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thepriceofburning · 6 years ago

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Year 335 of the Era of Unity

John Estep stood high on a balcony that ran the entire length of the entrance courtyard to the Towers. From here he could see his men in their positions upon the defensive walls, and the people who shuffled through the massive gates into the giant paved area called the First Yard, below. A small dark starkling cried the hour from its roost upon one of the guard towers and a dozen echoing calls replied.

As Delta Commander of the Wolf Knights, The Towers were his responsibility. One might assume that a place so packed with mages, witches, wizards, sorceresses, and shadow beings, might not need protection from an outside source. What most didn't realize was that such people frequently needed protection from themselves. This wasn't simply a military post, but a political one, with the factions often clashing. As an “unenlightened”, as those without magic were commonly and rudely called, his job was more often than not mediation.

He was quite sure many of the inhabitants of the Towers had illnesses of the mind, ranging from racing thoughts, to mood swings, to the egomaniacal tendencies most commonly shown in wizards lording over lowly witches. Grand Wizard of the Third Reach, Istarn - by far the most self-inflated wizard in residence - was a constant and particular thorn in his side. What with the Third Reach being particularly concerned with matters of warfare, he was a thorn best dealt with tactfully.

Each of the five towers that gave the enormous structure its name was a designated Reach, and each Reach dealt with a different area of study. The First Reach, which was the first tower a person entered when they visited The Towers, was dedicated to Personal Enlightenment, Philosophy, and Expression Through Art. To his simple understanding this meant a lot of praying, meditating, thinking, and decorating every available surface.

The Second Reach was dedicated to Healing and the Prevention of Diseases, though he would swear that sometimes the fumes in there were more dangerous to a person's health than not. They did have quite a nice distillery, though.

The Third Reach, being the School of Warfare and Mechanics was by far the most dangerous place in the towers to go wandering about in. Those “enlightened” that lived and worked there were the shadiest, sly, and most untrusting people one could find. The Wolf Knights were garrisoned on the first two floors of the Third and tried to stay out from under toe as much as possible. Even so, the occasional bang could be heard echoing down the halls followed by loud and inventive cursing.

The Fourth Reach held its specialty in Botany and Environmental Studies, and to his opinion drew the best kind of people. Generally calm, quiet, and intelligent, and yet always going somewhere, John sometimes thought of them as the human equivalent of squirrels. They were always borrowing bits of research from other Reaches and bringing it back to their own studies to apply it to their work.

The Fourth was also where most of the resident shadow beings made their beds. The starklings, being no more sentient than birds of prey, were kept in the large aviary in the Fourth Yard, but the imps, sprites, and other beings of inhuman nature could be found all through the tower. Sometimes in odd and unexpected places.

The Fifth Reach was by far his favorite of the towers. Its dedication being Astrology, Astronomy, and Weather, the Fifth was never boring, though he had expected it to be so when he had first taken his position here. Since then he had witnessed a flash flood, a whirlwind, and a perpetual lightning storm all within the confines of that tower. The rooftop observatory had seen quite a bit of his time too. Aside from the almost constant static feeling in there, he quite enjoyed wandering its halls and chatting with its occupants. Even those who tried to tell him what his year had in store based on his time and place of birth.

All in all The Towers were a place of great power, and unfortunately for him, it also made it a stop for many politicians. One could hardly be considered for any position of knowledge or power if they hadn't visited the largest center of enlightened learning in North Sappheo.

Today he was expecting another politician, though unlike most, this visitor was coming from below the divide. He would be the first visitor from the South the Towers had seen since before Sappheo had split. However, just like all the others, he would welcome them, assign them guards for their stay, and send them off with whichever member of the First had drawn the short straw to be liaison. Or whoever volunteered for the task.

They would wander The Towers, looking haughty and nodding their heads while they pretended to have a clue. Then as always, they would sit down to dinner with him, apprise him of a few problems only they could solve, or criticize his management of the place. Within the next day or two, they'd be on their way, never to be seen or heard from again.

He braced his arms on the stone wall and looked over the First Yard with shrewd brown eyes. Enlightened and townspeople milled around stalls, browsing each other's wares in the small market set against the wall west of the gates. It ended in a building called The Healer's Hut, where people came to buy medicines and cures and have their ailments examined. Some would be sent to the recovery section of the First for the setting of bones or the stitching of wounds, fewer would be sent to the Second for further examination.

On the east side were the stables and the large paddock, which served the Wolf Knights’ couriers and scouts, and visiting dignitaries. Just beyond the fenced in area and encompassing the entire east corner was the Prayer Garden. Here there were lovely stone benches and walled flower beds, which surrounded a large tree. The leaves of this unique flora turned from green to purple as they aged, and fell in the colors of sunsets. An altar was positioned beneath the tree and people came to leave small offerings to their Gods of choice. Many came to simply sit beneath the outstretched limbs of the tree and pray or contemplate as sunset leaves fell around them, or sit and chat to one of the members of the First who offered an unbiased ear and friendly countenance.

The sound of giggling children could be heard where he stood on the wall, and he knew that it was most likely due to one of the helpful little sprites being playful, or an imp starting an impromptu game of tag. Sometimes even one of the big, lumbering, stony faced, Batu could be found in the garden looking terribly somber while children climbed its long limbs and stout body.

Tucked in the crook created at the join of the First and Fifth Reach was the goods store, and the administration building. At the store a person could pick up anything from jewelry, to herbs, to books. John would have bet money that the most popular items in the store were the small sticks that produced candle like flame when held correctly. But, with each Reach needing to provide a certain amount of sellable goods per quarter, the wares often varied greatly, and many people came just to see what was available.

The administration building served to answer inquiries regarding gaining entrance as a student, and to match people who needed particular services with those enlightened that could provide them. The flow of messages into and out of the building and the constant frazzled state of its workers had earned it the title of “the cuckoos nest”.

The wind kicked up a little, bringing the cold of autumn along his skin, and for a small inexplicable moment, he felt a warning in the chill. Instinct had his muscles tensing before he forcibly relaxed, and ran his hand over long, dirty blonde hair, a few strands already trying to work loose from the ponytail. These meetings always made him tense. He had plenty of patience, but if anything pushed it, it was pompous politicians who wanted to tell him how to do his job.

A soft pair of footsteps approached him from the doors that opened onto the balcony where he now stood, and he was relieved that he recognized the sound of them. Sending a smile over his shoulder as she approached, he very sincerely hoped that the redheaded witch was going to be his liaison for this dignitary.

She returned his smile with a sunny one of her own, the freckles over her nose seeming to make it all the more cheerful. “Good morning, Commander.” The wind danced through long tendrils of dense red hair and carried the faint scent of lavender and lilies along with it. “Ready for our guests?”

The tumble and roll of her thick rural accent was like a balm to his soul. “Mery, if you pulled the liaison straw today I will be considerably more ready.” He said with barely disguised hope.

Her light laugh danced out as she resettled the lace shawl that lay around her shoulders. “Then I suppose it's a good thing I volunteered.” She grinned up at him from under her lashes. “I couldn't sit back and watch you suffer so. Besides, this might be the only time in my whole life I ever get to meet a Duke.”

He gave her a smile of gratitude and affection and they settled into a comfortable silence as they waited for the Duke and his escort to arrive. Frankly, he wasn’t surprised that Mery had volunteered for today's tour. Since the divide such titles and birthrights had been abolished in the North. Lordly titles no longer existed in their part of the world, and even though it had been possible to pass between the divide for near two centuries, great pains had been taken to keep their politics separate. Until recently.

He was amused at Mery’s enthusiasm though. Mery was shy, and quiet, and sweet, and more than a little unsure of herself. Having grown up on a small farm with her grandmother he thought that sometimes she was overwhelmed by life in The Towers. She spent most of her days intensely focused on earning her credentials in aura reading and spiritual healing, but he knew that deep down inside she wished for a life of excitement and adventure, and a visiting Duke was too good to pass up.

Her red hair, twisted and tied at the base of her head to fall loose and full, danced over the shoulder of her blue dress. It was one of her best, fit snugly to the waist and flared into ankle length skirts that were embroidered around the edges with little green flowers.

Her hazel eyes seemed to soak in the light of the morning sun, and the smattering of freckles across her face clustered together across her nose. John thought, not for the first time, that she was a woman made for sunlit days and warm laughter, and he absolutely adored her.

Not many people knew the things Mery had suffered in her early years, or that underneath her kind eyes and caring smile there were wounds. When he thought about them he wished there was a way to undo them, to ensure that only peace and happiness remained, but he knew it wasn’t possible. Instead he did his best to keep her safe and happy, and in return she offered him friendship and support that he truly valued.

The glint of sunlight caught his thoughts and his watchful brown eyes turned in that direction. Standing in the center of the Yard, watching the people milling around was a woman with long black hair, pinned up at the sides, that seemed to shine in the sun.

She wore a fitted brown bodice over a deep red blouse that he guessed to be made of silk. Her skirts were a deep chocolate brown, like the bodice, with little to no decoration. Around her neck she wore a pendant of some sort which had caused the reflection, though at this distance he couldn’t tell what it was.

There was nothing about the woman that should have kept his attention as she began to wander about, yet he found himself watching her. He found himself wondering who she was, where she had come from, and why she was there.

As if she sensed his eyes on her she lifted her head and her gaze found his immediately. He couldn’t have said what color those eyes were, but her hair had fallen loose from the pins and curled around her face, framing her features. She had a strong jaw and her cheekbones were high under large eyes, just slightly turned up at the end. Her nose was long and straight, and led his gaze to a long firm mouth. Her eyebrows reminded him of bird’s wings, thick towards the center and thinning to a fine line along the curve and swoop of her brow. It was the kind of face that spoke of strength, probably quite often drawn to seriousness. But there was a softness there too, some kind of secret gentleness begging to be found. He found her captivating.

They stayed, eyes locked for a moment, before her features relaxed into a smile, and then a grin. His own mouth turned upwards as the strong face took on features of mischief. She tilted her head slightly and lifted an eyebrow, almost as if in silent challenge.

Mery’s hand on his arm caught his attention. “I think they’re here.”

He looked toward the gate and saw the crowd beginning to step away from the area by the gate - a sure sign of a large party approaching. He flicked his eyes back down to the raven-haired woman again, but to his dismay she was gone. Perhaps he would see her again, but for now he had work to do.

He straightened as the guard positioned on the gate blew the signal that meant “official visitor” and with a hand on the small of Mery’s back, motioned her to go before him. With her in the lead they hurried down the steps and only slightly out of breath, arrived at the door to the Great Hall, just as the party came to a halt.

In the lead were four guards, armed to the teeth and mounted on imposing warhorses, which had been brushed to a shine. Behind came the noble collection. The Duke rode proud and relaxed, leading three women who also rode with the confidence of those who had spent many hours in the saddle.

John could tell by their clothes and bearing that these were not just maids. Judging by what he knew, these were the Duke's wives. It was a concept that most Northerners found outlandish if not atrocious, but it wasn’t his place to judge.

Behind the wives came the ladies in waiting. Four women in similar dresses, who smiled and whispered quietly amongst themselves. Behind that came two more mounted guards, and a small wagon carrying provisions driven by two more. Four more men made up the rear guard.

All in all that made a contingent of 20, though he was sure that the paperwork he had received from the Sovereign Minister had stated that 21 could be expected. He wondered briefly what had happened to the last man.

The guards dismounted first, followed by the Duke and his wives, and the ladies in waiting who were offered helping hands by the guards. When all had found their feet the Duke stepped forward and John took his cue. He didn’t need to check to know that his own Tower Guard has taken up ceremonial position on the walls or flanking the stairs. His most trusted man, Galen, would have seen to it.

Knowing the protocol, John bowed his head deeply with a hand over his heart, and delivered his welcoming speech. With a voice loud enough to reach the crowd of townsfolk watching the exchange and with an accent that spoke of the rough side of the Capital he began. “I am Delta Commander John Estep, of the Order of the Wolf Knights. It is with our Sovereign Minister’s blessing that I have the honor of welcoming His Lordship, Duke Darien Deyrndraig, of the Southern province of Gyrissa.”

Murmurs of excitement and a quiet applause ran through the crowd.

With a reciprocating bow, and an equally loud voice the Duke gave the expected response. “We are honored to receive the hospitality of North Sappheo and of The Towers, Delta Commander. It is our greatest wish that this visit will harbor greater understanding between our lands.”

This time the round of applause was much louder and for a moment John felt that he should give a stage bow for the crowd, but he kept his back straight and his face still until the murmurs died down. John descended the steps as the Duke approached for a quieter exchange.

John offered a hand in friendly greeting, and it was readily accepted. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Your Lordship.”

“Likewise, Commander,” came the easy reply. The Duke stepped back and motioned the three women forward. “May I introduce my wives?”

The first was a petite blonde, with sparkling blue eyes, sun tanned skin, and long curling hair that seemed too wild to be tamed in any severe manner. Her nose was what he would describe as cute, and her rosebud lips were turned into a shy smile. The soft blue of her velvet dress was clasped about the waist with a silver chain. It was cut simply and elegantly, but the voluminous sleeves and skirts brought to mind images of children turning circles in the sunlight. She carried the distinct impression of mischief about her, and he resisted the urge to smile as the Duke introduced her. “Lady Alexa Jordin.”

After a brief curtsey and bow delivered with a dazzling smile, she stepped back, and the second wife took her place.

This one was of average height, with creamy skin and straight brown hair cut at the shoulders. Her eyes were a soft grey, and her nose was thin and just little long, but seemed made to fit her angular face. Her thin lips were set in a polite smile but something about her seemed more inclined to a thoughtful frown. Her dress, in the current fashion of corsets and folds upon folds of skirts, was a stormy grey satin fringed in white lace and complimented her straight, thin frame. His first impression was of a woman he could have long intelligent discussions with.

“Lady Danaeal Ynari.” The Duke announced, and they exchanged the expected curtsey and bow.

She stepped back and the next wife stepped forward. Slightly taller than the previous woman, she was nothing short of an exotic beauty. Her skin was the color of rich dark coffee and her long dark hair was twisted into hundreds of tiny ropes, accented by unique beads here and there. Her eyes were a brown so dark they were almost black, and were angled in an almost catlike manner. Her dress was of a thick woven material in a pattern of forest green and gold that flowed loosely and left one arm exposed. She approached him with a smile that was somehow reminiscent of a doting grandmother. She had the presence of a nurturer, a carer, someone who people told their troubles to on instinct.

“Lady Chanta Abarro.” The Duke introduced, but instead of the expected curtsey, the Lady kissed her fingers, then touched her forehead and her chest, and inclined her head. John gave the formal bow, but found himself curious about her homeland and customs.

John opened his mouth to announce his honor at meeting them all when the Duke raised a finger. “A moment, please,” he said long-suffering impatience. “We seem to be missing somebody.”

The twenty first guest, John surmised as the Duke leaned over to say a word in a guard's ear. He sincerely hoped there wasn’t going to be a problem this early in the visit, but he would handle whatever got thrown his way.

The guard nodded and turned to attend his task, but stopped before he hit three strides, and stood aside for the woman approaching them. To John’s combined pleasure and dismay it was the woman he had seen from the balcony.

“I’m sorry,” she said, laying a hand on the Duke's arm, “I got distracted.” Her eyes settled on John and a small grin appeared in her lips. “Hello.”

Up close he could see that her eyes were a brilliant shade of green, and her ears did not only have the regular piercing women seemed to favor, but there was also a bar that joined two piercings high up the fold of her right ear, and the tiniest stud in the little bump that preceded her left ear. He could also see, sneaking above her collar on her left, what looked like a burn scar marring her light olive complexion.

Before John could answer her greeting, the Duke spoke up. “Allow me to present my most troublesome wife, Lady Tayanara DeVandall.”

Again breaking protocol she offered her hand, and he was pleasantly surprised by her strong grip and slightly worried by its feverish temperature. “It’s a pleasure my Lady. I’m Delta Commander John Estep. I’m afraid you missed my welcome speech.”

A shock seemed to ripple through the surrounding people at his teasing tone, and he reigned himself in. Joking with one of the four wives of the Duke of Gyrissa was not a good way to start the visit.

Stepping back he motioned forward his saving grace, and she stepped forward with a graceful curtsy. “This is Meryarna Marek, witch of the First, and she will be acting as your liaison during your stay.” He then motioned to a presence close behind him, who stepped forward and bowed deeply. “And this is my second in command, Warrior-in-Lead Galen Glenn.”

Mery mercifully stepped forward and took control of the situation. “Please call me Mery. It is an honor to serve as your liaison.”

She exchanged polite greetings with all of them, and instructed the Duke to have his head guard make the appropriate arrangements with Galen concerning guard duty. After asking if the ladies in waiting would like to set up the chambers, she instructed them to stay with Galen also, who would see them to where they needed to be.

John stepped aside as she invited the noble quintuplet, and the guards that would remain with them, to begin their tour. When they were past, he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, then ran a hand over his hair. He knew better than to step outside of the accepted pleasantries.

“Excuse me, Commander?” came a velvety voice. He swore silently as he realized one of the wives had stayed behind. “Or should I call you Delta Commander?” Lady Tayanara asked.

He gave her a polite smile. “Commander is fine, Lady Tayanara.”

Her smile was more than a little flirtatious. “Then you’ll call me Taya.” When he gave a nod her smile faded into something more serious. “I was hoping I might have a moment of your time before you are off to your other duties.”

He turned his gaze to the small group of people entering the Towers and lingered as Duke Deyrndraig stopped, noticing the troublesome wife had once again left the pack. He turned then, and saw her standing next to him. The Duke’s brown eyes pinned him, and he felt it like the point of a knife against his skin. His skin prickled, not in fear, but as it did in the moment before the first blow was struck - in anticipation of the fight.

His own eyes turned hard and cold, but knowing this was not the fight for him, he gave a nod of acquiescence that seemed to placate the Duke’s nerves. Deyrndraig looked at Taya with something like an admonishment and turned to join the group again.

Forcing himself back to level heading after the exchange, John turned back to Taya and caught her raised eyebrow before she collected herself. She gave him an impish smile and a shrug. “I’ll catch up.”

It was only with great effort that he didn’t sigh as he motioned her to a bench that sat along the rise of the stone steps. This woman was going to be trouble.

“What can I do for you?” he asked once she was seated.

She seemed to take a moment to choose her words, and she regarded him seriously. “Truth be told, I didn’t get distracted.” Her eyes lifted to the guards on the wall. “I wanted to check your security.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, he raised his eyebrows curiously. “Why is that?”

She breathed a sigh and dropped her eyes to the hands in her lap. “Where we come from there is a political battle raging at the moment. Darien’s title is one others would happily claim upon his demise.” She looked at him again, and he read the concern there, and felt it palpably. “Living in the South has become dangerous for us, so he’s brought us here in an attempt to remove us from the situation.”

John considered for a moment then took a seat on the bench beside her. “I’m going to guess that getting to him was too hard, and they started to come after his wives?”

Taya nodded. “Exactly. Which is why I fought against Darien’s idea of bringing us here the whole way.” Seeing John’s confusion she raised a hand in the direction her husband had gone. “He is in far more danger here than he ever was back at home. Back there we knew every face, every name, every secret entrance and secluded corridor. Here, we know nothing.” She studied his face for a moment before continuing. “I wanted to be sure your guard detail would be enough to keep my family safe.”

He simply looked at her for a moment, feeling the roll of emotions that seemed to come off her in waves, trying to put all the pieces of her into one complete image. Regal in bearing, but not in demeanor. Mischievous and maybe even callous when it came to rules and protocol, but the way she talked about protecting her family made it obvious to him that she was more lioness than kitten.

His eyes caught on the pendant hanging around her neck, and he realized that it was what had reflected the sun to him up on the balcony. The golden sun hung on a braided cord of fine leather, and he found it a little odd to find leather on a Lady, but thinking back he could swear all the other wives had worn the same thing around their necks.

As an afterthought he realized that Taya was wearing quite a lot of leather. Her bodice, her boots, her decorative bracelets, and the thin belt and pouches she wore were all of high quality leather. More pieces of the puzzle that was the woman before him.

On a thought he asked, “Is your husband aware that you’re checking on his security?”

A silent laugh bubbled up from her. “Crows, no. And if he finds out he’ll probably be mad at me, though he shouldn’t really be surprised. This is the kind of thing that happens when you marry a street kid,” she said with a lopsided smile.

He smiled with surprise. “You were a street kid?”

This time she let out a chuckle. “Yes I was. An orphan even. I can pass for a Lady most of the time but,” she shrugged, “once in awhile the streets come out in me.”

She said it not with shame, but with pride. As a badge of merit. I survived, the statement seemed to say, and I will keep surviving. He realized that there were a lot of things he wanted to know about this woman.

“I guess that brings us back to our original question,” he said, unfolding his arms and bracing them on his knees. “What can I do for you?”

She dropped her eyes a little, as though embarrassed to ask. “I was hoping you could show me around and tell me what you have in place. I’m sure that between your men and ours it will be fine, but for my own peace of mind, I’d appreciate it.” She touched a hand to his arm. “I know you’re probably too busy right now, but if you could fit me in tomorrow?”

He could feel the warmth of her hand through his clothes and he suddenly realized that the emotions he was receiving were disingenuous. There was concern yes, but not for her family, and certainly not fear. There was something subtle underneath it. Something coercive. Manipulative.

He searched her eyes for a moment, but saw no falters there. She was going to be a hard nut to crack. With a nod he stood, helping her to her feet with a hand. “Tomorrow I’ll take you around and show you what we have in place. Until then I assure you that every precaution will be taken to ensure the safety of your family.”

His sudden stiffness seemed to drive her to compensate. With a sweet smile she leaned up to place a kiss on his cheek. Two thoughts immediately crossed his mind. The first was that the press of her lips was so warm it was almost scalding. The second was that she had perfected sweet and innocent to the point that it screamed of falsity.

When she pulled back his eyes bored into hers, so that for a moment they both seemed stuck there, trying to gauge each other's thoughts. Something in him seemed to be reaching inside her and neither seemed willing or able to stop it.

Realizing her hand was still in his, she pulled it gently from his grasp. “Thank you, Commander,” she said with an unsure smile.

Something about that one move made his stomach clench and heart pick up pace. He’d unseated her. But it wasn’t that he’d caught her in a falsehood that caused that feeling inside him, it was the sensation of almost seeing her. The real her.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to be trouble for me?”

She reached up and rubbed at her left shoulder in what he sensed was an unconscious movement. With just a hint of a grin she stepped away. “They’ll be waiting for me,” she said, and with one last look, she turned and walked away.

He folded his arms again as he watched her go. Lady Tayanara was far more than she seemed, and he intended to find out exactly what she was up to.

Tag list (let me know if you want to be added)- @stuffylana @atheona-darkclaw

#the price of burning #tayaverse #taya devandall #cj staunton #john estep #fiction #fantasy fiction

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kivaember · 6 years ago

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Plot: In a politcal plot to remove Aymeric from power, the house of lords votes to change his job title to traveling diplomat and sends him to kugane.

(okay i just wrote something for it instead uuuuuuuuuuh no regrets??? man tempted to do a few oneshots of WoL/Aym in Kugane and see how that goes)

“By majority vote,” Artoirel said in a quietly apologetictone, “You have been nominated as Ishgard’s official ambassador to Kugane. Youare expected to report to your new posting by the end of this month, sailingschedules permitting.”

Lucia drew in a sharp breath through her clenched teeth.Aymeric ignored it. He did not flinch, kept his expression one of cool neutralityas he quietly absorbed the blow Artoirel had delivered him. He should begrateful that this had been done in the privacy of his office, and not in thevery public space of the House of Lords session he was meant to be attending inthe next hour. Artoirel himself looked rumpled, as if he had ran here themoment he heard Aymeric had returned from his inspection of Dzaemel Darkhold.

He shouldn’t be surprised. There had been many debates onwho to send as part of the contribution to diplomatic mission in Kugane. TheEorzean Alliance had established an embassy there, eager to try and secure afoothold there to allow better communication and diplomacy with their new Domanally, and sent the call for each City State to contribute. Various names hadbeen drawn up in both Houses, but Aymeric’s had been bandied about the most.

Logically, it made sense: he was charismatic and well knownfor his political acumen. He also had a genuine interest in expanding Ishgard’sforeign ties, was friendly and culturally sensitive to foreigners, and was oneof the loudest supporters for the Eorzean Alliance – and had several enemies inboth Houses that would enjoy neutralising him by sending him as far away asphysically possible without launching him into space. He had already provenhimself too troublesome to cleanly assassinate.

Aymeric folded his hands on his desk, very carefullycompartmentalising his personal feelings on the matter and forced himself toregard it with cold calculation. In all honesty he was impressed at the cunningof this plan – he had been aware there was a voting session whilst he was oninspection, but as it didn’t pertain to any high-profile proposals orlegislation, hadn’t paid much mind to it. If he had known…

Well, what could he have done? From the sounds of it thishad been a plan long in the making and the votes already decided before thedebate had even begun. The majority of Ishgard’s MPs wanted him out of Ishgardand causing trouble for other people. He should, in fact, look at this as anopportunity. He was already coming to the end of his term as Speaker – he hadbeen elected twice, already, and their constitution stated that one could onlydo two consecutive terms at a time – and he had been considering whether to revertto being mainly the Lord Commander or becoming a full-time politician.

It was a prestigious position, on paper. He should behonoured that he was chosen to represent Ishgard and strengthen their ties withtheir allies.

He should be.

(he wasn’t)

“I see,” Aymeric finally said, when three full minutes ofsilence stretched between them, “Thank you for informing me, Lord Artoirel.Should I assume that my presence is therefore not needed in the upcomingsession?”

Artoirel dipped his head, “Correct. It has been decided thatI will carry out the remainder of your duties until the next Speaker is chosenin the upcoming month.”

Aymeric relaxed a fraction at that. At least his exile hadn’twrenched a hole open for the likes of Lord Dounon to slither into, “Am I ableto nominate a successor for Lord Commander, or has that too been decidedwithout me?”

Artoirel winced slightly at that, “If you are able tonominate a successor that meets the Houses’ approval in the next week-”

“Lucia,” Aymeric said instantly.

“Sir,” Luciaprotested, “I am-”

“More than acceptable,” Aymeric said shortly, “LordArtoirel, if the Houses’ have a complaint on my successor, feel free to directthem to myself. Notwithstanding her origins, she has proven herself time andagain as a loyal soldier of Ishgard, unflinching in her service and diligent inher duties. I will accept none other as my successor, if only because she hasbeen carrying out the Lord Commander duties on my behalf for the past few yearsso I know she can do it. She has proven herself.”

A grim kind of humour flickered across Artoirel’s face asLucia stood in stunned silence, “I am sure no one will protest, sir.”

“I will protest,”Lucia said immediately, “Sir, my place is at your side.”

“You would be better served here, Lucia,” Aymeric said, “Irefuse to relinquish this seat to someone who would abuse it. I know I cantrust you with Ishgard and the Temple Knight’s best interests.”

Lucia wavered, but after a pause where Aymeric met her gaze evenly,her shoulders slumped and she inclined her head with a soft, unhappy, “Understood,sir.”

“I shall leave you to your preparations, Lord Commander,”Artoirel said, rising from his seat, “I wish you luck in your new position.”

The door that clicked shut behind the departing Artoirelsounded damningly final. Silence reigned again, until slowly, Aymeric pushedhis seat back and stood up.

Lucia watched him with wary eyes, “Sir?”

“Pardon me, Lucia,” he said with a strange, unsteady sort ofcalm, “I need a moment to collect my thoughts. Please take over my duties untilI return.”

“… yes, sir.”

Aymeric barely remembered the walk back to his home. Hismind was too busy spinning over how he had been exiled from a home he had shed sweat, blood and tears over for all hislife. Should he be surprised, though? From the moment Lord Borel had raised himup from one of the many unwanted, faceless orphans that clogged up the Brume,Aymeric had always had to viciously fight and defend his place in a world thatwas determined to shut him out, had always had to dig his heels in so he wasn’ttossed aside. No one had believed he would amount to anything more than alow-rank knight – and even then, that had been considered too good for a bastardlike him. But he had proven them wrong – had forced them to look at him and admit he was better than his peers who came from good stock.

That did not come from being passive and earnest. Aymerichad to be more ruthless, more calculating and smarter and stronger and moreskilled to achieve his goals. He had crushed more than a few noble hopefulsunder his heel to claw his way into the position of Lord Commander, and while hewas eventually, grudgingly,acknowledged… he was never accepted.

He’d gotten complacent, he realised. He thought things hadchanged enough that he could relax into a position he made himself and not worry about having to continuously prove hisworth to remain there. He was elected! They wanted him there! They wanted him there!

Hah. What a lie he told himself.

When he reached home, he stood in the front hallway for along while, feeling adrift. He should start getting his affairs in order. Heneeded to see if he could transfer his funds from the Ishgardian bank to whateverthe equivalent was in Kugane, he needed to find which ports directly travelledto Kugane, he needed to pack and whatwas he going to do with this house? Should he place everything in storage? Lasthe heard the diplomatic mission in Kugane was a three year posting, but what ifthey just continuously renewed his place there? He’d never come home and thenwhat? There was so much to consider in so short a time – transporting hisbelongings would have to be done the slow way, by ship, even if he possessedjust enough anima and aetherical control to teleport to Kugane. Though it tooka lot out of him and he had to take a day to sleep it off and-

Aymeric closed his eyes and stopped his thoughts, taking adeep, long breath.

…

He couldn’t believe he had been exiled.

Realising he wasn’t going to get anything done, Aymeric satdown on the bottom step of his stairwell and stared at his hands. If this hadhappened differently, if this had been a choiceof his, he knew he would be excited and eager to carry out a diplomatic missionin a foreign country. But it wasn’t his choice. It was a thinly veiledrejection, of the Houses coming together and saying ‘thanks for everything butwe don’t want you here anymore so go be someone else’s problem’, and that…

That really hurt.

Aymeric gently prodded that hurt for a moment and sighed. Itsounded childish even to him. No doubt there were more than a few who genuinelythought he was the best man for the job, who probably thought he’d be overjoyedat such a posting, but emotions rarely took logic into consideration, so he wasleft with a throat-clenching, chest-tightening ache that he had to breathe throughslowly.

He’d get over it, he told himself as he rubbed roughly athis face. He always got over it. He just needed to think how this would be adelightful change of pace, and how it opened so many new opportunities andexperiences for him. He would enjoyit, the initial pain of sorting his admin out aside, and it might, potentially,mean more time with Aza-

-shit. Aza. Aza hated Kugane.

It felt like a stone had dropped hard into the bottom of hisstomach. Aza refused to go to Kuganeunless it was absolutely vital for work or to fulfil a favour for a friend. IfAymeric was trapped there full time, would Aza go against his understandableand visceral hatred of the place to visit him? Even if he did, would Aymericeven ask him of that? It seemed cruel, and he couldn’t force Aza to besomewhere he hated. He would hate it, Aza would hate it, and they’d be equallymiserable.

For a very brief, desperate moment, Aymeric was actuallytempted to do something drastic like commit political suicide and force theHouses to elect someone more ‘proper’… only to realise that they’d probablysend him anyways as punishment for whatever he did. He anxiously stood up,paced the width of his front hallway, and sat down again, feeling a caged animal.

He should call Aza.

Forcing himself to push away his unsettled emotions andfocus, he tapped at his linkpearl, reaching for his partner’s frequency. He wasat Camp Dragonhead today, helping Lord Emmanellain with some task or other, sothe connection should be stable enough without enduring static-

“Hello?”

“Aza,” Aymeric murmured, feeling his stomach do somethingvery weird and potentially medically unhealthy, like it couldn’t decide whetherto twist or sink, “Hello, love.”

“Aym?” Aza’s surprisewas understandable. Aymeric only tended to call his linkpearl for long absencesor emergencies, “What’s wrong? Are youokay?”

“I’m-” he found himself incapable of finishing. He was fine, but also not. He also feltinexplicably foolish. Aza was supposed to be back by dusk, and it seemedridiculous to call him in the middle of work simply because Aymeric’s feelingswere hurt over a reassignment. It wasn’t pressing, or an emergency, and couldvery easily wait for that evening when Aymeric didn’t feel so raw about it.

“It’s nothing,” he said instead, “I’m sorry if I distractedyou. I’ll speak to you to-”

“Bullshit,” Aza interruptedsharply, “Aym, you sound really fucking upset. What happened? Do I have tokill someone?”

“I- do not sound upset,” Aymeric said unconvincingly, becausehe sounded strained even to his own ears, “No one needs to be killed either.”Unless Aza was willing to eliminate the entirety of Ishgard’s government, thatis.

(Terrifyingly, Aymeric knew Aza would do that, for him, but it was best not to dwell on those things)

“You sure?” Aza’stone gentled, “C’mon, tell me what’swrong. I’m just sitting here watching people fail at mining, so I can talk. Youwon’t be bothering me.”

Fail at mining? “How can you fail at mining?”

“Easily, if you’re a CampDragonhead knight, apparently. They keep fucking up the extraction ofdarksteel,” Aza sighed, “Amateurs,honestly. I’m gonna wait for a few hours before putting them out of theirmisery.”

Aymeric was half-tempted to ask about how one exactly ‘fuckedup the extraction of darksteel’, but that would be procrastinating and both ofthem knew it. Aza would indulge him, but Aymeric really shouldn’t try talkingcircles about this. He took a moment.

Aza patiently waited. On his end he could hear the softcrackle of the aether connection, distant, muffled shouts and the howl of astrong wind.

“… I’m… I’m no longer the Speaker of the House of Lords,” Aymericfinally said, surprised at how much it hurt to say that aloud. It was more realwhen he actually said and acknowledged it.

“You’re… how?” Azagasped, “I thought you had another twomonths!”

“It seems,” Aymeric muttered, his voice brittle, “That theHouses unanimously agreed that I would be better served in Kugane as Ishgard’srepresentative in the Eorzean Alliance’s embassy.”

“They’re kicking youout of Ishgard!?” Aza hissed,understanding immediately, “They can’t dothat! You’re the reason their government isn’t a steaming pile of shit rightnow! You single-handedly-”

“I cannot claim all the credit for Ishgard’s recentsuccesses,” Aymeric said tiredly, “I’m not that arrogant to think the governmentrevolves around me. No, I…” he paused and then continued with a conviction hedidn’t feel, “I have fulfilled my purpose here, and can… do more in Kugane. It’sfine. It’s a prestigious position to have and they clearly think I can do wellin it. It… it will go well.”

“…” Aza sighed, “Aym, you don’t have to lie to me.”

Aymeric felt awful. He wanted this conversationface-to-face. He should have waited, “I’m not lying.”

“You are,” Azasaid firmly, “You’re upset, so be upset.Why else did you call me? C’mon.”

“To give you the good news?” Aymeric croaked out.

“You didn’t even tryto sound sincere then,” Aza said, unimpressed, “Look, I’ll come home right now-”

“You hate Kugane,” Aymeric blurted.

“What?”

“You hate Kugane,” Aymeric repeated, “So, if I’m there… you-”

“Gods, Aym,” Azasounded like he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or yell at him, “Yeah, I hate it, but… shit. I won’t letthat stop me from visiting you or hogging your blankets. You’ll have to pry meout of your bed almost every morning, same as usual.”

“But,” Aymeric began and… faltered, because that part of Aza’spast was always a taboo subject, “Your history…”

“Was over twenty yearsago,” Aza murmured so quietly Aymeric almost didn’t hear him, “I… I’ll be okay. For you, I’ll be okay. Imean, try to have your living quarters as Eorzean as possible and don’t startdressing like a Doman, but… yeah, it’ll be fine.”

Aymeric wavered, “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Aza soundedlike he was smiling, “You’re totallyworth a bit of discomfort, handsome. You just gotta be extra distracting whenever I visit, okay?”

“Easily done,” Aymeric said with unspeakable relief. Thatwas one burden eased from hisshoulders, at least.

“Was that the onlything that was upsetting you?”

Aymeric hesitated, but confessed, “No. I’m… there is more.”

“Okay,” Aza’svoice was gentle, “Let me show these guyshow to mine, and I’ll be home within the hour so we can talk properly, alright?”

“Alright,” Aymeric almost whispered, “Don’t needlessly rush.I can wait.”

“Pfft. No, you can’t. You’remore important to me than a bunch of stupid rocks. Go make your birch tea shitand go relax. I’ll be with you soon.”

“It’s not ‘birch tea shit’,” Aymeric grumbled, “It’s-”

“Love you, handsome!”Aza cut over him cheerily, and made a noisy kissing noise down the line, “Talk to you soon!”

“Aza-”

‘Click!’

Aymeric lowered his fingers from the linkpearl at thatrather rude hang up and sat there for a moment. He felt, surprisingly, a littlebetter. The hurt was beginning to slowly give way to simmering, ugly resentmentand indignation, but Aymeric put a lid on that for when Aza came home and stoodup.

He still felt adrift. He still felt as stunned as if he’djust taken a knife to the back, but… at least he knew Aza would still be withhim, every step of the way. And he’d recover from this. He always bounced backfrom shit like this, from people determined to declaw him and render himharmless. He just needed to brush the dust off his more… ruthless tendencies.

Deep breath. Exhale.

Good.

With his head lifted high, Aymeric made for the kitchens to makehis ‘birch tea shit’, to prepare for his new political battlefield.

#ffxiv #fanfic #aymeric de borel #warrior of light #artoirel fortemps #lucia goe junius #politics or smth #kinda wanna do a series of aymeric in kugane as a diplomat #and getting into a passive aggressive war with the garlean diplomats

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queencatherynerhys · 7 years ago

Text

Taken - Part 5 TRR AU

A/N: As a part of my 100 followers celebration, I decided to release 2 chapters!! This one was definitely exciting to write. I am so in love with this series. Please don’t criticize me too much. I am way out of my element in this chapter.

Summary: Have they finally found the information they need to find Catheryne?

Movie Inspiration: I would recommend you watch this video to really understand and give this chapter the justice it needs because I might butcher it. Here is the link for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iTg7oAirgQ

Tag List: @captainkingliam @decisso @devineinterventions2 @madaraism @theroyalweisme @drakewalkerwhipped @laniquelove @drakesfiance @hhiggs @hellospunkiebrewster @alicars @mrswalkerreynolds @mfackenthal @simplyaiden-blog @hopefulmoonobject @blackcatkita @cocomaxley @boneandfur @lizeboredom @crayziimaginations @umccall71 @zarina-x-zig @trianiasti @ranishajay @heatherfilliez @flyawayblue56 @pens-girl-87

Previous Parts:

Part 1 │ Part 2 │ Part 3 │ Part 4

“Drake, what are you talking about? You’re freaking out?” Liam inquires his friend with confusion. “The mountains, Liam. The tunnels. What if they’re real? What if those fairy tales weren’t just fables? What if there are really tunnels underneath the mountain?” Drake spits out the question as he runs down the hall to the security rooms. Liam follows him, not caring if the servants sees him so un-regal. “Drake, wait, what are you talking about?”

“Just follow me. We don’t have time for me to explain it to you,” he arrives at the security room. “Bastien, I think I may have a lead to where Knightely is being kept. My mom used to tell me stories about tunnels underneath the mountains where Aurelia used to be. Could she be there?” Drake rushes towards the towering man. He is breathless from his sprint to the chamber.

Bastien takes a moment to analyze the information before speaking, “There is a chance, and it’s the newest evidence we have.”

An analyst with dark brown hair and glasses named Paolo speaks up, “Well, if it is a tunnel-like structure in a mountain it would match the data from the phone call. We spliced the background and we could hear a distinct echo. An echo is a result of a closed structure and high ceilings like, well like a mountain. Also, the video did show the walls being made of stones and rocks, therefore, solidifying the lead.”

Liam begins to feel an ember of hope, something he has not felt in a long time. It feels almost alien to him. Could this really be it? Is she there? Well it can’t hurt to check out. It’s not like I have anything else to lose? “Follow up on it now. I am supplying with all the resources of the country. Use it! Check with satellite, thermals, anything!” he orders all the analyst to work as he sits on the head of the conference table. He dares not let the spark fan into a full fledge fire, afraid for it to be crushed into nothing but ash. Please, let this be it.

After lengthy half an hour, Paolo acknowledges him, “Your Majesty, after analyzing all the data using satellite thermal imaging we can clearly see a lot of heat originating at this specific area.” He points at a screen in one of the computers. Liam stands and gets closer. “This mountain area is not any type of volcanic formations so for it to emanate this amount of heat is out of the ordinary. It is impossible for us to get any more data than that. I apologize.”

He claps the tan-skinned specialist on the shoulders, “Never apologize, Paolo. This is further than we have gotten in the last month and a half.” He whirls around taking his place in the head of the table once more. The chairs are now filled with his security forces including Drake, Maxwell, Hana and Bastien. Clearly Drake called his other two friends to make sure they stayed up to date on the information. “Given this new evidence, I am proposing for a small tactical team to be arranged with me and Drake in tow.”

The large chamber erupts in protests from his friends and his head of security. He raises his hand to quiet the room. “This is not negotiable. Bastien, do not persuade me otherwise. I have been trained and so have Drake. We have sufficient training and education to handle ourselves in this mission. You trained us after all and my father was adamant about me being able to hold my own in a fight. Hana and Maxwell will stay here to oversee the court and hold off the headquarters. I doubt they will be happy if they learn that their king has left for a dangerous assignment,” he musters his most commanding tone, looking through his shocked audience.

“Your Majesty, as your head of security, I advise against this with a passion. Although, you are trained, being in the field is much different. It is life or death and we cannot sacrifice you,” Bastien argues with his king. Liam meets Bastien’s dark eyes with his blue pair and lowers his voice almost threateningly, “You will not convince me out of this. Catheryne has suffered enough. She has been mercilessly and brutally punished because of me and my crown. There are somethings I must even if it means it costing my life and this is one of them. I will be the one to get her. No ifs, no buts. End of story.” With that, he walks out.

In the next week, they plan their mission to retrieve Catheryne out of the attacker’s stronghold. Their tactical team consists of Liam, Drake, Bastien, Mara and three other elite guards named Brock, Antoine and Mack. They will be split into two teams. Alpha Team being the King and their main priority is Catheryne’s safety. Bravo Team job is to provide combat support in the cave, meaning responding and neutralizing the threat. Mack is the pilot responsible for evac.

The day has finally come to execute the mission. Everyone is tense as they gear up for the dangerous task, but everyone knew what they were going into. Their conviction is strong. Liam is confident that she will be there. He is sure of it. Finally, they will be reunited again. I hope she doesn’t hate me when she sees me. He fastens his Kevlar vest around his torso and Hana walks up to help him. She stands quietly as she works with all his complicated armor. “Liam, please bring her back. Alive,” she whispers as she finishes. “Be careful,” her voice full of sorrow and grief.

He rests his hands on her shoulders, encouraging her, “Don’t worry. I will bring her back. I swear. And I’ll make them pay for what they did. I promise you.” His voice is dark, hostile and determined. “Don’t worry I’ll make sure she doesn’t explode from worrying,” Maxwell chimes in from the corner of the room. He nods at Liam; a quiet understanding passes between them. An understanding other than his team with Catheryne in tow no one gets out alive from that cave.

He looks to his team. They are all geared up with black armor and weapons. Liam and his team members carries an M16 across their chest with a full-sized Beretta 92 fastened on a holster on their thigh. Their vests are lined with magazines and clips for their weapons on the right side and a series of grenades and smoke bombs on their left. They all carry a pack of essentials on their hip for just in case emergencies. Bastien and Mara carry a black backpack behind them full of extra supplies they might need during this task.

“Are we ready?” he asks his committed team. They reply in unison, “Yes, sir.” He nods at them to get ready to move out. Hana and Maxwell give him and Drake one last embrace before they head out to the hangar holding the chopper they’re using to get to their destination. Everyone is quiet on the drive there. All know the stakes of this mission, but all willing to lay down their lives. They already know that these attackers will show no mercy, and they all agreed that they will show none as well. They shoot to kill. No prisoners. These people didn’t deserve to live.

They leave the capitol in the afternoon so that they get to their destination in the dusk of night. It takes a couple hours to travel to the mountains of Aurelia. Liam feels knots in his stomach. He is ready for all of this to be over, ready to crush his enemies down in a hailstorm of bullets. He is ready to hold Catheryne in his arms again. Drake, who is sitting beside him on the floor of the helicopter, touches his shoulder as if he knows what he is thinking of. He glances at his brother and his eyes matches his, filled with fire and rage, ready to annihilate these monsters into nothing but ash.

They land in a secluded meadow just below the mountain. They had turned on a radar scrambler a couple of klicks before they touched down just in case the enemies were monitoring the area. They needed this mission to be as stealth as possible, if they had any chance of getting out of there alive. Liam grips the rifle in his hands to steel his nerves. Here we go.

“Falcon, make sure you stay alert out here. And get ready to bring this bird up in the air as soon as we send the signal for evac,” Bastien says to Mack the pilot, codename Falcon. For security purposes, they were all given codenames just in case their transmitters were compromised. Liam addresses his team, before they head for the trek up to the tunnel entrance, “Listen up, as your monarch I am amazed by your determination and willingness to go into this mission. Even with the obvious risk you didn’t show any falter. Now, as a person of your equivalence, I am forever grateful for your presence and support to get the love of my life out of there.” It wasn’t the time for fancy words, he just simply did not have the energy for it.

His team heads out into the forest, the last bit of light guiding them through the woodland. The team travels in a tight line formation; Bastien being in the lead with Liam and Drake behind him. Mara and the Bravo team covering their six. Bastien holds up a fist, signaling the force to stop. They finally arrived at the entrance. Liam uses thermal binoculars to investigate if there are any guards in the front. Nothing. No movement whatsoever. How cocky could they be? I guess they figured we wouldn’t find this place. Big mistake!

They trudge forward, ever so stealth and quiet. Liam’s nervousness is replaced with revenge, a murderous urge for vengeance. His team enters the tunnel being concealed in the shadows, their gear helping them. He sees two guards faced away on the other direction. He look at Drake and nods, motioning him to neutralize the watchers. He moves to the one on the left and his friend on the right. He puts the sentry in a chokehold and covers his mouth to prevent alarming others. Thanks to his broad build the struggles of his enemy didn’t faze him. He drags the limp body away towards the blanket of darkness near the opening.

They continue to move forward in formation until they come at a crossroad in the long tunnel. Alpha Team takes the left while Bravo takes the right. They march further into the passageway. Drake, along with Mara, oversees the lining the walls with explosives to bury this place to the ground after their mission. Liam passes a cavity where a burst of clips and images are being projected into a white board. He flicks his away from the bizarre chamber. Right now, he must stay focus to the task at hand: getting Catheryne out.

Bastien eliminates another sentinel ahead by knifing him on the side, quickly and soundlessly. They approach another spot. This area looks like a holding cell. Liam grips his gun. Is she here? He whispers lightly, “Catheryne? Are you there?” He can’t quite see into the compartment. “She’s in the torture room,” a voice calls back from one of the cells. Liam follows the mysterious voice and he recognizes the man as the doctor in the videos. He inquires the man for directions to where he might find her, and he replies weakly, “Straight, first left, door ahead. Guards distracted. Amir gone. Hurry.” He thanks the man and says, “I am eternally grateful, and I promise we will come back for you when we find Catheryne.” They head out following the doctor’s directions. They hastily make their way now that they know that the guards are currently preoccupied.

They arrive at the door where she’s being held. Liam instructs the two men to stand guard outside while he goes in. He draws in a deep breath and pushes the door open. There in the middle of the room, lying on a cold, metal slab is the love of his life. His breath lodges in his throat. The memory of her in his mind didn’t match the image that is in front of him. She looks worse than in the videos. There was no part of her that wasn’t covered with marks, cuts, bruises. Her angelic features gone and replaced with a broken shell.

He’s afraid to touch her, afraid to make it worse, but he does it anyway. He needed to believe it was her, that it wasn’t just a dream and that she wasn’t going to disappear just as he’s about to reach her. He hesitantly strokes her arm, feeling scars instead of smooth skin. Her body is cold, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the room or her situation. The heart monitors shows her weak heartbeat and his breaks at the sight. His once strong woman, what have they done to you? He caresses her beautiful face, still perfect even with the bruises. Her eyes flutter at the touch and she croaks with a raspy voice, “Liam?”

“It’s me, sweetheart. I promised I would come for you and here I am,” he says with tears in his eyes. He is distracted when he hears Drake in his earpiece, “Alpha, get out of there. We may have been spotted. We’re running out of time.” On cue, he hear gunshots being fired outside and he hurries to unchain Catheryne from the table. He cradles her in his arm and search for the injection in his pack. “Ryne, this is adrenaline,” he pulls out a shot with a long needle. “I’m sorry, my love. You are going to feel this,” he shoots the chemical straight into her and she jolts awake with energy. She gasps for air and her eyes widen. She grabs onto Liam as he pulls her off the table, “Come on, sweetheart, we have to get out of here quickly.” He covers her with clothes and shoes that he asked Bastien to pack. “Wait... wait... I have to tell you something about me, Liam. Something dark about my past,” she hurriedly say, and he doesn’t pay attention because Bastien and Drake barge into the room for cover.

“Always had to take your sweet time, didn’t you, Knightely?” Drake yells through firing. She glares at him and turns back to Liam. “Liam, listen to me!” she yells grabbing his attention. “I am sure Bastien pulled my background when I entered the social season. There is something missing in that file, expunged, erased. My parents were not doctors. They were spies – dangerous, killing machines. They renounced their life when they had me, but they never really stopped being one. They trained me to become like them. I think you should know before…before you see me in a way that you may never erase from your mind. It’s how I lasted so long being tortured,” she looks at him dead on, nothing but the truth in her eyes.

#playchoices #choices #choices the royal romance #choices trr #trr #trr drake #trr3 #trr liam #taken #mission impossible #dark #dark angst

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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AND IN FACT, WHEN WE TOOK USERS ONTO OUR SERVER

That's more ideal than typical. Before central governments were powerful enough to ignore the local feudal lords. The thing about ideas, and that kind of brain power to petty but profitable questions, you might as well not exist.1 FREE 0. But there is nothing the rich like more than convenience. No one knows whether a startup would usually become profitable only after raising and spending quite a lot in common with us. 25 to 40% of the company.2 Or rather, IPO then bust, or just a niche product company, but to fail to mention a few critical technical secrets.

Compared to other industrialized countries, people belong to one institution or another at least until their twenties. The need has to give. So if you want to raise.3 There are a lot of people realize this, even in an industry as conservative as venture capital.4 I desperately needed on stuff that I didn't. In any interesting domain, the difficulties will be novel. Architecture is related to physics, in the sense of having a lot of cultural baggage, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. The first, obviously, is that you may not even be meaningful to say that VCs are clueless?

When I'm writing or hacking I spend as much time and attention as the successes. When you find an unmet need that isn't your own, you'd learn a thing or two running your own.5 They have to, or die. We take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all.6 You may be thinking, how hard can it be?7 Morally, they care more about what they find valuable as well what they're willing to be held to a standard that, say, Python? 08221981 supported 0. But think about what's going on in the heads of would-be founders may by now be thinking, we have to reach back into history again, though this time not so far.8

It's not just the time of Confucius and Socrates, people seem to think of math as a collection of programs of different types. And if you're not a genius, just start a startup to be rejected by most of them don't.9 In 1800, people could not see as readily as we can that a great artist. That's probably roughly how we looked when we were a bit like anaerobic respiration: not the optimum solution for the long term it's to your advantage to have kept looking, because you'll drift away from building beautiful things toward building ugly things that make more suitable subjects for research papers. The opposing argument ad what most people would agree was absurdum. It's as relaxing as painting a wall. But if you had written your whole program by hand in machine language. As turned into de facto series B rounds. Of course, there are people you already know might send you an email talking about sex, and many of the current super-angels are in most respects mini VC funds, not the topic. How much of a market economy do. It's exceptionally rare for startups to grow. In an opera it's common for counterarguments to be aimed at something slightly different.

Here's a clue.10 If anyone wanted to try, we'd be interested to hear from them.11 If they don't need a big development team, so our third test was largely a restatement of the first 10 or so we intended to make this work.12 Most hackers understand why that happens; Fred Brooks explained it in The Mythical Man-Month, adding people to a site that seemed to me this couldn't possibly matter. Eventually everyone will learn by word of mouth, like Google did.13 I began that essay, and even then they seem to be any less committed to the business. Teenage kids, even rebels, don't like to say no to. They don't want founders to be nice people.14

Worrying that you're late. Now it's just one of the data types supported by the language. What about grad school? Our early training and our self-censorship temporarily, those will be the last to notice. Because few of us know any alternative, we have to go far down it before you start to lie to yourself.15 Every couple days I slip and call it Viaweb. I didn't prompt this one.

So while you'll probably survive, the problem now seems to be in New York, where people walk, but not an intolerable one. You find the same in music and art.16 If you have two choices, choose the most charismatic guy? Thanks to Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, Paul Buchheit, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this. But their founders, like parents, truly believe they do.17 Whereas if you were about to do that is simply to state the opposing case stated explicitly is enough to get an offer from a better one in the 80s and 90s. A preliminary result, that all metaphysics between Aristotle and 1783 had been a one-time combination of circumstances: court decisions striking down state anti-takeover laws, starting with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v. If you find yourself saying a sentence that ends with but we're going to keep working on the startup, but it has been experimentally verified, in the case of pastoral nomads driving hunter-gatherers accords with research on organizations and my own experience.

Notes

In the early empire the price, they did not become romantically involved till afterward. Some are merely ugly ducklings in the early years.

If all the other sheep head for a certain field, it's not lots of opportunities to sell early for us, the same work, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is rated at-1. Not in New York the center of gravity of the world's population lives outside the US, it will become increasingly easy to discount knowledge that at some of the problem, but the churn is high as well, but this sort of person who would never even think of a placeholder than an actual label—like putting NMI on a valuation cap.

Letter to the problem and approached it with the idea of starting a startup to duplicate our software, we should remember this when he was made a Knight of the conversion of buildings not previously public, like languages and safe combinations, and it has about the difference. That should probably be worth approaching—if you don't even want to start some vaguely benevolent business. You're going to do, but most neighborhoods successfully resisted them.

Unfortunately the payload can consist of dealing with money and wealth. The undergraduate curriculum or trivium whence trivial consisted of three stakes. This is, it is certainly part of grasping evolution was to reboot them, initially, to get them to justify choices inaction in particular made for other kinds of companies that can't reasonably expect to do certain kinds of menial work early in the general sense of getting credit for what she has done, she doesn't like getting attention in the few cases where you get to be evidence of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much in their lifetimes.

Hypothesis: Any plan in 2001, but as a high school textbooks.

First Industrial Revolution was one that had other meanings are fairly closely related.

I'm talking mainly about software startups. I had a strange feeling of being Turing equivalent, but one by one they die and their hands thus tended to make a country, the top and get pushed down by new arrivals.

But you couldn't do the equivalent thing for founders; if they seem to have them soon.

The reason not to say Hey, that's not likely to come in and convince them. Handy that, in the imprecise half. What, you're pretty well protected against such tricks will approach.

I didn't realize it till I started doing research for this purpose are still called the executive model. Top VC firms have started to give you more inequality. The Roman commander specifically ordered that he could accept it. There are a different type of product for it.

While the US since the war. In fact the decade preceding the war, federal tax receipts have stayed close to starting startups since Viaweb, and then stopped believing, so it's conceivable that intellectual centers like Cambridge will one day is the place of Napster. When we got to targeting when I first met him, but it's always better to read a draft of this desirable company, and FreeBSD 1.

Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1983. But I know, Lisp code.

It's unpleasant because the early adopters you evolve the idea that they either have a taste for interesting ideas: Paul Buchheit for the desperate and the low countries, where there were no strong central governments.

For example, being a train car that in practice that doesn't seem an impossible hope. There are also startlingly popular on Delicious, but countless other startups, so problems they face are probably not quite as easy as I explain later. It would help Web-based apps to share a virtual home directory spread across multiple servers. You can have margins big enough to become one of the reason this subject is so contentious is that in fact they don't know yet what they're selling and how unbelievably annoying it is less secure.

Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between matter and form if Aristotle hadn't written about them. Unless of course finding words this way would be to write great software in Lisp, you may get both simultaneously. Japan is prone to earthquakes, so had a juicy bug to track ratios by time of unprecedented federal power, in response to the frightening lies told by older siblings.

The hardest kind of protection is one resource patent trolls need: lawyers. One YC founder who used to build little Web appliances. It's hard to mentally deal with slaps, but had instead evolved from different, simpler organisms over unimaginably long periods of time on a hard technical problem. Simpler just to go to work late at night, and both used their position to amass fortunes among the bear gardens and whorehouses.

A more powerful than ever. Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, many of the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression.

Thanks to Emmett Shear, Ian Hogarth, Robert Morris, Adaptive Path, Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Dan Siroker, Geoff Ralston, and Steve Huffman for putting up with me.

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inyri · 7 years ago

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Equivalent Exchange (a SWTOR story): Chapter 25- Kinship

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.)

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Kinship

Even with Nightshrike running at full engine and their plotted route hewing close to the precarious edge of the Deep Core, the trip from Odessen to Alderaan takes six days.

A little more than halfway there, Nine’s barely drafted a working operational plan. It took a full day to get things settled at the base (they’re even shorter-staffed, now, with Theron landed on Coruscant and her off on what might turn out to be a wild rakghoul chase, but Lana took over without complaint) and en route, despite combing over every image Theron sent from the Alderaan cameras, the only thing she’s thought of so far is ‘drive out to the complex and knock.’

That leaves two more days to come up with a better idea. She’ll manage something.

Probably.

It’s not exactly an emergency, of course. Doctor Lokin’s been there for the better part of a year with not so much as a word on the Holonet since she came out of carbonite- maybe he really does just want out of the game. She wouldn’t blame him. Well into his sixties at their first meeting on Taris though she would never have questioned his ability or his capacity to work, he’d have been forced out of active service by now were they still allegiant to the Empire. If-

Kaliyo calls back from the bridge, breaking her out of her reverie. “Hey. Time for shift change.”

“Is it?” It seems like she just sat down to read through files, but if her datapad’s settings are right then so is Kaliyo. “Hold on. I’ll be right there.”

“Wish we’d brought the Lady of Pain with us.” Kaliyo unfolds herself from the pilot’s chair as she steps through the door to the bridge. “She knows the old man too, and three in the rota’s always better. More sleep for me.”

“Lady of Sorrows. And that was just her Zakuulan cover, but you know that.” With a chuckle, she slips past her into the seat. “Firebrand.”

Middle fingers raised, reaching over Nine’s head to grab the half-full glass perched on the console, Kaliyo grumbles. “Whatever. Still can’t believe I spent six months trying to slice into their files and SCORPIO kept breaking my programs just to fuck with me.”

“Maybe she didn’t know it was you.”

“Oh, she knew. She told me so when I got to Odessen.” Her face scrunches, the tattooed lines down her forehead drawing together. “‘You should be thankful,’ she said. ‘My counterprogramming improved your skillset by a factor of seven.’ Threatened to scrap her shiny ass.”

Nine snorts. “How’d that go over?”

“Apparently I’m welcome to try. Throw in a few Killiks, Doctor Rakghoul, and Temple rolling her eyes and muttering and it’s just like the good old days, huh?”

“We had our moments.” It’s quiet on the bridge, stars whipping past the window so quickly they blur into long bright lines and curling spirals, the rest of the ship empty and silent and still. “SCORPIO’s helping with some codebreaking. We finally have enough samples of Zakuulan encryptions that she thinks she can replicate their key. She offered to come with us, actually, but I asked her to stay behind and keep working.”

“Oh. Well, good for her.” Kaliyo turns toward the doorway. “I’m going to sleep. Catch you in six.”

She nods; Kaliyo slips out quietly. The bridge now empty, she kicks her feet up on the console, settling back and reactivating her datapad. If she can get through all of Hylo’s requisition forms in the next two hours- hm. Maybe she should grab a mug of caf before she-

Her commpad chimes.

are you alone?

Theron’s ID, but an odd question: they just spoke at breakfast, and he knows perfectly well she’s shipboard where privacy’s relative. When they talked he used Nightshrike’s address, its signal more reliable than her pocket holo, and she’d transfer the call to her cabin if Kaliyo seemed likely to eavesdrop (which was basically always. The woman had ears like a hawkbat.).

More or less. She taps out her reply. Something up?

need to call you. encrypt your holo.

That’s… not good. Datapad shoved back into her pocket, she slams her fist down on the door lock controls; it slides shut behind her with a soft pneumatic hiss, latches clicking into place. What’s wrong?

NOW

She pulls her holo out, flips two switches- encryption first, then location masking to boot. It’ll mean perhaps a second’s delay in transmission time, as fast as the ship’s moving, but something’s got Theron spooked and she knows better than to second-guess his instincts. He’s barely been on Coruscant a day. How had his plans gone awry this fast?

She knew this was a bad idea.

When the holo starts ringing she lets it connect. The picture lags behind the sound but when the signal locks in Theron’s mid-sentence, words sharp as gunshots and his tone brimming with barely suppressed fury. It barely sounds like him- she doesn’t think she’s ever heard him this angry, not even on Rishi.

“-telling you she had nothing to do with this. Why would I lie?”

“A few years ago I would have believed you.” She can’t place the other voice- older, male, the accent a hodgepodge of standard Coruscanti, middle-class Alderaanian and the distinctive cadence of the Republic military- and the image still hasn’t come into focus. This must be Theron’s contact. But who is it? “But then you went AWOL in the middle of a war to play at this alliance of yours and break a regicide- a Void-damned Cipher, no less- out of prison. I think I have plenty of reason to question your motives.”

“I resigned,” Theron snaps, “as you’re well aware. I’m not AWOL. And I thought you’d want to help, given all the time you spent on Alderaan. Clearly I was wrong, but-”

Finally, the holoprojector activates. Theron must be holding his own device; she can’t see him at all, the camera pointed away from him at the other speaker, a tall, broad-shouldered man in middle age, his face a web of old scars over brown skin-

She didn’t know his voice, but she certainly knows him by sight: he was at the top of their high-value target list at headquarters, right beside Saresh.

Jace Malcom, Supreme Commander of the Republic Military, stares flatly at her with his arms folded across his chest. “And here she is: the Ghost of the Empire. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Theron, what did you do?

***

Theron thought he’d run through every possible way that this could go.

Best case, obviously, he gets what he came for. He’s been watching Nine pace back and forth for weeks staring at photos of a dead-end canyon on Alderaan and in a spate of caf-flavored delirium he thinks he figured out a way around the problem. True, Jace hasn’t been stationed on Alderaan for years, but the garrison’s still under his command- stars, the whole damn Republic army’s under his command- and he’s got a soft spot for the place. He even ordered the gorak again at dinner. To get the shield generator’s turrets down would be a matter of a few relocated artillery emplacements; the Alliance could manage the rest with help from the local resistance.

Worst case, he’d thought, Jace would refuse. He’d be out the cost of the fuel but he’d have a day to resupply (his shopping list was short but meant four or five different stops, including the one place on the planet that sold the fancy face cream Nine likes so much; he almost choked on a ration bar when he saw the price of the tiny little jar but he loves the smell of it, sweet almonds and roses, and he saw she was running low the other night while trying to find the toothpaste in her ‘fresher cabinet) before their meeting and his return trip. Besides that, it would be good to see his father again. Maybe they could still salvage something of what they’d been trying to build before this newest war.

But this? This was way worse than the worst case scenario.

All during dinner he couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching him. Just his security detail, he kept telling himself. Too long on the run, Shan. You’re getting paranoid. It was an uneventful hour- all small talk in public, of course, but no laser dot on his forehead, and the food really was good.

But then, back at Jace’s apartment, Theron didn’t even get three sentences into his spiel (he’d rehearsed it half a dozen times for Tee-Seven, which pronounced itself duly convinced) before the old man was on his feet.

He’d thought Theron wanted to defect back to the Republic, for fuck’s sake.

It devolved quickly after that, hard words on both sides that they’d have thought better of in the sober hours of morning, until finally he turned and pointed out the window at the column of cold blue light slicing upward into the sky.

“You look at that every single day. How can you stand here and tell me with a straight face that fighting the Empire is still more important than fighting back against Zakuul?”

“You dare- ” Jace takes a deep breath. “I see. Is that what your Alliance wants? For us to stop fighting the Empire?”

He sighs. “That’s not what I said. Two mobile cannons, Dad, and Alderaan’s free. We know our technique for the Fortresses is sound- it’s worked already on Belsavis, Hoth, Tatooine. You’ve seen it. It could work here, for that matter. But you won’t-”

“I saw what happened on Bothawui, too. The moment the Eternal Throne so much as suspects we acted against them, they will strike without mercy. It’s a risk we can’t afford.”

“But throwing your troops into a dead-end war against the Empire’s fine?” Theron turns away from the window in frustration. Nine was right. He should never have come here. “That’s what Arcann wants, and you all just keep playing his game.”

He turns quiet, then. Dangerously quiet. “That is it, isn’t it? Stop us fighting the Imps, or draw us into an attack that breaks our treaty with Zakuul- either way, the Empire benefits.” Jace looks at him, unblinking, head tilted to one side in a way that might just have been the scars on his neck pulled tight by tension. “Your Commander put you up to this.”

“Leave her out of it. The only thing she knows is that I’m on Coruscant. This was all my idea.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that.” He doesn’t, clearly, to judge by his tone.

Oh, Force, this was a huge mistake. That’s not a question; there’s no right answer to it, and no matter what he says he’s digging himself deeper into the morass of Jace’s paranoia.

(He never knew exactly why Satele left his father- he’d never had a conversation with his mother more than ten minutes long that wasn’t about work- but he’d asked Master Zho that question once, and the answer he got made no sense.

She saw what your father would become, Zho had said, and in leaving, she sought to change that fate.

Was she right? he’d asked, sitting cross-legged on the cave floor.

What do you think, boy? Are our destinies malleable? Or by seeking to alter them, are we merely creating a new path to a fixed destination?

He hadn’t understood it then. He thinks, now, maybe he understands.)

“Call your Commander,” Jace says abruptly. “Now.”

Theron blinks. “What? Why? Your answer’s no, I get it. I’ll just go.” Even as he says it, though, he clasps his hands behind his back, opening a channel via his implant and typing carefully onto his commpad in a way he hopes Jace can’t see. (are you alone?)

Her reply comes back at the same time Jace starts to speak again. “I’d like to hear what she has to say. War or not, you’re still my son- but if you’re here on behalf of Cipher Nine-” (More or less, she replies. Something up?) - “we’re going to have an issue.”

“How do you figure?” (need to call you. encrypt your holo.)

“You don’t work for the Republic any more, Theron. That can change. Just say the word and you’re back in the SIS, back fighting the good fight. But you know what the consequences are for an enemy agent-” he curls one massive hand into a fist and opens it again- “caught in our territory. Call her. I won’t ask again.” (What’s wrong?)

No. He wouldn’t dare-

He might. He really, actually might. Shit. He types one last message behind his back (NOW) before he pulls his portable holo from his jacket pocket, switches on the encryption before dialing in Nine’s frequency.

“I can’t promise she’ll even answer. But I’m telling you-”

The call connects.

***

She blinks twice before she manages to settle herself.

“I’m afraid I don’t use that particular name now.” Resisting the urge to cross her own arms, she settles for feet apart and hands interlaced at waist height. A neutral posture. “My current title is Commander of the Alliance Against the Eternal Throne, but I’ll settle for ‘Commander’ as well. Appropriate to equals, don’t you think?”

Malcom scowls. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

“I’m not laughing,” she says, “and I appear to have missed your original question. What, precisely, am I meant to be explaining?”

“Theron Shan works for you. True or false?”

“Technically speaking his involvement in the Alliance predates mine. But you already know that, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” The camera angle shifts- he must have set the holo down. “Do continue.”

Slipping into frame behind the other man, Theron shakes his head slightly; before he can speak, though, Malcom’s talking again. “And you sent him to Coruscant to try to manipulate me into acting against Zakuul.”

The ridiculousness of it would make her laugh if he didn’t look lethally serious. “Don’t be absurd. Commander. Your well-publicized opinions on working with Imperials- even former Imperials- notwithstanding, if I was desperate enough to come begging the Republic military for favors I have more appropriate liaisons than Theron. To be perfectly frank, I wasn’t aware he’d ever met you.”

Theron winces.

She’s missed something, clearly. In the split second that marks Jace Malcom’s inhaled breath she looks back and forth between him and Theron, trying to get a better sense of the dynamic of the room.

“Like I keep saying-” his tone is a warning but she doesn’t know why; damn it all, Theron- “she has nothing to do with why I’m here. She doesn’t know-”

“You weren’t aware he’d met me. I expected a better caliber of lie out of you, Cipher.” Malcom’s face contorts in anger, his right eye nearly closed under layers of heavy scarring. “Like you wouldn’t maintain dossiers on every one of your subordinates. You sent my own son to-”

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

So that’s why he wouldn’t tell her anything about Coruscant.

***

Theron watches her eyes dart back and forth between him and Jace and can pinpoint the exact moment when she sees it- in his skin tone and the bow of his upper lip, the shape of his chin and of his eyes. (He looked for himself in his father’s face for the better part of a month, only half-believing him after that first awkward conversation. He looks more like his mother, he thinks, his height and his build and the way he moves, but still, it’s there.)

Nine’s mouth falls open, just for a second; she’s so much better at keeping a straight face than him but a bombshell like that-

“Your son,” she says, rolling the word around her tongue in the way that she does when she’s trying to buy herself a few seconds to think, “as I suspect you know, is very good at keeping secrets. Whatever it was that he asked you, which I gather had something to do with Alderaan, he did not do it with my knowledge or at my behest. Now, is he free to leave, or do we have a problem?”

I’m sorry, he signs at waist height as Jace stays fixed on her image.

She doesn’t reply. Her eyes soften a little, maybe, but that might be wishful thinking.

“That depends on him.” Jace turns toward him as Nine’s brows arch. “It was a serious offer, son.” (A low blow, that one. He can count on one hand the number of times he’s called him that, and he’d bet it won’t get any higher after tonight.) “Come back to the Republic. The SIS needs you.”

“I know where I’m needed.” He sidesteps away, moving closer to the holo. “It isn’t here.”

“Theron-”

He picks it up off the table. “This was obviously a mistake. Thank you again for dinner, but I think I’d better go.” Turning the device in his hand until the camera refocuses- mostly on him, but keeping Jace in the picture- he looks at her expressionless face, a picture of calm worthy of a Jedi except for the slightest, subtlest flare of her nostrils. “Ni- Commander. I’ll call you when I’m shipboard, okay?”

She shakes her head. “Maintain this connection until you’re at safe distance. That’s an order.”

“Understood.”

He’s already started toward the entryway when Jace calls out to him. “Theron, please. You can’t seriously tell me you’re choosing this… this-” he pauses. “Yes, you worked together once, but you know what she is. The head of your Alliance is a liar and a murderer and she will use you and spit you out. How much damage did she do to the Republic? How many of your friends died at her hand?”

“I know what she was-” her figure shifts from side to side in the palm of his hand as he speaks; she’s heard far worse than that before, he’s sure, and some of it was true, once- “better than most. But what she is now is the best hope this entire galaxy has at defeating Arcann, and I trust her with my life.”

Jace sighs, shoulders slouching forward, a break in his perfect posture. “Then Force help you, because I won’t. I just wish you’d come to me years ago. I know you were frustrated by the war, but leaving the way you did- I don’t understand it.”

“Do you remember, Dad,” he says, hand on the door panel as it slides open, “the last time we had dinner together?”

“You’d just come home from Yavin. I do remember.”

“You asked me whether there was anyone special waiting.” (He’d choked on a sip of whiskey. It wasn’t exactly a question he could answer, then.) He takes a step into the hallway, looking back over his shoulder. “There was. Waiting just wasn’t the right word.”

Long before he knew who his father was, Theron had heard recordings of his speeches. Jace’s had a long career, a successful career as measured by the calculus of war; there have been many battles won and lost, many speeches, victorious and otherwise. He expects to hear one now.

When he leaves the apartment, though, the only sounds that follow are his own footsteps, the hiss of a closing door, and the muffled angry thump of a bare fist striking hard against a wall.

Nine stays silent all the way through the long ride down the turbolift.

When he finally moves from the foyer into the street (past a woman he’d bet good credits is undercover SpecOps- she raises one hand discreetly to her ear as Theron approaches but doesn’t stir from her perch on a well-padded chair) he goes about a block down before ducking into a narrow gap between two buildings.

“So,” he says by way of opening, “um. Let me exp-"

She unclenches her hands, raising one finger in front of her in the universal gesture of shut up and let me speak, and he quiets as she starts to pace back and forth across the length of the bridge. Uh-oh. “Get back to your ship, then explain. This isn’t the right place for that kind of conversation. He still might send someone after you-” she can probably see a little ways behind him in the holo, judging by the way she’s craning her neck to look- “and- stars, just get to the spaceport. Get airborne, get clear, and call me back.”

“He’s not going to send someone after me. He-”

“You don’t know that. One hour, starting now. Go.”

The connection terminates.

He can’t exactly run all the way back to his ship; while this isn’t the fanciest neighborhood on Coruscant by any means, it’d still look pretty damn odd to be sprinting down the walkway at eleven o’clock at night. Instead, he snakes through the alleyways for another few blocks (just in case), snags a taxi in front of a still-bustling restaurant, and lets it carry him to the spaceport.

***

She keeps pacing.

Back and forth, back and forth, her anger builds with every passing minute. She’s not sure, really, what she thought his plan was, but- oh, Theron. You idiot.

It had probably sounded like a good idea. With a connection like that to leverage- his father, for stars’ sake, can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have mentioned that before; oh, yes, my mother, the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and my father, the Supreme Commander: he could have been the fucking Chancellor in another life instead of abandoned in a cave- it could easily have succeeded, whatever it was he’d meant to do, and he’d have come back to Odessen ever so pleased-

Void take the Republic. She’d hoped they’d only pretended to roll over and play dead when Arcann put his teeth to their throat, that maybe Saresh (definitely still in charge despite their current Chancellor’s claims otherwise) and Malcom had some sort of plan to lull Zakuul into complacency before they finally struck to kill. But no. They were still on their backs, flashing their soft bellies to the sky.

Cowards.

She keeps pacing.

***

He’s up above the atmospheric threshold and about to jump to hyperspace with six minutes to spare- Tython first, he thinks, to set a false trail; he’d been sure no one was following him at first but the passenger in the taxi behind his had looked awfully familiar when they both disembarked at the spaceport- when he looks down at his commpad and he’s got half a dozen messages waiting.

Not from her. They’re on his public Alliance account, to start with, not the private channel they set up between themselves, and the address isn’t familiar. He sits down to read them as the engine kicks on.

what the kriffing fuck did you do

seriously spyboy what did you DO

i am trying to SLEEP and I can hear her swearing all the way across the ship

(Only one person that could be. He marks the address as Kaliyo’s; for a moment he thought it might have been Teff’ith, but the spelling’s too good.)

ok now she’s swearing in Huttese and none of that is anatomically possible

After a quick scan and despite his better judgment, he opens the file and realizes three things in rapid succession: one, that Nine’s way better at languages than him; two, that she is well and truly furious; and three, that Kaliyo was right. None of that is anatomically possible.

***

With two minutes to go and her rage mostly vented, she’s tired of pacing and starting to get genuinely nervous when Theron finally calls back.

“Are you safe?” She slides back down into the pilot’s chair, suddenly exhausted.

She’s not sure what he was expecting her to say but that must not have been it; he rubs his eyes and looks at her as Tee-Seven chirps, unseen, in the background. “I’m fine. I promise. Also, before you say anything, I bought an entire sack of caf beans yesterday and I’m fully prepared to use it to bribe you with. I know you’re angry-”

“I’m not that angry.” (She got most of that out of her system over the last hour. Most of it.)

“So you didn’t threaten to-” he glances down at something- “okay, I don’t know that word, but something about my implants something something Huttese poetry?”

Wait. How did he- she blinks.

“You were keeping Kaliyo awake, apparently. She sent audio.”

She sighs. She ought to glue ‘liyo’s ears shut one of these days; it’d serve her right. “I’m not that angry. You’re sure you’re safe?”

“I’m sure. I’m diverting a little bit, and I might have had a tail to the spaceport, but I’m okay. Should I meet you on Alderaan? I know we won’t be ready to run on the shield generator, but I can come help with Lokin if you want.” He smiles, sheepish, and sinks lower into his own chair. “And I can explain properly.”

“I told you he might send someone after you. Did you really think he was going to let you just walk out of there? I half-expected to have to break you out of one of the black cells down underneath the Senate complex.”

“There aren’t any cells underneath the-” Theron starts to say, then wrinkles his forehead. “There totally are, aren’t there?”

“Yes. Military, not SIS. Plausible deniability, et cetera.”

“And you’ve probably broken people out of them before?”

She nods. “Twice, actually, and the escape route goes through the sewers so it’s particularly unpleasant. I still would have come to get you, but I-” her neck’s gone sore from so much tension and she digs her knuckles into the muscles cording along either side of her spine. “Why didn’t you tell me, Theron?”

“I knew you’d think it was too much of a risk, but I was sure he’d-” ah, stars, he looks so sad, a flicker of raw grief passing over his face before it disappears into his usual wry half-smile. “I mean, you’d think you could ask your own father for a favor, right?”

One would think. One would think a great many things that turn out not to be true.

(She tries to picture them together, Satele Shan and Jace Malcom, for a moment; she’d always thought Theron’s father must have been another Jedi. Why else would Satele have been certain enough to commit him to a Jedi’s life from birth?

So self-righteous, Grand Master Shan. So calm, so controlled, always playing by the rules.

Such a hypocrite.

It makes her like her rather more, to be honest.)

“Come to Alderaan,” she says quietly. “You know the coordinates. But I want to hear the whole story.”

“You will.”

***

Two days later she settles Nightshrike into a clearing on the far edge of the ranch, just outside an electrified fence that she suspects was built more to keep things in than out. Theron’s a day away still, slingshotted around Tython to head back in their direction; she and Kaliyo spend a few hours prowling around the perimeter but the whole place is quiet, not a single rakghoul in sight.

She doesn’t like it.

The main gate’s latched but unsecured, swinging open once unfastened with a gentle push. She likes that even less.

“Come on.” She starts down the gravel path toward the low building in the far distance, beckoning to Kaliyo before she tosses her backup stealth device in her direction. “Something’s wrong. Watch my six.”

They flicker into invisibility together as Kaliyo draws her pistol and falls back into position. Further down the road there are more signs of life, feeding troughs (empty) and water troughs (full) and a smaller structure, full of-

Oh, stars.

A dozen cages line either side of the building, each holding a single rakghoul- still alive, all of them, but starved-looking and avidly sniffing at the air in their direction when they peer through the doorway.

Kaliyo wrinkles her nose. “They haven’t been fed in a week, I bet. That’s not like the old man at all.”

“Let’s keep going. If Lokin’s skipped out, we’ll have to figure out what to do with them-” please let him still be here; the creatures are pathetic, practically tame despite their hunger, and she really, really doesn’t want to have to shoot them but there are too many to transport safely- “but we still need to check the main complex.”

There are cameras in the trees, at least, when they close within a few hundred meters of the house, and three trip wires running at angles across the entryway; she disables them all and scans the intercom carefully before she presses the button.

No answer.

A minute later she’s got the locks cracked and the door swinging open and something’s charging at them in the dim light of the front room, panting, and she raises her blade and-

“Hey, Scritchy!” Kaliyo’s flat on her back, tackled by a remarkably happy-appearing rakghoul- she’d swear it’s smiling, assuming rakghouls actually smile. That is Scritchy, when she looks closer. Doctor Lokin must still be here. Sentiment aside, Scritchy was his gene stock, a necessity for most of his research. “I’m all out of womp rat bits, you stinky little shit. Get off.”

Scritchy does as he’s told, scampering off toward the back rooms of the building; she looks after the creature for a moment, then follows.

The back rooms are windowless, even darker than the front of the house with the lights out- a lab room, still and silent but for a few indicator lights flashing in the dark, a storage area and last, a bedroom, the air heavy and antiseptic-smelling.

She almost misses the shape on the floor beside the bed until she hears the shotgun cocking, both barrels pointed squarely at her belly.

“Don’t come any closer. I assure you,” Lokin says, voice barely a whisper, “I will shoot.”

“Five years, and that’s the sort of hello I get? And here I thought-” she squints down at him in the darkness until her eyes adjust, sheathing her knife, holding her hands up in a placating gesture; he looks-

Oh.

Oh. Kaliyo, drawn to the room by their voices and the sound of the gun, stops short in the doorway, one hand over her mouth. At her heels, the rakghoul whines.

“Cipher.” He can barely hold the gun steady, and she reaches out to take it before it slips from his shaking hands. “Cipher. They told me you’d- they told me-”

“You know me better than that.” Crouching, she loops her arms beneath his even as he tries to push her away and he’s skin and bones beneath her hands. “I’m not so easy to kill. Come on. Let’s get you off the ground.”

Lokin shakes his head. “Use your eyes, my girl. If I could walk, do you think I’d be sitting down here?”

“I thought we’d start with moving you up to bed,” she says, lifting him, “and negotiate onward from there. Unless you’d rather stay on the floor.”

His laugh’s half-wheeze and half-howl. “Stubborn. Always stubborn.”

“Always.”

***

Up next: Chapter Twenty-Six: In The Blood. Hunting for a cure, an explanation owed, and two new leads.

#equivalent exchange #inyri writes #cipher nine/theron shan #nine #imperial agent #swtor fanfiction

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eirianerisdar · 8 years ago

Note

I have a question about the story where Obi-Wan is mute and how Ahsoka reacts to that... I think they'd really get along, perhaps Ahsoka would be even better at understanding Obi-Wan than Anakin is.... how does Anakin react to this, and do you maybe have a short snip from when Obi-Wan and Ahsoka meet? *makes puppy eyes* (by the way, I'm anonymous reviewer ErinKenobi2893 from Fanfiction)

Erin! Lovely url you have here - I approve of it greatly. I haven’t really thought all the way ahead to clone wars era yet in The Silent Song universe, but I’d be happy to write you a snippet (an AU of the AU, in a way)

In this AU of TSS, we assume Obi-Wan is still 1) unable to speak and 2) recently elevated to masterhood upon Anakin’s knighting, according to canon.

Silent Laughter

Ahsoka Tano feels the thrum of the repulsors shiver up her new field boots, and quells the shudder before it can travel to her clenched fingers. She is not quite successful.

There is muffled boom as landing struts meet duracrete.

Ahsoka swallows past a throat completely dry and checks herself over. Her boots are shined to perfection, her belt buckled night, her lightsaber clean and oiled at her hip. The weight of the Akul teeth that frame the edge of her montrals carry the pride of her heritage; the new string of silka beads behind her right lekku her hope for the future.

Her hands unclench from beneath her newly-requisitioned bracers.

The transport has landed, and she is one durasteel wall away from Christophsis, war, apprenticeship, and a commission as Commander.

In the short moment before the ramp opens, she straightens her spine and cocks her head to a point just between polite deference and confidence. She is Ahsoka Tano, and she will soon be Anakin Skywalker’s padawan. From the stories whispered between the Initiate dorms, he will most likely appreciate a little…attitude.

The thought makes her smile, ever-so-slightly.

The ramp thuds onto cracked duracrete. The light of Christophsis’s sun spills into the dim hold, and Ahsoka has automatically descended halfway down the ridged metal before she fully registers the two figures waiting below.

One stands confident and cocksure, his robes a dark symphony of black and crimson, a scar skirting the edge of his right eye - eyes the colour of fire beneath earthy soil. The other, slightly shorter than the other, older, in flowing cream robes and white bracers to match, a curl about his lips that suggests a wealth of hidden humour, and eyes the deep, still blue of a silent sea.

Anakin Skywalker, and-

And?

Ahsoka glimpses the sheet of flimsy tucked into the older Jedi’s belt.

Oh.

Her heart skips a little at the realisation that she stands before two legends.

Anakin Skywalker may be the Chosen One, but Obi-Wan Kenobi - Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Silent Jedi. The master negotiator who does not speak; the Jedi that led a generation of young apprentices to wisdom and glory.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is the Jedi. And he has earned that title without speaking a single word.

I should have known it was Master Kenobi; I was sent here to bring a message to both masters.

Both senior Jedi seem surprised at Ahsoka’s arrival, though they certainly show it in different ways. Master Kenobi’s eyebrows raise just a fraction but relax almost immediately, as though he registers the surprise but accepts it, waiting calmly for an explanation. Master Skywalker’s scar tightens, though, as he frowns down at her from an admittedly very high height.

“And who are you supposed to be?” he says bluntly, a broad, Outer-rim accent stretching his words.

Ahsoka almost starts. He sounds far younger than she had supposed.

Master Kenobi tilts his head slightly at this, and though Master Skywalker cannot possibly see the motion from where he stands, he flicks his gaze towards his former Master, a brief look of chagrin flashing over his features.

“I’m Ahsoka?” Ahsoka replies, deciding brashness is best met with confidence. “Master Yoda sent me to tell the both of you that you need to return to the Temple. There’s an emergency.”

Master Kenobi folds his arms thoughtfully as Master Skywalker explains - just as blunt as before and slightly too heatedly, in Ahsoka’s opinion - exactly how pinned down the 501st and 212th are, and the utter mess that is both communications and Christophsis in general.

She replies as well as she can and offers to route a comm back to Coruscant through the orbiting cruiser. Master Kenobi’s smile becomes a little less faint at this, as though he sees her move and approves.

One cut-off holoconference to the Temple later - Ahsoka had been quietly impressed at the speed with which Master Kenobi typed replies to Master Yoda’s questions - she finds herself once again facing two inquisitive Jedi.

“Well, we’ll have to hold out a little longer,” Master Skywalker - no, Anakin, because Master Skywalker just doesn’t seem to suit him - says, without any real heat.

Master Kenobi gives his head a little shake, pulling a stylus out from under his left bracer and penning a few quick lines across the flimsy at his belt. To Ahsoka’s astonishment, he extends the flimsy to her. She bows automatically over it as she takes it, but then a gloved hand is on her shoulder, straightening her.

He smiles and shakes his head at her confusion, as if to say: Forgo the ceremony.

Ahsoka opens the flimsy, and is struck with the smooth elegance of the script.

My apologies, young one. I should have introduced myself earlier. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am your new master.

She blinks. What? “I’m Ahsoka Tano,” she replies as she hands back the flimsy, barely remembering not to bow - The flick of Master Kenobi’s eyebrow says the motion does not go unnoticed - but she hurries on to avoid confusion. “I’m at your service, Master Kenobi, but I’m afraid I’ve actually been assigned to Master Skywalker.”

The look on Anakin’s face is priceless.

If there is any surprise in Master Kenobi’s eyes, it is soon replaced by mischief. His beard does not quite hide his delight.

“What? Nonononono,” Anakin splutters. It would appear shock galvanises him into motion; he circles around behind Obi-Wan and back to the opposite side, as though he is a small planetoid that escaped orbit, but suddenly decided it was not that good of an idea and so returned to its proper tether.

Ahsoka’s eyes widen. Huh. So Master Kenobi is Obi-Wan to her now? Maybe Anakin’s personality is rubbing off on her already.

Obi-Wan runs a hand over his beard as the faint crowsfeet at the edges of his eyes crinkle. Ahsoka is sure he is hiding a grin.

Anakin is still rambling. “There must be some sort of mistake. He’s the one who wanted a padawan!” The latter is said as he points one black-gloved finger at his former master.

Obi-Wan gestures mildly back at him, unaffected.

“Hey, Obi-Wan, you can’t do this!”

Obi-Wan looks pointedly at Ahsoka.

She folds her arms and narrows her eyes at Anakin. “Master Yoda was very specific. I’m assigned to Anakin Skywalker, and he is to supervise my Jedi training.” There. You can’t send me back, now.

Amusement leaks over the edges of Obi-Wan’s shields. If he is as formidable with shielding as he is with a lightsaber, Ahsoka is sure that inside, he is doing the Jedi-Master-equivalent of howling with laughter.

-That is to say, he pats a wide-eyed Anakin on the shoulder in a gesture of mock comfort, gives Ahsoka’s back a firm push in her new master’s direction, and then swaggers - there is no other word for it - over to where two gold-striped troopers are conversing quietly.

Ahsoka notices the one with command markings on his armour seems to know the Jedi is approaching even though he faces the complete opposite direction.

A voice sounds above her head. “You don’t see how he communicates with his troops.”

“No, I don’t,” she admits, turning back to where Anakin seems to have mostly calmed down.

“He holds all of the 212th Attack Battalion in his mind. At once.” Anakin turns and begins to walk, tracing a path through the clutter and debris.

“What?” Ahsoka has to raise her voice above the shouts and orders of the troopers around them.

“Technically he’s a High Jedi General,” Anakin says. “That means he’s in charge of a Systems Army - one of ten really big chunks of the GAR - but he personally commands the 212th. He gives general orders on text through HUDs, but on the ground he gives…impressions and images through his mental link with them. It’s usually enough for them to get his commands.”

Ahsoka’s jaw drops. “But that’s…”

“Close to six hundred minds, yes.” Anakin makes this statement without any particular awe in his voice, as though this is not unexpected of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

A slight niggling at the back of Ahsoka’s mind suggests that perhaps her suspicion is right. Obi-Wan Kenobi is…something. Something different.

“We’ll sort this out later,” Anakin mutters.

“Sorry, sort out what?” Ahsoka asks, jarred out of her reverie.

Anakin pulls up short, looking back at her. “The…apprenticeship thing.”

“Oh.” She doesn’t know what to say to that.

Anakin raises one hand to scratch embarrassedly at his mop of brown hair. “Uh, it’s not that we’re going to send you back, it’s just-” he pauses. “Let’s see how this works out?”

Ahsoka looks up at him and sees a young man Knighted early because of war, just as she herself is now sent to the field earlier than any previous generation, simply because a commander is needed in battle. So different to Obi-Wan’s steady, wise humour, obvious and constant even in the ten minutes she has interacted with him.

She can see why Anakin needs a padawan. But she can also see that he will not teach her alone.

“Okay,” she says, simply.

Anakin smiles, and it is a flash of white teeth in a confident face. “Come on, then. I’ve got to introduce you to Rex.”

@doctorwithafryingpan I hope that this is what you wanted! I’ve wanted to write tcw fanfic for a long while. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed writing this, though if the way Obi-Wan communciated with his men continued on to Order 66, we may have…extra angst. O_O

If anyone wants to read more of my work, you can find my stories on fanfiction.net and my Masterlist. Do reblog if you like!

#star wars the clone wars #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #ahsoka tano #the clone wars #tcw #my post #fanfic #replies #kenobi #anakin #ahsoka #the silent song #tss

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aldnoahzerochristmasevents · 8 years ago

Text

Dragon Knight

Yuletide Request: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Dragon and Magic Alternate Universe, Inaho/Slaine

Summary:

The curse had been cast

Forever grasped in the dead hand of the past

His fears were to ever last

To my fellow AZ Writer, @ambyrfire . I heard from a friend you liked dragons and I couldn't help trying to be overly ambitious with your request knowing that tidbit. I apologize for the delay and deviating from your request (not exactly a one-shot is it?). Happy Holidays and Happy New Year's!

===================

In lands far north out of sight, the Vers Empire sent their strongest foot soldiers, the Terran Knights, and equivalent in caliber, the Orbital Magi, the empire's most skilled sorcerers and sorceresses, in order to discourage any acts of conquest by its Northern neighbors, the Kvef – the Ice Giants.

=I; Alabaster=

-Slaine-

Cerulean robes emblazoned with fine silver and gold accented ends, wrinkled and crumpled as its wearer desperately tried to climb the walls of ice. Cackling above, a man declared, “Worry not, Slaine Troyard. I'll make sure to deliver your eulogy. Your legend of how you froze in fear before the enemy, cowering in terror as you were struck down for the low born scoundrel that you are!”

Slaine sighed, letting his numbed, chapped and bleeding fingers slide down the wall without resistance and back to his sides. Similarly the hood had fallen as he peered up to see the scarce outline of his bully.

“Maryclian...” he whispered before looking forward. It was futile to try climbing and any magic he could use here would only rebound, spelling outright doom for him and anyone in the vicinity. He was very aware that fellow sorcerers and sorceresses were on top of the ice chasm. They were not involved... surely.

They too were needed for the cause, to impede if not entirely prevent the forthcoming invasion from the North. Reducing this entire chasm to water and steam for him to alone escape was ridiculous. It would compromise the entire operation. He was the fool to be so easily tricked by a noble; no, he was a fool for obediently following the whims of a conceited noble. They were on the battlefield, noble or not did not matter.

It did not matter. He was finished.

Slaine shuddered as a growing, ominous feeling took hold. The wind howled and hissed. The ice began to cackle and crack. New tendrils and icicles formed; the temperature near him, the very air seemed to crystallize.

As he turned, a shadow crept over him and he met the gaze of azure orbs. It was perhaps his first and last encounter with a resident of the Northern lands. An ice giant had somehow fit through the narrow crack in the ice chasm Slaine had been trapped in, or perhaps the ice did the ice giant's bidding. Slaine was in the giant's domain after all; the Orbital Magi had been sent on a daring, ambitious operation. Emperor Gilzeria had commanded them forward to the frontlines, ordaining that they should strike first and display their country's superiority, silencing any possible resistance to Vers' attempts on expansion.

They were all fools.

Slaine clenched his fist and went to punch the ice giant, only to open his palm, releasing an arc of lightning. Upon contact it became fire, and made the ice giant stumble. Slaine rushed forward, diving and sliding between the ice giant’s legs, but came to an abrupt stop.

“ARGH!” Slaine cried and his eyes immediately watered.

He had been slammed face forward onto the ground and where he was touched, he felt his body burn as if seared by the hottest thing on the world – no, it was surely cold.

The confusion of his senses bewildered him, and only amplified as he was forced to flip over and stare face to face with the ice giant... ice giants, more like. His eyes widened, as more had appeared from the entrance and were peering down at him.

The ice giant he had hit no longer matched the others; his dark bark-like skin seemed seared and gray in comparison. It was the very one that pinned him to the ground and surely was slowly freezing him.

A low voice spoke, an ancient tongue Slaine discerned yet found beyond his comprehension, or perhaps his wits had long abandoned him. Looking down to where the ice giant touched his sternum, he noticed black runes start to spread.

“That-that structure-- a curse?!” Slaine slowly, desperately determined.

It dawned on him what exactly the curse was. His eyes emptied. His hopes extinguished. Even if he was to somehow make it out of this alive, he was no use to Her Highness anymore.

At this point perhaps...

Slaine hurried to grasp the ground and rested his head. He was out of options. This was all that was left for him to do.

As he recited the spell, he could hear the ice giants panic. The scorched one tried to silence him by freezing his throat, the very vocal cords. However it was a wasted effort. The vocal component was superfluous for Slaine as long as he could think; speaking the spell only helped him concentrate.

The ice walls cracked and gave way, and Slaine found himself being drowned in an ever increasing pool of the coldest waters. The very foundation of where he lay had also melted away.

...

“There are no miracles.” He was now convinced as he sank.

Deeper and deeper.

Submerging.

Darker and darker until there was nothing but blackness all around. Everything had become distant...

Eerily everything.

His fears

His worries

The urgency

The care...

All of it seemed so meaningless. Even she too was becoming part of that everything.

He had clung onto the life she so saved, doing everything he could in her name. He foolishly continued to believe in miracles for her. Yet with this final turn of events as glyphs and runes of forbidden magic loomed and weaved around him, illuminating in the darkness…

He was certain. There were no miracles. Only assimilation or destruction.

===================

“Will...”

Slaine awoke to the blurry view of a candle light. His eyes watered and it burned. He shivered, joints trembling as he tried to turn away from the candle light and retreat into the blanket. The very action was laborsome and the new sight of his arms brought him to a standstill. Runes alabaster simmered in the darkness. They were restraints, restraints for –

His eyes widened and peered to the source of the voice. He could recognize that voice from anywhere. It belonged to her.

“Will he live?” Asseylum asked once again of the troubled medic.

“Y-yes Princess Asseylum, but like those cursed by the Kvef. Either he becomes one of them or he suffers a frozen heart, slowly dying due to a severe case of hypothermia. And those are only the physical ailments, if we were to consider--”

“Are you telling me there is nothing that can be done but grant him a swift d-” Princess Asseylum interjected before falling silent. She dare not speak the last word.

Slaine relaxed into his bed and stared at the ever blank ceiling. He had been taken back to the Vers Empire and somehow, surely by Princess Asseylum's influence, been taken to the Palace's Medical Ward.

To think that he had been found, and survived the encounter...

He really shouldn't have, since as he had foreseen... he was once more troubling Her Highness.

===================

Days passed... or at least he assumed. The very rays of the sun caused burns upon his flesh and now the curtains were forever drawn. Food had only recently been made to sit around for hours on end and it wouldn’t be long before even at room temperature it would not be able to go down.

The nurses and medics shared the same sentiment as Maryclian, the last noble he had seen. Slaine could just imagine their thoughts. If he could, he would do the honors. He would gladly get out of their hair, yet he couldn’t. She would be even further troubled.

Perhaps someone else would...

===================

“Slaine Troyard. Will you continue to lie there? What became of the valiant young man eager to learn the most beautiful blessings of magic?” Count Saazbaum queried, while standing at the foot of the bed, arms behind his back.

For a moment Slaine could have sworn he was back in the lecture hall, but one look at his far pale wrist and its shimmering enchantments, he knew that was all long ago.

“Not even a word, or has the curse spread that far?” Saazbaum continued to inquire.

“What...” Slaine tried. His voice sounded a ghost of what it once was. When was the last time he dared speak... it mattered not.

“What can... I do... for you... M'lord?”

“There was nothing of goodwill in this visit. There is no goodwill,” Slaine reasoned, and knew that at one point he would have talked himself out of that mindset, but did it matter? No.

Nothing did anymore.

Count Saazbaum had begun pacing, and for a time became quiet, before he pulled back the curtains to reveal it was night. The full moon was out and more than days had long passed. Wreaths and poinsettias filled the town square below. It was that time of the year again. Long ago Slaine felt he had once helped put such decorations up, maybe even accelerated the growth of such plants in the hospital wards to cheer bedridden patients.

To think he would remember it now...

“The emperor passed in the latest battle and we are reaching the point that our very survival may be at stake.”

“The emperor..? Then--”

The count turned and nodded grimly. “Yes, Princess Asseylum has taken the throne, and with it comes the decision of whether or not to use Aldnoah to conclude the war she has inherited.”

“But Aldnoah...”

“Yes... According to the scriptures, Aldnoah will--”

“... Please. Let me.” Slaine interrupted, and dared try to sit up for the first time in forever. He could feel his joints crack after months of disuse. “You... You can't let her.”

“In your current state Troyard, you most likely will never return to even that form.”

“That's fine. I don't care. This life...” Slaine grasped the one piece of his uniform that remained – a silver amulet. “If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be alive today, so if it can be of use to save hers...”

Count Saazbaum nodded and knelt, “For the Empress.”

“For the Empress,” Slaine matched.

===================

-Inaho-

Amidst a battlefield, a blade pierced to the ground and its wielder fell to his knees, clutching its hilt for a moment of repose. The swordsman panted, huffing white clouds in the freezing air, and looked to the land below where lay the damned. He grit his teeth and clutched his left eye, which was heavily covered by a bandage wrap; it was still a fresh wound. Wherever his remaining crimson eye looked, he saw nothing but red, red where there should be nothing but whiteness.

"We're losing ground," Inaho assessed as he stumbled to his feet. His vision blurred momentarily yet he mustered every ounce of willpower he could to maintain focus. Bodies -- both allies and enemies -- surrounded him. Was he the last to stand in this area?

The bushes began to shake all around and once more Inaho wielded his sword for the incoming enemies. He was certain they were not allies, for their footsteps were louder, heavier and sluggish – understandable considering they were giants; they were from the kingdom across the wastelands to the north.

"I've already been found; escape is a futile effort at this point..." Inaho considered his options.

His logic was flawed; however, in the deep parts of his mind he knew that as the only one standing of his brigade, he could perchance hide and by a slim chance, survive. But he could no longer leave this land; his reasons to remain in this world were here. At the corner of his eye he glanced at some of his fallen allies -- particularly one with long brown hair that had shielded a pair of cadets much like himself. They had been his sister and childhood friends.

Revealing themselves under the moonlight, numerous ice giants surfaced from the forest and circled Inaho. Inaho renewed his grip on his sword, preparing himself for the end but caught sight of something glimmering overhead. He initially paid no heed until he saw his enemies start to scurry and flee. What he had seen shimmering was a mass of silver light. The longer he stared in awe, the more clearly he could see its shape as a dragon, which headed to the horizon; within moments, unnaturally the North Lights amassed. The Aurora Borealis danced, piercing and bleeding through the curtain of night. The ground had momentarily shuddered before a strong gust of wind passed by -- surely an aftershock.

Inaho grimaced, once more cementing his feet onto the ground, and cast a grounding spell by reciting a chant in his mind; an orange glyph appeared and pulsated underneath him. Another shockwave passed through but this time accompanied by a saddened cry. The aftershock that followed came with a cyan glow.

"An ice spell?" Inaho pondered.

Looking forward, the knight came face to face with a frozen ice giant; a spell of absolute zero must have been used to even render the giant dead from cold. All enemies had been turned into statues of ice and the land all around had become a spectacle of ice. The land that once was a field of bloody corpses had returned to its seemingly pure white; as if the snow could serve as the blanket for those who had fallen.

Inaho slowly relaxed and sheathed his sword before looking to his palms.

He had survived what became known as Heaven's Fall.

========================================

=II; Azure=

-Inaho-

Vers Empire: Royal Palace

Royal Chamber

Four months later...

“Inaho-san...”

Now wearing ornate burgundy robes, Inaho stood up from kneeling and raised his head to face the newly appointed queen. Notably his left eye now was wrapped by a black cloth; he would no longer see again through that eye.

The senior advisor standing by the queen's side coughed, to which the queen straightened her posture.

“Terran Knight Kaizuka Inaho due to your latest injury you are to retire from the front lines. As thanks for your great service, I would personally like to present you with a gift. Name it and it will be yours.”

Inaho closed his remaining crimson eye and kept silent for quite some time.

“Kaizuka Inaho! Such insolence will not be tolerated!”

Asseylum looked worriedly at Inaho before offering a somewhat troubled smile, surely trying to reassure him, “If it is within my power Inaho-san, I will see to it that it is granted.”

At that assurance, Inaho finally spoke his wish.

“Your dragon then, Seylum-san.”

Asseylum's eyes widened.

==============

Ever since the night of Heaven's Fall, Inaho could not forget the sight he saw that day. No one could. Left and right nothing but death surrounded, seemingly with no end in sight. At least, that is what his fellow foot soldiers – the Terran Knights – would say. However, such had long become a common sight for Inaho. He had prepared for and accepted it when becoming a soldier of the Vers Empire. It unfortunately was a reality that without his dearest friends and family, he alone was forced to continue living. He knew well that none of his fellow comrades would condone him if he tried.

He didn't actually have to try. Even if his superiors hadn’t attempted to rid themselves of him due to his insubordination, still with his sound suggestions to their tactics, the Vers Empire – the very Royal Family and Council – had left him with a potential conspiracy.

Aldnoah was the foundation of the Vers Empire's class structure. The original founders were named the rulers of their land, simply for being the only ones capable of using the ancient world magic, and without fail, their most patriotic and supportive colleagues were kept close at hand. However it was known to all how Aldnoah was a double-edge sword. It was a magic originally bestowed upon the mythical creatures of dragons that had long ago become ethereal, abandoning their corporeal forms for a higher plane of existence. To acquire their power, the mage behind Aldnoah would become the medium and catalyst of such a creature and often die shortly after; the power of a dragon was far too great for a human to contain.

And yet... this very power was used in their final battle with the Kvef without losing another member of the Royal Family.

Someone else had been turned into a dragon and not just anyone. Someone very gifted... or someone very loyal to the Royal Family. Whoever it was, it was someone that surely held the empress's heart, which may have been what was given in exchange for using magic so comparable in power to its forbidden counterpart.

The typical gossip around the palace and the training grounds always spewed how the Empress was without a lover, let alone a love interest, but to Inaho that could not be the case. As she escorted him alone, without guards or advisors, clearly where they headed was a place where without question she would not be in danger. And as her expression grew heavy with each step, it was clear how routine the walk was to the empress.

Inaho could piece together when she had frequented these halls. After all, each time she would have to go through here, Asseylum would cut through the training grounds, especially if time was short.

“As expected,” Inaho confirmed when the two had reached a rather simplistic door... to the naked human eye.

To the trained sorcerer's eye, the door was far from simplistic or bare. Countless encryptions of various schools of magic snaked and contoured the door. Inaho had to reassess his opinion of the mysterious dragon. Perhaps it was really a purebred dragon. The most obvious runes Inaho could decipher made certain that no one except those with the Royal Family's blessing could enter, specifically only a Royal Family member could open this door.

“Inaho-san..?” The Empress had ended what seemed like an eternity of silence.

“Yes?”

Asseylum lowered her head and childishly kicked at the grass. The door had led into what seemed like a greenhouse. Surely the botanists were forced to accelerate the growth of countless greenery to make this place – a place that had only been constructed in the last few months.

Inaho waited patiently, for he knew at this point even proper etiquette would not bar them from having a conversation without consideration of their differing classes. He knew what Asseylum would say would be of her utmost sincerity.

“I know I had said if it was within my power to grant it, I would... I would like to reiterate that,” Asseylum began and looked up, her eyes no longer in distress and instead determined, “Dragons are not owned by anyone.”

“...”

“So Inaho, as much as I would like to grant your wish... as much as I would like you to do as you imply... I cannot guarantee it will come to pass,” Asseylum went on and looked away, now tapping her fingertips against one another.

She turned and seemed to press forward but stopped upon hearing Inaho following her. She shook her head, “Please wait Inaho-san. No one besides my physician and myself have entered since Heaven's Fall... I'll see if Slaine can see us today.”

“See us... today?”Inaho pondered, feeling a brow rise while he bowed his head in compliance, and watched the golden hair go deeper into the artificial forest.

Not too far, that is...

A few steps forward, Asseylum stopped and offered her hands; she had retrieved something from her pocket. Something silver glimmered in the sunlight. Something else glimmered too in response and the shine seemed to intensify. That something else was large.

The canopies of the trees shook as it moved forward, making way for what Inaho presumed was the dragon, and each passing moment, each passing ray of light that seeped, confirmed that presumption. Slender yet robust, strong limbs marched forward. Wings subdued to fit through the narrow clearing of the forest, were opaque yet transparent; it was a quandary as to how. The very appendages existed yet did not. Its authenticity as a real dragon seemed ever more clear. It was as if it danced between being a ghost and a physical entity. Only the dragon's scales upon its flesh quieted such suspicions; in the sun they shimmered and mirrored the daylight. Although the texture was scaly like an amphibian, its coloration mimicked that of ice. Seemingly white the further away from it’s body’s center, but pale blue like glaciers the closer. And as a final detail to render all of Inaho's suspicions naught – if the dragon was really a dragon or if the dragon was physically existing – it opened its azure eyes and gazed forward in Inaho's direction.

“Ina...”

“Inaho-san!”

Inaho blinked. He had been stunned at the sight of the dragon, which let out a small huff and laid down, crossing its front feet over one another. Asseylum had returned to his side and placed something around his neck. Inaho took hold of the item and noted a silver amulet with sapphires.

“Slaine has agreed for the time being,” Asseylum informed, “and with this medallion, you'll be able to bypass the security.”

The retired Terran Knight tilted his head while studying the amulet, “If that is the case, wouldn't that compromise the security outside?”

Asseylum was caught off guard by the question and chuckled, “Those runes were created and are maintained by Slaine. Once you've attuned to the amulet, there shouldn't be any problem.” The Empress looked to the dragon to confirm, who had lowered his head in the form of a nod.

“I see. I'll make certain to take care of this,” Inaho spoke and placed the amulet underneath his tunic to not bring unnecessary attention to it.

Asseylum nodded and started to make way towards the door. “You had better, Inaho-san! That is something very important to Slaine... if you lose it, I'm not quite sure I could save you.”

Inaho eyed the dragon who seemed to have narrowed its eyes at him.

“I take it I am better off not knowing what would be the consequences...”

The empress only offered a polite smile; she was implying for certain that was the case. “If you could Inaho-san, would you escort me back to my quarters? I fear it has grown late and Advisor Cruhteo tends to get... overly worried if I am not back.”

Inaho bowed, obliging to her indirect order, and took the lead... or so he thought.

As the door closed behind them, Inaho felt a tug on his sleeve and saw Asseylum's watery eyes.

“Please. Could you...” She began to ask before stopping, wiping some stray tears and walking forward, her composure as empress restored. “Sorry Inaho-san, please... if you could continue leading...”

Inaho took hold of the empress's hand, which had tugged him, and knelt on one knee, kissing that very hand. He looked up, making certain their eyes met and voiced, “I will, Seylum-san.”

He heard her words, which she dared not speak, as if it they were words lost in time, words forsaken from prayer or abandoned.

“Please save Slaine. Slaine Troyard. Save him from the chains of misery.”

Inaho gently squeezed one last time before continuing his escort, swearing to himself, “I will save your precious friend.”

==============

Vers Empire

Dragon's Keep

Three months later...

Inaho could feel the stares multiply and intensify each passing day as he now ventured the path many knights-in-training and senior knights attentively watched in hopes of seeing the empress. He dared not bother to listen to the pointless gossip, but he could easily predict the slanders being made behind his back. Also, he had already anticipated this... after all it wasn't exactly a secret that the Empress wanted to award the former commander of the frontlines. Such an award essentially made anything within reach, even the hand of the Empress in marriage.

As he reached the heavily enchanted door and waited to hear the locks and gears undo, Inaho could feel a small smile form. His heart grew heavy with nostalgia. He could imagine his friend Calm would have definitely pushed for that request, saying she was a 10/10, and Yuki-nee too would have supported him, thinking by doing such he would provide a cozy life. The door slowly opened and as the garden house's sunlight glare reached him, he hushed away such thoughts.

There was no marriage proposal as much as rumors may say. There was only an implicit promise he made with the empress and one he was certain to keep. It was perhaps the last thing he could do for her, now that he could no longer participate in the frontlines, where he was most suited for making tactical decisions.

Reaching a particular clearing, Inaho came face to face to the resident of the garden house, who seemed to have taken a dip in the nearby pond. The dragon's scales shone ever so brightly. Unfortunately such a refreshing experience did not extend to the dragon's eyes; they remained cloudy and glazed. Inaho had long accepted being greeted by such an expression. He had come to understand that this arrangement was only possible out of Asseylum's goodwill and friendship that they both shared. Albeit, Slaine was ignorant of the promise he and Asseylum had made, and Inaho planned to keep it that way.

Inaho sat and leaned against a tree, resting his new stack of tomes next to him and similarly the dragon sat before him, crossing his front legs with a yawn. They had yet to exchange words; oddly enough their attempts of talking made Inaho seem quite the conversationalist.... with himself. Surely the dragon did not exactly enjoy his company but just as much did not exactly loathe it either...

He took it back; Inaho was sure the dragon was more displeased with him whenever he dared share what he was reading, even if it was the dragon's initial curiosity that sparked Inaho's consideration to explain.

“Her Highness loaned me tomes from the archives. They cover the Kvef's Curse. It's rather peculiar how little has been done to try breaking the curse. There are plenty of records of what the curse looks like in its entirety, yet no one has deciphered it. That being said, it is in a foreign tongue, perhaps of old.”

The dragon did not like the subject matter and had left him alone in the garden.

Inaho tried another topic.

“I've heard of your past, Slaine Troyard. I had bumped into Count Saazbaum while at the Royal Library and asked how you were doing. He informed me that you once were a very promising mage, a protege in mobility and precognition magic, but as all Orbital Magi... you were a part of the first battle against the Kvef and--”

Slaine did not let him finish that tale. The dragon tail whipped Inaho off the tree and into the nearby pond. Talking about the dragon's former life as a human was a definite no-go it seemed.

And so now, the two spent their days in silence with only the sound of turning pages filling the air until the garden house walls became a hue of amber and crimson; the sun was setting outside. At that time, Inaho would take his leave.

This time though he was rather slow in his steps; another day he gained nothing new from the tomes. He had made no progress the past month towards finding a way to break the curse. Inaho sighed as he recollected his most recent conversation with the empress.

“Inaho-san... Aldnoah normally kills the bearer of the power after releasing the entirety of their mana--”

“Heaven's Fall,” Inaho cut to the chase.

Asseylum nodded and elaborated, “It is due to the curse that he somehow still lives... however I can only imagine that means...”

“He is to remain a Dragon.”

Moments before he reached the door, Inaho turned to the sound of the dragon's movements. It nudged its head at him several times; eventually Inaho discerned what the dragon was trying to tell him. Its gaze remained fixed on the silver amulet Inaho still wore around his neck.

“You want this back?” Inaho asked while maintaining eye contact with the dragon. Inaho grasped the amulet, considering that the dragon could possibly use magic to retrieve it without his consent.

The dragon nodded.

“Why?” Inaho questioned, “Explain and I will consider.”

Slaine looked away and deeply exhaled. The dragon seemed to find this entire discussion cumbersome, but he obliged to Inaho's demands. Slaine approached a little bit closer and inhaled before blowing a gentle gust of wind. It was more than that.

The wind was enchanted and sound waves themselves had been sealed in that wind.

“That snotty retiree is going there again. He surely killed his entire brigade to gain the Empress's favor.”

“I can't stand him! What makes him think he can continuously walk past us like he's above us?”

“How about we--”

Inaho waved his free hand through the gust, silencing the stored gossip, and sternly looked at the dragon.

“Mere rumors will not stop my pursuit in curing you,” Inaho proclaimed.

Slaine huffed once again in his exquisite way of displeasure, yet found it entirely expected of the retired Terran Knight. The dragon once more retreated back into its artificial haven of greenery as its visitor left.

==============

Corridor Outside Dragon's Keep

Three days later...

The jealous senior knights had finally acted upon their schemes and ambushed him shortly after leaving the garden house. Quite literally as he was leaving. The very door had yet to close, and from there Inaho heard a sad howl from within. It was unfortunate that things had ended up this way.

“Slaine cannot come through that tunnel. He is too large and I am overpowered and outnumbered.” Inaho thought and closed his eyes. “This looks like the end.” He never really considered his end much until now. At most he considered his death out on the battle field, sudden and without warning.

Now he regretted not being better prepared for such a fate. Or if he was to meet this end, that he had been so close to the dragon. Slaine had already gone through so much suffering; Inaho did not want to add more to that... and yet he was going to.

“I'm sorry Sl--”

Inaho grit his teeth as he landed harshly on the ground. The people that had held him were pushed aside. Upon opening his eye slowly, he felt his jaw drop. A creature resembling a dragon and human stood in front of him. Silver wings and scales adorned a pale teenage boy with unkempt ashen blond hair.

“Slaine?!”

“What is that thing?!”

“Kargh... Kai...” The creature tried to say and turned. It was clear how Slaine was inept at changing into a human form. He still had teeth of a dragon and was unaccustomed to using vocal cords.

“Get them!” The swordsman yelled as he got back on his feet.

Slaine grit his teeth.

“Dragon Roar--” Inaho quickly recognized and immediately cast a grounding spell on himself.

The thunderous roar blew the four men onto the wall with such force that they fell onto the ground unconscious. Slaine fell to his knees and shuddered, complexion pale and soon biting on his fingers.

“No-no-no. I di- naught-” Slaine stammered.

Inaho struggled to stand and limped to each of the unconscious men.

“It's all right Slaine. They are just knocked out.” Inaho informed and turned to see the dragon-human hybrid sigh in relief.

“Th-th... ank... hank... God. Good. Nus. Ness.” Slaine slowly tried to say as he caught his breath.

Inaho approached Slaine and grasped either side of his arms. His skin was definitely that of a human yet with some scales of a dragon. For an incomplete transformation, the human aspect was well done. If anything perhaps, Slaine was not entirely willing to complete his transformation due to thinking he would need more strength to go against the four.

Inaho tilted his head as he noticed Slaine look away, biting his lower lip which immediately bled red.

“Let me help you,” Inaho offered, approaching Slaine and extending a hand already preparing a healing spell.

Slaine's eyes widened as he saw the blood drip and then looked at Inaho with utmost fear. The hybrid creature shoved Inaho away and stood up.

“STAY AWAY!” Slaine yelled without considering he had subconsciously used his Dragon Roar. Thankfully it was not a full blown roar and only caused Inaho to fall onto his bottom.

“Slaine!” Inaho yelled and mindlessly ran around the greenhouse looking for the dragon.

==============

There was still no sign of the silver creature.

Inaho slowed down to catch his breath. “He hasn't returned to his dragon form. Otherwise I'd have found him by now.” Inaho assessed.

He resumed his search at a slower pace. This time he considered going to the places where Slaine would consider out of his reach.

“Ahh... Hahh...”

Or he didn't have to.

Inaho broke into a run at the sound and found the hybrid form grasping at grass near the artificial pond. As he neared the creature lying on the ground, Inaho could see the head of ashen blond hair turn and glaring ocean green eyes peer at him.

“Slaine--”

Slaine tried to stand once again but struggled to remain on all fours and was about to fall over again. This time Inaho caught him, and he immediately tried to break free.

“Slaine. Calm down.”

Slaine grit his teeth. Inaho could see that he was about to do another roar and in turn, hugged the dragon tightly while haphazardly trying to cast a grounding spell.

“Leg.. Let... Go...” Slaine begged before groaning again. Inaho could see the reason why his companion was in pain. The transformation into a human was delayed. The dragon-like claws adorning Slaine's hands and feet had subsided into that of a human.

“I-I'm... dirty... You... need... to...” Slaine mumbled.

“He's barely staying awake for this. He didn't allow this transformation to happen instantly to spare him of this--” Inaho thought until seeing Slaine try to cast magic.

“HEY!” Inaho exclaimed. His loud voice shocked Slaine, who looked at him, frozen.

Inaho could see the fear in the dragon's eyes and took a deep breath; he didn't mean to scare him. He let go of Slaine momentarily and removed his outer robe, wrapping it around Slaine.

“Don't... Relax, no one can see us here.”

Slaine hesitantly grasped at the cloth, once again looking away. “But...”

“I won't tell. Now...” Inaho once more embraced Slaine, leaning back onto a tree. “Rest for a bit.”

He could feel Slaine tense momentarily.

“You interrupted the transformation for my sake and you can't utilize your mana precisely to reverse it now.”

Slaine tried to rise himself up from Inaho's chest but Inaho only tightened the embrace. Slaine's shrinking dragon wings trembled underneath the cloth. Inaho rested a hand on the back of Slaine's head, patting Slaine.

“Sleep for a bit. I'll help you transform back afterward. I promised to take care of you, didn't I?”

He could feel Slaine tense again yet slowly Slaine relented, giving in.

“Don't... let... er... see...” Slaine mumbled before his head leaned entirely on Inaho.

After a few moments, Inaho could tell the dragon transforming human had fallen asleep.

“I don't think I can avoid that, Slaine...” Inaho thought. He could only conclude how a dragon had red blood – he had been transformed by the power of Aldnoah.

And...

Inaho sighed when seeing the head of a particular golden blond enter his sight. It was as if fate was not on their side today.

“No matter what I do, Slaine will still be visible to Seylum,” Inaho discerned. Slaine after all was imbued with Aldnoah and as Seylum was the magus of Aldnoah, he could never escape her sight. Regardless of how fruitless however, Inaho still obliged Slaine's demand. Inaho could at least say he tried when casting the highest invisibility spell that he could on the two of them.

========================================

=III; Amber=

-Slaine-

Vers Empire

Unknown Bedroom Chambers

Unknown Time

“... I advise we--”

“Your Highness, your presence is required in the Main Study--”

“Ah is it already that time of day? I'm sorry Inaho-san, I will have to leave the current state of affairs to you.”

Two sets of footsteps became further distant to Slaine's exceptionally acute hearing while another set tried to be as subdued as possible when proceeding towards him.

Slaine slowly opened his eyes. His body felt heavy and abnormally warm.

“That's right... I... I tried a transformation spell on myself...” Slaine recollected when seeing his left arm stretched out

He tried to get up by bringing his formerly flailed left arm towards him and under the pillow but his body would not oblige. Slaine couldn't deny it; he never dreamt to sleep in a normal bed again-

Slaine's eyes opened abruptly just as the bedroom door creaked open; Inaho had walked in.

He shouldn't be in a bed in the first place!

Slaine tried once more to stand up yet his efforts were fruitless. He only fell back onto the bed face forward.

“I'm sorry Slaine but you cannot escape Seylum's sight.”

Slaine grit his teeth; of course she would find him regardless of whatever stunt Inaho could have pulled. Slaine berated himself for not having tried to return to his original form--

“However seeing how your complexion is vastly better than before, I think it was a good move to put you in bed,” Inaho assessed, now at Slaine's side and gently brushing Slaine's left cheek.

“Don't- don't touch me.” Slaine hissed weakly. He was not at all convincing. Why did he feel so weak, and everything so laborsome?

“Sorry,” Inaho apologized and withdrew his hand, except this time bringing the covers back over Slaine's back. It was only then that Slaine could feel the cold air against his skin. He could no longer feel a breeze underneath his wings yet the sensation of having wings remained; they must almost be entirely withdrawn into his shoulder blades now.

“She...” Slaine began upon realizing something even more pressing, though he couldn't bring himself to say more. He could feel the cold shudder trail up his spine; it was a deathly fear he had not felt in an unspeakable amount of time. It paralyzed him to no end.

Inaho seemed to have noticed something was wrong as he again behaved against Slaine's verbal demands; he turned to running his hand through Slaine's hair, which was somehow soothing. Slaine felt like someone had once done this to him long, long ago.

“Don't worry. She didn't. I assure you.”

Slaine sighed in relief and readjusted his head on the pillow. He needed to not be so easily pacified by Inaho. Inaho should beckon to his call, not the other way around.

“I need to go back to my original form.” Slaine cut to the chase. He tried to reassess his mana flow and was displeased to notice how chaotic his control was even after resting for an unknown amount of time.

“You are in your original form.” Inaho commented.

Slaine came to a standstill and slowly stared at Inaho; it became clear that Inaho had stepped on a landmine, yet he was determined to continue on this topic. Inaho elaborated, thankfully before Slaine considered perhaps another haphazard Dragon's Roar.

“Seylum told me about you being originally human.”

“Was. I am a dragon. This is nothing more than a temporary--” Slaine tried to sound convincing and formed fists with his hands.

“Your mana flow is less chaotic--”

“NONSENSE!” Slaine yelled before coughing. He had incidentally used a bit of his dragon voice in his uproar.

“Easy.” Inaho reminded and rubbed Slaine's back.

“Non... sense...” Slaine rasped before retreating into the fluffy pillow. “You said... you'd help me turn back...” Slaine reminded as a jab.

“I can if that is what you really wish.” Inaho was quick to respond.

“I should not be here. I am a weapon for this kingdom to ensure its safety. If the Kvef--” Slaine stopped. Again that icy feeling was coming back. He needed to go back.

The cold.

The darkness creeping in.

The inaudible fearful cry.

“Slaine?” Slaine could hear the chair behind Inaho skid back and topple over. The familiar crackling of ice could be heard. It was happening again after so long.

Slaine whimpered as he gripped the pillow tightly. A crackle there. A crackle here. He grit his teeth for each crackle was accompanied by a slash of ice freezing the very veins of his back, encasing his internal organs in frigidness.

“This is--”

“Turn me back. Please. Now! Make it stop!” Slaine cried. He didn't care. He ran through the chant he once recollected.

“Slaine don't--”

He could recollect the runes of the ritual. The day of back then, the day he had consented to being turned. He was no longer a human. He was subhuman. He had been touched by a Kvef.

“STOP!” Inaho exclaimed.

Slaine held his stifling breath but gulped. The pain was too much. The fear was too gripping. As much as he wished to do what Inaho asked, it was overbearing. Slaine gasped when he shuddered. Something warm crept upon him. He could feel his joints relax and his will dissipate the longer the warmth settled upon him. His breath was taken away when he heard the words he could never forget. Slowly, Slaine rose and turned to Inaho, much like he had done that day before being forced to flip over. Halfheartedly, Slaine anticipated gazing once more upon blue orbs belonging to a Kvef. His heart skipped in fear; the sound of freezing water vapor arrived, became so much louder. The fright of being encased in ice and useless upon the bed like that long forsaken night came to mind.

His life as a human had long ended. If he were to dare try, to dare consider remaining human, he would surely become one of them – the enemy – and if not, be fated once more to wait to the end of his days until finally he would succumb to the chilling hand of death.

He needed to return to being a dragon. In his mind, Slaine could recollect the golden runes that spun and blinded him at the altar before. He no longer needed Asseylum to cast the spell, as he had become a conduit of the very scriptures she recited.

… Yet he could not bring himself to mentally recite. It was as if the humming and Inaho's struggling yet gradually improving recitation of the Kvef's curse debilitated him, and he couldn't help falling back to the bed, succumbing to wakeful weariness.

“What... are... you... what have you..?” Slaine tried to ask but now keeping his eyes open was becoming hard.

“For the last several weeks I've been trying to make sense of the Kvef's language, and after seeing the curse firsthand, I now know how to break it,” Inaho elaborated.

Slaine tried to get up again only to feel Inaho press down once more on his back. Inaho had been gently massaging his back. It made little to no sense to him how he was not retreating from Inaho's touch, since before he had transformed and when he was still entirely human, he could barely tolerate the mere air of the room; the medical ward would soon have rendered his room a miniature ice castle if he had continued to remain there. However that seemed no longer the case.

“Don't...” Slaine again tried to fruitlessly tell Inaho to stop touching him; as much as Slaine welcomed the warmth he could only imagine that the curse spread by physical contact.

“Not until you go back to sleep. You need to rest and allow your mana settle,” Inaho refuted, “Don't worry; the curse is not contagious as you think it is.”

“Then-- ” Slaine tried to continue the conversation only to be interrupted by his own yawn.

Inaho finally stopped rubbing Slaine's back and tucked him under the covers once again. Slaine could feel the bed dip upwards; Inaho must have been sitting at his bedside but now knelt before him to look him in the eye.

Inaho persisted, “Sleep. We can discuss the curse in more intricate detail later.” Slaine couldn't help but comply as he could no longer keep his eyes open. Even the momentary shock could not keep him mentally awake. Perhaps it was a dream though; in all the time Slaine had spent with Inaho in the garden not once did he see Inaho smile – not like right now as he closed his eyes.

…

Slaine awoke to the sound of dishes and tableware clanking.

“Sorry. Did I wake you?” Inaho asked after settling down a wooden tray.

“N-no...” Slaine blurted before reaching for his throat.

His eyes momentarily widened as he began to recollect what had recently come to pass. A mirror was placed on the wall behind Inaho, and Slaine could see his reflection. He was still human.

“Think you can sit up?” Inaho queried and approached Slaine.

“Oh... yes...” Slaine mumbled and slowly leaned on his elbows; he had slept like a log, and had woken up still face forward on the comfortable pillow.

As he sat up, Inaho readjusted the pillow and the blankets for Slaine to comfortably sit against the bed mantle. Slaine noticed Inaho head to a closet and retrieve a tunic, as upon sitting up Slaine had hugged himself for warmth.

“Bring your arms up,” Inaho stated.

Slaine blushed and simply extended his right hand, “I-I can put it on. Just tell me what you did... I shouldn't be--”

Slaine swallowed hard; a spike of absolute cold surged up his spine. His offered hand faltered back to his side, once more he hugged himself for warmth.

“Your arms. Up,” Inaho repeated and again Slaine had to give in.

With the beige tunic rolling down his arms and his head peeking out, Inaho tugged at the bottom before presenting the wooden tray on Slaine's lap. Slaine's brow twisted when he noticed the mushroom soup was freshly made and the bread appeared soft, definitely also baked within the last day or two.

“Inaho, I--” Slaine grimaced as he swallowed hard and touched his forehead. He could remember the last time he faced a meal such as this. He could remember how he immediately--

Inaho sat on his bedside and cut a piece of the bread. He then brought the piece of bread to Slaine's mouth. “Don't think about it and eat,” Inaho again spoke in a rather annoying manner.

Slaine opened his mouth to speak only to be silenced when the bread was forced into his mouth. Immediately, he bit down and swallowed. “Kaizuka--” Slaine tried to continue what he had originally intended to say but was again at a loss of words. He could feel the bread go down his throat without impediment.

“Kaizuka--”

“Inaho,” Inaho corrected and insisted, sighing as he cut another piece of bread and this time lathered it with some jam.

“Inaho... what exactly did you do?” Slaine finally managed to question and with hesitant hands, took the recently cut piece of bread.

“Bölvun hafði verið kastað

Forever greip í dauðum hendi fortíðinni

ótta hans voru að nokkru endast” Inaho recited as Slaine nearly dropped the bread.

“Y-yes I know that spell incantation,” Slaine confirmed; he presumed that was what Inaho implicitly was asking as Inaho stared silently.

Inaho tilted his head, crossed his arms and asked, “What do you think it means?”

“Considering the physical aspects...” Slaine mumbled to himself while stirring the soup, “it may be obvious to say this, but it is definitely ice in nature...”

Slaine chuckled to himself, berating his rather rudimentary answer. He reckoned if it was years ago – however long it had been since he last walked the halls of the Orbital Magi – he would have offered a far more insightful response. The tomes of yore were then more fresh in his mind compared to now. Now he felt he had only – barely and recently – walked out of a dense and thick fog, somehow.

“Yes but the words themselves deal nothing with ice,” Inaho informed, “from what I can decipher, they are more...”

Inaho seemed to pause oddly and Slaine raised an eyebrow. “More..?”

“Emotional,” Inaho supplied. Slaine groaned as he could see why Inaho had held back. “And considering your response to the rebound spell, I think it is a sound assessment.”

“What exactly were you able to decipher of the Kvef's language?” Slaine implored and loudly let the spoon fall into the empty bowl.

Inaho detoured as the sound brought his attention to the bowl. “It seems your appetite after all this time is still intact,” Inaho said as if to confirm his assessment.

“...” Slaine blushed while wiping his mouth with the napkin.

“How was the soup?”

“...” Slaine shifted his eyes, debating how to respond, “... It was delicious.”

“And the bread?”

“Crumbly but more...” Slaine stared at the remaining strawberry jam. Something about this was different than the soup, “fulfilling to eat.”

Inaho smiled again and this time Slaine was certain he was awake. He could feel his ears turn red when Inaho took the wooden tray away. “I'll make certain to inform Seylum you liked her bread.”

“Seylum--” Slaine repeated before berating Inaho, “Don't address Her Highness so casually!”

Unfortunately, such scolding fell to deaf ears as the door to the bedroom shut behind Inaho.

==============

Vers Empire

Royal Garden

Few weeks later...

“It'll be fine,” Inaho attempted to reassure, standing at the bottom of the stairs. Unfortunately, his emotionless face and flat tone failed.

Slaine stood at the palace entrance towards the staircase leading to the backyard of the Royal Palace. Spring had arrived and he come to realize it had been almost two years since he was cursed. Inaho walked back up the stairs and offered his hand to Slaine, who still remained hesitant, perhaps frozen in place.

“Slaine...” Inaho began. His crimson eye seemed to pierce Slaine, peering and most likely after weeks of cohabitation could decipher his behavior. It worked both ways however and he knew if he did not move--

“We can try this another day, Slaine. We don't have to rush,” Inaho continued and Slaine could slowly see Inaho take back his offered hand.

“N-no. Sooner we get this over with, the sooner we'll know... we'll know the extent of your rebound spell,” Slaine countered, gulping and tightly squeezing Inaho's hand.

Inaho pulled him forward, causing Slaine to stumble out of the doorway and under direct sunlight. They did not move a step more, much to Slaine's surprise. Slaine had anticipated that Inaho twouldhave continued further... considering he originally waited downstairs.

“Well?”

Slaine blinked. “Ah... uhm...” Slaine regained his bearings and started gazing towards the sun, before looking back at his exposed skin. There was no sign of sunburn and he wasn't feeling any sense of discomfort. “I-I think I am fine,” Slaine whispered; he was thoroughly surprised and began to hope-- he shook his head. It was too early.

Inaho could see his struggle and tightened his grip, entwining his fingers around Slaine's. He led them down the stairs, where they began to take a stroll through the blossoming trees. It was surely one of the best days of spring.

“Let's try walking the perimeter of the garden. You may only be able to tolerate being outside like this for a set duration,” Inaho considered.

“True but if we tread too far--”

“Don't worry. I have a teleportation charm prepared by Doctor Yagarai if it comes down to it,” Inaho cut Slaine off.

“Th-thank you for your consideration,” Slaine mumbled and tried to enjoy the sight. The view of the falling petals, the warmth of the sun rays and the fresh air was exhilarating.

Slaine could feel his eyes water when the further away they went from the palace, nothing was happening to him. No sensation of the debilitating cold was gripping him – a condition Inaho simply termed 'the frost'-- and the reality of once more living the life he swore had ended, was becoming more and more possible.

They eventually had looped the Royal Gardens three times before Inaho finally stopped at a small stall, where the palace staff were fixing small snacks for the gardeners. Inaho managed to sneak some hard boiled eggs and tea, which he took to a nearby tree. There, the two sat down and snacked.

“No change?” Inaho asked, finally breaking what seemed like hours of silence.

Slaine was in the middle of chewing and simply nodded in response.

“That's promising. Tomorrow we can see if may be any sunburns magically appear before we can finally declare we can finally creed that the rebound spell can be tested on other cursed victims.”

Finishing the boiled egg and taking hold of the tea cup, Slaine asked, “That reminds me Inaho, you never elaborated what you did – this rebound spell you speak of. Also, I think it may be too early to consider. Your first target wasn't entirely... human.”

“True. You are a human imbued with Aldnoah and humans normally do not carry a dragon's worth of mana,” Inaho commented, inadvertently sidestepping Slaine's question.

“...”

Inaho could see in the corner of his remaining eye Slaine's frustration and Inaho closed his eye for a moment before answering, “It's not necessarily a spell.”

“Not.. a spell?”

Slaine's eyebrow rose just as Inaho expected. “The curse causes wounds similar to those caused by ice magic but... the curse does not inflict those wounds through ice magic, rather when a condition is met.”

Inaho looked up to the tree's canopy and remained silent.

“What condition?” Slaine exasperatedly asked. Even Slaine had a limit to his patience.

“I'll tell you if you answer me,” Inaho said.

Slaine sighed and rested the tea cup on his lap. “What is it, Kaizuka Inaho?”

“If you could continue your life as a human, what would you do?”

Slaine blinked, his expression becoming surprised and blank before falling sullen. He bitterly smiled. “You shouldn't ask me something that's impossible.”

“I beg to differ, but perhaps you don't want to know the entirety of the curse.”

Slaine furrowed his brow; clearly Inaho was playing with him. “I'd like to... see the North.”

Inaho remained silent, still gazing to the canopy, or so he let Slaine believe. He could see Slaine was once again becoming lost in his thoughts. Little did Slaine know how in such moments his smiles were true and he resembled the precious friend that Seylum had told Inaho about multiple times during Inaho's days training as a Terran Knight tales of the lowborn gaining a place among the Orbital Magi, the highest honor for a magus.

“Even after all that has happened to me... I can't help thinking how beautiful the land seemed afar. The slopes of ice undisturbed and the sky entirely filled with starlight. No sign of light pollution for all to admire the constellations and...” Slaine paused as he chuckled and peered at Inaho, who he had now caught staring at him, “after hearing you repeat that god forsaken curse so many times these past few weeks, I dare say the Kvef's language sounds eloquent and elegant. I can only imagine what those words mean.”

“I see.”

“Now Kaizuka Inaho, what was the condition for the wounds?”

“Fear.”

“I see.”

“...”

“The rebound spell... you wouldn't mean...”

“That's right. To counter the curse, I would have to be curious about y--”

Slaine had blushed, becoming rosy pink on his cheeks as he slapped Inaho. “No way!” Slaine spoke in a loud voice, clearly in denial and stood up, storming back towards the palace.

Inaho got up, taking their teacups and commented, “Perhaps we don't need to worry about sunburns tomorrow.”

“SHUT UP INAHO!” Slaine yelled before breaking into a run.

==============

Vers Empire

Royal Library

Few months later...

“Slaine,” someone called for him.

Slaine finished putting back the book on the shelf before heading back down the ladder. He knew who was waiting for him below.

“How are you feeling?” Inaho asked.

Slaine sighed, now long exhausted from Inaho's constant attention, “I'm fine now. It's been weeks, Inaho, since I last felt the frost, so go back to being retired. The records have become disorderly since the last time I was here. Count Saazbaum will--”

“Will have to find a new librarian.”

Slaine blinked, to which Inaho sighed and retrieved a rolled parchment. Taking the rolled parchment, Slaine began to read its content and with each word his eyes widened, every so often looking up to Inaho and back to the parchment:

“As of this day forward, Kaizuka Inaho has been appointed Dragon Knight and will accompany Dragon Magus Slaine Troyard to investigate the Northern Lands.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Slaine blurted.

“We are to be on our way before daybreak,” Inaho informed, taking Slaine's hand and dragging him out of the library.

“Wait! I have to inform--”

“I have already told the count of the developments and he wishes the best for us,” Inaho interjected.

It was when they were outside the library, in one of the less busy corridors, that Slaine finally came to halt and removed his hand from Inaho's, forcing Inaho to look back. “Inaho you do know that means...” Slaine began and shifted his eyes elsewhere, away from Inaho.

“It is unknown when we will return, but Seylum has said to consider it an early Honeymoon--”

Slaine turned bright red and fumed, “Honey-honey moon?!”

Inaho did not elaborate, only offering again that small smile that appeared more frequent, and proceeded back to their shared quarters.

“Kaizuka Inaho! Explain yourself! What is the meaning of that?!” Slaine yelled, running to catch up to the newly-appointed dragon knight.

They were in for a long trip.

-Fin

#aldnoah zero secret santa 2016 #aldnoah.zero #that's quite long #the present wasn't late #I was #sorry

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inyri · 7 years ago

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Equivalent Exchange (an SWTOR story): Chapter 24- Goodbye (Reprise)

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

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Chapter Twenty-Four: Goodbye (Reprise)

16 ATC. Yavin IV.

She would have preferred a later start to the morning’s meeting, all things considered.

When Nine wakes to the beeping alarm her mouth is dry and she can feel her heartbeat pounding behind her eyes; she rolls over, pulling her pillow over her head with a grumble of protest, and briefly entertains the idea of falling back to sleep.

“If you don’t shut that thing off-” across the tent, Lana’s voice is muffled; when Nine peers out from beneath the pillow she can only see a blanket-covered form laying prone on the far cot and then one hand poking out, a faint blue-tinged light gathering around the fingertips.

“Don’t you dare.” Dragging herself upright, she reaches out toward the desk and pokes at her datapad until it quiets. “There. Awake. Under protest.”

Lana pushes the blanket off her face, rubbing her eyes. “Believe me, I know. I didn’t set today’s agenda.”

“And I doubt Marr’s battling this hangover, either. I’ve never even seen him eat, let alone being able to drink through that mask.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” As she sits up, picking her tunic off the floor and slipping it over her head, her tone turns sly. “He could use a straw, I suppose.”

“With a little umbrella?“ Now that’s a mental image- she’ll be thinking of it through the entire damned meeting now. She makes a note to tuck a pin into her jacket pocket. That’ll keep her from laughing if it comes down to it. “I ought to shower. After all the torches last night I smell like a cantina fire.”

(More like sex in a burning cognac distillery, frankly, but she can’t tell her that.)

Lana sniffs the hem of her tunic and wrinkles her nose. “I likely should as well. We’ve got half an hour yet- shall we?”

***

She downs three tablets of painkiller with her caf and steps into the Command tent, trailing two paces behind Lana, at eight o’clock sharp. It could have been worse. Marr was always spare with words and today’s no exception: no pleasantries and no small talk, just a sound-cancelling shield up to discourage eavesdroppers and a secure connection to the Intelligence mainframe as they set to work.

She would have thought it would be a shorter meeting. No matter how urgent the work this wasn’t the right place for operational discussions, especially with their temporary peace with the Republic still nominally in place- too many ears, shield notwithstanding, and poor form besides. Clearly, though, she’d underestimated the power of Sith bureaucracy. Three hours in they’ve got both Darth Vowrawn and Darth Acina patched in via holotransmitter and little settled but titles, ranks and whether Lana’s office ought to be in the Citadel or the Intelligence tower-

(Oh, don’t remind me. Lana groans. It took two weeks to even move in once we’d returned to Dromund Kaas. Do you know why it took so long to set the offices up?

I wasn’t there, remember- I was only home two days before you sent me off to Balmorra. But I assumed it was a protocol issue, she shrugs. A Sith Lord in the east tower. Goodness knows we mustn’t go against tradition.

That’s what I thought initially, too, but as it turns out it was rather more straightforward. When Intelligence personnel were all reassigned after the disbanding it left most of the building vacant, and the Citadel tower’s always been crowded- by her expression, she knew it from experience- particularly for the lower-ranking Sith. When word got around there was space for the taking, they claimed it.

That oughtn’t to have been a surprise. She’d just avoided the old headquarters building back then, after all- the Minister’s last act in office had been to build a remote access protocol for the archive, and there were far too many memories in those halls. Just like Sith. Always taking our toys away.

I took them back, Lana says with a grin. But a few of them didn’t take kindly to being evicted. It really made quite a mess.

That’s Intelligence for you. Two parts breaking and entering, a dash of poison, three parts embassy parties and one part wondering how people fit that much blood into their bodies.

Her smile broadens, teeth flashing white in her pale face. Yes, well. I was never very fond of parties.)

-and she simply starts pulling up dossiers on her datapad and ranking them in priority order as she keeps one ear to the conversation.

“I would advise returning the Watchers to service, but that decision will ultimately be yours.” Darth Marr gestures toward the hierarchical map projected above the table. “They were originally reallocated to the military and to Production and Logistics, however-”

She makes a noise despite herself: what a Force-damned waste. She remembers Watcher Sixteen working on a particularly tricky substitution cipher once, years ago; he’d had it decrypted and translated from Bothan before she finished her breakfast. Imagining all that brilliance gone to calculating troop numbers and patterning out fluctuations in grain prices- “Get as many of them back as possible, if they haven’t been ruined already.” Looking up from her notes as both Marr and Lana’s heads snap in her direction, she sets the pad down and folds her arms across her chest. “You know they were never meant for that sort of careless handling. You’ve taken-” oh, what’s a comparison they’d understand? “You’ve taken lightsabers and used them to toast your bread.”

Lana blinks and Vowrawn’s hologram scowls at her, but Marr only nods, impassive as ever behind his mask.

“An appropriate analogy,” he rumbles. “If we are to hope to regain an advantage over the Republic, we must use our resources to their full potential. Should you require any other former assets returned to your employ-” his gaze is turned toward Lana, now, but she can’t help feel as though he’s still partially talking to her- “that may be negotiable.”

“Yes, my lord.” They must have said that a hundred times in those few hours, the two of them; Lana inclines her head in a deferential half-bow. “I’ll prepare a list, with Cipher Nine’s assistance.”

“Then we’ll adjourn until tomorrow. While this truce served us against Revan, it will soon be over, and we have spent far too long having blinded ourselves to our enemies’ plans.” With a wave of his hand, Marr deactivates the projectors. “No longer.”

Well, she thinks as they step out of the tent, past the guards and into the midday heat, it’s about time.

***

And as we sat staring at the Republic, the Emperor destroyed a planet. Lana sighs. To say nothing of the Eternal Empire sneaking in through the back door.

Zakuul surprised the Republic too, to be fair, she shrugs. And I don’t know that handling Ziost differently would have done much good. Even without Kovach’s treachery, without Theron’s Jedi and Saresh’s absurd invasion attempt, he would have set our people to killing each other until he got what he wanted. How do we kill someone that doesn’t need a body, someone we couldn’t even see?

Interesting questions. In that moment Valkorion’s sitting beside her again, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, far too close for comfort. She tries not to flinch away when she catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye. How do you?

By the time she can turn to look at him fully he is gone.

That was then, old man, she says aloud, and hears Lana startle on her other side as the world snaps back into motion. I can see you now.

Lana’s hand is cool on the back of her neck.

***

At noon they gather in the center of camp, Republic delegates on one side and Imperials opposite, to say their goodbyes.

She doesn’t have to make a speech, thankfully. She isn’t nearly high-ranking enough for that. Instead she listens quietly, hands clasped behind her back, as Grand Master Shan and Darth Marr address the gathered crowd for the last time. (It reminds her a little of the speeches on Victory Day, when Coruscant fell- she was only a child then, still in primary school, but she remembers the parade, the figure of Darth Baras projected ten stories tall in the central square. All grand speeches were the same in that way, she thinks: the same platitudes, the same shallow promises.

The Sith Code has it right in one respect, at least. Peace is a lie.)

At the end of it the troops disperse to finish the work of disassembly, of loading the shuttles and troop transports, pulling down the tents and lowering the banners. They are left standing on the makeshift dais, turning to face each other, three and three, just as they did in their safehouse on Rishi.

It seems like so long ago. Has it really been less than a month?

“Are the terms we discussed still agreeable?” Satele’s tone is even, her hands folded neatly in front of her. “I’ve no particular desire for war today.”

“Our fleet departs for Dromund Kaas,” Marr replies, “the Mandalorian clans to Rishi and yours for Coruscant, and this is neutral space. We will not pursue unless given reason to do so.”

“And you shall find none.”

There’s an odd sort of formality to their cadence and when the two of them nod to one another the silence hangs in the air, almost palpable; beside her, Lana’s holding her breath. She catches Theron’s eye and he barely moves, one shoulder rising and falling in the slightest little shrug- if there’s something she missed he doesn’t feel it either, clearly.

More Force nonsense, then. It always came down to the Force in the end, no matter how hard the rest of them work, how many times they- Force-blind, defective, inferior- go to the wall in their masters’ names. It always will, probably. She’s used to it by now.

Doesn’t make it any less bantha shit, though.

“Then we will meet again on the battlefield, Grand Master.” As Marr speaks the breeze picks up, the air moving again. “But not today.”

Satele nods. “It will be as the Force wills it. I-” Then she stops, still looking upward at Marr as her head tilts subtly, and for a moment she’s almost staring through him, mouth still half-open around a word, her hands dropping to her sides. Behind her, Theron’s face scrunches in concern; he takes a step forward, but before he draws even with her Satele blinks and her gaze shifts rightward, straight at her.

It isn’t the first time she’s been stared down by a Jedi, but her expression’s something entirely different- in the past they always looked determined (the good ones, she supposes) or angry (the not-so-good ones, who often as not she didn’t need to fight at all, who only needed a little persuading). Satele looks-

-she looks worried, just for a second, before her face settles back into its usual calm solemnity and she keeps speaking as though nothing at all had happened, waving Theron back with a slight turn of one hand. “I don’t pretend to know the future, but yes, we will meet again. Until then, may the Force be with you.”

“May it serve you well,” Marr replies, and then they say no more.

(I don’t remember that, Lana says slowly. But perhaps it was a vision.

Of the future, or-?

She shrugs. It’s possible. With power like Satele has, the Force sometimes works in unpredictable ways.

You say ‘has’ as though you think she’s still alive.

I’ve no reason to assume she isn’t. I sensed Marr’s passing from halfway across the galaxy, and we had enough eyes on her to know that she survived the sack of Tython. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone- even Theron’s tried, without success- but if she’d died after that I would think I would have felt it.

She frowns, considering. I suppose. But they didn’t see each other again, did they- Marr and Satele? Before he died? It seems so long ago. It’s hard to remember.

Not in person, so far as I’m aware, though I suspect Grand Master Shan may have been meant to be part of the conclave on the Terminus but ended up delayed, just as I was. There were other Jedi there, yes?

There were, and Republic soldiers too. Still, it means she was wrong.

I can only imaging that interpreting the future might be rather subjective. It’s not a gift I share. Her nose wrinkling, Lana looks to her. Nor would I want to, I think. Imagine knowing what will happen and not being able to do anything about it.

An uncomfortable idea, indeed- a chill runs up her spine, prickling the hairs on the back of her neck. I wonder what she saw when she looked at me.)

Marr’s the first to turn away, dismissing her and Lana with a gesture as his guards fall in at either side. Opposite them, Satele starts to walk toward the far edge of the platform; Theron, turning, says something too quiet to hear at this distance and his mother shakes her head. I’m fine- her lips form around the words, then press together in a narrow line as he replies- leave it be, Theron. We’ll speak later.

He sighs as Satele descends the stairs, and then it’s just the four of them left- her and Lana and Theron and Jakarro, one final time.

She raises an eyebrow at Theron, a silent question, and he runs one hand through his hair and makes a face. Fair enough.

“So. I guess this is goodbye.” Theron’s looking at Lana, not at her, when he says it.

“I suppose it is. It’s certainly been…” Lana stops, clearly thinking better of whatever she way about to say. “It’s been an experience, hasn’t it?”

She can’t help it- she laughs a little at that, and Jakarro growls amusement and Theron grins as Lana flushes. “That’s one word for it.”

“I get what you meant,” Theron says. “And yeah, it definitely was. Maybe not one I’d care to repeat, but- well. We got through it, and now it’s back to real life. Like a really weird vacation.”

“Are you heading back with Theron, Jakarro? Much as I hate to admit it, the Empire isn’t the wisest destination for you.” Looking up at the Wookiee as he roars out a reply, she shifts her focus down to Dee-Four for the translation.

“We’re headed back to Rishi!” The droid sounds suspiciously cheerful, which never bodes well, and more to the point-

Lana says it before she can. “Jakarro, you hated Rishi.”

He gestures for emphasis, and Theron has to duck to keep from getting bowled over. “Exactly! That is why I must return!” Dee-Four keeps translating over a series of ever-louder roars. He clearly feels strongly about this. “Those pirates are the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen, but they have potential. I’m going to whip them into shape.”

“Hear, hear.” Shae Vizla, walking past with a few of her clanmates trailing behind, raises a fist in agreement. “Not worth my time, but someone ought to do it. Plenty of credits there if you’ve got the stones to tame that mess. You catching a ride with our ships, then?”

“We have a few stops to make first, but we’ll be there shortly.” She wishes, not for the first time, she understood more Shyriiwook. She’s pretty sure that’s not what Jakarro actually said.

“Fair enough. And Cipher?” Shae pauses in front of the dais and nods her head in her direction. “You find any more fights that good, you know where to find me.”

She grins. Short a punch in the teeth that’s as much respect as she’s ever likely to get from a Mandalorian. “I’ll keep that in mind. Ret’urcye mhi.”

Her pronunciation’s shitty and her mouth catches on the glottal stop, but Shae just grins. “Not bad, Imp. Not bad. Ret’urcye mhi.”

“Well, then”- turning back to Jakarro as the Mandalorians continue across the courtyard, she holds out her hand- “good luck, big guy. Dee-Four, try not to let him rip too many arms off.”

Unexpectedly, he pulls her in for a hug- oh, stars, that might have just been a rib cracking- as he sweeps Theron and, surprisingly, Lana, in with his other arm, nearly pulling them off their feet. “Be safe, little friends.”

“I- oof- I will.” Extracting herself from his grip, Lana takes a deep breath. “And you too, Theron. Be well. I suspect you’ll have an easier time of it without me around.”

“Now you admit it?” Theron blinks, then chuckles. “You’re probably right, yeah- but you too, Lana. Try not to get in too much trouble, all right?”

“I’ll do my best. Cipher-” she looks toward her- “I’ll see you back at the tent. I’m going to go start packing things up and we can continue our earlier discussion.”

When she nods agreement, Lana steps down onto the cobblestones and sets off toward their side of camp; Jakarro, with one last wave, heads toward the Republic shuttle pads. After a moment, they’re both out of sight behind the rows.

Theron turns to her, then. “So-” too loud, meant to be overheard even if they can’t be sure anyone’s listening- “you’re finally getting rid of me, huh?”

“I will admit, I’m a little sad to see this end.” She gestures around them, at the little camp that was their home. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Me, too. C’mere.”

It’s a brief embrace, chaste and appropriate in sight of the soldiers still hard at work clearing the courtyard. If she had any sense that would have been the end of it.

He whispers in her ear, though, as his fingertips brush along her back. “Do you still think you can get away, or-?”

“I’ve just got a few things to take care of,” she murmurs in reply. “Give me an hour or two, but I’ll send you a message.”

“Good.” Theron takes a step back, his voice picking up volume again. “Take care, Cipher. See you in the ops reports.”

“Not if I’m doing my job properly,” she says, and he winks before he turns away.

(I should have known. Lana sighs. But-

We were careful, as I said. Not careful enough, of course. She raises one hand to her throat at the memory, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Although I’ve been meaning to ask you- what happened to Jakarro? Do you know?

Lana shakes her head. He and Dee-Four did go to Rishi. When the war hit, though, Zakuul blockaded the hyperspace lanes. The pirates and smugglers didn’t stand a chance. I looked for him when I started to pull the Alliance together, but- she frowns. Nothing. And they weren’t exactly inconspicuous.

No, they weren’t. She sighs.)

Back in the tent, she throws her things into her duffel- everything needs washing in any case, so there’s no point in folding- and strips the linens off her cot. Lana’s still packing, setting everything neatly into her own bag, and looks up as she dumps the sheets onto the floor.

“I’ve got people coming to haul everything away. Don’t worry about taking those to the laundry crates.”

“Perks of rank, hm? All right.” The console needs to go, too; she starts an erasure program, setting the storage chips to purge their data. A hammer would be quicker, but the unit could be reused. Waste not, want not. “I’ll start making holocalls, unless you’ve got another task for me.”

“Hm? No, I think anything more than that can wait,” Lana says, rummaging under her cot for a stray tabard.

She nods. “Fine. You don’t have any particular objection to non-humans, do you? Some of my contacts are a bit on the unconventional side. I’ll need to reorder my list-” she holds up her datapad- “if you do, though it’ll be your staff. It’s up to you.”

“Define unconventional.”

“Nothing scandalous. Chiss, mostly. Twi’leks. One Nautolan, if she’ll hire on. Sweetest-looking face you ever saw and she could kill you in a dozen ways with a credit chit and a roll of spacer’s tape. Also a trained receptionist. I was thinking of her for a bodyguard for you, at least until Zhorrid’s been managed.”

Her bag fastened, Lana lofts it across the tent with a wave of one hand until it settles just next to the entrance. “I’ve no objections. If you think they’re suitable, I trust your judgment.”

“Famous last words.” Setting her transmitter on the desktop, she dials in the first address. “It’s been a few years. Let’s see if anyone remembers me.”

***

She oughtn’t have worried.

For better or for worse, people in her line of work have long memories. She learned long ago not to burn bridges unless she didn’t have a choice and it makes the calls that much easier; a dozen conversations later, she’s got their first agents heading back to Dromund Kaas- three Minders, two Fixers, five security specialists including the Nautolan and, in a stroke of excellent luck, Cipher Seventeen. Her only failures are Minder Eight (hugely pregnant, when she answers the holo; she only laughs and points to her belly before Nine can even ask. “I’m sorry, Cipher, but I’m afraid I’ve retired from that particular line of work,” she grins, and Fixer Twelve peeks over her shoulder and waves hello) and one old Nar Shaddaa contact who simply hangs up on her (in retrospect, she did promise she’d call him the next day, didn’t she?).

All in all, a good start.

Two soldiers peek through the tent opening as she disconnects the final call. “Sorry to interrupt, Lord Beniko- and Cipher. Thought you’d told us to come and pull the tent down, but if we should come back later-”

“I was just finishing up.” Tucking the holo into her belt pouch, she rises, stretching. It’s later than she thought. She should find Theron. “I’m sure I can find somewhere else to be.”

Lana nods, too. “I’ll find a sunny corner to meditate in. Once we’re home again, Force knows when we’ll next see actual daylight.”

“D’you want us to take your bags to loadout?” The second soldier chimes in, even as she’s already starting to take one of the desks apart. “We’ve got to head back that way either way, and it’s no trouble.

One less thing to do. Why not? “Fine. Let me just grab my rifle-” she picks it up from its resting place atop the duffel bag, sliding it into her back holster until it clicks; no one touches her guns but her and her team, a lesson she learned the hard way early on. That misfire nearly cost her a finger- “and it’s all yours. I’ll see you in a few hours, Lana.”

She barely sees her wave as she steps out of the tent- she’s already looking down at her commpad, typing out a message.

Did you still want to talk? Free now until shuttle launch.

His reply’s immediate.

meet me by the war table?

She smiles. On my way.

***

When she reaches the stone table it’s bare, now, all the monitors and equipment already hauled away and only faint outlines on the ground left as signs they were ever there. In another few weeks the vines and weeds they’d cut away will have grown back and there’ll be no trace of them at all save only the wrecked shuttle across the clearing and the perimeter sensors left in the field; in a year even those will be gone, rusted relics mixed in with the crumbling stones. It’ll be as though they were never here.

It’s a sobering thought.

She doesn’t see Theron at first. When she turns, though, there he is, leaning against the wall of one of the ruins, and he smiles at her when she

“For a little while there I thought you might be standing me up.” Taking her by one wrist, he draws her around until they’re out of view of the archway.

“Oh, you know,” she says, “no rest for the wicked. Plus, I had to pack.”

“More work already?” Theron wrinkles his nose at her. “It’s bad enough that we’re back to the same damn war, but they could have given you a day off, at least.”

“We’re not big on vacations in the Empire.” After a moment, looking at him still frowning, she reaches out with her other hand to touch his arm. “That came out less funny than I meant it. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, Theron, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Us being on opposite sides again, you mean.”

She sighs. She should have known he’d think of things that way- he never was going to be the no-strings type, no matter what he said. “Yes. But we knew that was going to happen from the beginning.”

“I- yeah. Sorry. I’m just not-” he shakes his head, leans down to brush his lips across her forehead and despite herself she tilts her chin up into the kiss. “I keep thinking that now I’ve got to go back to real life and make myself forget, that all of this was a mistake, but-”

“You do. I do, too,” she says against his throat. “And you’re allowed to make mistakes, Theron, whether you admit it to yourself or not. You’re allowed to want things even if you know they’re bad for you.”

“You aren’t- you weren’t bad for me. You saved me.”

She closes her eyes as he cups her head in his hands. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I know that. But you weren’t.” Another kiss, punctuating the words. “Somehow I didn’t picture this, that first day on Manaan.”

“Quite a ways from Mysterious Ally, hm?” She grins as he mutters something against her skin. “And to think I thought you’d be dull.”

“Really?” It’s only mock offense in his voice, and when she glances upward he’s grinning too. “Not roguishly charming?”

“You’re more the brooding type, but I had you figured for Standard Republic Issue- too serious. Hot, though.”

Theron laughs out loud at that, hands drifting downward, settling around her waist. “I take a while to warm up, ‘s all. Though I’ll admit I was wrong about you, too.”

“Oh, do tell,” she purrs, leaning against him. They’ve got a little time, still. She doesn’t need to leave quite yet.

(She doesn’t want to leave yet. She tries not to think about that too much.)

“Only if you promise not to get mad.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t be absurd.”

“You popped up on holo down in that base, covered in Selkath blood and half on fire, and I thought-” he stops- oh, stars, is he blushing again?- “I remember thinking, y’know, crazy doesn’t normally do it for me but damn- ”

“Ah, romance,” she says dryly, and winks. “You hid it well. I rather got the impression you loathed me.”

“Thought you said it was overrated. And no, I just- it’s hard training to break, you know? All we ever learn from day one on is you versus us, but once we knew each other better-”

“Oh, it is.” He’s still got a scratch along one cheekbone from yesterday and she traces it with an idle fingertip, curling in closer as his arms tighten around her. “And yes, I know. Though I meant what I said before. I am going to miss you.”

Theron’s quiet for a moment, his head tilting into her touch. “I’m going to miss you, too. I wish you-”

“Don’t.” She lets her hand dip lower, presses her finger to his mouth. “Don’t.”

“Do we just say goodbye, then?”

(She should have known better. Leaving is one thing; leaving is easy. Forgetting is easy. But she doesn’t want to hurt him and someday she’s probably going to have to and that-

That complicates things.)

She nods. “It’s easiest that way.”

“What time is it?”

Turning her wrist, she looks at her chrono. “Nearly four. Why?”

“We still have an hour, then, don’t we? Before we need to be on the shuttles?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then we can say goodbye-” Theron nudges her hand aside, catches her mouth with his and she shouldn’t but oh, to the Void with that; she is allowed to want things that she knows are bad for her- “in an hour.”

She lets him push her back against the wall.

***

And- well. Not exactly love at first sight, but you know what happened after that, she finishes, grinning, with a little shrug of her shoulders. He went back to the SIS, and I went back to work, and that was the end of it. No one else ever knew but Vector.

(His nose twitched as she slid into the seat beside him on the shuttle back to the Terminus, and after a moment he leans over to murmur into her ear. “We wondered where you’d gone. Agent Shan, hm?”

Killiks and their damned pheromones. She never could get anything past Vector, not that she’d ever really tried; he could read her like a book.

She sighed. “Spare me the lecture, Vector, please. I know.”

“Lecture? Never.” As he adjusted the harness straps across her body, he raised the edge of her collar to hide her neck. “We were only going to compliment your taste.”)

I do know, Lana mutters, rather too well. But you’re honestly telling me that nothing happened between then and Ziost?

Nothing happened. We never even spoke, and I was telling you the truth on Ziost. I didn’t know he was there until Kovach mentioned his name.

And after that?

She shakes her head. We spoke once, briefly, a few weeks later. Not in person- she clarifies as Lana’s brows start to creep ceilingward- I was shipboard off Alderaan and he was on Coruscant. I- I gave him the implant he wears now. He probably told you that.

He did. I’m not sure he meant to. Lana rubs her forehead. It was on Asylum, and we were both very drunk at the time.

And the next time I saw Theron, she says quietly, outside of five years of carbonite dreams, was here.

The day I called him, when I was sure you were alive, was the anniversary of the day we thought you’d died. I didn’t even think of it at the time, but- Lana sighs. He was a wreck, Nine. The war was hard on all of us, and I knew you’d been lovers, of course, but I didn’t realize how much he- she trails off.

(She remembers the night of the party. ‘I mourned you,’ he’d said, curled beside her, and she never really understood the depth of what he meant until now.)

Theron kissed me on Ziost. Did he tell you that, too?

Lana blinks, surprised. No. He didn’t.

Before it happened- on the orbital station, while we were in the medical bay; I’d told him that you knew. He was trying to prove your point about objectivity. I stopped him then, but-

Was I right?

She chuckles. What do you think?

I think that right now you deserve to be happy despite everything that’s going on around us, despite everything going on inside your head, and I think Theron looks better than I’ve seen him in years. And I think- Lana smiles- it would be awful of me to be anything but happy for you.

Thank you, she says; Lana stands, then, with a barely stifled yawn. But do me a favor, won’t you?

Hm?

She stretches out until she’s laying flat on the couch, sprawling across the space left vacant by Lana. Go talk to Koth. Don’t keep dancing around things- it’s better to have it all out in the open.

You ought to take your own advice. I saw Theron sneaking out of here yesterday morning.

She makes a face- guilty as charged. Do as I say, not as I do. Still.

But I don’t think I want-

I know that, she says. I don’t mean sex, or romance, if that’s not what you want. Just… talk. I don’t want something else ruined because of me.

You didn’t- Lana stops herself. All right. But tomorrow, I think- for now, I should sleep. As should you.

I will. I might see if Theron’s still awake, first. I…

(She isn’t used to any of this.)

I miss him.

I know. Lana smiles. Good night, Nine.

***

Up next- Interlude III: Liminal Space. A holocall, two leads, and a cure for insomnia as we return to present time.

(Don’t worry, we’re not skipping over the shuttle entirely, but that’s a memory better shared with someone other than Lana, I think. I leave it to you, readers- how much do you want to hear about that final hour?

And for those of you who are familiar with this week’s spoilers (5.4): yes, I plan to continue this story regardless of how things play out. How I’ll approach that particular turn remains to be seen, of course, but I do have an idea- one of the seeds of which appears somewhere in this chapter.)

#inyri writes #equivalent exchange #swtor fanfiction #imperial agent/theron shan #cipher nine #theron shan #writing is the best form of denial

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