"You are not to escape."
There was no escape. His attempt the sun before had proven as much. He lacked what was necessary to break through the line. So the task of the bell was....
"You are to stand your ground."
Osric Melkire pivoted where he stood, head swiveling back and forth, eyes constantly in motion as he considered the triangle formation that had once more closed about him and sealed him inside. Pierre. Gnasher. Khuja'ya. Pierre. Gnasher. Khuja'ya.
"You are to defend yourself."
Forgehands' voice was a distraction. The sergeant already knew what was expected of him. The three spare weapons that the Crows had plunged blades first into the snow before him had made that rather clear.
"You are to strike back."
Sword. Axe. Spear. Pierre, Gnasher, Khuja'ya. This was the test for aptitude. This was how they would select his hellish mentor.
"Should you satisfy us, training will begin in earnest."
Satisfying Rotunda was the task at hand. That and only that would stave off what violence would be visited upon Osric's own friends and family. To satisfy Rotunda, he had to satisfy Ortolf Forgehands... which meant passing this test.
"Should you fail to do so, I will kill you myself."
He slowed his breathing, closed his eyes, and fell into the old rhythm. The shift felt natural, and that soothed his nerves, set him at ease. Which was...
...wrong?
Which was wrong.
He still wasn't sure when it had happened, when discretion and vigilance and caution had given way to confidence and impulsiveness and reckless abandon. The past cycle's worth of events was certainly a factor. That he had come so far under the tutelage of Rosethorne and Armstrong... yet that hadn't been the start. No, the first act of insanity he could recall committing was negotiating with a would-be terrorist who'd been hellsbent on leveling Ul'dah.
"Prove your worth, Melkire."
His foolishness, he thought, had started when the Hall had brought him home and, by order of the Syndicate, grounded him. Condemned his insubordination, barred him from promotion, assigned him to an insignificant post within the city' confines and left him to rot within arm's reach. There he had wasted away for moons, ever itching for one more chance to make amends.
The fury with which he'd struck down the slavers hidden within the depths of Halatali and the wrath with which he'd cut into the assassins who had invaded a fellow serviceman's home had been the beginning. That was when he'd changed, when he had discarded fear as a tool. All so that he could cast his defiance into the Syndicate's teeth.
He'd been wrong to do so.
"BEGIN!"
He opened his eyes, his footwork still maneuvering him in a small circle, and he reached down inside to the very core of himself. He seized the seat of his power and bade it open.
Covet the blood.
Something red and hot blazed within him, even as the Crows began to converge, closing the distance between them. He seized the fulcrum of his potential and bade it open.
Will to live, desire my survival.
Something yielded, a floodgate of sorts, and the red heat rose, brightened, cooled and expanded. The bastards were drawing close now, their pace slow and sure as they drew or otherwise unlimbered their weapons. He drew a deep breath, unsure what to expect, and... let go. Let it all go.
Welcome the fear.
Terror slammed into him with all the speed and force of a La Noscean gale.
run flee shite behind me piss fuck insane goin' t'die goin' t'die Gnasher's worst oh hells why am i here why didn't i run Zhwan's reach i made a promise oh gods Pierre's second always second shite piss run just run do it now you can't win you can't
He grappled with it, a twisting serpent intent on ensnaring him in its coils and paralyzing him with its venom. He struggled, he fought, and at last he acknowledged that he was losing. What time remained was all but spent. Soon, the shadows of death's wings would be upon him, and he would be lost forever. So he cast his thoughts as best he could back to a time when he'd been intimate with fear... and had learned to dominate it, to bend it to his will and to have his way with it.
Rings. Dirk. I need you.
"Ain't called on us for a while now. We were startin' to think mayhap you'd forgotten we'd ever existed." Dirk flashed Osric his teeth as he leaned languidly against the mast. This was the lad he'd been when he'd conquered fear. "Didja?"
"Always the Sergeant you're callin' on," moped Rings as the child looked up from his seat at Dirk's feat. This was the boy he'd been when he first learned what true terror was. "As if he's more important. As if y'don't care for us."
"He didn't, Rings. Fell in with a new crowd 'n' they all but pushed us out of his head. Ashamed, is what he is. Ashamed of us. Of who he was. But he's finally come 'round. Ain'tcha, Osric? Finally done denyin' your past? Goin' t'accept that we mattered?"
"Gods damn me, you don't need to ask, so why do you?"
"Perverse pleasure in bein' vindicated." Dirk shrugged. "So?"
Osric sighed and offered both hands, palms up, arms at full extension. Rings frowned as he stood.
"This is how you took him back, ain't it? Why he ain't been around as o' late." Rings squinted up at him. "That's somethin' you'll have t'live with forever, y'know. That you accepted bein' a soldier before you accepted bein'... us. Gutterborn. Problemsolver."
"...I know."
The two approached, but Dirk paused and Rings followed suit. The wetworker's eyes flickered down to the deck on which they stood.
"There's another that deserves acceptance, y'know. Down below, in the brig." Dirk shrugged. "Just sayin'. You start takin' us back? You'd better get the job done. No half-assin' this shite."
"When the time comes. Can't promise more than that."
Dirk made a face. "Bah. It'll have t'do."
They each took a hand. As swiftly as they'd formed when he'd first envisioned them, so long ago, they shattered. Motes of light scattered about, then drifted around him. He breathed them in, one long deep breath, and that was when he remembered.
He tightened his grip on the snake the viper the boa the python the constrictor and twisted. The serpent writhed as he lifted it over his head, his eyes watching intently as it twisted this way and that. That was when, at last, he felt it: a third sphere of potential.
The chakra dawned, as though it had been but hiding beneath the weight of the fear that he had buried deep, and suddenly he could feel the chill wind biting at the hairs on the nape of his neck, the smell of old leather all about him, the soft crunch of snowfall beneath the feet of the damned. New heat bubbled up within him, and he marveled at how he'd missed this all along. It was right there, just under the Root, another link in a chain that evidently ran both up and down through his core, and as he bubbled with laughter and considered the serpent, what he'd noticed earlier finally fell into place, into a form he could understand and comprehend.
They were coming at him again in the same fashion: Khuja'ya first from behind, with the White Needle following up just before Gnasher bore down on him with all the Hellsguard had... and he was out of time.
He'd never been one for the sword, and despite how eager his beloved had been to share what she knew, the lance would never feel quite right in his hands. Passing interest would never triumph over nine moons of desperation, when he'd bid his life on mere practice and discovered righteous wrath instead. So he stepped forward, rolled his wrist, seized his weapon of choice, and kicked out at the haft of the spare axe that had been buried blade first in the ice.
The vicious upswing drove back Gnasher, and the midlander swept his tool around and across at Pierre, who ducked the blade only to meet the Hyur's other foot with his own face. Osric pushed through, and the adrenaline and aether that backed thigh and calf sent the Elezen sprawling into a drift.
His grip shifted and his other hand closed further up the haft in time to adjust the course of the swing as he pivoted, and that course correction brought the axe in line to bat away the Keeper's thrust. The soldier lunged forward, and a left jab driven out with a snap caught Zhwan square on the collarbone. The impact resulted in a sickening wet thud, to which the gutterborn couldn't help but smile.
His shite-eating grin was stolen along with his axe.
Bone Gnasher did something with his own polearm, and the giant slab of stone caught the haft of Osric's weapon. One tremendous tug caught the midlander off-guard before he could brace himself against the motion and bring his chakra to bear; his axe soared through the air and landed in the snow a dozen fulms away.
There was no help for it: he fell back, hand and arm falling over the spare spear still jutting forth from the ice like a lever set into the ground. He drew it forth, set his grip, and recalled Kanaria's lessons; once, twice, thrice he thrust out at Gnasher, keeping his foe at a distance. As he withdrew the spearhead the third time, he spun and swung in the direction in which he turned. The flat of the blade nearly caught Khuja'ya over the head; only a timely cross block with a pair of knives saved the Keeper. That was when Pierre struck.
There was no stopping the Crow from dealing him a pair of nasty cuts; forced to break away or suffer worse, the sergeant dropped his spear and reached for the hilt of the last tool remaining to him. No sooner had he drawn the sword, though, than he found himself not only completely outclassed but also completely at a loss for how to recover. The Wildwood would feint, then lure him into a parry and riposte, over and over. The midlander had lost control over his own blade; Pierre owned it now, Pierre of the White Needle, and the Elezen disarmed his foe at his leisure with a clash and roll of the swords. That was when the Roegadyn's giant fist caught Osric in the side; winded, the man fell to his knees, then pitched forward onto his hands.
"A pity." Forgehands, in the distance. "If he cannot overcome the trial at hand, then he will prove insufficient to the task."
Osric drew a rattling breath, but there was no point in speaking. There was no forestalling judgment.
"Kill him."
"Well, gods damn.... I. Uh. Hit the end o' the line sooner than I, uh, expected. Heh."
That he was jesting belied how conflicted he was over what he was about to unleash... and how deeply he feared the consequences.
Before him was the brig. Iron bars crossed back and forth to form a cage, and behind those bars and inside that cage stood his own shadow. Though they were of one size and one appearance, there was no mistaking one for the other; the shackles and ball-and-chain that secured the latter were tell enough. Malice was evident in his shadow's smile, belligerence in the set of the man's jaw, and there was no humanity to be found in those eyes.
Osric gazed at Melkire.
Melkire gazed back.
The man swallowed and closed his eyes. When they opened again, the restraints were gone. Gone were the shackles, the chains, even the cage itself. Freed at last from its prison, the inner beast surged forward, and then the demon was upon him, bearing him down, a frenzy of snarls, teeth, muscles, roars. A hand closed around his throat.
The depths of him flared, and the three spheres blazed in answer. He fed the white hot coals of his fury to the engines of creation and destruction, and the resulting inferno consumed him. A red film fell over his sight and sickly green wisps of aether licked their way up his legs.
He pushed off the ground, hands slapping against the snow; he spun as he regained his feet, ducked, and then sprung into an uppercut that caught the flat of Gnasher’s axe head and sent the whole of the weapon flying from the Hellsguard’s grasp. Thousands of bells’ worth of practice took over, and a flurry of footwork served to slip him past the giant to recover the spare axe from where it had fallen. A series of deft parries flowed into a moment’s opening, and in that instant Melkire tore the spear from the lancer’s grasp, knocking the Keeper off-balance. That same swing then shattered the White Needle; a quick reversal took the Elezen’s hand from him, as well, before the beast turned and kicked out at the haft of his axe. Pierre fell back. Khuja’ya never saw it coming.
The axe head traversed an arc above them, then swung down and sundered the Keeper’s head from his torso. Zhwan fell in two pieces, and those two pieces fell into ash that floated along on the wind even as Melkire turned and sank his axe into Gnasher’s shoulder.
Take his arm.
The midlander tightened his grip on the haft and pulled.
“Bairn!â€
The beast lifted the axe from the crumbling ashes in time to catch Forgehand’s upswing with the haft; the greatsword sliced through the wood, shattered it with contempt, and just as swiftly as he’d closed the distance, Ortolf drove the pummel into Melkire’s jaw. The red film flashed black, and the demon staggered.
The pommel lashed out again.
Words drifted to him as he floated along beneath the surface of consciousness.
“He shows promise!â€
“He lost himself. We need a warrior, not an animal. Ought to put him down.â€
“Ha! Give me a sun. Animal? We shall see, highlander.â€
“...then Rotunda must be informed. I want him alive, you understand? Unspoiled.â€
Low, ominous laughter accompanied him as he drifted off at last.
There was no escape. His attempt the sun before had proven as much. He lacked what was necessary to break through the line. So the task of the bell was....
"You are to stand your ground."
Osric Melkire pivoted where he stood, head swiveling back and forth, eyes constantly in motion as he considered the triangle formation that had once more closed about him and sealed him inside. Pierre. Gnasher. Khuja'ya. Pierre. Gnasher. Khuja'ya.
"You are to defend yourself."
Forgehands' voice was a distraction. The sergeant already knew what was expected of him. The three spare weapons that the Crows had plunged blades first into the snow before him had made that rather clear.
"You are to strike back."
Sword. Axe. Spear. Pierre, Gnasher, Khuja'ya. This was the test for aptitude. This was how they would select his hellish mentor.
"Should you satisfy us, training will begin in earnest."
Satisfying Rotunda was the task at hand. That and only that would stave off what violence would be visited upon Osric's own friends and family. To satisfy Rotunda, he had to satisfy Ortolf Forgehands... which meant passing this test.
"Should you fail to do so, I will kill you myself."
He slowed his breathing, closed his eyes, and fell into the old rhythm. The shift felt natural, and that soothed his nerves, set him at ease. Which was...
...wrong?
Which was wrong.
He still wasn't sure when it had happened, when discretion and vigilance and caution had given way to confidence and impulsiveness and reckless abandon. The past cycle's worth of events was certainly a factor. That he had come so far under the tutelage of Rosethorne and Armstrong... yet that hadn't been the start. No, the first act of insanity he could recall committing was negotiating with a would-be terrorist who'd been hellsbent on leveling Ul'dah.
"Prove your worth, Melkire."
His foolishness, he thought, had started when the Hall had brought him home and, by order of the Syndicate, grounded him. Condemned his insubordination, barred him from promotion, assigned him to an insignificant post within the city' confines and left him to rot within arm's reach. There he had wasted away for moons, ever itching for one more chance to make amends.
The fury with which he'd struck down the slavers hidden within the depths of Halatali and the wrath with which he'd cut into the assassins who had invaded a fellow serviceman's home had been the beginning. That was when he'd changed, when he had discarded fear as a tool. All so that he could cast his defiance into the Syndicate's teeth.
He'd been wrong to do so.
"BEGIN!"
He opened his eyes, his footwork still maneuvering him in a small circle, and he reached down inside to the very core of himself. He seized the seat of his power and bade it open.
Covet the blood.
Something red and hot blazed within him, even as the Crows began to converge, closing the distance between them. He seized the fulcrum of his potential and bade it open.
Will to live, desire my survival.
Something yielded, a floodgate of sorts, and the red heat rose, brightened, cooled and expanded. The bastards were drawing close now, their pace slow and sure as they drew or otherwise unlimbered their weapons. He drew a deep breath, unsure what to expect, and... let go. Let it all go.
Welcome the fear.
Terror slammed into him with all the speed and force of a La Noscean gale.
run flee shite behind me piss fuck insane goin' t'die goin' t'die Gnasher's worst oh hells why am i here why didn't i run Zhwan's reach i made a promise oh gods Pierre's second always second shite piss run just run do it now you can't win you can't
He grappled with it, a twisting serpent intent on ensnaring him in its coils and paralyzing him with its venom. He struggled, he fought, and at last he acknowledged that he was losing. What time remained was all but spent. Soon, the shadows of death's wings would be upon him, and he would be lost forever. So he cast his thoughts as best he could back to a time when he'd been intimate with fear... and had learned to dominate it, to bend it to his will and to have his way with it.
Rings. Dirk. I need you.
"Ain't called on us for a while now. We were startin' to think mayhap you'd forgotten we'd ever existed." Dirk flashed Osric his teeth as he leaned languidly against the mast. This was the lad he'd been when he'd conquered fear. "Didja?"
"Always the Sergeant you're callin' on," moped Rings as the child looked up from his seat at Dirk's feat. This was the boy he'd been when he first learned what true terror was. "As if he's more important. As if y'don't care for us."
"He didn't, Rings. Fell in with a new crowd 'n' they all but pushed us out of his head. Ashamed, is what he is. Ashamed of us. Of who he was. But he's finally come 'round. Ain'tcha, Osric? Finally done denyin' your past? Goin' t'accept that we mattered?"
"Gods damn me, you don't need to ask, so why do you?"
"Perverse pleasure in bein' vindicated." Dirk shrugged. "So?"
Osric sighed and offered both hands, palms up, arms at full extension. Rings frowned as he stood.
"This is how you took him back, ain't it? Why he ain't been around as o' late." Rings squinted up at him. "That's somethin' you'll have t'live with forever, y'know. That you accepted bein' a soldier before you accepted bein'... us. Gutterborn. Problemsolver."
"...I know."
The two approached, but Dirk paused and Rings followed suit. The wetworker's eyes flickered down to the deck on which they stood.
"There's another that deserves acceptance, y'know. Down below, in the brig." Dirk shrugged. "Just sayin'. You start takin' us back? You'd better get the job done. No half-assin' this shite."
"When the time comes. Can't promise more than that."
Dirk made a face. "Bah. It'll have t'do."
They each took a hand. As swiftly as they'd formed when he'd first envisioned them, so long ago, they shattered. Motes of light scattered about, then drifted around him. He breathed them in, one long deep breath, and that was when he remembered.
He tightened his grip on the snake the viper the boa the python the constrictor and twisted. The serpent writhed as he lifted it over his head, his eyes watching intently as it twisted this way and that. That was when, at last, he felt it: a third sphere of potential.
The chakra dawned, as though it had been but hiding beneath the weight of the fear that he had buried deep, and suddenly he could feel the chill wind biting at the hairs on the nape of his neck, the smell of old leather all about him, the soft crunch of snowfall beneath the feet of the damned. New heat bubbled up within him, and he marveled at how he'd missed this all along. It was right there, just under the Root, another link in a chain that evidently ran both up and down through his core, and as he bubbled with laughter and considered the serpent, what he'd noticed earlier finally fell into place, into a form he could understand and comprehend.
They were coming at him again in the same fashion: Khuja'ya first from behind, with the White Needle following up just before Gnasher bore down on him with all the Hellsguard had... and he was out of time.
He'd never been one for the sword, and despite how eager his beloved had been to share what she knew, the lance would never feel quite right in his hands. Passing interest would never triumph over nine moons of desperation, when he'd bid his life on mere practice and discovered righteous wrath instead. So he stepped forward, rolled his wrist, seized his weapon of choice, and kicked out at the haft of the spare axe that had been buried blade first in the ice.
The vicious upswing drove back Gnasher, and the midlander swept his tool around and across at Pierre, who ducked the blade only to meet the Hyur's other foot with his own face. Osric pushed through, and the adrenaline and aether that backed thigh and calf sent the Elezen sprawling into a drift.
His grip shifted and his other hand closed further up the haft in time to adjust the course of the swing as he pivoted, and that course correction brought the axe in line to bat away the Keeper's thrust. The soldier lunged forward, and a left jab driven out with a snap caught Zhwan square on the collarbone. The impact resulted in a sickening wet thud, to which the gutterborn couldn't help but smile.
His shite-eating grin was stolen along with his axe.
Bone Gnasher did something with his own polearm, and the giant slab of stone caught the haft of Osric's weapon. One tremendous tug caught the midlander off-guard before he could brace himself against the motion and bring his chakra to bear; his axe soared through the air and landed in the snow a dozen fulms away.
There was no help for it: he fell back, hand and arm falling over the spare spear still jutting forth from the ice like a lever set into the ground. He drew it forth, set his grip, and recalled Kanaria's lessons; once, twice, thrice he thrust out at Gnasher, keeping his foe at a distance. As he withdrew the spearhead the third time, he spun and swung in the direction in which he turned. The flat of the blade nearly caught Khuja'ya over the head; only a timely cross block with a pair of knives saved the Keeper. That was when Pierre struck.
There was no stopping the Crow from dealing him a pair of nasty cuts; forced to break away or suffer worse, the sergeant dropped his spear and reached for the hilt of the last tool remaining to him. No sooner had he drawn the sword, though, than he found himself not only completely outclassed but also completely at a loss for how to recover. The Wildwood would feint, then lure him into a parry and riposte, over and over. The midlander had lost control over his own blade; Pierre owned it now, Pierre of the White Needle, and the Elezen disarmed his foe at his leisure with a clash and roll of the swords. That was when the Roegadyn's giant fist caught Osric in the side; winded, the man fell to his knees, then pitched forward onto his hands.
"A pity." Forgehands, in the distance. "If he cannot overcome the trial at hand, then he will prove insufficient to the task."
Osric drew a rattling breath, but there was no point in speaking. There was no forestalling judgment.
"Kill him."
"Well, gods damn.... I. Uh. Hit the end o' the line sooner than I, uh, expected. Heh."
That he was jesting belied how conflicted he was over what he was about to unleash... and how deeply he feared the consequences.
Before him was the brig. Iron bars crossed back and forth to form a cage, and behind those bars and inside that cage stood his own shadow. Though they were of one size and one appearance, there was no mistaking one for the other; the shackles and ball-and-chain that secured the latter were tell enough. Malice was evident in his shadow's smile, belligerence in the set of the man's jaw, and there was no humanity to be found in those eyes.
Osric gazed at Melkire.
Melkire gazed back.
The man swallowed and closed his eyes. When they opened again, the restraints were gone. Gone were the shackles, the chains, even the cage itself. Freed at last from its prison, the inner beast surged forward, and then the demon was upon him, bearing him down, a frenzy of snarls, teeth, muscles, roars. A hand closed around his throat.
The depths of him flared, and the three spheres blazed in answer. He fed the white hot coals of his fury to the engines of creation and destruction, and the resulting inferno consumed him. A red film fell over his sight and sickly green wisps of aether licked their way up his legs.
He pushed off the ground, hands slapping against the snow; he spun as he regained his feet, ducked, and then sprung into an uppercut that caught the flat of Gnasher’s axe head and sent the whole of the weapon flying from the Hellsguard’s grasp. Thousands of bells’ worth of practice took over, and a flurry of footwork served to slip him past the giant to recover the spare axe from where it had fallen. A series of deft parries flowed into a moment’s opening, and in that instant Melkire tore the spear from the lancer’s grasp, knocking the Keeper off-balance. That same swing then shattered the White Needle; a quick reversal took the Elezen’s hand from him, as well, before the beast turned and kicked out at the haft of his axe. Pierre fell back. Khuja’ya never saw it coming.
The axe head traversed an arc above them, then swung down and sundered the Keeper’s head from his torso. Zhwan fell in two pieces, and those two pieces fell into ash that floated along on the wind even as Melkire turned and sank his axe into Gnasher’s shoulder.
Take his arm.
The midlander tightened his grip on the haft and pulled.
“Bairn!â€
The beast lifted the axe from the crumbling ashes in time to catch Forgehand’s upswing with the haft; the greatsword sliced through the wood, shattered it with contempt, and just as swiftly as he’d closed the distance, Ortolf drove the pummel into Melkire’s jaw. The red film flashed black, and the demon staggered.
The pommel lashed out again.
Words drifted to him as he floated along beneath the surface of consciousness.
“He shows promise!â€
“He lost himself. We need a warrior, not an animal. Ought to put him down.â€
“Ha! Give me a sun. Animal? We shall see, highlander.â€
“...then Rotunda must be informed. I want him alive, you understand? Unspoiled.â€
Low, ominous laughter accompanied him as he drifted off at last.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
