claimed I could do… Even if some of them were indeed within my abilities, I knew I couldn’t show myself to her again. Ever since the Schism of 1074, it’s been our mandate to guide you from backstage. But in the end, my resolve just wasn’t strong enough. Annabelle began to go truly mad. I couldn’t bear to watch her suffer, and so I appeared to her once more. One time soon became ten, twenty, fifty; and then…” He lowered his gaze. Neither spoke for a second.
Eventually, he resumed. “Even if she hadn’t been slated to die when I’d rescued her the first time, the second time was manufactured by Fate, and Annabelle was sent to Purgatory. I’m thankful that she was sent there rather than to the Underworld, but she died prematurely because of me. I… I don’t want to see you fall victim to the same. Besides…” Grace had to strain to hear his next words. “You remind me so much of her…”
Not once during his entire story had Grace spoken. She was too amazed by all the things she’d heard just now. She couldn’t believe it, but it all made too much sense. His name, his identity, his hobbies, even his major and the class he taught. Just one thing remained for her to discern: “Why me? Of all the people in the world, why did you choose to appear before me—a nonbeliever?”
Gabriel gave her a crooked grin and wagged his finger. Somehow to her, it seemed that his smile had come easier this time. “Now, now, if I told you that, it would defeat the purpose of my being here in the first place. And dare I say, you already know the reason why. Think back to all the conversations we had—you’ll find your answer there.”
With that, he walked on ahead without her. Somehow, she had half-expected him to fly away instead. Grace watched him go, and suddenly, she thought she knew…
-Ninten's Drabbles 2- aka oneshot/novella samples. Many more here.
Silver Lining
Wand of Fortune: Est x Lilith.
When had they gotten so powerful?!
Even behind the violet blaze of his magic, Est could see the demons advancing inexorably closer, a nightmare with dangled limbs and cauterized sinews. Sweat dripped into the pages of his blue and silver-trimmed book, and mentally, he raced through the strategies available to him. As usual, only that one intolerable solution stood out. He could feel the strength slipping from his body like the precious coin under his damp fingers. At least his foes seemed more interested in killing him than escaping into the real world to wreak even more havoc. His time was almost up. What had the professors been thinking, throwing such powerful monsters between him and Lilith and the coin that was their ticket to passing the final? Had they known that Est would enter rather than she? For Lilith to enter would have been suicide. With that unstable affinity of hers, she was magically inept enough to be mere cannon fodder for these beasts. He could not in good faith have permitted that.
Once, you too were in her shoes…
A part of his mind, the part that had neither forgiven nor quite forgotten the injuries of his past, whispered that Lilith was not so very unlike him; Est swiftly and irritably crushed it. However similar their original circumstances, Lilith was not the same as he. She hadn’t been born into a power-hungry religious cult, cursed with the scars of their failure to create a God, thrown away when her powers fell short of their expectations. Unlike him, she had a family to go home to, friends that she could enjoy life with. But what did he have? Nothing. His family had died to him the moment they had dared sell him to Origin, and if they could betray him, what could a so-called friend do? All he had left was a nightmarish past drawn from the circles of Hell. No hopes, no dreams, for even that which is given unconditionally can be taken away. Something like him did not deserve someone like Lilith, whose upbeat joy could make even the most depressed man smile.
That was part of why he was doing this. Retrieving the coin alone, fighting off this darkness alone—all for her. Despite his best attempts to push her aside, Lilith had stirred something in his heart that he had thought lost through almost a lifetime of abuse. Est would never admit it to her face, but Lilith had made him remember, vividly, what it was to hope. He couldn’t let her attach herself to him any further because he didn’t deserve her; not now, not ever. Even if Lilith never made it as a mage, she still had a future worth protecting—a happy and whole existence for a happy and whole person.
Once all this was over, he was going to leave her behind so that she could find that future on her own.
His foot slipped suddenly, jolting Est out of his reverie and causing his shield to flicker. Seeing him falter, the demons accelerated, laughing maniacally at him all the way, shrill and grotesque. The fourteen-year-old cursed silently, his narrowed emerald eyes glinting in frustration. If he kept up like this, the demons would only overwhelm him before he could get the coin safely into Lilith’s hands.
He’d hoped that he wouldn’t have to do this.
Time to get serious.
Still glaring at the demons, Est retracted his arm and shoved the coin into his pocket. Dropping his tome and gloves, he then took a long, deliberate step away, envisioning the dark chains that restrained his magic. Instantly, they materialized, revolving slowly around him like a shield. This was the physical manifestation of the spell he had cast upon himself to hide his truth. Though most of Mirus Claire’s students used wands or related tools to magnify their magic, Est’s tome was more akin to a lock than a megaphone. He could feel his magic growing stronger the more he distanced himself—though not without its price. As the air around him began to glow with the red-violet flame of his aura, the ethereal chains surrounding him blurred and exploded. Immediately, it began. Shuddering in mute agony, he watched and felt the blood-red lines carve outwards into his skin from his torso to his limbs, weaving the intricate tapestry that had been his curse since childhood. For almost three years, he had sealed his artificial heritage away, yet it always returned when needed, as familiar as a lover’s embrace, as damning as Hell’s eternal flame.
The boy winced and fought back a scream as the lines seared across his cheeks and eyelids to meet in a double-lidded third eye above his two true ones. Dear Morgana, the pain—! Though he could of course shut his eyes to mitigate it, in battle, he could ill afford to lose sight of his foes for even a second. So Est forced it aside and brought his hands together Ransengan-style in front of him, palms bared and meeting at the wrists, preparing to bombard the offending demons with light energy. He could see the backs of his hands now. Where there had once been smooth, pure skin now rested proof of his true nature. The hopes and dreams of a fanatic cult were forever etched in the bloody runes upon his hands. You will be a messiah, they had told him; the savior of our race.
His brows knotted in despair. Messiah? More like monster.
Lilith’s smiling face flitted unbidden across his mind’s eye.
He squeezed his tears away and fired.
In an instant, several white-hot beams of energy lanced out of his palms, impaling every demon in sight. Unlike most mages, Est didn’t need to speak in order to drive the bolts through their hearts, for his body was both arcane blackboard and sounding board combined. All the sigils he could ever require to cast and amplify his magic were already there; he didn’t need words or a talisman to increase his power further. The spells he uttered before others were merely lies crafted for their benefit. The creatures jerked as they were cleaved in two, shrieking a long, fading cry of anguish as they dissolved into ether. Est wasted no time watching them burn; the instant he saw his bolts hit home, he whirled on another foe, slaughtering it as quickly as he did its fellows. Powerful as they were, these demons could not resist the full fury of his awakened powers—not even a larger fraction of them. It took the boy only minutes to lay them and his immediate surroundings to waste.
Est panted lightly as he lowered his sparking hands. Not a single demon had escaped his wrath. The resulting silence was almost eerie. He poked a hand into his pocket and had just touched the coin he’d fought to protect when he thought better of it and turned around to retrieve his tome and gloves. The latter quickly joined the coin in his pockets; the former he clutched to his chest. It was always much easier to release his power than reseal it; while the former could easily be done, the latter required recasting the complex, forbidden magic that had sealed it in the first place. He didn’t need a mirror to see the tattoos that he knew encircled his entire body. Magic was a rare gift, certainly, and control over all six elements was even rarer still, but… Est had never asked for this. He had never chosen to live this infuriating dual life, pretending to be a perfect prodigy magician when in reality he was nothing more than a failed experiment, an abnormally powerful freak of nature. This was why he couldn’t allow himself to connect with Lilith any further. Either alternative for the matter made him sick; yet what could he do? He could trust no one else with his secret. The last person he would ever tell the truth to was her…
No sooner had he turned around and started walking than Est saw the last person he wanted to see.
Lilith.
Both of them leaped back in surprise. For a long, long moment, neither of them spoke. Est’s emerald eyes widened as he took in her shocked amaranth ones. Her thoughts were written plainly upon her face. She had caught him red-handed, too literally; like a novice with his pants down, but radiating incredible, forbidden magical strength. He had never dissuaded her from the notion that he was a more powerful mage than she (and she had probably encouraged it herself in her mind), but this was probably the last thing she had expected. Were he an angrier personality, he might have hurled insults at her and stormed off; as it was, he simply stood frozen in place, his mind in shutdown, a deer in headlights. Here were his emotions—his anger, fear, adrenaline, and vulnerability—laid bare. Few were the times when anyone he cared about saw him like this. Everyone that had was either physically dead or dead to him.
But now Lilith knew. And she was the last person he’d wanted to tell.
Instinct told him to lash out and kill her, as he had done in the past when some nosy undesirable had provoked him so. Like them, Lilith was nothing, magically, compared to him. He could crush the life out of her as easily as one might a fly or an ant; yet she was too dear to be quashed that way, the mere thought of it intolerable. Another part of him, the part that had never truly lost hope, that had at some point begun to consider her a friend, wanted desperately for her to stay, to understand, not to flee as so many others had done before.
Never was any moment in his life more unbearable than the seconds in which both thoughts warred in his head.
Neither won.
Est turned abruptly on his heel and fled.
Away, away, he ran, never once slowing or stopping for breath. All he knew was that he had to escape. There was no way she’d want him anywhere near her now that she knew his true inhumanity; and who could blame her? She was vibrant, happy, whole, and he was little more than a monster, a lab rat in human form. Everyone ran from him when they found out. No one stayed. In an instant, he was lost to her sight, gone with the wind, his desperate, unbridled magic speeding him along. Yet even amplified, sage-like magic had its limits; and there was nowhere he could run on Latium where she would not find him eventually.
At last, he halted, his breath coming in labored, uneven gasps. He had come to the far shore of the Shimmering Lake, still uncomfortably close to this alternate Mirus Claire. At least he still had his silver book, hadn’t dropped it on the way here. In between gulps of air, Est sat down at the water’s edge and rifled rapidly through the pages, searching for the sealing spell he had transcribed from Headmistress Victoria’s tomes so long ago. Maybe if he cast the magic quickly enough, he could make his blood-red scars disappear in time to convince Lilith that what she had seen had been only a figment of her imagination. He was strong enough; he could pull it off. In this state, he had control over all six of the elements, far greater control than any human was meant to have. Having never cast a memory erasure spell before, though, he knew not what the possible side effects would be...
Fear for her, what her fear towards him might mean, outweighed the guilt he knew he’d feel, cutting himself from her life.
If he obliterated her memory of him completely, then so be it.
That thought pained him more than he cared to admit. Est mentally swore and banged his head against a nearby rock, too lightly to draw blood. When had Lilith become so dear to him, anyway? Hadn’t he been taught early on, in the worst of ways, never to rely on others for trust or friendship?
After a time, he found the spells he sought. The page corners were rather worn—an understandable state, given how many times he had flipped to that exact spot before. He cast one last glance back at the school, towards Latium. Good; she hadn’t found him yet.
God willing, she never would.
***
“Ugh…”
Lilith groaned as she pushed herself up from the grass on the quad of Mirus Claire Academy. Goodness, had an elephant been tap-dancing on her head? The silver-haired girl rubbed it for a moment, gazing around dazedly. A flash. She remembered seeing a violet flash, and then nothing. What was she doing in the school quad again? And where in the world was Est?
Est! Lilith jolted instantly to her feet, her panicked eyes scanning the entire field. The final exam. The portal. They had been arguing, and Est had decided that this mission was too difficult for her to handle. He must have torn his own portal through space-time to finish it himself while she was out cold. Her indignation at being subordinated yet again was suppressed by her very real fear for him. What horrors did Est face in there all alone? She should have tried harder to stay by his side! She would never be able to live with herself if he got hurt without her near!
There’s no time to waste! Est could be dying in there! Hurriedly, Lilith cast her aural gaze about for the telltale traces of her mentor’s magic—dark, mysterious, inscrutable, always inexplicably tinged with sadness. There, opposite Varona’s statue. Approaching it, she closed her eyes and lifted her wingèd wand high. “Sentinels of dark, Show me where my friend walked,” she intoned in the arcane magical tongue.
The air quivered in front of her and then collapsed inward with a vacuum-like noise, whipping her silver locks into a frenzy around her face. Her eyes still closed, Lilith dug her feet into the grass to keep from being immediately sucked inside. Only when the noise had settled down did she reopen her eyes. Est’s portal lay open before her, a window into the alternate dimension that hosted her final exam. Inside, she could see demons being blasted backwards by white-hot bolts of magic; then the event changed to reveal a familiar black-haired boy trudging away from the carnage, his head bowed, clutching his iconic blue and silver-trimmed tome in his arms. He seemed almost exhausted. Lilith’s heart immediately went out to him. He was so sweet sometimes, always trying to make things easier for her by hastening her task and overworking himself. But he didn’t have to work so hard alone, not when she was here and knew approximately where he was. Searching for something always went much faster when there were two pairs of eyes to look with, after all! Nodding decisively to herself, Lilith took a deep breath and stepped through.
A wave of dizziness hit her as she crossed to the other side, and Lilith paused to catch her breath before looking around for Est. This alternate dimension academy looked almost exactly like the one she had just left, but the girl couldn’t recall seeing any definitive topographic features to let her pinpoint where her friend had gotten to. Perhaps he had gone to the ruins? The initial white blast of magic had illuminated a mess of crumbled pillars and masonry. After turning about to orient herself, Lilith set off.
Yet when she arrived at the ruins, Est was nowhere to be found. Lilith approached the blackened masses in the middle of the old plaza and knelt to inspect them. The first thing she saw was a charred demon skull; the sight made her recoil. A quick glance around told her that the rest had perished in the same inferno that this one had. Only one thing she had seen could have done this this recently. Est must have been here... Yet the evidence was off. How could he have killed the demons with a decidedly fire- or light-based spell when his element, like hers now, was darkness? Did magic function differently here somehow? She stared wide-eyed at her hands. Yet when she tried, all she could muster were the usual purple wisps of energy; nothing more.
Something about all this smelled fishy, but Lilith wasn’t sure what. Just what had happened here, and where had Est gotten to? “Est?” she called.
No response. Frowning, the girl stood and gazed around. There was nothing large nearby that he could be hiding behind, save for that hill towards the west. Lilith swiftly angled towards it.
Almost instantly, she bumped into someone.
The silver-haired girl yelped in surprise and leaped back, as did the person in front of her. It took a second for Lilith to recognize him. Est! She wanted to cry out in joy at having finally found her friend, but he was badly hurt, and the injuries she saw made the words die on her lips. Both his face and hands were covered in scars. Two long red lines traced upwards from his neck and chin and through his eyes to disappear under his hair, and his hands bore similar lines, with three circles each centered on the backs of his palms. Nothing stained his shirt, but she feared that he was bleeding underneath it too. These injuries were arranged too methodically to be anything but intentional. Lilith could see herself reflected in his wide emerald eyes and knew that her shock mirrored his. What in the world had he faced in this place to hurt him so?
Finally, she found her voice and reached out to him. “Est?” she asked, hesitantly. “What—?”
But her friend heard nothing she said. Before Lilith could get more than his name out, he was already nearly gone, leaving her standing there like a dummy with her arm half-extended. “W-wait! Est!” she shouted, chasing after him.
It wasn’t long, however, before he was lost to sight, and Lilith was forced to halt and catch her breath. She’d had no idea that he could run so fast! At this rate, she would never find him! The girl could feel her panic building and forced herself to think about this rationally. Although Est would probably run as far away from civilization as possible so that he could treat that kind of obvious injury himself without prying eyes, he also preferred the comfort of familiarity, especially when worried or flustered. He wasn’t the sort of person to seek out a whole new cave in this sort of situation, not when there were other equally serviceable hermitages nearby.
The lake. That was the only place that made sense. They had first connected there and now spent much of their free time there. Few frequented it during the off-season, either. There was no likelier place for him to go. But he still had a huge headstart; she had to hurry if she wanted to catch him before he left. Lilith set off at a purposeful run towards the lakefront.
Before long, she came upon the shore and began her search anew. A short distance away, off-center from the main path and almost at the water's edge, she could see a certain familiar huddled shape and knew it to be Est. By now, Lilith knew from experience that Est did not like to be startled in the middle of anything, but nor did she want him to flee before she got the chance to speak. Only after closing the first thirty yards between them did she call his name. “Est,” she called softly.
As she expected, the boy jumped. Lilith winced to startle him so, especially when he was so vulnerable. His expression was so forlorn, so upset, so lost, and she wanted nothing more than to help him overcome whatever it was that caused his pain. But the sight of magic brewing on his fingers—fingers that were aimed at her—drew her up short, and she inadvertently took a step back, holding up her palms to show him that she bore him no ill will. “Est?” she asked again, worried now. “What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”
***
“Est.”
Damn! How had Lilith managed to find him so fast?! Alarmed, Est whirled to face her, a lesser offensive fire spell already brewing at his fingertips. His sudden move made the silver-haired girl take a step back, baring her empty palms at him. He had scared her; that much was too abundantly clear. Struck by a sudden surge of guilt and revulsion, Est lowered his hands and instinctively jerked his disheveled cloak back over himself, turning his gaze away over the water’s surface. No matter how much he might want it, he had no right to seek her help like this, not when his careful illusion had been broken. After all the violations Origin had performed on him all in the name of science, could he even still be considered human and therefore her equal? For a long while, he didn’t speak. When he finally did, his voice shook, and he refused to turn and face her. “Go away, Lilith,” he ordered in a trembling voice. “Everyone does. Just… leave. This is nothing that I can’t handle on my own.”
More than that he dared not say. He had heard the distress in his voice and knew not whether his fragile semblance of control would break if he opened his mouth again. Est dropped his forehead to his knees, his shoulders heaving silently.
No one wants to help a monster like me.
***
Lilith’s eyes widened to hear the pain in Est’s voice. His words chilled her to the bone. Clearly, this problem was far worse than she’d initially thought. Though she knew full well what she had been told to do, she also knew that leaving would hurt more than help. What Est needed right now was companionship and understanding—not abandonment. From his words, he had experienced far too much of that already. Instead of backing away, Lilith advanced and knelt at his side, placing a firm, gentle hand on his shoulder. Est tensed under her grip, but he didn’t bolt. That much was already an improvement. She remained silent for a second, just to let him know that she meant him no harm, before speaking. “Est,” she addressed him. “It’s true I don’t know what’s going on right now, but you don’t need to push me aside like that. You’re clearly hurt, and the last thing a hurt person needs is to be alone.”
Lilith paused to allow Est to speak if he wanted to, but he remained silent, as if weighing her words. She pressed on. “Do you remember when we first met, Est?” she asked. “We made a promise back then, a pinky promise. A promise to always stay by each other’s side. To be each other’s friend, to be there when we needed each other. … Please, Est,” she pleaded. “Tell me everything. I want to understand. We’ve been through so much together already. Don’t shut me out. I promise I won’t run away.”
By the time she finished, Lilith was on the verge of tears herself. Her voice had softened to just above a whisper, and she was gripping both of her friend’s shoulders with her hands. Impulsively, she leaned into his cloaked back and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Please, Est,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “You don’t have to bear this all alone.”
***
Est had had no idea whether Lilith would actually do as he had directed. She was a headstrong girl, that much was true, but to remain even though he had explicitly told her to go away? He didn’t know what to make of that. With his heightened senses, he could hear Lilith’s footfalls, even though she thought she was approaching silently, and knew that she had resolved not to leave. Nevertheless, her hand on his shoulder made him tense, but he didn’t lash out physically or magically. Despite himself, Est could feel a bit of his anxiety ebb away under her touch, but he kept his mouth shut, refusing to betray any more of his feelings to her. At any moment, she could flee, and the gesture would be useless.
After a moment, Lilith spoke. “Est,” she said. “It’s true I don’t know what’s going on right now, but you don’t need to push me aside like that. You’re clearly hurt, badly, and the last thing a hurt person needs is to be alone.”
Est remained silent. Did Lilith really mean what she was saying? He had heard more than one person say some version of this before, but the end result was always the same. Only time would tell whether or not she was serious.
As if recognizing that he didn't believe her, Lilith continued. “Do you remember when we first met, Est?” she asked. “We made a promise back then, a pinky promise. A promise to always stay by each other’s side. To be each other’s friend, to be there when we needed each other. … Please, Est. Tell me everything. I want to understand. We’ve been through so much together already. Don’t shut me out. I promise I won’t run away.”
Est could hear her voice breaking, feel both of her hands on his shoulders. For a moment, he dared to let himself believe that Lilith would be different, that she wouldn’t run or stab him in the back. But it was only a moment’s fleeting fancy. Eventually, she too would flee, and then he would have no one.
How much longer could he endure like this—subhuman and alone in a world that did not want him? What purpose had he to live once he had mastered every spell in existence?
Abruptly, Lilith’s forehead dropped against his back, and she quickly threaded her arms around his waist in a tight hug. The unexpected sensation made him jump, but her grip only tightened even more in response. “Please, Est,” she repeated brokenly. “You don’t have to bear this all alone.”
His eyes widened. That didn’t sound fake at all. There was only so much emotion and promise one could feign, and Lilith had already crossed that line. Could she actually… care for him? That alone might be enough to prove that she was a sincerer friend than he had known before. He gave a melancholy smile. Perhaps, just once, he could give her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, just once more, he could delude himself enough to hope.
Awkwardly, Est reached back and gripped the side of her back in a backwards hug. Surprised, she eased off of him, and he lifted his head to face her fully. Lilith’s eyes still widened as she beheld his ravaged face, and he winced, lowering his gaze to the earth. He didn’t look up again until many seconds later. When he next met her gaze, Est was relieved to find it focused and intent. Never before had he told anyone what he was going to tell her now, and he doubted he could do it if Lilith couldn’t even bring herself to look him in the eye. But before he told her anything, he had to first be sure that she was ready to hear it. “Lilith,” he began, “what I am about to tell you is not easy to listen to. It may even seem insane, impossible. Whatever your thoughts, I only ask that you withhold all judgment until the very end. Is that clear?”
A nod. Est exhaled the breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He wanted dearly to be able to trust her, and it seemed that she wanted the same of him. Lilith would never know how much more relieved he felt with just her presence and affirmation. He smiled bitterly again before continuing. “Let me tell you a story, Lilith,” he began. “A story of a boy and his journey.
“Once upon a time, not too many years ago, a boy was born to two loving parents, both lesser mages, in a town ruled by the church. Though they had specific magical affinities, the boy was born elementless, unaffiliated with fire, water, wind, earth, light, or dark. The entire town came out to celebrate his birthday and when the party was over, the bishop approached the boy’s parents with a proposition. Give the boy to me, he said, and I will give you God. For your son is the messiah prophesized to save our race.
“The parents hesitated at first. They were good members of the church, prayed there every week or so, but to give up their first and only child to the church? Yet the bishop persisted, and he was convincing. Over time, they came to believe his words wholeheartedly. Why should they deny their son his rightful divinity? Why should they deny it of themselves? And so, on his one-year birthday, the boy was apprenticed to the bishop.
“But unbeknownst to the parents, the bishop and his religious organization were both shams. Well before even the parents were born, this religious organization—Origin—had been comprised of a group of anti-magic purists who sought to cleanse the world by exterminating its magic. One day, one of their own was found to have magic in his veins. Through him, they discovered the allure of magic and changed from an anti-magic group to a magic dictatorship almost overnight. Rather than exterminate magic, the group now craved magic like never before. It became their dearest dream to control an Ancient or a sage, for that way, they would have all of the elements under their control. The bishop that the parents handed their child to was from this later Origin. Whether his prophecy was truth or lie, no one knows—not the boy, not even the parents. But one thing was certain: This bishop bore no love for the child he had abducted—no more than a carpenter would his hammer.
“The bishop and his cronies experimented on their victim almost 24/7. Every day, the boy was forced out of bed at dawn and marched to the mess hall to scrounge up a breakfast from the clergy’s leftovers. Too soon, he was dragged into the library to study spells from the clergy’s enormous pirate’s cache. Before lunch, he was hauled onto the field and branded with another rune—or three, or four, or seven, or more, each charged with powerful elemental magic. The pain was excruciating. What made it worse was the fact that this was no natural flame—for magic neither burned nor scarred, yet its fire endures forever. Through his screams, the boy was forced to cry out the spells he had just learned from memory, aim them through his tears at the clergy’s dummies, dummies that bore an uncanny resemblance to the parents who had abandoned him years ago. If he erred even once, he was sent back to the library without lunch. If he erred again before supper, he was sent to bed without. Nor was he allowed outside to play with the other kids. Later on, when the clergy began giving him freedom enough to leave his prison, no one would even talk to him either. Everyone ran from him, for the brands given him by the clergy did not fade, and they were everywhere. For ten years, this was his life—hurt, alone, abused, and tortured. The church became his dungeon; the clergy, his gaolers; the townsfolk, strangers. In time, he grew to trust no one, to fear everything, even the rising sun, for everything and everyone could and very likely would cause him pain. Many were the times when he wanted to die, yet every time, something held him back. Was it magic, or was it the force of his own will? Even pain became a curse because it reminded him that he was still alive, still physically able to endure more tomorrow, even though his mind had withdrawn far, far away. All he could focus on was mastering the next spell and then the next—anything that could deliver him from this hell. His only solace lay in the stories in the library. For the clergy had stolen indiscriminately—though their books were filched from the libraries of dead master mages, these bygones also kept tales of the world beyond: of sights the boy had never seen, of foods he had never tasted, of weather he had never felt. It became his secret rebellion to read a portion of these books every night, especially in the later years when the clergy kept track of him less diligently.
“On his twelfth birthday, the bishop finally succeeded. His pet project had finally mastered every major aspect of every one of the six elements. In short, he had created a sage, an Ancient, from a non-affinity. The decision was made to parade him around town so that he could be acknowledged and revered as God.
“For their victim, this was better than any feast or birthday he had ever read about. Not only was this occurring on his birthday, but it also represented his final release. He, too, had been fed Origin’s lies, had come to believe as desperately in them as would a child in the security of his blanket. Once the townspeople acknowledged him of his divinity, his fortunes would be utterly reversed. He would be loved, revered—and that was all he could ever want.
“But of course, that was not at all what happened. After eleven years, the boy’s body had become marred almost beyond recognition. Almost every square inch of his body was covered in blood-red runes; yet he himself had not noticed the change because the clergy had taken care to appear scarred before him, so as to not make him feel so alone. But to the unaccustomed public, he was ugly and inhuman, a freak of nature. Their fears only intensified when he demonstrated all the tricks he could do with his unnatural sage-like magic. A mob formed and attacked the clergy. Some were knifed and punched; others were trampled underfoot. The bishop himself was bludgeoned.
“Naturally, the boy panicked. His eyes sought out someone, anyone, who could take him in their arms and tell him that everything would eventually be right. Yet even his parents didn’t immediately recognize him, their own firstborn.
“This was too much for the boy. His sanity gave out, and his powers exploded, raging unchecked across the town, drowning it, torching it, tearing it, blinding it, burying the townspeople in rubble. Origin had played him all along. They had never wanted to make him a messiah. To them, he was merely a thing, a trophy with which they could claim control of the Ancients. He had been lied to for almost his entire life, and now someone had to pay.
“Within minutes, the town was razed. Only the boy was left standing in the ruin. What had he done? For minutes, he simply wandered through the masonry, numbly, aimlessly. And finally, he found his father, lying face-up with his wife in his arms, both alive, but severely injured. He alone smiled as the boy drew near. My son, he whispered. You’ve grown… so strong. Too strong…
“And that was all he heard. The boy fled, running, running, never turning, never stopping. Neither weather nor terrain halted him, for he was both child and master of the elements. All he wanted was to escape the horrid place in which he had been born, yet where his flight took him, he did not care.
“Eventually, even his inhuman strength gave out. He passed out at last near the gates of a great academy on a peninsula surrounded by water. It was a rainy night. The headmaster took him in—gave him food, shelter, and most importantly, his patience, and a means with which to control his magic. Slowly, the boy began to heal, but his mental injuries could not permanently be undone—any more than his shameful brands could be removed for good.”
Slowly, Est returned his gaze to Lilith’s. He was unsurprised to note her shocked expression—anything in his tale could cause nightmares. “I am that boy, Lilith,” he concluded softly, smiling a bitter, self-deprecating smile. “All my life, I have known only pain and suffering, thanks to these infernal brands of mine. They are my curse, my blessing, whatever you want to call them. With these, I can cast any spell from any element, all without uttering a single word, for these brands weave a tapestry intimately connected to each of the six elements. No normal person can do this, Lilith—only the Ancients can. Either side would kill to possess me. I will never be free to live my life as I wish. Even my being here at Mirus Claire has become a part of Origin’s infernal plans. Through me, they show the world what they have accomplished.” He leaned back and studied his hands, turning them over and over again. “What am I now?” he asked. “A freak show? An experiment, an abomination of nature? I was born human, Lilith. Whatever tragedies I’ve endured, I still live and feel as a human… but no human should wield this kind of power. Ever.”
Est lowered his hands again and turned his scarred face back on Lilith, his emerald eyes grieving. “Truth be told, when I heard that you were an all-affinity, I was shocked and intrigued,” he confided. “I wasn’t born an all-affinity, you see; I was made one. You are the only person I know who had it from day one, and quite possibly the only person Headmasters Ivan and Victoria know as well. We both know where that’s gotten you so far. That is why Victoria insisted you resolve your affinity, why I was afraid of training you myself. No one knows what will happen if one all-affinity trains another. No human can be trusted with this kind of power. Flaunt it, and you are condemned. That is why I never told you sooner, Lilith,” he finished. “No one so much as looks my way again once they know my secret, let alone stay to hear my tale. So every day, I hide these scars, so that no one will ever know the truth.” He bowed his head and addressed the earth in a whisper full of sorrow and regret. “Forgive me.”
Lilith, undoubtedly, was too stunned to speak. In the resulting silence, he traced a glowing line from the corner of his eye to the middle of his jawline and continued onward to trace a line over his torso and abdomen that Lilith could not see. “This… isn’t all aesthetic,” Est added, suddenly glancing up at her as if to try and allay the damage he had already done. “Hiding these brands also suppresses my power. Without them visible, I am for all intents and purposes just a normal dark mage, albeit one capable of mute spellcasting. That, at least, I can control. Only when the spell I cast is difficult or of another element do I need to summon my full strength.” He frowned. “Those demons I found here… Those were not foes you can defeat alone, not at your current level. I myself had to resort to light magic to defeat them. The headmasters must have known that I would enter instead of you.”
Something occurred to him then, and his eyes widened. “Could it be…?” Est mused quietly. Had Ivan and Victoria done this on purpose, to test the strength of his and Lilith’s relationship?
***
Lilith remained thunderstruck throughout Est’s entire tale. From the start, she had suspected that this story she was being told was merely her friend’s way of making everything easier to take, but then he recalled the torture and the massacre and she dared believe no more. For a moment, she was truly, seriously afraid of her friend. What terrible power did he possess, to obliterate a town in seconds? But when Est turned his ravaged face to hers with such pain and guilt in his emerald eyes, her heart ached for him. There was an implied apology, a heartfelt request for forgiveness, in every word he spoke, and though she knew that her friend was very, very good at keeping secrets, there were too many signs to the contrary for this to be anything but earnest. More importantly, she realized with a start, she could have shared the same fate. If Origin has gotten its hands on her, it could have been her in Est’s position, alone and scarred in a hostile world. Lilith doubted that she could have borne it as long or as stoically as he. When he bowed his head, it almost appeared as if he was crying bloody tears for all that he had lost. She longed to say something, anything, to comfort him, to let him know that he was safe now, that he had her. And yet, the words wouldn’t come. How did you tell someone raised with nothing but tragedy that their life would be better now because they had someone to share it with?
Her hand reached out of its own accord to caress Est’s cheek. He stiffened and met her gaze, his wide eyes still hurt and afraid. It pained her to see him reduced to such a state, even with her, but Lilith had to let him know that she had no intention of going anywhere. “I am so sorry for everything you’ve suffered to come here,” she told him quietly. “I can’t even begin to understand how horrible it must have been for you. But I made a promise, Est, and I have no intention of backing out on my word. Though I can never claim to fully comprehend everything you’ve told me, your having made it here is a miracle in and of itself. This changes nothing,” Lilith insisted, tracing the lines on his cheek with her index finger. To her surprise, she felt no scar tissue, only warmth. “In fact, it only makes me love you even more. I am blessed to have been able to become your friend, blessed that you would trust me with such a secret as this. It means the world to me, especially since I bet you’ve never told anyone this much before.”
With her other hand, she reached out and cupped his other cheek. “I don’t know what I could possibly say to make up for all the loss you’ve suffered,” Lilith said, looking him in the eye, “but I want you to know at least this much: You aren’t alone anymore. As powerful as you are, you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. I’m here for you, Est. Let me share your burden.”
***
Est’s eyes widened even more, if that was possible. Not only was Lilith not running away, she was also touching him, promising him that he would never be alone in this again. He had never been so close to anyone who wanted this badly to understand and help him, let alone a member of the opposite sex. His cheeks flushed red, and he smiled in shy embarrassment and relief. “Do you mean it, Lilith?” he asked, daring to hope that she would say yes.
Lilith nodded. The black-haired boy felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted off his chest. Seized by a sudden impulse, he jerked his arms forward around her waist, hugging her tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice breaking this time in gratitude. “For caring enough about me to follow me this far and hear me out—Thank you.”
Lilith too felt her heart swell. She knew that she had just been trusted with an enormous secret, a secret three-fourths of Est’s life, and for that, she was immensely grateful. The two embraced each other for several seconds more and then broke tenderly away. Lilith could feel herself smiling as she looked Est up and down. “Your runes,” she said, suddenly very shy. “Can I… touch them?”
Est looked startled for a moment, but he nodded, also smiling shyly. Lilith’s heart ached again. He was so very sweet when he wanted to be—and no one would know it but her. Truly, she was privileged to be able to know him this intimately. Slowly, she reached a hand out and traced the lines around his cheeks with the tip of her finger, following them upward under the hair, and he leaned into her touch, his eyes lowered and peaceful. Her breath caught at the sight of the third eye under his bangs, but she tried not to show it, instead continuing to trace until she reached the other side of his neck. Not wanting to alarm him, Lilith gently poked a finger under his collar. “Do they continue there, too?” she asked hesitantly.
Est opened his eyes then and glanced at her finger. He nodded. “They’re everywhere,” he told her bitterly. “Origin was nothing if not thorough.” His fingers made as if to unbutton the first button of his shirt, but then he thought better of it and returned them to his lap with a smirk. “Wait… Are you trying to disrobe me, Lilith?” he teased. “Not a chance!”
Lilith pouted and slapped at his hand. “I would never!” she exclaimed, as if aghast. Honestly, she was more thrilled that he could even attempt to make light of something that had thus far caused him only pain. He gave a short laugh then, and she grinned back at him. Anything to encourage his recovery. She prodded his palm questioningly; he relinquished his hand for her to examine. No runes adorned the inside of it, but the back of his palm and his middle finger bore similar markings to his face. A quick glance at his other hand told her that the markings were the same. The girl reached out and squeezed both of his hands gently. “I feel for you, Est,” she told him, “Remember: I’m always here for you. You don’t need to bear everything alone.”
Est nodded once and bowed his head. “I…” He hesitated. Even though he wanted very much to believe that Lilith meant her words 100 percent, he just couldn’t bring himself to say I know. “I trust you,” he finished instead.
Had Ivan and Vania planned this all along, so that he could retain something of what he had lost years ago?
Perhaps he should thank them later, when all this was over.
Lilith smiled happily at him. She seemed not to have noticed or understood his hesitation. Her expression changed suddenly, and she looked him up and down once more. “Oh, Est?” she asked. “Do you… have that coin we needed to get?”
The coin! With everything that had just happened, he’d almost forgotten that he had it. Est nodded and dug around in his pocket, brandishing the coin with a wide smile. “Of course I do!” he said. “It’s what we came here for, right?”
Lilith nodded dazzlingly. “Yes it is.” She stood and reached a hand out for him, noticing that his runes had begun to fade. “Shall we return now?”
Noticing the direction of her gaze, Est touched his cheeks and palms wonderingly. His eyes widened as he too saw the fading runes. He returned his gaze to her. “Yes,” he agreed, taking her hand in his free one with a smile. “Let’s go home.”
Together, they walked back into the warm light of day.
Carcafán whistled through the air as its wielder assaulted her prey from horseback, cleaving even the wind in two. The poor boar had no way to evade a sword of Glorfindel, and with a final, keening wail, the beast toppled backwards and died.
Valiniel slowed her horse from a gallop to a trot, halting finally beside the porcine corpse. Patting Airontál against the neck once to signal him, the copper-haired elf braced her hand against his flank and flung herself gracefully off, approaching her fallen prey to examine it for life. Her right curled lightly around the hilt of her re-sheathed blade in case she had misjudged her aim, but Glorfindel’s training had not failed her—the beast was, indeed, very much dead. Nodding decisively, she didn’t rise yet, instead pressing her left palm against an unbloodied section of the boar’s cooling hide and closing her eyes. “Hauta rainëlyë, arhravan,” she murmured. Rest in peace, noble beast. It was her custom to offer this brief Quenya phrase to her fallen foes. Every one of Eru’s creatures, be they animal or sentient, was born to serve some purpose under His cerulean sky, and Valiniel felt it only right to acknowledge when its task was fulfilled. Besides, this particular boar had led her on a chase through the entirety of East Lórien, and more than once, she had lost track of it, only to hear it by the twigs or leaves it had crushed underfoot. The elf studied the animal, wondering if she and her blue roan could bring it to Eryn Lasgalen on their own without much mess. The beast had reared shortly before its demise; consequently, she had flayed it from sternum to crotch. Blood still streamed from the fatal wound; Valiniel cared little for having it stain her leathers and plate. Airontál was as tall as any Elven mount and broad of shoulder, while this boar stood only two-thirds as high, with more obvious muscle. If she did not also ride, her stallion could manage the boar on his own, provided someone kept its vicious, curving tusks out of the way. “I’m going to bring this home now,” she murmured to her steed in Quenya, “and you’re going to help me.”
Returning her gaze to the boar, she pressed her hands against its bristly flank and massaged the beast until she had drained the majority of its fluids had drained into the earth. Then, she worked her arms under it and, with a grunt, lifted it up. Airontál knelt slightly as she approached him with the dead boar. His foresight made her smile, and Valiniel maneuvered the corpse onto his back tail-first and secured it with heavy twine before gripping the tusk closest to his flank with her left hand and lifting the entire head easily away. “A lelyalmë, Airontál,” she instructed him. With that, they forged south for Amon Lanc in East Lórien.
Eruvanda was at the city’s edge awaiting her return. The Elven knight smiled warmly at her in greeting. “Mae g'ovannen, Eruvanda!” she called, waving with her one free hand. “What brings you here?” Her pacifistic friend did not often venture out to Lasgalen’s edge, not when she knew that Valiniel usually conducted bloody work in the woods.
The golden-haired elf smiled in return as her old friend drew near, but her smile faltered somewhat when she sighted the blood drying on her hands. “Ay, Laurénor,” she sighed. “You will never weary of killing, will you?”
The young Ñoldor frowned at her companion. Decades of experience told her that Eruvanda did not truly wish her to relinquish the sword—especially not after she had used it to save Eruvanda’s life nary a decade past—but she wearied to repeat this all the same. “All of Eru’s creatures serve a purpose, and this one was meant for Lord Celeborn’s farewell feast,” she answered. “I would have returned with more, but this one gave me a merry romp.”
The cleric’s lips curved upward into a smile at that. “Is this boar not the very same that escaped your blade nary three nights ago?”
Valiniel started for a moment and then sighed heavily. “You remember too much, Eruvanda.”
“Anwa, Laurénor. Hold a moment!” The last was uttered sharply as Galadriel’s student seized her friend’s armored upper arm before the other could return to the deeper wood.
The young Ñoldor frowned quizzically at her friend while the other, embarrassed by her own sharp words, flushed. “Eruvanda, what is the meaning of this?”
“You… won’t have time to resume the hunt; not if the next boar gives you such a chase as this one.” Eruvanda paused to ponder her words. “Lord Celeborn wants to see you on ‘a matter of grave import’. Before you ask,” she added, raising her voice to quash the question she saw forming on her friend’s lips, “Lord Celeborn has not seen fit to confide to anyone what it is that he wishes of you—not even I, the Lady Galadriel’s last apprentice. You must learn for yourself what dire matter he wishes to resolve with you.” Valiniel’s gaze flickered from Amon Lanc towards the woods of northern Mirkwood, and Eruvanda tugged on her arm, gently but more firmly. “Do not fear,” she finished softly. “You will soon be hunting once more.”
As much as she wanted to continue assisting with Lord Celeborn’s feast preparations, she knew that it was not wise to delay the Lord of Lórien for any length of time. “I go,” she acquiesced at last, handing Airontál’s reins to the blonde elf and ascending the hill towards Celeborn’s quarters.
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From this gilded place atop Amon Lanc, one could see as far away as Erebor and Gondor. If Valiniel squinted, she could even make out the Sea of Rhûn and the Lost Kingdoms of Arnor and Eriador. But while Celeborn had not summoned her here to sightsee, he was at least patient enough to let her recall that on her own. Reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the ornate gold and glass windows, Valiniel knelt before the Lord of Lórien, her right hand upon her breast. She had had scant time to clean herself up before the meeting, and though her hands were no longer bloodstained, her armor still stank of the hunt. “My Lord Celeborn,” she greeted. “What is it that you seek of me?”
The silver-haired elf gestured for her to rise and then promptly rose himself, clasping his hands behind his back. Though he was surely more than seventy centuries old, his back was straight and his gaze sharp as he regarded the young knight with eyes nearly as old as time. “Valiniel Laurénor,” he said finally. “You have heard the ill tidings from Gondor, yes?”
The elf opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. While she knew that trouble was afoot in Gondor, she had not paid much attention to that rebuilding kingdom of Man since shortly after the War of the Ring. Before she could speak again, Glorfindel appeared from the southern entrance of the palace, drawing her up short, her eyes wide. “Atar,” she finally managed to say. “Why are you here? I thought you had matters to attend to in Rivendell.”
As the golden-haired warrior approached the center of the sunlit chamber, he spread his arms wide.
“Laurénor, meldaiel,” he exclaimed, enfolding her within his arms. “Indeed, I do have business in Ilamdris, but graver matters were brought to my attention, and I thought it best to inform Lórien and Eryn Lasgalen myself.”
Pressed against her father’s breast, Valiniel twisted her head up to stare questioningly at him. “Graver matters? From who? Does it have to do with Gondor?”
Before Glorfindel could speak, Celeborn cut him off. “You assume correctly, Laurénor.” Father and daughter separated then, the former returning to Celeborn’s side and the latter listening intently. “With most of our able warriors gone and I to follow my beloved to Valinor, you are the last most qualified elf of Lórien to answer Prince Eldarion’s summons. Glorfindel has confirmed what I have heard from Rivendell. A series of murders has befallen Men near Gondor, and the trail is fast approaching the citadel itself. Prince Eldarion has become worried for the safety of the kingdom that will one day be his. He has sent word to Rivendell, and through Glorfindel, it reaches us. I would have you leave for Minas Tirith with the dawn to discern if there is any way we of Lórien can assist him. You will represent us at the council. Airontál is fast; you may leave with him.”
Valiniel nodded, but she could feel a weight settling in her heart. She had spent most of her life fighting or training to fight. Well-versed as she was in the history of the Elves and Middle-Earth, she could hardly consider herself a fitter representative than her much more decorated father. Her thoughts flickered to Morniel. Her parentage was just as noble as her own. The last time they had met, the Rivendell elf had been but 30 years old. By now, she must be approaching 80. Would she be attending this as well? She forced herself to speak, to accept this with bravery. “Understood, my Lord. And what of you and Father?”
Glorfindel answered only with a smile and a nod. The young elf’s heart soared at that. Her father was staying with her to attend the farewell feast! All her life, she had sought to emulate or exceed him and treasured any love he showed her. Celeborn, though, unlaced his fingers and ceased his slow pacing to stare directly into the young Ñoldor’s eyes. His lips quirked upwards in a wry smile. “It would seem… that Galadriel must wait for me a little while longer.”
The copper-haired elf had not expected the Lord of Lórien to depart when the realm could very well need his wisdom, but to hear such from him directly was nevertheless vexing. “If you will not sail today, my Lord, does that mean that the feast is canceled?”
Glorfindel laughed merrily at this. A furrow creased Celeborn’s perfect brow for a fleeting moment; then, realizing why she had asked such a thing, he laughed, and their mirth resembled a pealing of deep bells. “Ah, yes. You have contributed greatly to the occasion, have you not? Despite the fear that Lórien would be unsafe without one of the Galadhrim. No; for your sake and everyone else’s, I will not cancel the feast, not on so short a notice. But it will serve a different purpose—a rallying cry, a toast to your safe journey, and to the swift resolution of these mysterious attacks. Whatever ails Gondor may soon ail Lórien and all the Elven-realms, so we must not withdraw from these matters merely because they affect Men; not when we are so few.”
Valiniel’s heart swelled with pride, but it was quickly tempered by the knowledge of what she must do. To be hailed and prayed for by all of Lórien! To represent all of her people alone at this great council! The last council she had heard about was the Council of Elrond that had preceded the War of the Ring. A glance at her shabby garb, and she flushed in embarrassment. “My Lord… I am not fit for such a thing…”
Glorfindel smiled gently and, gripping her by the shoulders, touched his forehead to hers in a paternal assurance. As her father and mentor, he had seen her grow from inquisitive youth to a wise and formidable warrior, and like Celeborn, he knew well the fiery, enduring spirit females possessed. “You have grown much since your naming-day, meldaiel,” he assured her. “You are stronger than you know. Now go. Your destiny awaits.”
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The feast had indeed been grand; Celeborn himself had seen to that. Immediately after he dismissed her, Valiniel bolted for her quarters to change at least into something cleaner, if not more respectable. It did not seem entirely right to wear a dress to a celebration of her departure the next morning, but she finally settled on a turquoise gown whose hem rose to her calves in front and fell to her toes in back and whose breast and back were emblazoned with the shining star-flower of hers and Glorfindel’s house. Val reserved the other dress—a gilded emerald gown that her mother Arlinniel had also embroidered with her family seal—for Gondor, when she presented herself at last before the Halfling prince. As Elves were not Dwarves, there were no raucous outbursts during the entirety of the ceremony. Everyone had mingled, settled, joined Celeborn in thanksgiving, and ate quietly and thoughtfully. Valiniel, sitting where Galadriel should have sat, had eaten slowly, wondering what awaited her in Minas Tirith. Though she had seen Gondor before, she had never entered the White City itself, and she knew not what to expect beyond the obvious upward hike. And, though her recent years in Lórien had been idler than she would have wished, these woods were still home to her, and that she might very plausibly leave it again for an extended time worried her. Before she knew it, Celeborn was speaking about her before the whole of Lórien. “Not long ago, we received word of ill tidings from Gondor,” he said. “The kingdom of Men will likely have need of our minds and arms soon. To this end, I have decided to remain in Lothlórien while arwen Laurénor journeys south to hear what Prince Eldarion requires us for. Should the worst befall Middle-Earth, we shall aid it with tome and arrow.” The Lord of Lórien raised a glass of Elven wine in her direction. “Varna lenda, Lórianel.”
“Varna lenda!” The well wishes rose in harmony as one by one, the Elves of Lórien mimicked Celeborn. Valiniel gazed upon the sea of silk and glass and felt that her heart might burst. Yet again, she swore that she would uphold the pride of Lórien and of her father, Glorfindel.
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All of these memories came surging back as the young Ñoldor gazed up at Minas Tirith from the middle of the Pelennor Fields, shielding her eyes from the heat of the late-summer sun. It had taken her little over a week to cross the 300 miles that separated Eryn Lasgalen from the White City, weighed down by rations, goods, and the emerald dress she planned to wear before the council, but under this heat, she was glad that she had neglected to wear her traveling cloak and plate and had instead stowed it inside a saddlebag. Even with just her leather and silks, she was sweltering (at least, for an Elf). From the ground, the capital of Men was certainly imposing—tactically, they could withstand many a siege here and retaliate—but it lacked the natural elegance of a city of Elven make. In her opinion, that enormous spur of rock that cleaved the city in two was the ugliest and most impractical thing ever. Had part of the mountain fallen in on them in some long-forgotten era? Ceras Galadhon sprang immediately to her mind to contrast, and she sighed with longing. She did not regret the move to retake Mirkwood, but sometimes, Valiniel wished that the capital of Lórien could have remained in the Golden Wood instead… But now was not the time for reminiscing. She had an appointment to keep and a city to enter. Pressing the heel of her palm against her stallion’s neck, she approached the citadel of Men.
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The black walls of Minas Tirith’s first level looked even taller from up close. Ahead of her stood the silver-white gates built for Gondor by the Dwarves of Aglarond. Several guards stood by, and she wondered how she was to enter the city. Lord Celeborn had given her no proof of her mission save a single golden bough and Gondor’s letter. She frowned down at it now, clenched in her hand. Could she really wave this Lórien branch before the guards as if before a dog and be permitted entry?
One of the guards noticed her and rapped the butt of his pike against the rock several times in succession. There was no longer option for her to leave. “Halt!” the man boomed. “What brings you here?”
Valiniel could not help but imagine that for such a short being—compared to her, at least, but she stood higher than many human men—possessed the voice of a Dwarf. “I am Valiniel Laurénor,” she declared in Westron, “a knight of the Golden Wood. Lord Celeborn has sent me to answer Prince Eldarion’s summons.” Lacking any more inventive ways to display her proof, she simply thrust it in the Man soldier’s face.
The man hesitated, clearly wondering whether it was right to admit this female, who claimed to be a knight, into the city. A quick glance at her waist resolved him. Fánanassë was a splendid blade, wrought by Glorfindel himself; few who glimpsed it could swiftly avert their gaze. “Understood, Lady Valiniel,” he replied at last. “You may pass!”
The elf nodded curt thanks to the man and rode onward. A tall elf astride a tall horse, she cut quite a figure riding through the city. As she surveyed the various apartments and markets, it seemed to her that more of the citizens’ gazes were directed at her than she would expect. Granted, her Ñoldor heritage made her taller than even some Elves, but no one noticed Airontál, nor his obviously bulging saddlebags. Did they think her a merchant, searching for an open corner on which to trade? Valiniel shook her head. She knew not how long Prince Eldarion would wait for her, particularly when he had not sent word to Lórien himself, and she had not come here to sightsee, but to fulfill a specific mission. Not a moment was to be lost; she needed to reach the citadel as quickly as possible.
But after a while, Valiniel was forced to give up her ascent. When she was certain that she had passed a stall on the third level for at least the fourth time, she sighed. Minas Tirith was even harder to navigate than she had expected. The elf glared up at the rock that impaled the city like a monstrous wedge. So it would seem that that ungainly rock did serve a purpose—to confuse and trap would-be assailants of the citadel for easy destruction. It would serve her ill to leave Airontál at the foot of the mountain with all of his rations and her dress, but the streets were too crowded for her to stable him at the citadel itself. Anywhere in between and she was like to lose him in the throng. No choice remained to her but to stable the roan downhill… Muttering a dark oath about the infuriating construction of Man-cities, she reversed her course and relinquished her steed’s reins to one of the stableboys, but not before detaching the saddlebag that contained the dress that she would wear before the Halfling prince. His face had lit up upon seeing that the horse was of Elven breed, and Valiniel instantly saw the danger. “Be careful, lad,” she warned him. “Airontál does not take kindly to strangers.”
She exaggerated, but hopefully the boy was not so foolhardy as to try and ride the steed of a guest of his prince. The sun was still fairly high in the sky; perhaps she could afford to spend some time studying the merchandise. And so, the Ñoldor elf wove her way up the markets, examining the stalls for any weapons or emergency supplies that could come in handy. A stand that claimed to have real Elven jewelry caught her eye, and Valiniel approached. The shopkeeper claimed these to be of Lórien make—was it truth or lie? The former would certainly enhance her appearance when she presented herself before the prince, but the latter would only undermine her own authority. She began examining the delicate bracelets and necklaces with a critical eye, searching for one that looked authentic and would complement her dress.
Quenya >> Westron
Hauta rainëlyë, arhravan = Rest in peace, noble beast
Airontál = Ocean-foot (blue roan stallion)
A lelyalmë = We go (Let's go)
Mae g'ovannen = I greet you
Laurénor = Golden Sun (essë/father-name)
Anwa = Correct/Right
meladaiel = beloved daughter
arwen = noble lady
Varna lenda, (Lórianel) = Safe journey, (Daughter of the Golden [Wood])
August 15, 2014; 3032 words
“Goheno nin, hanar; I should not have startled you. So you have finally decided to return to Arda… What brings you here to Minas Tirith?” Valiniel asked. “Might you have been summoned as well?”
The other Elf looked her in the eye then, shock and unrecognition apparent in his gaze, and Glorfindel’s daughter realized with a start that she had apprehended a complete stranger—not even Sindarin, like Hraldir, but Quenyan. Immediately, she averted her gaze to the ground. “Avatyara nin, vëaner,” she apologized, sidling away and back into the omnipresent throng. It was no easy feat for a female Elf taller than many Men to blend in, but she managed by ducking her head once she had managed to distance herself enough from the other. Val beat a hasty retreat then, cursing herself her audacity. What in Arda had prompted her to accost someone she clearly did not know? Her travels must have exhausted her more than she had realized. She needed to find a place to rest, and quickly. But she had business with the throne of Gondor, business that she had not attended to in the slightest in her several hours in the White City. The evening was yet young; if she hurried, she could make it to the palace before it was too late.
The Ñoldor returned first to the place where she had met her fellows who had been summoned by the Crown; yet not one of them remained. She had seen Alfirin, Miraear, and Elboron depart, most likely for the palace, shortly before she herself had left, and Folwyn had also departed, though for where she did not know. She sighed. Alone at the base of a strange and immense city… Perhaps she should have accompanied the others after all.
Though she did not enjoy asking others for things that she could discern or obtain herself, time was of the essence—particularly since she could very well be late for the summons by now—and Valiniel resigned herself to asking for directions yet again, but halted this time at a nearby stable. Fortunately for her, the Men there not only knew the shortest way up, but they were also willing to escort her there, though not without a price. She and the stablemaster haggled for a moment, and when the burlier, darker man seemed about ready for a fight, she simply let her sword and gaze glint dangerously in the reddening sun, and he quailed. He was a bar tough, perhaps a seasoned thug at best, but she was a trained warrior, apprentice and daughter to arguably the greatest Elven warrior alive. “Ten mirian, and no more,” she insisted.
With a bit of grumbling, he stuffed the proffered coins in his pouch and gestured to one of his cronies for two horses, mounting one of them himself. Valiniel surveyed her horse with some distaste. Hers was less hale than his, but it looked strong enough to serve, and evening was coming. When the light failed, she would truly be lost in this immense city. Beggars couldn’t be choosers—and neither, it seemed, could those on urgent missives.
They rode up the next three levels without much incident beyond a bit of pushing, shoving, and cursing from the stablemaster or the people he nearly trampled. The copper-haired Elf said little, for she had drifted off into herself. What were the royalty of Gondor like? She knew well of Aragorn and Arwen’s marriage; had their children inherited their wisdom, their history, their beauty? Had Miraear, Folwyn, and Alfirin arrived at the castle yet, and had the council yet started? And where was Morniel in all this? This place was so unfamiliar; she almost wished her old friend were here to share her burden… Valiniel shook her head firmly. This was no burden, but duty. Even if Men and Elves were not longstanding allies, Lord Celeborn and her father had sent her instead of themselves. She was a knight of Lórien; she would follow through, one way or another.
Urgency drove her and her companion mercilessly up the city, and on the sixth level of Minas Tirith, the stablemaster begged they stop at the first inn he saw. Val narrowed her eyes at him and implored he press on with her, but—as he would have it—she could not ascend the last level alone without his aid. Though she highly doubted that this Man could provide any royal admissions that she could not herself obtain with her bough and letter, it was foolishness to travel alone in the evening, even armed, and she realized with dismay that she too thirsted for some mild drink.
While the stablemaster ordered a large mug of beer for himself, Valiniel requested merely a glass of water and sat herself near the inn entrance, sipping thoughtfully. So that she could make it out of this foreign metropolis unaided upon her departure, the Ñoldor Elf had studied the path up as best she could, also noting any important statues or other permanent landmarks along the way. Now, she committed it to memory. To her mind’s eye, it seemed a simple spiraling path up, but thanks to the enormous slab of rock barring part of the way, they’d had to take several bypasses here and there. What architect could possibly have thought such a colossal impediment to be useful or artistic? She had no idea…
A sudden shout stole her from her reverie, and Val whipped her head around in its direction, her free hand dropping immediately to her sword. A bar fight had broken out—of course—and the stablemaster was at its center. Judging from the words exchanged, he had insulted a drunkard and his mother as well. As his client, the Elf knew that she was obligated to protect him, or at least verbally intervene on his behalf, even though he had very clearly been the instigator. Ah, detestable duty!
Thankfully (or not), the other drunk solved the matter for her. Kicking the stablemaster to the ground, he planted his boot on the other’s chest and unsheathed a wicked, dirt-stained dagger. “To Sauron with you, b*****d!” he howled. He then jammed the blade down into the fallen man’s chest, using his momentum to bury it up to the hilt, and twisted it inside the ribcage, causing it to snap in two.
Valiniel’s eyes widened. A follower of the Dark Lord, this close to the palace?! Her gaze darted about. Though she longed to unsheathe her blade, these quarters were far too cramped for a proper fight. Just as she yanked out her poniard, the drunk’s eyes lit upon her, and he snarled. “Were you his client, Elf-b*tch?” the drunk demanded. “Heed me—your days are numbered, for he will soon return!”
He? Who was he? Sauron was dead to Arda, his mortal form and power destroyed beyond repair. Who else could take up his mantle? Before she could ponder any further, the drunk pounced on her, swinging at her with his fists. Caught unawares by this attack, Valiniel rode his punch ten inches off the ground, stumbling haltingly back to her feet. Damn! She should have expected such a normal attack from a Man in this setting! Furious both at herself and at him, she stabbed back, puncturing him in the lung as he wheeled around for another strike. The knight retracted her weapon and he stumbled back, clutching the wound; but it was merely a puncture and would not drop him immediately. The drunk roared and charged blindly at her again; Val sidestepped and shoved him to the floor. Propelled forward by his own momentum, he smashed his face into the floor. Something crunched with the impact, though she knew not whether that was the floorboards or his nose. Surprisingly, he was on his feet again, though clutching his nose and wheezing now as his lung steadily collapsed. This time when he attacked, he aimed low, hoping to trip her, and Valiniel retaliated in kind, intentionally hammering the injured side of his ribcage to compress his lung further. She bounced off of his chest and ran forwards to attack him again, her blade angled not to kill, but to incapacitate. He had attacked her first and she was in a hurry, that much was true, but this other entity that he had mentioned intrigued her, and if she could help it, he was not departing this world without giving her a few answers. She almost wished for her buckler. As he passed, she knocked him between the eyes; but she had missed the point she’d been aiming for, and he barreled forward, punching at her again. At the last moment, she stepped aside, but his fist still glanced off of her chest right below the sternum, and she gasped, feeling her xiphoid bone digging uncomfortably deeper. He wheeled about, and she stabbed him again, scoring a hit not far from her first. He lashed out at her at the same time, and the impulse of their combined attacks set her back more than a couple paces. Her enemy, however, fared worse. Though he’d attempted to roll backwards away from her boot, he couldn’t find strength enough to rise and lay on the ground, heaving laboriously.
The Elf swiftly pinned him down in the center of his chest with her boot so that he couldn’t retaliate and aimed the tip of her dagger at his neck. He was gaunter than she realized, with sunken eyes and jaundiced skin that glowed eerily in the flickering torchlight. “Speak now, craven,” she ordered, pricking him with the tip to ensure he complied. “Who is this he you name?”
As she held him there, Valiniel noticed an ominous red gem adorning the space between his clavicles. Patterned like a tiger’s-eye it was, and very uncomfortably reminiscent of him…
For a long moment, the drunk could say nothing around his violent coughing. Bright red blood splattered on his face and dirt-stained clothes, and the rest of his chest wall moved up and down despite her trapping part of it underfoot. Then, haltingly, he smiled, a horrific visage with his bloodied teeth and skeletal face. “You… shall never find out… from me…”
Without warning, he convulsed violently upwards; thrown off-balance, Valiniel fell away. Another blade glinted in the drunk’s hand. Though she instantly brought her blade back up to parry, his was not aimed at her, but rather at himself. Still wearing that ghastly grin, he wrapped his fingers around its halt and stabbed it deep into his own heart. Stunned, the Elf could do more than watch as he hacked his last, faltering breaths and died. Minutes later, when she thought that the last traces of life had escaped him, she crouched to inspect the amulet he wore. No sooner than her fingers reached out to touch it than it hissed and dissolved into mist.
It seemed to her that the world had stopped indefinitely. Valiniel knew not what she had just witnessed. Her surly escort, slain by a man who spoke the Dark Lord’s name freely, who seemed to think that he would return… But Sauron’s power had been nearly irrevocably reduced when his ring was destroyed at the end of the War that was named after it. If he were to be resurrected, surely it would not be for at least another millennia.
The murders at Gondor…
Surely, those events and this could not have been unrelated. The realization made her blood run cold. She had to get to the palace immediately, before anything worse happened.
Numbly, Valiniel threw back the rest of her drink and paid the bartender for herself and for the dead and hurried out. Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to be out and about any longer. From here, the palace was but a short ride away. The guard on duty stirred when she approached and demanded her name while fighting back a yawn; the Elf gave a wry smile and presented her bough and letter by way of reply. Unwilling to stand under the mounted torchlight with a potential assassin, the guard requested she read the letter aloud. Valiniel consented only to a summary, but it was enough to satisfy the guard, and he bade her enter.
The first thing she did upon being admitted to her guest quarters was bathe. Though the water certainly washed away the grime of travel and battle, it also provided a sort of necessary cathartic release from the battle before. As a knight, Val was no stranger to killing and bloodshed, but the man she had just faced had been out of his mind, yet touched with that unusual breed of lucidity found only in the most devout. He had seemed so certain that the impossible would come to be; it was hard for her not to wonder, and doubt. Too, both her father and her lord would not have elected to remain in Middle-Earth when both longed to join their friends in Valinor without good reason. What would they all face here, that they should stay? Could she face it alone? Eru, help me; I am so inept compared to them…
But she had faced down many of Sauron’s minions in the War of the Ring, and she had prevailed. Even if Sauron were to return, he was just another challenge to surmount. Nor would she be doing it alone. All of the friends she had made in the Elven realms flashed before her mind’s eye: Eruvanda, Calanon, Morniel, Hraldir, and Elvëa; and then the friends she had made within the last day and decade. If it came to it, she would focus first on being their shield and their sword. Inquiry could wait.
But first, she needed to get ready for the council. Feeling refreshed now, Valiniel set about donning the garments. The emerald dress Arlinniel had sewn for her chafed around the waist, particularly where the bodice was laced, but otherwise, it was comfortable enough; and paired with the color-changing circlet she had bought in the markets of Minas Tirith, the ensemble began to look fit for someone at court. Surveying herself in the mirror, she nodded and turned towards the door, only to halt upon the threshold. Custom dictated that she leave her weapons behind when visiting the throne; yet she felt naked if she went anywhere without even a dagger for any duration of time. But Valiniel was yet a stranger to Gondor; best not ruffle any feathers now.
After a quick question to the nearest guard, Valiniel found the entrance to the throne room and eased the door open. As she had already suspected, the others had beaten her here. But Folwyn was nowhere to be seen; she had seemingly been replaced by a wild-looking, dark-skinned woman with a vibrant red dress and luxuriant black hair that, oddly enough, covered only half of her scalp. The Elf could see a crescent moon tattooed upon her bared shoulder, and the tip of another at the edge of her dress. No doubt there were more below. When she turned, Val could see an ungodly amount of piercings on her ears and neck, the last alarmingly close to where the dead man’s amulet had been. The Elf could not but suppress a shudder. Despite all this, the woman was at once barbaric and beautiful. She carried herself with a harsh confidence born of much hardship, and smacked far too strongly of Southron and Haradwaith. Valiniel wanted to dislike the woman, but her own curious fascination overrode this sentiment. All she knew of the Haradrim came from the legends, and here was one of them in the flesh, an irresistible opportunity to learn about an ill-documented people. History was, after all, written by the victors, and the ancient men of Gondor had certainly been quick to demonize their foes. But the Haradrim were again at war with the king of Gondor himself; what was a woman like this doing here, alone in the heart of the enemy stronghold? Valiniel frowned. No one was acting aggressively towards her yet, and so she too would give this strange newcomer the benefit of the doubt. This summons must be very important for someone from as distant a realm as the Southron lands to have come here as well—or, it had not been kept secret enough.
There was another man here as well, tall and unfamiliar with dark chestnut hair cut close to his squarish scalp; but his strong jaw and genteel face reminded her strongly of her father’s description of Aragorn and Arwen. If this was not the prince himself, then it had to be someone very close to him.
Valiniel approached quietly, and as she did, she overheard the dark-skinned woman’s last words. “Which one among you is Prince Eldarion?” she asked. “I would very much like to know why we’ve been called, and if the severity of it is cause for extreme concern.”
So she knew the prince’s name, had likewise been summoned by him. Val’s suspicions intensified. After being attacked on Minas Tirith’s sixth level, this was an alarming development indeed…
All eyes turned towards her as she approached them from the opposite end, and when she reached the group, Valiniel nodded amiably at Miraear, Alfirin, and Elboron. “Good to see you all again and safely here,” she greeted, somehow unwilling to name her friends in the presence of this exotic stranger. Then, turning towards the strange male, she bowed halfway at the waist, her hand over her heart. “Greetings, sir,” she said. “Is it safe to presume that you are Prince Eldarion, or one of his aides? I am Valiniel Saelíndis, daughter of Glorfindel and a knight of Lothlórien. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, though I too am anxious to learn why you have gathered us all here, and from such disparate realms. And if there is anyone missing.”
The Elf resisted an impulse to glance over or raise an eyebrow at the female newcomer and instead focused her gaze on the group in general. All would be made clear soon, she knew; it was only a matter of time.
While Lilith was getting herself acquainted with her room and uniform, Est shoved open the gilded double doors of the campus main library and stepped inside, into the sweet, familiar aroma of aging parchment. Walking past the louder front tables, he sat down at one near the south wing, one that, despite its commanding view of Latium City, was ill-frequented even by fellow practitioners of dark magic. There, he scanned the shelves for a book that he hadn't read—not an easy task for someone who spent most of his days here—and settled down with it. Having read his own tome countless times at this very table, he felt like finding something new. This particular tome documented various lesser hexes; given its subject matter, Est was surprised that he hadn’t read it at least once before.
However, he had scarcely finished two chapters when he heard a certain familiar cheery voice call out a hello. The sudden shout startled him, and he jumped, whirling around to face whoever had so rudely torn him from his reverie. That new girl again… Now that he had turned around, there was no way he was going to pretend that he hadn’t noticed her. Sighing once more, Est stood and resigned himself to talking with her one more time.
“Hello again!” she said. “I’m afraid we didn’t get to introduce ourselves earlier! My name is Lilith Yvesina. It’s a pleasure meeting you!” Having introduced herself, Lilith gazed brightly at him. She had changed into the Mirus Claire girls’ uniform—white blouse, brown corset, black puffed skirt and tights, and brown laced boots. Up close, her eyes reminded him of a flower he had seen in the gardens nearby, one that he remembered attempting to sketch in his notebook some months ago. Est swiftly crushed the thought, directing his gaze away to scrutinize the rest of her. No point in getting distracted now. After an awkward pause, she suddenly blurted, “And your name?” She fell silent then; Est knew that he was obligated to answer.
“Lilith Yvesina,” he acknowledged, barely inclining his head at her. “I’m Est Rinaudo, a second-year practitioner of darkness. Charmed.” That such a quiet, boyish voice as his could hold such jaded cynicism must seem unusual, to say the least. She had not extended her hand to shake, so he did not offer, instead folding his arms much as he had done when they had first met. A sudden egotism seized him then, and he frowned briefly, debating whether he should add that he could wield the other elements almost as easily as those in his declared element. Deciding against it—he'd never shake her if he told her that!—he instead tilted his head alertly at Lilith, wondering why exactly she was here. Was it mere coincidence that she had chosen to see the library first, or had she been looking specifically for him? He would be surprised if it was the latter. Est knew that he was far from the friendliest kid on campus… Then again, he must be the only student whose face she recognized. Perhaps he should be flattered by her attention, but he was too irritated at having been disturbed in the middle of his reading to feel that way.
Since he was already standing and expected that his silver-haired companion would hang around longer despite any attempts on his part to shake her, Est decided to ask point-blank what she was doing here. Maybe if he helped her with whatever it was she needed, she would leave him alone afterwards. “What did you come here for, Lilith?” he asked, eyebrow raised questioningly. “This part of the library isn't exactly the most popular part, even with this view. Did you want me to show you around campus?”
Another possible explanation for her presence struck him right then, and the idea unnerved him. Did she… want him to mentor her and stabilize her non-affinity? Him, the least willing and quite possibly the least beneficial for mentorship? Est almost wished he hadn’t taken the time to greet her earlier; but after turning around to face her, he could hardly have done otherwise. Right now, though, he had nothing to confirm his supposition, and he wasn’t about to plant the idea in Lilith’s head. Leaving her briefly to formulate an answer, Est turned around to retrieve his blue-and-silver tome. There weren’t many things a new student had immediately in mind, and he could always return for the other book later. The sooner he got this over with, though, the sooner he could get back to reading.
The commotion outside Mirus Claire’s halls seeped in through the open windows high above the seating areas of the library, and not for the first time, Est Rinaudo cast an irritated glance at the vaulted ceiling far above him. September had come again—the time when new students joined the magic academy’s ranks, and the time that evoked the most complicated feelings inside him. Even he, more aloof than most other dark mages, was not immune to the love and excitement that fairly buzzed through the air, but it was a love that he could not reciprocate, not without recalling some… painful memories. His eyes drifted down to his glove, but his emerald eyes saw not the soft black velvet, but the memories that he knew lay hidden upon it. He had joined Mirus Claire’s ranks at an unconventional time, and even after all these years, large crowds still managed to unnerve him, what with their noise and the claustrophobic way in which they swallowed up individuals.
The ruckus had gone on all day already. Most of his fellow students would be moving en masse towards the rotunda for the sorting ceremony now. Julius, Lulu, and Noel would certainly be among them (though the last probably only came to woo the girls and to avoid being one-upped by the first); Bilal and Alvaro would likely attend only for their own amusement—and that was assuming that the former hadn’t already drowned his sensibilities in his cups at the café. Est, however, had no desire to lose himself in the mob. With any luck, he would lose himself in his books before long, even though he had read most of these already. The athenaeum was, to him, the best place to while away hours upon hours of boredom, better than even the Shimmering Lake at night, for it added new texts to its collection bimonthly, from mages and authors around the world. By contrast, every sorting ceremony was the exactly the same—the mage-prospects clamored together in the first few rings of seats to listen to Headmistress Vania preach her usual orientation spiel, and then they lined up outside the rotunda to file in one by one and have their wands blessed by the sage’s magic, preserved in their legendary tomes. Granted, Est thought, his mind drifting back in time, last year’s ritual was decidedly atypical. A familiar pink-haired girl flitted into his thoughts momentarily. It had taken three years for the next anomaly affinity to enroll in Mirus Claire after him—three years since his own arrival at the school. The odds of a third such affinity enrolling in such quick succession to the second were virtually nil—and without that, the ceremony held no interest for him, not after watching three such events.
And yet, it seemed that the fates conspired to tear him away from his beloved books as soon as he began to lose himself in their pages. Again. Barely five minutes after he’d stood on tiptoe to retrieve a book from the top of his stack, a familiar spiky-haired redhead barged in. Though Est was facing away from the entrance, there was no mistaking the telltale rattle of metal in its sheath (it was a heavier sound than that evinced by the desert prince’s omnipresent jewelry), nor that barbaric, stomping stride. Lagi really didn’t belong in a library, nor did he visit without some pressing need; and almost no one sought Est out for idle conversation. Unlikely that the redhead was coming to inquire about his homework; it was too early in the academic year for that. That could mean only one thing: something had upset a dragon—and anything that could do that was worth at least an iota of his attention. Sighing, Est closed the book in his hands and turned to approach him. “Lagi. What brings you here to me this time?” he asked, his normally quiet and disinterested voice nevertheless tinged with curiosity.
Lagi skidded to a stop in front of the black-haired boy, his hair and greatsword askew, his amber, reptilian eyes burning brightly. “Est! You won’t believe what’s happened!” he blurted between gasps.
While he paused for breath, Est smoothly cut him off. “Did you find yourself a girl, Lagi? You’re normally much more popular with the boys instead.”
“Sh– Shut up! No! Wait, yes! I mean—!”
The dragon-boy’s words spluttered off into a trail of incoherent, angry noises even as his face flamed as red as his hair. Est almost cracked a smile at the sight, but even this was becoming old hat to him. His companion was almost too easy to rile up. “Calm yourself, Lagi,” he continued. “You’re much too excited to make sense right now. We all know of your… discomfiture… around girls.” By we, he of course meant himself, the other four boys, and Lulu. Est had neither motive nor interest for airing another mage’s dirty laundry. “Besides, if this is about enrollment, you know that I don’t particularly care.”
As much as the dark mage’s words irritated him, Lagi knew that he was right and that he should comply. That didn’t make his news any less important, though—nor that persistent disinterest any less annoying. Having caught his breath, the redhead glared at Est, thought his eyes lacked any true fire. “I ran into a girl in the front courtyard just now. I think she might be an all-affinity just like you!”
Instantly, Est’s fingers stiffened around the sides of his violet tome. A– An all-affinity?! He had just been thinking about his own relation to the matter, and now came news of another possible mage of that dread type? “How could you possibly sense such a thing? he asked warily, unable to completely hide the tremor that creeped into his voice.
Lagi sighed and pointed an index finger at his face, or more precisely, his nose. “My sense of smell is much better than yours, remember? The girl smells a bit like you do—and we all know what that means.” Lowering his hand, he strode forward and tore his companion’s away from his book. “I think you’re going to care about this one, Est. Now come on, before your miss her sorting!”
“Hey! Unhand me at once!” Est protested; but his words fell on deaf ears. As he was dragged bodily out of the library, the navy-haired boy cast a longing glance back at his tower of books, as if trying to memorize their titles even from this distance. But Lagi’s words rang true enough. Non-affinities only came about once in a blue moon, and all-affinities were even rarer. He himself had had to be forced into such a state—but to think that a natural-born could exist… Even without that hand dragging him into the enormous throng, he probably would have attended just to see whether the dragon-boy’s prediction was sound. After all, Mirus Claire had only enrolled two anomaly affinities in its centuries of existence. Would it now enroll a third?
The dark mage gave a resigned sigh. “You had better not be toying with me, Lagi el Nagil,” he warned, though like the redhead’s prior glare, his words lacked force.
... ...
All was as it always was in this room of discovery. Est recognized the six altars with their ancient elemental books, as well as the spectators’ circle surrounding them. He sat as close to the entrance and as far away from everyone else as possible, next to Lagi and near Bilal and the rest. Though he wouldn’t go as far as to call any of them close friends, he was at least friendlier with this lot than most others, and in a crowd like this, he preferred sitting with people he knew than total strangers. Despite Vania’s penchant for being airheaded, she left nothing out of her speech as she dictated the particulars of life in Mirus Claire to the new prospects in a ringing voice. Est tuned her out approximately two minutes in. He had heard all of this before—welcome to the academy; these years would be the most formative of the students’ lives; no tampering with the school’s rules… After precisely twelve minutes of repetitious drivel, Vania released the students to line up around the rotunda to be sorted. The coquettish blonde clapped her hands once to set the rotunda floor and altars twinkling with elemental energy, and the students filed in one by one to be sorted, although many spent several seconds gawking at the pyrotechnics that had taken over the structure first.
“Earth. Wind. Fire. Light. Water. Shadow.” The sages’ tomes rustled as each blessed the students’ talismans with their magic. Each student shuffled out of the rotunda once their element had been declared, some cheering, some disappointed, some with friends, some alone. Three dozen students had been sorted already, and not one of them had been an all-affinity, as Lagi had claimed. Est sighed again, this time in exasperation, and stood. “It’s been an hour and a half already, and still no all-affinity,” he told him. “This has been a tremendous waste of my time. I’m leaving.”
“Hey, wait! The girl I saw hasn’t shown up yet!”
Est had already turned his back on Lagi; at his words, he merely raised a dismissive hand in farewell. “There are at least fifty other prospects outside. Call me when your vaunted all-affinity arrives.”
The dragon-boy’s hands itched to smack that pretentious boy upside the face and haul him back inside, but it would be rude to leave now that another student had taken the floor to be sorted. A glance at his companions, and they all shrugged in unison, though Alvaro embellished his gesture with his usual sly grin. Yes, the prodigy was irascible and tiring to be around, but none of them could really fault him.
Prospect after prospect filed through the rotunda, and finally, the blonde girl he’d seen before entered. She waved at him, but Lagi was too busy staring at her, wondering if she really was an all-affinity as he had guessed. Bilal chuckled in amusement as the redheaded boy in front of her was sorted into the same water-affinity as he; and finally, the blonde girl took the stand. Vania spoke, and the two women shared a bit of playful banter before the girl held her key-wand out in front of her. An arcane circle materialized below her feet and pulsed outwards from her feet up the pedestals, causing them and their tomes to glow. At once, the air crackled into ominous life, seizing the tomes and tearing through their pages like a being possessed. Six whirling vortices of light appeared, creating six different-colored orbs of energy that hovered in place… and hung there for seconds before simply disappearing. Not a single one of them zoomed into her wand, let alone all six. When the light blinked away and the air stilled once more, the blonde was left standing there in the middle of the circle looking confused.
“Well dear, it looks like you are a non-affinity.”
Both the blonde and Lagi were aghast. Seconds passed before anyone spoke again. “Does… Does that mean I have to go home?” the girl asked.
Lagi thought that he detected a tremble in her voice, but he didn’t stick around to hear Vania’s reply. He needed to find Est now. Even though she was apparently not an all-affinity like he’d told him earlier—but how could that be when she smelled a little like Est?—she was still an anomaly affinity, exactly the kind of person the dark mage would be interested in. Could he have already made it back to the library?
As it turned out, Est had retired not to his mountain of books in the library, but to his favorite tree near the rose garden to read. The navy-haired boy glanced up as Lagi approached. “So, did you find your all-affinity?” he asked.
Lagi’s only answer was to seize him by the hand and drag him towards the rotunda—again. “Yes. Now hurry up before she leaves. If I’m right, Vania’s going to show the other students to the main office before coming back for her, just like she did with Lulu last year.”
The dragon-boy’s tone was brusque, and his pace was bordering on running. Est had no choice but to follow—again.
Lagi filled him in on what he knew about the girl as they walked. Est didn’t thank him for it—after all, all the boy told him was that the girl was blonde and wore patchy clothes. He hadn’t gotten her name at all. As promised, the girl was still inside the rotunda alone, staring at the altars in dismay and wandering aimlessly from one to the other. Lagi had left; but now that he had been dragged here yet again, he was obligated to find out more about this girl he’d singled out. There was no denying that there was something off about her—with his sensitivity to magic, he could practically feel the disorganized elemental eddies inside her. She didn’t feel like Lulu did, though—did non-affinities come in different types? Est wandered closer, and he could just hear her faint murmurings as she passed by Lady Yami’s altar, close to where he stood. “Why?” she was asking. “Why couldn’t one of you have picked me…?”
What? Those were not the words an all-affinity would say. She sounded more like a non than an all. And such a strange outfit. Was she foreign? As much as he liked to disconnect himself from others, he knew distress when he heard it. Perhaps he could say something to help console her? Est sympathized with her dismay, but were he to tell her that, he would come perilously close to unlocking the skeletons in his own closet…
The boy settled on a simple introduction and consolation. “Hi,” he greeted her simply, stepping out from the dark side of the altar. “I hear you’re the new non-affinity? I don’t know what Headmistress Vania has already told you about it, but most non-affinities get that way because their own subconscious hasn’t settled on a specific element. Once you interview some mages with set affinities, you should be fine.”
He should probably introduce himself to her, even though he didn’t anticipate running into her ever again. It was the polite thing to do, after all. “Est Rinaudo. Darkness, second-year,” he said. “And you are?”
There—now he was stuck in conversation with this girl until Vania arrived. Hopefully she didn’t toy too much with the male prospects first. He had books to read, and only so many hours of daylight left to read them.
July 3, 2014; 3606 words
*note: Godmodded with permission from Akki. This is an entire 2v2 battle.
Zelda had been relieved to see Silva scamper away once Link cut him free, but she had been too busy coughing up smoke and righting her back to see where Pheoni had retreated. Between coughs, Zelda had kept up her steady stream of fire, halting only when the smoke cleared enough to reveal a very charred Moblin corpse, along with a nauseating stench of burnt pork. Her stomach had jerked involuntarily at the thought that she might have cooked Pheoni along with her foe, but she harshly shook the thought aside. She had not heard the auburn-haired girl cry out, so she had to still be alive, right? But that Obscurum! Of all the tricks he had at his disposal, a bomb?! As Zelda began to push herself back upright, she glared in the bomb-thrower’s general direction. By now, Link had regained his feet sooner and had limped over to her side. “Are you alright?” he asked, holding a hand out for her.
Zelda nodded and borrowed his strength to stand. He returned the reassuring smile she sent him and then glanced towards the smoke. “Where’s Pheoni?” he asked.
The Goddess could feel a mounting sense of dread as she too beheld the smoke. Before she could speak, an ominously familiar voice stole the words from her. “Where indeed?” it cackled.
Incendio?! Zelda jerked around. Her adrenaline spiked at the mere sight of the flaming sword spirit. When and where had she come from?! She glanced quickly back over her shoulder at the other side of the island. Obscurum blocked the bridge they had crossed to get to this island, and his companion now occupied the bridge ahead. Trapped! “Incendio!” Zelda shouted. “What are you doing here?”
The red sword spirit shrugged and grinned wolfishly. “Why does it matter? Why don’t we heat things up instead?” With a negligent move, she summoned a cloud of fiery daggers and fired them at the duo.
Link intervened immediately, interposing his shield between them and the weapons. When they struck the metal surface, Zelda could hear the thing hissing. Her eyes widened. Incendio hadn’t been able to do that before. Why was she suddenly so much more powerful now? Now that she could get a closer look at the red sword spirit, she could see that she looked somehow more vibrant, her pearly skin radiant, hair sparking with even more energy. She looked revitalized, and Zelda had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly why.
Her gaze met Link’s at the same time, and they asked the same question simultaneously. “Where’s the crystal?”
Incendio laughed. “Where else? I simply took back what was rightfully mine. But let’s not dwell on the past—I want to play!” Instantly, she began to glow red as Eldin’s heat coursed into her, causing the ground beneath her to fracture. Supercharged, she rocketed directly at the Hero and the Goddess. Link made to cleave her head in half with a Skyward Strike, but didn’t even manage to slow her down. Fortunately for them—at least, considering the likely alternative—Incendio also had no intention of killing them just yet. Seizing Link’s blade, she used it as a lever to fling the Hero towards Obscurum, who was charging up to electrocute him. Zelda had dove aside both to avoid Incendio’s attack and to give Link more room to swing, and she fired off her own watery orbs in Incendio’s direction, but the red spirit was too fast for her, deftly evading each one. Meanwhile, Link had fired himself off of Obscurum using his Clawshots (somehow managing to avoid electrocution along the way) and used the momentum to kick Incendio into the ground. “Don’t underestimate us!” he shouted.
You got that right! Zelda took advantage of Incendio’s moment of inattention to douse her flames, but the water evaporated before it could even touch her. Incendio merely laughed and cast a ring of cursed flame at them, forcing Link and Zelda to retreat. While they had been fighting, Obscurum had silently flown closer. When they stepped within range, he struck, punching them both in their lumbar spines, hard enough to hurt but not break bone. Both the Hero’s and the Goddess’s backs arched in pain as electricity coursed through them. Only Zelda’s training kept her from falling to her knees; her friend, however, was not so lucky. “Link! Are you okay?!” she cried out at his crumpled form. He merely shook his head, clenching his teeth in pain. Paralyzed?! Hastily, Zelda slapped a hand onto his back and sent a pulse of healing energy through him. However, she couldn’t remain by his side for nearly as long as she would have liked, not when there were two powerful foes surrounding them. She shot him a quick glance. He probably wasn’t going anywhere in at least another few minutes, but she highly doubted that Incendio and Obscurum would be so polite as to let the Hero heal in peace. Promises or not, they wouldn’t let such an easy opportunity to capture an unconscious Hero pass them by. The Goddess decided that the only way she could both defend Link and fight was to stand over him and hope that the sword spirits didn’t decide to fire at her from beyond her sight.
Oddly enough, Obscurum descended to their little island, advancing towards them. “Your Hero is incapacitated,” he noted in his ominous monotone. “Give yourselves up to us, and no further harm shall befall you.”
“As if I can trust you to keep your word!” Zelda blurted, tensing her fingers.
The ebony sword spirit shrugged. “Believe it or not, we would have.” He snapped his fingers, causing a jagged lightning-bolt blade to appear in his hand. “There is someone we would like you to meet. A shame that you won’t be able to see her alive.”
“What?! You said you needed us alive!”
Obscurum smirked. “Change of plans. We do. She doesn’t.”
With that, he rushed forward at Zelda, his blade flashing. Unarmed, she was forced to step backwards over her Hero. Of course, the sword spirit didn’t trip; instead, he glided smoothly over the downed male and pressed his offense. Her magic wasn’t nearly as useful in close quarters as it was at long-range. How was she going to fend off her foe or even keep him busy until Link recovered? She darted sideways as Obscurum chopped at her again, her mind racing. Could she fight fire with fire? A word, and Zelda now had a blade of her own in her hands. Her eyes narrowed. She herself had rarely fought with a blade, but she had watched Link enough to hopefully get the mechanics of it. Obscurum held himself with such easy grace, though, that he was probably a seasoned fighter. Hopefully she could distract him long enough for her magic to work.
When Zelda’s iridescent blade flashed into view, Obscurum stepped backwards, gazing calculatingly at her. “You wield the sword as well?” he asked.
“Surprised?” was the Goddess’s simple reply. Honestly, her gut was roiling. She hoped dearly that she could feign competence long enough to occupy him. Hylia give me strength…
The ebony sword spirit turned sideways, pointing his blade directly at her. Zelda merely glared at him without advancing, holding her blade two-handed. Nervous as she was, she was completely unwilling to make the first move; and not only that, he was too narrow a target now. A smirk flickered across Obscurum’s face then, and he gave a short chuckle. “Heh. You’re no warrior.”
Without warning, he lunged forward, using his magic to propel him forward, and thrust his blade directly at Zelda’s face. She barely managed to knock his blade aside and grimaced at the force behind it. If she wasn’t careful, he would overpower her instantly! The ebony spirit leapt lightly back and thrust again several times in quick succession, probing for a weakness; though she parried, the Goddess felt her heart skip several beats when his lightning-bolt blade skidded past her crystal one. Only quick reflexes saved her from being impaled, but she was certain that she had singed some hairs in the meantime. Clearly, pure defense wasn’t going to work. She was going to have to try her luck with some offense. When Obscurum next attacked, she swatted his blade aside and lunged forward to thrust her blade at his face. The ebony sword spirit jerked sideways, away from her attack, and cut towards her unguarded ribs. Zelda was unable to counter in time. Blood spurted from her new wound, but was quickly cauterized by Obscurum’s lightning. Grimacing, she pressed a hand to her side and sent a quick pulse of healing energy into the wound. That ought to hold it long enough. She couldn’t falter now!
Yelling a battle cry, Zelda twirled towards Obscurum, using the momentum to drive her blade at his side. The ebony sword spirit immediately went to block and overpower, but the blonde had anticipated this and angled her blade upwards at the last minute so that it skidded up his steel chest towards the underside of his chin. Obscurum’s head jerked up an inch and he leaped back, clutching his chin. “You!” Immediately, he blurred almost out of sight, rushing towards Zelda. Though she correctly anticipated where he would appear and blocked his weapon with her own, Obscurum pressed into her, causing her to step back. Seizing her weakness, Incendio interrupted the clash with a miniature meteor shower, setting the earth afire. Zelda mentally uttered an oath. How was she going to fend off both Incendio and Obscurum?! Inept as she was in swordplay, it took all her focus just to keep the latter at bay. The former had already been too nimble to be hit; now that she was reenergized, that task was even more difficult. She glanced swiftly at Link, who was just now beginning to rise. His shield was an ugly mess, but at least it seemed to have cooled down. How had she gotten so far away from him?! Whyever it was that Incendio hadn’t simply chosen to roast the Hero while he was vulnerable, Zelda knew not, but she thanked the goddesses for that small favor. “Link!” she cried out, running back to his side. “Are you alright?!”
“I’ll manage,” he replied. The Hero’s face looked drawn, but at least he was on his feet again. He gave her an odd look. “When did you learn how to fight like that?” he asked.
Zelda squeezed his hand, both to give him another healing pulse and to reassure him with a confidence that she did not feel. “Just now,” she answered honestly. “Come on; we have spirits to exorcise!”
The Hero chuckled as he readied his blade. “Perhaps I should teach you how to fight next time,” he mused.
“Next time.”
This time when Obscurum attacked, it was Link who deflected his blade. The boy jerked as he too was hit by the electric shock, but by then, Zelda was already ducking under them to cut at their foe’s abdomen. Her crystal blade sunk into Obscurum’s chest, but only about an inch, and an inadvertent twitch on her part caused the tip to snap right off. She stared at it in shock, but before she could even decide to throw it aside, Incendio swooped in closer, spewing flames from every part of her body. Link seized the Goddess by the waist and hauled her towards him, using his shield as an umbrella to absorb the firestorm. The shield hissed even more as Incendio’s cursed fire hit it; Zelda didn’t have to look to see that it had melted even more. By now, Obscurum had recovered and charged at the Hero, blade poised to bowl them over. Link caught the spirit’s attack on the flat of the Master Sword, gritting his teeth against the shock, but Obscurum merely powered onward, shoving them to the edge of their island. The Hero’s foot slipped; only swift adjustment saved him from a fiery death. “Zelda!” he shouted.
“On it!” At this point, Obscurum had fallen back to allow Incendio an attack. Zelda quickly charged up an orb of water, and when the crimson spirit closed in to shove them onto the bridge, she flung the orb directly into her face. Incendio halted abruptly in her tracks, her flaming hair sputtering out for a few seconds. Blinded, she lashed out with her magic, sending a compressed wave of heat in their general direction. Caught off-guard, Zelda fell backwards into Link, causing him to stumble off the island and onto the bone bridge. The Hero yelped as his feet were burned and hopped quickly away onto the next vertebra of the fossilized creature’s spine, but that also gave way, forcing him to tap-dance in place. Zelda fared no better—the initial burn had shattered her focus too badly for her to levitate herself just above the bones, so she too was bouncing from bone to bone. Obscurum glided over then, almost gloating. “Say goodnight, heroes,” he said mockingly.
The ebony spirit’s hands began glowing saffron, and he unleashed a burst of lightning at the Hero and the Goddess. Zelda hurriedly cast a magic shield over them both to absorb the worst of the attack, but enough of the voltage got through to her that she cried out and tripped, falling face-first towards the lava. Link, for his part, had managed to interpose his shield between himself and Obscurum. His Goddess Shield was already too damaged to even conduct the current properly, and he escaped with only mild electrocution. He glanced over towards Zelda just in time to see her falling. “Zelda!” he cried out in dismay, dashing towards her side. Slinging her over his shoulder, he made for the solid shore, only to be blocked by Incendio. “Just where do you think you’re going, hmm?” she asked.
Distracted by her sudden appearance in front of him, Link forgot to shift his position in time. He yelped again as the soles of his boots were melted once more; leaping higher than he ever had before, he fled towards the middle of the bone bridge. Without any warning other than a sudden tightening of his hand around her side, Link dropped Zelda to her feet, hopping back to avoid getting himself burned again. The Goddess wobbled slightly, but regained her feet. They couldn’t keep this up any longer. If they stayed here, they would most certainly die; but the only escape she could envision would separate them, and if Incendio and Obscurum decided to gang up on her or Link, the other would be too far away to help.
It was, however, the only option available to them, and their situation was too dire for planning. “Link! Jump!” she shouted, hoping to Hylia that he understood.
The two sword spirits charged towards their prey, as did Link and Zelda. Each met their foe halfway across the bone bridge, but instead of resisting, Zelda channeled her energy into a leap that carried her over Obscurum’s head and in front his unguarded back. The opportunity was just too good to resist, and she lashed out with her broken blade, hoping to nick him there like she had his chest. Her blade struck home, carving a decent-sized dent into his back, and Obscurum whirled, his soulless eyes flashing. Undoubtedly, he sought retribution, but the Goddess was already gone and sprinting for shore. Meanwhile, Link had done the same with Incendio. He too scored a hit on his enemy’s back, shearing through her dress to cut the metal underneath. The crimson sword spirit howled, releasing a small wave of fire from her body, but Link absorbed the blast with his shield, likewise retreating for shore.
Obscurum wasted no time in closing the distance between them. No sooner had Zelda regained her bearings than he was upon her, holding his lightning blade to her throat. “You dare?!” he spat.
Oh yes, I dare. The Goddess could feel the energy of his weapon making her singed hairs stand on end. She had set foot on the Bokoblin village and flung her arm out and forwards as if hurling something. One of the tables lifted up and flew straight at Obscurum, smacking him in the face, forcing him to stumble back. Hopping backwards away from his reach, Zelda maintained her offensive, flinging everything from furniture to animal-head trophies at her foe. Had life suddenly slowed down, or was Obscurum getting slower in his movements? The Goddess wasted no time pondering the matter and swiftly switched to earth magic. Waves of earth rose up from the land like a brown tidal wave to engulf the sword spirit in sun-baked dirt. A few seconds later, Obscurum burst out of the rubble barehanded; his sword had sputtered out of existence, its energy dissipated into the earth. The glare he shot Zelda chilled her. She didn’t want to know what he had planned next.
The ebony sword spirit began weaving his hands in a complicated gesture. Zelda fled madly for the opposite shore, sprinting across the enormous vertebrae for Link and Incendio. “Link!” she shouted needlessly at him from the middle of the bridge.
He turned his head sharply towards her at the sound of her voice. The move cost him. Seeing this, Incendio glided closer and spread her arms back, charging a powerful attack of her own. This placed her directly in the path of Obscurum’s spades attack. The crimson sword spirit screamed and jerked as the black-and-gold energy impaled her, and her magic fizzed out as she redirected her efforts to expelling her counterpart’s weapon. The Hero pounced immediately, slicing at her neck, but his aim was too reckless, and her hardened steel skin deflected the Master Sword into her shoulder instead. Still, the shock caused Incendio to crumple to the ground. By now, Obscurum had realized his grievous mistake and shot over to his companion’s side. Neither exchanged words, but the ebony spirit did slap a hand onto her shoulder with a metallic clang. Was it Zelda’s imagination, or did she see the faintest flicker of concern in his black, soulless eyes?
And—dare she say it—had she seen evidence of a soul?
In an instant, his eyes had returned to their normal expressionless black color, if indeed they had ever changed color in the first place. Now it was he who stood guard in front of Incendio. Zelda grinned triumphantly. He was on the defensive! They could win this! She and Link rushed at Obscurum as one, he swinging his sword and she bristling with magic power.
But the ebony sword spirit intercepted the Hero’s attack with a sparking, spade-like double-edged blade that he hadn’t wielded before. Where in the world had that come from? Before Zelda could wonder, Obscurum caught her extended hand in his own, suspending them both in midair for a moment with sheer upper-body strength, and flung them violently apart. Both landed hard on the ground and skidded a ways; Zelda jammed her feet into the earth to keep from sliding off into the lava. Her back hurt, but she barely felt it. The Goddess bounded back to her feet, but remained in place, staring down her foe, charging another earth attack. Meanwhile, Link darted closer, aiming for Obscurum’s head. As he swung, Zelda ran forward. The ebony sword spirit blocked Link’s high swing, and Zelda fired into his lower body, knocking him momentarily off his feet. His sword went flying, only to flicker out of existence as the Goddess directed her mud wave upwards, engulfing it. Link lunged, bashing Obscurum in the face with his mangled shield, thrusting forward with the Master Sword at the same time. Unbalanced, the ebony sword spirit fell backwards, off the island. Before he could fall too far, he seized Incendio around the waist, disappearing in a cloud of black and gold spades. Before Link and Zelda could even catch their breath, he appeared right behind them. “This is far from the end, heroes!” Obscurum hissed. “Your fate is already sealed!”
Abruptly, he began to glow a blazing orange. Incendio in his arms grew visibly paler. Zelda’s eyes widened. He must be borrowing her strength for this final attack! “Link!” she yelled desperately, fleeing sideways around the island. Behind the retreating couple, Obscurum slammed his fist into the ground, causing the whole island to fracture. The earth beneath their feet fissioned and sank slowly into the lava. He wasn’t trying to keep them alive anymore—he was going to drown them in fire!
“Zelda! This way!” the Hero called. She hardly needed a second warning. As the two fled for the relative safety of the Bokoblin village, the island they had been on sank out of sight. Obscurum and Incendio had disappeared from view. Fortunately, Silva had long since fled—else, he too would have drowned and died a fiery death. Not once had she seen Pheoni at all during the battle, nor did she think Link had either.
Zelda slowed to a trot and then a halt, her hands dropping to her knees as she fought for breath. Her feet still stung from the lava, so she was forced to hop in place, which slowed her body's efforts to readjust. Her mind was filled only with all her shortcomings from that long battle. “I… I’m sorry, Link,” she wheezed. “If only I’d… kept better hold on that crystal… If only I knew… how better to fight at close range… I didn’t see Pheoni anywhere… and… we couldn’t even retrieve that tablet he had.”
The wind breezed past his ears as Bael stood, surveying the milling dragons from atop his own. Forty dragons in total, each ranging from 15 to 50 feet, a multivariate tapestry rippling and pulsing as its constituents pushed and clawed at each other. Not a single drake was attacking with force enough to kill, even after he had reminded them of the capabilities of their revamped draconian sick bay. Pathetic. Every group before these had been so much more… volatile, each with more bloodlust in their veins and more strength with which to sate it. These, however, were lazy by comparison. Two weeks, and still they were as impotent as newborns. Had the cold made them sluggish?
An example needed to be made. But who? Bael surveyed the writhing forms before him, searching for the strongest-looking drakes. “Zaitu!” he shouted over the din. “Gorria, Urdin, Diamante!”
The indicated dragons and their partners immediately ceased their fighting and turned their baleful reptilian gazes on him. Bael met their golden eyes with an unwavering gaze of his own. He knew how nervous he made these dragons with his similarly slitted pupils and his odd half-dragon, half-human scent. He trained with them, fought like them, and yet was not. As he was far more cunning than they in combat, they had, however grudgingly, accepted him as leader. When the entire unit had quieted, Bael retracted his arm towards himself, beckoning them closer. “Zatoz hona,” he said, his soft voice hissing in a manner not unlike theirs. Come here.
Rumbling in assent, they flapped their wings and formed up around their commander for further orders. The red was a burly specimen, with powerful wing and shoulder muscles and a full row of dangerous-looking spines from snout to tail. He, at least, seemed ready to fight. The blue dragon was much lither—though only half as long as Ezkutuko, her reflective ganoid scales would make her a slippery opponent. The diamond dragon’s scales glittered brightly under the perpetual gray of the Widow’s Spire; yet of these three, he looked most uncertain, almost afraid of the fight to come. “You three are going to stage a demonstration with us,” Bael told them in their tongue. “Who will strike us first?”
The three exchanged uneasy glances. Not one of them responded. The assassin raised a bemused eyebrow. “Eta? Me entzun zenuen?” he asked, sounding almost disappointed. “Alferrik zizareak. Joan, erasoa.” Go on, attack.
Hardly had he finished speaking than the big red roared indignantly and barreled towards him and Tuko, his claws primed for blood. Bael flattened himself against the gray’s body as they twirled away. Get her, he thought at his dragon, envisioning the blue in his mind. Tuko obliged and inhaled, firing a small football-shaped orb of concentrated fire her way. The mortar-like flame exploded against the blue’s fish-scale hide and she yowled in pain, veering away while readying a flare of her own. Tuko bombarded the diamond in similar fashion, yet he only yelped and pelted away without resistance. Bael smirked. Big weakling like that, he would make a fine demonstration. He needed only find his tipping point. After him.
Dragon and rider easily caught up to the retreating crystal drake, for Tuko was much older and had the fine control of wind of all his kin. To his credit, the other dragon turned to face his commander rather than hasten away. His flank still smoldered slightly from the effects of Tuko’s flame. “Zergatik ari zaren me erasotzeko?” he wailed.
Bael straightened up and wagged a finger. “My, what a pathetic dragon,” he chided, still in the guttural serpent language. “Did your mother throw you out of the nest when you were young?”
That got the diamond’s attention. “Zer esan duzu?” he roared.
Much better. Bael persisted. “Edo agian zure anaia egin zuen?” He shook his head as if displeased. “Zure komandante carrera,” he said. “Lotsagarria da.”
The crystal dragon screeched and launched himself at Bael and Tuko, just as the red had done before. The pair evaded him easily, but instead of merely rocketing harmlessly past, their foe craned his head and fired a scintillating bolt of fire in their direction at nearly point-blank range. “Bolada, Tuko!” Bael shouted. The gray responded immediately, exhaling all of the air in his lungs and clapping his wings together in front of them, channeling the air into a howling gale that tore the flame into glittering nothingness. The reactive force launched them backwards, higher into the air and nearer the clouds, with all three younglings were in hot pursuit, angry and seeking retribution.
Perfect. A true three on one.
The red met them first, swiping viciously at the bonded pair. Tuko wormed easily out of the muscular dragon’s grip, weaving perilously close to the other drake’s body to flay him from belly to shoulders to tail. The red howled and attacked again, this time joined by the wiry blue, but their attacks lacked synergy and were easily parried. Diamond corkscrewed after them, tearing the end of Tuko's tail in half; Tuko roared and batted his opponent away with pure sound. Slash, dodge, fire, burst, lightning. Bael was gratified to note that his foes were getting more aggressive. Their deadly dance continued for several minutes more until the red dragon summoned an enormous flame, as did the blue, while the diamond dove at Tuko from above. Bael knew exactly how to end this fight. Tuko, climb!
Though Tuko didn’t know exactly what the assassin had in mind, he trusted his rider’s judgment enough to comply. Bael watched his three opponents carefully as they zoomed forward towards the diamond. Closer, closer…
Fall back! Right as the red and blue fired, the assassin lunged forward, hurling a small grenade directly above him; at the same time, Tuko snapped his wings shut again and plummeted away from their assailants. Fire met fire met grenade, and the entire mixture exploded. Though none of the dragons were close enough to get caught in the blaze, the resulting shock wave knocked them all back several hundred meters. Smoke billowed out from the primary blast, painting the entire sky gray-white. Bael could feel the gray’s pleasure. Tuko far preferred fighting undercover to fighting out in the open. Go crazy, Tuko, he thought with a smirk, buckling himself in for the ride.
The gray dragon took to his task with gusto, barreling into the artificial cloud after his blinded foes, battering them with his mortar-like flame. They yowled in pain and surprise as lightning coursed through their bodies. The blue was the first to fall; her wings twitching feebly, she tumbled to the ground far below. The red soon followed suit; having taken a sizable burst of lightning-infused flame to the right wing, he was now spiraling away out-of-control. Only the diamond remained airborne, fanning away the smoke with his wings while searching madly for Bael and Tuko, who remained hidden in the smokescreen. The young drake was still flapping madly away when they suddenly swept in from the side, Bael’s face hovering directly in front of his snout. “Boo,” he whispered.
And then he struck.
The crystal dragon tumbled backwards with a cry, a thin gout of blood spurting between his razor-sharp claws. Bael had cut him between the eyes with a small, magically reinforced knife—an embarrassing attack, to be sure, but intentionally too weak to cause any damage. Tuko took advantage of the diamond’s distraction to fire another electrocuting flame at his foe’s leathery limbs. Paralyzed, the diamond fell, joining his comrades below.
Victorious, the assassin and the gray floated lazily down towards the assembled dragons. Bael had resumed his standing position, fixing them all with a cool glacier gaze. “Remember this fight, soldiers,” he told them all in the guttural language of the Dragoi. “This is why you train. On your own, you are powerful. When partnered, you are unstoppable. Fighting in pairs allows a greater range of strategy than mere brute force can ever afford, but before you can work together, you must learn your strength as an individual. In war, you do not have the luxury of swatting your opponents’ snouts and watching them fly to their mothers. War is life or death, and I expect to see you fighting as such. If your opponent falls, finish him and go again. Do not be afraid to give in to your instincts, for they will serve you well in the coming days. Ulertu?”
“Ulertu,” came the rumbling reply.
Bael nodded curtly. “Zeunden bezala.” As the assistants and their horses ushered the injured dragons to the medical wing, he and Tuko hovered long enough to see the rest resume sparring. The assassin’s thoughts turned towards his companion, and the gray craned his neck back instinctively to listen. Put me down near the citadel, Tuko, he thought at his bonded. I have information to collect and disperse.
He promptly found himself before the gates of Lord Rasul’s frozen citadel. Once Tuko had settled himself on the reinforced glass landing pad, Bael flipped gracefully off of the dragon’s back and strode languidly forward to meet his informant, a blonde-haired eunuch from Pran. To his credit, the man didn’t shake when he saw his employer approach. Bael’s reputation as a merciless assassin was well-known and well-founded, but it was always the other rumor that unnerved more. “Status,” he stated, without fanfare.
The eunuch promptly rattled off everything he had gleaned from his own informants throughout the city. Bael listened in silence. Burgeoning mutiny in Korai, and a mysterious flash southwest of the Needle-Teeth Range… Keva needed to hear of this immediately. Normally, he would wait and let the blonde figure it out herself (and then taunt her with the fact that he had known all along), but this was too important a matter to be delayed. “And what of you, Spider?” he prompted, fixing the other man with an ice-turquoise gaze when he had finished. “What do you think of the unrest in Korai?”
The blonde resisted an impulse to shudder. “They— They’re fools, of course, to think that they could resist the empire,” he stammered. “I would never sympathize with them, sir!”
“See that I don’t ever have reason to doubt that. I would hate for you to be met with something… distasteful.” The assassin held his gaze long enough to see the man quake and then turned back towards Tuko. “Thank you, Spider,” he said. “As you were.”
“My lord Spade.”
Tuko, to me.
The two left the eunuch on the landing platform and flew around to the library balcony. Keva was pacing the little platform, primly garbed in her favorite shade of green and looking none too pleased to see them arrive. Bael stood and jumped, landing lightly on the balcony before her. “Hello, General,” he greeted with a mocking bow. “Dressing up to read the day’s reports? I would not have thought you so easily enthralled.”
Dragoi/Basque >> English
Zaitu! >> You there!
Gorria... >> Red, Blue, Diamond!
Zatoz... >> Come here.
Eta? ... >> Well? Did you hear me?
Alferrik... >> Lazy worms. Go on, attack.
Zergatik... >> Why are you attacking me?
Zer... >> What did you say?
Edo... >> Or maybe your brother did it?
Zure... >> Running from your commander. Disgraceful.
Bolada! >> Gust!
Ulertu >> Understood
Zeunden... >> As you were.
Antoine twirled in place on the ground for quite a few revolutions, flipping smoothly into a cartwheel and a stand; then with a backwards flip, he began a quick routine of breakdance. Once he had finished this and resumed a stilled, standing position, he heard someone clapping nearby and turned. Amelia had arrived at some point during his warmup and had held her applause until the end. “That was wonderful!” she praised. The blonde merely hmm’ed in response, staring in mildly annoyed surprise at her clothes. The girl had resumed her clothes from her rehearsal earlier rather than remain in her interview clothes as he had expected. Hearing his unspoken question, Amelia apologized, explaining, “I would truly be a fool if I came to watch you rehearse without taking every possible opportunity to learn. It’s not every day one can be in Cirque du Soleil’s gyms with such a master.”
“I see.” She certainly explained herself well; and thus far, she had displayed much more dedication to this role than he had expected. Was she not exhausted from her audition? Most prospective performers were, and so they auditioned and interviewed as mechanically as they might for a regular job, but Amelia truly was a go-getter. There was much to be said for that drive, even if he still hadn’t entirely loved her initial performance. Antoine gestured towards a little bench near the edge of the performing area. “You may watch from there, Amelia,” he told her. “I’ll get started in a moment.”
As he strode to center stage with his hands clasped behind his back, the blonde was wondering how best to process this new information. Though she had not impressed him at first, he was not so cruel as to let her preparedness and drive go unrewarded; and as it so happened, one of the routines he had planned to rehearse today included choreography for a pair. But he could also simply add another quick routine for her as well. Should he test her strength this late in the day by giving her a difficult role in a minimal-contact routine; or should he simply let her relax and flow with the rhythm of his moves? Perhaps, he decided, laying himself spiderlike on the mat, supporting his weight on his fingers and toes alone, it would just be best to let the inner music take them both where it would.
After a second of pause, the man sprung immediately into action. Propelling himself into an inverted upright position over his right hand, he set himself into a whirling handstand, quickly bending and then bouncing off of his extended right arm to resume an upright position. From there, he sank somewhat more slowly into a split, pivoting as he did so that his back faced her. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he then compelled himself into a standing position using only his leg muscles. Pivoting once more to face her, he dipped his head low and his right hand to the floor, whiplashing backwards so that the same hand was pointed towards the sky. When he dipped again, his already loosely-fitted performing shirt had fallen to around his hands. Antoine flexed upward into a conventional handstand and then slowly bent his hips and knees farther so that his feet very nearly touched his hair; then, just as languidly, he angled his lower body backwards and his shoulders forward so that his entire body was supported over his diagonal arms and critically abducted hands. In this position, he lifted his left hand and bent his legs, sending himself into a sort of low camel spin. Gradually, he extended his legs skyward and his free arm inward so that he was performing an I-spin, and once he had built up enough momentum, he backflipped to a standing position and pranced over to his staff.* Snatching it up at a run, Antoine whirled it in a circle over his left hand for several seconds, bounding across the stage like a hunter after some invisible prey; when he finally ceased this motion, he had crouched into a deep lunge, like a tiger. Hopping up, he skipped backwards towards center stage, his staff whirling in figure eights now as he passed it rhythmically from his left hand to his right. Smoothly, he transitioned into an overhead whirl, ducking the staff under his extended leg and above, undulating in time with the same unheard rhythm as before until he flung the whirling object high into the air, caught it abruptly, and lowered it to the ground.*
He had now halted before the metal double-Cyr ring, almost as wide as he was tall and rigidly unyielding. Antoine first picked this up and swayed from side to side with it, demonstrating its hollowness and shape. This done, he mounted it, spreading his limbs apart in an X, and began revolving about the mat. Steadily, he accelerated, shifting his weight so as to slow his movements at the apices and hasten them at the center, several times pointing his legs as if figure-skating or performing on the mat alone. The blonde dismounted with a twirl, and after spinning himself and the ring around once, he pressed and separated the ring into two.* After depressing the locks to ensure that the ring would not collapse under his gyrations, he mounted it once more and rocked it side to side, picking up speed again. Once his motion was wide enough, he anchored himself inside the crossed rings and leaned about inside it, controlling his trajectory with each drop of the hips, each jerk of the shoulders. Once, twice, three times he stood inverted, his right arm and legs tracing a Y while his left arm wheeled freely; thrice more he was oblique and upright, his leg pointed behind him as he spun. At one point, he projected himself outside the ring, his chest bared towards the sky in an inversion of the spider position he had begun with. At last, he threw himself beyond the ring, pivoting and dismounting.
Though he had danced for quite some time already, Antoine didn’t seem very winded at all. He was nearing his last routine for the night, the one that he would carry the unsuspecting Amelia through. Snatching up the staff and approaching the dangling aerial straps, he grabbed hold and let the stage hands pulley him into place.* Then he swung himself in several widening arcs, striking poses when his motion slowed, finally twirling about his mid-axis, landing horizontally on one of the pillars supporting the gym roof and craning around to gaze upside-down at Amelia far below. Pushing himself away from the pillar, the man bounded from pillar to pillar, stabbing occasionally with his staff at the mechanized creatures that were invisible now but would be present on the real stage. As he performed, he noticed that another stage hand had climbed the pillar he had just departed and was waving frantically for him to come. Antoine frowned. What could he possibly want, to interrupt him in the middle of a performance?
Annoyed but curious, he pushed off once more, angling towards the stage hand’s pillar and landing in a crouch. As he straightened, the man scrabbled down to meet him, an envelope clutched in his hand. “Monsieur Duval… I was told… to give this to Mademoiselle Amelia…” he explained breathlessly.
Antoine suspected that he knew exactly what this was about, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling incredulous. Had the human relations committee truly reached a decision about their last prospective of the day so fast? And how in the world had they even known that she would be here instead of at her home? He frowned down at the bundled paper being proffered him.
However they had known, he was obliged to deliver it to her now. The blonde nodded curtly and held out his staff. “Merci,” he said. “S’il vous plait, put away this staff for me. I’ll see it delivered to her.”
The stage hand nodded and scrambled back down the pillar. Antoine turned, gestured his intentions at the crew above, and leaped. Bouncing off the nearest pillar, he touched gently down in front of Amelia. “It would seem that you already have your first letter from the company,” he remarked, as if this were just another business dealing. “I would advise you not to open it just yet.”
As he had not yet released his hold on the aerial straps, he suspected that the brunette wouldn’t have opened it anyway, but all the same, his sapphire gaze remained trained on her as he lifted away. When his restraints had been shortened as far as they could go, he was spinning in midair once more, supported by his right hand, which was presently wound behind his back. Languorously scissoring his legs wider, he untwisted his arm, bucked, and bent backwards to seize his foot, still revolving in air. Releasing his leg, he crossed his feet and whirled back down to the mat. “Come; grab onto the straps and push off,” he instructed her, gesturing to the top of the white ribbon that held him secure. When she did, he spun her around him, winding the straps around his waist when they built up enough momentum. When they had no more ribbon left to wind, she was standing directly in front of him, close enough to touch. So they remained until Antoine averted his gaze skyward. “Je reviendrai pour vous dans un instant,” he told her, his voice almost a whisper.
He watched as Amelia grew smaller in his vision, angling himself upside-down so that he seemed to be reaching desperately for her; then, when the cord could rise no higher, he suddenly jerked, tumbling end over end towards the ground, halting mere meters away from it, his body horizontal. Rotating proudly and gracefully to a standing position, he loosened his grip on one of the straps and offered them to her. “The end of this routine is choreographed for two,” he told her. “How well can you improvise?” Without waiting for a response, he looped his free arm under her hips as she seized his shoulder blades, and they were aloft.
For an unrehearsed performer, Amelia comported herself well, adding her own unique flairs to her gyrations. She had a different style than his usual partner for this routine, and Antoine wondered for a moment just how far she could go. He almost forgot that hers was the languid dance he had sought to banish from the company.
At last, they dismounted, and the blonde released the straps for good. “Al fin,” he said, for no reason other than definitive closure. With a bow, he flung the straps casually aside and began to walk back towards the changing rooms. “Did you enjoy yourself, Amelia?” he asked over his shoulder, almost certain that she was following.
After all the yelling that had gone on during that phone conversation, Gabriel had half-expected the girl to yell at him too. Anger had a habit of lingering in humans; this was particularly true immediately after the emotional incident. He’d advanced slowly just in case, but her conversation wore on long enough and the distance between them was short enough that he reached her just in time for her to salute someone in a distant window. The angel thought that he could make out three boys in the coffee shop window, but they were not the reason why he had left the pool, and so he paid them little more heed.
The first thing that caught his attention about the girl—Yuuki, she called herself—was her change in mood. She’d been so loud on the phone earlier; but now he doubted that it was real anger, for she had teased one of the men she’d saluted earlier. Clearly, she was friendly with the three individuals she had spotted in the window, but when she spoke to him, he felt a certain aloofness, as if she was addressing a stranger. Fair enough, he supposed; they had never spoken once before today, despite sharing the same class for a month. One of the men she’d been talking to, a brunet like him, interrupted them shortly after she answered his first questions about her name and major; it was all Gabriel could do to watch as he reprimanded her and she attempted and failed to defuse the situation with a playful punch to his arm. She really was much livelier with her friends. ‘A-chan’ seemed harried for some reason, and Yuuki herself had seemed frantic while searching for her phone earlier. Since he’d gotten his questions answered anyway, the angel was just considering leaving them to their business when the other guy mentioned something interesting. A concert and a warm-up in the same day? It seemed that his guess about her being a band member actually hadn’t been so misguided. And he’d referred to her as Nao; was that also her name?
Finally, the man left, giving Gabriel a nod that he suspected was a signal for him to hurry up. Whoever he was, he certainly meant business. Yuuki—Nao?—was probably going to leave too, but it was too late; Gabriel’s curiosity had been piqued, and her cooperation pending, he was going to detain her for one more question. “A concert tonight?” he asked quickly to forestall her. “What sort of music do you perform?”
Yuuki seemed to hesitate for a moment. While he did regret delaying her appointment somewhat (the bandmate who’d approached her earlier didn’t seem like the sort to tolerate lateness), Gabriel was fairly certain that it wasn’t six yet. Swim practice started at 4 PM—maybe they had a lot of pre-planning to go through first? The girl shrugged as she answered him. “We’re a rock band,” she told him. “Our songs alternate between J-rock and American rock. My friend that was just here is our drummer,” she added, gesturing towards his retreating back. “I’m the lead singer.”
“I can see that,” Gabe answered, grinning at her as he recalled her rather animated conversation just minutes ago. “You certainly have a lot of power to your voice.”
The girl seemed taken aback by his words. Had he accidentally given her insult? The brunet hurried on to avoid lingering on the topic just in case. “That guy—what was his name?—mentioned something about a warm-up at six,” he pondered aloud. “When are you performing tonight and where?”
Yuuki laughed; it seemed that the mere mention of music had cheered her up. Even though Gabriel had no idea if they would ever speak again, he filed the information away in his brain just in case. ”First off, that’s A-chan—well, Atsushi,” she told him. “Second, our concert is at the Dancing Bears at seven tonight. We perform there regularly. The owner is practically in love with A-chan,” she added with a laugh.
What a charming little bit of irrelevance. To be technical, the final bit of information she offered up wasn’t completely unrelated, since it did refer to the proprietor of the facility where her band would perform tonight, but Gabriel highly doubted that he would’ve heard that sort of information from her, distant as she’d been moments ago, without music to loosen her up. The brunet decided that he wanted to know more about this girl, and the way she performed onstage—and how better to learn than at this concert tonight? “At seven…” he mused. “Swim practice ends at six-thirty, so maybe I’ll drop by. I haven't kept up with modern music in a while, so this ought to be fun.”
The girl’s phone rang again; both of them knew that their brief chat was over. As he and Yuuki turned to leave, a mischievous thought occurred to Gabriel, and he turned his head back towards her. ”It was nice talking to you, Nao,” he said, aiming a small smile in her direction. “Have fun at your warm-up, and on stage.”
He didn’t face her long enough to know if the name had drawn a reaction. Nor did he notice her gaze lingering briefly in his direction afterwards as he ducked back behind the fence around the pool and lined up with his fellow teammates. Peter, a lanky blonde in the adjacent lane who was taller than Gabriel himself, offered a fist to him, which he bumped in greeting. “Yo, what took you so long, Gabe?” he teased, indicating the area he had just vacated. “Were you flirting with her or something?”
“It was nothing of the sort,” the angel replied evenly, though the old line of questioning annoyed him. “She’s in one of the same classes as I, and she helped get the hangers-on off my back today. I felt that I should thank her; that’s all.”
Peter gave an exaggerated sigh. “You and your fangirl-phobia! Dude, when are you going to relax and just soak it in? You’re only hot once, you know! Any other guy would kill to be in your position!”
You have no idea how wrong you are on all counts. Save, perhaps, the last. Gabriel chose not to voice this thought, instead saying, “You wouldn’t say that if you heard them plotting how best to jump you during the passing periods. God forbid they start targeting my bathroom breaks as well.” Girls in love these days—or perhaps more accurately, obsessed fangirls; he honestly doubted that anyone would call those irritating flies in love—knew no bounds when it came to their objects of affection. More than once, Gabriel had cursed his luck when he’d found himself cornered in the hallway, surrounded by them; and once or twice, he had even exploited his curse to skip class and simply fly away from it all. (Their concern for his wellbeing, however, turned out so much more oppressive than their normal hounding that he cared not pull that stunt again.) Even if their attentions had not been excessive, the angel knew full well that he wasn’t here to flirt or form any other intimate attachments. He had a job to do if he wanted to get back to Heaven; and besides, intimate attachments were what caused him to fall in the first place.
Even if his words had gone in to Peter’s ears, neither of them had time to say more as the coach halted at the head of their line. “Listen up, boys!” he bellowed. “Our next competition against Russian Hill is this Saturday, so I want you all in top form, starting today! We’re going to run through every stroke in the book, starting with the butterfly! On your mark… get set… go!”
Gabriel instantly exploded off the diving block. Frigid water closed over his head as he dolphin-kicked his way back up and broke the surface with a swift and simultaneous pinwheel move. Of all the terrestrial sports humans had, swimming was his favorite because it was as close as they came to flying. The adrenaline he felt while cutting across the pool lane, the water parting before his outstretched arms, the chill air that gusted past every time he surfaced like the wind when he dove through it from above… This was the only reason why he did not resent his Earthly sentence as much as he might have. The angel was the first to finish this first set of laps and, front-flipping underwater, transitioned easily into the freestyle. Coach Woden frequently had the team swim the butterfly first in order to build their endurance—it was the most exhausting of all the common strokes because of its comparatively long above-water time, so swimmers who were able to maintain even half their speed and energy after a few laps were well-prepared for any competitions they might face. As Gabriel had spent decades of his life flying through skies both mortal and divine, his upper body muscles were probably more developed than those of most of his companions on the team, hence his position as UPH’s star swimmer. His skill in the water earned him quite a few rivals inside and outside of his own team, but no one could deny the fame they enjoyed now, a year after his joining.
Onward they went through the breast- and backstroke, before wrapping up with a leisurely sidestroke. Even though Gabriel was certain that he hadn’t felt as exhausted as his teammates, he intentionally slowed his sidestroke so as to let another teammate get some glory. Sure enough, when he climbed out of the pool, another one of his teammates, Jonathan Ko—a slim Korean boy of 5 foot 2—was bouncing gleefully up and down at the water’s edge. “I did it!” he exulted. “I actually beat you, Gabe!”
Gabriel grinned and bumped his shoulder in greeting. “That was a fluke, J-Ko,” he teased. “Change the stroke order, and I’d have you beat in an instant.”
“Hey, Woden, why don’t you change the order sometime and make the butterfly the last stroke instead of the first? someone else complained. “It’s no fair for us to have to beat Gabe at his best stroke when he’s at top form!”
Coach Woden folded his arms, but Gabriel could see that he was seriously contemplating the change. “I’ve told you my reasons for putting the butterfly first,” he began. “It’s the most exhausting of all the strokes—if you can do all the others well after that, our gold medals are all but won.”
“Go ahead and do it, sir,” the brunet interjected, waving his hand dismissively. “It has been a while since we’ve done anything else first, and frankly, I am getting tired of the repetition.”
The whiner from before approached him then; Gabe could now identify him as Winston Arch, a redheaded fourth-year student from Britain who had all but eliminated his Cockney accent. “Again with the pompous attitude, you p***k!” he growled. “You think you’re better than all of us? I’ll see that smile wiped off your face tomorrow, I promise!”
“We shall see, Winston. We shall see.”
Winston looked like he wanted to do more than see, but a dangerous glare from the coach changed his mind. With a final grumble, the British Islander turned and disappeared into the shower rooms. Gabriel watched him go. Honestly, he wasn’t too worried about the boy. He had seen the type before—Winston came from an elite family and an elite boarding school—let him win enough times, and, his jealous, injured pride sated, he would surely lay off. The angel doubted that this would ever come to blows—he preferred not to muddy himself with such trivial matters.
Jonathan exited one of the locker room stalls as he entered, and Gabriel saluted him with two fingers. “Hey, J-Ko,” he said. “Great rally in the pool today. Keep it up, and we’ll have someone else trumping Russian Hill this weekend.”
His companion beamed. “Thank you!” he answered in his slightly lilting voice. His mood faltered quickly, though. “I really wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t beat you again though. But if I can place second to you even once, that’d be the best day ever!”
The brunet shook his head and patted the Asian boy on the shoulder. “Luck becomes skill with enough practice. Keep at it, and you will be beating me more than once.” Not many men were willing to take a supporting role, at least not for long. Gabriel knew that if he didn’t bolster the boy’s confidence soon, he could find himself with a new rival. Jonathan made no move to leave as the angel wandered into one of the stalls to trade his board shorts for full-length pants; he decided to see if he could elaborate on the information he had just received today. “Say, Jonathan, do you happen to know anything about the concert at the Dancing Bears tonight?” he asked casually through the door.
“What? No way! Is it the Bleeding Roses?!”
Bleeding Roses? Maybe he should have asked the girl for her band name while he’d had the chance. “Uh… Maybe?” he hedged. “The lead singer’s name is either Nao or Yuuki.”
Gabe could practically hear Jonathan’s disbelieving gasp on the other side. “Nao Yuuki! You mean you haven’t heard? The Bleeding Roses has been one of Pacific Heights’ hottest bands ever since the year after she joined! They’re the best in modern J- and A-rock in town! Oh, you’ve got to take me with you if there’s a concert today!” he begged. “You have no idea what you’re missing out on!”
That was true, he supposed. Normally, he listened mostly to church songs and songs from the 80s and 90s. Many of America’s most significant inventions debuted in those golden years; those were decades he remembered fondly. Too, he’d never had reason to visit this Dancing Bears place before—maybe Jonathan could provide him directions he would otherwise have had to look up on his phone, as well as information about the band. Nao Yuuki… Was that name foreign? It would certainly explain why she had apparently introduced herself to him by last name instead; he knew that some Asian cultures preferred it that way.
Having changed back into his normal school clothes, Gabriel departed the stall and made his way towards his locker for the rest of his belongings. “Sure,” he said. “The concert starts in another half-hour; maybe you can show me the way.”
…
The trek must have taken ten minutes at most, but Gabriel felt as if more time had elapsed than that, what with Jonathan’s rapid-fire prattling. He’d had no idea the Korean could talk so fast, or so long, about one band—not that he disliked the conversation (or perhaps monologue was the more accurate term), but the density of it surprised him nonetheless. Angel and human arrived ten minutes before the appointed time, but the bar was already packed, and patrons were even seated against the wall to surround the stage and dance floor on all sides. Wow, this band is big news, he thought. Why haven’t I heard of them before?
Jonathan, for his part, had taken up animated conversation with one of the patrons nearby; ignoring him for the time being, Gabriel approached the bartender for a glass of apple cider. Ever since the Great Depression and Recession, he had made it a habit to purchase something from café and restaurant proprietors as a sort of payment for his seat. Some storeowners were still testy about nonpaying customers, even if this one had no reason or ability to protest the spike in business today. The man who prepared his drink was florid in every sense of the word—his face was flushed pink with excitement, and his extravagant and decidedly feminine outfit was decorated with flowers representing every color of the rainbow. The only way Gabriel could tell that the bartender was even a man was the thin silicone line he saw between his chest and false breasts, and the hair beginning to grow back above it after a recent shave. The angel shook his head and, turning away towards the stage, took a sip of his drink. That was not a sight he cared to see again anytime soon. Ethereal beauty certainly did have its perks, but he could never have expected that to draw über-eccentric crossdressers of that caliber. Cosplay, he understood, for America’s youth had taken a keen interest in Japanese pop culture of late, and it was impossible to avoid the atypical clothing inside a cosmopolis like San Francisco. But that…
A moment later, the curtains on the little stage burst open to an eruption of cheers, and the band sauntered out towards their instruments, all dressed in elaborate costumes. The lone girl in the group—Nao, undoubtedly—strode out to the microphone and tore it off its stand. “Hel-lo, San Francisco! And welcome to the Dancing Bears!” she hollered, eliciting another raucous cheer. “We are the Bleeding Roses, and we’re here to rock your night!”
With that, the guitarist began strumming out an energetic beat; he was promptly followed by the bassist and the drummer, Atsushi. Gabriel barely noticed them; his stunned gaze was fixed on Nao. Wh– What in the world was she wearing?! Her outfit had gone from racy to downright scandalous in one critical area, and damn him for staring at it too long! The angel blinked furiously and redirected his gaze for a brief scan of the rest of her outfit. Given the mood of the song, her outfit actually suited it quite well—her blue, puff-sleeved, scoop-neck dress, gloves, and boots were perfectly accented by the array of belts on her forearms, translucent black, asymmetric stockings, and bared cleavage, and the pink underskirt complemented the first English line he heard clearly—broken rose. Nao repeated those words many times in the space of thirty seconds; that must be the title of the song; and having discerned that bit of English, Gabriel strained his ears for more. Jonathan had told him on the way there that Nao and her bandmates were at least part-Japanese. At first, her words sounded like a tangled mess of words, but eventually, he could pick out the English and the Japanese and see how the two languages mixed to form a powerful melody. This sounded nothing like the songs he’d listened to decades ago, nor did it sound much like the snatches of modern music he heard while he was on campus. This song was combative and pleading, challenging and needing… and Gabriel was intrigued. He massaged his ears. Granted, the volume was a bit much for him in this confined space, but he hadn’t been wrong to call her voice powerful, and the lyrics of the song fascinated him. It took a certain genius to intertwine two very different languages together like that, and a song’s lyrics often reflected something of the composer themselves. What had she experienced to compel her to write that song?
“The guitarist’s name there is Syo!” Jonathan suddenly yelled into his ear. Gabriel jumped; he hadn’t noticed the Korean approaching him in the din and chaos. When the brunet turned to face him, he jabbed a finger at the stage. “You can tell because he’s the short, cute one, though he frequently wears glasses too! The blonde ponytail guy in red at the bass is Mikhail, and the brown-haired one at the drums is Atsushi! And then of course, there’s Nao, singing her heart out at the center of it all! Isn’t this great?!”
“Yeah, it really is!” Gabe shouted back. He meant it too—odd outfits aside, it was a privilege to be able to watch a singer live and see into their thoughts even briefly through their song. The last concerts he remembered attending were Beethoven’s and Bach’s—and neither German sang, of course. Now if only he could give his poor ears a brief rest first…
The rest of the concert continued in much the same vein. As the minutes ticked by, more and more patrons took to the dance floor, frolicking there in ways Gabriel rarely saw. Perhaps he was being too old-fashioned in his assessment of things, but the way some of them smashed their bodies against each other was rather unsettling. Gabriel simply hung back at his seat near the bartender’s table, between the bar and dance floors, watching as Jonathan gleefully lost himself in the mix. Before he knew it, the concert was over, and the ardent fans were swarming the stage for autographs and the like. Unsurprisingly, Jonathan was among them, using his smaller frame to work his way straight to the front of the crowd. Minutes passed, and a sudden thought occurred to him: With the crowd as they were now, Nao and her companions probably wouldn’t make it all the way back to his position anytime soon. If he wanted to talk to her again… he’d have to join the mob. Shuddering, Gabe downed the rest of his drink and slung his backpack back onto his shoulders. Wait a minute… What would he say if she did notice him, or anyone else in that band? After a moment’s thought, the angel withdrew a notebook and a pen from his bag. Innocuous enough.
The mob steadily moved out into the bar at large, and as Nao and her bandmates passed by, Gabriel was surprised to note that her eyes were blue. He could’ve sworn that they were another color just earlier today… As he wended his way deeper in, she caught sight of him. “Hey! You actually showed up!” she hollered at him, giving him a huge smile.
He couldn’t resist smiling himself. She really was in her element here, and her happiness was infectious. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, especially not after my friend’s glowing review!” he shouted back. “And how better to remember this by than with a signature and a selfie?”
He could have smacked himself right then. Smooth, Gabriel. Real smooth. Couldn’t you have come up with something less cliché to say? But it was too late for him to escape now; someone else had noticed them. “Nao-chan! Who’s that?!” the short, cherubic blonde next to her asked. Syo… was it? Gabriel found himself momentarily speechless. He really had no idea how to comport himself among such colorful personages as these…
Abigale sat up a bit straighter in her chair then, her hands folded beneath the table as she spoke. “Jack created Ernest because he was in denial, unwilling to tarnish his own reputation by being himself,” she continued. “Beyond that, not only did he claim to live morally as Jack, but he actually used Ernest as an opportunity to publically strengthen his own virtue.” Before Gabriel could even begin to think of a reply, the lady physician threw her shoulders back, her spine ramrod-straight and her chest puffed in hilarious facsimile of men. “‘Oh I must go clean up after my impetuous brother,’” she intoned in a false baritone. “‘What a fool my brother is, the miscreant!’”
Gabriel couldn’t help himself; a laugh tumbled freely from his lips, only to be quashed in a halfhearted attempt to make himself seem less boorish. Only the most uptight men would not have taken humor from her parody, but he would do well to maintain propriety. Comparing his outburst to his companion’s soft giggle, he was already halfway there.
“Algernon, however,” she continued, “isn’t betraying himself or his pretentions. To him, life is not a set of social constrictions to be obeyed. Life should be enjoyable and beautiful, and it’s his disregard for conventional morality that spares him the hypocrisy of which Jack is guilty. Algernon is purer in that way, even if he is comparatively amoral.”
Gabriel gazed thoughtfully at her—through her, to be more precise, as his meditations no longer focused on the present. So she preferred the honesty of Algernon, however much he flagrantly defied societal norms. But until his sentence was served, he could be no other than Jack Worthing—for even though the England of this century was more receptive to magic than it had been in centuries past, it was still a far cry from the age when man and angels, and demons, comingled. Man simply did not believe in his kind anymore, not since the Covenant had come to pass. Given the things he remembered seeing and hearing, it was doubtful that such an age would ever return—and so he would have to bear this cross until the day when his soul would be allowed to return above. But then again, as he gazed at Abigale, still fighting back a laugh from her own ridiculous act, did he still want to return so badly, after having seen the vivacity of mortal life through a near-mortal lens? The cherubs of the third sphere, he knew, spent their days childishly proclaiming their love of the Lord; and all the other angels’ duties were performed solely in His name. Even as a Guardian, a member of the fifth and Warrior’s sphere, he had always influenced those of the ‘dirtier’ mortal realm to the minimal extent the Covenant allowed so that they could be reunited with the Lord. While not all angels were solemn per se, none in Heaven took anything lightly: No one knew how to poke fun at themselves or at others like man did; and the benefit of such levity was great indeed. He needed only look at Abigale’s smiling face now, needed only remember the smile she’d given him after her first cup of wine, to see. Was it love of his Lord that compelled him to return, or was it the joy he got from man, from observing and guiding them in His name? Or… was it Abigale who was giving him such doubts, the pleasure he derived from their interactions? A perilous line of thought to follow, when he had already toed and crossed that line once before!
“But who could you know that is as stiff as Lady Bracknell?!” she exclaimed then, driving the confusing thoughts out of his mind. “Moral absolutism at its worst! She is using society’s standards to determine in Jack Worthing should marry her Gwendolyn. That’s why Algernon is originally so cynical about marriage! It’s such a silly affair, measuring people against such arbitrary criteria—and with such judgment! No wonder Jack couldn’t be himself,” she concluded.
“Now, now; it would be no fun if I told you straightaway,” Gabriel chided, wagging a finger at her in mock reprimand. “But of course, you are free to guess as to who my Lady Bracknell may be.”
Whether she hadn’t a clue or was simply distracted, the young woman did not answer him. “What a paradox it is!” she exclaimed. Gabriel knew it to be a mere personal musing voiced too loudly.
…
They spent the rest of the evening chatting more than eating dessert. It was fortunate that they did not order anything too cold, for in the time they passed in idle conversation, a sorbet would surely have melted already. Unexpectedly, towards the end, Abigale sprung on him her new research project related to typhoid—and offered to let him accompany her during its first day. Gabriel hadn’t had a clue how to react. Was this something that she should even be telling her peers about, let alone one such as him, who despite his healing powers had no formal background in medicine and who would most likely find himself quickly lost as a consequence? But she told him that it was a chance for him to learn more about modern medicine—and, he could almost hear, why it was better than his silly Mesmerist ways—and that she would like to share this project with him if he was so inclined. The angel was half-tempted to tell her that he was far above such mundanity, that he would benefit but little to enlighten himself on it; but as long as he remained on Earth, he needed to play the Earthly game—and besides, the second clause there was not completely true. He would benefit from this, if in no other way than to have his curiosity towards this aspect of mortal life sated. Hadn’t Abigale just told him that Algernon had been all the happier for enjoying life and living exactly as himself? He had no plans of malingering on this plane forever—Surely he could be forgiven if he wished to make like that irrepressible little brother and enjoy this minor diversion, seeing as it was in agreeable company. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had any pressing (otherworldly) matters to attend to at present.
And so, Gabriel nodded. On his face, he wore a contented smile. “Certainly,” he said. “If you think me worthy of sharing in your project, then who am I to refuse?”
…
He found himself looking forward to that moment three days from now when he would rejoin the young physician with a fervor that was surprising—not to mention slightly frightening—for how insistently it intruded upon his conscious thoughts. The fallen angel wanted to say that it was merely curiosity towards the vaccine, for he hadn’t once seen the things since their invention some twenty years ago, but he was forced to admit quite promptly that that was not the case. One day passed by; then two; and when he found Abigale’s smiling visage invading his mind for perhaps the sixth time in half as many days, he knew he was straying down the same path as he had decades before. The realization caused his heart to cease beating in his chest for a moment. What was he doing, allowing himself to get so caught up in another human woman? Unbidden, his fingers beat a pensive rhythm on the pianola fallboard. He knew the story of Adam and Eve as well as any angel did; and after Madeleine, he couldn’t count on his ability to resist temptation as much as he would like. Certainly, he had no problem with him and the lady physician remaining friends (after all, it had been quite some time since he’d had anyone he could call a friend), but if he allowed their relationship to persist and progress, who was to say that she wouldn’t want more; that he wouldn’t deny her? The thought of Abigale sent to spend eternity with the demons Below because of him flashed momentarily before his eyes, and chilled him to the bone.
… But wait. Why in the world was he worrying about hypotheticals, anyway? Past transgressions aside, he was older and wiser now; he knew some of the tricks he’d need to avoid if it came to it. At worst, he could simply fly away undercover, for he did still have his wings and magic in case of a demon attack. Gabriel doubted it would come to that, though—the object of his anxious musings did not seem the type to cave to impulse so easily—in the six days they’d known each other, he’d only seen Abigale make a fool out of herself once. Indeed, he could stand to learn from her example. As for Eve and for everyone else, the forbidden fruit always seemed that much sweeter by nature of being forbidden—thus, the allure should be nulled if that status were to be removed. Yes… he simply needed to stop equating Abigale to some untouchable object, enjoy her transient company, and trust himself to know if either of them went too far. His time on Earth was limited, but memories were eternal—and if he stood to learn from them, what was the point of refusing the chance?
Tomorrow, he was going to join her on another trip to the Whitechapel slums, and she was going to teach him about these typhoid vaccines of hers. They were simply exchanging favors, as two friends might; and he could still watch over London in whatever time remained for him here. Anything else was just a bridge to cross later. He wouldn’t fail this time. He couldn’t.
Perhaps some fresh air would do him well tonight. Forget secret vigils—he needed something to clear his mind, lest he squander the next morning pondering things he shouldn’t be.
…
The cool London night air ghosted through his hair and through the fabric of his too-thin shirt as he left the office and began his walk. His path, he knew, would take him south past the Royal Opera House and King’s College towards the river Thames. From there, he would take flight and soar above the capital city, probing the area for any demonic presences. Whether he would fly straight back to his quarters or walk from the river depended on how many human auras he sensed roaming about.
Although he detected nothing amiss as he paced down Drury Lane, he knew that he couldn’t lower his guard. He had, after all, only just begun. As he rounded the corner of King’s College, the worst he detected was the rowdy, reckless ‘fun’ of drunken college students—no warnings there, though they were certain to have frightful hangovers in the morning. However, these were not his concern.
Crossing the Waterloo Bridge, he stopped halfway across and gazed out over the still river. The bridge was situated very near the river bend; during the day, he would be able to see clear out to Westminster and London proper. The faint moonlight and the flickering gas lamps made the glassy surface shimmer, though none but he, it seemed, were around to enjoy the scene. Despite the smell, the mere sight of the rippling water somehow settled his thoughts. Perhaps it served as a counterbalance, an order against the chaos of hell and humanity he dealt with on a regular basis. Perhaps its order merely helped quell his own restless thoughts.
Ironic that this place in which he found tranquility was one that had seen far more than its fair share of untimely deaths.
Certainly, if anyone saw his next act, they would think he meant to join them.
Stepping closer to the edge of the bridge, he leaned forwards over the edge… and fell.
The air whipped past him rapidly as he dove towards the distant river surface, stealing away the pressure he could feel growing by his shoulder blades. Although the bridge was over forty meters tall, he felt no fear tumbling towards what would otherwise be certain death—only exhilaration at what he knew would come.
A familiar tearing sensation in his upper back forced his spine into an arc, and then he was no longer falling but flying, his off-white wings a comet twirling over and behind the bridge in a wide vertical loop. Twisting in midair, he zipped through the Waterloo arches, climbing ever higher in the sky, leaving the city of London far below. Gabriel laughed merrily into the wind, unrestrained, free at least in the moment. No human could possibly know the joy the birds felt when flying; angels, in this regard, were no different. He almost pitied them their ground-bound state. How long had it been since he’d done this? How much longer would be until next time? The thought almost flitted through his mind, but he banished it alongside his doubts before any of it could dampen his mood. Tonight under the cover of night, he would have a little fun with this patrol, before the day came to steal it away.
Echoes of Algernon drifted through his mind, living life onstage totally as himself, defiant of the standards London attempted to impose upon him. But in order to be himself, the angel knew, he needed to return to the Above from which he’d been born, where others lived who shared this joy. Anything here was immaterial compared to that.
Climbing higher, Gabriel traced a few more loops through the night sky and then settled into an easy glide, far enough above the city to be out of easy sight by any late-roaming Londoners, but still close enough to sense any demons that might be wandering about. He drifted above the Victorian houses in a zigzag, following the river generally eastward towards Stratford and Canary Wharf. None of the hamlets he passed gave off even a hint of malice en route to Stratford, and none still on the way back… until he passed over the streets north of the Tower Bridge, halfway between Canary Wharf and Central London. However vague it was, there was no mistaking it—human negativity didn’t feel this strong. The angel halted and hovered over the spot, extending his aura, probing. A sudden flash of demonic energy pulsed back at him, equally probing; he answered it with a flash of his wings. The tendril of dark energy shriveled into itself, resentful but meek. Gabriel frowned. The coward. It had to be a low-level demon, perhaps even of the first sphere—the demons he’d remembered were much more belligerent, befitting their strength; and they were strengthened by the night as well. He would have preferred a fight tonight—it would have been a while since he’d exerted himself so, and though he most certainly would be forced to spend much of the next morning resting, it would have been worth it, to remind him why he was here.
Did it want to set a trap for him? Very well; if so, he would spring it.
The angel floated down several hundreds of meters until his feet touched the ground once more, letting the energy from his wings dim until they were nearly invisible to mortal eyes. As he patrolled the streets, he kept his senses alert. Not only had he sensed a demonic presence in the area, he had no idea exactly which part of London this was, for he’d never had reason to wander here before. Enough gaslight flickered around him that he could see dilapidated homes and rickety multi-story tenements. This had to be another slum—the buildings here did not much resemble Whitechapel’s.
He stalked up and down the streets, probing, waiting. Certainly it was too daring of him to simply project his aura into whatever alleyways he came across, but whether the demon was a coward or honestly too weak to pose a threat to even him, he did not feel its sullen energy again. He’d left several opportunities to be jumped already; yet not one of them had been exploited. It would have been pointless to expend energy flushing it out; weakened as he was, he wasn’t certain he could find it if it didn’t want to be found. The demon had to be biding its time… and there was nothing he could do about it for now.
No matter—it would reveal itself sooner or later. Desperation for soul energy would ultimately override cowardice and drive the demon to act, even if its accomplices were nowhere in range. And when he found it, he would smite it, just as he’d been appointed here to do.
…
After walking southward towards the Tower Bridge, he flew back to the Waterloo Bridge and walked the rest of the way back to his quarters near the University of London. Whatever irritation he still felt at having not been able to erase the demon he’d sensed was much overshadowed by the lingering joy of having flown at all. As he sat on the bed and retracted his wings, the energy leeched out of him, and yawning, he settled down to sleep. Flight consumed so much of his strength on this plane, but at least this time, it had given him back his sense of purpose.
…
By the time he opened his eyes again, the sun had already passed its zenith and now sinking slowly towards its nadir. Gabriel threw himself out of bed and hurried to the window to check its position, shooting a glance at the analog clock on the pianola to confirm. 3:00 PM—My, that flight had done a number on him. The man shuddered to think how many patients he had accidentally turned away by not answering the door—he would have to apologize to them later. Demon or no, it had still been his own fault for doing something so selfish last night—but that said, he felt less guilty about it for having found it at all.
Once he’d gotten his hair and outfit in order, he picked up his agenda and scanned through it. He’d scheduled four patients today; two of them he’d need to reschedule due to oversleep. The third patient was Marquess Annette; the fourth, a Mr. Roland Keyes.
Straightening his shirt collar and tucking his short ponytail out of the way, he descended the steps to meet the marquess. She was already in the antechamber when he found her, and upon seeing him, she tittered happily and allowed herself to be led into the office onto the chaise. Today was just a follow-up appointment; he did not expect her to stay very long.
She’d come in the last time complaining of excessive tension in her neck and shoulders, and so those were the areas he checked again now. Lady Annette relaxed a bit too much into his grip; he forced himself to ignore this and move on. This time, as for the last, she left an overly generous tip in the jar, as well as what he suspected to be a coy flutter of eyelashes when he saw her out the door. Gabriel sighed and cast his gaze up and down the street, scanning the passersby for any sign of his next patient.
Mr. Keyes had been coming to him since the early days of his Mesmerist practice here in Central London. He suffered from, by his own account, a most vexing grating in his joints that caused them to contort and occasionally lock up, causing him much pain. The doctors had evidently given up on actually curing him of his malaise, and even Gabriel could not do more that relieve it temporarily—but even temporarily was more than the doctors had given him, and was the reason why Mr. Keyes returned.
No sooner had he allowed himself to reminisce than he saw the very man limping carefully down the street towards him. The angel strode over to intercept him. “Hello, Mr. Keyes,” he greeted.
“Dr. Navarre!” The other man’s voice was as warm as any grandfather’s towards a grandchild. “Good to see you again.”
“Likewise. I apologize for making you come all this way.” Gabriel offered his shoulder for the man to lean on, but Keyes shook it off to continue walking the rest of the way unsupported. The effort taxed him, but the old man was proud—he had managed the walk alone for years and would not give in now. Nevertheless, the angel matched his pace, watching in case his strength gave out.
Once they reached his office, Keyes eased himself into the chaise. Gabriel could see him wince with the effort and leaned in closer. “What parts are bothering you most today?” he asked.
Mr. Keyes groaned as he assumed a supine position. “It’s… agh… just the usual,” he managed. “My hips, my knees… My right hand froze up too today,” he added, holding up fingers twisted enough to nearly be claws. “It’s probably the same thing, but, I must have been gripping my cane too tightly too.”
A glance at his patient’s left hand told him that if it wasn’t already suffering the same thing as the right, it would soon be. He would have to treat that too, lest his patient suffer for it soon. “I’ll do my best, Mr. Keyes,” he promised. His patient wasn’t listening—instead, he seemed to be looking around for something. Oh yes; the eye mask—ever since that first visit when he’d brought it to him, Mr. Keyes never seemed to want to start a session without it. That was fine by him—given the number of joints that seemed to be afflicted this time, he expected to need to cast a more potent healing spell than before, or at least multiple such spells.
Much as he had with Rosemary Spearman two afternoons ago, Gabriel chanted a soft spell in ancient Hebrew. When he was certain that Keyes had fallen asleep, he set about relieving his pains, starting with the most significant ones first. The knees felt sharper and bonier than normal for a man his age, and the angel spent a fair amount of time stretching the muscles anchoring the joint, as well as rubbing the joint itself. A faint glow emanated from his palms as he worked; but still the knees didn’t loosen, nor the muscles relax. Gabriel frowned as he intensified the glow, and was much obliged to feel the tightened joint begin to loosen. Was it just him, or had the man’s condition worsened since he’d last seen him?
The second knee was no easier than the first; and the hips were even worse, for finding his healing spells less effective, he’d had to absorb some of the pain into himself. It didn’t help matters any that he’d already worn himself down by flying yesterday. By the time Gabriel was ready to begin uncurling Mr. Keyes’s fingers, he almost felt as if the man’s arthritis was afflicting him too. He sighed; a few more words in his ancient tongue spilled forth in a voice slightly raised in volume from the strain, and the light at his palms danced brighter still. He disdained leaving jobs unfinished; he would see this through to the end.
Steadily, his patient’s fingers unknotted themselves under his ministrations. One finger, two, four, six… and finally ten. He’d almost thought this little ordeal would never end.
Once he’d loosened the joints, Gabriel bent each finger experimentally, checking to make sure their range of motion had been restored. He wasn’t worried that Roland Keyes would find himself unable to walk without pain—after all, he’d taken care of those joints first, when his energy reserves were fuller. Good—it seemed that despite his mounting exhaustion, he’d managed to fix them all. Nodding, he sat back and, removing the eye mask, passed his palm over Keyes’s lowered lids. “It is done,” he murmured to his sleeping form. “You may wake now.”
The old man opened his eyes as prompted and slowly, experimentally, sat up. A smile broke out over his face, much as it had Rosemary’s, and in that moment, his entire being seemed to lighten, as if being relieved of his pain had caused him to become younger. “My word,” he exclaimed. “I feel better already. Look!” Wonderingly, he lifted his hands and flexed them. “You even fixed my hands up too. With my right hand all froze up, I hadn’t noticed my left hand was clenching too.”
“I’m very glad to hear that, Mr. Keyes,” Gabriel replied, offering him a weary smile in return. “While I was tending to your right hand, it occurred to me that I should check your left as well.”
Keyes did not reply immediately, but instead studied the Mesmerist’s face with a frown. “Agh, I’ve gone and tired you out,” he lamented. “Is there anything I can do for you? It’s the least I can do to thank you.”
He appreciated the gesture, truly, but this weariness he felt was not something that could be resolved by anything other than time and rest. He shook his head. “No; it’s merely been a long day,” he answered. “A moment’s rest, and I shall be fine.”
The old man did not seem convinced, but he knew from his own pains that sometimes, rest really was the only way to cure exhaustion, and so after dropping off his payment, he allowed himself to be shown out the door. Shutting the door, Gabriel climbed the steps towards his quarters and checked the clock. 6:00 PM. He did not know when Abigale would come calling, so even though he wanted to, he couldn’t allow himself to rest too long. Perhaps two hours was reasonable. There would be more time to rest after he saw what she wanted to show him.
As he fell asleep for the second time that day, he couldn’t help but notice that the fingers of his right hand, with which he’d gripped the stair rail, had yet to fully uncurl.
…
When he next opened his eyes, the sun had become but a sliver on the horizon. It would not be long before it disappeared completely from view. As he sat up on the bed again, Gabriel flexed his fingers experimentally. They had uncurled in his sleep and were mobile once more, but they still felt somewhat stiff, as if from lingering inflammation. Abigale still had yet to arrive; and so to pass the time, he settled himself behind the pianola to stretch his fingers with a slow melody. It would seem that the arthritis he’d absorbed from Mr. Keyes had yet to fully pass—if he could not sleep the rest of it off, the least he could do was stretch his fingers a bit to give them back sensation.
The Blue Lancet heard nothing of the discourse between Arya and the unit medic, nor did he see the small bag of supplies dropped down to them after the medic’s departure. One could say that he had slept right through it all, if deep sleep—the kind that instantly knocked one out like a light—came with a state of total neural paralysis. Truthfully, his mental and physical state during what remained of the day was more akin to a coma, but when he ‘awoke’, it was to the worst nightmare of his young life.
His blood was boiling, and it wasn’t the normal sort, either. He felt as if he were being roasted from the inside by the fires of a red dragon in heat. Cedrik wanted nothing more than to thrash about and quench the flames, but his body couldn’t move. His mind had awoken, but his body had not, and he was panicking, panicking—
Then the nightmares began. He was airborne once again, but he had no memory of how he had gotten there in the first place, had no time to remember why. This was no joyride over the lands of Valinor; he was twisting and turning and weaving in midair to dodge the arrows and bolts that flew his way. He retaliated with several lightning bolts of his own, but each bolt he fired passed right through the humans manning the trebuchets. Wherever he looked, he could not see the real shooters beleaguering him, but everywhere he saw those accursed black, toothless grins. The arms these illusory men fired were no façade; he could feel the slight wind of their passing as readily as he could Arya’s touch—
And then one of the enormous lead bullets hit him, tore through the leathery membranes of his wing as easily as if it were paper. A blinding burst of pain promptly followed, and then he was falling, falling—
He landed in a blackened pit of who knew what, and all he could hear was the infernal chittering of a million mice. They swarmed over him like a horde of beetles, but the beetles he’d seen had never been this large or heavy or numerous—Something stabbed into him; where in blazes had those insects found a blade, let alone one that could penetrate straight through his ribs—and then it came again, again, every – agonizing – stab, until he felt as if the creatures had made literal mincemeat of his organs. He could see his lifeblood pooling underneath him, red as the setting sun—Wait a minute; dragon blood wasn’t red…
In an instant, his own spilled blood sprang up off the pitch-colored floor, morphing before his mind’s stricken eye into the form of a warlock—and not just any warlock, but that warlock, the one he and Arya had been fighting earlier that day. Back turned to him, he raised his hands and shook them violently. Tiny rust-colored droplets flew away from his outstretched fingers, splashed down on the invisible ground, leaped up to form other warlocks, each more mutated than the last. Somehow, he’d landed right into the demons’ den—or they had just converted this space into their den. His eyes were glued on the abominations; he literally couldn’t see anything but them, not even his own body. He tried to flee on his two legs—why could he only feel two beneath him?—but the first Ancient had already spotted him and tackled him to the ground. He caught a glimpse of dragon tails, claws, heads, fire. Rare was the time when dragons felt fear, but he felt it now, naked, pulsing, primal in the face of so many abominations in one place. One of them sat on his legs while one more sat on each of his arms; and as he lay, helplessly supine towards the sickly yellow light, he could see one of them, its right horn and eye destroyed by some bygone blow, licking its fanged jaws as it bared its black-tipped claws and cleaver’s tail and gouged into him, deep and twisting while the things on his limbs seized them and wrenched them apart. He wanted to scream, to curse the beasts that tore his bones out of their sockets, but his lips wouldn’t move, let alone his body; and then his vision faded, faded…
For all the violence of his dreams, Cedrik came to surprisingly peacefully. His heart wasn’t racing nearly as much as it should've been, and he didn’t sit bolt upright in place. When he first opened his eyes, all he could see was rugged gray beneath him. It was dark enough that he feared for a moment that he’d really been blinded, but slowly, sensation returned to his limbs, and he could tell that he was merely laying facedown. The moon cast just enough light for him to see by, but everything was unusually dull, as if an enormous black drake had flown over the sun and spewed smog across the land. With a grunt, he pushed himself up onto all fours. His frustrated growls grew steadily louder every time he fell. His limbs felt like jello, but his entire body felt oddly lighter, so it didn’t take long for him to regain enough strength to stand up once more. As he cast his gaze around, he realized that the land around him looked so much larger than before. Standing on his hind legs didn’t help much either. He fell over several times as his balance failed him again and again, but somehow, once he managed the effort, this bipedal position felt more comfortable than the quadruped. Night had already fallen; he must have been out for hours. He’d broken the branches of several trees when he’d crash-landed on this barren rock with Arya tucked securely underneath his wings, yet while those untouched branches would normally have tickled his nose, they now soared high above him, well beyond reach. Even though he knew that the move was futile, Cedrik reached for the treetops… and stopped.
Gone were his sapphire scales and gunmetal claws. Instead, he saw peach-colored skin topped with peach-colored nails.
Eyes wide, he backed away, his increasingly frantic gaze darting from hand to hand. Not one, but both of his forelegs had been turned into these weak, useless things, and the damage wasn’t even confined to those alone. His chest, his torso, his pelvis, his legs—nowhere he looked could he see his gleaming armor. No tail twined between his legs, save for a tiny, peach-colored one attached to his front rather than his back side, and though his sinking heart already knew what he would find there, when he craned his too-short neck around and flexed his back muscles, no familiar gust of wind rushed past his cheeks, and no wings curled into his field of vision.
His panicked mind flew through the events immediately preceding his crash. One being stood at the center of it all.
Suddenly, everything made sense.
Somehow, some way, during the nightmares he’d endured earlier that night while his limbs lay frozen in place, that warlock had taken his form and his very identity from him and replaced it with something far subpar. Something very painfully human.
“Nooooo—!”
The scream tore from his lungs as Cedrik collapsed to his knees, his hands over his head. Pain flashed through him as the fragile skin on the front of his shins ripped open. His fingers twined through something soft and fibrous, and when his trembling fingers grasped a bit of it to hold before his eyes, he could see that it was human hair, long and flaxen-blonde in the moonlight, wispy as a ghost, and as frail-looking as everything else he’d ever seen about men. He had seen Arya twist and break her bones rather frequently (at least compared to dragons), and though his own seemed at least strong enough to hold him upright, he feared that it wouldn’t be long before one of them snapped. He’d already injured himself once, and hardly five minutes had passed since he’d woken up.
Shakily, he rose to a squatting position, his hands going unconsciously for his abraded knee. When it came away, it was streaked with blood. And not just any blood: red blood. The same as he had seen in his dream.
A hundred curses flew past his lips, all of them Draconian, gleaned from his time in the egg and his time in the Corps, but not a single one of them sounded right. Every single one of them sounded far more high-pitched than he was accustomed to, and the ones that did come out somewhat right stuck in his throat and made him gag. He’d been stomping around while he swore, and the last one bent his vocal cords so out of shape that he choked on his own spittle. The shock made him fall to his already-chafed knees.
Cedrik couldn’t hold it in anymore. He vomited straight into the puddle of water he’d fallen beside.
The acrid smell of the gastric bolus as it sank was enough to sap the strength from his already weakened knees. Once it and the ripples it had created had dissipated, he could just see his reflection in the poor moonlight: pale, wide-eyed, and aghast, its snout too short and its shoulders distressingly bare, its long blonde hair falling mop-like across both sides of his peach-white head and tickling the dark spots on its chest. Only its slit-pupiled, sunstone eyes indicated his true heritage, and even then, only an observant being would notice them. Otherwise, he looked like any other human in Wroat—plain, ugly, and not at all like the proud dragon he’d been just earlier today. He cast a despairing glance at Arya. Would she recognize him? He didn’t remember her being particularly vigilant with such details, and even if she were, most humans tended to tune out the familiar. That probably included the minutiae of his draconian appearance, and he hadn’t known humans to be nocturnal either.
He felt as if he was drowning in this humanity he found himself mired in. How insidious was this curse the warlock placed on him? Was this his fate—to be condemned to this feeble, indefensible body until his memories of being dragon faded away and he became just like them?
No. This isn’t me. I’m not this tiny and weak. I can’t actually be one of them now. This can't be real. This isn’t me. This isn’t… His mind flew through all the things he’d ever experienced as a dragon. He remembered hatching, imprinting, flying, training, play-fighting with the other dragons, battle… He remembered the first time he and Arya had flown together over the Silver Lake, when she’d fallen off of his back during a loop-the-loop and he’d dove after her straight into the unfathomable depths to rescue her. He remembered the time he’d tried to shoot through a narrow gap in the arches of the Howling Peaks, when he’d missed and smashed his head against those rocks and needed to be towed back to Wroat on a black dragon’s back. Most of all, he remembered the battle, him and Arya weaving through the air, her raining arrows as he unleashed his claws and lightning on the Ancient One they’d found purely by chance. The lightning, the doppelgangers, the wings, the attack…
He realized that he’d been muttering to himself, recounting the memories in un-quiet Draconian, or at least whatever version of it these accursedly tiny human vocal cords could manage. His voice still sounded too high-pitched in the dead of night. “A nevem Cérudorikhoʔbhiyhari… Én egy sárkány… Kék Lándzsa…” Just saying his name made him feel marginally more at ease. As long as he remembered who and what he was, there was still hope that he could take back what was rightfully his. The sound of his own name brought an ironic smile to his lips. Arya never had been capable of pronouncing his true name correctly, as Draconian words included sounds too deep for humans to hear, let alone speak, and now here he was, fallen into the same predicament as he. At least his voice and grasp of the language were enough for him to produce a more accurate pronunciation than hers. But his mirth was short-lived as he recalled the b*****d who’d done this to him. Cedrik balled his fists. The Xendian would pay for this travesty even if he exacted retribution with his dying breath. “Hogy boszorkánymester… Ő fog fizetni azért, amit velem tett!” His voice shot up to an outraged scream as he uttered the last words. He was furious, and he wanted to electrocute something; but when he tried to muster his strength and fire lightning bolts from his mouth as he had before, all he could manage were several long, hacking coughs. Not even the scantiest sparks appeared to prove that he still had magic running in his veins. His brow furrowed deeply as he raised his hands and willed lightning to shoot from them, but all he achieved was feeling—and probably looking—foolish. Or, he reminded himself bitterly as he glanced at his pathetic human hands and traced their fingers down his cheek, perhaps I will sooner throw than electrocute something.
His fingers brushed across something decidedly inhuman in texture. Cedrik paused, sickly fascinated as he touched the scales he found there. While more akin to smooth snake or fish scales than sharp, serrated dragonskin, their presence there filled him with a savage glee. Whatever spell the warlock had cast upon him, it was far from complete. And if he could just find a way to reverse the spell that had stolen his wings and claws and made the scales on his cheek and body melt into soft human flesh, all of Xen’Drik would feel his wrath very, very soon.
***
[[Translation: My name is "Cedrik Vijali". I am a dragon. Blue Lancet. That warlock... whatever he did to me, he will pay for this!]]
("Cedrik Vijali" in quotations because the translation from Draconian to Common is imperfect.)
Teaching was so different from singing, even in duets. In a duet, one paused only long enough for the other to sing their line. Occasionally, the instruments would interrupt, but the delay between lines was very short, even in practice, compared to the silences that stretched between him and Yejin as he watched her work her way through the chemistry problems he’d solved before. Not even normal conversation was this slow—but Kaito found that he didn’t dislike teaching, not at all. Yejin’s small successes felt like his own, and he cheered along with her whenever she made them. Granted, he was the only one giving voice to their triumphs—he suspected that if his master celebrated her growing mastery of this topic at all, it was through a mental smile and/or cheer.
When Yejin suggested he sleep, Kaito only obliged long enough to lose her attention. Once she’d turned around to head for her bed, the Vocaloid reversed directions and trailed after her towards her room, making sure he stayed close enough to see her reasonably clearly, but far enough behind for her to not suspect anything. The poor girl seemed utterly exhausted; she flopped right onto her mattress without changing into pajamas or offering him any nightclothes. More importantly, however: she was shivering. Though he himself was too new to Earth to feel the cold, he knew that Yejin telling him that the heater cost too much and didn’t work very well. Snow and cold can burn your skin. You’ll catch a cold if you’re not careful. To him, it looked an awful lot like his master wasn’t following her own words right now—and she’d said it herself: humans fell ill if they were cold for too long.
Glancing down at the warm longcoat draped around his body, Kaito undid the zipper and gently placed the garment over her. “You need this more than me tonight, Yejin-san,” he murmured, giving her a single reassuring pat. True, it felt odd to be walking around without that familiar weight on his shoulders, Yejin would feel worse if she caught a cold from this cold. So long as he had his scarf, he would be okay. Smiling gently at her as he walked away towards the bed she’d made him the day before (he doubted that she could see his grin in this dark), Kaito switched off the light in the family room and laid down on his sheets, using his night vision to navigate.
He didn’t go to sleep immediately, but instead lay staring at the ceiling in thought. Today had been a good day overall. He’d gotten a chance to sing and play with real snow for the first time ever. But he’d also experienced loneliness today—yesterday too—and heard some less-than-pleasant things today, dire thoughts about homework and assholes and heater prices and money and food. From what she’d told him and from what he knew about Earth through the internet, Yejin’s life was rough for two reasons: she didn’t understand her homework, and she didn’t have enough money to buy food or proper shelter.
Well. He couldn’t help her with the former—not in an exam setting, at least—but he could certainly help with the latter! After all, famous human singers made money by performing concerts, so why couldn’t he do the same? All he needed to do was figure out a venue!
But how was he going to find a suitable venue on his own? Kaito frowned at the ceiling. Yejin was always so harried in the morning; it would be a terrible idea to ask her then (not that he could expect an answer from her in such a state anyway). In the evenings, she had more time for him—but somehow, he suspected that if he asked her this question, she would instantly guess his intentions and shut him down. Kaito had never been good at subtlety when it wasn’t a metaphor in a song. No; if he wanted to find a concert venue, he would need to do it on his own, without asking Yejin for anything.
Should he seek out locations via Google Maps? Kaito dismissed the thought almost as soon as he’d thought it. Even if he could get into her laptop without her knowing, internet searches left a record in the browser history. Yejin would discover his intentions too quickly—and that assumed that he found a location that was actually close to their apartment. The thought of winding up too far from her scared him for more than one reason.
What if I follow her through her day? he wondered. Yes, perhaps that was the best option. That way, he could see what it was his master did when she left the house and he could scope out any potential stages near her. Yes, he could do that. The only problem lay in convincing her to take him along.
Perhaps it was the sudden, small burst of happiness that ran through him at the thought, but somehow, that didn’t seem like such a difficult task.
Smiling to himself, Kaito turned over and closed his eyes.
Two nights he’d been here, and this night’s rest was better than the last.
…
The cobalt-haired man awoke before his master did, at 5:30 AM. It took only a few minutes of blinking his cerulean eyes up at the ceiling above to completely restore his energy, and Kaito slid himself out of the covers as silently as possible so as to not wake Yejin. He’d dreamt up a plan for today, and part of it relied on her not knowing what he was about to do. After all, he was going to help make her some money, and he couldn’t do it if she noticed him following her around.
Cautiously, the Vocaloid tiptoed across the short hallway towards his master’s room. He’d forgotten to shed his boots the night before, and his synth-leather-covered toes creaked upon one the floorboards as he stepped on it. Kaito froze, but he heard no sound from Yejin’s room and, after a few tense seconds, advanced further in. Once inside, he edged towards her closet and eased open the doors. Thankfully for him, the girl kept her closet in enough order that clothes didn’t fall all over him when he opened the closet. Kaito pawed silently through her clothes, searching. Dresses, pants, a few fashion tops, shirts, hoodies… Perfect.
The Vocaloid lifted a few hangars from the bar and slipped them over his torso experimentally. Some of the jackets he chose were too tight around the chest. Others were too tight around the sleeves; but two of them, a plain white hoodie and a gray-black jacket, fit him well enough to serve his purpose. Kaito grinned to himself—this outfit of his was getting off to a great start. None of the pants he found both fit him and matched his Parka module (at least, not the way he remembered it), but Yejin had already lent him a gray-black pair of sweatpants before. After trying on a few of her white shirts, he decided that the one she’d loaned him was better than the rest; and he didn’t need to try on the shoes to know that none of them would fit. After carefully returning the other clothes to Yejin’s closet, Kaito ducked into the bathroom to change. Once done, he studied himself in the mirror. For an improvised Parka outfit, it looked good—all he really needed was a pair of headphones and two red bobby pins. Yejin didn’t wear glasses (honestly, neither did he), and somehow he doubted that he would find a belt chain just casually hanging about. The Vocaloid couldn’t suppress a grin when he found the two bobby pins after a quick raid of his master’s bathroom drawers, but the headphones would be much harder to find. Would she even have some, as tight as her budget was?
Kaito decided that he might as well put himself to use and help clean up Yejin’s backpack while searching for the elusive accessory. Neither he nor she had put away the chemistry papers last night—and if she had chemistry class today, she needed those papers in her backpack soon. Humming another one of his songs to himself, the blue-haired Vocaloid flitted from corner to corner, putting things away as best he could—not that there was much to put away—and collecting the necessary sheets to drop into Yejin’s backpack. As he looped back around towards the desk and slid the papers in, his hand bumped against something familiarly-shaped in her bag. Curiously, he wrapped his fingers around it. Could it be…?
Carefully so as to not upset the chaotic mess inside her backpack, Kaito tugged the object out into the light. His eyes widened in amazement. It was! The girl had headphones! Gleefully, he tugged them free and looped them around his neck… until he realized that Yejin would probably notice if he left them there. Kaito was the only one of Crypton’s Vocaloids to wear headphones in such a way with any frequency, and Yejin had probably spent enough money on them to notice if they suddenly disappeared from her bag. Best to leave them behind—in fact, it would actually help his plot along if he did.
He shot a glance in the general direction of Yejin’s bedroom. Without looking at a clock, he knew that it was nearly 5:55 AM. Master would be waking up soon—if he was going to make this work, he had to make her think that he was in no shape to do what he planned to do.
Kaito didn’t waste a second darting back to his bed. He had just dove under the covers when he heard a beeping from Yejin’s room. A thud, then silence. Then more beeping. The man held his breath as Yejin slid out of bed and her footfalls became more frequent. His jacket momentarily crossed his mind—he’d left it in her room last night to help keep her warm. Oh well. For now, it could stay there. He could always pick it up later. Under the covers, Kaito fidgeted with his scarf. Should he leave it behind too? Of all the parts of his outfit, V1 and V3, he loved his scarf best. Even more than his jackets, his scarf represented him. It was his icon. He couldn’t bear to even think of losing it, let alone leaving it behind of his own volition. But his entire plan hinged on Yejin not noticing him until it was too late to turn him away—and if there was one thing he couldn’t stand more than losing his scarf, it was seeing his master permanently unhappy. Two days he’d lived with her, and two days he’d seen her upset. As he heard her tearing around the house, whisper-yelling to herself about the various things that could go wrong with today (apparently she hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t awake yet), he suspected that if he didn’t do something, he would see her upset for a third day.
In two days, he’d only really seen her smile once—immediately after she’d opened his program for the first time and he’d sang for her. Yejin looked so much nicer with that smile on her face, and it was something she didn’t do often enough.
For her and the promise of that smile, he decided, he could even leave his scarf behind for a day.
Silently, Kaito slid his hands behind his neck to loosen the blue fabric looped around his neck. Yejin was still bustling about the apartment; she couldn’t she him moving yet. By the time he got the scarf off, the noise had mostly died down. Several heavier, rushed footfalls, a slam of the door, and he was all alone.
The man waited a few seconds longer and then shook off the covers. Time to figure out where she’d gone.
Kaito wandered out to the kitchen and studied the area around the door, searching for the key. He found it in the same spot he’d found it yesterday and, after checking that he knew how to handle the locking mechanism, shut the door behind him and locked it. After checking the thing one more time (after all, it wouldn’t do to have her stuff stolen), he bounced down the stairs and looked around. There to the left, at the end of the block, was a small crowd of people gathered around a bus. Perhaps Yejin was there somewhere? Kaito glanced right once and then took off in a run towards the throng. House after house passed him by, but he had nothing to fear: the bus must have just arrived, for it seemed in no hurry to leave.
He boarded the bus with the rest of the people, his breathing slightly careworn. The bus driver lifted an eyebrow when Kaito approached, but if something about the Vocaloid looked off, he made no comment. “Where are you headed, sir?” he asked.
The man’s gruff voice made Kaito jump, and did absolutely nothing for his nerves. “Uhh… I’m headed for…” Where did Yejin say she went every morning? Oh, right! “School. Yeah.”
Mercifully, the driver didn’t ask which school Kaito wanted. “The fare’s 400 yen for students, one way,” he said, tapping his finger against a narrow slot nearby.
400 yen?! Kaito resisted a sudden urge to faint. He’d completely forgotten about the money! Please tell me Yejin-san has money in her pockets, he prayed. Plastering a sheepish smile onto his face, the Vocaloid rummaged around in the pockets of his jackets, turning each one inside-out as his searches yielded nothing. For each empty pocket, his panic increased, and it didn’t help that the people behind him were tapping their feet and muttering behind his back. Finally—Finally—his fingers closed around a bill and he held it up triumphantly. “Here you go!” he cheered, sliding the bill into the appropriate slot.
He was jolted out of his victory by the sound of something clattering very close to him. His discomfiture made the driver crack a smile. “That’s your change, sonny,” he told him. “Take it.”
“Uhh… Arigatou.” Kaito bent all around searching for this ‘change’ the man spoke of, and after finding the coins in another slot just below the one he’d put the money into, he shoved them into his pocket and walked quickly away. He could see Yejin near the middle read of the bus, paying little if any attention to her surroundings. More than one irritated scoff followed him as he sat down in a seat reasonably far away from her; Kaito did his best to put them out of his mind as he gazed around at the scene around him. So many different sorts of people sat in this bus, most not paying anyone any attention, though some gawped at him and his blue hair. Did Yejin’s school resemble this at all? The bus had whet his curiosity for the human world; he sincerely hoped that Yejin didn’t find him and cut his adventure short.
***
