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silverpaintedstars · 3 years ago

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The Son of Shadows, Chapter Twelve (where i literally forgot to post this until i went to write tonight, shhh)

@accidental-spice @kanerallels @bookdragon1811 @fairytale-lights

Chapter Twelve: Under the Same Stars

That night they made a makeshift camp when darkness fell. Rapier crafted a fire and they all sat around it, soaking in the warmth. It was early autumn and the nights were falling colder around them, more each day.

Elliot shivered, his hand stroking Niskim, who had settled in his lap. There wasn’t—surprisingly—an argument or conversation going on, just the three sitting silently, save the crackling and snapping of the fire.

Elliot hadn’t been sure if it would be, um, safe letting Silva see that he was an Elf, despite Rapier having revealed to them both. He hadn’t had a chance to ask Rapier yet, but wasn’t about to take down his hood himself.

Rapier was quiet, staring into the flames and bending a small twig in his hands, snapping it and throwing the bits into the fire. Silva sat slightly away, more towards the shadows, ripping up grass around her and playing with it. She had been strangely distant since the Wycat attack that morning, not being as–defensive and loud as usual. Elliot wondered whether it had to do something with her hat being wrecked, but wasn’t sure what that would have to do with it.

Rapier sighed finally, throwing the rest of the stick—small and beaten down by this point—into the fire. “We’ll reach Feriene sometime tomorrow,” he said, as if they didn’t know that. Elliot still appreciated the reminder.

In his lap, Niskim yawned, stretching himself, settling his paws on Elliot’s arm. Rapier looked at the Wycat and smiled. “He really does have a liking to you.”

Elliot nodded, running a finger over Niskim’s soft wings. The Wycat yawned in his sleep.

Rapier glanced at Silva, who had about cleared the grass around her. She still hadn’t said anything, which Elliot was finding really odd—at least for her. In the time that she had been with them, Silva was usually either going on about something or arguing with them. Sure, she was quiet, but not for long. At least, up until now.

“Your voice finally gone?” Rapier asked her after a moment. He sounded a bit hopeful but Elliot wasn’t sure whether it was real hopefulness.

She scowled at him. “No.”

“Well, you’re being awfully quiet,” he pointed out.

“So now I have the standard to live to of constantly talking?” Silva said with an air of defense.

“No, thought it seems like it’s something you do. A lot,” Rapier said.

“Yes, it’s called conversations,” Silva huffed.

“And you also talk when no one is interested in holding a conversation,” Rapier added.

SIlva glared at the back of his head.

There was another moment of quiet, the crackling of the dying fire filling in the silence. Elliot yawned, against his will, Rapier glancing across at him. “We should sleep now,” he said, in response to Elliot.

“How long will it be tomorrow to get to Ferienetown?” Elliot asked.

“Noontime, probably,” Rapier answered, “if we make well enough time. The sky was clearing out so we shouldn’t have to worry too much about rain.”

Which was a relief. Elliot had had about enough of walking through rain at this point. And Feriene was going to be wet enough on it’s own, what with being built on a lake and the such.

Elliot was going to ask just what was awaiting for them at Ferienetown, but knowing Rapier, they weren’t going to get anything else out of him than he’d already said. Which turned this all into some form of a twisted guessing game that led them constantly second-thinking every step they took.

Maybe just once on this entire excursion Rapier would actually answer all their questions in whole. Or maybe that was more of a far-fetched dream, nothing real enough to happen.

Well, maybe they could get lucky one time.

Elliot yawned again, flushing red when Silva stared at him, but he couldn’t quite help it, honestly. The day had been tiring, traveling the whole time with not many rests. So who was Silva to blame him for that?

“We can—and should—sleep now,” Rapier said a moment later, waving his hand in the air. The fire flickered down to just a small flame and Elliot flinched. Right—Rapier could do that, but it still was surprising. And if he was going to be honest, a bit unnatural. But even his own people could do things. And what with this new sort of power Elliot had found himself capable of, did that make him the more unnatural? Everyone was different in their own way, he supposed, and it was up to the others to judge just how ‘unnatural’ it was.

“Alright,” Silva muttered. “I’m tired and would very much like to get rest now.”

She wasn’t the only one. And as they all settled down and tried to get warm around the remnants of the fire, Elliot’s mind went back to the question of what made people unnatural to others.

Would it just be by the fact that some had the abilities to do things that some people couldn’t? The reason that they could just be able to manipulate certain elements and proprieties and not have to damage a law of the world in the process? For the most part though, Elliot figured, most Falsus were just misunderstood. And in Lucero—where Elves ruled—-Falsus were given a bad name.

Elves were supposed to be feared and honored, what with the country being ruled by them. But in places other than Orlem and perhaps Rocstrett, which was by the coast and groups of powerful Elves lived there, Elves—-among all other Falsus—were treated as the lowest of the low. They were seen almost worse than Witches, Grelphs or even Haunts, though not many Haunts lived in Lucero. Elves had the power to invade on your mind and twist it—something that proved them untrustable.

Elliot shivered, turning over on his side to face the fire. Niskim had curled up somewhere near Elliot’s head, his small, rhythmic breathing calming.

So Elves were already feared, and now, with what Elliot found he could do? Was this something that all Elves could do? Or was this just something else to separate him from the others, another jagged reminder that he was not like the others.

Somewhere a few miles off and under the same sky, a group of four sat by a dying fire. They were tired from a day of chasing off after the Grelph’s newest arrangement. First, though, they had to guess which direction the Elf boy had gone. The Grelph had expected they would be leaving the next morning, and the others in her group had known better than to not trust her mind. So far she had been right.

The girl stretched, her long blonde braid swinging over her shoulder. “I’m going to sleep now,” she announced to no one in particular.

“By all means, Thillis, go on ahead and spare us having to listen to you any longer,” the Elf boy grouched. He had had a run in with a particularly feral seeming Wycat and had a bite on his arm.

Askance glanced over to her left, where the last member of her sorry group sat just outside the light of the fire. Taking to the shadows. She didn’t blame him, really. His long, dark hair fell over his eyes as he sat against a tree, staring into the fire. He and the girl were the only ones amongst them who weren’t Falsus, and Askance wondered if that made them feel uneasy.

Almost as if he could hear her thinking, Maverick snapped his gaze towards Askance. His green eyes reflected the firelight. “What?” He asked her, almost a bit defensively.

“You have been quiet,” Askance said, her long, sharp nails tapping on her knee. He was in the presence of an assassin and a thief, so she supposed he probably had a reason. She still wasn’t sure why Loot had chosen him for this group—he did seem to have some sort of skill with a weapon, but surely that couldn’t be the only reason. The Elf boy, Brenan, was there because he was the brother of the target. Thillis, because she had skill as a thief. But Maverick? This dark, quiet boy who couldn’t be over seventeen? Why was he here? Why did the king of this scarforsaken kingdom choose him?

Askance could ask him, but she doubted the boy would even answer.

Maverick’s eyes roved over the group a moment, flicking over every detail, then returning sharply back to Askance. “You know, it’s a bit unnerving to be stared at by an assassin?”

Askance let out an unamused breath. “I can only imagine.”

Maverick returned her expression. “Why don’t we just move through the night and catch up to them then?”

Askance had pondered (HER ORB) that choice. “We give them time to begin to feel relaxed, time to feel like they outsmarted us. And let them think we were miles behind them.”

“We are miles behind them.”

“Unimportant,” Askance muttered. Now she just thought Loot had given her these people purely for the fact that they may make her lose her mind. It wouldn’t be too far of a possibility.

“Unimportant until you realize that it’s hard to catch up to them if we’re too far behind them,” Maverick muttered under his breath.

Askance turned her head to glare at him. “You doubt me?”

Maverick let out a breath through his nose. “I’m not here because I wanted to be.”

“Oh, do not think I didn’t figure that out.” Askance let out a cough.

“Mm, and I don’t figure you picked this whole…” Maverick waved a hand around their sorry group. “Dream team or whatever.”

“I usually work alone,” Askance growled.

“So you’re telling me that you are so unreliable you needed not one but three babysitters?” Maverick asked.

“Are you not aware I could kill you and not care?” Askance asked.

“I don’t think anyone could not be,” Maverick said carefully. “Aware, that is. With that slightly menacing stick and all.”

Askance glared at him another second before diverting her gaze to the dying flame. She didn’t need to spend her time bantering with this boy. There were plans to make.

#the son of shadows #tsos #my writing #wip #my ocs #elliot loot #silva trecc #rapier toll #askance inu #maverick ollensol #thillis oppodum #brenan loot #the whole gang ahahahaha

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