Emeth
wintersoldier
CitrusArms
Danyel
rabidbacon
dragonpiece
pantothenic
Izurich
jasbraq
They spent the next few days like that: in each other's company, making up for lost time, all other cares shunted firmly to the side. They bathed in the hot springs, hiked the mountain passes, shopped in the markets of Pashtali, and picnicked on the summit of Mt. Amathikandu. Of course, they made their appearances back in and around Ersand'Enise. Miret sent her messages to Tyrel, and Zarina to Ysilla and Ayla. Of course, Miret shared her war stories, and Zarina hers: conquests of Yarsoc and Parmoy, battles against a mad behemoth and seditious forces. These were tertiary at best, though. Both were far more concerned with the whipped cream on Zarina's nose or the smell of the ponies or their tenth game of checkers for the night.
It was, by most metrics, the most perfect week that either might've imagined. Were the Gods truly all-loving, they might've decreed that it never should end. Of course, they were not. It took only a day for the news to spread across campus: a secret bounty at the edge of Mycormii and Kerremand, a horrifying monster, Cawuio-Zast, Esmii, and Niallus killed, Sven a shambling wreck and Roslyn little better, Edyta rushed off to Varennes on urgent business. Ingrid was a fearful, listless thing. She was lost and searching, but it did not take Miret long to learn that she was searching for something in particular. It was a sign from the Gods. It was a sign that brought her into contact with Tyrel and Tyrel into contact with Chad and Ashon and Ailet, but they were not so foolish as to appear in the same place.
It was just after dinner - for Miret was loath to ruin good food with heavy words - when the sanguinaire took her beloved aside and delivered the news. "Zazzy, there's a life I need to save," she said simply, "and doing it will both risk my life and change the world."
Tales of a grand demon thwarted by a few travelers and rebellious jailers, and big sea creatures felled by the sun itself were highlights from Zarina's contribution to the dream. Was this what they meant with Vashdal's dream coming into this world on the day of Marhazanet? Perhaps Miret would be her monolith that guided her back to the hardened faith she once had.
The endless fiesta felt impervious to the outside world. In a sense, it was. Unless, of course, one of them welcomed it in. Miret was the one to disturb the nest, blindsiding Zarina completely. By her lover's demeanor alone, the Wildblood's heart began to race. “No.” was her immediate answer, lacking any inflection in tone or strength in her voice. Then, she repeated. “No.” this time she stressed the word like one would do when warning a house pet when it was clearly eyeing a vase it wanted to topple. “You don't have to.”
Miret considered for a moment, face pained, pensive, and... implacable. "It's my sister. I have to." Her brows came together and her fists clenched and unclenched. They sought Zarina's. "But... She hesitated for an extended moment. "It is so much more, as well." She shook her head, glancing at the idyllic scenes of alpine meadow through an arched window.
Zarina's nostrils flared and her gaze was avoidant while her lover's sought it. Her clenched jaw was her safety when it came to emotional outbursts and she was about to have one. But, the immense good she had experienced had done wonders. With a loud exhale of pure exasperation, she too sought Miret's eyes. “Tell me everything, then.”
Miret's face was a mixture of hesitation and resignation, and she took a breath. "Tarlon is both a beautiful and a horrifying place," she declared, starting with a simple truth that Zarina likely already knew. "From a primeval forest - the most hostile place on Sagand - we have carved a great civilization." Her lips pressed together in a tight smile and she nodded. "It is a place of rules and laws and traditions so that we soixé sil pa hax might resist our baser natures." She spoke differently than usual, with the practiced reverence one approached solemn childhood lessons.
"I believe in our purpose as it is told us, and so do my sister and Chad, and our other friends. You are good, Zarina." She shifted on the bed, drawing her legs up beneath her into a slouching kneel. "You see past our minor differences, but most people - human or yasoi or something else - fail. Why, we kill each other even within our own species, for any number of stupid reasons." She studied the other's eyes to make sure that this wasn't too much, that it wasn't too far off-topic. "We yasoi are outnumbered and we need to be strong and united - all of us - or we are at the mercy of people who see us as outsiders, who have shown a willingness to take our land, impose their laws, and treat us like lesser things." She shook her head. "Tarlon is our chance to not let that happen, the Grey Fleet is our chance to bring our Constantian cousins aboard, to have a chance to stand beside humans as respectful equals."
She let out a snort. "Of course, there are those among us who don't see it that way. They see that most of you don't stand as tall, both literally and in the Gift, and consider you as inferior as some humans consider us." She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "There are others who don't believe in us as a people, either. They see the Liberation as a conquest and think of how to enrich themselves." She grimaced. "We call them Huu'teshax because we are, quite frankly, terribly racist and cannot resist ascribing negative qualities that we see in ourselves to other peoples."
Miret rose all at once, pacing beside the bed. "Cascal and Esuul are of this ilk." Her heart pounded inside of her ribcage. How forbidden it felt to voice the thought, but it was out there and it was done. They couldn't see her here: not in Sawand. It was beyond their reach. It was free, truly. "Few know this," she continued, "and, of those who do, even fewer see it. They care nothing for the yasoi, nothing for Tarlon, and nothing for saving those in the Fallen Lands from the tyrants and addictions that ravage them." Miret shook her head. "It is only about their own power and their desire to live eternally as gods incarnate." There was more - much more - but she paused before getting to the meat of it.
Zarina made a point to stifle any emotion she could manifest as Miret displayed her deepest heart. Information and opinions that would be seen as scandalous by many, now all confided to a human of all people. She didn't show it, but the human had never felt closer than she did now. By all accounts, one of the "others" hearing any bit of this was a rarity. All she did was nod and keep her eyes on her partner, hand over her’s and her posture mimicking Miret's with only the sparks of wood from the hearth interjecting from time to time.
Her hand squeezed Miret's. “I believe it.” she said, eyes wide and clear windows to her honest soul. “The previous Gods in the world are dead. Now's the time for them to take everything. I understand.” she scooted closer until her shoulder met the Yasoi's, and she finally rested her head over it. “What are you going to do? I can't stop you. So I'll do the next best thing.”
"There was something that Tyrel and a couple of the other candidate Vyshtas discovered as girls, hidden on Tantas'ilwash." She was in narration mode now. Still, she stroked Zarina's hair. "Vyshta does not live as a true goddess because Esuul has usurped her: Esuul the sanguinaire, who lives eternally on the mortal plane, who recovered her leg with blood magic almost as soon as she became the Avatar."
She shook her head, adding a tiny bit of separation so that she could look her beloved in the eyes. "It's all a farce: girls chosen to act as figureheads and then killed off before they can ascend." Her fists balled. "Mine own sister, who saved me from my darkness, who lets me draw her blood so that I may draw breath, who would lay down her life for me and for her people." Miret's breathing came fast and agitated. "They will murder her. She is ten times the person they are and they will murder her because they've been doing it for a thousand or more years."
Miret's eyes flashed. "I believe in our people. I believe in our mission, but Cascal and Esuul do not. They are using us and allow none to become strong enough to challenge them." The fire tempered itself and she reached for Zarina to embrace her. "Tyrel is our best chance - the best we may ever have - but they are trying to kill her while making it look like the work of others." She swallowed. "She has always protected me. Now, I will protect her and protect this world from those tyrants." She had gone on at length, and checked to ensure that she had not said too much, that she had not turned Zarina away from her. She regarded the other, colour rising in her cheeks. "We're making a plan, you know..."
Zarina blinked, her mind locked on one specific notion: A God walked among them. A God that her own beloved wished to slay. A God at the head of the biggest threat to her home. The gravity of the situation was vertigo inducing. She had to scoot back and find the headboard to rest her back against. She needed a moment to just fathom it all. “Sanguinare Vyshta. Dami's will, Miret ...” her hands shivered a little. Hetraxa, plagued Threshers and Sand Wyrms felt so small and forgettable.
Then came the notion of a plan. It did not bring any real reassurance. A look of grave concern met Miret's gaze. “Why not just run? Hide? We have a nice place here ... They can all come. Your family. Mine too.”
Miret tilted her head. "Running's not like you," she remarked, concern sparkling within her eyes. "What's wrong, luush'elar?"
“I'm afraid of all that's coming. This is terrifying me, Luuchy.” Zarina hugged her own core. “I'll fight for my home but ... Gods? Monsters ... Someone I love's going to get hurt. And I don't know if I'm strong enough to do anything about it.”
Miret wrapped her arms around Zarina and kissed her cheek. "Hiding only postpones the bad and makes it inevitable." She held on for a few seconds. "I don't know either, and I wish we didn't have to fight. I wish there were no wars or diseases or selfish people who destroy and dominate, but there are, and I believe we're not the only ones who see what we need to do." She shook her head. "I know we're not the only ones."
Outside, in the distance, a herd of mountain goats picked their way across a slope. A large bird circled overhead, scanning the ground for its next meal. "You're strong, though - even stronger than me, just by a bit." She smiled and pinched a bit of air with her last statement. "Thing is," the sanguinaire continued, "I don't think we win by being stronger. I think we have to be smarter."
Zarina let herself fall into Miret's embrace. Safety, a sense of it anyway, was what she needed right now. Too many close calls, and it was only going to get more intense from there.
“You talked about a plan.” she remembered. “I'll help, if you will allow me. I'm scared enough to want to hide, but I won't run. Not from what matters.” as she uttered that final words, she turned her head to face Miret. “Also, you're just saying that ...” a faux-pouty face was forced. An attempt at drowning out the tension, just a little.
"Lying is a mortal sin in Tarlon," Miret replied, stone-faced. "They cut your tongue out for it if they catch you." She blinked, twice. "I meant what I said."
Zarina paused and squinted. A very brief staring contest ensued. “... No they don't.”
Miret opened her mouth wide and stuck hers out and the moment of mirth was well-needed, given their heavy subject matter. "So, basically, the plan," she chirped, "Right?" She flashed a smile that belied her own unease. "You ready for me to hit you with this stroke of genius?"
Zarina had anticipated something like this and nearly swiped that tongue once it came out! Luckily, Sanguinaire reflexes were a thing. “You know, they do have laws kind of like that in this country.” she smirked before relenting with a hearty chuckle. “Alright, hit me, Luuchy.”
"You'll have to catch me first!" she chirped, leaping free from the covers. "It's sunnier upstairs." She bounded out of the door with a cheeky smile and disappeared down the hallway. Her footsteps could be heard taking the stairs three at a time.
By the time that Zarina caught up with her, she was snuggled on the large sofa half-buried beneath a mound of pillows and blankets, grinning mischievously. "I have a question, oh dearest of dears," the yasoi asked, shifting a bit to make room. "And I promise I won't be mad, whatever your answer is." She batted her lashes. "Have you ever had to do a double take to tell me apart from my cousin?"
Zarina giggled and sighed in relief as she followed her playful puppy of a girlfriend. She wasn't as hasty and took the stairs two at a time instead with a relatively normal gait. Once she found her Yasoi buried in a grave of fluffy delight, she set her hands on her hips as if she was the responsible adult among the two. “On with it, my precious petal!” the fingersteeplers had taught her well, even the dramatic arm wave was on point.
The question, however, prompted her to furrow her eyebrows. She cocked her head and actually did a double take between the window taking in the last few rays of twilight and her lover. “It's not a trick question, right? The obvious reply is she obviously has one leg.” she shrugged, but then thought of it more. “You ... Do look similar. Very, very similar. I never thought to ask about that, actually.” she took a few steps forward to claim her seat among the pillows, a few inches from her sprawling Miret.
"Yes," the woman in the blankets admitted, the dying sun framing her in fire. "That leg is a dead giveaway." She pursed her lips momentarily. "In fact, it's the main thing that most people remember about their Avatar of Vyshta." She rolled her eyes and waved dismissively, before reaching out to squeeze Zarina from the side. "Hey luuchy," she whispered in the human's ear as she snuggled in "Wanna know something cool?"
Zarina was far too at ease to realize the dupe unfolding right before her eyes. Eyes so easily deceived, as was her ear as she took in that whisper. She sucked in her lips, the playfulness of the moment was very much to her liking. However, the smile she wore flattened. One thing she could rely on still was her nose. “You smell of curry.” she remarked, though it almost sounded like her answer to the Yasoi's question. The grin returned with narrowed, foxy eyes too. She leaned into the girl that had squeezed her, undoubtedly affectionate like a cat craving attention. “You should have told me that big goat tikka meal wasn't enough for you, Luuchy~” she stuck the tip of her tongue out. “You're really good with voices. First a rugged sailor, now my very heart? Did they teach you theatre back in Tarlon?”
Tyrel grinned. "Are you sayin' I'm a fraud?" she prodded, hugging Zarina anyway. "I missed you, luuchy-in-law, so I ate ‘something' special, just for the occasion." She made a teasing kissy face. "You saying you don't like it?"
"Hands off my Luush'elar, you one-legged strumpet!" Miret bounded out from a closet, and Tyrel only squeezed tighter. "Make me." The cousins - they almost may as well have been identical twins - sat to either side of Zarina. "This is part of the plan," Miret advised, kissing her beloved on the shoulder.
Zarina was essentially sandwiched. And by two near-identical people. It did not help that it was the very face she had fallen in love with. The feelings were beyond confusing. The kiss on the shoulder made her almost paranoid as to who had really done it. Fucking Tarlonese.
“To trap me between you two?” she squirmed, just a little, without any real desire to actually break free. This was her idea of a safe and happy life, with perhaps less kinkiness. In the midst of this internal crisis, the nature of this experiment hit her like a bag of bricks. “... You're going to pull a switcheroo.”
They both nodded at the same time. "We're the linchpin of it," said Probably-Miret. "But we're not alone," Probably-Tyrel added. now that she looked carefully, she could make out the subtle differences in their face shapes. Tyrel's was a bit more heart-shaped. Miret had ever so slightly sharper features.
"The idea," the former began - "My idea," interjected the latter, "so don't you get mad at her." - "is to buy myself some space and time, quite literally, so that I can visit the Temporal Chamber in Ersand'Enise, Tantas'Ilwash, the ruins of Sairax'Solcuun, or some other remnant of Toleus and accelerate through five years of my life."
Tyrel's smile faded as she spoke, perhaps realizing the cost. Miret reached around and through Zarina to squeeze her sister's hand reassuringly. "Thing is," the sanguinaire warned, "they're always watching her, unless she's somewhere outside of their reach, like here." Both Dichoras nodded glumly.
"So, we switch!" Tyrel declared, the worry in her tone and expression shining through the confidence she was trying to project. "We go someplace they can't track, not at the same time, of course." Miret continued.
"Teleport around a few times to throw them off." This was Tyrel.
"And then Miret elopes with you while Tyrel dutifully returns to Tarlon and plays ball."
Tyrel nibbled her lower lip, uncomfortable. She shook her head. "That's my least favourite part of it, luuchy." She brushed some hair from her eyes. "I've no right to ask so much and then just abandon you."
There was one question that lingered in Zarina's mind, one that kept mostly static in this sandwich. “The leg.” she reached out to touch the probably-Miret's very leg, almost protectively. “The ploy won't work without it. Or rather, with it. So you have an idea.” her jaw clenched, there was only one way to fool magically potent observers, and that was to not actually employ gimmicks. “I don't know how you pull this off. I'll admit, you'll fool these people with the face, voice and even the smells quite frankly. But ...” she shook her head. “You're not actually going to do that, right?”
The two Dichoras shifted uneasily, glancing at Zarina and each other in turn. "The solution is Ailet," offered Tyrel with an uneasy shrug. "I think there have to better ones. I'm... used to being how I am, but it isn't easy, I think." She regarded the others. "It isn't."
"You manage more than fine, and she's a professional fleshcrafter." Miret shook her head. "She made herself a new leg, and that's after a decade of not having one." Miret shrugged. "I can walk in your shoe for a few months. It won't kill me."
'No, but they will," Tyrel rejoined. She turned to Zarina. "She's determined to do it, and I don't think it's a terrible idea. It's our best shot at winning and gives us two shots at having an avatar ascend, but..." She twisted to regard her cousin. "There is so much risk and you'll have to spend months just learning how to walk well without always using magic."
"Well shit," Miret remarked, drawing into herself a bit. "Now you're giving me cold feet."
"Plural," Tyrel reminded her before turning to Zarina, pained. "Zazz, here we are on the precipice and I don't think I can ask her to do this, and you should have a say too. There has to be something better we can do..."
Zarina swallowed, the very hand that caressed Miret's then went to her own. Just imagining the process of amputation and rebuilding prompted a visceral reaction out of her. For a moment, she felt lightheaded. An odd reactions from a wildblood, but she had yet to have a true maiming baptism. She dreaded it, truthfully. “I-I hate this.” she spoke what was exactly on her mind. “That's a horrible thing. Fuck. Eshit Fuck.” she sank into the pillow, pupils thinned and locked into the sunset.
She swallowed again. “How are you ... Even sure it will work? If that witch has the power already- I don't even really know this Vyshta stuff. It's all so-” she didn't have the words for it. In her moment of increased stress, she sought Miret's hand. Well, who she definitely believed to be Miret. Her eyes then found her lover's. “It'll put you in so much danger, Luuchy. If they find out. If they even get suspicious ...”
It was Tyrel who answered, however. "That's why we have this bolt hole, then." She nodded slowly. "I do hope we can find a better way." Her gaze found Miret's. "I don't think you realize how much I lean on magic to keep up with everyone else."
Miret shifted in the covers, kicking them free, and stared down at her knees and her feet. A shiver ran through her. "You are under no -"
She raised a hand to cut off Tyrel's protest and the latter shifted as well, blankest sloughing away. "I know, suunei." She wiggled her toes and flexed her knees. "No more than a year?" she questioned, and the Avatar of Vyshta nodded slowly. "And you trust that sketchy four-eyes?"
Tyrel swallowed. "With my life, believe it or not." Unable to sit any longer, she stood, crutches hurtling across the room from where they'd been left beside a potted palm. "And in terms of how I take over, well... there are two theories." She began to pace and Miret made to tug Zarina to her feet as well.
Outside, the sun shimmered orange and fuchsia on the plains and snowcapped peaks and the handful of distant shepherd's huts trickled smoke from their chimneys. "You, uh... mind if we walk?" Tyrel prodded weakly. "I think better on my foot."
There was a delay in reaction time for Zarina. Far too much information at a scale she dreaded to think of. Not to mention the initial fear, now made all too real as she paid far too much attention to the amount of legs in the room. She did get up and held Miret's hand, tightly. “One year ...” her latest fixation. She peered Tyrel's way. “Suunei. What does Chad think?” he voice wasn't as shakey. Meek and considerate, as someone who could sympathize with the poor man that wasn't even in the room to discuss this.
"He tells me that he is alright with this," Tyrel replied, "that he can live a year away from me if it means that we have a lifetime together." She shrugged. "He swears that he will be by Miret's side. He will protect her and trust that I will return on time to protect them both."
She took a couple of steps and tilted her head in the direction of the balcony door. She needed to walk. She needed to breathe. Thankfully, the couple was amenable to it, and so they stepped outside and she leapt over the balcony and they followed, all three landing in crouches. Tyrel was out ahead of them, her one-legged strides long and quick, her black leggings shimmering as they picked up the vivid colours of the sun's dying rays.
She twisted about as they began to catch up and her eyes were red-rimmed. "Ypti, I'm sorry," she mewed. "Really, I am." She shook her head. "He's saying it, but I can see in his eyes that he thinks it's the end, that he worries it's goodbye." She would not let them see her face. "I'm not strong enough to stop them." She shook her head again, adamantly. "You're not." She twisted and gestured at Miret with her chin. "Neither are you -" She found Zarina. "-at least, not as you are now."
"Suunei," interjected Miret, and Tyrel slowed for a moment in acknowledgement. "Luuca?"
"Shut up." Miret hurried until she was pacing her cousin. "You're wallowing and you're not a wallower. I make my own choices, you know, and so does Chad."
"Because of me," Tyrel wept. "Because I'm the thing they wanna kill and because you wanna protect me." She swallowed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You shouldn't have to."
"It is for you," admitted Miret, "but also for us, and also for everybody who will keep suffering as long as those tyrants draw breath."
The mountain meadow was peaceful in the dusk: dew laying upon the ground, the air fresh and crisp, jagged grey-brown boulders strewn about as if by Oraff's hand. "You're the best chance we have, and you're a good one, so we're throwing what we have behind you. We're here to lift you, just like you'll lift us, just like you always have."
The Avatar of Vyshta, stripped of all her fancy clothing and titles, was just a scared young woman with too much weight on her shoulders. She stopped abruptly and sat on one of those boulders, staring out at the mountain pass and breathing. She swallowed. She turned to regard the couple and her eyes flashed. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she apologized. "We can do it," she affirmed. "I shall be empress. Sit with me a moment -" She patted the large rock beside her and looked, especially, at Zarina. "- and I'll tell you how."
Zarina kept silent. It was not her moment, but Tyrel's. Instead, she basked in the foreign land she had grown familiar with. The climate was gentle and the sights worthy of a few pages in a pretentious novel. She wasn't ignoring Tyrel, but decided to not look at the woman at her worst. She deserved to keep her dignity. She did, however, look in Miret's direction each time she spoke, fingers interlocked with her's.
When beckoned by the empress to be, she sat just below the offered stone, using instead as backrest as her eyes were taken by the sunset. A perfect view, her Innkeeper had once mentioned, of the descending sun between two major peaks. It was the end of a beautiful day and the end of the comfortable days she got to enjoy with her friends, family and Miret.
“For what it's worth-” a quarter-lidded glance was dedicated to Tyrel. “I think you have a special opportunity with everyone at the school. Gods-among-men are being replaced by the younger and ambitious, and we have this opportunity to take the thrones too. Especially if we're in it together.” she undid the bun from before, letting her hair flow in the mild mountainous breeze. “You've a chance to mould more than Tarlon, but the world. And if Luuchy believes in you-” any chance was a good one to take in her lover's gaze, and so she did. “I do as well. And with greater foresight than just Tarlon, we can make a difference. I think.”
Tyrel paused, her chest rising and falling slowly. She took in the scents and the sights. She heard and felt the breath and warmth of the two people close to her. "Thank you, Zazz." She smiled into the burgeoning twilight, face appreciative. "I needed that." She nodded. "It is our time now." She felt more certain of it after her brief crisis of confidence than ever before. If Zarina, who owed her nothing, was willing to stake her life on this plan, to be part of it, then how could she doubt the sincere words of Miret and Chad? How she could just take off running right into the sky! How immense she felt here, on this mountain in Sawand.
The Avatar of Vyshta smiled. "It all begins," she began, "with a little window - one that opens only once a millennium - during which the Gods are mortal and might be born again." How the thought of it filled her. How it made her heart race! "And that is an opportunity not only for me, but for any who may seize it."
