There were a lot of things Madeline found interesting, and not one of them involved walking down creepy stairwells under the pretense of some weapons-initiation-something-or-other that had been left drastically vague in detail.

Ghosting her fingers over the cold stonewall, Madeline sighed, boots clicking over steps until she hit the bottom of the stairwell and the entry-way into the room beyond. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust; only a single torch was in place, the flames licking endlessly at the shadows without much success. Hopelessly intrigued, she shuffled further into the room, and for a second she thought she heard voices, a whisper, a shout, an endless, droning hum.

But then it all quieted, like a pulse of noise that didn’t last long before sizzling into nonexistence again. Madeline frowned, stepped closer to the wall. Weapons, they’d said, initiation, hey, listen! Yeah, that was definitely what they’d said. Madeline pressed the palm of her hand to one of the faint glowing tablets, unabashedly gawking over the ethereal quality and just how pretty they were.

But we’re not here for pretty, babe.

Yeah, right. Right. Madeline let her hand slip away, nails scratching without pressure over one of the runes. It only took her a few double takes for the runes to turn into the strange, vague lines of weapons; bows and knives, daggers and giant swords all printed into individual tablets, all waiting for something, someone. But each of them were just that to her and nothing more; tablets, plain apart from their glowing runes, carbon copies of each other, apart from the distinction of their weapon class. Madeline’s flicked down and around the length of the tiny room. The sounds all vibrated together again, another whispering pulse of voices and static, music and thick, indistinct hums.

Madeline sighed, staring at the wall without really staring at it at all. What if none of these were hers?

Backpedaling from the wall, the girl planted her heels in the center of the room, peering from each rune tablet to the next, listening as the indistinct hums came in pulses and in waves, all jumbled together and calling but not calling to her.

Patience is a virtue, her mother might have said.

Patience though, wasn’t going to get her far here. Madeline twisted her hair between her hands, curling red-brown locks shining faintly in between the flickers of firelight.

“Come on, baby doll,” She whispered to nothing, to no one at all, “give me a hint.”

Don’t leave me here all alone.

She was not going to turn into some ******** dud.

The tide of sound rose again, and Madeline squared herself for disappointment, listening to the familiar rhythmic static before –

A gravely, thick sound rose above it, not quite a hum, not at all a voice.

Madeline blinked, and thoughtlessly stumbled forward, like she was going to follow the not-voice back to wherever it had come from. It continued to buzz even as the surge of sound simmered back into nonexistence, rough and husky and nearly lazy. It was distinctly male; she didn’t know how she knew but it just had to be.

Her hands pawed over the rune tablets on the wall, sinking and ghosting over each and every one, like when she found the right one everything would just click together like it was meant to be, and she would run off and kill things with her new weapon and it would all work out. Yeah, right. And as she did searched, the sound only got louder, like dust and smoke and gravel. It reminded her of back-alley motels and middle of nowhere gas stations. It reminded her of vintage cars and coca-cola and that time when nothing was glamorous and everything was gritty and crackling over the sound of static on the radio.

She didn’t know why.

She continued to follow the wall down to the end, shadows scratching at her skin as she went further and further from the single torch. Only the faint glow of runes accompanied her into the dark, the hum growing louder and nearer as she moved her way along. Ahead, the wall came to a corner, and the humming continued to get louder and louder and louder until the humming snapped into silence, and instead there was a crackle, and then -

( Don’t even. )

… Okay so that option was off the table.

“Hey – “ Her voice trembled for a second before it took on a steely, laughing tone, “which one are you, boyo? I’ve been looking for you for awhile.” She propped herself up, wrapping her arms around her knees and staring at the wall, playing a game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe in her head.

( Ha. So you’ve got a sense of humor then. ) The voice paused, and then, ( and not as long as I’ve been waiting for you. For ******** sake, girls take forever with everything. )

“Woah,” Madeline pushed herself to her feet, dusting invisible grime off of her pants, “don’t get all sexist on me, darlin’.”

The voice laughed snidely. ( Facts are facts. )

Ouch. Well okay, he had a point though.

Madeline inched forward towards the wall, pushing her hands out over the tablets in search of the one –

( I’m over here, SUGAR. ) The shout ricocheted in her skull like a bullet had been fired from a gun. ( WILL YOU STOP WASTING TIME? )

“Temper, boyo. I could always just leave, you know. Sorry guys, couldn’t find the one, what a shame right? I guess I’ll just jump back in my pod now; wake me up in fifty years when something nice is on the market.” Madeline teasingly threatened the wall, rubbing at the back of her head like someone had taken a hammer to it. And for all intensive purposes, it felt like they had. Why did she get the loud, brash, arrogant weapon? Where was the fairness in this? She was sure that somewhere out there, all the other Hunters were running through fields of daisies with weapons that said things like, hou art thou today my glorious master. She had a sinking feeling that she’d be skipping after them some day too, only the damned voice would be in her head yelling, boo you whore!

( Hahaha, you think you’re so clever. ) Madeline woke up to the sound of the voice in her head, paused to listen to the sound of the hum-turned-voice. ( Listen, sugar, there ain’t no one gonna take you but me, sorry to break your heart. )

It was just as rough, just as gravelly as before. It reminded her of a 50’s greaser, a jukebox spilling out old rock n’ roll tunes, and coca-cola in the summer around a bed of comic books and a song playing on the radio to the sound of miles and miles of nowhere rolling by outside the car door.

( Mm, that’s sounds nice. )

“Woah, hey,” Madeline snapped her head up, pounding a fist against the wall, “you can read my – hey, stay out of there!”

( Sorry, love, ) The voice – the male sounding, very annoyingly smug voice said and laughed. ( We’re connected now, you n’ me. Bound for life. )

Madeline snorted. “So I imagine you’ll bury me into my very early grave.” She muttered, pulling herself along the wall. “Marco?” She tried.

( … What? )

“It’s a – “ Madeline screwed her eyes shut, “it’s a game. Marco-Polo. Um. Am I getting warmer? Are you closer yet?”

A sigh.

( I'm right here, doll. )

It sounded extremely close.

Madeline stuck her hands against one of the tablet hidden near to the corner of the room, the rune pulsing in the shape of something like a –

"Baseball bat?"

A torrent of boisterous laughter followed her comment.

( Jack, I really chose a stupid one. )

Madeline scowled, yanking the tablet out of the wall, considering very seriously the idea of throwing it on the ground and stomping on it.

“Yeah, well, sugar, there ain’t no one gonna take you but me.” She said quietly, thumbing over the rune instead. She was about to admire it more when it turned liquid-hot in her hands, shifting like a mirage breaking to reveal something underneath. A weapon.

She had to stuff a fist into her mouth not to scream.

The handle of a club now settled weighted into the palm of her hand, leading up to a head full of spikes and a body full of dark, polished wood.

“Hey!” She pulled her mouth and her hand apart, grinning. “It’s sort of like a bat, shut up. I could play baseball with people’s heads.” She laughed at the idea, and then, almost as an afterthought, added, “is this – uh – you?”

The voice sighed.

( Yes. Sup, sugar. )

She smiled, lifting the club up to the torchlight. “Sup, boyo.”

A pause, and then, “I – uh – kind of don’t know your name.”

( Ugh, you. )

Madeline’s stupidly ridiculous grin suddenly melted into a scowl. “Come on,” She said, rolling her eyes, “we’re bonded now, I need your name. Mine’s - ”

( Madeline, yeah. Yeah. I know. )

The voice paused, and then almost tiredly, it said, ( I know. )

Awkwardly, Madeline stared at the talking club. Had she upset it somehow? Said something wrong? Was her name not appealing? This would be so much easier if they’d given her a gentle, non-talkative toothpick or something.

“You okay there, boyo?” She asked quietly.

There was a laugh, rough and gravelly and like someone somewhere was rolling his eyes.

( Yeah, sugar. I’ve just been waiting forever for you. ) He paused, ( Call me Arsen. )

Arsen? Like, arson? Madeline, unable to help it, laughed. Maybe they really were a match made in Heaven. Or, considering the circumstances, Hell. If only they could get along long enough to agree on any one thing. Madeline scrutinized the club again. Nah, that would probably never happen.

“Wow, nice name. Set anything on fire as a kid?”

Arsen scoffed, snide and arrogant. ( More than you, probably. It’s short for Arsenios, sugar. )

“Did you know sugar is short for Madeline?”

A pregnant silence followed her terribly timed, terrible in general retort, and Madeline snorted, lowering Arsen and staring towards the exit. It was time to go, she supposed, considering that what she’d come down here for was now sitting in the palms of her hands, was a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed sentient creature that could probably shuffle through her thoughts like a card deck if he wanted to.

“Come on, Arsen,” She said finally, relenting to the idea that this was her fate and hefting the club up, inspecting it once more before turning towards the stairs, “let’s go burn somethin’ to the ground.”

Arsen laughed in her head, the sound of gravel and smoke and 50’s blues.

( Yeah, sugar, ) He said, ( that sounds like a plan. )