Qaeli

Thank you for posting the transcript, Liadan/Siben.

This leaves me with a heavy heart. I did not know David on a truly personal level, but Dennthota and Qaeli were sparring and drinking buddies on several occasions. I enjoyed his energetic writing style, and it was fun shooting the shit about martial styles. Even though I haven't been around in Eorzea in some time, I've never forgotten those that I had the pleasure of roleplaying with, and I always remembered Denn very fondly. Truly, my condolences extend to all of you who truly knew him—friends, family, loved ones. Trite as it will ever sound, I am deeply sorry for this loss. He was missed in life, and he will be missed in its passing.

Southern Thanalan – Zah’arak U’roh could’ve gone his whole life without seeing this place again. Memories, both painful and jovial, flooded through his mind. One moment he saw his mother, proudly telling the other Huntresses that he was going to be the best warrior the tribe had ever seen as he brawled with the other Tias. The next moment, the most painful memory of his life: his own mother, clawing and screaming, trying to kill him with her last breaths as her Tempered husk bled out on his halberd. However, his mind was focused. The unknown sender of that letter knew his darkest secret, one he’d only told two people, of which he was certain one was dead. His head swiveled left and right as he walked forward, watchful, his spear ready within a moment’s notice; his body was on high alert, as thing entire thing screamed retaliation. As the Miqo’te braved his way through the treacherous quagmire of crushing remembrance and hostile amal’jaa, something distant began to nag at the periphery of his mind. Intangible concepts of doubt, sorrow, fear, and rage skirted the outer threshes of his mind, threatening to penetrate his psyche. In the instant that he reached the deepest antechamber of the amal’jaa stronghold, where the wretched memories of his possessed mother’s final moments were strongest, those feelings disengaged entirely. At the centre of the chamber stood a lone figure, cowled in threads of midnight, thereby starkly silhouetted by the crystal that had burst from the belly of the chamber, formations winding upward like the grasping of claws. No words or gestures of welcome were offered, merely beckoning silence, as the dragoon’s clinking plates and bootfalls filled the vicinity. As U’roh looked upon the darkness-clad figure, his brow furrowed and arms crossed, clearly not amused by this invitation. Scanning the chamber for other bodies and finding none, he spoke flat and direct, “I take it you’re the one who wrrrote the letter, then.” Golden eyes studied the figure, whose proportions were clearly defined as female, pressing the matter, “So what’s this about, then? How the hells did you find out?” The answer did not come immediately, or at all, truly. Several moments of silence passed before the figure’s voice finally broached it, tonality thick with a sort of chilled indifference, a voice unknown to the grieving son, “You have peered into the face of death. Witnessed the fear, the pain, the disbelief. Begotten by the steel of your own bearing.” The figure’s shoulders rose and slowly fell, as if taking a commemorative breath. “Understand you what happens behind those curtains in that moment? The dispersal of the sum of one’s experiences. The aether flowing, fueling and comprising their entirety… gone. Returned unto the Silent Mother, forever relegated to the cage of romanticised memory, locked within the minds of those that survive the fallen.” Subtle movement denoted a lifting of the woman’s head, gaze ascending toward the unseen heavens. “Or are they?” U’roh, not exactly following the mysterious woman’s words, posed another question, “Does this have something to do with ‘the truth’ you mentioned in the letter?” He then mulled her words over, a fresh memory of his lifeless mother’s body suspended on the pike of his spear, broken body sunk unto his own. He was crying, unable to stand under the crushing weight of his loss, collapsing to the ground with his mother in his arms, clutching as much at sadness and vengeance as her lifeless form. Snapping back to the present, he remained still, observing the woman, seeming content to listen. “Speak. What is this about?” “To whence do you think your mother gone, little spear? A husk of rotted meat and dissolving meal, buried beneath a pile of rubble; a pitiful stage for the replaying of such weighted memories in her spawn’s fragile mind?” There was something approaching amusement within that voice, though not necessarily engaging malice. Still, the words caused U’roh to grind his teeth, rubbed thoroughly in the wrong manner. “She’s in Azeyma’s care now. Free from the damned prrrimal,” he said, his tone quickly turning aggressive and angry at her amused tone. Even if she did not seem openly malicious, the memory of U’qawhu was still held in the highest esteem, the matter openly sensitive for the dragoon. This brought another memory, training under that Elezen’s tutelage. “Good! Let the vengeance burning inside you fuel your strikes. Now, come, as though I were Ifrit himself!” she had shouted, easily deflecting amateurish blows with a halberd of Ishgardian steel, one of the very make the Miqo’te carried on this day. Once more returning to the present, staring holes into the back of the woman’s head, he continued in his defense, “She rests now, with the very bow she used to provide for me, and in her great shame, serve Ifrrrit. Where are you going with this?” His words, filled with romantic fancy, earned a hollow chuckle. The figure’s cloak began to billow, put into motion by an unfounded eddying. “Like an infant, you clutch to such hopes, willing them to be true, cloaking yourself in the tidy warmth of naïve wishes.” Something crackled within the air, a darkly fulmination gathering at the woman’s left hand. “’Within Azeyma’s pillowy bosom she lies, ever restful,’” the words were spoken, now with open mockery, in a voice perhaps frighteningly close to the Miqo’te’s mother. “Shall I grant you a lens to the truth, little spear?” Once more U’roh grit his teeth, about to lose his temper in his traditionally hot-headed way. Reaching for his spear and channeling that vengeful crystal of his, he was prepared to force the truth out of the woman, until the familiar voice of his mother struck him still. Yet clutching his halberd, he growled, “Speak…” As the demand was spoken, the growing darkness around the woman’s hand suddenly furled unto itself, dissipating from view entirely, along with the current that had disturbed her cloak. “You squeak demands for that which you have earned no right,” she said, quiet with an undercurrent of danger. Suddenly, she exploded into action. Using the crystal as a launch point, she spun into a turning leap, her trajectory leading her straight for U’roh. Just after the apex of the leap, a strangely dim flash erupted from the earlier enveloped hand. In the wake of the burst of light, a crystalline blade materialized, burgeoning with lethal erosions formed into piercing spikes in myriad directions. With cold precision, she brought down the bright blade in an overhead strike, threatening to cleave the feline male in two. Fortunately for U’roh, he was able to escape from the heart of the attack, the ravaging tip of the blade only carving a fine chip through his breastplate. As he leapt back, however, he felt a sudden bite of cold at the flesh behind the nominal damage to his armour. “Void?! Shite…” he grumbled, having been subject to that very particular form of cold a handful of times in his adventures. Still, he would not back down. The moment his feet gained purchase, he was soaring through the air again, fueled with draconic haste characteristic of the order he idolised. “When it comes to my mother, I have EVERY RRRRIGHT!” he shouted as he crashed down, aiming to split the woman in twain, if she would defame his mother so. He only felt the jarring impact of stone, however, as the woman skirted aside of the diving attack at the last moment. With clearly practiced balance, she caught her spinning maneuver mid-twirl and stepped right back into the attack, another downward slash speeding straight for the dragoon’s throat. Disappointed and clearly vulnerable upon missing his mark, U’roh used his momentum in the best way he knew how. Hurling his weight forward while yet clutching upon the stone-buried halberd, he twisted his waist in order to steer him clear of that sword strike, the swiveling motion bringing both feet straight into his attacker’s chest. This impact he would use to rebound himself in order to land upright. However, to his surprise, it was not the soft flesh of a woman that his boots collided with, but a diminutive wall of steel. Denied his intended launch pad, his back struck the ground, the failed maneuver only salvaged by his managing to wrench the halberd from the ground. Skidding back a few fulms, he scrambled to his feet, staring the hooded woman down. His face twisted with feral rage, slit eyes screaming for blood, and so he lunged, intending to impale and pin the woman with the halberd tip. The hooded woman’s lips hitched narrowly upward as she watched the dragoon’s ferity turn into a bull-headed assault. As he closed in for that lunge, she charged him at the point of no return. The crystalline blade, itself refracting otherworldly light and particles, dipped low before being brought up underhand, slamming into the underside of the spearhaft, sending it spinning into the air. In conjunction, she stooped low, a swift turn of her hips propelling a viper-like kick that slammed into the cleft of U’roh’s chin, launching him back once more. The Miqo’te did not see the kick coming, having become rapidly consumed by anger he had thought long locked away after the fierce battle with his mother’s kidnapper. Losing the spear compelled the throwing of a wild punch, stopped short by the crack of a boot to his chin. Once more upon his back, his fury mounting, “F-fucking bitch! What did you do?!” he roared. “Why do you TALK like her!?” he spat, a spatter of blood to follow, yet dazed. Even as he laid upon the ground, the woman paid no pursuit to her advantage. Rather, she slowly stalked forward, blade scraping the stones with each alternating step, scourging the air with distant, agonised cry each time. “Pick it up,” she demanded coolly, the abandoned halberd suddenly sliding across the ground to lay within U’roh’s reach. “A kitten should have his fangs when mewling for fresh milk.” “ANSWER ME, TWELVE DAMN YOU!” he cried as he seized the halberd and scrambled to his feet. Once more he charged, vexed by this woman’s mimicry of his mother’s voice, pain seared into his heart like an iron brand. Practiced movements worked in congress with his racially-defined agility, starting with a few raking slashes and stabs. “Sod off! You are NOT her!” He was overcome with rage, hatred of himself, his enemies, and the primal for taking his mother away from him. Yet sadness lurked within his every thought and movement, burdened by the death he was forced to partake in. Hopelessness--the realisation of his own limitations, unable to make any quantifiable difference—threatened to drive him mad. Even so, he drove at the woman with intensifying combinations, wild and wide, but blazing fast thrusts and slashes aiming to catch leg, shoulder, arm, neck or chest. Still she dodged or parried them all. In a rush of furious frustration, he threw his head forward in a ramming headbutt, at last finding his target. A loud crack sounded as skull met hooded skull, and a streak of white shot over his vision, briefly blinding him. Still, he didn’t flinch. “Tell me, you voidsent piece of SHITE!” he shouted, taking a low grip on the halberd before leaping into the air and coming down with a devastating overhead slash that would cleave her scalp in two. The woman, having been sent reeling one hundred-eighty degrees by the collision, seemed vulnerable. However, before the impending blade of the halberd cratered her skull, she suddenly tucked low, then sprung high into the air, just lateral to the halberd’s arc. She leapt swift and high as a Dragoon, her cloak lost in the flurry of motion and the swipe of that polearm. Upon her descent, the crystal blade began to flow with light anew, the body of the weapon shifting and stretching as she came crashing back down, diving with the precision and power of one fueled by the dragon’s blood, voidspear streaking like an arrow of unholy light. As the halberd found dirt and stone instead of flesh and bone, it became lodged in place, leaving U’roh to wrestle with it while wondering where the woman had learned to take to the sky like the Isghardian dragonslayers. Unable to wrench his weapon from the ground, he was forced to abandon it as the woman’s wrath loomed so quick, so close. He managed to leap back just in time, though the concussive force of the woman’s dive knocked him from his feet. Teeth grit as he struggled to lift himself. “J-just full of surprises, aren’t ya…” he said, noticing the woman had lost her cloak. “Seems ya lost your bleedin’ hidey cloak.” Scrabbling to his feet, he readied himself as best he could, ready to look his attacker directly in the eye for the first time, though her face was obscured by the plume of dust and raining detritus that had rocketed up from the point of impact. After a few moments, the transformed weapon cut a swathe through the haze, slowly giving reveal in the settling wake of the woman U’roh had been battling. What he saw struck him speechless. Unruly locks were no longer silver, but raven, accentuated by strips of an odd primrose hue. They mostly obscured the singular rivulet of blood that ran astride her nasal bridge. Those eyes swirled with a confluence of silver and abyssal purple, but the blue was unmistakable. Her normally easy smile, gone, replaced by a stern stoicism. So much was foreign, and yet he knew her instantly. “Q-QAELI?! Was all the Miqo'te could manage after he felt that rage subside away. "I... thought you were dead, what happened...." He said, slumping to his knees, tears once again streaming down his face. "You were alive all this time?! Why didn't you tell me?!" The young woman U’roh had known and promised to follow, disappeared so many months ago, looked upon him with hard, unforgiving eyes. The chill U’roh had felt from the mere glance of the spear over his armour encroached again, this time within his eyes, in the very corners of his mind. With a hard stomp she freed the lodged halberd from the ground, snatching it up with a free hand. “Tis nae me wha’s doin’ th’hidin’,” she spoke with an inflection all too telling. With undue force, she flung the halberd like a javelin, the pike splitting stone and earth at U’roh’s feet, once more lodged in place. She lowered the bladehead of the aether-rich spear toward the ground, stepping toward the confused and tortured Miqo’te. “I cried out,” she began, the prior stabbing humor gone from her voice, replaced by something neutral, perhaps tinged with sorrow, “but none answered. I screamed until I ‘ad nae voice, but none ‘eard.” Her advance halted mere paces from where U’roh struggled to regain his footing. “’Alive?’” she said quizzically, as though the meaning of the word were foreign to her. A singular shake of her head followed. “Nae alive. Nae dead. Jes’… gone. Here,” a rap of knuckles to the pulsing spear gave signal to the spoken destination, “tae th’place where none, yet all go. Th’place where ye mothah, or a’ leas’ a part o’ ‘er, ‘ad gone. Hurdled intae th’dark by th’temperin’, tipped intae oblivion by th’tip o’ her son’s spear.” “Q-Qae… let me help you. I don’t know what happened. You just… disappeared. I thought we lost you…” The Miqo’te pleased, wincing through the pain of the burning—it hurt, but the wounds in his heart hurt worse. His legs were wobbling, his scarred face teary-eyed and staring directly at her, her words finally reach flattened ears, “W-wait. Are you saying… that she’s alive because I remember herrr?” he asked, his sorrow not allowing him to fully comprehend her words. “That…” he started, stopping when he realised he didn’t know what he was going to say next. “I don’t understand." Quietly, she paid no heed to the offering of aid, an offering that had missed its window by some seasons. “Lost… aye. Alone? Fer a time.” When the wounded male pressed with his questions, her lips drew a measure tighter, nostrils flaring in the nominal effort of an insular sigh. “E’en now, ye…” With a fluid spin of the haft, the spearhead was downturned and plunged into the stone, leaving it between them. “She were trapped, ‘cause ye could nae let ‘er go. Cause ye made ‘er one wiv ye shame. Tha’ part of ‘er, anyroad. Trapped in a whirl o’grief an’ regret, ‘cause ‘er son cannae live wiv wha’ became o’ her. Instead enchainin’ ‘er wiv fond monuments an’ reclusion from acceptin’ th’truth fer wha’ i’ be.” Her silence on his plea made him hurt even worse, eventually sliding back to a knee, unable able to weather the wounding inflicted by her home-hitting words. “S-so, all this time… I’ve been keeping her from moving on?” he asked, thinking he finally understood. He had thought he put it all behind him. Rhena was slowly helping him come to terms with what had happened. He thought he had done the right thing, ending his mother’s physical existence and thereby freeing her. Now he was being told that it was all in vain, and he was to blame. He had no words. “Then what about you, Qaeli? You were my best friend. You still arrre. You just disappeared without a word. Yet every day, I prayed to whatever of the Twelve would listen to let you be okay. I see now my pleas fell on deaf earrrs.” He said, looking down, not even having the emotional strength to look her in the eye anymore. The ground below him slowly took on a damp sheen from his tears. Qaeli, meanwhile, looked upon him in silence, slowly steadying eyes devoid of pity or remorse, for either her actions or the suffering of her friend. As he wept, she offered neither motion or word of comfort. Instead, she stepped around the planted spear, reached out a hand to take firm grip of the collar plate of his breastplate, and with strength unbecoming her size, lifted him forcibly back to his feet. “Guilt be fer th’selfish,” she began, a press of fingertips to his chin urging his gaze back to her own, “A trait ye nae be defined by. But, ye’re weak,” she spoke solemnly, as though those words were hurtful to speak. “Weak, ‘cause ye ‘ave nae yet embraced th’whole o’ye’self.” She moved both hands then, stepping back astride the spear, leaving him to stand or collapse again. “D’ye f’ink th’women an’ men ye aspire aftah, they who hunt /dragons/, could leap as they dae, ifn’ they were fettered by their failures an’ shame, as ye be?” Lowering her gaze the space between them, she turned a sideward look to the voidspear, eyes tracing unseen movement within the base of the manifested weapon. “From th’void, tha’ fraction o’her could sense wha’ laid in th’deepes’ part o’ye. ‘er son, hamstrung a’ th’heart cause o’ wha’ befell ‘er.” U’roh, struggling to stifle the flow of his tears, knew that she was telling the truth. Guilt. Shame. There was no space for such things within a Dragoon’s heart. Deep within his own, he knew this, even if Qaeli’s words felt like a harpoon driven through those depths. Given the opportunity to stand when she pulled away, he made the effort to keep upright. “Y-you’rrre rrright… I can’t let my past be my future, while it’s true my vengeance drives me.” His head swam, encouraging him to use his halberd for balance. ‘Is this why I couldn’t use my crystal? The doubt and shame in my heart?’ he asked himself, already aware of the answer. Looking back to Qaeli, he took a breath, daring to ask another question, “You were… in the void. D-did you speak with her in therrre? I mean, what’s… left of her? If so, what did she say?” Blue eyes flicked over U’roh’s tear-stained face, her tongue flicking out to taste of the drying blood that had courted the corner of her mouth. “We… ‘spoke’, aye. Nae as ye an’ I dae now. But,” she gave a wave of her hand, dismissing use of further contemplation on the matter. Instead, she reached toward the voidspear. As her touch neared the haft, wisps of smoky pallour snaked out to bridge the distance. “She said… e’eryf’in’. S’nae th’kinna place where f’ings’re kep’ t’th’chest. Nae those kinna f’ings, anyroad.” Shaking her head, she tapped a forefinger against the body of the spear. “Roh… wha’ d’ye f’ink this be?” she asked, eyes yet upon the otherworldly weapon. “An’ let me couple tha’ wiv th’question I asked ye afore. Where d’ye f’ink ye mothah be?” U’roh’s gaze drifted heavily to the spear, a heavy silence having fallen over him as he listened, weighing Qaeli’s words with only a modicum of understanding. His mouth opened, ready to testify to the odd quality of the spear, when another thought struck him. ‘Can it be?’ A shudder went through him, chilled and confused by the possibility before him. “The spearrr is concentrated aetherrr. Void enerrrgy,” he began, eyeing the spear with a fresh wariness, even though the immediate danger to his life seemed to have passed, “that you… You can do that?” His attention rubber-banded back to Qaeli, briefly distracted by the true realisation that his friend commanded any measure of void energy. She offered no answer, merely staring at him expectantly, waiting. “S-sorrrry, not the point,” he reminded himself, looking back at the crystalline piece in question. “A piece of the void itself. A piece of… of her?” he said, swallowing for the sudden aridity within his throat. “She is…” Instinctually, he reached toward the spear, though he stopped short as he felt, even through this gloves, the chill nipping at his fingertips. “The spear?” He said lamely, tasting the absurdity of the words with a degree of reproach. “Aye, Roh,” Qaeli answered with incredulity aplenty, upturned palm gesturing to the spear. “’ere’s ye mum. I know she lookin’ a lil’ underfed, but tis nae th’girl’s shape wha’ mattahs. S’wha’ she holds inside wha’ makes ‘er—donnae be stupid.” Her hand clapped against her thigh as it dropped away, staring hard at the Miqo’te. “I know, I know. Not… her, literrrally. Herrr will? Consciousness?” he asked with clarifying purpose. “An’ mine.” “So, she is… with you?” She nodded, brushing invasive raven strands from her view. “We aided one ‘nothah. Opened me’self up t’allow a joinin’ o’sorts. Like fresh clay mended ontae a vessel in th’middle o’th’bake. But,” she paused then, two fingers gingerly tapping over her left breast, “she be jes’ as presen’. ‘er wish clear.” “Her… wish?” “Aye.” Something stirred within U’roh’s belly. Dread. Desperation. The need to know. “What wish?” “Fer ‘er son t’soar,” she said, the weight of her tone conveying a measure of empathy. Another wave of tears blurred slit eyes, heralding crests of shame, guilt, and reprieve, all at once. Willing himself not to be swept away by them, he straightened his shoulders, fists clenching. “I-if… she is with, you…” The Miqo’te took a breath, the weight of the coming words heavily burdening his already battered heart. If he was to tear his eyes from the past and look forward, he had but one course of action left to him.“C-can I say goodbye?” he asked, setting his bleary eyes upon the conjured spear. Qaeli offered neither refusal or admission. Rather, she stood aside, allowing U’roh to satisfy this spiritual need without interference. Stepping forward, U’roh suddenly realised he wasn’t sure what to say. He had never grasped exactly how to say ‘goodbye.’ Finding no answers within the glimmering surface of the spear, he turned his gaze inward, eyes closing as, for the first time in his life, he allowed himself to focus upon the memories he should have relied upon all along: her beautiful smile, her gentle voice, and her loving embrace. Soon, the words began to trickle out, thick with emotions he had refused to feel until now. “I…I’m sorry, mum. It… must’ve been… so painful seeing me cling to so much hate. So much anger, it must’ve been hard. To see me cause the tribe to suffer for such selfish reasons. To see me walk almost entirely into the same fate that befell you.” He shook his head, once more opening his eyes. Though a spear stood before him, he glimpsed something else entirely: U’qawhu, Ranger of the Sands. “I hope, at least, it made you a little happier to see me make friends and find a reason for being,” he smiled wanly at the vestige of his mother, recalling the hard years that followed his failed challenge for the right of Nunh; before his beloved Rhena, before Qaeli, before his training in the Grindstone, with Ceuline, with Qaeli and even Gharen, she had been there. Glancing down, he drew out the crystal he had been gifted, looking its resplendent surface over with renewed hope. “I’ll live up to your wishes. I’ll… I’ll soarrr. I’ll be the best bleeding thing I can be,” he said with a deepening finality, returning his eyes to the fading image of his mother. When it had gone completely, he turned tear-stricken eyes back to Qaeli, albeit reservoirs of sorrow were now filling with a happiness he did not know existed. Thus, he gave a nod, signaling that he was finished. In answer, Qaeli reached out and wrapped a hand about the haft of the spear that had stood as proxy for the now-renewed Dragoon’s mother and, with a simple clenching of her first, caused the crystallised weapon to disincorporate in a shower of fractal dalliance. Watching the radiant display, U’roh stowed the crystal once more, solemnity once again taking root in his voice. “What will happen to her, Qaeli? Will she return to the Lifestream?” Qaeli, having shown little emotional resonance during U’roh’s farewells, pursed her lips to the side, “I cannae say. Learned much while I were on t’othah side. Til then, I dinnae e’en believe th’passed retained any sense o’who they were when still wiv th’quick. Oft ‘nough, they become th’Lost.” She shrugged. “Mayhap she’ll return t’th’Stream. Mayhap she’ll lingah awhile ‘til she fades altogethah. Mayhap she really will res’ in Azeyma’s embrace. Let ye know ifn’ she tells me.” Roh looked down, fresh concern etched into his features. “Aye, I can rrreally only hope for the best. At least she’ll go knowing that I’ll be fine,” he looked up to Qaeli then, as if he were seeing her for the first time all over again, “Thanks to you. If you… hadn’t done this, I would’ve likely gotten myself killed in the near future.” Stepping forward, he reached out a gloved hand to rest upon her arm. “I dunno what happened in the void, Qaeli, I can’t imagine how hard it was… But know this. You’rrre my friend. If there is anything I can do to help you—anything—let me know.” The young woman seemed unmoved by the affection and promise, though she did offer a slight smile that suggested appreciation. “Good o’ye t’say tha’, Roh,” she said, voice tinged with an ominous weight, “there be dark clouds… dark wings loomin’ o’er th’horizon. I’ll need ye help.”

Zazuka Zuka – Children streaked through the cobblestone streets, shrieking with comingling laughter and distress as their weapons comprised of stripped branches clacked together with hollow threat. Devoid of the watchful eye of their parentage, the prepubescent churls heeded none—not even themselves, much less where they were going. "I am Raubahn the Mighty! All fall before my mighty cleave!" boomed one stocky lad as he chased down two smaller boys, who ducked between merchant and streetfarer into one of the dim alleyways branching from Sapphire Avenue. His frenetic pace afforded him little control, and thus he had no chance of evading the Lalafell approaching from the other direction. Like a hapless pup scrambling over a pile of stones, the young hyur half-flipped over the smaller creature, crashing side-first onto the unforgiving street. A pained cry turned to a flash of rage as he clambered to his feet, twain-snapped branch clutched tight at his side. "Hey, watch where you’re going!" the boy yelled blindly into the shade before turning and resuming his chase. Zazuka brushed the dirt and grime from his cotton tunic and leathered breeches, subtly luminescent gaze following the retreat of the young fool that had sent him to the ground. Smoothing out a wrinkle here and there, he re-shouldered the satchel that had uprooted during the collision and continued on his way. High were the Jewel’s walls, concealing from the world the tempest of chaos and anarchy that had been gaining potency for the past several moons. Yet if such anarchists and many refugees had their way, the Gate of Nald would tremble and collapse, shining a dust and corpse-ridden light upon just how weak and reachless the Sultana and her agents were. The loose thread of coin and compromise that had kept the Monetarists together was beginning to fray, all by the making of their own greed and ill-informed decisions; an inevitable byproduct of the autonomy afforded—and purchased by—the various houses. This had led to the allowance of foolishly short-sighted action, such as the unsanctioned execution of Daegsatz Traggblansyn, first mate of Nero Lazarov. ‘Underestimated’ was the frail justification that Jameson Taeros had applied to the gross mis-step. And yet the well-kempt hyur had yet to be touched by the consequences of his failures. For Zazuka, every attempt to make a fist or hold one of his beloved instruments of inquiry was a ghostly reminder of the price he had paid for his own underestimation. Soon, the streets and courts would be filled with the consequential spectres of that lone act. It was for the prevention of this grim future that he had been sent. He was the needle that would guide the wrongly-sewn threads back into accord; or the blade that would clip the extraneous stitches from the whole. Lolorito’s First and Final Pence. And there were many accounts to be settled. Even in the dusk hours, as many vendors began to pack up their stations and prepare for the journey home, Ul’dah’s economy was a flurry of transactions of various magnitudes. The dark corners of the sacred Jewel held many secrets, and few of them were beyond the reach of his shadow. In one, someone was being beaten for coin, insult, or no reason at all. In another, a woman’s thighs were spread for similar reasons. In still another, clandestine folk were exchanging clandestine goods with (sometimes) clandestine intentions. The city’s walls towered high above all, obscuring sight of such misdeeds from eyes that often preferred to look elsewhere. But as the sun crept below the Jewel’s spires, her shadows grew ever longer; and so too did Zazuka’s. His shades were ever vigilant, dispersed into the city like so many scattered coins, lodged into the many cracks of its streets, alleys, and walls, collecting interest and sensitive value for their master. And this particular eve, dividends were being paid. Further delving into the suspicions Taeros held concerning the lifted products from his warehouse had yielded a trail of crumbs that led to a certain Flame Sergeant. Moreover, collections had gathered that the former Sultansworn Deneith was somewhere within the city, doubtless conducting her covert affairs. A hasty man would have rushed to cast a net and attempt to sequester the woman with forceful repercussion. Zazuka, however, had learned the value of temperance. Deneith’s presence had left crumbs, however miniscule. And for as much value was placed in the paladin’s dealings, keen was his interest at whose feet the last crumbs fell. ‘When seeking sign of rot, look first beneath the drawn sleeve.’ No, he would leave the net unfurled for the time being. Now was the hour of the snare and hot iron. He would cauterize each of the gaping wounds in Taeros’—and the Monetarists as a whole—operations, and thereby wall off the avenues of the paladin’s offenses. He had so many questions for so many people; a prospect that nearly brought a smile to his commonly undiscernible expression. And he knew just where to begin. Somewhere behind him, pockets of thunder cracked with spurious frequency, limned by a familiar choir of enraged and agonized screams. He did not take pause to consider the source, for it was already known. Rather, he quickened his pace. The walls were already shaking.

I think I would definitely love to get in on this. Might I get put on the waiting list?

She tasted blood. Her own, and the boy's. Crimson cruor bespattered both ground, wall and adolescent, instructing a gruesome telling of desperate travail. It was all made the more glaring by gift of the noontide sun, casting a coppery sheen over the carnage. Her left arm screamed from the break in both humerus and radius, leaving the appendage as little more than a weighted, agonising vine adjoined to her shoulder. Holes and gashes riddled the rest of her. Black ichor mingled with the blood seeping from her midsection, telling of a likely ruptured liver. Her breath felt trapped within her lungs, locked in an itinerant loop in her esophagus; yet for the ragged suffering in her flesh and bones—perhaps miraculously—she had not succumb to unconsciousness. By her guess, Llymlaen would soon part the shores to welcome a new guest. The boy fared less well, a wide-eyed testimony of a soul departed, a body ravaged by unbridled violence. His jack had been torn from the shoulder, exposing the many perforations on his back. His left arm was but a ruin of mashed meat and shattered bone, the remains of his hand laid upon a blood-soaked dagger. His skull fared little better, now reduced to a sopping crater by the iron sphere yet gripped in the girl’s one functioning hand. Shadows claimed the scene, blotting out the glory of the sun, so malapropos for the madness that roosted here. She welcomed the darkness, her strength all but spent. With no small effort she raised her head from its weighted loll, to stare into the coming eclipse as her mentors had instructed her in the eight years since her joining. Smile into the face of oblivion, show her the glim of your mettle, and know nothing of fear. Voices clamoured about her, distorted by the relentless ringing in her ears, exponentially worsened by the effort of lifting her head. As her bleary gaze met the coming stygian, two hands reached for her. She tasted blood. Her own, and the Lalafell’s. Two of his diminutive fingers were caught within the staunch vise of her teeth. Blood was pooling into her mouth, the Lalafell screaming like a child set ablaze as he repeatedly—frantically—slammed a tiny fist into her cheek, temple, and neck. Yet she refused to release him, the delectable sound of bones snapping at the proximal phalanx as her head whipped about violently, like a jackal wrestling the life out of a hare. “Aetius!!!” the little coward screamed, already wide eyes turned owlish by the horror of what was happening—about to happen. Knowing the arrival of the now-named Gentleman would deprive her of satisfactory end to her bloody work, her jaw clamped as hard as she could manage and she thrashed. Blood struck her face, but the resistance suddenly ceased as the two extremities were ripped from their moorings. She held her prize behind the wall of her teeth, staring down at the shock-stricken face of her tormentor. Then the Gentleman rushed in, blade drawn. He paused to survey the scene: her battered form still fettered, one eye swollen shut and once-long hair chopped wholesale, yet a savage grin present on that marred and bloodied visage; Zazuka’s collapsed form, gone silent as he clutched at his now maimed hand. Promptly Aetius sheathed his sword, appearing amused and annoyed. “Lackwit,” he began as he stooped beside the Lalafell, casually pulling free his froofy neck-thing in order to bind up the ruined hand. A chuckle dappled his work as he glanced over to Qaeli, who winked. “I once heard you bit off a man’s pride. Chewed it up and fed him the pulp.” The young woman’s feral smile persisted as she slowly tilted her head back, drew in a short breath via her nostrils, and spat out the two hewn digits, one of which nearly struck Aetius in the brow, the other tumbling onto Zazuka’s stomach. Glimpsing the flight of his lost fingers, the Lalafell gasped before his head lolled to the side, lapsing from consciousness. Qaeli spat once more to the side, the hoarse aspect of her voice lifting for the first time in days, “S… S’all i’ took t’shut ‘im up?” A scarce, coughing chuckle followed, her one good eye floating from the passed-out Monetarist to the hyur responsible for her capture. “Shoulda done tha’ days ago.” Aetius absently brushed the back of his hand along his shoulder, where the finger had skipped before becoming lost amidst the detritus of the chamber. Standing, he reached down to pluck the unconscious Lalafell from the ground, as though he were no more than a satchel. He began to turn away from the girl, only to be halted by brazen words unbefitting the precariousness of her situation. “Mayhap nex’ time… ye wipe th’cowardice offa ye face an’ dae ye own dirt.” The rage bloomed inside the man once more. To be labeled a coward by this filth was more than he could accept. Like lead Zazuka’s body hit the ground, Aetius turned to face his accuser. “’Cowardice’? From the lips of the fiend that murdered non-combatants for no—“ “Oh, nip i’, Ashes. ‘Non-combatant’ me perky tits.” “She never bid anyone harm!” “She were a scientis’ workin’ cereleum deposits, ye manky git. Which means she refined fuel fer ye magitek monsters.” Aetius formed fists as he stepped toward the girl, bones crunching and clattering beneath his feet. “Ye used those monsters t’turn women an’ children t’ash wiv impunity, an’ ye’ve th’cheek t’call ‘er a non-combatan’?” Her tongue clicked to the roof of her mouth, her fingers flexing in her bindings. “She an’ othahs like ‘er killed by th’thousands.” She leaned forward then, her ragged tone dripping with as much acrimony as her grinning lips dripped blood and saliva, “Ye said this were ‘bout justice? Sulpicia earned ‘er red smile many times o’er, ye lonely, impotent, pathetic fuck.” When that name—the name held more sacred in his heart than any other—passed from those irreverent lips, Aetius’ world deliquesced to red wrath. He bridged the remaining distance in two quick strides, roaring his fury while winding back a fist with aim for her already bruised face. Only as his fist neared her face did he notice the sliver of bone that she had tucked inside her iron wristlets, which were now falling away from their prisoners. Dipping beneath the fist’s destination, both of Qaeli’s hands shot up to grip Aetius’ collar, implementing his own forward motion and her own downward slide to send his forehead crashing into the stone wall. His frame bunched like a hyur accordion before he collapsed atop her, already unconscious. Though it took several moments to regain her breath, she soon regained herself enough to shove him aside and join his wrists to the bindings that had recently held her. Quickly she searched his person for items of import: keys being tantamount among what she found, along with a small parchment that had been embroidered with what she guessed to be Sulpicia’s likeness. For a moment she looked to the unconscious face of this man who had been so decimated by the loss of his bride, briefly unable to decide if she hated or pitied him. Settling on the likelihood of straddling both sides, she kept the keys, claimed his sword and dropped the parchment on the ground beneath him and rushed to her feet. The mistake in such sudden motion was immediate, and she nearly lost consciousness as the chamber spun laps around her. Tremulously her hand found the wall, and taking a few breaths to compose herself, she followed the wall—metal screeching over stone as she practically dragged the sword—around the chamber until she found the gate, where Zazuka laid. Her grip tightened upon the hilt of the sword, her body briefly remembering its torment. Her face and unknown toes throbbed from the ballpeen smith’s hammer. The tips of her fingers screamed from the loss of fingernails, her chest, legs, arms, shoulders and stomach were all afire from the various tools that had cut and drilled into her flesh. Subconsciously, the tip of the blade had moved to the unconscious Lalafell’s throat, where blood had already begun to pool. Every grieved part of her body cried out for a simple push and twist of the blade. ‘Too quick,’ she resolved before she turned away from him. She would revisit the matter later. Presently, it was a miracle that she was able to move at all. Her stumbling in the lowlight of the torch-lined corridor seemed to carry on for hours, though the reality might have been a mere few minutes. She soon found the end of the ascending hallway around a corner, where only a cellar door separated her from the scant light that peeked through the cracks in the wood. So shaky was her hand that it took several passes with each key until she found the one that would grant her freedom. As the lock gave way and she used the pommel of the sword to steadily push the door up, she gasped as the blinding light of the morning poured in. Clinching her eyes, she forced the door open until it finally slammed deafeningly to the side. Feeling her way up the steps, she soon found stony ground, slowly blinking her eyes open in order to filter the light and acclimate herself to the gloomy morn. Once she could bear to prop one eye open, she saw to the closing and locking of the door, and flung the keys into a well a few yalms away. A cursory glance suggested that she was likely in the outcrop of a farmstead, though she would retain little of the information she took in for the next several dozen steps; until at last whatever was spurring her forward expended its final drop of strength. She collapsed face-first into a stretch of tall, dew-crested grass, quickly fading from consciousness with naught but the sound of gulls, sheep and laughing children serenading in the distance.

“For a girl so young, she has proven exceptionally resilient,” Zazuka said as he peeled the blood-soaked gloves from his tiny hands, comparatively diminutive boots padding along the stone floor. “Malnourished, sleep-deprived, bled, and never a word uttered. Nary a scream, even. Unnatural, I say.” Slapping the sodden gloves upon the utility bench, he looked back to The Gentleman, who was plying through a small manuscript. “Tell me, Aetius,” he waited for the hyur’s attention before continuing, “While I do welcome the opportunity to claim pounds of flesh from that wretch of a girl, as she has cost the Monetarists no small sum with her unwillingness to do as commanded,” he nodded across the corridor, “Why do we keep her here? The others would offer comely reward to have her in hand once more, and so quiet, besides.” Aetius looked back to his text, peeling to the next page. “You mistake her silence for submission, Zazuka. She will never sing the lay written for her.” “Thus I revisit my question: Why keep her here? What is to be gained, her suffering aside?” Closing the book, Aetius looked hard upon the Lalafellin, fingers threading together before him as he leaned over the table. “What could possibly bear more meaning? Knowing my plight, do you earnestly believe I share even a tittle of your incessant gil-mongering?” The Lalafell bristled at the barb, though he knew better than to press the notion without his retinue nearby; though it was not a guarantee that even they could protect him, should he draw Aetius’ ire. The Monetarists kept and employed more than its share of dangerous persons, yet none of them frightened him so much as The Gentleman. For all of his outward flair, the hyur was uncompromising as he was calculating, brutal as he was courtly, merciless as he was calm. There was naught but murder and wrath within his eyes. Were it not for his loathing of the silver-haired girl and her own commensurate lethality and unpredictability, he might have pitied her as Aetius’ target. “Worry not, Zazuka. She will be delivered into the greedy palms of your colleagues. It is by their knowledge of her and the company she keeps that my opportunity was granted. I will honor that debt, when I have what I desire.” “Why do you not attend to the matter yourself, if her suffering is tantamount to aught else?” Zazuka asked as he clambered upon the bench opposite Aetius. Silence followed the question as the vengeful hyur considered the answer. Lowering his hands to rest upon the book before him, he looked beyond the Lalafell, staring into the nothingness of the corner. “Have you ever witnessed a throat opened to the bone?” Zazuka remained silent, suddenly less comfortable. “If the blade strikes the carotid artery," he lifted two fingers to tap his neck where the aforementioned artery was located, "It looses jets of blood for several seconds. If the victim is particularly healthy—and spurred by adrenaline—it is likely to be a messy affair.” Zazuka glanced about the room, his discomfort rapidly escalating. Aetius’s eyes closed, his shoulders sinking. “My wife was very healthy, and had just witnessed the murder of her superior.” His nostrils flared with a draw for breath, his jaw tightening. “Each time I close my eyes, I see the blood streaming from her body. In her eyes, the horror… the repudiation of what had befallen her. A merely brilliant and curious mind, with scarce a trace of malice in her heart, slain simply to aid an assassin’s escape.” His eyes slowly opened, the frigid hardness of his stare turning back to the Lalafell, who now bore the likeness of a terrified infant. “So you see, dear Zazuka, the moment I participate in Miss Varily’s torment is the moment she drowns in her own blood.”

She tasted blood. Unsurprising. A backhand from a hand nearly the size of one’s own head tended to have that effect. A streamer of crimson jettisoned from her mouth, landing at her current mentor’s feet. “Ye quick, an’ strong fuh sich a lil’ bird. But, tuh mich weight in ye movemen’s. Keep ye arms an’ feet light. Attack an’ defense in one, ‘membah?” Bergonier’s daggers—alive with steel—sparked off of each other, ending in reverse grips. The hyuran child took the measure of her opponent. Bergonier held the presentation of a lowly sailor, sleeveless tunic and slops of linen, and often barefoot, same as she. Yet to assume that his appearance was his whole invited a quick, perforated death. His advantages were clear: each arm was a scant few ilms short of the full length of her own body, his height nearly three times—she was diminutive, even by eighth nameday standards—her own, his strength, experience and speed were renown amongst the fleet. Yet she remained undaunted, recalling the steps of their last round: A feinted lunge. A mid-stride backstep to bait a parry followed by another lunge. She bypassed his downward cross-parry with a monopedal twirl to the side, using the spinning force to launch a kick for the outer rim of his knee. He simply lifted his leg above the attempt— a possibility which she had not accounted for—sending her spinning. Then the world was limned with white as the back of his hand met her cheek, stopping her cold. She sucked the remnant of copper through her teeth and slowly spread her footing, weighted iron daggers secured with opposing grips. Small feet pattered on the water-slick deck as she dashed forward. The blades held close until she was within proper striking range. An upward jab for his lower abdomen and a backhand slash for his inner thigh were checked by a pendulous swipe and downward parry, respectively. Her arms briefly numbed from the vibration of the force of his denials, but she re-affirmed her grip and pressed on. Her shoulder ratcheted back to spur her astride the straight knee he shot for her face, spinning and ducking between his legs to escape the inbound stab meant for her shoulder blade. With her now poised behind him, Bergonier promptly leapt forward, wheeling about upon his small and wily opponent. To his steadily dwindling surprise—and rapidly realised chagrin—the little girl was already upon him. The first and second blow he managed to curb aside, but the falsified third in the form of a low slash to the ankle led into a stopping elbow to his inner thigh, clinched by a bone-wrought pommel slamming into his manhood. All of the breath left him, and he dropped to a knee, nearly eye-level with the small girl that had managed to fell him. Through the tears, he could glean her smile. Frigid iron pat his chin gently. “Tae much weight in ye movemen’s, Berger.” “Not… movin’ fuh a bit,” he rasped. With girlish triumph she tittered, leaning up to kiss his chin. She tasted blood. The air was inundated with an unholy congregation of filth, flooding the senses with the irrefutable presence of death, piss, vomit and disease; a bouquet any woman would be delighted to bottle. Fondness in dream was violently supplanted by disgust in waking, the myriad horrors assaulting her nose—paired with the pounding in her skull—prompted a retch. Metal screeched on metal as she lurched forward, and she realised her arms were fettered to the wall above her. She spat as lucidity returned to her, the haze of the world falling away to reveal a dank, dimly lit chamber. Bone and other unidentifiable detritus littered the ground, presently being explored by a bilge rat. Gulls sounded in the near distance, and through the impregnable wall of malodorous hideousness she detected the ever-comforting roar and spray of the sea. She was still somewhere in La Noscea. A gradual scan of her environs revealed the source of the light, a single tallow candle—relatively fresh by the scant few tears—in the furthest corner to her right. The edge of its globe of luminescence revealed a grime-encrusted barred gate, though little else could be seen beyond the cage. She then chanced a glance over her own person. Stripped of her prior leathers and linens, she was now garbed in a simple tan slip of cotton and naught else, though it shared in the quality of her surroundings; now complimented by her own vomit. She didn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere visible, suggesting her wounds had been bound or healed outright, albeit the itching wetness at the back of her head suggested otherwise. Careful twisting of her wrists and a few hard pulls tested the integrity of her bindings: black iron; ever sturdy and reliable. She began to study the bone and stone fragments around her, hoping for shards or slivers that would be serviceable for her needs. After a few moments of searching, however, the echo of footfalls from beyond the gate filled the room, supplemented by undiscernible whispers. The jingling of keys preceded the inevitable scream of rust-caked hinges as the gate slid open, and the vague but unmistakable stature of The Gentleman stepped into view. The chains rattled again with an instinctual tug as she looked unerringly upon the man, his eyes under-rimmed by dark bruises, his septum obviously redefined and bloodied by the blow she had delivered. The very sight brought satisfaction to her, albeit the cheating blighter deserved much worse. Either The Gentleman did not notice the grin, or he brushed it aside as he stepped further into the chamber. Studying the young woman’s current quarterage, he clicked his tongue, shaking his head with disgust. “That you should be made to suffer such gross accommodations… truly a travesty,” he said, pausing to observe the wall to his left, the rugged stone marred by various scrawls. “Perhaps you question the reason for your detainment.” “Perhaps me arse itches from this floor. Might be s’from th’sound o’ye voice.” Sniffing a chuckle, a small grin touched his presently smudged features. “Truly, your charm rivals your beaut—“ “Gonna heave ‘gain.” “Perhaps it is also true that you do not fully appreciate your situation.” With a sigh, he turned his focus back to the enchained girl. “Would that I had the patience and time to allow you opportunity to develop such appreciation. Alas, the claim on your blood is not solely mine own.” At last, some pertinent information. “S’quite a codex, luv.” She flexed her toes, shifting marginally on her seating. “An’ where d’ye settle intae tha’ pool? Mm? Shark ye in cards? Lift ye favourite neckpoof f’ing? Say ye ‘ave a wee prick in fron’ o’ some lass ye were wooin’? Kill ye brov’ah?” Snog ye wife?” The Gentleman was unmoved by the prods up until the last, at which point he bristled, the tension in his gaze and stance visible even in the scant light. “Oooh. Tugged a nerve?” She leaned forward, volume diminishing to a careful whisper, “Ye stem wilted? ‘ad a rough time o’ givin’ ‘er th’headboard-shrieks? Figgah’d she might try new f’ings? ” Her captor’s nostrils flared, his chest swelling. At length, he released the tension in a narrow current through pressed lips, pacing to the side. “You and your contemporaries were once conscripts of the Maelstrom’s Thalassocratic Navy, no? Part and parcel of the Black Sails outfit, yes?” She disliked the term “conscript” when applied to herself and her aforementioned companions. While it was true that their numbers were incorporated into the Maelstrom’s overall maritime and landfall assault agendas, it was the Garleans that forced the integration, not Merlwyb herself. Nor would she ever forget the thanks they received for services rendered. “Th’Garlean invasion encouraged strange bedfellowship fer many,” she finally answered. The Gentleman reversed the direction of his pacing. “You and eleven other specialists from your Sloetide company were dispatched aground at Carteneau, each with a list of names. Operatives, officers, engineers, researchers. You recall, yes?” He paused, looking to her for a reply. Her suspicions now aroused, she looked on in silence. “Your unit was assigned to the latter two,” his pacing resumed, a steadily building urgency in his tone, “Three blades for seven throats. And you found them all, didn’t you?” Without waiting for a response, he reversed direction and continued, “Remember you their names?” “They were big names. Some bled intae othahs. F’ink a girl like me can be bothah’d t’membah ‘Vulpitoadius Wundercunt’ an’ such?” She gave a diffident shrug, barely noting the twinge in her shoulder. “Jes’ extra tinder fer th’pyre.” Metal suddenly flashed in the candlelight as The Gentleman’s sword was freed, its cuspidate tip drawing a bubble of blood from her throat. His glare was nearly as pointed, his breathing disheveled. Qaeli pressed her tender skull to the wall in reaction to the suddenly draw, though she never forsook eye contact. Still, she held a sense of what brought the sudden rush of rage on, and knew enough to temper her tongue for the moment. “Sulpicia Nan Tadius,” his delivery was hollow as it was haunted, all of the charm expelled from his flamboyant veneer. Despite her prior expression of ignorance, she knew the names of those for whom she had been designated executioner. The events of Carteneau had a way of cleaving to one’s memory. However, this name landed astray, though “Nan” suggested an engineer or researcher. “Cannae say as I recall tha’ one,” she shrugged once more. “Adjutant to Revius Nan Manilius,” The Gentleman added, the tip of the blade slowly turning. That name struck true. She recalled Revius; he never managed a word, given the dagger plunged into his heart from beneath the arm. He collapsed on the spot. A plain but panicking brown-haired woman attempted to flee the antechamber and shout alarms to the soldiers, researchers and miners that were busied packing up in the shaft below. She barely got out a note before Qaeli had opened her throat. “Science officah,” she said with a difficult swallow, “Responsible fer Ceruleum excavation an’ synthesis.” Seemingly partially satisfied, the tip of the sword eased from her flesh. “I and others withdrew from the battlefield when Dalamud began to descend. We held no desire to become part of the… pyre, as you named it.” He turned away, his tone becoming thick with reflection, “I sought the cavern that led to the Cereleum excavation site, from whence I intended to extricate my wife and flee the madness.” Suddenly the light of clarity dawned upon this scenario, but Qaeli held her silence. He paused again, his gaze turning to the scrawl-riddled wall. Slowly he walked to the chamber candle, hooking a finger into the ring of the altar before moving back toward the previous spot that had caught his interest earlier. “I arrived at the processing site in time to see my wife running out onto the scaffolding, the terror in her eyes tangible even from so many yalms away. Then a shadow was upon her… opening her throat as though it were a melon. She was dead before I reached her, the shadow gone into the ether.” The candle yet remained apart from the wall, limning the brokenness in The Gentleman’s face as he looked back to his captive, studying her expression. Qaeli held passive airs as she looked on, waiting. “I survived Bahamut’s rampage, relinquished my title and commission under suspicion of death, relegating myself to the company of scoundrels and foolish idealists, and devoted myself to pairing a name and face with that shadow. I established a new name, a new creed, a new network. For these nearly six years I toiled, peeling flesh and soul to unearth what I sought. And unearth I did.” His head tilted slightly, a wistful, pained smile creeping to his lips, “One can imagine the precipitous surprise in learning that my wife and four officers were felled by a silver-haired girl of fifteen.” A shrug lifted in answer, the onset of a smirk building on her dirtied features, scarcely masked by the length of her aforementioned silvery strands. “We were selected wiv propah reasonin’.” “Just so.” “Sae, wha’ now? Ye already said me blood ‘as othah claims. Which mean ye nae goin’ t’off me jes’ yet. Wha’s all this fer?” A wild smile spawned upon the man’s face, and he lifted the candle toward the wall, giving clear sight of the word he had been studying. The sharpness of the angle—given her fettering—made it difficult to decipher the scratchy script, but within minutes she had the truth of it. Justice.

Limsa Lominsa– Fisherman’s Bottom Late Evening Two silhouettes populated the endrun of the port, huddled beneath cowl or tricorne as the rains continued to hammer the port for the third consecutive night. All eyes were turned to a brigantine ship that had been badly damaged, albeit it remained afloat whilst the porthands moored and divested her of unnecessary articles. “Sahagin raid,oi? Wha’s th’damage?” asked Qaeli. “Can see a few ballistae an’ ball breaches fore an’ port,” the silver-haired woman commented as she paced to the side, noting the outwardly obvious inflictions. Her tongue clicked with disapproval at the ruins of the figurehead; once a depiction of a courtly-appareled woman bearing a dagger in one hand and flagon in the other. Only the skirt remained. “Bola snapped Her Ladyship in half, through the bow and through the first stanchion. Would’ve held but for the falconet rolling just above. The footing buckled, taking Bergonier with it,” recounted Voliant, Qaeli’s provisions officer, who happened to be particularly brawny for a Duskwight. The news of Bergonier’s passing had struck harshly. A knifemaster, the Wildwood had been implicit to the young woman’s growth from boisterous waif into lethal bladedoxy. Yet for the sorrow it bore her, it was a pale vesper to the abyss that it would lay upon Bergonier’s wife. Still, she never allowed herself to become moored by loss, and thus kept her mind to the details. “S’o’er a tonne’s half a’ three yalms. But ribbin’ held up, I see. Duskiron beltin’ kept true, aye?” Voliant glanced to the young woman. Even now, nearly seventeen years after her—a mere child at the time—surprise induction into the crew of the Needle, her maritime knowledge was surprising. “Correct, though several bolts and rivets cracked as a result. They’ll need replacing.” “Th’fuck’re scalebacks doin’ wiv such artillery, anyroad?” the silver-haired woman asked without direction, arms folded in her consternation. “Ye said they emerged from th’shoals an’ opened fire?” “Correct. Never seen the like. Seawater should’ve rendered powder useless. Not countin’ the difficulty of moving ‘em in the water. We know now they’re not so primitive, and yet…” “Well, naught fer I’ a’ th’momen’,” said Qaeli as she turned to face the muscled Elezen. “See t’th’repairs. When she’s ready, ferry ‘er t’Moraby fer th’final preparations.” “Of course,” he answered as the comparatively diminutive woman turned to take her leave. A question toward her plans stirred on his tongue, but there it remained. One look at the steely calm of her despairing profile told him all he needed to know. “You needn’t always carry this burden yourself. I could accompany—“ he began. “Sod off,” she said as she started down the gangway, “Nae a lil’ lass anymore. Ye frighten ‘er, anyroad.” She waved a hand dismissively over her shoulder, throwing back her hood in the same motion, suddenly needing the sting of the torrent that hammered the seaboard. “I’ll meet ye in Moraby.” Mist Residential District – Predawn Nearly a bell had passed since Qaeli settled upon the rooftop across from Bergonier’s home; a stone and mahogany-wrought bungalow that he had labored four years to build. Though smaller than its neighbours, it was all the home he and his wife needed—and the ceilings were vaulted to account for his respectable height. She had been so proud of him for etching a worthy livelihood in the wake of the company’s disbanding after Carteneau. She had watched the column of smoke rousing from the chimney top dwindle into a thin thread. Comprised of checkered black and sandy brick, it was the centrepiece of Bergonier’s home. For years, he had obsessed over having a fireplace and chimney, like a ‘proper gent’. Beyond the array of houses and manses alike, the first splinters of the morning began to thread the sky. Soon Nischa would wake, and be off for the smithy. By the time her feet hit the well-kempt grass that waited beneath her two-story-high perch, her stomach was churning with unmitigated nausea. The young woman had never been a proponent of love beyond the familial, regarding it as illusory and fickle. Nischa was the advocate that gave pause to such a stance. Through many nights of binge-drinking, infidelity and memory-induced panic she had stayed at Bergonier’s side, wholly devoted without thought to condition. And now she was going to learn that her great love was gone. Forever. Qaeli had earned many monikers in her short years, many unsavory and unflattering, but ‘coward’ rarely visited her reputation; yet as she began to cross the cobbled street, reticence struck her to a halt. A sleeve of dryness coated her tongue and throat, though she felt they would soon be revisited by eft steak and greens. She leaned forward, bracing her palms upon her thighs for balance, preparing for the inevitable. “Miss? Are you unwell?” came a man’s voice as silky as her favourite pair of skivvies. Fists formed against her thighs as the acrid impulse dissipated, and she straightened her posture as she turned to face the host of that smooth tone. Ten paces away stood a man dressed in finery fit for a sultana’s gala: decidedly froofy-ruffled poof-neck-thing, cufflinks, slicked black hair and finely trimmed beard, manifold-buckled boots and all. Though of greatest interest was the ornamented handguard of the extremely thin sword he carried; not unlike a sabre, but still half the girth of blade, straight as a needle. “Might ask th’same o’ye,” she said with a long draw of breath, stabilising her insides, “Lookin’ like a choco’ struck by lightnin’. Or a rainbow.” The man was unmoved by the dry insult beyond a bare smirk. “Forgive my presumption, m’lady. It simply pains me to witness such a lovely woman in the throes of tra—“ “F’ink I’ma propah heave now,” she interjected, her attendance to this man’s flowery prose already spent. “I be fine, luv. There’s a’ leas’ two pillowhouses in th’distric’, tha’ way,” she continued with a glance and jab of her finger down the road. She stilled then, noting a pair of silhouettes approaching, and at least one person courting the roof of Nischa’s neighbour’s house. Lips pursed sideward, she exhaled through her nostrils and turned a look back to the yet smirking, stately gentleman. “Miss Varily, I fear your meeting with the Widow Cintaux must needs wait. I formally and humbly request that you follow me. Calmly, if it please you.” By now the silhouettes had come into focus, two Elezen men, one bearing a gladius, the other a steel-studded club lowered to the side, but clearly presented. The one on the roof was gone from view. “Righ’ informed ye be, fresh as tha’ news be.” A scoff bubbled from the young woman’s lips while a hand raked through her damp mane, tucking what she could behind her ears. “’ow ‘bout this,” she began again, looking left to right, “Ye sod off an’ ne’er come near this ‘ouse ‘gain, an’ I’ll nae feed ye yer froofypoof neck f’ing.” A vague hand gesture about her neck suggested the man’s ascot. “Unsurprising,” he said with sighing resignation. “Very well. Superfluous violence it is, then. Gentlemen?” From above, a click sounded, follow by a shrill whistle. Knowing full well what it meant, Qaeli tucked into a crouch in time for a crossbow’s bolt to fly past her shoulder, ricocheting harmlessly off of the cobblestones. Steel and limbs followed promptly afterward as the pair of Elezen came at her from opposed angles, swinging and kicking at her crouched form. The sole of the first boot was intercepted by the punch of a throwing blade produced from beneath the girl’s sleeve, the top-leather of his boot raising from the knife’s tip. With her other hand she snatched his ankle before he reeled out of reach, and with a sweep of her leg to turn her weight, she jerked his leg into the path of the gladius’ downward chop. She felt the metal sever bone at the shin as blood splashed her temple. Abandoning her grip on the ankle, she took advantage of the swordsman’s surprise by delivering a snapping uppercut square between his legs. He slumped just enough to bring his collar within reach, which she gripped in time to jerk his body into the path of the next bolt meant for her skull. The dull thump of metal tip to flesh followed by gurgling gasp ended his threat. Shoving him off, she rolled toward the now nearly one-legged Elezen, ripping free the gladius—and sending up a spurting geyser of blood—as she sprang to her feet in a full dash for cover. The Gentleman looked on silently, looking yet devoid of surprise. Even so, her speed! “I have heard tales of your prowess, Miss Varily,” he said as he watched the sniper search below for the girl. “The Silver Siren, fast and strong as the crushing tide.” Several seconds passed as he watched the crossbowman scanning the alleys and yards below. Then steel flashed from over his shoulder, and the crossbow fell from his grip, clattering to the ground below. Dark particles sprayed into the dawning sky, and he fell heavily to the ground below, leaving Qaeli’s silhouette in his place. “Now ye’ll become part o’one o’those tales.” She leapt down from her victory perch, parts of her slick and sheening with the blood of her attackers as she stepped back onto the street. “I fear my story does not end here, Miss Varily.” Releasing a briefly-held breath, the last man standing gave each of his white gloves a tightening tug before he slowly drew his sword free of its scabbard, and assumed a curious one-handed stance; one leg tipped forward, the rear leg bent, sword pointed straight ahead, free hand raised in the air behind him. For a moment, the young woman gawked. His stance was as flowery as the rest of him, and too loose, besides. Yet there was a steel in his gaze that she knew very well. Shrugging, she absently wiped at the blood on her cheek, the slowly trickling fluid beginning to tickle her skin. Without another word she rushed forward, angling low in preparation to dip past the length of that sword. Yet no sooner had she come into range, he danced back in tandem with a waving jab from his blade, forcing her to halt her pursuit in time to snap back and knock the stab aside with the much shorter gladius. His smirk returned, his pose unchanged, the Gentleman waited. She came forward again, this time sweeping aside to circumvent the obvious lateral stopping power of his weapon. Again he danced back with whiplash speed, a flurry of motion from his sword preceding two rapid jabs for her shoulder and abdomen. Dipping below the first, she managed to slap the second to the side with a downward parry. It did not afford her the opening she had hoped, however, as the marginal weight of the sword allowed him to rebound the blade into a quick, downward cut that bit into her shoulder, breaking her focus long enough to regain his distance. Wincing, she shrugged at the pain, which would soon spread like fire through her shoulder. This time it was she who waited, though not for long. He came forward with a blindingly swift lunge, though he kept his feet light, proven by the rapid and graceful footwork that followed her parry. Each attack came with surgical precision, forcing the young woman into a backpedal as she fought to keep up with her weightier, shorter weapon. Another two jabs broke through her defenses, one glancing off her side, the other punching into her sword arm. Bleeding and running low on breath, it suddenly occurred to Qaeli that she was going about this the wrong way. Continuing on her backward trend, she took a short leap back to widen the gap. As hoped, he lunged forward to recover the distance. Then she countered. With minimal motion she skirted to the side of the forward lunge while stepping forward, snapping a vise grip onto his wrist, pulling it with her as she committed to a quick spin, stopping the Gentleman’s onslaught with a crushing elbow to the face. He fell to the ground straightway, eyes wide with surprise. Qaeli peeled the sword from his grip, taking a moment to examine it before she brought the tip to the man’s throat. Drawing in much-needed breath, as much as it now pained her, the tip pressed ever-so-gently to his adam’s apple. “Wha’s all this ‘bout?” she asked, her voice husky with anger and burning pain. With a slow blink, the Gentleman looked up to the girl. For several seconds he stared, marveling at the strength of that blow she delivered. “That is a tale for another time,” he said as his left hand twitched. Qaeli, having had her fill of this lot, was prepared to open a hole in the man’s throat, but found herself unable to move. Or rather, she was moving with a slug’s sense of urgency. Her enemy seemed unaffected, carefully sliding out from beneath the blade before standing up to clasp the dust from his no-longer-pristine attire. She tried, willed herself to move faster, to cut him down where he stood, to no avail. Time had slowed to a crawl for her alone. She could only watch as the sword was pried from her hand, gripped tight in the Gentleman’s, and suddenly disappeared somewhere behind her. An exploding pain rocked the back of her skull, turning the world to white, then to absolute black as unconsciousness embraced her.

Thank you three for your comments. I truly appreciate the feedback. A'nzil, I'm glad the emotional impact was there. Having a sister I've not seen in a few years myself, I got a bit bleary-eyed writing that final part.

[align=justify][ This is a piece I've been working on for about a week, originally intended to be a (relatively) short explanation of an in-character hiatus. What follows is something that turned into much more. For those who manage to soldier through the length, I appreciate it. [/align] Thank you also to my girlfriend for helping me in the editing process. [align=justify]Also, I know that there are words that run together that shouldn't. I've fussed with it several times, only to find new words mashed together that weren't before after correcting the ones I found. No idea what's causing such a formatting issue. ] [/align] [align=justify]Death littered the valley. Laden with seemingly bottomless drifts and ringed by crystals with the murk of blood and rust, the Boulder Downs was already an ominous sight. With fresh smatterings of blood and the slumped bodies of felled giants, dravans and more, it was a pall to the foolish and curious a like, thoroughly avoided by all. [/align] Yet she could not be deterred. Inquiries of Whitebrim’s indigenous had born fruit (with some warranted pressing), firsthand accounting of not only visual contact, but dealings with the serpent Orastos.Traitor. Craven. Nary a night passed without a candle lit (or at least a prayer lifted) for hope of his delivery into her hands. Two years she had lost, remanded to the tender hospices of the Syndicate, relegated to spread her thighs for the first and spill her blood (and that of others) for amusement and profit for another; motivation enough to hunt any man. However, the truest catalyst for this foolishundertaking laid not with the man, but what—or who—accompanied him. Spectre. Buried. Gone. Sister. Five years had gone by since Pieta had passed from this world, her last breath guttering out with a feeble cough as the pox claimed her. She had kissed her cheek, tastedthe salt of the tears that had waited for the beloved girl’s passing. She had seen her into the earth, banners and trumpets regaling in mourning before they turned to spew inspiration to the march for Carteneau. Pieta, the consummate soldier, elder sister to the ever-whimsical, foolish waif of a pirate Qaeli, had returned to the earth she loved so dearly. Yet it was her face—Qaeli’s face, for love of their great likeness, separated only by three years—that accompanied that of Orastos on Thaliak’s Yawn departing Costa del Sol; the imprinted crystal had screamed the haunting truth. Robed in blacks—fresh and sombre of face—stood Pieta. The sight and the telling screamed of a trap, some foul snare laid with purpose to draw the dead girl’s younger sister out. But when it came to Pieta, no trap, no calamity, no suffering could dissuade her. In her short years, she had neither loved or been loved by any other than her sister. Even in death, it was an heartoath she could not ignore. Death littered the valley. “Are ye certain o’ this, lass?” asked Gharen Wolfsong, purging his sword and spear of giants’ blood with a patch of ease that sprouted from amidst the carnage. Despite appearances of trepidation in his asking, his pace did not slack; a wolf knew no fear, after all. Mere paces ahead, Qaeli led the way to blackheart cavern that waited at the pity of the valley, treating her bloodied longsword to the same; and like the stalwart Highlander behind her she kept the blade drawn. Though the cavern seemed large enough for five Hyur shoulder-to-shoulder, the tribute corridors would likely prove narrow if the tales breathed truth; her bow would render no aid here, nor Gharen’s spear. "Nae certain o'anyf'in'... but she's m'blood. I 'ave t'try," she answered as she stepped over the mangled upper half of one that had gottentoo close to some giant’s grip. It was black as pitch, threatening to strangle the few spots of mounted torchlight that dappled the distant recesses. A bluster from theoutside world screamed like a murder of crows, whipping their cloaks about in a frenzy. Despite the perpetuity of winter and the lack of fires, it was warm inside. The chocobo that had been ‘gifted’ by the young crusader Qaeli had known in her growing years shied away, a lamentous ‘kweh’ sounding the balk at the idea of entry. Gharen relieved the disheartened avian of their meager burdens: simple travel packs lashed together. Whilst he saw to stashing their effects, Qaeli gave the chocobo’s beak a ginger pat and rub. “Off wiv ye. An’ try nae t’get et, aye?” With a last ‘kweh’,the creature dipped its plumed head, whirled about and set off at a gallop back for its master. The remaining pair made way into the cave single-file with Qaeli leading, torch in hand. They had walked for nearly a bell down the strangely warm, yet lifeless winding of the corridor before they came upon a fork in the path. “Bloody… which w—“ Gharen began to ask before she plunged into the left option, scarcely losing a step. The path wound a steadily downward curve, steadily diminishing from broad path to restrictive wynd. Soon they were forced into a sidle, which proved troublesome for the well-armoured male, less so for the slender woman clad in leathers, who slid through the constricting path with ease. “Should nae ‘ad tha’ second bowl o’porridge,” the girl chided upon hearing the oppressed grunts of her companion. Another grunt rose in answer. She smiled. After several yalms the path curved to the left, emptying into a harrowing cavaedium, to which there appeared no end to depth, latitude or height. Even with the generous lumination provided by torch, the scorch-pocked walls stretched into darkness, andthe narrow avenue they now stood upon was rimmed by sudden drops. “Keep ye feet,” she whispered into a prolonged echo. The path ahead—a series of wooden bridges linking plateaued pillars that reached up from the endless abyss—continued straightway, yawning into untold distance; and though crude, the ash-wrought links to each plateau were sturdy. The harsh scrawling upon each stone landing suggested the likelihood of kobold engineers, echoed by Gharen’s quiet musings. Just as she set foot on the sixth landing, the first wisp manifested. Meager and of a quaint blue flicker, the diminutive spirit bobbed a few yalms ahead, matching the Hyurs’ pace perfectly. One bridge, two bridges, three they crossed before the next spirit materialized. Then another. And another. Soon the greater magnitude of the chamber was alight in an otherworldly conflagration. Legion voices began to whisper all at once, combining into a maddening susurrus that echoed off stone and mind. Still they pressed onward at Qaeli’s behest, brooking no cause for stops despite never having been witness to such a congregation of the disembodied. At first the muddled collective yielded nothing intelligible, seeming to speak myriad tongues, until the dreary onslaught coalesced into a singular utterance. “Qaeli.” She stopped. Her flesh prickled with a sudden chill, her breath showing in misty puffs. “…ye heard tha’, righ’?” she said with an incomplete turn of cheek back to Gharen, whose sword had given way to spear. “Aye.” Their steel flashed with mercurial blue against the bloom of such ambiance, though each wielder sensed the futility of such brandishings. “Wha’ can I dae fer ye..?” she asked impotently, doing her best to keep aware without herself raising awares. After a cumbersome silence, the mass crowd of voices slurred into response, “…Qaeli,” though this time, the union of tunes congealed into the likes of a woman’s voice; one she knew exceedingly well. The fibres at the nape of her neck stood to end, and something within the pit of her stomach roiled. Her sister was here; or at least, nearby. “Bonny trick,” she muttered before she started forward again. The ethereal swarm moved apace once more, seeming to move the world around them. “Sweetling,” they said in a ghostly guise of Pieta’s affection, that singular word constricting like brambles around her heart. “…fuck you,” she whispered, her breath shaken and chilled,her sword-arm tensing. It was Gharen that lowered his weapon first, silently studying the otherworldly court they had found themselves amongst. “Lass,” he said, a leather-bound palm finding her shoulder,“Maybe they nae mean tae torment, but help.” Doubt lingered like a sodden fog over the young woman. Yet she breathed out a concession, sheathing the longsword before she spread both arms out. The torch swept through the nearest of the wisps, which but dispersed and rekindled upon her gloved hand; flame though it appeared, it was cold she felt seep through the leather. “Ifn’ ye know where she be,” she started, lashes drifting over her lit blue eyes, wherein she saw the face of the woman that had been the sole bearer of her trust, keeper of her faith, “Show me.” Her eyes opened to find the choir of spirits silenced and gone, leaving them to the solitary comfort of the torch she held. “Oh, aye, Gharen.Verra ‘elpful,” she seethed with chilly bitterness before starting forward again. Then in the distance, some degrees to the right, a sole wisp emerged once more. Qaeli and Gharen shared a glance before their pace quickened. Soon they discovered that the singular path branched into many, suddenly spreading into a web of haphazardly-arranged bridges. This time she took a moment to study what laid before her, noting that some of the connections were either rotted through or damaged to questionable degrees. After plotting out her course she began again, carving as clear a path toward that beckoning light as she dared. Only one choice turned to hazard, with rope and timber snapping and cracking beneath the Highlander’s weight. The man had the reflexes of a coeurl, however, and quickly sprung clear of his danger. When they reached the awaiting remnant, the light it cast gave proof to another steeply-inclined corridor just beyond it. From its depths arose a scent exceedingly sweet, enough to force Qaeli’s nose to wrinkle and win a grimace from her companion. “Oi… Azeyma pass a blustah down there or summin’?” she sneered before starting down the tunnel. For a breath, she paused to glance back for the wisp that showed the way, but it had vanished altogether, and with it the chill that had spread so sudden and complete. The descent was as long as the trek to the first fork they had encountered, though here there were signs of life, albeit recently expired; vermin and reptiles, even a particularly albino scalekin with blind eyes and a razor maw among them. They all appeared to have simply lain down to sleep, but their absolute stillness conveyed the truth. Their flesh gave off a waft of steam, yet there were no signs of deliquescence. “Since when did a corpse smell o’ roses?” Gharen asked as hepassed by the albino. “Since when did dead girls start travelin’ wiv quislings?” None of this held contract with what made sense. “There’s ligh’ ahead,” she cautioned before dipping the crown of the torch into a puddle of mossy water. It occurred to her that she had begun to hear the trickle of water somewhere in the distance. [align=justify]The darkness did not last long, for the light she spoke of grew brighter by the yalm. The path turned right, and opened into another large cavern. Here the sound of waters was prevalent, its presence resulting in stalactites and stalagmites that heavily populated the space. [/align] Toward the centre of the chamber, a hot spring sat, drinking in what appeared curiously liken to lunar light; yet to be so far below, such seemed implausible. To the right and out of view, voices could be heard, hushed though they were. Qaeli drew her bow forward, quietly nocking a black-lacquered arrow of serrated tip while Gharen held his spear low. With a nod they took a hunched run, steps soft as down as they claimed a better vantage in the shadows, behind a deposit of stalagmites. They didn’t dare to breathe. Slow and careful, they rose from their hunched postures to peer through the valleys between the spikes that shielded them, though what Qaeli saw sent another chill straight to the bone, threatening to choke a gasp from her suddenly crowded lungs. Atop a roughly hewn climb of steps, bathed in torchlight, stood Orastos, fair of hair and face and ever so lean, another towering man she knew not, and a third. Twelve save me. Pieta. Her cloak puddled at her feet, Pieta was dressed in dusky leathers that covered all but her arms; those arms, once so strong in betrayal of her slim build, now sleeved in strange tattoos. Her cheeks and brow were given to the same. They stood around a dais that seated a tome, weathered and cracked by time and disuse. The air around it was curious, not unlike the scintillation that wavered above stone and steel when burdened heavily by the sun. The two men were locked in discussion while Pieta stood quiet, her right hand resting atop the pommel of her axe—another revenant of the past—the blade as keen and polished as they day it had been put to rest with its wielder. The flat of the steel sported a beveled ring, which housed a swan in flight—the sigil of their legacy. This was all wrong. So wrong. How could she be standing there, as proud and able as she had been before the sickness took her to bed? Why was she standing with Orastos, her lover in life and betrayer in death? How? Why? When? Qaeli’s teeth ground together as her disbelief swelled. Gharen must have seen it, for his hand found her arm with an iron grip. It was enough. With a glance above, she nodded to her companion. A single tear scorched a path down the younger sister’s cheek, and almost as if she heard or smelled it, Pieta turned her eyes in their direction. They had been like that when they were together, an artifact commonly associated with twinborn, yet so relevant to them despite their distance in years. Qaeli had felt it earlier in their descent. The two men did not miss the sudden shift in interest, turning attentions in the same heading. “Have we company at last?” the betrayer asked, the vestige of a smile creeping to fruition. The mountain of a man, hooded and dressed in furs, drew a savage-looking kris, laying his palm over the tome before him; the wavering air seemed to wind about his hand in response. Though they were yet shrouded, Qaeli herself to be exposed. “How’d ye dae i’, Ors? Five years she’s gone. An’ there she stands. Or somef’in’ in ‘er skin.” Orastos smiled that crooked smile of his, the one Pieta had loved so much. “Do you not agree that love transcends death?” he asked as he reached aside to lay his hand upon Pieta’s cheek in a lover’s caress. She did not shy away, though she did not bend to the touch, either. No, those green eyes remained fixed upon the sister that lurked in the shade. The other man began to mutter something, a chant perhaps. “Pieta,” Qaeli said after forcing down the impulse to scream. “D’ye know who I am? D’ye know where ye are?” The answer came almost instantly, “Of course I remember you.I am where I am meant to be, sweetling.” Pieta’s grip took to her axe, and she brought it a readied pose before her. The words were damning, a knife to the bowels. “Fer th’loveye bore me wiv tha’ name, ask ye’self… D’ye e’en know ‘ow ye be ‘ere?! Ye be pointin’ tha’ axe a’ ye own sistah!” She jolted to her feet, whirling to train that arrow between the eyes of the man next to the geist of her sister. Orastos gave the answer, gesturing to the man behind him.“Good Fulcrest saw to the deed,” he began, taking a step forward and down; Qaeli’s arrow followed appropriately. “Quite astonishing, isn’t it? Ripped straight from the heavens themselves.” “Fer wha’ purpose?” “I missed her.” “Fuck you.” “I fear she would disapprove.” “Answer th’question.” “The reason would offer you no comfort or closure, sadly. But know that her purpose is an important one.” “An’ the ink?” “We needed a conduit, yes? Something to mediate between this world and what lies beyond. Spirits are fickle things, after all.” He glanced back to Pieta, his smile gaining by the moment. “You surprise me, Qaeli. Are you not happy to see your sister?” “Dae she look ‘appy t’see me?” she responded, the cord creaking as she tightened the draw on the bow. Orastos sighed with an amused edge of defeat, “I fear our sweet Pieta doesn’t appear happy for much these days. I confess it would warm the heart to hear her laugh again.” Qaeli spit to the side, “I would ‘ear me sistah laugh ‘gain,as well, but eithah in memory or th’halls o’whate’er gods will ‘ave us. Nae this… jape. This hollow impersonation.” “I assure you, she is as genuine as you could hope. Truly, I wish the two—“ A sharp whistle pierced the air as the arrow was loosed from its taut hold, soaring true for the target she had set the moment it was raised. However, metal chimed against metal as the steel swan of Pieta’s axe intercepted the killshot, sending the weighted arrow clattering down the steps. As the blade moved away, Orastos’ smile remained. Delicately he brushed a few of Pieta’s silver fringe from her face. “I’ve always loved that about her. As strong as she is beautiful. But, one should digress, for it seems the hour of tongues is past,” he lamented, metal keening in a different tone as two hooked blades sprung from each of his sleeves. “Jes’ one more question, afore I part ye heart from ye ches’.” “I am sure your sister would insist that I grant you thatmuch at least.” “’ave ye met me friend Gharen?” Like a bolt of black lightning, the Highlander crashed down from the darkness above, driving his spear down for Orastos’ head. At the last, both he and the woman beside him sprung away, though one of the hooking barbs of the spear caught the former at the shoulder, tearing a jagged strip down his collar in his escape. Another arrow screamed through the air, heading for the traitor’s throat, but where the tip should have pierced his neck, his hand took the impact. Gharen gave a ‘tsk’ before vaulting from his precarious station, taking his stance beside Qaeli—whose blade was now drawn—at the foot of the steps. Orastos breathed doggedly, that smile wiped clean from his face as he stared at the barbed tri-point arrowhead that had punched through his hand. Brazenly (and perhaps foolishly), he ripped the arrow from his hand with an agonised scream. At the crest of the steps, Fulcrest continued to blather in a foreign tongue, the otherworldly haze about the snaking up his arm like ghostly, boneless fingers. [align=justify]Pieta, initially seeming perplexed by the blows Orastos took, leapt from her vantage, employing an impossible celerity that brought her down upon Qaeli with a crash, though both she and Gharen danced away in time to avoid collision. She was on her little sister immediately, however, the heaving strokes from the axe hammering her into a defensive system of parrying and dodging. [/align] Gharen looked on briefly, torn between the impulse to protect the young woman he had come to known as friend and equal, and honour the pact set between them: When this moment came, if it came, he would leave the sisters to sort out their own business. Honour won the moment, and he turned his spear upon the two men, specifically Fulcrest. Though he had no inkling of what was being done, he reckoned it devoid of benefit. However, that instant of reticence proved too long, for Fulcrest let out a baritone, almost draconic roar before the hand that laid entrenched in the aetherial curiosity suddenly snapped up to seize the pained Orastos by the throat. Like one caught in a fierce electrical current, the wounded man froze, pupils wide and mouth gaping as the spines of inexplicable matter slithered into it. As the prayer ended, the convulsions began, violent and sporadic. Spittle and foam began to pour from Orastos’ orifices, even his freshly opened hand and shoulder while that same sweet aroma permeated the air. Then as soon as they began, he froze once more as that serpentine blade slipped into his stomach as though it were a sodden burlap bag; instead of blood, however, what appeared to be ash rained down from his opened abdomen, pouring endlessly until the man’s body hung limp and ragged in Fulcrest’s hand. The sudden shower upon the stairs caught the attention of the dueling sisters, who appeared quite shocked by what had transpired whilst they fought. [align=justify]“Rastos!” cried Pieta, breaking off from her fight in time to witness her one-time lover’s rags flung to the pool at the centre of the chamber, dried and ghostly essence streaming in the wake. [/align] For what came next, none save Fulcrest were prepared. In the instant the emptied corpse touched the water, a great maw burst from the depths, consuming Orastos and sending a shower of water and algae about the chamber. A deafening roar filled the environs, causing the calcified spikes to tremble, chip and snap free, raining down upon all. Qaeli snatched her sister by her collar, wrenching her toward the entrance of the cave with all the haste and strength she bore, whilst Gharen nimbly leapt to the safety of the hollow they had taken refuge behind earlier. Only Fulcrest remained rooted and altogether undisturbed. As the deluge of stone and water subsided, the full evidence of the cause became clear: slowly climbing from the pool, mutated and grotesque with flesh sloughing from skull and hide alike, was something akin to a wyvern co-populating the frame of a voidsent. Like a hydra it stood upon four hulking legs, with a tail lined of blade and spike, its emaciated torso pulsating with plainly divulged ribs as it breathed rapidly, leeching oxygen from the chamber. Where the wings of a wyvern might have been in place of arms, frames of bone and what appeared to be steel remained, devoid of canvas to fill for flight. Given how sharp and finely honed each tine appeared, however, what it lacked for in flight it made up for bountifully in fight (leastwise in appearance). The scent of roses no longer filled the senses, but rather that of rotted death, flush with gut-wrenching prevalence of bilious putrefaction. Though the creature seemed in its death throes and blind, it stretched at least five yalms, and where there was flesh, it rippled with muscle and scales of onyx. Languidly its head moved as if surveying the room, nostrils flaring and compressing with sulfuric puffs as it took in its surroundings. A fresh slop of flesh slid from its jaw, landing with a sizzling plop at Gharen’s feet, motivating theman to backpedal ever so slowly. “…dinnae f’ink this were wha’ they meant wiv ‘dravanian burial ground’,” Qaeli said. “Impressive, is it not?” spoke Fulcrest at last as he clapped the tome shut and descended the steps, his tone rich with an accent neither Qaeli or Gharen recognised. “You are witness to the supreme evolution of magicks the infants of Arrzaneth and Padjal could never hope to achieve.” A thick hand gestured upturned toward the yet docile horror. “Rent from the void, amalgamated to a disassociated host, given the spark of life through Umbral affectation,” his gaze then turned to Pieta, a smile transmitting through the thick of his sable beard, “Tempered by runic arcanima, the very same that keeps you bound to this world.” Qaeli looked from the mage to the beast, then to her sister, plainly confused. Gharen seemed to fare little better. It was Pieta that seemed to connect the verbose pieces, looking down to her arms. “… This is why I am here… to funnel control for this monstrosity?” As the truth dawned upon the younger sister, silver fury flashed within her gaze, which turned hard upon the warlock. Before she managed to give voice to the eloquent promises of skull-fucking that roiled on the tip of her tongue, Fulcrest lifted a staying hand. It was then that Gharen and Qaeli realized they could not move, trapped in a paralytic glamour. “You would know why. The simplicity of the truth is rather embarrassing. To magnify the connection, beast and median must be derived from similar origin. Were one full of life—such as myself—to inscribe the runes upon their person and attempt communion with the void, his livelihood would be sapped within moments.” “So ye toy with the dead tae save ye’self?” Gharen glowered with indignation, leather creaking as he gripped his bloodied spear tighter, yet still it could not be raised. “You would have my work go to grass for sake of sparing one forgotten soul the travail of crossing the Umbra to Hydaelyn?” “Why her,” Qaeli’s nostrils flared, but she found she could achieve little else, “Thousands o’ripe bodies put t’the earth e’ery day. Why her?” “Experimentation,” Fulcrest replied, his expression quizzical, “How many possess the arts to not only draw a soul back to its body, but restore flesh dissolved by time; to reconnect nerve, tendon, muscle and bone to such exacting perfection that the subject is as whole as she was in life? None. I deserve your gratitude.” “I be full tired o’ pricks like ye’self impressin’ ‘pon me wha’ they f’ink be owed. I’ve ‘ad ‘nough o’ye gnatterin’. Rathah be dead.” Fulcrest seemed at once disappointed and amused. “A pity, to possess such vigor, and be so prepared to thrust it aside. Very well. I would not deny a grieving sister her parting wish.” With barely a glance to the beast that had been listing obediently for the duration, the monster let out a keening growl that turned into a soul-piercing screech. Its rib cage expanded and contracted rapidly once more as its meatless wings flexed wide. With flesh yet sliding from its ruined body, it came at them. Death came for every warrior, and for Qaeli and Gharen, who had witnessed and dealt their share, there was little to fear. And yet, the idea of being savaged by this blasphemy, unable to lift arms in even attempt to defend themselves was a disgrace of the highest magnitude. Nevertheless, they were ready. Pieta, however, was not. She leapt forward, placing herself between her sister and the animated mutation. [align=justify]The gesture seemed to delight Fulcrest, though his words were lost amongst the thundering of the undead hybrid’s stampede. [/align] “Pieta, don’t. Please!Run!” Qaeli screamed in futility at the back of her sister’s head, unable to move, unable to assist, unable to do as she pleaded, even. Fast as her sister seemed to be (much faster than she remembered), the thing she faced was death embodied. Pieta had always known her limits, and this foe was far beyond them. Qaeli could but watch as her sister spared her a momentary glance; and for the first time in over five years, she was graced by her smile. So why did she feel like her heart was about to be ripped from her chest (and not by the slavering void mutant)? The answer came in the flash of Pieta’s axe plummeting down upon her left arm. Anyone else and the keen blade would have been halted by either bone or fear; it was not so with her, severing the limb just beneath the elbow and sending a jet of black fluid into the air. She made no sound. The thing from the pit, however, suddenly lurched back with what seemed an agonised scream. Though it sported no fresh wound, its body began to convulse as it began to thrash wildly, a tine from a nonexistent wing snapping free. Surprise flashed over Fulcrest as the stray javelin nearly reached his chest before it dissolved into a line of ash. Effortless as it appeared, it proved distraction enough, as his glamour shattered, freeing Qaeli to pull a collapsed Pieta from the rampaging horror, and Gharen to set upon Fulcrest with all of the fury characteristic to a dragoon of his calibre. The chamber shook as the beast flailed, stalactites crashing down upon its rapidly dismantling body as it plummeted into the waters from whence it emerged, sending another mighty rush of tainted waters around it. Gharen’s spear slammed and deflected from nothingness again and again as Fulcrest backpedaled up the steps, ultimately reaching the dais where the tome remained. Smiling glibly at his assailant, the warlock reached a blind hand for the book, only to find a scorching reception from an angry red wisp. He yelled in pain, snatching his seared hand back in time to find a spear-point through his flank. A grunt bubbled from his throat before a burst of flaming force slammed into Gharen, launching him spear and wielder down the steps. Yet composed, Fulcrest turned his focus upon the book he coveted, only to find that it was wreathed by a dozen of the irate spirits. With a spat curse, an umbral mirror opened behind him, into which he disappeared before it collapsed upon itself in a plume of shadowed smoke. Meanwhile, in the same hollow that Gharen had taken refuge within before, Qaeli cradled Pieta in her arms, stroking her silverine hair. Her body had already begun to wither, the binding effect of the array etched into her body broken with the severing of her arm. Though they burned beneath her lashes, the younger sibling brooked no tears, just as Pieta had commanded in her waning days on that bed so many years ago. “Ye damned fool,” she whispered, “’ow did ye e’en know tha’would work?” Pieta gave a ghost of a smile, her eyes lapsing now and again. “I didn’t. Somehow… seemed preferable to you being eaten, though.” Qaeli wet her lips before pressing them to her sister’s crown, holding her dwindling form against her as tight as she dared. “I have… seen things, known them, since I was brought back,”Pieta continued in a voice as hushed as a clandestine lover’s, “I knew what I was. I knew how wrong… wrong it was for me to be here again.” Her remaining hand clutched at the fur that lined Qaeli’s cloak. “I knew you would find me. I just couldn’t…” She coughed, a dribble of that bleak fluid emerging through the rictus of her smile. “I couldn’t say ‘no’. I was weak. My words… my hands were my own, and then they weren’t. I’m s-sorry, Qaeli.” “Nae… I be sorrae. I doubted who ye were. I dinnae f’ink ye could be real.” “I’m not,” Pieta said with a hoarse laugh, “Just a spectre.” By now, Gharen had recovered from the blow he took, though it had left an ugly pock upon his breastplate. “Lass,” he said softly while taking a crouch beside the two sisters, “Ye should see this.” He gestured toward the top of the steps, where the ring of furies had bloomed into another cloud of the blue wisps the duo had encountered earlier. By the second more appeared, flooding the taint-scarred room like a flowering shower of mystic fireworks. Their voices were joined in harmonious lilt, albeit their tongue was again foreign to ears of the travelers. “…they were with me,” Pieta said, her paling face now alight with the gentle radiance given by the wisps. “They couldn’t intervene... but I… they told me you were here.” Qaeli stared in wonder at the dense system of lights before them. “But why?” she found herself asking. “A gift,” Pieta said, “The book… bring me the book.” Gharen brought it without hesitation, and it proved a point of focus for the wisps, which followed as though it were their anchor. Carefully he propped it before Pieta, who turned a languid smile up to him. “He looks sadder than you, sister, and he doesn’t even know me.” The grizzled fighter offered a strained smile, while Qaeli chuckled. “’e’s a good man. Jes’ haunted, like mos’ o’ us.” Pieta’s green eyes remained fixed to Gharen’s face for several long moments. “May you find peace, ser… Thank you, for helping my f… foolish sister.” “How could I refuse,” Gharen half-stated, “Family… wha’s more important?” The sisters looked to each other once more before Pieta turned her eyes to the book. She released Qaeli’s cloak to reach for the book, steadily flipping page after page. “Fulcrest’s magicks… what he did… is in a stage of infancy. There is… more that he can do with the proper knowledge. The median can… can be impervious to abeyance or destruction. Experiment, as he said…” Her hand stopped upon a page comprised of arcane shapes and texts that meant nothing to Qaeli or Gharen, but Pieta stared at them intently while the song of the wisps filled the silence, until at length she reached for her little sister’s hand. When their hands joined, Qaeli’s world suddenly went to white. Weightless, she looked about and found nothing. She opened her mouth to cry out, but neither sound or heat of breath passed her lips. There was nothing here. Except a distant sound. A faint whisper, at first, like crystal chimes singing in the wind. Steadily it grew louder, or closer, she could not distinguish the difference. A blue light flickered somewhere in the distance, trailing fast like a shooting star. Another streamed beside it, then another, and another. Now a row of untold numbers lit up the whitescape, the singing growing louder with each streamer that appeared. The lights fanned out in myriad directions, rapidly forming seemingly errant shapes. The song was now all around her; voices of children, men,women, beast and alike, a booming chorus that may as well have been the whole of the world. The lights converged and spread into their vectors, until they erupted in a flash that was somehow more blinding than this space that surrounded her. Her eyes closed to shield herself from the radiance, but like blinking into the sun, it left the briefest imprint upon the backs of her lids: a diamond, or a crystal? Suddenly Qaeli was back in the blue-lit cave once more, her sister’s cold hand clutched to hers, and Gharen’s confused eyes upon her. She realised she was sweating with profusion. “Do you see?” Pieta practically breathed out, smiling with that common tenderness she had wielded with as much aplomb as her axe. “I…” Qaeli was crying now, her breathing coming with difficulty. Still, somehow, she smiled in return, nodding. “I see. I see, sistah.” “That’s good,” she whispered, her eyes turning ponderously to Gharen. “She… was always quick to see what she… what she wanted. Could turn a blindman’s eye to anything she didn’t.” Qaeli laughed, a musical note fraught with sorrow, joy, and many other distinctions she could maybe never understand. “She got tae see ‘er sister ‘gain,” Gharen said, bringing the book to a close. “But not how she wanted,” said Pieta, blinking back up to her weeping sister. “Sweetling,” her hand moved free of their grip in order to touch upon those tears. “You have grown so much, endured even more. Father would be proud.” Ginger was the touch that cupped Pieta’s hand, which had gone grey as a crone’s. Even so, she pressed repeated kisses to that leathery palm before bringing it to her cheek again. “An’ ye be beautiful,” she whispered. All around them, the wisps sounded an echo. Beautiful. The green had begun to fade from Pieta’s eyes, though the light given from the wisps infused them with fresh lustre. “It’s time.” “I know, dearlin’… I know,” Qaeli said, though her insides screamed otherwise. Don’t go. Don’t leave me again. Please, stay. “Rest… dream o’ tha’ morn’ when we stole Father’s sloop. Th’gold waters as th’dawn broke th’horizon. Th’winds so cool an’ swift as though sent by Llymlaen ‘erself. I were wearin’ tha’ blue bandana wiv stars ye bought fer me nameday. Remembah?” Pieta’s eyes had closed, though she whispered ‘I remember’in response. “From Aleport tae naewhere, we sailed. Found tha’ lil’ island way out in th’drink, gulls o’erhead, lil’ tangs nibblin’ at our toes when we settled on th’tideline. I showed ye wha’ I’d learned wiv th’reed flute on me second voyage. Ye sang along wiv me. Ye always ‘ad such a pret’y voice. I thought th’gulls agreed.” She breathed a breath of loving remembrance. When she looked down, she realised Pieta had gone to absolute stillness. A tremour rippled from sole to crown, culminating in a final rush of salty tears. Silent, she hunched protectively over her sibling, trembling as she wept. A mournful aria filled the chamber, and Gharen bowed his head, uttering a hopeful prayer for the fallen woman. “None will disturb ye e’er again,” Qaeli promised her silent sister. “Ye’ll return t’tha’ island, an’ res’ undah Llymlaen’s watch.” When she had the strength and will to move, she sheathed her sword, gathered up her sister—now a waif’s burden in her arms—and rose to her feet, the lamentation of the wisps continuing all around them. Before she could step forward, one of the small spirits descended, resting petal-soft upon Pieta’s brow. Somehow, beneath that soft glow, her face seemed young again, and at peace. All at once, the hushed litany went so silence, and the lights began to gutter out one by one, until that singular reminder lingered, and it soon followed. Even with the strange rays of light punching through the ceiling of the chamber, it somehow seemed darker than before. Looking to Gharen, Qaeli offered a wistful smile. “Time t’go home, Gharen. Nae need t’go chasin’ fer Sioflame’s answers anymore. F’ings will work out. Best they work out wiv ye present. An’ tha’ book.” “Aye… perhaps,” conceded Gharen, looking about the ruin of the chamber, scowling at the sight of the viscous pool that yet bubbled with the decaying monstrosity it had engulfed. “Just one thing, lass,” he called after the young woman as she started up the corridor that had conveyed them here; she paused, waiting. “Wha’ did ye see?” She smiled her dimpled smile before she turned away once more. “The answer.”