At the appearance of the pink savior, Rain’s ember flared excitedly. They were all together. Her, and granny, and the lady who’d made the explosions, and the other lady who’d brought the giant fuckoff bird down, all of them right here in the same place—the winner’s circle. It made her giddy, eager, itchy for more. She wanted more void to tear apart, more fuel to burn and, really, more fun to have. Yeah, sure, maybe if she was being really super honest she had kind of, almost, just a little bit, nearly died. But she didn’t! And sure as anything, she knew that as long as she was still kicking, she was supposed to be killing something.
She was half-tempted to run back out into the mucky battlefield and look, but that would have meant leaving the other hunters behind and…well, it wasn’t like the void were never coming back, right? Besides, outside there was no one to appreciate how fuckin’ cool she was. She’d stay put for now—she was Uglydein’s hero after all, and heroes didn’t—
Punch granny in the face.
Rain started, and took a step back, glancing wildly between the cannoneer and the room's new white-haired floormat.
“Wuh…?”
“Goddamn, melter, but you showed some fuckin' mettle out there, didn't ya?”
Metal? Metal what? She glanced down at her claws, they were metal. These? Well, yeah, she’d shown’em to the void alright. Not as much as she wanted to, but, y’know, first time and all that. She’d show the void even more metal on the next go.
The cannoneer struck her, next. Quick hit to the shoulder, weak like the little shitlings in the pit who didn’t eat. She bristled, fingers splayed and ready to keep the woman’s grubby mitts off her stash—then remembered where she was. Right. Oof, she’d been away from home too long. And anyway, people only smiled after they took all your shit.
“Name's Quinnlash Loughvein—”
What the fuck’s a ‘Quinnlash’? she thought.
“—coming out of Midnos.”
The asshole country?
“Stay outta my way, don't fuck up, and we won't have any trouble, got it?”
Rain felt another bristling coming on. She might not have known if the woman was complimenting her before, but she sure as shit knew what a challenge sounded like. Stay out of her way? Oh, miss hoity-toity flame-shitter was gonna eat those words—sooner than later.
But not now. Granny got back up to her feet, and Rain knew the rules—Quinnlash had thrown the first punch, so granny had dibs. She also had…wow, teeth. A lot of teeth. So many that she could spit them out by the handful and still have more in her mouth than Rain’d had in her whole stash. She watched granny’s jaw blossom with edges of all shapes and sizes, and for a moment she just stood there, miming her, opening her own razor mouth in some twisted greeting. Then she noticed all the teeth on the floor, and remembered her claim.
The terms had been clear, they now belonged to her.
Rain dropped down, scooping them up one by one with glee. They were pretty, glittering—the teeth in the pit never glittered, even in torchlight—and there were so many she had to hold them in both hands. In fact, she realized, there were too many. She’d never be able to bring all these with her, let alone whatever was left to claim outside. Sure, she could leave them for now, but who was to say these pyromancers would honor her claim once she was gone?
“Hm.”
Forget the other teeth, those were stupid teeth broken off the gums of lame weaklings. These were from granny, who was not lame, and might, in fact, be cool. Not as cool as Rain was, of course, but still. All of these hunters had earned that merit, really. Perhaps it was the blood-high of her first mission, or the adrenaline of a brief and bitter brush with death, but she found a strange and unfamiliar generosity simmering within her.
Leaving the pair to squabble, she held the teeth close to her and tugged on pink’s massive sleeve, doing the same to blue while she was at it.
“Oi! You two!” she said, affecting a crude, noble lilt. “As the hero of Uglydein, I have decided to recognize your efforts in helping me protect it.”
Sifting through her bounty, she selected two sharp-but-not-too-sharp-and-not-too-big-either teeth, and handed one to each of them.
“There, you are hitherto and whereupon, henceforthly, awarded. Forever and etcetera. Praise be.” She made a vague hand gesture, like she’d seen some of the better-dressed guests back home make when they buried people. Then, she stuffed the remainder of granny’s teeth into her pockets.
“Time for beer!” she cheered, arms thrust up in victory as she turned to the pink warrior. “What’s beer!”
Seele sighed with relief as someone went to tend to Graves, and stared just a tad longer as Artemis took a…considerable moment to fully disarm herself. Huh. The girl was certainly resourceful—normally she’d have been glad for that, but right now she had to focus on more pressing matters.
Lendie demanded answers, and she paled to imagine what might happen if she didn’t give them.
“Captain, I can assure you those reports were...well, they were justifiably made, yes, but they’re also wrong. We made a scene here, absolutely, yes, undeniably, and for that I am deeply and sincerely sorry. But the only danger here was to ourselves.” She gestured back towards Graves. “This was little more than a scuffle over disagreements. The escalation was…unfortunate, but it wasn’t their fault. Magic was used, I fully admit, but it was for the sake of restraining my friend, who you can see is no threat to anyone right now.”
Frankly, she didn’t know if that was true. She didn’t want to lie to Lendie, of course, and god forbid he’d get back up to his feet and start swinging again. All she could do was hope he was down for the count, but even then, she wasn’t sure that’d be enough to assuage the captain.
“I sympathize with what you’re dealing with, here, she said. “I’ve seen it too. My…ah, people, the Wayfarers, we’ve been dreadful to this city these past weeks—some of us even before that. My friends and I, we’re trying to help. I’m sure with everything else you’ve had thrown at you, you’ve heard of the recent string of disappearances? Wayfarers and citizens alike. Well, Drox has us investigating them. We’d just finished planning when the…disagreement started. Bad, I know—but we do have a plan, and that man is crucial to it.
“Again, I am so terribly sorry for the disturbance. I’m not insisting you let us off the hook, but I am asking you, please, to give us one or two days to try and find these missing people. You have my name, my fraternity, you have all our faces—we can’t go anywhere. Once we’ve finished this investigation, we’ll march right down to the garrison and pay whatever fine, or serve whatever time you deem appropriate, but the window on this is closing and I don’t know when it will be open again.”
She breathed—gasped, nearly, for how empty her lungs were at the end. Well, Lendie had asked for an explanation, and Seele wasn’t particularly good at brevity. She only hoped what she’d given was enough, rather than too much.
Saika could see it clear as day, like it was happening right in front of her—big fuckoff shark sister, launching some snot-nosed bully onto the roof. Fuckin beautiful. Sure, it was hard to imagine anyone bullying Murasame, even if he was ‘little’, but whatever, details. She decided then that Frenzy-whoever was cool in her book. Shame she’d already graduated, but if she was out there throwing more assholes onto roofs, then oh well. Besides, Murasame wasn’t bad company either.
She dug into her WcChiken, mildly disappointed to find that “extra pickles” had evidently meant two slices as opposed to one. The devil on her shoulder whispered sweet temptations in her ear to take a few sips from the WcSwishy, but she bravely ignored it. It was part of the olive branch—even more necessary now that the WcFish was part of the equation.
He asked after her own friends, and she shrugged. “Nah, not really. Sorta the same boat as you—lotta bullying, easy target and all that,” she said through a mouthful of WcCripsy chicken. “Only really had the one friend, and she came to Ishin too. Her name’s Izuna. Great girl, cool as fuck, known her forever. Y’know, actually, you two might get along great. She’s sorta fishy—like, literally. Scales, gills, those lil’ fish-whisker things. She ain’t a giant or nothin’, but she’s good people. Reeeeeal into the hero stuff, which, y’know, can’t be a bad thing, right?”
As was the way with most meals from WcDenji’s, there was a bit of her sandwich that was just, frankly, inedible. Sometimes it was undercooked, sometimes it was overcooked. This time, she nearly bit down onto something gelatinous, and, without even looking to see what it was, wrapped it back up in its paper and tossed the little sliver of chicken into a trashcan.
“As far as new ones go, I think I’m doin’ alright. I mean, school ain’t even started yet, and I’m already having breakfast with a classmate. Shit, bet I made a friend faster than anyone else there.”
Eventually she brought them to another busy crossing, and on the other side of the street there stood a sign for Ishin Academy. She pointed excitedly, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she finished the last of her goke. “Hey, hey, lookit that! I actually knew where to go! Gotta be honest I was like sixty-forty for a bit there. You ready to make waves, big guy?”
Kyreth’s room - his own room! - was grander than he ever could have imagined. The structure itself was palatial; the door was solid, the walls were strong, and it even had two windows, one overlooking the garden and lake the other the forest. Inside, the cozy space was furnished with a desk and chair, some shelves, the locked trunk the Lord had promised, and, above all, a bed. And not just any bed; a bed with sheets and blankets, with a mattress and pillow and a frame that didn’t bow when he sat on it. A bed he didn’t need to draw straws for or fight over. Hells, the windows even had curtains. Kyreth had never stayed in such an upscale place in his life.
And not only that, but there were already some things in the room, accompanied by a note encouraging their use. On the shelves were a few books, ink and paper as the Lord had promised, and on the desk, his very own candle and flint. They were all for his studies, but still, it felt good and strange in equal measure to suddenly be possessed of more than he could fit in his pockets.
There’d also been a large drawstring sack left inside, filled with enough travel rations to last Kyreth the ten-day trip he was so wary of going on. To buy those provisions himself would have cost him nearly every copper to his name. He’d been doing his best to keep track of his debts to this place, but the sum quickly grew beyond what he could quantify; he’d have to count them all as blessings for the time being, having no other way to count them.
The cherry on top of it all was a washbasin and warm water, which Kyreth took advantage of immediately, even before he was stunned once again by someone in the House staff delivering a hot, hearty meal to his door. Kyreth could have sworn he was living in a dream, and very much didn’t want to wake up.
By the time he’d washed up, eaten, and given thanks to Selene for her boundless generosity, the sky had gone dark, and it was at that point Kyreth realized he’d yet to see Lilann. Well, it was no wonder; privacy made you miss things, it seemed.
Well, no time like the present; he needed to thank Lilann for her hand in turning his life upside down.
He crept through the Bounty House like a child up after bedtime, nervous to disturb any other residents on his way back down to the lobby. Fortunately, Lilann had found her way back up, and was resting in the common area. She must have remembered that he owed her a good story. And Hells below, did he ever have a wild tale to spin.
Even as he drew closer, it took Lilann many moments to realize he was there. She seemed distracted, with her hat doffed beside her, and her head leaned back in the seat. She was staring up at the ceiling, face pinched in thought. When she did notice him, the tension left her quickly, blinking like she’d just woken up.
“Kyreth,” she said, rising shakily from her seat and steadying herself on the arm rest. “Oof, sorry. Took a small nap and still haven’t quite come out of it.” She rubbed some of the tiredness from her eyes, then regarded him with a smile more like the ones he’d seen before. “But look at you, you’re back–and in one piece! How did your errands go?”
Kyreth moved instinctively to catch Lilann in case she fell, his concern easing (but not entirely disappearing) as she composed herself. He had to crack a ghost of a grin at her comment, nodding.
“Yeah, I’ve been back a while now - sorry I didn’t come find you sooner,” he replied. Rather than answer her question, though, he gestured to the stairs. “I have somewhere more private we can talk, if you don’t mind… I have a lot to tell you.”
He led Lilann up the stairs to the second floor, hooking a hard left at the top and showing her to the room at the very end of the hallway. He couldn’t hide his satisfaction when he pulled out his key, face painted with the grin of a child with a new toy as he unlocked the door. “Check this out.”
The door opened to a modest dormitory-style room with a bed pushed against the wall in a corner with a trunk at the foot, as well as a desk and chair complete with a set of shelves. Two windows decorated two of the walls, looking out over the bridge on one side and the garden on the other.
“They’re letting me stay here,” he explained, his voice coloured with awe. He stepped inside, gesturing for Lilann to follow him. “Can you believe it? I have so much to tell you.”
Lilann stared wide-eyed at the room, stunned for just a moment into complete silence. This wasn’t just a room, it was a room. She doubted even the ones at that hoighty-toighty inn back in town were furnished so nicely–and rightfully not, this was a lord’s estate after all.
Finally she looked back at Kyreth, and briefly wondered if she was seeing the same boy from before. He was smiling, he seemed happy, maybe even proud.
A part of her was wary. No, she couldn’t believe it, at least not normally, and she couldn’t help the way her mind bristled at the idea that something else was afoot here for someone as evidently powerful as lord Mystralath to extend such generosity to a Tainted. But it seemed today was a day for believing incredible things, so she decided, for now, to take this for what it was.
“I can tell that you do,” she said, letting herself smile like he was. “And I’m very eager to hear it.”
Kyreth wasn’t blind to Lilann’s moment of skepticism; honestly, if he was smarter, he’d have held on to his own much longer than he had. But he’d promised he would accept Selene’s gifts as they came, and if that had consequences, well, he’d know for next time.
He ushered Lilann inside, closing the door and pulling the desk chair out for himself. He’d let her sit on the bed; she might need someplace to fall over when she heard everything. “I’m still processing it myself, but - well, let me start from the beginning. Apparently I’m an aetherborn.”
He had to laugh at his own ignorance, realizing the truth was pretty clear in hindsight. “I know, seems silly now, but, well, you know, growing up where I did I would never have dreamed an aetherborn would pop up, let alone me.”
He continued fervently, telling Lilann everything from the tense first meeting with the Lord, to the proposal of apprenticeship (and the alternative of an excruciating fiery death), the ups and downs of the trip into town, and everything since. As he spoke, Kyreth was more animated than he could ever recall; he flipped between the heights of awe and gratitude and the depths of dread and apprehension like a weather vane in a storm, standing and sitting and pacing with nervous energy as he wove his tale. In a way, the news was as fresh to him as it was to Lilann; he was still coming to terms with things even as he explained them, and it wasn’t until he regaled it all to another that it all finally started to sink in.
“And… yeah, I guess I’m coming with you tomorrow,” he finally finished, falling back into his chair. He pulled his hood down at long last, locks of damp white hair flopping down over his forehead. His tail slid out limply from its hiding place around his waist, exhausted, and his eyes were focused somewhere off in the distance, his expression an unreadable mix of shock and contemplation. “Man, saying it all out loud… it sounds even crazier than it seemed.”
After a moment, he finally fixed his gaze back on Lilann, his eyes glowing with the vigor of Soft Haven’s aether, even more brightly in the gathering gloom. It was an odd contrast to the rest of his face, marred by the exhaustion of a long and harrowing day, but painted all over with wonder. “Can you believe it? I mean, is he crazy? Am I crazy?”
Admittedly, watching Kyreth so lively was more than a little amusing. She rarely saw her kind get excited about things, let alone things like this. Though, as he continued to explain his position, she felt her spirits wilt under the oppressive, ineluctable shade of cynicism. To her ears, it sounded like Mystralath was very good at explaining himself, without necessarily explaining himself. Taking Kyreth under his wing was an act of magnanimity so great that even the part of her that wanted to be happy for him just…couldn’t. No one was that generous without agenda, no one, but especially not nobility.
And as long as their employer’s name began with ‘Lord’, that’s all he’d be to her.
Blessedly—or perhaps not—she was distracted by the revelation that Kyreth would be accompanying them on their contract. Hours ago that wouldn’t have fazed her; in fact, she’d have been quite relieved to have him along, considering the rest of the company. However, having seen what she’d seen today, the idea of him being out in the woods, group or not, set a small twist in her stomach.
“I…no,” she said at last, falling back to sit on the bed. “No I don’t think you’re crazy at all—neither of you. I think Lord Mystralath knows exactly what he’s doing, and you…deserve the opportunity regardless of his intentions. I know I don’t have to tell you to be careful, but…well, be careful.”
For a few moments she sat, contemplating what to say, and how to say it. She had questions, plenty of questions, but where to start?
She shrugged with her lips. “Hm. So it’s fire, then? I’ve seen one or two aetherborn like that in my travels. They are…certainly a force to be reckoned with.” She smirked. “Not what I would have pictured for you—no offense.”
Kyreth smiled, but it was a strained look, his discomfort evident. “Yeah, don’t remind me,” he chuckled coldly, rubbing his face. “I used to think it was a curse - still do, honestly. That’s why I’m… certainly not very excited about accompanying you—no offense.”
He chuckled again, more sincerely this time. But his levity didn’t last long, and his face once more grew serious. “But, really… if anything happens while we’re traveling, just—give me a wide berth, okay?”
Shaking his head, he left the ‘I don’t want to burn you alive’ part unsaid. Instead, he opted to change the subject. “Anyway. I’ve been rambling enough, I think,” he proposed. “Did you come upon anything today? You were looking to learn about that… thing, right? That left the claw marks?” His nose wrinkled in discomfort.
Lilann was savvy enough to know when she’d struck a nerve, and Kyreth was particularly emotive as it was. Normally that was proof she was on the right line of questioning, but she wasn’t spinning a story about him. She didn’t need to pry, even though a part of her wanted to. It sounded like he was already quite familiar with his gifts, regardless of how he’d viewed them.
Another time, she thought.
Besides, he’d managed to turn the conversation on her when she’d been distracted. Clever boy. “Oh dear,” she said, growing a strained smile of her own. “Seems it’s my turn to sound crazy, then. Well, you might have noticed that I don’t have my sword…”
If she could have seen herself tell Kyreth about what had happened, she would have been furious. Normally her stories were bold, energetic, incorporating a variety of voices and props and aetheric trickery for spice. Here, she only sat still, hunched tiredly over her knees, like an old crone at her fireplace.
She told him about Cerric’s guidance, about the walk, and how the music had come to her again—and did he remember that music? Had he heard it? She couldn’t recall—and she didn’t even mention their duet. Instead she described that…place. The dreadfulness of it, the paleness, the stench of death that morphed into the presence of death itself. She told him about the Rancor, its hideous face and its terrible strength that she knew right away she was no match for. It had chased her madly though the colorless woods, until the music returned. Then she stopped, and strained because the closer she drew to the end the fuzzier her mind felt. Somewhat reluctantly, she told him about the figure that had rescued her, and how the world had gone pure white.
She did not tell him about the dream—she hardly knew how to approach it herself.
“Then I woke up. I was in the apothecary’s home, Agitha Hawthorne. She and her ward—little Tainted boy, can you believe that?—they were both very kind to me. Sent me on my way once I had my bearings.”
She sighed, sitting back and regarding him with a shrug. “I don’t suppose you happen to believe me, do you?”
Kyreth listened with rapt attention, gripping the side of his chair like a child listening to a ghost story. And that was what he felt like; the same deep disturbedness he saw Lilann concealing in her own eyes gripped him openly as the tale went on, his stomach turning over on itself as Lilann described her too-close brush with death.
When she finally finished, Kyreth sat mutely for a moment, stunned. The truth was, no, no he didn’t believe her - he didn’t want to. The thought of something like that lurking in walking distance from the Bounty House and its lush foliage and oblivious staff - no, that thing lived on another world, another plane of existence entirely, one Lilann clearly spun herself to frighten drunks for coin.
But he couldn’t dismiss it. Because he had heard the music - he barely remembered it, and would never have given it a second thought if not for the mention. There’d been so much on his mind the first time up this way, and with the aether buzzing his nerves and Ceolfric with a blade at his back, there’d been much more important obstacles at hand. But he had heard it, and, he realized now, he’d heard it to and from town as well. And there were other parts of her story he couldn’t deny, either.
“Moon’s Mercy…” Kyreth muttered to himself, voice full of fear and reverence as he traced a crescent on his forehead and clutched his pendant. He was too stunned to say anything more for a moment, staring at the floorboards in horrified disbelief.
Eventually, he shook his head. “No—I believe you,” he replied, still visibly shaken. “It’s… I mean, it’s insane, but last night, I…” he squeezed his eyes shut, momentarily gripped by the same potent malignance that had washed over him in the wee hours in the graveyard. “I mean, I’m sure you felt it too. Whatever left those marks was… very much real.”
He raked a hand through his hair, hooking his fingers around one of his horns. “But… h-how—you mean to tell me something like that is just out there—” he gestured to the window, now less enthused about having two of them, “—just right out there, and you can just find it, and nobody cares? How is the whole town not dead?!”
It was an odd thing for her to tell someone the truth and hope they believed it, but she relieved nonetheless. He asked her questions she didn’t know the answers to, but felt like she ought to have, and had to resist the urge to just make them up.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It wasn’t particularly talkative, and while I’m being honest, the place I found didn’t feel…right. Maybe you can’t just find it, or maybe it can’t leave—speculating is great for stories, but won’t help us much in reality.”
She shook her head, looking back up at him. “Tomorrow I’ll tell Cerric what I found—I doubt he’ll believe me, but he ought to know, anyway. I’ll tell Ceolfric too, since he seemed the most eager to find the wretched thing. Maybe he’ll have better luck. The stories make it old, Kyreth, and I can’t help wondering…well, don’t take this as a slight against our employer, but if Mystralath went out of his way to scoop you up because you might be a threat, then I’m finding it hard to believe he’s not at least aware that this creature is real.”
Kyreth nodded along, wondering the same things Lilann did and more - like how he found it hard to believe that Cerric had enough knowledge to lead her flawlessly to the monster, but not that it actually lurked where he said it would. But the mention of Lord Mystralath gave him pause.
At first, he was tempted to correct Lilann, tell her in no uncertain terms that in his state he very much was a threat, but she made an excellent point. Not only was it a good inference, but what little more he knew than she did about Mystralath seemed to support it; eccentric as he was, Kyreth doubted the Lord would hear such a story and simply brush it aside. But what did it all mean? And more importantly, would he have the guts to ask about it?
“I'm sure you're right,” he admitted. “I mean, the man is… his-- our school of aetherborn can be a force of nature, like you said. Maybe he's not worried because he knows he could be done with it with a snap of his fingers.”
But that didn't sit right, either. “Of course, that begs the question of why he hasn't just dealt with it already,” Kyreth conceded, deep in thought. “Maybe you're right, and it's not a threat unless someone goes looking for it…?”
That theory raised more questions than answers, too, and Kyreth was in no condition to contemplate. He could feel the edges of his mind straining, the fatigue from his earlier foray into aether manipulation still lingering. After a long moment, he shook his head to clear it.
“Well, I have some dealings with Cerric too - seems he's going to be supervising me so I don't… well…” he rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, deciding not to finish that sentence. “Gotta say I’d rather keep on his good side, but let me know what he tells you. More importantly, I doubt any trade roads run through whatever hellscape you found, so we should be safe on our trip… right?”
Lilann nodded, though she was no more comfortable than before. Suggesting Msytralath had knowledge was a far cry from confronting him about it, which she had no intentions of doing right now–and even less did she want Kyreth to do it. Gods, he’d only just gotten such a good position, the last thing he needed right now was to have it jeopardized.
“I hope so. There are going to be quite a few of us, and I suspect Cerric is no pushover himself. Besides, now I know if anything does happen, we’ve got you!” she winked. “Like you said, a wide berth.”
Lilann rose from the bed, and this time she didn’t even wobble. She fixed Kyreth with a smile as genuine as she could muster. All told, she was happy for him. She would have preferred he kept to the relative safety of the town, or at least Mystralath’s walls, but if this was the way things were going to be…well, that wasn’t so bad.
“Alright, I should go try and get some real rest for tomorrow,” she said. “With any luck, this little journey will be over before we know it. And if we’re not lucky, well, who knows? Maybe the beastie will only eat Ceolfric.”
Kyreth cracked a guilty grin at the joke. While he worried she was making too light of the danger he posed to her and the group if something did go wrong, he had to admit that the joking did put him a little more at ease. A polished skill for sure, honed by a career of storytelling, but he appreciated it all the same.
“Good idea, I'm supposed to be taking an early night myself,” he concurred, standing up with her. However, before he opened the door for her, he had one more thing to say.
“Um, before you go…” he started hesitantly, “Listen, I can tell this whole… thing--” he gestured around at the room “--makes you a little uneasy. And, I mean, believe me, nobody is more nervous about it than me. But…”
He paused for a moment, meekly rubbing the back of his neck as he debated whether to say it or not. “...I wanted to thank you. Truly. Without you I don't think I ever would have even walked up the hill.”
Kyreth’s cheeks darkened a touch, a little embarrassed, but he pressed on all the same. “Seriously. If you ever need anything, please don't hesitate to call on me, okay? I owe you.”
There was something crushingly familiar to her in the way he spoke, and his meekness stoked memories that seemed as alien to her as the fog that had followed her deliverance from the Rancor. Standing there, it struck her quite suddenly that they were alien because they weren’t hers. They were Livean’s.
She struggled for a moment for a steady breath. “Hah…” she muttered, composing herself. “Well, don’t go underestimating yourself. Leave that to everyone else–trust me, feels a lot better proving other people wrong.” She patted him on the shoulder, smiled again, more naturally this time. “But if you really want to pay me back, just get through this contract in one piece, hm? Let’s start there.”
Kyreth nodded knowingly, returning Lilann’s good will with a tired smile. Whatever was behind that little falter, he wouldn't speculate; after the ordeal she'd had, she deserved more than a little deference. “Alright, it’s a deal,” he agreed, finally opening the door for her. “I’ll see you bright and early, then.”
Lilann was no stranger to nightmares, but she had never been plagued by a pleasant dream before. Yet, that night, the warmth of those unreal sands, and the awe of its towers, even the fear of their destruction—all of it set her to waking again, and again, only for her to return to it when she drifted once more.
She stood on that marble platform, reaching for a hand outstretched but never feeling their fingers touch.
She woke feeling terribly alone, and sought to remedy that at once.
The air in Soft Haven was bitter and damp. She’d spent so long under the gloomy skies of Dranir that, even though she’d seen more snow than rain in her life, she had a feeling the day wouldn’t stay as meagerly dry as it was now. Oh well, a good wash never hurt anyone—and if she was going to be sharing a convoy with the hedgeman, she’d likely be thankful for a little cleansing rain.
Donning her mask once again, she proceeded out of town to meet with their employer. She found Cerric alongside an unfamiliar woman—the client, likely. Esvelee, if memory served. Ceolfric had shown up, as well as the impish boy. And, ah, there was Kyreth. The thought of him coming along, especially after what she’d seen, still didn’t sit right with her. But she’d resolved to trust him, and if ever there was a time to stick together, it was now.
“Good morning!” she announced, voice projecting easily from beneath her mask. She nodded pleasantly to Cerric, and bowed theatrically to Esvelee, head dipping low enough that her hat nearly eclipsed her whole body. “Lady Buckman,” she greeted. “Lilann Storyborn, at your call.”
With that she went on to join Kyreth and Ermes, striking up on the former’s unoccupied side. “Good to see you. And—oh, look what the night coughed up,” she said teasingly, waggling her fingers at the shadowy boy. “Hello, Ermes. Ready for a nice trip?”
Dizzy and burned, the end was very much a blur to Rain. Her shield-bearing savior all but peeled her off the ground—a fair bit of skin and muscle was left behind, melted into the heat-packed dirt—and gave her a compliment that didn’t sink in until well after she’d run off to be awesome elsewhere. For a while Rain just stood there in a daze, staring blankly after the pink warrior. Thank god her throat was utterly immolated, or she might have said something stupid like, ‘Thank you for making me not die,’ or ‘Big,’ or ‘Can I ride on your shoulders.’
Eventually she lurched and hacked up a lungful of bloody pulp. “Ow,” she grumbled, spotting chips of bone in the meat. Wet ash caked the inside of her mouth. Oh well, at least her voice was back.
That was it then, right? They’d won? The storm had let up and all the ugly lil’ fuckers were melting away. It was quiet. It only ever got quiet before someone threw a sucker punch.
Whatever, she’d be ready. No one and no thing got the drop on Rain on My Skin, Ice in My Mouth.
Scooping up puddles of rainwater, she splashed the ash and muck from her face, scrubbed it from her sleeves and shook it from her hair. With a little stoking of her ember, she flash-heated. Her skin dried, her hair fluffed back out, and the enchantments woven into her uniform—identical to the ones in her claws—thrummed as the fabric dried but did not burn.
She passed soldiers along the way, rare smatterings of those who had not made it back to the keep, but who had also survived the slaughter outside. They looked exhausted. The few who weren’t splayed on their backs, who sat upright or leaned against the rubble, were dirty and bloody and shaking with cold. Rain had almost forgotten what cold felt like—real cold, pit cold. The rain could cool but never quench, as ice could chill but never soothe. As she marched past them she stoked her ember hotter, radiating warmth so that they might thaw in her wake. It hurt a bit, but she didn't show it, only puffed up and grinned—didn’t want them getting the wrong idea or anything.
The Hearth was still standing, which was more than could be said for most of the city. Better days behind, better days ahead, and all that. She threw open the door to the common area at its base.
“Uglydein!” she announced. “Your hero has returned!”
She strutted across the room, between tables of battered soldiers and ragged pyromancers, preening and flexing her muscles. “Because I am beneb…benvolen…because I’m nice, I’ll only take the teeth you already lost! That means if you find any on the ground, leave’em! I’ll pick’em up when I feel like it. And—”
Rain gasped as she caught sight of a hunter leaning against a cannon bigger than she was, and then again, louder, as a gangly, cloaked figure made her entrance. No sword, but the white hair and general air of misery were a sure giveaway. Her noble act was dropped instantly, and Rain dashed across the room.
“Hey! Hey Granny!” she shouted, heedless for volume. As she came skidding to a halt in front of the tall woman, she had to stop herself from saying something stupid, like, ‘Thank you for making me not die,’ or ‘Big,’ or ‘Can I ride on your shoulders.’
The disbelief helped; she was hardly able to string a sentence together through her own excitement. Instead, all she managed was a loud, incredulous: “You exploded!”
Saika waited while Murasame bought out the shop. Breakfast and lunch—he wasn’t just big, he was a bold one, too. He lost her at the WcNib, though. Sure it was seasonal, but the sauce was like jelly and she’d never quite gotten over the time she’d found several fingernails beneath the bun the last time she’d gotten one. Absolute horror-show, sick to her stomach for days. Still went back though. You didn't just quit WcDenji's.
She scraped her brain for “Mariner” but came up short. She knew a lot of the old Hokkaido heroes—plenty of them had come around her dad’s place after he’d retired—and a few from the Sado area, but for the most part that was it.
Well, and the ones her mom looked into.
“Pff, feeding frenzy,” she repeated. “Sick. They anything like you? Y’know—large? Sharp? Eventual victims of WcNib-poisoning?”
His question was expected. Harmless, filler conversation, that’s all it was, but she still felt a little slap to the gut. When she cleared her throat, she felt a strain around her neck, just briefly. Her composure was solid though—she’d done this shtick and worse in front of the cops before, shooting the shit between chums was nothing.
Chums. Shark. Heh.
“Eh, my dad used to be, but he retired after I was born, and my mom does office work,” she said, casual and painless, like a really chill band aid that was totally fine with being peeled off at your leisure.
Their orders came up—well, hers did, and then after a good minute or so of bagging, his followed. She looped Izuna’s order from her shoulder, took her own bag up, and jammed the wrapped-up WcFish into her pocket, for the sake of future hijinks. She dug in on their way out, cramming a few fingers of fries into her mouth.
The streets didn’t seem any less busy to her, and despite their detour it didn’t feel much later. But she kept them enroute—no need to take any more risks.
“You know,” she said, chomping through a mouthful of crispy, golden sodium. “Place like Ishin, right? Bet they go out of their way to invite hero’s kids. Yeah. Prolly all kinds of lil’ celebrities runnin’ around there. Lotta ego for one place. How long you figure before two of’em beat the shit out of each other?”
She didn’t usually come to WcDenji’s for breakfast. Their eggs were rubber, their sausage was candy-sweet, and their hashbrowns popped like eyeballs full of grease the moment you bit down on them. The apple pies could be good, if you were lucky and didn’t get one that was either cold as a corpse, or hot as the surface of the fucking sun. Pancakes, maybe, but they were X’d out on the menu, and sometimes the syrup had holes in the sealing, and you’d end up pouring liquid mold and gnats onto your breakfast.
Fuck it, early lunch. “WcChicken, extra pickles, a small fry, and a goke.”
Her eyes skimmed the menu one more time, passing briefly over and then fixing onto the uncomfortably square patty of the WcFish.
Shit, Izuna.
“G’ah fuck,” she muttered. She knew she’d forgotten something. The plan had been to text her when she got close, have at least someone familiar to get through orientation with. Judging from the weather, there was a good chance her friend was a fishcicle by now. Late and unannounced. She’d need an olive branch.
Do not get her a WcFish. Do not get her a WcFish. It’s not even funny. Do not get her a WcFish.
“And a WcFish…”
Do not get her only a WcFish.
“An egg WcWidget, some cinnamon twists, and a berry WcSwishy. Put that in a second bag with the WcFish.”
She paid and stood off to the side, waiting for Murasame. “So you wanna stick around Sapporo when you’re done, or go back home?” she asked, when he’d join her. “Like, graduated I mean. Said your grandpa and sis went here, right? Anyone I’d’ve heard of?”
Saika was fairly preoccupied trying to figure out the logistics of a family tree of shark people, and while she had quickly determined that it would make sense if Murasame’s sister was a shark, like he was, it would also be much, much funnier if she was only part-shark instead. Optimally she would have a hammerhead, but there was a case to be made for flipper-arms as well. She’d gone to school with a girl who’d had a giant otter’s tail for hair, and watching her slap the shit out of people with it had been endlessly entertaining.
Before she could think too deeply about it, Murasame stopped. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected panic would sound like coming from someone who looked like a shark, but as soon as he started speaking again she knew that’s what it was.
“Huh?” she asked, looking around first, and then down at herself. Why wouldn’t she be alright? Had she stepped on something? Had she been stabbed on her first day in a big city, like everyone from small towns said would happen? Was she—
Bleeding. Shit, oops.
“Oh woah, no no man, that’s my bad,” she said, waving him down. People were starting to look at them—or, rather, at the giant shark having a moment—and she wasn’t super into that. “Just part of my quirk. I make a lot of blood.” She dug her tongue back, found a little metallic patch at the back of her throat, and spat it onto her hand. She held it out to him like it was some cool bug she’d found in the grass. “See? Like nothin’. Gotta drain some of it now and then or it starts comin’ outta my fuckin’ eyes.”
Rubbing her hands together, the blood sparked to life and burned away in a quick flash between her palms. As she shook the embers away, she spotted the golden ditches of a small WcDenji's across the street, and her stomach grumbled.
“Oi, hey, pretty hungry now that I think about it. Wanna grab something?” she asked, but had already started for the crosswalk. “If Ishin’s food is anything like their uniforms, it’ll blow ass. Might be the last decent meal we get for a while.”
Mizushima Murasame—that checked out. She wondered absently if he had been named after his birth, once his folks had gotten a good look at him; she wondered presently how in the fuck another freshman could get so big. Well, she knew how, but even by mutation standards, he had to be a freakish curveball. Like Hana-kun from elementary school, who had noses where he ought to have had eyes. And ears. And thumbs. Nothing where his nose would have been, though.
Weird kid, way into Bakugan. Saika guessed if he’d gotten to pick, he’d have wanted to be a giant shark instead.
“Freshman? No shit? Fuck yeah, awesome—same. I’m Saika,” she said, and held back both her family name, as well as the reflex to shake his hand. “So you’re a city boy, huh? My family used to live around here before I was born, but I’m from Sado, so all this…” she gestured broadly to the tall buildings and the crowds. “Not gonna lie, kinda messin’ with me. Don’t worry though, we’re going the right way—I think. Prob’ly. But hey, you know, even if we’re late what are they gonna do? I bet you could walk up there five hours from now and they’d let you in like you owned the place.”
The thought brought grin to her, but as fun as it might be to see Murasame scare the shit out of Ishin faculty, it was probably best not to push her luck on the first day. At least not that much. Not yet.
As they continued to walk, Saika noticed he was taking slower, more measured steps to match pace with her. Made sense, she was leading the way after all, but damned if she was gonna be the thing slowing them down. She began to take wider, longer steps, transitioning from a leisurely stroll into something akin to the sorts of power-lunging you found on videos to help old people exercise.
“Sapporo’s a long way innit?” she asked, cleaning the last smears of iron off her teeth with her tongue and spitting them onto the grass. “You shoot for UA and get stuck with Ishin? I hear that’s what happens to a lotta folks who wind up here.”
“I don’t wanna go,” Saika had said, with one foot already out the door. “I'm gonna fuck it up. No one’s gonna want me there anyway.”
Her mom, who was only halfway through her morning coffee and thus incapable of expressing human sympathy, looked at her flatly from the kitchen counter and shrugged. “Sounds like their problem,” she’d said, before looking back down at the cluster of manila folders and old, ragged papers. “Knock out a few teeth. Might help’em solve it.”
The train ride had been long, or maybe it had been short; she hadn’t paid too much attention, really. The whole time was spent anxiously bouncing her leg, listening to angry American music that she couldn’t understand but could definitely feel. Her playlist was mostly that—loud, angry, menacing. Made her blood rush in the good way. The useful way.
It was still early when she finally reached Sapporo, and way fucking colder than she’d expected. Winter was supposed to be over goddammit, and the cheapo uniforms Ishin might as well have been made of toilet paper for all the good they did her. Sure, it might have helped to zip the jacket up, but she was wearing one of her favorite shirts today, and as strict as this place was, she didn’t know how many opportunities she’d get to bust out the hall-of-famers she’d stuffed in her backpack.
Besides, she could make it to the academy before the frostbite set in. She’d burnt a fair bit of blood before she left, but towards the end of the ride she’d begun to taste metal in her mouth. Probably for the best if she didn’t walk into her first day of school cosplaying the elevator from The Shining.
So, Saika swished her mouth around, felt it fill with iron, and then unceremoniously spat a glob of blood into her hands. Walking over to the grass, she worked it like lather, and then with an inner nudge, the stuff lit up like gasoline. She pressed her fiery palms to her face, vigorously rubbing her cheeks and neck, combing burning fingers through her hair. None of it caught fire—though if she’d been less careful she might have accidentally singed her uniform—and she didn’t burn, either. All she felt was a gentle, pleasant warmth, which was just about all she ever felt when she touched her own quirk, aside from tired.
Finished, she flicked what ashen residue remained from her hands, and they were utterly clean again. Cleaner, even, than they had been before. Sanitizer be damned, the bane of all germs was fire.
As she began parse out where she was going, a massive shadow eclipsed her, and someone tapped her very gently on the shoulder. She turned while they began to ask her something, but she hardly heard them. As soon as she realized she was staring point-blank at a stomach she jolted, and looked up. And up. And up.
“Holy fucking sh—” she started, as she finally met eyes with the beast. “—aaaaaark...”
It took her many moments to stop staring, and several more to realize that she was being rude, and also that he’d asked her a question.
“Uh…” she mumbled, blinking. When he didn’t miraculously vanish, she wrangled her composure back and cleared her throat. “Oh, woah. Sorry. You said—what’d you say? Directions to the school? Are you a teacher?”
No, idiot, she thought, finally noticing his uniform. He’s a fucking student. He’s a fuckingstudent?
“Shit, no, yeah. I’m new here, too,” she said. “I...think I know where I'm goin' though, wanna just come with me?” Without really waiting for an answer, she started off, walking backwards as if to usher him along. “Oi, you got a name, big dude?”
Affili
mickilennial
Lemons
Noctis
CitrusArms
vietmyke
Ladypug
Asura
Xiro Zean
Izurich
