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 Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 2:37 pm
"Jet, if you have time, meet me at the Hall of Shadows." Faustite let go of the record button as he slumped against the foreboding double doors. Behind it, he heard the faint, unearthly rasps of the creatures trapped beyond the glass, but he tried to push it from his mind.
The days since their expedition to the Rift had been trying. Faustite had spent them exhausted, yet he couldn't sleep; his mind kept coming back to the structure in the Rift, especially after Taenite had shown him those diagrams. He'd gone three days completely unable to sleep, and only recently had he crashed for a few hours. When he woke, he had an epiphany concerning the diagrams, the building, and his own experiences with being part youma. What remained was to do something with it — show the rest of the Negaverse that Galvorn's research wasn't a waste, and that there was more to youma than agents had expected of them over all these years.
Faustite coughed into his sleeve while he waited. Jet might tell him to piss off, that he was busy, that he wasn't going to meet with Faustite until after his formal report had been finished and submitted. It was a report that he had only begun with the help of one of his subordinates, but he'd been gunshy of releasing it until his hypothesis could be proven. They might be at odds with each other, then.
Or Jet might come, and he'd have a chance to do something with the ideas that had kept him up for days. He couldn't use any of it himself, nor could any of his subordinates make use of them, much to his chagrin. If not Jet, then he would have to ask Albite to find a willing officer with a personal youma.
There was little reason to dwell on the possibilities now, though. Faustite rested the back of his head against the doors as he waited, watching smoke waft up toward the crystal-lit ceiling.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 2:51 pm
Jet was tired. Frustrated. He knew that the Negaverse had its problems but for them to claim they were better than the White Moon and yet still attack their own without any hesitation?
How many others would have immediately jumped in to attack the youmafied General Galvorn had he and Faustite not tried to deescalate the situation. Not that it mattered in the end.
There were so many things that felt like common sense to him that clearly weren’t to others. Don’t pull out starseeds in the Rift for one. Don’t attack your own allies unless absolutely necessary.
It was just one more thing to add to the debriefing whenever a mission took place.
If Jet could trust anyone on a mission after everything that happened.
He received Faustite’s message, and it didn’t take more than a couple minutes for him to teleport to the doors leading into the Hall of Shadows. He’d already discarded his cape and had pulled what little of his curly hair into a half ponytail, if only to keep his bangs out of his eyes.
But he didn’t come alone.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 2:54 pm
Aquamarine appeared beside Jet — uninvited, perhaps, but having overheard that Jet was being requested at the Hall of Shadows, and knowing who the request was coming from, he assumed the Rift was the intended destination. Jet wouldn’t refuse. General King or not, he was still the same as he’d always been; he couldn’t just sit behind a desk when he had the chance to do anything else. Aquamarine, in turn, wouldn’t sit around while Jet went into the Rift again, even if Jet didn’t need his protection or support as much as he used to. Old habits died hard, and Aquamarine was relentless.
So. There he was: sans cape, shrugging into a jacket that had previously been removed, his hair loose around his face, framing an ever-present scowl.
“You look like s**t,” Aquamarine told Faustite by way of greeting.
Maybe they all looked like s**t. Jet was tired. Aquamarine was tired. Their work with the Negaverse was never done. The war stretched on and on with no end in sight. A sojourn into the Rift was hardly a vacation.
If any concern for Faustite existed beneath Aquamarine’s harsh demeanor, he would never show it.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 3:02 pm
While Faustite would have liked to say something witty to Aquamarine, like your hole must be better than god to balance out that mouth of yours, he instead coughed. Twice. With a puff of smoke. Giving up on the idea, he instead narrowed his eyes at Aquamarine before shifting his attention to Jet.
He had only called for Jet, but he and Aquamarine were something of a package deal in the way that Faustite and Albite weren't. After what had happened, he supposed it would be quite some time before Aquamarine let Jet out of his sights again. There was no helping it now — he'd have to make his pitch with a bitter a*****e deriding everything he had to say from here to kingdom come. Demoralizing, but what wasn't anymore?
"We're going back to that building," he announced to the pair. "Got something to show you." Faustite turned and faced the double doors, then pushed them open with a grunt.
The Hall was as it had always been — gloomy, forlorn, foreboding. Wicked rasps and wheezes dogged them as Faustite started down the hall, toward the spiral steps that would lead down into the Rift itself. His firelight danced across the glass, catching in gouges where the creatures behind the glass had been excited in times past.
"Been looking at Galvorn's research. Primarily the unfinished stuff." Faustite's gestures followed his words as he walked, though he only used one hand this time. "Seems his contacts — whoever they were — wanted weapons that were easily disguised so they could arm their civilian cohorts more covertly. Must've had civilian dispatches in the past; maybe the war was more open back then, or we lacked the energy to make willing officers out of them. Whatever the case, his original aim is useless to us now, but his research isn't.
"He had a drawing of a weapon, a ring, and a youma because he was trying to understand how a person's form becomes that of a youma and apply that to a weapon. Anytime someone youmafies, they go through an incredible state change — from person to dragon, or cloud of fireflies, or star dog. He couldn't figure it out.
"So I spent the past day in his chambers." Faustite coughed into the crook of his elbow. "Made something of his work that we can use," he continued as he pushed the doors to the Rift open. He paused, as if waiting for something, then continued down the steppe to where the Rift reached a valley by the ruined city.
"Needed you to take a look."
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 3:27 pm
Somehow, Jet had not just suspected that Faustite would want to talk to him about their recent mission, but the location of their meeting meant he’d want to actually head back to the Scar and the strange research facility. He frowned for a moment, but nodded and followed Faustite through the double doors of the Hall of Shadows.
Really, there was no question on if he would go with Faustite. Of course he would. But knowing everything that transpired gave Jet pause only for the safety of both Aquamarine and Faustite.
He knew Faustite had used his own energy to power the building, but it must have been taking a good bit of time to recover. Aquamarine was right -- Faustite did look rougher than both himself and Aqua. Maybe it was because he was avoiding starseeds, Jet didn’t know. But Faustite had a habit of pushing himself when he didn’t need to.
Not that Jet could really fault him for that, since he knew he did the same.
“Have you taken the time to rest at all?” Jet asked. He wasn’t ignoring everything Faustite just told them, but he was concerned about his well being.
But to make sure Faustite knew he was paying attention (after letting out a quiet sigh), continued with, “How exactly did he research others changing into a youma?” Jet asked, maybe naively. His brows furrowed soon after, because as far as he was aware, there were only a couple ways for youma to be created, and it required a person.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 3:32 pm
Aquamarine followed a step or so behind, hiding a yawn with one hand as they made their way through the Hall of Shadows.
The Rift was as it always was — the worst place on Earth, as far as Aquamarine was concerned. Or below Earth, or… wherever. The point was, he only cared to set foot there when he absolutely had to. Rare were the times he went there willingly. Even the missions he’d “volunteered” for had only been undertaken because of Jet.
Within its strange desolation once again, Aquamarine’s glower darkened. He kicked a bit of rock, or crystal, or whatever it was, watching it skitter away.
Any mention of Galvorn or his research still rankled. Every mission these days seemed like nothing more than another reminder that their forces were horrifically trained. They lacked discipline (or sanity, in some cases). They lacked forethought and common sense. Some weren’t even self-aware enough to accept their own shortcomings, or improve upon them.
Jet’s concerns over how Galvorn might have conducted his research were not shared by Aquamarine, who rolled his eyes and muttered, “Some of the ******** we’ve recruited might be worth more to us as youma than they are as agents. Any chance we’ll be sacrificing one of them to this research? I can make a few suggestions.”
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 5:55 pm
"Can't sleep," Faustite answered simply. They had passed beyond the towering halves of the mountain that encompassed the Scar.
"Seemed anecdotal to me. Reports of reports. So-and-so said some unfortunate ******** youmafied during triage. Some-other-so reported youmafying 'out of the blue'. There were some he'd witnessed personally, but he seemed naïve to what causes it. Was some mystifying thing, to him." The research belied that he had been too busy to formally pursue it, and his endeavors were a project meant to be kept quiet from the working team. Faustite hadn't yet determined if these mysterious benefactors that charged him with their requests were meant to be kept under wraps, or if Galvorn's pride made the call for him.
Faustite descended steps that weren't there before, roughshod and uneven in cut, but serviceable enough. The youma he'd recruited to the task had accomplished that much. None of them crumbled underfoot, either. Saved them the hassle of rappelling.
"They'd make shitty youma," Faustite muttered at Aquamarine's hissing remarks.
"Had enough firsthand experience to finish the research for him. Made something more useful of it, too." As he passed through the main area, snarling at the large tube that now sat empty of power supply, Faustite reached the elevator.
"We have no use for a normal weapon that's disguised as a ring," he explained as he touched the button for the top floor. The elevator started descending. "With the way we'd have to make it, it would drain the owner's energy to remain disguised. Thought we could augment our existing weapons, instead, using the malleable property of a youma. With the crucible and knife we found in Galvorn's offices. it's possible to fold your personal youma into your weapon to create a completely different weapon. I think," he clarified. "Haven't tried it yet.
"Can use it to change a youma's physical form, too, though I imagine that's less interesting to you."
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 6:09 pm
Jet kept his thoughts to himself as he and Aquamarine followed Faustite back through the Rift and to the Scar. Down the crafted stairs that weren’t there before, and the elevator.
It wasn’t clear how long they were being followed. It wasn’t unusual for youma to be around but keep their distance, and occasionally one or more would be curious enough to approach, so Jet didn’t pay any attention to it. At least until they reached Galvorn’s chambers and the shadows speckled momentarily with stardust. What’s less interesting to you is more intriguing to me, came a voice inside their heads. The shadow of a large, star-speckled black dog had melted from the shadows with his typical greeting of pressing his nose against Aquamarine’s a**, before cackling maniacally and slipping away into just a toothy grin in the darkness.
Still being used, I see, came more howling laughter in the echoes of their minds.
“Knock it off,” Jet growled as he waved off his youma, although the gesture only seemed to delight Arles more.
Shouldn’t I get a say in what happens to my fate, or are you playing favorites with Knights turned Generals turned youma? Arles hummed in the shadows, the starlight swirling along the wall as he moved. I thought you would be happy to have a more versatile partner! Teeth in the darkness grinned.
“What, you’re volunteering for experimentation?” Jet frowned, not sure he liked the idea. He knew how painful it had been for Faustite to lose his personal youma. Jet couldn’t say he was eager to throw his own into the fires, so to speak.Hypocrite. But how can one possibly pay attention to a book with no pictures in it? Are we bound to your will or do we have our own?
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 6:13 pm
Though he might look disinterested, Aquamarine listened to and mulled over Faustite’s explanation, head inclined in thought — at least until a voice in his head and a snout against his backside pulled his attention away.
Aquamarine jumped and whirled around, rapier in hand, ready to skewer Jet’s dog for the audacity. (Like Jet, Arles had a habit of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.)
“I ******** hate dogs,” he groused, eyes darting around to seek out Arles in the shadows. “I swear to ******** I’ll throw you in front of a Princess, you mangy mutt.”
He tossed a glare at Jet, who’d wanted a youma of his own, who’d claimed having one would be useful, who’d dragged Aquamarine through the Rift for one, only to bond with this obnoxious hound of shadow and starlight instead of something less abhorrent, like Axinite’s snake. Even Faustite’s cloud of fireflies had to be less bothersome than a nasty dog that thought itself clever. (Even Aquamarine’s bird girl was more tolerable, though her judge of character was… questionable at best.)
“Are you still reciting that garbage?” Aquamarine scowled and, with a glare in warning, sheathed his rapier again. The click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth announced his continued annoyance.
“Interesting or not, a change in form might be an improvement for him,” he told Faustite. “If it ******** him up, oh well. Let him learn his ******** lesson.”
He shot one more scornful look Arles’ way before attempting to ignore his presence entirely.
“As for the weapon augmentation, why haven’t you—…”
Aquamarine cut himself off. It hadn’t occurred to him before, that Faustite didn’t have a weapon of his own. He was a weapon, in a way — ******** up as that was. To Aquamarine, who valued competence and efficiency among their forces, it seemed like something of an oversight. Shouldn’t their forces be well equipped, whatever they happened to be? Agent, Senshi, partial youma. It wasn’t as if there was a shortage of weapons.
He supposed the powers that be had their reasons. Metallia worked in mysterious ways, or whatever.
“Nevermind. How would it be done? Some ******** up version of alchemy?”
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 6:27 pm
That their youma found them wasn't terribly surprising to Faustite — he imagined that neither of them went into the Rift often, so to feel them cross its infinite expanse was a novelty worth investigating. Headache, however, stayed its distance; it knew that its General couldn't ever stay away from the Rift.
Faustite kept on without a word. He coughed several times, but he couldn't precisely tell Jet your youma is so annoying when he was coughing up enough smoke to gas out a broom closet. Whether Arles was volunteering to get his insides rearranged or not, Faustite beckoned them the rest of the way while he recovered from his coughing fit. Those, too, had grown annoying to him, and just like Arles, he preferred not to acknowledge their existence.
Aqua sure seemed testy that the dog called out what everyone already knew. Faustite spared him a look, watched him for a moment, waiting for Aqua to deliver a dusting blow. None came, to Faustite's mild disappointment.
He sighed at the comment about a Princess, though. However useful Headache could be when it wanted to be, he missed Squiddy more than anything. But that youma was long gone — he would never find another quite like it. It had crossed his mind, in his days down here, that he might be able to bequeath Headache Squiddy's appearance, but he felt it would hurt more to see his faithful little squid again that it would be helpful for Headache to have that form. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure there was much choice involved in the matter.
Aquamarine's question brought a wry smile. "Seems I can't stick myself in the pot and draw on its surface simultaneously. Else I would've."
The chambers looked nothing like they had before, with all the extraneous goods cleared out. The medical bay was minimized, and the workshop part expanded greatly. Pages of singed notes had been written up and stuck onto more and more easels as Faustite had gotten closer to the truth. Tools were scattered and cleaned up as an afterthought. They took a winding path through it as they reached the forcefield, then passed through to a greatly changed secret chamber, too.
The room was dark, but projected starlight danced across its ceiling. The ornate dagger that Jet and Aquamarine had found before was dangling above the crucible with a woven thread of light. The pot's lid was on, but a glass tray had been mounted to it. Faustite approached it and pressed his palm to a nearby wall-mounted tablet, which caused a mechanism to retract the lid.
"Galvorn thought a weapon needed to go inside the crucible, but a weapon is immutable — always meant to damage. It lacks the versatility to withstand the shifting energy flows. Youma are mutable, they serve all sorts of functions with all sorts of forms. They're the only 'medium' suited to the crucible, where they would be bathed in energy and transformed. Galvorn hadn't understood that it was damage to the starseed that ignited the possibility of infinite forms. All we need to do is rearrange the starseed within the youma, and they become something new.
"Simple process overall. I'll pay the energy if one of you supplies your youma," Faustite explained as he touched an option for the tablet to accept his energy. He pressed his palm to it again. "Have it go into the crucible. We'll replace the lid. One of you takes the glowing dagger and stabs it into the constellations in the lid. They have some sort of synergy with the youma's starseed, so maneuvering them rearranges the starseed, which rearranges their form. When you decide you're finished, I'll release the lid."
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:01 pm
At this point, if Arles got himself dusted it would be his own damn fault. Jet winced sheepishly under Aquamarine’s glare. It wasn’t entirely his fault that this was the youma he’d somehow managed to bond with.
Jet didn’t want to admit it, but he felt incredibly out of his element when it came to science, even magical science. He supposed there could be an argument that music was a lot like science, in that things had to fit together just perfectly, otherwise it wouldn’t sound right, but there was no youma involved in writing a music score.
Instead of trying to follow the set of teeth in the darkened starlight of the room, Jet’s attention was turned to Faustite. Not just for the information he was providing, but the smoke was concerning.
“Are you sick?” he asked, because he hadn’t seen Faustite coughing so much before. He knew he’d been injured in the fight, but they had ways of patching their agents up quickly, especially if anything was life threatening.
“You coughing like that? I don’t know if I’m comfortable letting you be the one to ‘pay the energy’,” he admitted, sparing a glance to Aquamarine to make sure he wasn’t the only one wondering if something was going on with Faustite. Not that he hadn’t noticed that Faustite was already changing the tablet options to accept his energy.
Jet frowned but nodded to the shadows on the wall.
“You sure you’re up for it?”
Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality, Arles cackled as the canine slinked from the shadows. Jet crossed his arms over his chest, unsure if he wanted to risk his youma, but either Arles knew more about this than he did, or he was willing to take bigger risks.
Arles didn’t wait for a direct command. He seemed to operate on an ask for forgiveness policy. He circled the crucible, pausing to give Faustite a quick sniff as well, and then clambered over the edge with giggles and cackles. And Jet sighing again in exasperation.
With Arles inside, Jet took a step back as the crucible lowered into the floor. He spared a glance over at Faustite in surprise, wondering if he’d gotten this far in his experiments. He’d noticed the strange configurations of constellations before, but now with the lid of the crucible replaced over the top, it almost looked like a puzzle.
Faustite said to stab the dagger into the constellations on the lid, but there was definitely something more to it than just stabbing it.
Carefully, Jet lowered himself onto the floor next to the crucible lid. Arles was still cackling inside the pot, so he wasn’t dissolved into youma dust. Yet. Rearranging the starseed…
He pressed the tip of the dagger into one of the slots of the constellations, watching as it glowed a bit brighter. He pushed it with the dagger, watching as a piece of it grew brighter still, met up with another part of the constellation and -- went dim. Okay, so that didn’t seem to work. He tried again, using the glowing dagger to carefully maneuver the pits of light.
There seemed to be a shift in Arles as well. He was no longer cackling in amusement and there was instead the sound of claws scratching the inside of the crucible in distress.
But the lid was locked. There was no going back until they finished.
One light, and then another, piecing each together as if in some kind of chemical equation --
Or composing music.
Each part had to match up just right. So Jet closed his eyes and took a breath, trying to feel the way the energy was pulsing around the crucible and the room, trying to hear the way the energy flowed, trying to twist and merge into something new. He manipulated the configuration of stars, pushing and pulling with the glowing blade, watching as some stars dimmed while others brightened until finally --
Everything around them went dark, except for the final constellation on the lid.
Carefully, Jet took a step back.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:05 pm
Something was always going on with Faustite. Aquamarine caught Jet’s look but didn’t respond to it, except to shrug carelessly. He didn’t know what good confronting Faustite about the issue would do, if any at all. To Aquamarine, Faustite seemed like he might be the type to dismiss concern, either because he thought it unnecessary or unearned. Aquamarine didn’t care enough to challenge that.
He and Faustite weren’t friends. They were acquaintances, a pair of neutral colleagues capable of suppressing whatever dislike or aggravation might exist on either end of the divide in order to get the job done. That was all they needed to be.
As for the magic, the science, or whatever supernatural nonsense needed to happen to transform a youma, Aquamarine paid it just enough mind to acknowledge its usefulness without bothering to ponder the hows of the process. Faustite was the resident expert on all things youma, as far as Aquamarine was concerned; there wasn’t any point in questioning his intelligence when Aquamarine possessed far less on the subject.
Within the previously secret chamber, Aquamarine kept his distance — close enough to observe, but not so close that he could be accused of hovering. If Arles wanted to offer himself as a test subject and Jet had no objections, then Aquamarine was content to proceed.
He caught movement just beyond the forcefield — a flutter and a sigh to announce the presence of a slim figure in dark plumage slinking about the main chamber, talons occasionally clicking along the floor — but other than the briefest glance, Aquamarine offered no acknowledgement of his own youma’s existence.
She made a slow approach, peering through the forcefield but not crossing over, her black, soulless gaze fastened on the crucible. Between the black of her feathers and the dingy, tattered remnants of old clothing, she might have blended in with the dark, if not for the unnatural pallor of the more human parts of her melded form.
She watched and waited, as they did. When the darkness descended, her eyes seemed darker still.
Aquamarine looked to Jet for any sign that his bond with Arles had been severed. Finding none, he sighed and said, “Shame he isn’t dead.”
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:07 pm
As he watched the process begin, Faustite carefully circled back to Jet's question. It took him some time to ponder how to answer it, given that he typically brushed such inquiries off. He was able to act and see to his duties, and that was what the Negaverse asked of him. His health had only been a concern insofar as it impacted his ability to perform. Even with a cough that he didn't understand, he was able to do what was asked of him, so others' inquiries seemed strange, or even suspicious or invasive.
His first thought was to answer that he was fine. It was a bothersome cough, but it didn't compare to what happened to him in the past.
"Don't know," he answered at last. "Always had problems since I reached Captain, but they were much worse. Couldn't breathe, or guts fell out. Just waiting to see if it goes away," he finished with a light cough. He cleared his throat. "Stranger to me is the giddiness."
Watching the constellations dance across the ceiling of the room — the ones that weren't obscured from view by Jet's crouched form — reminded him of the dome ceiling in the Portunus tower. Perhaps Tama would have liked seeing something like this, but the conclusions they reached had not been in the domain of a Mauvian. It was nothing for a senshi, either, so the few who had helped had done so altruistically.
Faustite's arms folded across his body as he watched, as he listened to the transition from laughter to clawing. Faustite supposed it would have felt like dying again, like becoming stronger with a new rank, or the moment one's starseed corrupted or broke. Perhaps he could relate to it, having remembered what it was like to become part-youma in the first place. It wouldn't be on the same scale, though — like comparing breaking a toe to losing half one's body, though he wasn't quite a stranger to the latter.
When Jet retreated from the crucible, Faustite perked at the scene. He touched the terminal again as he waited for the crucible to return and open, revealing Arles's new form.
Something sighed, and Faustite's attention turned to a feathery harpy who found her way to Aquamarine's side. He hadn't seen that one before, hadn't known that Aquamarine saw fit to bond with any youma. If anything, he would've expected the surly b*****d to spit on them on a whole, curse them for losing their humanity, and insist that they were as worthless as the rank and file that called themselves Lieutenants. In fact, Aquamarine was so terribly salty that, between his attitude and Arles always going for his butt, Faustite would've suspected him of having a** cancer.
Turned out that seeing him with a youma was quite the surprise for the day. Faustite quirked a brow at him, then shifted his attention back to the crucible.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:35 pm
Faustite said he was waiting to see if his coughing and smokiness went away, which was reasonable. Jet didn’t want to make it seem as though he didn’t trust Faustite to take care of himself. Besides, Faustite had plenty of people who cared about him who would say something if he seemed to be getting worse.
Well… then again, Jet wasn’t sure what the people that surrounded Faustite thought. He hoped they wouldn’t let him suffer. Even if Faustite didn’t think of him as more than a colleague -- and now a superior officer -- Jet thought he’d proved time and again that he did care about Faustite’s well being.
Maybe that was why Faustite was being as honest as he could manage for now. Jet appreciated not having his concern brushed off.
He didn’t get a chance to say more on the topic at the moment, because the crucible seemed to finish whatever forging it was doing, and the pot rose back up. The lid was off.
Something shadowy reached out of the pot, taking hold of the side. Clawed fingers colored like the night sky; a good deal of fur along the back of the hand, reaching up the forearm. How far up the starlight fur went was hidden by the rolled up sleeve of a tattered, dark gray shirt. What followed was a youma with a head shaped mostly like a human, with the ears of a wolf, a mouth that grinned with sharp teeth, and eyes that looked like voids.
Despite the toothy grin, sweat made his long black hair stick to his face. As he pulled himself out of the crucible, it was apparent that he was wearing a dark navy vest over the shirt, with matching pants, which were torn at the bottom to make room for his canine hocks and paws. His dark tail, like the rest of his fur, still looked like they faded in and out of shadow.
“Alys!” he greeted, maybe a bit surprised by his own voice, which was rough and gravely. “So good to see you found me again. ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!”
Jet took a step back, surprised to see what was very clearly Arles, looking as if he’d stepped out of some cheesy Victorian werewolf movie. Well, if the werewolf was also ethereal and blended into the shadows and night sky.
“Is this what you were expecting?” he asked Faustite curiously.
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Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 8:53 pm
Aquamarine took one look at Arles’ new form and sneered in disgust.
“Oh, ******** that, he’s even worse,” he said.
Arles retained just enough of his canine qualities that it was obvious who he was, but there was a humanness about his shape now, if one could assign the descriptor to something that had not been human for quite some time, that didn’t even remember being human. Whatever the case, standing upright on two feet didn’t detract from Arles’ monstrous existence.
Behind Aquamarine, Alys crept closer. She didn’t react to Arles’ changed form except to c**k her head to the side, eyes locked on him in an unblinking stare.
“Say it,” Aquamarine told her, resigned to her peculiarities. “I know you want to.”
He neither acknowledged nor returned Faustite’s look. Aquamarine never intended to acquire a youma of his own, wouldn’t have bothered if Alys hadn’t been such a persistent pest. She saw something in him that appealed to her. Aquamarine still wasn’t quite sure what that was.
“He is beautiful,” Alys sighed, voice soft and airy.
She put a taloned hand to Aquamarine’s ribs, over the wound he’d sustained against Galvorn, her touch little more than a whisper of gentle fingers. Her head, with its dense crown of black feathers and the few stringy locks of flaxen hair which escaped it, dropped onto his shoulder.
Aquamarine’s frown grew more severe, but he didn’t shrug her away.
“My love,” Alys greeted Arles.
She didn’t approach him. She stared her vacant stare while her magic eased Aquamarine’s aches and pains into nonexistence.
Arms folded over his chest, Aquamarine turned from Arles to Faustite. “Can’t say it’s an improvement, but it works. What’s next? You said we could fold youma and weapon together.”
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