Watch the Footage

Event 3 - The Calm After the Storm


GM Notes:
Like the special event 2 thread, only new and improved! The war is over-- the rioting is over. But chances are, the characters still have a lot to deal with. In many cases, they have a lot to deal with because of the end of the war. This thread is for those kinds of sidestories. Regular quests will resume soon, and this thread will remain open for people to react to the most recent boss fight's aftermath.

The young man moved quickly but methodically in the dying sunlight, pausing every few steps as though to re-orient himself. When he neared the ruins, he straightened, snapping the locket closed and stowing it back in a pocket as he hurried over to the two redheaded women.

They looked like a study in contrasts: one, her arm draped limply around her friend, still as the grave, the other rocking back and forth frenetically, muttering to herself.

Kevin knelt beside the younger girl first, trying to still her mad motion and ascertain her state. She was bleeding, but it didn’t look like a particularly deep cut. “Nova! Are you all right, Nova? It’s me, Kevin. Everything’s going to be okay, Nova.”

Nova shuddered, skin stained red. Her rocking increased at the sound of Kevin’s voice, her mutters becoming audible, “He’s not dead yet he needs to die. Kill him. Kill him? Kevin’s here. Kevin needs to die? Kevin.”

Kevin glanced over at the bloodied body beside the women, and laid his arms over Nova’s, straightening them, soothing her. “He’s dead, Nova. You stopped him, Nova, you killed him. It’s okay, Nova. It’s me, Kevin. Do you remember me, Nova?”

“Kevin? Kevin wasn’t here. Dunno where Kevin went. Blood. So much blood. Ow.” Nova’s rocking slowed.

Kevin continued steadying her, patting her back, latching onto words that sounded closer to reality. “That’s right, Nova. I wasn’t here. I’m sorry, Nova. Ben was with you, Nova. She… I think you helped her.” As he spoke, it dawned on him that that was more likely than the other way around; if Ben had been helping Nova, why was she saying nothing? Nova was conscious, and Ben was...

The silence was pressing down on him. His friend should have spoken by now, voiced an insult, something, anything. Kevin shifted his attention to assess Ben’s condition more carefully. She was covered in dirt, her right arm splayed out from her body at an angle that looked dizzyingly wrong. She lay slumped against the remains of a temple wall, eyes closed, a dark bruise colouring the whole right side of her face, from a split lip at the bottom to a black eye and further bruising at the top.

His fingers fumbled frantically at the canteen hanging from her belt, scrambling to get the cap off. He dashed some of the water on her face, and dribbled more over her slightly-parted lips. “Ben. Ben. Ben! Stay with me, Ben.”

She coughed shallowly, and blinked a few times before focusing her eyes on him. “Took you… long enough,” she mumbled, her voice slurred.

Kevin grinned, relieved beyond words to hear a response. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “How bad is it?” he asked.

Ben’s brow furrowed, trying to gauge her pain and push it from her mind at the same time. “Broken arm. Other han’, two fin’ers messed up. Might be all.”

Kevin checked the arm; it was broken in two places. He gently peeled Ben’s left arm from where it still lay outstretched toward Nova, and examined the fingers. She was right: they were a mess.

He turned back to the younger girl. “Nova, can you hear me? It’s me, Kevin, Nova. I need your help, Nova. I’m going to need to borrow your knife, in order to help Ben. Can you give me your knife, please, Nova?”

Nova stopped rocking, slowly turning to meet Kevin with dead eyes. With a fluid motion, she stabbed at the ground near his feet.

Keeping eye contact with Nova, Kevin reached down, scrabbling with his fingers for a moment to retrieve the knife. “Thank you, Nova,” he said, as he pulled it out of the ground.

Kevin walked over to the nearest tree, keeping both women in his line of sight as he chopped off several slender branches, then scraped a few strips of pliable bark from the tree’s trunk with the borrowed knife.

He walked back, and offered the knife gingerly back to Nova, flipping it in his hand so that he held the handle out to her. “Thank you, Nova,” he said again.

The blond man set to work splinting Ben’s arm and fingers, doing his best to ignore the small noises of pain she made now and then. He knew she would not want him to have heard. When he was finished, he asked her, “Can you stand?”

“I… I think so.”

He reached under her arms and helped to heave her up, standing braced just a pace behind her in case she needed his help.

Ben’s already pale face went white with pain, and she threw herself back against Kevin a moment before her knees buckled. She shuddered against his chest, gasping until she had recovered her breath. “No,” she whispered, tears coursing down cheeks that burned with humiliation. “No, I can’t.”

“Not to worry,” he said, forced cheerfulness in his voice as he laid her carefully back down. He slipped her boots off and felt her legs and ankles with deft fingers. “I can’t find a break,” he said, looking back at her, “but something’s probably fractured. You’ll need a healer to see you to say how bad, and what needs to be done to fix it. For now, let’s get you home.

“Are you able to walk, Nova?” he asked. “I think Ben needs both my hands right now.”

Nova’s eyes had never stopped following Kevin. The injured girl stood slowly, letting her right shoulder hang slack as she bared the knife at the man.

“Nova?” he asked again. This time, he didn’t wait for a response; he knew there was no other option.

Kevin knelt at Ben’s side. He arranged her broken arm safely on her chest, and pulled her other arm around his shoulder for extra support. “Come here, Nova,” he said, smiling. He hooked the smaller girl’s right hand through his left elbow, before lifting Ben, right arm cradling her head, left under her calves just above the damaged ankles, careful not to jostle any of her injuries. “Let’s go home.”

They walked in silence for several minutes. Ben quickly succumbed to the pain, sleeping fitfully in Kevin’s arms as they made their way out of the woods. Nova warily slipped her knife into its tiny sheath, never breaking eye contact with Kevin. “What did you do to Ben?” she finally asked.

“I splinted Ben’s broken bones,” he told her, “to make the healer’s job easier when one gets to her. That’s what I used your knife for, Nova-- I had to cut some bits off trees to make the splints.”

“What did I do?” Nova asked, examining her bloodied arm. “I forgot things again.”

“I think you saved her life, Nova,” he told her quietly. “That man would certainly have killed her if you hadn’t stopped him, Nova. Thank you for my friend’s life. And thank you from Ben, too.” He paused, swallowing hard. Ben didn’t believe in shielding people from the truth, he knew. “He was going to kill her. So you-- you killed him first, Nova. You did the right thing.”

Nova frowned, “Is Ben going to be okay? How did you find us? Oh crows. Kevin, I hurt someone?!”

Kevin looked down at the woman curled against his chest, eyes lingering on the many injuries. “Ben… will be okay,” he said, finally. “She’s strong. She’ll make it. I have a focus that helped me find you-- a magic thing that’s tied to Ben. When I’m holding it, it tells me what direction she’s in until I reach her. You didn’t come home, so I took it and came looking.” Ben cried out in her sleep, head twitching from side to side, and Kevin slowed his pace, waiting until the sleeping knight had calmed again before he finished responding to everything the girl had said, his eyes resting heavily on Nova’s face.

“Yes, you hurt someone, Nova. Sometimes it’s necessary to. That’s a very hard thing to face about this world, Nova, and I’m sorry you had to face it today-- but I’m glad you did it. If you hadn’t let yourself hurt one evil man, one good woman would be dead.”

“Don’t people normally get into trouble for hurting other people?”

Kevin frowned lightly. “Not when it’s in self-defense, Nova. When someone’s trying to kill you, or someone defenceless with you, you don’t get in trouble for making him stop. It’s hard to see where the lines are drawn, sometimes, I know, Nova. But you saw them clearly enough. You’re a good person, Nova.”

Nova nodded quietly, frowning sadly at Kevin. They were approaching the city limits, and the guards were staring at the trio.

One of the guards raised a weapon and called out. “Who goes?”

Kevin did not slow, but faced the men with smouldering eyes. “Let us through,” he demanded fiercely, and the pair pulled back the gate without another question.
------------

Kevin set Ben down gently on her bed.

“Look who’s… Princess Useless now,” she mumbled.

“You need a healer,” he told her, not rising to the bait. “I’ll go find one.”

“Wait,” she said.

He waited.

“There’s a priest. Kurt. White hair, red cloak. Find him. He’ll see to me. Not… He’s seen me looking stupid before. I don’t need another healer seeing me like this.”

“Are you sure?” Kevin asked, clearly skeptical of the priest’s healing prowess. “You need a serious healer. I hear Marcus Oracon has training in medicine. Maybe--”

“You said yourself,” Ben reminded him, “Oracon looked angry enough at Nova not being Anjali to want to kill you both. And he’s a man who values strength; if he sees me like this, he might just try it.”

“Fine.” Kevin nodded, turning to go. “White-haired priest. Name of Kurt.”

“You know what the worst part was?” Ben spoke again, her voice raw with self-loathing. “Worse than the pain and the threats, was the helplessness. I promised I’d look after her, Kevin. I told Lori she’d be safe with me. I promised Valerian I wouldn’t hurt her. And I didn’t just fail; I failed so miserably all I could do was pray she got away, while I lay there, weaker than a newborn kitten, waiting to be rescued or be killed.”

“But she saved you,” he remarked quietly.

“That only makes it worse! I was supposed to be keeping her safe! No one should have to face what she did for me, Kevin. It was a miracle she even survived that fight, and she only did because he was too busy breaking me into little pieces to fight her until she’d evened the odds enough to give herself a fighting chance.”

“So you were helpful.”

“Not helpful, Kevin. I was helpless. I couldn’t even stop myself from screaming. The only thing holding me back was I was too weak to get the sound out right. He broke me over his knee and turned me into a whimpering toy for him to play with. Turned me into a goddamned damsel in distress. He turned me into nothing.”

Kevin knew that words of consolation would not comfort Ben, not right now. “So everything you told your brother-- that was a lie?” he asked, forcing his voice to be hard, almost angry.

“I… what?”

“Sure I wasn’t there, but I got the gist of it from him and Jennifer. All that claptrap about how losing a fight didn’t mean he was weak, how it didn’t make him less a person that someone hurt him… those were just words, huh. Just to manipulate him.”

“No. No,” she protested, tears flooding her eyes again. “I don’t… I don’t lie to Charlie.”

“What, then?” Kevin snapped, turning to face her again. “You’ve told a lot of people, a lot of times, that you haven’t lost so long as you’re still breathing. That no matter what happens, it’s not over until you say it is. That supposed to be true for everyone except for you, Ben? The Ben I know isn’t a hypocrite. She’s a fighter. So when that priest gets here, you’ll damn well fight, and help him do his job.”

She said nothing, and Kevin knew her silence was a reluctant acquiescence. The best he could hope for right now. He turned to go, again, but she spoke again, in a ragged, plaintive voice, stopping him with his hand on the door.

“I felt so helpless,” she whispered, choking back a sob.

Kevin wanted to go to her, to hold her and help her past the despair and the pain, but he knew that it was the last kind of help she needed right now. The person she needed wasn’t here, but worlds away, home in Lamada, safe from madmen made of shadow and the pains they inflicted. All she had here was him, and he knew that if he comforted her now, it would only reinforce her seeing herself as weak, and when she recovered, she would not forgive him. Instead, he told her in a rough voice, not unkindly, “You’ll get through it,” before closing the door behind himself and leaving her alone.

---------

Kevin had to get the healer, but first, he knew, there was something else that needed to be done. He slipped back into his own room, where he’d deposited Nova on his way in. He hadn’t wanted to keep the two women in the same room, in case one’s condition acted as a trigger for the other. The girl was still reading the book she’d picked up off his shelf when they’d walked in.

“Nova? Are you up for a talk?” Kevin asked, settling into an armchair opposite her. When she looked up at him questioningly, he smiled. “I like you.”

“No you don’t.” Nova said, putting her book in between herself and the taller guy, still bloody skin cracking uncomfortably.

His eyebrows twitched. “I what?”

“You want Anjali back. I’m just a placeholder until she comes back.” Nova mumbled bitterly behind the paperback.

Kevin shook his head, his eyes flashing with an anger that wasn’t quite directed at her. “No. I like you, Nova. I never had the pleasure of knowing Anjali Torvantine, but I do know Nova, and I like her.

“I don’t know what or who led you to believe that,” he told her, his voice warm, “but it couldn’t be more wrong. We’re taking you about to old haunts, old friends of Anjali’s for you, Nova, so we can help you find something you’ve lost. But nobody wants to ‘replace’ you with Anjali. You’re no less a person than she was. You’re a person we care about very much.

“Look at me,” he directed gently. “Look me in the eye, Nova.”

Nova held the book up for a long moment, then slowly turned to meet the man’s eyes, face empty of emotion.

He examined her face keenly before continuing, holding out a hand like an offering without breaking the eye contact to look down at it. “I don’t want anyone telling you you’re just a stand-in for someone else. You’re you, whoever you are. You’re my friend. The only person who has the right to change who you are is you.”

Breaking the eye contact, Nova stuttered, pushing Kevin’s hand away. “Yeah, the only one who can change who I am. That’s why the first thing I remember today is laughing over a dead body.” She snapped, sarcastically. “I seem to be doing such a wonderful job, being myself.”

Kevin sighed deeply, praying for the right words to reach his friend. “Nova… death is scary. Traumatic. When we’re forced to kill to protect ourselves, or people we care about, sometimes it makes us act differently, sometimes it makes us scary to ourselves. I’ve been there, too, Nova. And it’s always hard to come back from that. But you’re still you. You’re still Nova, someone I care about very much. You’re Nova, who saved the life of someone else I care about very much. Laughing afterward seems a small price to pay for being the kind of person who will fight, even when she’s scared, to protect her friends.”

“So what happens now?” Nova asked abruptly, pulling the book in front of her face again.

“Now? Well, first I have to take care of Ben for a little bit,” he admitted. “After that… it’s up to you. If you want to keep on looking for Anjali, there are more people from her past that I can find for you to speak to. If you don’t want that, I’ll still be here for you. For as long as you want us around.”

Nova held the book carefully in front of her face, refusing to respond to Kevin’s speech. The man had begun to give up hope of getting her to respond when she shifted oddly, right arm still limp. She let out an audible wince and set the book down, tears in her eyes. “I can’t move my right arm.”

The young man blanched, hands gently feeling along the arm for broken bones. “I’m so sorry, Nova, I should have asked earlier. I was so busy with--” he cursed himself silently. While he knelt beside her, he quietly slid her bare knife into a sheath. “You’ve been very strong keeping it to yourself this whole time.”

‘It wasn’t an issue. Ben needs you.” Nova snapped, twisting away from Kevin, taking care not to disturb her arm.

“It is very much an issue,” he told her, looking up at her, something burning in his eyes. “Ben needs me right now, yes. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t. You are important, Nova. I’m here for both of you, not just Ben.”

Nova toyed with the knife, sliding it in and out of its sheath with her left thumb. She refused to meet Kevin’s glare. “Okay.”

“I’m going for the healer now, Nova. He will have to see to Ben first, but I won’t let him leave until he’s fixed up your arm.” He glanced desperately about the room, as though looking for someone to help. There wasn’t anyone in the guild that he really trusted alone with Nova, without himself or Ben ready to intervene. “Will you be able to manage getting cleaned off while I’m out?” he asked, while his mind raced ahead along his list of things he had to do, seizing on a name. Lorin. Ben said Lorinicole’s in town. She might be able to help. I’m not sure I trust her, but she’s helped Ben before.

“I’ll be okay.” Nova said in monotone, picking the book up once more.

“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes anxious. For the second time that day, he wanted to reach out, to comfort someone who did not, it seemed, want him there to do it. “I’ll be back soon, Nova. I’ll be here for you. Anything you need.”

Nova didn’t respond, instead she hugged her knees, refusing to meet Kevin’s eyes.

“Nova--” he pleaded again, his voice pained.

“Go, Kevin.” Nova growled, knuckles turning white. “Go take care of Ben.”

He stood, shoulders slumped, back to her, and walked out to find the priest Ben had asked for. So now Ben’s got a death wish and Nova won’t talk to you. Great going, Kevin.

Once he had hiked further from the main area of settlement, there were fewer people who recognized him as “Ben’s friend.” Conversely, though, he got more shifty looks and too-blank stares when he asked about the priest than he had before, suggesting that he was on the right track. Or a track.

Kevin trudged on through the muddy paths into the isolated, half-built slum that stood atop the ruins of some old village from long ago, stopping people casually as they passed to ask a question or two before he moved on. At this point, he’d follow any lead someone gave him, or just give up and find a more tractable healer.

-------------

Instead of answering his question, the boy leapt through the half-open door and ran off. Kevin turned slowly. He felt a slight prick at the small of his back, and he stood, rigid, waiting.

“Well, well, well, what ‘ave we ‘ere? A pretty lad looking for a priest, eh? Got some sin ya wanna confess? I’d be ‘appy to listen…” A voice came from directly behind him, and the metal pressed against his spine moved slightly as the apparent robber chuckled darkly.

“Nobody’s seen a white-haired man here, and nobody’s seen a red cloak,” Kevin commented calmly, as though he were not in danger of being fatally stabbed. “But something tells me you’re the man I’m looking for. A priest called Kurt.”

“Now i’n’t tha’ a bold claim. Whatever brought you to that conclusion?” The knife in Kevins back twisted, and a hint of a darker tone slipped into the thief’s speech, even as the size of his words increased.

“For one thing,” he remarked coolly, “you found me when I came looking. For another, there are few enough people Ben of Lamada trusts with her life, and you seem just the type. All open and friendly-like.”

Kevin’s words hung in the air unchallenged for a moment, but after a long pause, the pressure on his back vanished. When he turned, he came face to face with what seemed to be a man of perhaps slightly less than average height, baggy, patched clothing, ragged blonde hair, and no sign whatsoever of a knife present, the weapon seeming to have vanished into thin air. Completely at odds with his appearance, however, was the man’s voice, for when he spoke again, everything down to his intonation had changed. His speech was now both far more flowery and properly enunciated, and his voice had changed from a rough leering tone to a deep, confident one. “And what does Ben want with me that would cause a stranger to come this far after me? Here I was so sure I’d managed to make it obvious I didn’t want to be found. Perhaps you somehow mistook that for me welcoming you in with open arms?”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Kevin answered tersely, “but a close friend of mine will die if she doesn’t get some medical attention soon. Ben asked for you, specifically, because she trusts you, God knows why, but if you’ve got more important things to do than save her life, I need to go find a healer.”

At the mention of healing, the man’s eyes narrowed, and something about him shifted once more. Gone was the dirty thief of moments ago, and instead there was a tall, man with an air of danger about him, who simply happened to be clad in the rags of a beggar. What was the man and what was the disguise were separated in merely a tiny shift of bearing. As Kevin finished speaking, Kurt cut in. “Obviously I’m extremely busy ekeing out a miserable existence in this slum so that I am not located by certain parties of which I have no intention of speaking. I don’t see why she can’t find another at least semi-competent healer and leave me to my vacation, but very well. I’ll come with you. For now.” It was apparent that he had already made the decision to come when he had been informed of the situation, no matter how much of a fuss he put up about it.

Kevin looked at the man for a moment, bottling away his frustration. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll see you’re well compensated for your pains.”

“You know, if you were planning on paying, you probably should have said that sooner. You aren’t very good at this bargaining thing, are you?”

-----------------------

Kevin glanced at the other man, walking silently beside him, brown, tattered cloak and hood pulled tightly over his form. “Please don’t be offended when I say that I will pay you, and richly, only after you’ve seen to her injuries. I’ve met too many greedy men to risk Ben’s life on the honesty of a friend.”

“Hmph. Don’t be a fool. As disreputable as I might have appeared, I am a priest after all.” The retort came back from Kurt’s shadowed visage, but his voice was not as sharp as usual, and his mind seemed to be drifting away from the matters at hand.

“I’d like to say that that assuages my concerns, Father. But I’m sure you know as well as I that one will find people in any calling who are more loyal to their pockets than to their gods.”

The cloaked priest slowed to a stop, shifting his gaze beneath the fabric to observe the overcast, grey sky. “Yes. That you can.” His voice took on an oddly dark tone for a moment, and he didn’t even bother to correct the misuse of the title, but before Kevin could say anything else, he turned to face the building they were standing in front of. “I take it this is the place?” he asked, his voice returning to brusque and aloof, as though the previous moment had never occurred.

-----------------------

Kevin led Kurt up the stairs to an inn room, drawing a key from his pocket to open the door. With a quiet creak of the hinges, the portal to the dim room opened, and the still cloaked Kurt stepped in. His hood and collar hid most of his face, leaving only his lower jaw and cheeks, sunken in a slightly unhealthy looking manner within the reach of the glow of the candles. Hearing a slight shifting of the bed against the far wall, his head slowly raised to face his primary patient, revealing a glimpse of a steel grey eye beneath the hood.

Kevin cringed when he saw her again; asleep, Ben didn’t look like a warrior, didn’t look like the champion of two lands. She just looked like a woman who had been brutally battered.

Scanning the broken, injured form before him, Kurt began to stride across the room, ignoring the presence of the man who had brought him there now that he wasn’t needed at the moment. Snorting slightly derisively, he looked over the shoddy splints placed in what appeared to be a hurry along Ben’s right arm. It appeared he really had been needed as desperately as that Kevin man had claimed.

Mentally, he began to run through a catalog of the injuries, an action he was now far too used to. Her left arm was done up hastily with a bit of rough cloth, and bruises covered her skin. She sure got herself into quite a mess this time, and didn’t even have the decency to stick to injuries I can get rid of with little effort. His overshadowed eye narrowed as he considered Ben’s condition. That right arm is a deplorable mess, and the splints on it aren’t going to be helping anything. The bones aren’t even reset properly, and I’m not even sure how she managed to mangle her left hand so badly. Her face is a mess, but unless her mind has been damaged, I’m not too worried about it. Then again, I’m not too worried about that, either. He glanced over his shoulder at the fidgeting man behind him, before letting out a long sigh. Though I suppose he would probably object. Ah well, some things weren’t meant to be. Time to get to work.

Ben’s eyelids fluttered weakly. “Got any miracles up your sleeve for me, Miracle Man?” she asked, her words slurred and slowed by her injuries.

Kurt glanced down at his patient, feeling slightly annoyed. Of course she wakes up. The worst kind of patients are the ones that talk back. At least that tells me the blood on her face is because of her tongue. Internal bleeding is bothersome. With a cold look, Kurt answered in a deadpan tone. “One.”

She closed her eyes again, as though keeping them open had been too much strain. “Better be enough.”

Before her mouth could close fully, Kurt’s right arm twitched slightly as he drew it out of his cloak, letting a corked vial fall into his palm a moment before the stopper was flicked out and away with a quick thumb motion. Retaining his stoic demeanor, Kurt casually lifted the bottle of shimmering liquid and upended it on Ben’s face.

She coughed weakly, her airway feeling more open, though there was a searing pain in her abdomen where she convulsed during the cough.

Kurt made a quiet noise of satisfaction, then turned back toward his silent observer. “You. Bring me a bowl of water while I get rid of these.” Motioning with an offhanded wave to the rough splints on Ben’s arm and hand, he turned his attention back to the bed, drawing his hands beneath his cloak to rummage in a leather pack he wore underneath the thick fabric. Pulling out a dagger and some clean white linen, Kurt began to measure the length of bandage he would need to replace the dirt and blood stained rags covering Ben’s left arm.

Kevin snapped into action, filling a bowl at the washbasin and hurrying over with it. “There’s something wrong with her legs, too,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t find a break, but that doesn’t mean much. All I know is she wasn’t able to put her weight on them.”

“A break in the main bones isn’t something even an amateur like you could miss. It’s probably at a joint… I’ll take a look at her ankles later.” Kurt waved a hand toward a small wooden table, silently ordering Kevin to place the bowl of liquid upon it. Quickly finishing cutting off the sleeve and bandage around Ben’s arm as one, he reached out to the wooden bowl and waved the golden crucifix upon its string above the surface of the water, which lit with a soft, shimmering light.

Soaking the clean linen for his new bandage in the liquid for a moment, he started work on the splints, moving back to the table a moment later to pick up the fabric and quickly wrap up Ben’s wound once more. Soaking a rag with holy water, he began to dab at whatever bruises and small surface wounds he could find, taking extra care with a large discoloration on Ben’s stomach that looked like it might have been accompanied by some rib damage. She made a small noise at the back of her throat when his fingers brushed the markings, but offered no complaint.

Carefully recalling that for later, and moving on once the bruise began to fade from the effect of his water, he finally removed the last of the splints. For a moment, he stood quietly and rubbed his chin in contemplation as he observed the various fractures and breaks in his patient’s arm and hand. Finally, making a decision, he picked up the vial he had dropped on her face a few minutes before and refilled it from his fresh supply in the bowl. Withdrawing another vial, this one filled with an odd looking clear liquid that didn’t have the shine of holy water, Kurt calmly put three drops of the concoction into the vial of holy water. “Give this to her and make sure she drinks the whole thing.” Sharply ordering Kevin around once more, he turned back to his supplies without paying him any further attention.

Kevin accepted the vial and crouched by his friend’s head. “Ben?”

She struggled to open her eyes, looking at him with more trust than he’d ever seen before. She nodded her head clumsily. “You know best. I’ll drink it.” He held it to her mouth as she gulped the foul-tasting liquid down.

“Indeed.” Kurt turned around, and glanced down at her, stepping back to the bedside. “And what I know tells me that patients who squirm around while I try to reset broken bones are a pain to me and to themselves, so you will pardon the addition of a knockout drug to that mixture. Oh what am I saying? No, you probably won’t, but you can take that up with me when you wake up. Now, step out of my way, Kevin. I have work to do.”

Kevin stepped aside, biting back an angry reply. He didn’t like the idea of drugging Ben, but he knew that this was the best way to make the experience more painless for her. He glanced back at the redhead; she was already asleep.

------------

She still looked… broken, but Kevin couldn’t help feeling relieved about the signs the healer left. Her arm hung in a cloth sling; the splints and linen bandages on her fingers and ankle were clearly professional.

“Thank you,” he said hoarsely.

“Che.” Kurt stood up from where he had been kneeling to put the finishing touches on the bandages around Ben’s left ankle. “If I had told you not to bother me, you would probably have kept pestering me until I agreed. This just saved us both a lot of trouble. That bowl stays here. Have her drink from it for the next four days, I don’t care in the slightest how lukewarm it gets. She can complain to you all she wants as long as I don’t get bothered. Now, is there anything else you needed, or can I take my pay and…” He paused, as though not really sure where his sentence was taking him. “...get back to other things.” Kurt finished his comment rather lamely, something unusual for him.

“Yes,” Kevin answered, gathering his wits about him once more. “My friend Nova needs help, too. She’s not in as bad shape as Ben, but she can use your… expertise.” He led the other man into the room next door, without waiting for a response.

“Nova? Nova, the healer’s here,” Kevin called gently, as he opened the door.

Muttering something in an unfriendly tone that was too quiet for Kevin to hear, Kurt gathered what remained of his medical equipment and started after his temporary employer.

Nova sat in the chair, skin still bloody, knife held firmly in her hand. She refused to meet his gaze. “Go away.”

Kevin knelt by her chair and put a hand over hers without tugging the knife away. “He’s here to help, Nova. You said your arm hurt.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Nova muttered, pulling away from Kevin, teeth flashing as she grimaced in pain and anger. “Other people are better.”

“Matters,” he countered, frowning at her.

Before the conversation could continue, a sarcastic drawl drifted through the open doorway. “You know, if you are just going to have a juvenile argument with this Nova, I hardly see why I’m still here.” With a flutter of a cloak, the priest stepped into the room, still hooded and covered by his traveling cape, even though they were inside and he had no apparent need to hide his features any longer.

A knife flew towards the priest, only to suddenly vanish from the air as Kurt’s cape flew open and an arm shot out at a speed far faster than the eyes of the rest could follow. For a second, he held the knife in his hand, artfully twirling it around his fingers to flip it around to a throwing hold, and in the next it was embedded into the wall beside Nova’s head. However, a moment after the blade left his hand, the priest seemed to start, a tiny motion only given off by the rustle in the fabric of his cape, and for a second, his eyes of steel stared at Nova’s face in surprise, mouth hanging open in shock. Regaining his composure and standing straight again, his face once more hidden, Kurt spent a moment in silence, his mouth contorting as though he was about to open it, then pausing.

Nova glared back at the priest, eyes narrowed. “So? You want to see my blood run then too?” White teeth flashed in the gloom as she turned, painfully, to face the hooded man.

Kevin stood, placing himself squarely between the man and the girl, glaring. “You helped Ben. That doesn’t mean that if you hurt Nova I won’t take it out of you, painfully.”

“What a hostile pair you are, considering she was the one who attacked first. If I had wanted to hit her, I would have.” Kurt’s voice, despite the frivolous opening sentence, was as cold as ice, without a hint of the usual mocking humor it carried. The tiny fraction of his face still visible revealed even less of what was going on inside his mind than his demeanor.

“She didn’t attack you,” Kevin said, rubbing his temples. “She’s hurt and afraid. Please just help her.”

“Yeah, help me. Like Kavros helped Ben. I’m sure he was a great help too.” Nova backed out of the chair, cradling her arm as she carefully made her way to the door.

Kevin choked, and turned away from both of them to try to regain his composure. “Nova…”

“Enough.” Kurt finally moved from the doorway to Ben’s room and stepped forward, withdrawing his oft-used vial of holy water from his pocket and tossing it underhanded in the general direction of Nova. It hit the floor, though it didn’t break, and rolled to a stop nearby. “If you want my help, take that. If you don’t then give it back to me. I don’t particularly care for whatever quarrels you have with each other. If there isn’t anyone else you would like to drag me into an argument with, Kevin, then I’m taking my leave.” For a moment, it almost seemed like his voice held a touch of bitter anger, but it regained the icy character so fast it might as well have been a product of the imagination.

Nova frowned at the little bottle, then spoke up, “You’re trying to kill me too?”

“Glass is expensive. It would be a waste to use it for some nonsense poison attempt. Whether you listen to your friend or just ignore him while he tries to help you is up to you.” Still not revealing a hint of emotion, Kurt made an offhand retort, only pausing for a moment in his walk to the exit.

Nova picked up the bottle, inspecting it for a moment. “Who are you then? Some kind of priest?”

Kurt hesitated for a moment mid-step, but then kept moving, with only a muttered “Doesn’t matter” as a reply.

“W-Wait… Please.” Nova begged softly, “I-I can’t… I’m sorry…”

At the door, Kurt just gestured with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of Kevin. “Ask him.” Saying that coolly, he started to step out the door.

Kevin reached a hand into the folds of his cloak, withdrawing a small but heavy pouch. “Your pay,” he said, tossing it to the man at the door as he walked over to the girl. “I appreciate all you’ve done. ...If you can see your way clear to looking in on her as she heals, I’ll be sure to show my appreciation.”

The priest just let out a snort as he caught the leather bag, dropping his hand beneath his cloak and vanishing out the door without another word. The wooden stairs creaked dimly from the hallway, and with a bang of a second closing door, he slipped away into the night.

“...should probably get her to a healer. Do you know if there’s a hospital or something on this floor?”

“I doubt it. I know some people who might take her in, though. Um. Well, loosely know.”

“Right now, that’s probably good enough.” Then, slightly quieter, “Goodness, that’s a lot of blood…”

A small laugh. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not nearly as bad as it looks. Still more than I can handle, though, so we should probably get her out of here before she bleeds out, no?”

“Keep her steady, I think I can - ” A sudden jolt. “Careful! Careful. Okay.”

“Oh, hello, bird! Ay, no, away! Here, we can put her on Chet.”

“Good idea. Okay, Likovya, stay still, you’re going to be all right…”

---

“...may stay here for a bit to watch her.”

“Thank you. I can’t imagine she’ll be very happy when she wakes up.”

“...Perhaps not. And you?”

“I have to go. There’s… well, something happened on the first floor. I need to see someone. You’ll make sure she’s okay?”

“Understandable. I won’t let her leave until she’s healed.”

“Thank you again. I wish we could have met under more… pleasant circumstances.”

“I’m sure there will be other times. It’s a large castle.”

“That’s very true. Until then, be well.”

---

Even before noticing that her shoulder hurt, Likovya realized she was in a bed. The sheets were rough and the mattress was a bit lumpy, but it was a bed, the first proper bed she’d slept in for days. For a while, all she wanted to do was lie still and enjoy the feeling of sleeping on something that gave beneath her body and supported her weight.

Then she remembered why her shoulder hurt.

Likovya scrambled out of bed, realizing as she did so that her body felt lighter than she was used to. Her boots were off, as were her jacket and belt, and the knives were missing from her wrists. A moment later, she found all her equipment by the bed and let herself relax. No one was around to tell her she had to stay in bed, so she slipped into her boots and began arranging the rest of her knives.

Before pulling on her jacket, she noticed a dark bruise on her shoulder, right where the knife had pierced her skin. It ached when she set her fingers against it and when she swung her arm in a wide circle, but nothing else seemed to be wrong. Even her jacket had been stitched, and far better than she had done before.

The bedroom was lit by sunlight, and sweet air came in through the window. It smelled nothing like the city, but it wasn’t wilderness. There was something sweet and tame to it, and looking out the window, she could see a small farm, just enough to feed a family with a little surplus. Mirae and Jenny must have left her on the third floor.

There wasn’t a chance of her just sitting around in a pastoral paradise with rabbits that thought nothing of people bleeding out, but she didn’t want to return to the first floor. Now that she knew where the portal was to reach the next floor, she wanted to explore. Maybe it would be a collection of abandoned churches, or a series of caves filled with mysterious writings. It could be a twisted mirror of this place, or a bay filled with horrible secrets, or even something she had no words to describe.

Eager to start on her journey, she left the room and looked through the house for the front door. She could take bits of food from farms as she passed, and there would have to be something edible on the fourth floor. As she peeked into a kitchen, she realized that the farmers might be so grateful to be rid of the anti-guilds that they would offer her food for her journey. Somehow, she always forgot the perks of being a hero.

A hand landed on her uninjured shoulder. She twisted around, grabbing the wrist with one hand as a knife flashed from her wrist. When she saw that it was Mirae, she relaxed. “What was that for?” she asked, tucking the knife away. “Did you have to grab me from behind?”

Mirae stared intently at her. “You seem awake enough.” Without giving more of a reply, she suddenly shot her hand forward and hit Likovya’s shoulder, on top of the bruise.

“Ow!” Likovya stepped back, pulling her knife out again. “What was that for?”

“Back in the room.”

“What? Why? I’m fine.” She rolled her shoulder a little and glared. It didn’t hurt terribly, though it still ached a little.

“I couldn’t heal that properly before, for whatever reason. I simply tired every time I tried.” Mirae frowned. “And I promised Jenny, so you will go back to bed and heal before you get yourself injured again.”

“I’m not going to step into a knife,” Likovya said. “It’s almost all healed, and I’ll be fine in a few days. I just won’t be able to work with my left arm for a while.” She glanced around, half expecting Jenny to step out of a corner somewhere and put her back to bed. “Where is Jenny, anyway?”

“Almost,” the other girl muttered. “She went back to the first floor for something.”

“Then she doesn’t have to know that I skipped bed rest a little early.” Likovya toyed with her wrist knife. “Look, I’ll be careful. I promise, and I’ll even keep it, because I’m fond of Jenny. It’s not like I’ll be going far, anyway.”

Mirae tipped her head, considering. Finally, she said, “How often do you break promises when you’re not being watched?”

“It really depends on the promise.”

“Hm. Well, I’m not breaking this one.” She turned and walked away down the hall. “Back to the room.”

Likovya didn’t bother making any sort of retort. Instead, she ducked into the kitchen and headed for the back door. She could get food after she lost the girl, who was clearly taking her job far too seriously. If Jenny were here, she would understand. Hoping the girl wouldn’t turn to see whether she was following, Likovya ran for the door.

---

She was in a bed again, slightly sore all over, and very annoyed. That girl must have done something to the door, since the last thing Likovya remembered was feeling a sharp, almost sparking pain all over her body. Her knives were off again, too, and she cursed Mirae, the floor, and the castle quite soundly as she got out of bed and put everything back on.

She couldn’t trust the door. For all she knew, Mirae was waiting just outside to put her back in bed. Barely daring to breathe, Likovya went to the window and pushed it open. It opened up to the ground floor, so she didn’t have to worry about turning her ankle, and she clambered out. No one called out for her to stop, and no one set a hand on her shoulder, so she took off.

No one pursued her, and she felt confident enough to slow as she left the farms behind. Her shoulder had started aching as well, but if Mirae had popped up to ask, Likovya would have insisted that her slowing was because she didn’t think anyone was coming after her. No light-haired girl appeared, and there was no sign of the giant horse, so she strode on to the great tree.

There were no bodies lying on the ground as she neared the tree, and if she looked closely, even the blood appeared to have vanished from the earth. She could be on a different route, but it still unnerved her, and she walked a little faster. When she reached the tree, the uneasy feeling at the base of her neck grew stronger. No one was there, and there wasn’t any sign of a struggle. If she didn’t remember the tree so well, she would have thought it was a different giant tree surrounded by cheerful birds and frolicking squirrels.

“I really don’t like this place,” she muttered. Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, she started up the tree to the fourth floor.

Kevin rapped sharply on the Guard Commander’s office door, his other arm casually draped across his charge’s shoulders.

The vaguely-familiar-looking Guardswoman opened the door after his second knock, sizing up the two people standing in her door. “Kevin,” she greeted him, with a terse smile. “And Anjali.” Less of a smile. “Can this wait? Or go to one of the other Guards. I’m dealing with rather a lot right now.” She gestured to the piles of paperwork covering the surface of her desk.

“Actually,” Kevin said, pulling a reluctant Nova into the room with him, “I’m not sure it can wait. You’ll want to hear this, Captain.” He slid into one of the chairs in front of Legias’ desk, depositing Nova on the one beside him. “First, though, I suppose I should introduce you to my friend Nova.”

Legias sighed, glancing irritably down at the paperwork. “Kevin, you’ve been helpful in the past, but I don’t have time for games right now. This city is still tearing itself apart. I am already familiar with Anjali Torvantine, Soren Kavros is still on the loose and guilty of murder, the--” The woman stopped, her eyes finally catching up with her words. She matched what she had said up with the girl in front of her, looking Nova up and down. “All right, you’ve got my attention,” she murmured. “Now tell me what the hell is going on and why your ‘friend’ looks like one of our missing corpses.”

“Anjali Torvantine died,” Kevin answered calmly.

“Then what--” Legias began, still eying Nova, trying to suppress hysteria.

“Or at least, her memories died,” Kevin continued. “From what I understand, she sustained severe injuries. With the help of the Loremaster, and a few others, including what must have been an extremely powerful healer, however, she survived the ordeal. As Nova.” Under the desk, he squeezed his friend’s hand tighter. Nova shrunk under the scrutiny of the soldier, not daring to meet her gaze.

“Nova,” Legias repeated. “Why?” she asked, flicking her gaze to Kevin.

“You’d have to ask Lori that,” he replied steadily. “I’m told she gave the orders to announce Valerian and Torvantine dead, as well as the details of their cover stories.”

“That woman,” Legias muttered angrily, speaking to herself but loud enough for the others to hear, “goes too far sometimes.”

Kevin shifted slightly, fingers tapping noiselessly against the edge of the desk. “Her motives were sound,” he remarked, his voice neutral. “There was a man who very much wanted them dead, as she had seen.”

Legias glared again at Nova, as though this confusion were somehow her fault. “Then why,” she asked crossly, “are you trotting her out to meet me now? Either Lori’s plotting makes sense or it doesn’t; there’s no point in breaking the damn cover just because the girl became too much to handle.”

Kevin spread his flat palms across the desk, ignoring the irritable look from the guardswoman when he jostled some piles of paper. “Soren Kavros is dead.”

She pursed her lips. “I’ve heard that before.”

“I saw the body this time. It showed no signs of getting up.”

She pulled a new sheet of paper in front of her and poised the pen over it. “Dead. How?”

Kevin looked at the girl beside him, waiting in case she volunteered an answer on her own. Nova seemed focused on the floor, picking at the carpet with a shoe. When she spoke, she mumbled the words barely loud enough for them to hear.

“He was trying to hurt B-” Nova stopped, glancing guiltily over at Kevin. “He was hurting someone, so I stopped him.”

“That’s not a lot of information.”

Kevin pulled the distraught girl closer, hugging her against his side. “He ran into Ben and Nova this morning. Ben tried to engage him…”

“The damn fool!” Legias cursed. “After he’d bested Valerian?”

“I think she realizes that now,” he commented coolly. “Though it isn’t as though she had many options in any case. Either way, he had her incapacitated. Nova saved her life. She drew him away from Ben and killed him before he could finish what he’d started.”

“Sorry…” Nova whispered to no one in particular.

“You saved her life,” Kevin repeated, ignoring the impatient glances from the captain of the guard.

He reached down into a fold of his cloak on the side furthest from Nova, and withdrew a massive claymore. He laid it on the desk, paying no attention to the paperwork beneath it, drawing another glare from Legias. There was some dried blood-- Ben’s-- on the tip.

“This was his,” he said quietly. “It’s probably Guard property.”

Legias looked at the weapon, taking it in, before she sighed. “Kevin, you know that’s not where a sword belongs. I do have real work to do; would you mind terribly putting it in a more rational spot on your way out?”

He caught her eye with a mulish expression, flicking one eye toward the skittish Nova.

She nodded. “Very well. I’ll deal with, I suppose.” She made a few more quick strokes with her pen. “Did Ben see him die as well?”

“I cut his tongue out.” Nova said, speaking up, hands trembling, voice wavering as she attempted to melt into the couch. “...He kept hurting Ben.” The girl’s voice pleaded with the uncaring woman. “Why isn’t that enough for you?”

Kevin wrapped her hands in his, and met Legias’ glare with one of his own, until she replaced the raised eyebrow with something more patient. “She saw the body,” he said in a quiet, angry tone, blinking eyes that suddenly stung. “I doubt she was conscious when he died. I can get you a copy of the healer’s report--”

“That won’t be necessary,” she assured him, pulling a cloth out of a desk drawer and beginning to clean Kavros’ blade.

“One more thing,” Kevin said, leaning forward. “I’d appreciate it if you not mention Nova’s or Ben’s name in any official announcements you make.”

“Lori requested that too?”

“No, I’m requesting that.” He met her gaze calmly, though there was something in his expression that suggested the calmness was only a thin veneer. “Ben’s fought enough people who walked away that I don’t particularly relish crying from the rooftops that she’s bedbound and unable to defend herself.”

Legias nodded. “I still have to thank you for bringing the good news. But I understand.” She considered leaving it at that point, but the man seemed sincere enough about his reasons, she might as well do the same. “This was a war. While it being over is a good thing, we shouldn’t celebrate and elect heroes to party over the graves of the lives lost.”

At that point, Adam opened the door carrying a folder of papers. “So, paperwork finally finished… Valerian and Torvantine’s deaths prop-- Why is Torvantine standing here alive and--?”

“I guess you have more paper work to do for the guard, Adam.” Legias smirked. “I’ll explain the details soon.” She turned to Kevin and Nova again. “Is there anything else you would like to add?”

Kevin rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I don’t think so. Thank you, Captain.” He stood to go, pulling Nova up with him.

Timelime Note: The morning after the boss fight

Ben was drowning in her dreams. Soren Kavros laughed, and tore into her flesh. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, as he broke her into little pieces, reveled in his triumph-- a voice, clear as a bell, cut through the terror, waking her up.

“Ben? Are you all right? Ben, it was just a dream. You're safe now.”

Ben blinked, trying to focus her eyes on the woman who sat beside the bed. She smiled, her face aching where the purple bruises blossomed. “Jeanna. Thank you for coming to be with me.” She spoke slowly, carefully, her voice a little slurred by sleep and injuries.

“I heard you were hurt,” the woman said, concern written on her face. “They said you could have been killed, and I…”

“Ah.” Ben drew in a sharp, ragged breath, letting it out slowly. “Your turn, Jea,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Your turn to be the strong one.” She sounded younger, somehow, more vulnerable; like a little girl seeking comfort.

A note of confusion entered the worry in Jea’s expression. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry,” Ben mumbled. “Your brother’s all right. I wouldn’t bring Ian home injured. I wouldn’t…” She trailed off, and blinked again. “Jenny. You’re here.” There was a note of surprise in her voice.

“Yes,” said Jenny, relieved. “It’s me. I’m sorry I wasn’t here earlier, but... things got a bit hectic. I’m just glad you're alive."

“Glad you’re here,” Ben said. She tried to reach out a hand, but both arms were bound in bandages, lying limply on the bed. Her forehead creased slightly as she tried to make them do what she wanted.

Jenny reached out and touched her shoulder. “It’s all right,” she said gently.

Her brow smoothed again, Ben relaxing against the bed at Jenny’s touch. “I’ve missed you, Jea.”

Jenny smiled. “Rest, Ben. Heal quickly.”

In response, Ben’s eyes closed, looking more peaceful than she had when last she slept. Jenny stayed by her side as her breathing slowed, gradually becoming less ragged and more the natural deep breathing of true sleep. When she was sure Ben was asleep, Jenny rose to leave.

Kevin met her at the door. “Thank you,” he said, his voice warm with emotion.

“I just wish I could do more,” Jenny said quietly. “No one should have to go through that.”

“You’ve already done more than I can,” he told her. “She was happy to see you.” He paused. “You’ll be welcome here if you can visit again.”

“I'll definitely try.” Jenny looked over her shoulder, at Ben’s peaceful figure. “She called me Jeanna, just then. Do you know who that is?”

His eyes flicked over to Ben and back as he nodded. “They used to be very close. I suppose if she’s feverish, it makes sense that her mind would orient itself to her. Though…” He smiled wryly. “I’ve met Jeanna Smith once. She doesn’t look or sound anything like you.”

‘Smith.’ That might explain it. Aloud, Jenny said, “Well, if it helps her, I don’t mind.”

Kevin glanced at the other door. “I should probably go check on another friend of mine now. Thank you again, Jenny. It means a lot.”

A crash sounded from the room right behind Kevin. Turning away from Jenny as though he had totally forgotten she was there, Kevin yanked the door open and ran in. “Nova?” His eyes scanned the room, frantic, until he found her at last, half out of a newly broken window. He ran to her, pulling her back in with careful arms, avoiding the splintered glass on the edges. “Nova, what are you doing?”

Nova kicked at Kevin, who gathered her up in his arms, ignoring the thrashing limbs. “Let… me… GO!” Nova cried, waving the knife wildly.

He loosened his grip, but kept his arms around her. “Nova, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“I need to get out. I need. To. Go. Out. Now.” Nova emphasized each word with a futile punch against Kevin’s arms.

“We can go outside if you want,” he said reassuringly. “Are you hurt? Did the glass--”

“Anji?” Jenny was standing in the doorway, eyes wide.

Kevin winced; he’d forgotten she was there. “Jenny,” he said cautiously, as he helped Nova to her feet. “This is my friend Nova.”

Nova gasped, collapsing to the floor and screwing her eyes shut. “I’m not Anji. I’m not Anji. Anji is gone; not me. Got to get out. Got to go need to go.”

Kevin stooped down and slid his arms under her, lifting her up like a child. “It’s going to be okay, Nova. You don’t have to be Anji. Let’s go outside.” He raised his eyes to Jenny’s face, silently asking her to understand. Jenny’s face was a mask of confusion and pain, but she nodded without speaking.

Nova began to calm, rapid mutters slurring as her breath slowed, bleeding slightly from cuts along her arm. Glancing up at the shocked girl, she drawled, “Who is this?”

“This is Jenny,” Kevin introduced. “She came to see Ben. They’re friends.”

Jenny managed to unfreeze herself long enough to say, “P-pleased to meet you, N-Nova.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Nova said, sagging in Kevin’s arms. “Sorry about the mess. Hi.”

Kevin shouldered past the door out of the inn, and collapsed on a wrought-iron bench by the front. He set Nova down on the bench beside her, an arm hanging protectively around her shoulder. He looked up at Jenny, inviting her to sit on the empty space of the bench. Slowly, Jenny came over and sat, peering over Nova’s head to stare at Kevin.

Kevin leaned back against the bench tiredly. “I’m sure you heard about the death of Anjali Torvantine. ...Nova survived. Anjali’s memories did not. Nova’s been living with us… And, as you know, Kavros came back to try again yesterday. Nova saved Ben’s life.”

“She… and… so…” Jenny's mind whirled, trying to make sense of everything. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m sorry, I… I didn’t know,” she said.

“Told you.” Nova shot acidly toward Kevin.

“Nova…” He glanced meaningfully at Jenny before turning back to the redhead. “You are you. That is nothing to regret.”

“How can I? Everyone else is doing it for me!” Nova spat, gingerly cradling her arm. “At least I’ll probably forget this conversation too.”

Jenny was at a loss. On some level, she understood Nova’s need to define herself, without being judged by the standards of someone else's life. But… she couldn’t forget about Anji.

Eventually, she made a decision. “Nova… you’re right, and I’m sorry. We won’t talk about Anji if you don’t want to.”

Nova had the decency to appear chagrined at Jenny’s words. Carefully rubbing her arm with her thumb, she said, “I-I’m Nova.. Nice to meet you. S-Sorry I’m not who you remember.”

Jenny smiled, trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes. “My name’s Genevieve Hunter. It’s nice to meet you too. And… you don’t have to be anyone you don’t want to be. No matter what anyone else says.”

Nova grinned slightly. “Including myself?” Sitting up, she shook Kevin’s arm off of her shoulder, standing to face the other scout. “Thank you for being patient with me. I apologize for the pain I have caused you. I’m not Anjali, or I don’t think I am, but I’ll try to live up to who she was… or is.”

Jenny stood as well. “If you need me for anything, just ask.” She turned to Kevin. “I have to go. I promised Tad I’d help rebuild the forge; we’re trying to get it back up as soon as possible.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Jenny. You’re…” He cast about for the right word, and smiled when he found it. “A good friend.”

Timelime note: Two days after the boss fight
Lorinicole pulled two alchemist’s packages from her bag. One she laid on the table, the other she began to unwrap. “That’s what Kevin asked me to pick up for your friend Marcus,” she said, nodding to the first package.”

“He’s not my friend,” Ben grumbled.

The dark-haired woman chuckled, and continued unwrapping the second packet. “This one is for you. I’m sure the healers know what they’re about, but I heard you were hurt, so I got this for the pain.” She removed a small pile of leaves from the wrappings, and tore a strip off the top one. “Chew this. In four hours if it still hurts, chew another strip about the same size.” She laid the strip on Ben’s tongue, and the redhead mechanically chewed, as per her friend’s orders. “It takes a while to set in.”

“How much do I owe you?” Ben asked, voice still slurred from the damage to her jaw.

The other woman pursed her lips and shook her head. “It’s a gift.”

“I can’t--”

“Yes, you can,” she insisted firmly, and smiled gently at the prone woman. “Few enough people trust me enough to talk to when I’m on a job, Ben, and you’re one of them. I value that. It doesn’t conflict with work to give a friend some painkillers, so it makes me happy to do what I can.” She passed a hand lightly across Ben’s forehead before getting up. “I’ll be back to visit, sweet.”

Before she left, Ben won a battle with herself, and said, “Lorin. ...Thank you.”

--------------

Kevin crept back into Ben’s room, making sure she was asleep. He settled down into the armchair that faced the bed, and closed his eyes.

At the first sound, his eyes sprang open. Ben cried out again. Her body twitched, as though trying to curl into a ball, but her injuries prevented her. She looked so… vulnerable in her sleep.

He crossed the room to the washstand, and soaked a cloth in cold water. Wringing most of the water out, he returned to Ben’s bedside, kneeling beside her. He passed the cloth over her forehead and cheeks, gently lifting her head to rub it on the back of her neck, as well. He pulled the matted hair off her face as whatever haunted her sleep subsided.

He found the undamaged fingers on her left hand and entwined them with his, as though he could lend her his strength through that simple human contact, an eye ever on the window. Before the dawn began to streak across the sky, he rose, gently separating her hand, which had clenched tighter around his fingers in the night, from his, and replacing the cloth where it belonged at the washstand before slipping out so Ben would not know he had been there, looking out for her.

He peeked into what had until recently been his own room, to check on Nova, and felt ice grip his heart. She wasn’t in her bed.

----
Nova cried silent tears, shoulders shaking in unheard sobs that threatened to unmake her. Kevin was away, one of the rare times she was left alone. She huddled in the dark and prayed he didn’t find her like this. She couldn’t stand those eyes, staring at her, saying all of the things that he couldn’t seem to force himself to give voice to.

---
He found her, eventually, pulse still beating double time from the initial panic, curled up on herself in a corner of the room, asleep, runnels of dried tears streaked across her face.

He gathered her up in his arms, trying to push aside the searing, twisting pain in his heart at finding her like that. He lay her gently on the bed, pulling the sheets back to tuck them in around her, slipping pillows beneath her head, before he lightly wiped away the tears, trying not to disturb her sleep.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the girl.

Nova let out a sharp cry, eyes snapping open, and shoved the man back with her right hand and drawing a blade with the other. Green eyes glowed luminously in the gloom as Nova pulled herself into a sitting position, pulling as far away from Kevin as possible.

He stumbled back, eyes still resting compassionately on her. “I’m sorry, Nova,” he said again. “I can go. Don’t sleep with the knife in your hand-- I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” He rose slowly, trying not to alarm her.

“Yeah, sure. You just want to hurt me like you hurt Ben.” Nova remarked, sliding off the bed. “I remember you, Kavros.”

“No, Nova.” He stayed where he was, though his arms reached out to her almost involuntarily. “It’s over, sweet. Kavros is dead, Nova. He won’t be hurting you or Ben or anyone anymore. It’s me, Kevin. Do you remember Kevin, Nova?”

The arm holding the knife faltered for a moment, sharp eyes becoming cloudy. “K-Kevin?? Kevin wasn’t there, you bastard. Kevin was gone and Ben…. I should have ran to get Kevin, I could have gotten more help.” Nova edged towards the door, keeping the small knife in between herself and Kevin.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, Nova. I… You saved Ben’s life, Nova. You were the best help anyone could be. But I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“I remember laughing over him. Blood. So much blood and pain and Kevin, I remember Kevin coming. Poor Kevin.” The girl’s cheeks began to shine silver as fresh liquid tainted them.

“Oh, Nova.” He crossed the room to her, lifting her up again, slipping the knife out of her trembling fingers with one hand and dropping it to the floor behind him. “Kevin’s just fine, Nova.” He frowned. “It’s you I’m worried about.” He set her back down on the bed, sitting on the edge beside her to brush away her tears.

Nova sobbed silently, knees to chest, hands balled into fists. Her eyes opened again, glistening clearly in the pre-dawn light. The tiny scout seemed to realize something, her shaking redoubled as she sat up and began a stream of apologies, “Kevin?! Are you okay, Kevin?” Sobs shook her frame as she hugged him tightly, “I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m so so sorry.”

He held her against himself like a child. “Shhhhh. It’s okay, Nova. It’s going to be all right. You’re safe, Nova. You saved Ben’s life. It’s time to sleep now, sweet.” He rocked her gently in his arms until her sobs subsided and she began to lie still. Very carefully, as though handling breakable china, he pulled his arms away from her, letting her lie on the bed, and pulled the linens back around her. She shivered in her sleep, once, and he went to the trunk at the foot of the bed, laying two spare blankets over her as well. Then he crept to the window, where he pulled the curtains shut so the first predawn rays of light wouldn’t rouse her, and settled down in the chair to keep watch over the sleeping girl.
--

She didn’t know when she had finally succumbed to sleep, but when she woke she found that she had been returned to Kevin’s room, curtains drawn, covered in several blankets. Sitting up, she found the blonde man collapsed in a nearby armchair, snoring softly.

-----------
Marcus knocked on the door to the inn that served as Severed Claws’ guild hall. “Does someone want to explain to me what I’m doing here?” he yelled at the inn.

A dishevelled-looking Kevin swung the door open in an abrupt motion, glaring at him. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

Marcus returned the glare with vigor. “I. Don’t. Know. Someone left a message where I was staying telling me to come here.”

Kevin rubbed his forehead with a palm. “Oh. Right. Wait there.” Kevin disappeared into the inn and returned a few minutes later with an oilskin-wrapped package, which he shoved into the other man’s hands. “Ben says to get your own damn herbs next time,” he told Marcus frankly, only a little sheepish. “Well, she used stronger language, but I’m paraphrasing. She’s right, too; no point in making us your middleman.”

Marcus seethed on the spot as he heard this. ”Are...you all...Idiots?!? I didn’t send you to get the herbs for me! I sent you to get the herbs so you could give them to Anji! What was I talking to myself that day at the pub? Or are you just deaf?”

Kevin’s glare deepened. “Thanks but no thanks, Oracon. Nova’s my friend. I don’t go drugging my friends on a relative stranger’s say-so.”

The rage dropped from Marcus’ face and a fake smile replaced it. “Tell me Kevin do you have any training in herbology? Particularly medicinal herbs?”

“I’m not a goddamn healer,” the blonde man snapped, other frustrations bubbling out at the man. “I know enough field medicine to keep a man from dying before I can get him to an expert, and that’s it. So while I’m sure you’d love to feel smug about your doctor’s training, I have more pressing things to attend to right now.”

“A simple no would have sufficed.” Marcus replied. “And if you don’t have any additional training, including how to apply herbs when the apothecary who includes instructions with his product. Maybe you should get out of my damn way and let me see to my patient.”

Kevin adjusted his position, blocking the doorway more fully. “My ward,” he growled, “is not. Your. Patient. Your drugs are not relevant to healing her body, and I don’t know what your customs are, but where I come from, we don’t mess with people’s minds without their say-so. You will not drug Nova so long as she is under my protection, so long as she does not choose that.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow at that. “Have you even asked?”

“How dare you? Nova is a person, Marcus Oracon. Not some construct keeping the body warm until Anjali Torvantine comes back. You friends of Anjali’s seem eager to forget that she has her own mind, her own soul, her own choices. Have I asked her for her permission to try to turn her into someone else? No, Oracon, I haven’t. That’s not the kind of thing you ask fellow human beings. Now get out of my sight.”

“As it happens moron, I believe that Nova and Anji are the same person, different aspects of the same person but not separate as you would believe. Furthermore how can you possibly argue from a moral high ground if you haven’t asked Nova what she wants?”

“I don’t give a damn what you think,” Kevin told the man in a pleasant tone of voice. “Doesn’t matter how many people you think she is, I won’t have you pouring chemicals into her brain unless she says that’s something she wants. Not when you say ‘Nova can I try to bring my friend back’ and she says yes because she wants to make people happy. When she says ‘This is something I want.” He leaned in close. “And there’s a difference, friend, between not asking her about your stinking drugs and not asking her what she wants. Maybe you’re too stubborn to see that difference, so I’ll make it simple for you.” He drew a sword that had previously been concealed, holding it in a practiced guard position. “This is my home. As acting lieutenant of the Severed Claws, allow me to assure you: so long as you mean to threaten anyone under my protection, you are not welcome here. Now leave.”

Marcus had no weapons. He simply folded his arms and stood. “Until you ask her. I will not move. If you kill me so be it, but I will die knowing I was doing the best I could.” He then looked directly into Kevin’s eyes. “That is, if you’re competent enough to kill me.”

Kevin stared at the other man, sizing him up. If the man drew a weapon, he could take Marcus down, but he wasn’t going to fight him unarmed. “Stand there as long as you want, Oracon,” he finally said, stepping back far enough to get a hold on the door. “I’m protecting my family here.”

For once Marcus said nothing.

“Kevin.” A sad voice called out softly.

“Nova?” He looked up, searching for the voice, one eye marking Marcus’ every move.

Nova walked towards the door. Her right arm was bent into a sling, steadying the shoulder, and a set of bandages kept the other arm free of dirt. She had deep shadows under her eyes, and her bright red hair hung in a lank ponytail. She stopped just shy of the door, and faced both the soldiers.

Kevin repositioned himself, casually putting his own body in between Marcus and Nova, as he reached for her with his left hand, still holding the sword in position with his right. Nova shrunk away from his hand, sliding further back into the darkened inn. She glanced between Kevin and the sword warily.

The young man flinched, seeing the cause of her hesitation, and with a quiet clink of metal on metal, he slid the sword back into its hidden sheath, holding his right hand open, flat, out to Marcus. “I’m sorry, Nova.”

“I assume you heard everything.” Marcus said looking at the small woman.

“I did.” Nova said, refusing to make eye contact with Marcus or Kevin. “You have medicine to bring Anjali back?” Kevin’s hand found her arm, and he held her, gently but firmly.

“Maybe, and as someone with medicinal training I have to inform you of all the risks and I’m only half trained.” He turned his gaze at Kevin. “Which is why you should have gotten Elric to do this.”

“Nova,” Kevin said quietly, “You have to understand exactly what it is we’re talking about. His drugs aren’t a magical formula that will turn you into Anjali-- if they were, you should still be leery of them for different reasons, but that’s not what they are. They change your body-- in this case, they change the way your brain works. Sometimes for a little while, sometimes for a long time. Sometimes forever. Oracon believes that by changing your brain with his drugs, he can make you more similar to Anjali. It’s possible that he’s right. It’s also possible that they would do nothing, or that they would make you sick, or that they would simply… break your brain.”

“Do you see any solutions? Is there any other way I could get more broken? At least this way I can hopefully do something worthwhile.” Nova’s voice strained with unshed tears as she swallowed hard.

Kevin’s hand tightened, and his voice twisted with pain. “No, Nova. Drinking poison on the off chance it turns you into someone somebody wants to see isn’t worthwhile, Nova. What you do, already, is worthwhile. You are worthwhile. Don’t risk yourself just because it’s the path of least resistance. That’s not wanting, Nova.”

“Who said anything about least resistance? I can’t guarantee the drugs will work and even if they do recovering your memory still won’t be easy. But Anji...Nova...Whoever you are. You sheltered me when I had enemies, you fought beside me against them. If you don’t want to try to remember thats your choice. Hell I’ll find and protect Zi if you don’t want to do this. But I have to hear it from you.” Marcus finished speaking and lapsed into silence.

Nova looked questioningly over at Kevin. “Zi?”

“Anjali’s sister,” he said quietly. “We’ve spoken about her. I’ve looked for her… no trace so far.” His face hardened as he turned back to the other man. “Marcus. I can understand that Anjali was someone you cared about very much. Someone who helped you. I never knew her. But I know Nova. I care about Nova. She sa--” the words caught in his throat for a moment, before he continued. “She saved my life. Nova did, not Anjali. Trauma took Anjali away from her friends, and I am sorry for that. I am sorry for the loss that you feel. But I cannot allow you to destroy Nova in a futile quest to get her back. When she’s ready, she will come. Maybe. And maybe she will not. But you have to allow her to live her own life. ‘Whoever she is.’”

Marcus’ fist flew forward faster than he knew he could move and hit Kevin across the jaw. “Kevin I doubt you understand. The only family I have left is Storm and Drive. Furthermore you still are not paying attention.”

Kevin didn’t flinch from the blow, instead catching Marcus’ wrist and throwing the other man a good few paces back.

Marcus stepped back to where he had been previously and folded his arms. “I will move when she says. Not you. I trust Anji enough to trust Nova. I don’t know who the hell you are.”

“I’m sorry, Nova,” Kevin said evenly, and drew his blade again. He locked his eyes on Marcus, and said, “Don’t touch her. Don’t speak to her unless she asks to speak to you. Don’t come near her unless she seeks you out. And don’t make me ask you again.”

“I told you before: I’m not moving until she asks. Kill me if you must but I will die knowing I did the best I could.”

“Oh for the love of--... Marcus, isn’t it?” Nova finally made eye contact with the larger man, eyes filled with barely controlled anger. “Marcus, do you really know what I want?”

“No, I keep asking but you won’t tell me.”

Nova shook free of Kevin’s grip, producing a small blade, “I want to cut my memories out, piece by piece. I want to see the blood gone forever. Most of all? I want to be left the hell alone.” With that, the younger girl turned around and walked away.

Marcus gave a sigh of relief. “Finally a straight answer.” He spun on his heel and started walking.

Kevin sagged against the doorway, not sheathing his sword until the man was out of sight, tears stinging his eyes. He wanted to find Nova, to comfort her, to help her heal, but he could not go to her like this. He would only upset her more. So he stood there, breathing slowly, fighting back the panic and the fear for the people he cared about, until the beating of his heart returned to normal and the blood was no longer boiling in his veins. Then he sighed, once, and went in, to find someone he knew didn’t really want to be alone.

-------------------
Marcus continued to walk down the street. I get Kevin, I can even respect him to some degree, the bastard.

People moved out of the way of the large angry man. Nova was pretty infuriating by the end there. He smiled. So Anji might just be in there after all…..however. Marcus looked up towards the sky. However unless she suddenly starts wanting to remember, I have a job to do. The only question is where to start.

Nova was squirreled away in an unused balcony, staring blankly at the people below. Most were laughing, happy that the war was winding down. Others concentrated on their drinks, mourning the loss of the people they loved. Nova absentmindedly pulled out a knife and a small piece of wood she had found that morning. Studying it, she decided on a design, and began to whittle the small block into something more appealing.

Larger hands slipped the knife and the wood out of her fingers, and turned her around a little. Kevin had changed clothes, into something more simple that could not hold concealed weapons. He knelt beside the girl, setting the knife and wood carefully down on the floor, and swept her into a tight hug, strong arms holding her against himself.

Nova jerked with surprise, then returned the hug with one of her own. “I-I’m sorry, Kevin.”

He cringed at the words. “Don’t be sorry, Nova.” He lightly brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes as he told her, “You have nothing, nothing, to be sorry for.”

“But… Marcus…” Nova winced for a moment, straightening her sling, “You were really upset.”

“Marcus was being an ass,” he told her calmly, “nothing to do with you. I’m sorry if I scared you, Nova. I let him him scare me more than I should have.”

“You? Get scared?” Nova grinned softly, pulling Kevin to the floor and picking up the half-finished carving.

“Yeah,” he grinned ruefully, “me, scared.” He leaned forward, and whispered, faux-conspiratorially, “You know, for a while, I used to be scared of Ben.”

“Really?” Nova responded, keeping her voice low. “I still am.”

He smiled wryly, pulling her into another one-armed hug. “She only eats the bad guys, I found out. Everyone else she just yells at.”

They both sat in companionable silence for several moments, the sounds of the festivities below in stark contrast with the silent grating sound of wood on metal. “Thank you for sticking up for me.” Nova said, breaking the silence. “Is your jaw okay?”

He rubbed his jaw absently at her question, testing it for himself. “My jaw’s fine,” he told her. “No harm done to my fabulously charming smile. If he’d wanted to damage it, he probably would have hit me harder,” he admitted.

Nova giggled softly. “Here.” Nova gave Kevin a very crude etching of a bear, smelling strongly of fresh wood. “It’s not that much, but I’ve had nothing else to do… So, I hope you have a beary good time?”

The young man groaned as he accepted the carving. “It’s beautiful… and I suppose I should count myself lucky it wasn’t carved out of a husk of corn.”

Nova elbowed the taller man with her good arm. “Watch it, you.” She looked meaningfully down at the partiers, most of whom were enjoying fresh produce sent down from the farming floor. “Hey, Kevin?” She asked, sobering.

“Yes, Nova?”

“I think I like you too.”

His arm tightened around her, and, in the darkness, Kevin smiled.

Timeline placement: The night after the boss battle.

“We meet again, young rogue.” The assassin pronounced from the darkness remaining in a moonlit room. “Have you missed me?” she asked, amused. The boy slept against the wall of the empty room, covered by a worn-out cloak. For the first time in several nights, there were no sounds on the streets outside. No people fleeing looking for a place to hide, nor those who would chase them relentlessly through the streets of the city. The only thing breaking the silence was the boy’s slow breathing and the sound of a boot being tapped against the floor impatiently. The woman frowned. “To think you’ve been trying so hard up until now…”

The dark robed woman moved towards the hole in the building from which she had entered, sitting on its edge. She took out a silver knife and playfully spun it around her fingers. “You know, you’ve been a real pain lately, going around thinking you can give orders to MY subordinates. Seriously, the nerve of some people. You’re just like that guy from back then. What’s was his name? It had a ‘T’ in there, somewhere…” she stopped spinning the knife, and swiftly put it down beside her, smiling again.. “Well, who cares about his name? I did not come here to monologue about the past, did I?” she walked towards Darren, crouching besides him.

“You better hurry up if you’re looking to stop me” she whispered, smiling from ear to ear. “You’re too weak.” she muttered next, her voice suddenly sounding more angry and menacing as opposed to the playful tone she had been using up until that point. “And you know what that means, Darren? It means you will be defeated easily… by me. And if there’s something I can’t stand more than a coward like you is the fact that you have no chance at all.” Her words echoed through the room as she went back to the poorly improvised window in the building. She grabbed the knife and began spinning it again. “What’s the point in all of this, if there’s no challenge in itself?” she threw the knife. It stuck just beside Darren’s head, making a dull sound as it hit the wood of the wall.

“I brought you a gift…” she said, holding laughter back, oh, how she would love to see the look on his face when he woke up to find the silver knife by his side, having returned from the maw of hell; but even better would be to see him realize what it meant for him and what it meant about all the things he had done until that point. But, alas, she was a busy woman. She had orders to carry out and some others to give out. All for her sake of her plan. “Maybe this will make up for what you’re about to lose, huh? Maybe this way too, the playfield will be more even.” Having said that, she chuckled lightly. ”Yeah, right. Like that could happen. she thought to herself as she threw herself out of the window and into the alleyways of the city.

- - - - -

He held the silver knife in his shaking hand as he looked out of the window. How could it have gotten there? Hadn’t he lost it forever inside the underground?

“Wendy…” he whispered, knowing that there was only one possible explanation for how it came back; but even so, the thought of it could only make him more scared than he was before. He looked back to the corner in which he had been sleeping just a few hours ago, feeling his legs weaken suddenly. ”I’m done for.”. The thought ran through his mind again and again. He wondered what he had been doing up until that point, feeling dizzier and dizzier with each memory recalled. Had he forgotten something? He held one hand against his head and the other to the wall, trying his best not to fall to the floor. He remembered the things he had done, but the reason he had done them was once again buried deep inside himself. Just as it had come, his anger had also gone. No, it wasn’t gone. He simply couldn’t summon it anymore. He clutched the knife as the despair filled his soul and leaned against the wall.

“I.. I still can do something, right?” he asked, hoping somebody would reply. But there was no answer other than the silence of dawn. He cursed, punching the wall in front of him, his nerves sending waves of pain across his left arm. He didn’t know how much time had passed when his mind reacted, but, scared as he was, he had to do something. The problem was, what exactly?

Training. He needed to train, but, who would train him? The Loreknights? No, involving them would make things more complicated. The City Guard? No, he had already caused enough problems to them. His own guild? Somehow, the idea didn’t make him that enthusiastic, but it was all that he had now. Slowly, he tried to regain his composure. The dizziness didn’t leave completely, but at least he could walk around. He climbed out through the window, being careful not to fall and started making his way back to the inn where the Severed Claws guild would be.

Mirae sat cross-legged next to the bedroom door, repeatedly throwing a coin onto the floor in front of her. After it spun to a stop, she moved her other hand absently over it, the knife in her grip twitching gently as the coin jumped up to meet it. She brought the knife back to her side, slid the coin off, and tossed it again. Other than the clink of metal on metal, there was silence. Whoever had built this house had obviously taken time with its construction, with thick ceiling and walls that also happened to cut off sound. It suited her at the moment.

She made another circuit with the knife. She should really be moving on. Even if the major reason she’d come up here was now taken care of, there was no point in sitting in one place. There was nothing keeping her back. Except.... “Ay, promises,” she muttered. Though, she thought as the coin bounced off the floorboards, that might resolve itself soon enough. Prediction.

If she did head up.... Mirae’s hand slipped as she removed the coin. It dropped from her grip and clattered against the ground as she stared blankly at the blood starting to spread across her fingers. After a moment, warmth spread through them and closed the wounds; ever since she had come back from the oak, her healing had been slow to respond. Still an improvement over barely keeping someone from bleeding out, she supposed.

She swiped the hem of her cloak over knife and fingers before standing. She couldn’t hear anything from the room beside her, but that meant nothing. She kept her knife loose in her hand as she pulled the door open, though. Just in case.

The room was empty. Likovya’s boots, coat, and knives were missing from the bedside table, along with the woman herself. Mirae smiled as she crossed to the open window and looked out. So this is what she would do. Granted, Likovya should still probably have been resting and healing her shoulder, but if she was well enough to get out of sight that quickly, it probably wasn’t still majorly injured. And she had some sort of sense, to look for the least obtrusive way out.

Mirae swung herself through the window and started walking the perimeter of the house, scanning the horizon for signs of movement. If Likovya was gone....

---

“Thank you for letting us stay for a while.” Mirae stood next to Chet as she talked, facing a middle-aged couple. “You might want to look at the kitchen door, but I think it’s still holding. Your home is very well-made.”

The man glanced quickly at his wife as he replied, the beginning of a question in his voice. “Thank you. I think.” His wife laughed quietly and put a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s adventurers for you. We should probably be glad the house is still standing,” she said. She turned to Mirae. “Your friend’s all right, then?”

“She’s well enough to travel.”

“Good, good,” the man replied distractedly. He ran a hand under his hat, pulling loose curls taut before releasing them to fall back disorderly. “You’re going back to the first floor, right?” At Mirae’s hesitant nod, he continued. “Listen.... Our son stayed behind with the city guard when we came up here. We, uh, haven’t heard from him in some time. If you could-- if you see him, if you could tell him that his parents just, uh, want to know how he’s doing.... Dan. His name’s Dan Shriker.”

“Of course.” Mirae tugged a little at her horse’s reins as she replied. Now that she was out again, with the potential to be doing something, she was anxious to be off. Even if birdsong did still unnerve her a little. “If I meet him, I’ll pass on the message.” When the man nodded at her, his face breaking into a relieved grin, she lost no time in pulling herself into the saddle again; she’d left the knife twisted into the side.

She paused to raise a hand to the farmers, then turned in the direction of the passage back, determinedly away from the oak. She walked Chet forward a few steps, shrugged, and kicked him into a gallop.

For a while, just the rush of wind and swiftly passing land.

Takes place immediately after Boss Fight: Famous Last Stand

The first thing he knew was the feeling of stone. Stone, and the rush of wind which now s sounded a lot less violent and ominous than it had... how long ago? It was impossible to know for sure what had happened inside of Asha’s illusion, or the Ether, or whatever it has been, but Tamar was willing to bet the Ether didn’t have much of a framework for time. For all he knew hours might have passed.

So he held his breath as he opened his eyes.

The sky above him had changed. It was no longer the colour of bruised wound pressing down on the horizon, but a pale white-blue. Strange, but infinitely preferable to before so he wasn’t complaining. The magic in the air seemed to have dissipated. Tamar stayed silent for a few seconds, grounding himself, trying to sense the stone properly through the numb cold of his hands. He remembered Hector, and Asha, and the piano...

‘Firefly.’

The word was like a shock of cold water and Tamar bolted upright, the memories coming back in a fell swoop. Eliziya. Asha in Eliziya’s body, the darkness falling away behind her eyes, the runes... He looked around urgently, half-dreading what he might see.

Eliziya was sitting a few feet away from him, knees together, arms wrapped loosely around her legs, looking at him and... blinking. Repeatedly. To be honest something about her expression reminded Tamar of a surprised cat, who had found herself somewhere she hadn’t expected to be and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Tamar sympathised. Because really, if he had been possessed and then suddenly found himself on a mountain in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by runes and the echoes of battle, he would have been confused too.

He knew it as Eliziya. It had to be. Asha would never look like that, Asha wouldn’t.. “...Zi?”

“That’s.. that’s me.” She cocked her head to the side and Tamar could almost see the gears working in her head. “I..” Crawling towards him on all fours, a curious intensity painted her features as she stared into his eyes. “I.. ah, to the pits with it,” she said, and then tackled him, kissing him directly on the lips.

...Alright.

This was... not in the books. Or maybe it was just in the wrong kind of books: the ones that told you about people, rather than places and magic and science -the stuff Tamar knew. The stuff he understood. This was... nice, but not any of those things. This did not make sense. This was definitely not something Hector had ever implied was a possible outcome of fights! Eliziya had been... someone else, somewhere else, and now she was back and the first thing she decided to do was... was...

Okay, what in the name of the saints...

The weirdest thing of all, though, was that in spite of the sudden spike of terror he had experienced the second her lips made contact with his, he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to pull away. That the terror was being swallowed up by the most incredibly gladness because Eliziya was alive. He could handle it if nothing in the world made sense ever again because of that.

Then he remembered the cold that was so deeply set it was always there now, and waited for her to pull away instead, because how could she not? She was basically pressing against an ice block. Except it never happened. He nearly choked when fire poured out from her lips and into his throat even as her mouth pressed even harder against his. But though it warmed, melted the pillar of winter within him, the magical flames failed to burn. He’d forgotten that. He’d forgotten what her fire felt like. Heck, he’d forgotten what warmth felt like in general.

...He still had no idea how this was supposed to work. Not even after she pulled away just enough to bury her face in his collar and hug him so tightly it hurt. Or maybe it was him doing the clinging. It was hard to tell. “Um...” he started, words catching in his throat. “I... um... Zi?”

He heard a mumble, which sounded kind of like she was saying “to the pits with it” again, but when she pulled back she was grinning, and things... didn’t hurt so much anymore. “You blasted idiot! T-Tamar you.. we.. I-I don’t.. you might have died! Asha...” Zi’s voice lowered slightly at the name, “Asha might have killed you. It was so dangerous!”

“Um... sort of,” Tamar mumbled. He wasn’t sure how she had gone from kissing to yelling, but then he didn’t seem to understand much about any of this.

“Y-you just ran up here! And Asha... anything could have happened to you, Tamar! T-there was so much of her, she... she could’ve...”

“But she didn’t,” Tamar whispered, in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. “Zi she... she wouldn’t. Asha... she wasn’t that bad, she just...” The truth was he didn’t know how to finish that sentence, but perhaps he didn’t need to. Zi was giving him a look that suggested she knew. She knew who Asha had been, as well as he had. That there had been mistakes and loss and pain and...

“I think I killed her,” Tamar whispered, the shock of it eating through some of the joy. But Zi was shaking her head, trembling but sure of herself. “Yes, but.. no, no! Not.. really, s-she was already... she wanted to end it. You... helped her. And I’m.. yeah. T-thank you,” she stuttered, then forced the next few words out so vehemently he thought she was about to attack him. “Saints alive, I love you, damn all!”

Then she tightened her embrace again, nearly suffocating him...

Oh.

And Tamar... he could count the number of people he could say that to on one hand. Truth be told, he had never said the words at all. There had never been any need to, because it hd always been so obvious, even to him. He remembered the boy who pushed him out of the door and locked it behind him, keeping him safe from what was inside; Delaney, the one whose name he’d taken, hoping it would make him just as brave. He could remember Hector placing the pendant in his hand with a sad, hopeful certainty in his eyes . But that feeling had been different from this even if it was the same. This feeling was Zi’s, there and growing since that night on the plains, and Tamar could just as soon choose to ignore it as he could choose to ignore an arrow in his chest. “We looked for you,” he managed, wondering why his eyes were stinging. “Zi, we thought you were...”

“I’m not,” Zi whispered.

“You were there and then you were gone. The temple—”

“I remember. I burned it. That was me.”

“Oh... oh okay, that makes sense now, I did wonder how somebody managed to set the stone on fire, but then... I knew Asha found you or- or you found her and... Zi you can’t do that again, okay? You can't, I don't think... I can’t watch that again, not you too, never you, because I think I know why we ended up here, and I think I know why Asha did what she did and I think... I think I love you too, and I have no idea what to do but that’s what it is and... understand?” he swallowed awkwardly, realising he had spoken all that on a single breath. “You understand, Zi?”

“I don’t know.. I, I’m right-minded now. My mind wasn’t working right. I’d, I’d forgotten about you and Anji and the Guild and it just seemed.. but I’m alright now. Asha gave that much to me before.. before.” She bit her lip helplessly. “It all seemed so clear at the time, that Luca and Asha were my only family. “

“They were... okay, what?”

“Trust me on this, T, they.. they were. That was then. But now, I think, I think Asha’s cured me though, so I’m not about to ru-run off. and... Tamar, can you feel it? That tingling, that inside light just trying to burst out? Its so wondrous and I feel like a cup overflowing with energy!” Her shoulders and hair lit up dazzlingly, vermillion fire dancing between her palms, the way it usually did except now there were glittering sparks, like fireworks. “T, I don’t want to leave you. Do you understand that? I wouldn’t run off, not if I could stop it.”

She was smiling, happier than he’d ever seen, and somehow, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that what she described as light and tingling felt more to him like a buzz. Like something had not quite settled inside of him, something that didn’t have a place. It might have been frightening, except he didn’t have the heart to tell her not when he still had to tell her...

And that was when he remembered what had happened to Anjali, what Eliziya did not know, and what made the cold keep burning in his chest, even now. Tamar found himself clutching her arm again, as gently as he could, trying to ignore the fact that he had started shaking, because she had to know. He had to tell her.

Not to mention they had to make sure that nobody else was dead. There was a deep cold dread in his stomach now, because he remembered the look on Hector’s face when he vanished up the mountain pathway. They had won. Tamar was sure of that much. They had won but what was the cost of it? Surely not Hector, too, not him...

“Zi, Hector’s still up here, he went after Luca, we need...”

Zi blinked, seeming to come back to herself, the fire fading for a moment, before flaring up again. “Oh. Never mind him for now,” she leaned against him, sighing contentedly.

“N-no seriously, he went after Luca, I mean he might be dying up there, also we’re on a mountain and we have to move.”

“Ohh. Oh, sorry,” she broke away from him abruptly, stumbling as she stood. “Right. H-Hector. We’d better get to him.”

He had to tell her. “Zi, I found out... you need to know-”

“Know what? You can tell me after we get Hector,” Eliziya replied enthusiastically.

The words ”They killed your sister, they killed Julius, died in Tamar’s throat, the cold sensation returning, along with the fear that, for one reason at the very least, this was going to be a difficult journey home.

Still, at least they wouldn’t be going alone.

Timelime note: About five to seven days after the boss fight

The blonde man led his companion to a chair, his arm around her, where the dark-haired girl waited with steepled fingers.

“Hey, Kevin?” Nova asked softly as they approached the chair, fingers twirling and tumbling together in an anxious dance. “Who is this?”

“This is Anjali’s sister,” he whispered to her, apparently unfazed by her failure to remember the conversation they’d had that morning. “E--" He cringed as the unfamiliar woman cut him off.

"At long last," the raven-tressed woman began with eyes smoldering in the throes of a dark power. "Anjali Torvantine, or Nova now. Finally, finally we meet. It has been... a long time." She paused and eyed her like a shark circling its prey.

Kevin pulled out a chair for the redhead in a practiced motion, eying the mage warily. “Eliziya, this is my friend Nova. You two are meeting for the first time,” he reminded her.

Nova shrank into the chair, leaning towards her warrior friend. “Uhm, hello…” she mumbled quietly, making an effort to focus on the polished table in front of her. Kevin put his hands on her shoulders, responding instinctively to her nervousness. “Y-You’re Eliziya?”

The lady observed Nova quietly for several tense moments, then stood up and began to stride over. "All the saints above, he wasn't kidding. You don't remember who I am. You really don't." She hesitated, as if torn by some internal struggle, then returned to her seat. "Yes. I am. You knew me as your sister."

“Oh.” Nova said simply, playing nervously with her thumb. “We look completely different.” She met Zi’s eyes hesitantly, mouth curved into a hint of a smile.

"Different, gee, you think?" Eliziya laughed and leaned forward across the table, gently clasping Nova's hands in her own. "Anji.. ah, I don't know what to say. W-what's happened this whole time? I was hoping to get an answer out of you, but you don't know either. How.. how are you?"

“Her name is Nova,” Kevin interposed, quiet but stern.

“I-It’s okay, Kevin.” Nova spoke up, eyes lighting up with curiosity and excitement. “I’m okay, I suppose. I mean, I think I’m okay, but then again I don’t remember what I ate for dinner last night so that might be a problem. I was hoping I could talk to you.”

Eliziya glared at Kevin, then returned her gaze with concern to Nova. "You- your memory's damaged? Why does this keep happening to us, why?" She closed her eyes in frustration. "But, last night, you say? You mean you just lost your memory?"

“She’s losing time,” Kevin explained, his eyes shadowed. “Trauma does that sometimes. Not everything, but events here and there.”

"Here and there, oh you don't very well say, heavens above, it's not as though I'm a healer or anything and it's most certainly not as if I've lost my memories from trauma, goodness no, whatever gave you that idea?" Eliziya snapped angrily. "Losing time..."

Nova broke contact with the mage, lowering her eyes to the floor and resuming her anxious tic.

Kevin glared at the woman who was making Nova feel worse. “Is there need for that?” he asked softly. “Nova knows nothing of who you are, Eliziya. After doing my best to find you, the most I could glean was that you had some small magical ability, and had vanished from the public eye some months back. It serves no purpose to fault her for not knowing what she had no way to know.”

Her onyx hair erupted furiously into vermillion flames, and Eliziya pulled her hair back with angry deliberation, careful not to set the chairs on fire. "Small magical ability? Screw you. And about what happened to me? I'll tell Nova some time. I'm not gonna tell you. You're an outsider. I find no fault with my sister; ‘tis all you."

“How did you set your hair on fire?” Nova asked, refusing to take her eyes off the ground, shoulders slumped.

With a small sigh and a quiet mutter, the flames vanished without leaving any trace but a slight burnt smell hanging over their heads like a dark pall. "My apologies. I'm a mage, Jie."

Nova smiled again, ever so softly, turning her head to meet the younger mage’s, “So you can send fireballs flaming into monsters?” she asked, trying to hide the excitement that made her shoulders tremble.

"Yeah, I can," she smiled in memory, "I did, about a week plus ago. Haven't had much to do with monsters since then."

“Do you have any other family, Eliziya?”

"Call me Zi, please," she smiled, trying to keep the conversation light, "and no, not really, but have you met Tamar? Tamar Delaney?"

Nova bit her lip in confusion, glancing surreptitiously over at Kevin for guidance. “Uhm, I don’t think so.”

He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

"I really like him, you know," Eliziya said dreamily, "I mean, he's not technically, but he’s practically family."

Nova shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Okay?” Gathering a bit of courage, she asked. “What are you going to do now?” She paused, squirming under the weight of everyone’s eyes, “I mean, Marksman’s hiding in an inn somewhere, what do you plan to do?”

"Marksman? Who's that?" Eliziya blinked.

“We spoke to Marcus Oracon a few weeks ago,” Kevin murmured.

"I haven't seen him.. I dunno, I’ll just be going back to Tamar at the slum-side.. Maybe find Marcus. And you?"

“I don’t know.” Nova said, green eyes cloudy, “I-I don’t…”

“She has a place to stay,” the young man said, his arm curling around her protectively.

"Ah."

“W-What you said earlier, Eli-... Zi.” Nova interjected herself awkwardly, “C-Can you help me? Can you help me keep my memories?”

"Can I?" Eliziya whispered, more to herself than to Nova. "I don't know, but I intend to find out. If I can help you..."

“Thank you!” Nova said, grinning widely. “You seem like the coolest sister ever.”

“Nova…” Kevin gave her arm a squeeze, but there was a note of warning in her voice. “There’s no guarantee she can help. And if she isn’t sure,” he cast a sharp look at the other girl, “it’s better to do nothing than risk something going wrong. If she can help you, that’s wonderful, but… don’t get your hopes up.”

“She’s a mage of course she can fix it!” Nova said, facing Kevin, “Really for such a big head you don’t have much put in it.”

He grinned at that, easing his grip on her. “Good thing I have you and Ben around to knock some sense into it.”

“I like you, Zi.” Nova said, giving a wide grin to the other girl, “Do you think we could meet again? I might not remember much, but I’d like to get to know you. Again.”

"Yes, please, I'd love to," Zi smiled. "Let's get some food, shall we?"

Timelime Note: Shortly after the conversation with Zi

Another day went by..., Darren thought as he wandered the streets of the city. Guess it wouldn’t be that easy after all…. He had thought that going back to the guild would be easier, but he seemed to be having second thoughts. Everytime he tried getting near the inn he would doubt himself. ”Should I really go back? Is this really something I want to involve the others in?” He couldn’t find the answer to those questions, so he simply kept stalling. ”Even after all this time, I can’t seem to change”, the words echoed inside his mind as he climbed down from a nearby building’s roof, watching the setting sun in the distance.

And just like that, he found himself trying to remember the curse he had had until a few days ago. As inconvenient as it had been, perhaps he would have been better off cursed all his life. Then again, it wasn’t like his current life didn’t border on that… or something worse. He let out a sigh as he turned to the next street, the quiet blowing wind hitting his face.

Not realizing where he had been going, he found himself outside of the very inn he had wanted to avoid. There he was, just a guy, standing in front of the wooden door. Uncertainty seeped inside his heart. All he had to do was open the door… and then everything would be better. Or so he hoped. ”It can’t be that easy” A trembling hand slowly moved towards the door, but instead of opening it, he weakly knocked on it. One… two… three seconds. ”Should I go?” He asked himself for a moment.

The door opened a crack, and a blue eye glared out of it, before the man on the other side recognized Darren. Kevin swung the door open more fully, motioning the other man in. “Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”

Darren jumped back a bit, startled. He hadn’t expected somebody to actually hear the knocking. He berated himself for actually hoping for that. “You… mistook me for somebody else?” he asked, curiously. “Have… have we met before?”

“Probably?” Kevin answered cautiously, realizing that just because he knew the guy didn’t mean that Darren had met him. He put out a hand to shake. “Kevin Aqaba, interim deputy for Severed Claws.”

Darren hesitantly shook the hand in front of him. “Nice to meet you I guess… I’m Darren” Something about what Kevin just said seemed wrong, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint what. “I guess I should drop by more often huh?”

Kevin shrugged expansively. “People seem to be in and out at their own pace. It doesn’t really worry me.”

“Well… I don’t really know many guild members aside from the important ones, so I can’t really tell.” he said as he entered the inn. Everything was in the same place, exactly as it had been when he had left. It was as if the events that ended a week ago and that had shaken the city hadn’t really happened. ”Deputy...huh?” he thought, immediately realizing what he had found weird just a while ago. “Hey… last time I was here…” he started, trying to find the correct words for what he was about to say. “There was somebody else in charge… ‘Acting leader’ I believe she called herself…”

“Ben’s still guildleader,” Kevin said, not trying very hard to soften the leaden weight of his words. “I’m her deputy.”

“Is she busy?” he asked carelessly, not noticing Kevin’s voice tone.

The muscles in his face went tight. “I can speak for Ben to answer whatever questions you might have,” he told Darren, ignoring the question.

”Gee, this guy’s the same as her. What’s with everybody not giving straight answers?” he thought as he heard Kevin’s response. For some reason, he couldn’t shake the feeling something had happened. “Where is she, then?” he asked, perhaps a bit more forceful than he had intended, but before Kevin could answer a voice was heard nearby.

“Hey Kevin?” Sounded a small voice. “Who’s this?”

Kevin looked up and away to see Nova standing at the top of the staircase, fingers twisting at a frenetic pace. “This is… no one you need to come down to meet, Nova. I’m sure he’ll be moving along soon enough.” He cast a pointed look at Darren as he spoke.

“But I like new people.” Nova mumbled, walking down the stairs quickly to meet Kevin at the doorway. “Hi.” she said towards Darren with a smile. “I’m Nova.”

Kevin glared at the other man, interposing himself so that he stood between the two of them, while not obstructing Nova from conversing if she really wanted to.

“Um… hi?” Darren replied nervously. “I’m Darren, nice… nice to meet you?”.

“Nice to meet you too.” Anji smiled widely, extending her hand to shake Darren’s. “Have I met you before or am I meeting you for the first time too?”

“I don’t think I have met a Nova before…” he said as he tried to remember if the name rang any bells. ”Nova… Nova… wasn’t that the name of Lori’s assistant?” Darren thought as he extended his hand towards Nova’s, shaking it, doubt still weakening him. ”Nah, it can’t be the same person.” He shrugged as he let go of her hand. “So… Nova, what brings you here?”

“I… don’t know.” Nova said, frowning.

“She’s with me,” Kevin interjected coldly. “Did you have some guild business you wanted to ask about, Darren, or are you just passing through?”

Darren flinched. He still hesitated whether he should ask for help. “I wanted to speak about urgent matters with the guildleader. You see…” he looked away, trying to find courage somewhere. “...I might have run into some trouble some days ago.”

“Nova, would you like to wait for me in--” he’d been about to say “Ben’s room,” but thought better of it-- “the room next to yours?” Turning back to Darren, Kevin added, “I can speak for the guildleader. Let’s sit, and you can speak freely.”

Nova frowned once more, glaring at Kevin. She walked away without another word, heading away from the pair.

Darren sighed, he would find it hard to trust the man in front of him, but he had no other choice, if he was to become strong enough to stop the assassins, he would need help. ”Right?” he asked himself in reassurance, doubting himself.

“I need combat training.” he spoke softly, looking away to sort out his thoughts. “There are others in this castle who might be up to no good. I… I need to stop them.”

Kevin smiled a crooked, humourless smile. “There’s been a lot of that going around lately. Is there anything else I should know?”

“I know” he replied, trying to sound as calm as possible. “You see… there’s this book in the underground. You know, magic book and all that. Might be the doom of us.” he spoke casually, as if trying to minimize the impact of his words. He braced himself for Kevin’s answer, just in case.

Kevin nodded his head once. “And… the book might come to try to fight you?” He sounded confused.

“No… not exactly. I mean, there are people who want the book’s power and well… I have reason to believe they already have it.”

“And you need to fight them.”

“No, not fight them…” he replied quickly, trying to hide away his fear. His voice lowered a bit. “Just, stop them. Though I have no idea how.”

Kevin nodded absently, running through Ben’s records of the guildmembers in his mind. “Which specific weapons did you want to learn?”

“Sword fighting. I can hold my own with my knives, but…” his mind trailed off to his journey to the underground. It didn’t really seem like a couple of knives would be useful if he planned on taking out the assassins or going back inside that dreadful place. No, if he wanted to stop them, he’d need to learn new techniques. “...they’re not enough, all right?”

Kevin sighed. “Ben’s the expert on swords, but she… has her hands full at the moment. I suppose it’s as well anyway, since she isn’t particularly a people person. Augusta can handle teaching you the basics; once you’ve learned what she can show you, I’m sure Ben or I will be available to go through the rest.”

Darren frowned. ”The basics?” He probably didn’t have that much time, did he? “Can’t we speed up the process a bit?” he asked, nervously.

About to chuckle, Kevin fixed the younger man with a serious look. “A weapon you don’t know how to use is more dangerous than no weapon at all. You need to make your sword a threat to others and not to yourself. Have you met Augusta, or shall I introduce you?”

“I don’t… but.. I…!” Darren felt frustrated, this wouldn’t do at all. Did he really have the time to learn bit by bit how to wield a sword? “I… I guess I was not thinking this through.” he finally said, his voice cracking at the end. “You don’t have to worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” he said, heading towards the door.

Kevin put out a hand to stop him. “Peace. Trust in your friends, Darren. We will help.” He cast his eyes about the room, smiling when he saw the dark-haired woman he was looking for. “Augusta!”

She came, mouth too small for a proper smile, but looking friendly despite the perpetual almost-feral look in her eyes. She moved with a snakelike grace, crossing the room in seconds without seeming to speed up at all.

“I told Darren you can teach him to handle a sword,” Kevin explained.

“Of course,” she answered, her deep voice vaguely accented. Turning to Darren, she asked, “You have a weapon?”

“I have… this thing.” he said, reluctantly unsheathing the City Guard’s blade he had gotten from Nestor.

She nodded. “Excellent.” Augusta took his arm, fingers grasping him lightly but with a hidden strength to her grip, and pulled him toward the back door, which led to the courtyard. “Come.”

”Hope you’re happy, Darren.” He thought to himself as he went through the door to the courtyard, hoping that things stayed calm for a while longer.

Timeline note: somewhere around Darren’s conversation with Kevin

Jenny knocked on the door hesitantly.

“Kevin?” Ben called out. He didn’t usually knock.

“Sorry, just me,” said Jenny, peeking into the room. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh!” Ben tried to straighten up, stubborn limbs refusing to follow her commands. “It’s good to see you, Jenny.”

“It’s good to see you too.” Jenny went over to the bed and sat down next to Ben. “Sorry I keep dropping in like this. I just get nervous.”

Ben shook her head. “I’m glad for the company, truly. Even if you have to see me like… this.” Her lip curled a little in disgust.

“I’d much rather see you alive than dead,” Jenny replied. “The war hurt all of us. I’m sorry I can’t help you more.” I’m sorry I couldn’t help when I needed to, she added silently.

“I don’t--” Ben had been about to snap that she needed no help, but she caught sight of her own broken body and knew that it would sound foolish, and she looked up at Jenny’s face and knew that it would sound cruel. “I don’t fault you for that,” she mumbled instead, softening.

Jenny was looking pensively at the wall. “When I was younger, I thought I could learn to help everyone. I can’t, of course, I know that now, but I wanted to. I still do. But… I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never wanted to fight. And this… this place keeps turning me into something I hate and I don’t know what to do about it.” She looked over at Ben again. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ramble.”

Ben shook her head. “My fault,” she said. “My failure. I was a damn fool to think I could win that fight, and a bloody idiot to keep fighting once I’d lost.” Her voice trembled, shaking a little over the last few words.

Jenny clasped Ben’s hand. “Don’t,” she said softly. “Please don’t. You’re alive, An- Nova’s alive, and that’s what matters.”

Ben could barely feel the fingers of her hand, but her eyes followed the movement, resting on Jenny’s hand for a long moment. “It’s what they say,” she agreed bitterly. “So long as you’re alive, everything’s good.” She closed her eyes as she continued, only opening them at the end to meet the other woman’s dark eyes. “But it’s not, is it? So long as you’re alive you get to be wracked with guilt, you get to be never good enough, to make choices that are guaranteed to hurt someone and never help enough. But hey,” she finished sarcastically, “at least I’m alive.”

Jenny was silent, staring at the ground. Eventually, she let out a humorless laugh. “It never ends, does it?” she asked, in a voice as bitter as Ben’s. “We try and fix our little corner of the world, and someone always manages to break it. And we run around and pick up the pieces and all the while a little voice says that we’re not good enough. And we can’t ever be happy, because someone is always, always going to get hurt.”

She turned her head to face Ben. “You’re right. Everything’s not good. I don’t think it ever will be. But I’m happy that you’re alive, and I’m sorry you don’t feel the same.”

Ben sighed, releasing pent-up energy as she let her breath out bit by bit. “You’re very…” she floundered, searching for the right word. “...Kind, Jenny.”

Jenny grinned lopsidedly. “It doesn’t feel like it, sometimes. But thank you.”

There was a lot that Ben wanted to say, none that she would let herself. Neither did she want to subside into a surly silence and chase her friend away. “Are… are you still working at the forge?” she asked, hesitantly.

“The forge got burned pretty bad during the war,” said Jenny. “Tad and I are trying to rebuild it; hopefully we’ll have it up and running for you when you’re better.”

“I’ll he…” The words died on her lips, and Ben grimaced. “I hate this.”

“I know,” said Jenny softly. “I know. Just remember that I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”

Ben turned her head aside before Jenny could see the tears that gathered in her eyes. “Thank you for lending me your strength.”

Jenny felt tears in her own eyes. "I know it's hard, but... thank you. For not giving up."

Librarium
Timelime note: Several days after Zi's meeting with Nova.

“Hrmph.” Zi blew at the slip of yellow paper dangling over her face. “Hrrrrmph.”

She couldn’t see the flowery calligraphy written on the front, but she more or less grasped its meaning. It bound her energy, and she couldn’t pull it off. In fact, the only thing keeping it affixed to her forehead was Lori’s magic.

When she’d first tried to enter the library, the guards had stopped her, on account of the fact that her hair was on fire. After several minutes of arguments and demonstrating exotic methods of hair-tying, the head librarian finally deigned to discover the source of the commotion and had speedily cut to the heart of the matter by pasting the paper amulet on Zi’s head, instantly extinguishing the flames and locking the magic within her. Before Lori had left, Zi had requested access to the restricted section and, on account of her relationship with certain individuals of note, was granted it. Now every time the guards saw the girl with the flaming hair, they first went to get Lori.

Eliziya took a few more moments to blow futilely at the paper amulet, only causing it to flutter even more irritatingly against her face, before she turned her attention back to the books on the table. Muses of a Thousandth Son, by Arymnon, of course, one of Zi’s favourite texts, Prescience and Pitfalls by the Sayad, the Mnemonic Experiences by Piter Albans, Of Matters Gray by John Slee, the ever-helpful Medical Catalogue of Trauma, and many others. All books dealing with different topics, they were united by Zi’s fervent need to restore Anjali, or as she was now called, Nova. Zi couldn’t think of the name without feeling wetness gather about her eyes.

“Oh sister.. How the mighty have fallen..” she whispered, wiping away the tears. It would not do to stain the texts. Numen drifted by her side, oblivious to her words. A feathery wing extended out and brushed her gently. Zi tried to smile at its accidental attempt at concern. She needed to focus, concentrate, and find a way to bring Anji back. She had to.

But how could one concentrate when unnatural cramps struck every other moment, cruel vise-like grips born of something so intrinsic to her very self? Zi gasped in pain as her body rebelled again and she wished dearly to simply cut the pain out. Then the moment passed, and Zi took especial care not to let her agony-born sweat dirty the pages in front of her.

It disturbed her, the way she could feel the fabric of her self betraying her, wishing to weave into contrary patterns and pull apart from their blood-bound beginnings. She might be young, but she’d seen a lot of people injured, helped heal more than a few, seen amputees and gruesome wounds that inspired an instinctive revulsion. Yet she’d never fathomed that such a thing might be possible, that the flesh would seek a separate, self-destructive sentience. Eliziya needed to find a way to stop it, or perhaps purge out the excess energy before it killed her.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad. Zi felt more alive than ever, more charged with strength and at times she fancied she could even hear Asha's quiet voice deep in the magic. She was bolstered from within, and Zi wondered at the changes in herself. Before her.. insanity, she'd never have argued with any guards, or taken the initiative to kiss Tamar, saints, even now she was blushing about it. Focus, she told herself wryly.

At first, she’d tried to expend the energy by conjuring as many flames as she could and maximising their intensity, but all it did was make her eyes hurt and head ache from trying to concentrate on maintaining all of them without burning anything down.

That was when she’d decided to check the library, searching for arcane workings requiring immense amounts of energy. Perhaps with a constructive end in mind, she could better remove the energy. But every single ritual she’d found so far was either unduly destructive, or required several other mages working in concert, and she could think of nobody who’d be willing to cooperate on, say, opening a permanent portal to a realm of frogs. Honestly, they’d let anyone write arcane tomes these days.

Then Zi met Nova and her world came falling apart.

Anjali Torvantine. Her sister. Her protector. Her pillar. Broken. Tearful. Nervous. Amnesiac. Nova. For as long as Zi’s memory extended, Anji had always been the one laughing, soothing her little sister, always headstrong and braver than anyone else, confident and never one to back down. This girl who was and was not her sister was none of that; she was so pathetic as to the point of inciting pity in Eliziya, Eliziya who had ever been the weak one.

“Jie...”

There had to be some way. Zi owed her sister everything, and she’d promised Nova that she’d find a way.

But.. her knuckles whitened as another spasm overcame her. The frequency of it was increasing. Zi knew. She was running out of time. There was little more that she could do. Despite her creation of the luminous Tutelary, the growth of energy could only be delayed, but not halted. Nova was losing time and Zi dearly wanted to halt that immediately, but now she felt caught between two ravines, unable to move in either direction without being sliced to ribbons. Work to help herself, and her sister would suffer. Work to help her sister, and she herself would die. It wasn't fair.

Angrily brushing the tears out of her eyes, she returned her attention to Prescience and Pitfalls. Anji was her first priority; anything less would be a betrayal.

The text spoke of the prescient as a man standing on the crest of a dune while others stand at its base. The prescient could see further into the sands of time, but invariably the presence of other prescients raised other dunes and far in the distance always lay mountains obscuring farsight. Fascinating, but how useful was it here? The sight backwards..

Perhaps she could use that. A junction of time, where all intersected. That was something. Mayhaps there Anji might glimpse her past? No, it was too dangerous, too risky. There was no guarantee Anji would see her own past. Was there a way to filter the experience? But a mage did not merely say "let it be," and have it be so. Magic was mindless; it needed to be directed specifically. How could she define a magical filter to only let "Anji" through?

Then it hit her. Of course! Where was it.. there! Eliziya pulled out the Grimoire of the Motile Soul from under the stack. She'd used that to help.. Asha, and now maybe it could help Anji. Could a soul be used as an identifier? And.. there! Something she'd already known, but needed to confirm. Souls were unique; there had only ever been one or two recorded instances of a twinned soul, one in two bodies. Otherwise, if Zi used Anji's soul as a marker, then perhaps.. Zi began scribbling on a separate piece of parchment. She had the bare concept of it now.. perhaps, just maybe, she allowed herself to hope, if the energy requirements of this was great enough..

Then her hope dissipated like dust in a breeze when the convulsion hit once more.

Timelime note: a few days after Librarium, or ~10 days after the boss battle

Kevin was happy to see the change in Nova’s whole demeanour over the past few days, the frequent smiles, the fewer lapses. He told himself that whatever the cause of the shift, he had reason to be grateful for it. Still, he kept a keen eye on her, always ready if he was needed, always reluctant to leave her despite how stable she seemed.

He rapped lightly on the door to the room that he now thought of as Nova’s. “I brought lunch,” he called to the girl within. “Mind if I join you for it?”

Nova glanced up and nodded, leaving a desk filled with papers behind as she stood to help him bring in the plates. Setting her plate aside, she grabbed a book and thumbed through it, saying. "Hi." She smiled awkwardly at the blonde man, and asked, "Why in here?"

“Because you’re in here,” he answered, smiling with faint amusement. “Otherwise you’re liable to forget to eat.” He pulled a scrap of apparently unimportant paper from a pocket and slipped it between the pages of her book before he closed it for her. “Case in point. You should eat.”

Nova grimaced, and set the book down. Eyeing the food suspiciously, she said, "I'm not hungry."

Kevin finished buttering a slice of bread, added it to the healthy portion already on her plate, and looked up, blue eyes serious. “What’s on your mind, Nova?”

Nova stared at the piece of bread as if it had grown arms and learned how to speak. "Nothing really, I'm trying to learn something, is all. I'm really not that hungry." She evaded.

“They say that food is good for the brain,” he remarked mildly. “Maybe the learning will be easier if you eat a bit.”

Nova frowned, and ate a token amount of food. Grabbing the book again, she asked, "So, how are you?"

“How are you, Nova?” he asked, a slight emphasis on the “you”, instead of answering her question.

"Cheater." Nova grinned from behind the paperback. "I asked first."

“How are you?” he repeated.

Nova's smile faded, her jovial features becoming wan. "I'm okay." She replied, setting the book down hastily and turned to the plate with gusto.

"You said you wanted me to eat, right?" She mumbled, mouth full.

“I’m glad you’re eating,” he agreed. “What’s on your mind, Nova?” he asked again. “Maybe I can help with whatever it is you’re learning.”

Nova's face winced guiltily, and she glanced at the book. "It's just some magic theory... Nothing that special."

She laughed, "I don't think I understand half of it."

Kevin’s eyes bored into Nova, seeing all the times she’d had her head together with her “sister”. “You’re not just studying magical theory for the fun of it, are you?” he asked quietly.

"Not... Technically?" Nova squirmed, setting the half-eaten plate down.

He fixed her with a gentle eye, slipping the fork back into her hand in an unspoken encouragement to keep eating. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right, Nova?”

Nova stared at her hands, fiddling with the fork. "I know." Glancing up, tears filled her eyes, "But then you'll be upset with me."

“I won’t be upset with you, Nova. I am here for you no matter what you tell me. Unconditionally.”

Tears coursed down Nova’s cheeks as she shook her head softly, “Why do you even care so much?” She said bitterly. “It’s not like I’m related to you or anything. What do you care about what I do with my time?”

Kevin fished a handkerchief out of his pocket, laying it unobtrusively on the table beside her. “I care about you is why, Nova. I haven’t enough relatives to choose my family by blood. I care about you.”

“And you are so damned nice about everything all the time!” Nova continued, sweeping the tissue off the table and standing, taking quick strides to the door. On her way, she threw her words back like missiles, “It’s like you never get angry! Everything I do, anything I do, it’s always okay because she’s the poor little amnesiac with issues. Can’t I do anything without having to justify it?”

Kevin blinked, leaning back in his chair as he watched her. “I… I’m sorry, Nova. I didn’t mean to push you.” He smiled wryly at her, inviting her to smile back. “I find it incredibly difficult to get angry without good cause. I’m not making excuses for you because of imagined “issues,” I simply haven’t had cause to be upset.”

Nova let out a low growl and stalked out of the room, clutching the book close as she made her way to the abandoned balcony that had become her hiding place. She sat down on the floor, scraping her back on the rough wood and stone, crying softly.

After several minutes, she had calmed enough for her pale, shaking hands to clutch the book. The bookmark went into her pocket, and she played with the edge of the paper as she read.

Kevin didn’t move from the room. He left her in peace for twenty minutes, thirty, before he rose quietly from where he sat.

Nova felt gentle arms wrap around her, as Kevin’s voice whispered in her ear. “I don’t mean to pressure you, Nova, or to upset you. I just want you to know that I’m here for you, always. I don’t like to see you upset. You can always share what’s weighing you down with me. I will always try to help.”

Nova began to cry again, softly, and clung to Kevin. “But, what if what I have to say means that you wouldn’t be able to help me anymore?”

He held her, and raised an eyebrow. “Are you plotting my death?” he asked in a light, bemused tone.

Nova smiled through her tears, and looked up at Kevin. “No. I am not planning your death.” she said, bemused.

“Then it won’t keep me from helping you,” he returned, sounding satisfied.

Sitting back, she stared at Kevin for a moment and said, “I’m going to get my memories back.”

“Why on earth would that stop me from helping you?” he murmured. “That just means I’ll have your help.”

“Well…” Nova broke eye contact, glancing around the room nervously, “I’m going to be using magic.”

“Eliziya’s magic?” He already knew the answer.

Nova nodded guiltily, sliding out of Kevin’s arms to curl up, knobby knees to her chest. “She said she found a way.”

He wrapped his arms around her again, tighter this time. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Nova. She can’t force you.”

“Yeah, but I need to do this too. For me, I guess…”

He gripped her arms, turning to look her in the eye, his own eyes sharply concerned. “For you? Or only you guess?”

Nova resisted slightly, then slowly made eye contact. “I want to remember.”

His eyes flitted across her face, searching her expression as though he could read her thoughts written in it. “How soon?”

“Later today, as soon as she can get here.”

Later today. The words hit him like a tonne of bricks, knocking the air out of his lungs. He pulled her in closer, hugging her tighter, more desperately, head pressed against her shoulder. “I’ll be there.”

--------

"It's strange," Eliziya remarked, "to just go through the portal so easily. I.. I think I remember the way." She glanced at Nova. "Is this place familiar to you?"

Nova glanced around uneasily, "I don’t like it here.”

Kevin, his fingers tightly entwined with hers, squeezed her hand reassuringly, even as his eyes darted around nervously. “Nothing will bother you.”

Nova tried to ignore the stones that were gathering in the pit of her stomach, “Why did we have to leave the inn? Don’t you need to watch Ben?” She glanced up at the taller man inquisitively.

“I need to be with you right now,” he answered steadily, eyes tracing her face as though memorizing the nuances of her expressions.

"If it makes you feel any better, this place.. I'm not entirely comfortable with it either." Feet crunching dry leaves, Zi turned uneasily to the warrior. "Master Kevin, do you know the exact spot? Where.. “

“I don’t need to,” he answered, a nauseated note to his voice. He pointed to an odd discolouration on a few of the trees ahead; they were stained from the ground up to about three feet in what was unmistakably dried blood.

Nova’s face crumpled into a mask of terror as she began stepping away from the clearing, pulling away from Kevin’s hand and backing painfully into the trunk of an ancient oak. “No no no no no no no no no not again. Not again, not again, not again.” She sobbed, falling to the ground.

Kevin scooped her up and held her against his chest like a child. “It’s going to be all right, Nova.” He brushed a lock of stray hair off her face as he added, “I won’t let anything hurt you.” The words rang cold and hollow to his ears; he could fend off physical threats, but he could do nothing to protect her from what this afternoon might bring.

Nova’s tears began to slow as she collected herself. After several minutes, she disentangled herself from Kevin. Refusing to look at either the man or the blood-stained tree, she asked, voice cracking, “What do I need to do, Eliziya?”

"S-Sit. Kevin? I need you to stand away, so that the working won't be affected. Otherwise.. we might have soul-death.”

His muscles so taut they would have snapped any bow strung with them, he asked stiffly, “How far?”

"Over there, yes, just a little further, two more steps, thank you. Mark it: thats the edge of my sensing. Don't cross it until we're done. Oh, and make sure nobody crosses it either.”

Kevin stood rigid, moving not an iota backward or forward from the spot where Eliziya had stopped him. His sword’s hilt was in his right hand, but his body was still as stone. Rioters with flaming torches could not have persuaded him to move; an earthquake could not have budged him.

Nova sat quietly on the dirt, shaking softly as she pointedly ignored the blood and offal that stained the pleasant meadow.

"Nova?" Zi approached the girl carefully, kneeling beside her and lifting her head so their eyes could lock. "Nova, are you ready?"

Nova turned towards Zi, eyes distant. “Yes, I think so.”

"I'm not." Zi confessed, "but there's never a better time; there's no time. Let's begin. Close your eyes, slowly, imagine the doorway.."

Within a few moments, Zi and Nova stood inside a vestibule, plain and unadorned, just as the mage had instructed Nova to visualise.

"Here we start again, the entrance hall. Take a good look around; when we leave, you'll be restored." Zi promised softly, then took Nova's hand and walked forward.

Stepping out of the vestibule through an unnaturally dark doorway, the sisters emerged onto a sandy beach. The skies rumbled and jagged lightning stippled the air as ominous thunderheads pulsed in the distance. Nova saw the light and shuddered, stumbling back towards the safety of the vestibule.

"Have no fear, have no fear, we've seen this many times, remember?" Zi squeezed Nova's hand and pointed at the cloud front. "Remember what I taught you? Those are your fears, worries. See them. I know you must be terrified, but look," she pointed to another region, "look closer. There's light waiting behind the darkness. Your hopes and expectations. We'll light up your world."

Nova remained mute, chest heaving in phantom gasps, eyes wide with fear. In response, the lightning crackled with ferocious vigour and the winds began picking up, whipping their hair about wildly.

"Nova, Nova, stay with me and fear not. I am with you, sister. Jie, don't worry." Zi spoke soothingly into Nova's ear. "Focus on the future. Focus on the good things, the joyful, the times we're having. Follow the sound of my voice and don't let the fears overtake you. This is your world; there is nothing to fear from yourself. Stay with me."

Though the thunderheads remained frighteningly close, the winds slowly abated and the waves crushing the shore returned to a less turbulent splashing.

They resumed their slow trudge in silence, when a section of the land ahead abruptly fell away into an inky nothingness and Zi quickly pulled Nova aside, directing her vision elsewhere. With not little trepidation, the mage felt several ridged lines rise across Nova's arms, but kept quiet. Telling Nova about the scars wouldn't help.

"Nova, I want you to close your eyes and take us to the deepest, darkest cave you can imagine. Can you do that for me?"

Nova nodded, and concentrated for several moments. An impenetrable fog rolled across them, masking the world from sight. Then, as quickly as it'd came, the smoke dissipated and all was black.

"Nova, this is the deepest part of your mind. Dark, either because you keep your secrets here or because you don't want to see whatever it is. Regardless, the contents here are not our focus."

A brilliant light glowed from Zi's hands, slowly suffusing the entire room with a luminous radiance that seemed to seep into the very walls of the cave. There were dusty chests strewn about, careless treasure or perhaps to Nova a cursed measure.

"What I intend to do, Jie, is to light up your world and mend what is broken. But I can only do so much; I need you with me and I need you to be aware. Do you understand?"

Nova looked around the room curiously, scarred and bleeding. She began to walk slowly towards one of the boxes.

"Do you understand?" Zi repeated, grabbing Nova's arm to stop her from touching the chest. "Don't be pulled in by its allure; we are here for other matters."

Nova stopped, held back by Zi’s arm. She faced Zi, eyes pleading. Zi gave no ground, anchoring Nova in place. After several long moments, Nova nodded sharply at Zi, giving her consent.

"I said we were at the deepest part of your mind.. but we must go deeper. We're going to go to things your soul doesn't even know about. We're going to a place half your mind, half magic, and we're going to bring back your memories."

One end of the cave crumbled thunderously upon itself, debris mysteriously vanishing, and the musty air issuing from within shimmered ever so subtly like light in a drizzle.

"After you." Zi exhaled with a small slump, the luminance issuing from her diminishing.

Nova trembled slightly, and walked into the mist.

The mist was several things, none of them pleasant. A dirty grey fog consumed the ground that threatened to give way at the slightest touch. Nova stuck close to Zi, eyeing the mist carefully.

The mist was not long in answering the two intruders, as a man blustered through the cloud, staggering and singing a small tune. He was a short man, and bulged about the middle like he had tried to eat too much watermelon. His cheeks were cherry red, and he carried an open flask that reeked of foul spirits.

Swaggering up to the pair, he leaned on Nova’s shoulder, hiccupping quietly. When Nova tried to edge away, he began leaned in, words slurred. “We never really wanted anyone.. *hic*... I paid for you mum, ‘sall. *hic* Then I couldn’t have anyone of my bastards running *hic* around *hic*... Your mother, the slut, set you free. Sent you to *hic* some abbey or cathedral or sommat *hic*... Better than you *hic* deserved.”

Nova shook slightly, but her green eyes shone silver in the fog. Her shoulders and spine straightened as she let go of Zi, and drew to her full height to face the man that was her father.

With a drunken grin, her father laughed and took another swig of spirits from his rusted flask, “Oh, so you have some fight in ye, ay? Some scum you are, to think about helping your mo-”

With a quick, fluid motion, Nova sent the man swirling into dust, hands curled into claws. With a snarl, she turned once more to her sister, panting hard, eyes shining with tears. Eliziya stood several steps back, eyes trained on Anj- Nova.

"What did you see?" Eliziya asked tentatively.

Nova looked puzzled for a moment, then tried to speak, voice grating like sandpaper on her throat. “My… Father.”

Zi nodded, then realised something. "I'm blind here, Nova. I can only see you. You must see, experience what you lost. I cannot, because it's not mine. Gather your memories, sister mine. But leave those that are not yours alone. I can't filter everything, but you will recognise those that belong to you. If something seems.. alien, foreign, then step away from it and let it past."

Nova shuddered once more, then nodded curtly. Turning back to the mist, she straightened her spine, preparing for whatever came.

An older boy, covered in scars and bruises, approached the pair. His fingers danced nimbly around his person, flipping and twisting knives and coins into different hands and pockets. Multiple wounds covered him, puncture wounds around his shoulders and knees, wide slashing cuts up and down his arms. Turning to meet Nova, a wide smile broke out from a swollen and toothless mouth, and blackness stared out where windows should be.

“‘Ey it’s my big girl!” he exclaimed approaching Nova quickly. Tossing a knife underhand, he continued, speaking rapidly. “Where you been now, eh? I tol’ you what you oughta do wif that crow-bit lord of scum.”

As Nova caught the blade, she was suddenly hit by a wall of images and emotions, pulling and pushing at her conscious like waves on a shore. Learning how to steal. Picking up a knife. Charlie’s face, whole and real. Askinov in all it’s terrible beauty. The sounds of steel on flesh. The smell of blood and the screeches of pain.

Anji fell over, convulsing on the ground. Coughing, she wiped her hand, revealing a thin sheen of scarlet. His face squinted sadly at her as he knelt by her, sweeping a stray lock of hair back behind her ear tenderly, “Oh, sweet.. I never… Look, it was never your fault, alright? You did what you knew to do, same as us. ‘Cor… you look wonderful… Shiny as a newpence, you is.”

Glancing hesitantly over at Zi, empty holes emphasizing the lack of real eyes. “Now, that’s your family, eh?” Charlie smiled sadly, gums bleeding, “She’s a good sister. Take care of her, now, you hear me? Show her what tricks Clever Charlie done taught you.” With a shudder and a slight grunt of pain, Charlie stood, and limped back into the dank fog.

Nova wanted to sprint after Charlie, arms reaching out into the fog. Glancing back, she saw that Zi had dissappeared. A conflicted groan slipped past her lips, as she debated on abandoning her sister to chase after her only guardian. After a few moments of struggle, she turned away from Charlie, and strode towards the last place she saw Zi.

----------

It was so cold that Zi could almost imagine black rime forming about the collar of her robe, but not only did she fail to see her breath misting with every exhalation, she failed to see anything. It wasn’t even the blindness of night, where all was black and one could only make out vague differences of dark upon dark. This was a uniform fogginess, a dreary gray that pulled at her very vitality.

She’d stepped away from Anji for three reasons. First, though she could see nothing, the perusal of memories Anji was undertaking was intrinsically personal and she felt like an intruder upon sacred land. Second, despite what she'd warned her sister, the seductive temptation had been there, to seek out her own past. But she couldn't. This was not the time, nor place for it. The third was a distinctly more tangible reason in this intangible realm. Eliziya had expended a great deal of energy in creating a sort of bridge, a no-man’s land between Anji’s very essence and the realm of magic. Though by its nature ever-mutable, there were treatises on regions where past, present and future coincided, junctions of time which seers tapped into to make their arcane prophecies. By utilising Anji’s being as a catalyst, a starting point, she created a magical sieve through which most of the visions were those of Anjali’s. As the saying went, like calls to like, and so the empty is filled, and she’d reasoned that doing so would attract that which Anji was missing.

However, the sieve was beginning to pull apart.

It wasn’t unexpected, of course, she’d thought long and hard about the possibility beforehand, but feeling it happen terrified her. Zi had to restore the weave, hold it together for as long as it took Anji, or they would be swamped into the distant recesses of times that never were. ‘Soul-death’, she had warned, but at least soul-death offered oblivion. If they were caught... Zi’s shivering this time had nothing to do with the cold.

On the edges of her awareness, the field was tearing and more than the environ, something was ripping its way in, something that sensed two nubile young minds to devour and engorge itself upon and perhaps torment for an eternity. Struggling to keep her breathing steady, Zi drew upon the vast reserves Asha had left to her and directed the flow toward the northern breach, but as soon as the patchwork was complete, the thing on the other end tore it anew. It was toying with her, giving her a glimmer of hope only to-- No! Zi pushed out the insidious presence of the beast out of her mind and conjured up great gouts of flame. In this land where all form was magic, the flames burned with an otherworldly intensity and surrounded the distant beast with violent eruptions.

She felt like a mite under the gaze of a spider, trapped and utterly helpless, her flames little more than tickles against the beast’s thick hide. All she was doing was warming the beast.

Its alien touch left her mind feeling dirty and tainted, a slimy sensation of slithering susurrations, insidious and intrusive. Her gorge- not even real in this soul-crafted world- rose in futile rebellion.

I'm going to eat you, promised its incomprehensibly immense appetite. It swirled with distended pinpricks of distant light, like stars long consumed and yet to be digested.

I'm going to tear you to pieces, the hint of iron-tipped talons large as the town seemed to whisper.

I'm going to steal you away, to the realms far beyond the moon, its all-encompassing deathly embrace suggested. Malicious intelligence shone like will'o'wisps caught in lanterns, quietly declaring its thirst, I'm going to drink of you, you and your sister both.

Eliziya cried and fell, tears streaming down uncontrollably as its mental taunts and insinuations wormed their way past her meagre defenses and into her soul. The psychneuein taunting had nothing on this.

For an age and forever, you will be mine, it caressed her cheek lightly with ephemeral streamers, but you'll never die.

It plucked at her heartstrings and pulled at the fabric of her soul. Yet above all its threats, worst of all, was its chillingly triumphant declaration.

I know your name.

----------

Nova panicked, sprinting through the fog, searching for her little sister. “Zi?!” she cried, voice hoarse with unshed tears. The mist was resolute, its dim walls showing nothing but a slight silvery sheen.

Nova ran for several minutes, crying and searching for her sister. She had almost given up hope, when she stumbled into a dark man with a ragged cloak.

“I’m not your sister, unfortunately.” He turned to face her, extending a hand to help her regain her balance. He wore a plain white shirt under his cloak, with a single simple long sword sheathed at his hips. “Want any help looking for her?”

“Who- Who are you?” Nova croaked, wiping her eyes and staring up at the taller man.

“That’s a good question. You know two of me, after all.” He said normally for a moment, then shifted into a sleazy posture, although he kept his smile, not even trying to hide the fact that he was merely acting out a role. “No know. Fade not know that. Fade is Fade.”

Anji’s eyes sparkled a little, and she said quietly, “I knew you as Fade?” She paused, searching for the right memories. “But you were more than Fade… You were someone else too…”

“Yes.” He said simply. “Someone else you knew just as well.”

Nova stared at the man for several moments, trying to remember and failing. “I… I can’t…”

She looked around the mist for a clue, anything to help her past the guardian separating her from her sister. The mist had begun moving while she had been speaking to the enigmatic man, swirling and crackling, twisting like a maelstrom. The area surrounding her and the man with two names was calm, lazy clouds of mist floating sluggishly between them. “I don’t remember…” Nova’s voice cracked under the pressure of the man’s gaze.

He didn’t move. He seemed to never move, but he began to talk again. “We’ve come to a strange land, many of us. Almost none knew what to expect from it, even. And from those who did know a few things, none was spared shock and awe from what had actually met us here.” He paused, deliberate, letting her think. “One of my own such surprises was also one of the very first people I’ve met since coming here. You. You know who I am, regardless of who I, myself, think I am. I am a shield, I am an oathbreaker, I am a knight, I am human. And you introduced yourself to me after saving my life, from others and from my own self-sacrifice. Do you not remember my name?”

“...Jewels?” Nova whispered, the noise barely reaching the knight.

He laughed heartily, moving aside and clearing the way for her to progress. “No, I’m afraid it’s actually Julius. But the sound is close enough to me.”

The events over the last year sent chills up Nova’s spine as she finally remembered. “Julius Valerian.” she said, eyes shining silver green. “You… You left.”

His face turned sad. “I did. Although I certainly hope I won’t be gone forever. I’m sorry.”

Nova’s eyes grew serious, and the mist thundered where she stood, “I’m going to find you.”

Julius smiled lightly at her words, and faded into the mist. Nova began looking for him, catching glimpses of his cloak, or a beam of silver from a now naked blade. A roar echoed through the mist, angry and scornful. Nova shuddered, torn between caution and staying with the man named Julius.

She stumbled, blinking and weary, into a clearing of mist. Her sister, small and proud, was screaming her defiance at a beast born of shadows. It was immense beyond measure, pulsating purple and black as teeth formed around a new jaw, burning and roiling with motion against the magefire.

Eliziya’s visage was blurred, edges losing their distinctiveness, features melding together as she yelled. Flecks of vermillion flew out of her skin, as though the creature were flaying her essence and dispersing it, though the way each speck winked out of existence suggested obliterating consumption.

Nova sprinted towards the pair, her own scream echoing through the space inbetween. She collided with Eliziya, and they both went sprawling in front of the monster.

For a single moment, all was still, and both sisters felt the slow smile grow on the face the thing didn’t have.

Then came the mad scramble of motion, Nova pushing Zi away as she stood in front of the beast, face set in a grim line. She stared up to where it’s face should go as she said, voice shaking in rage, “Get. Away. From. Her.”

Its laughter was the baritone rumbling of an earthquake which ripped through the mist and hammered at their psyche.

Little thing, the voice sounded as though it were inside their heads.

“Gigantic monster.” Anji kept herself between the thing and her sister, mind twisting in pain.

Ah, bravery, but its words weren’t exactly words, more as sense-impressions. The beast was a stranger to the orderliness of language, and it seemed more preoccupied with savouring the oddities of words as opposed to devouring the pair.

“Zi?” Anji called out, voice strained. “Can you get out of here?”

“Jie! Take my- oh saints- take my hand, now!”

Anji held one arm out against the monster, as if warding it away. The other flew back to grasp her sister’s. As the mist began to darken, the beast-thing seemed to realise what was about to happen and it lashed out with a frighteningly quick claw. Barely a hair’s breadth away from them, the surroundings vanished.

Blinking away the brightness, they found themselves back in the cave. The ‘deepest, darkest cave’ Nova could imagine. Eliziya breathed an audible sigh of relief, but then the cave shuddered with an enormous impact, as if something were hurling itself at the cave. The end of the cave which Zi had originally crumbled to enter the foggy vision-realm was no longer permitting the faint light of that ethereal place, but was instead covered with a black-and-purple shroud- no, the beast was trying to get in!

“Jie, I’m going to have to collapse it, I’m going to have to break it down, do you understand? Do you understand me?”

Anji nodded, face grimacing in agony as she struggled to keep the beast from entering the cave. “What are you…” She shouted in pain, “Waiting for?!?”

“It’s your soul, it’s- fuck all, brace yourself!”

With a large swooping gesture, Eliziya pulled on the edges of the breach, straining and wishing she hadn’t made it so large in the first place. Feeling her resistance, the beast swelled and roared futilely as the gap broke, the top crumbling and falling apart to form a ramshackle barrier. Though it seemed flimsy, the ‘physical’ collapse sealed the bridge.

-------

With a shudder, both women collapsed to the ground. Anji groaned, rolling onto her side to retch out what meager meal she had eaten earlier, while Zi lay still, coughing and staring up at the floor of the next level.

The change jolted Kevin into motion; he sprinted across the forest to where they lay, coming to a stop to kneel beside Anjali. The action was pure instinct; he had long since turned his mind off before it drove him mad with worry over what he would find.

Anjali Torvan turned to face the man that had defended her for months, half-grinning as she coughed a few more times, “Hey, Kevin... Right?” She paused as a few more coughs cleared themselves of her system. “You worry too much.”

“Yes,” he choked, “Kevin. ...Anjali?”

“I am Anjali Torvan. Thief, liar, murderer. I also make a damn good salad when I can get the ingredients.” She laid back down on the damp forest floor, never breaking eye contact with Kevin, eyes twinkling with sadness and amusement. “But you can call me Anji.”

He bowed his head, eyes closed. “It’s an honour to make your acquaintance, Anjali. Your friends give you high praise.”

Anji reached up with one hand and mussed Kevin’s hair. “Well, they’re stupid. All that really matters is what you think of me. Besides… I’m just this guy, you know?” she mimicked tiredly.

Tears welled up, obscuring the usually vibrant colour of his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her gently, as if afraid that he would break her or that she would object to his touch, and whispered, in a voice that was small and sad yet somehow hopeful, “Nova?”

The girl that was smiled softly, pulling him closer, “Yeah, I’m here, big guy.”

The agony left him at last, the anguish flooding off his face. “Thank you,” he whispered. He twisted his head, trying to direct the words to Eliziya this time, not knowing where she was. “Thank you.”

After several moments, she pulled away, blue eyes meeting green as she studied his face for several moments. Anji nodded once, as if cementing a decision, and stood, legs shaking slightly as she hurriedly made her way to Zi. “Eliziya?! You okay?”

"..." The young girl lay on the ground, mouth slightly open, the grass gently brushing the inside of her lips. If not for the minute movements of light breathing, barely discernible, the glassy cloud over her eyes might have spoken of death.

“Oh, Zi…” Anji relaxed, hugging her unresponsive sister close. “It’ll be okay, jie. I’m here.”

".. knows.."

Still clutching her catatonic sister close, Anji began looking for a way to safely get her sister back home, all the while whispering words of encouragement, “It’s okay, little sister. I’m here. You’re safe… I’ve got you jie, and I’m not letting go.”

".. name.. my name..." Zi's voice was less than the brush of wind against Anji's cheek.

“Your name is Eliziya Bellestine.” Anji smiled sadly as her sister's eyelids fluttered shut. “You are my sister. No one will hurt you.” She glanced around the darkening woods warily, focusing on the bloody and scarred tree. “You’ll be fine. I swear it.”

“I don’t know if I can carry both of you,” Kevin murmured. He leaned against a tree, giving them space, but his eyes still followed Anji like a man dying of dehydration who had just found a great lake.

“Ah, don’t worry about me.” Anji said lightly, tearing her eyes away from the grisly scene. Using one arm to wipe away her tears, she cleared her throat and carefully set her sister down, giving her room to breathe, or vomit, if that became necessary. Standing, Anji stretched sore limbs and walked carefully over to the larger man. “I would appreciate it if you helped me carry jie though, I’m not strong enough on my own, but I can make a makeshift stretcher to help make it easier.”

He gave her an affectionate one-armed hug as he passed, ignoring her chatter. Kevin bent down and lifted Eliziya in his arms, holding her gingerly but ably. She was lighter than Nova, for all he knew her less well.

He returned to where Anjali stood, and briefly rested his head against hers, before he offered, smiling faintly, “Take my arm. Lead the way.”

Anji blushed bright scarlet, not trusting herself to speak. Taking Kevin’s arm in her own, she began to walk, stumbling and slow, out of the forest that had seen her death and rebirth.

Timelime Note: the morning after the previous post

Anji woke to find Kevin sitting in a chair not far from the bed, expression distant. When he saw that she was awake, his cheeks tinged pink. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” He tried to keep his smile light. “I was afraid you’d disappear.”

Anji sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes. “It’s fine, Kev.” She said, yawning. “I actually thought I might disappear as well.”

Squinting at the window, she asked, “How long was I out?”

“You slept through the night,” he told her. “I figured you might as well have your rest unbroken.”

Anji’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she stood up and began walking around the room, starting her day the same way she had for months prior. After a few minutes, she remarked, turning to face him fully. “You say that like you’re about to tell me something bad. What’s going on, Kevin?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Nothing bad. I just… I know it’s too soon for you to have considered what you want to do next. I don’t want to pressure you, but I do want you to know that you have options.”

Anji sat across from Kevin, eyes burning under the small light that filtered into the converted inn. Placing her elbows on her knees, she asked, “And what would those options be?”

He leaned back in his chair. “You can stay here. Whether part of Severed Claws or just… here. Whatever you decide, this is still your home.

“You could re-form your guild. As I’m sure you know well, there are a number of people who have sorely missed Anjali over the past months, and who knows but more might flock to Storm and Drive if you return. But only if you’re ready for that.

“Or you could…” He sighed. “Any number of things. I have been searching, and will renew my efforts, to find your lieutenant.” Kevin paused, leaving many words unsaid before finishing. “No matter what you decide, you are still my family. I speak for Ben as well as myself when I say that you will always be welcome in our home.” He looked at her almost fiercely. “Always.”

Anji’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. She nodded, and said, “Thank you. I really appreciate everything you have done for me.” She paused for a moment, studying Kevin’s face. “If you really want to spend your time searching for Julius, then I won’t be able to stop you. Just… Please don’t feel obligated to search on my behalf.”

Kevin cringed visibly at her hollow thanks. “I’m obligated to search on my own behalf,” he said tightly, willing his words to ease the tension and failing even for himself. “Ben wanted me to meet him.”

Ignoring the joke, Anji continued, smiling sadly, “I think that, once I’m physically able to keep up, I’m going to go back to Storm and Drive, see if they would have me.”

At her statement of intention, Kevin rose from his chair and dropped to a knee. “Anjali Torvan, will you have me in your guild?”

Anji was silent for a long moment, mouth open in surprise. She recovered, eyes wide with shock, and knelt in front of him. “Kevin. You… You don’t…” She paused for a moment, collecting her scattered thoughts. “Look me in the eyes, Kevin.”

“You’re the guild leader,” he told her, his old crooked smile reasserting itself as he gazed at her directly, “you’re supposed to stand.”

Anji tripped over several more words and phrases, finally settling on, “I was not expecting this at all.”

“In that case,” he said gravely, “I will respect your right to time to consider my application.”

Anji rocked back on her knees to rest on the floor. “No, ‘s not that. Just… What about Ben? And… the guild stuff here? And… Why in the seven heavens would you willingly go to a guild ran by a former amnesiac?!”

“Ben’s guild leader here. She doesn’t really need me. I mean--” he swallowed and looked down, revising that last statement in his mind-- “I would request time away until she has more fully healed, but after that, she doesn’t need me. As for your other question…” He cocked an eyebrow. “Would you ask the same of every Storm and Drive member who was beating down the doors these past months asking for their Anjali back? I think my answer would rather resemble theirs: because the guild is run by you.”

Anji sat quietly for several moments, face turning beet red against the scars as she worked her mouth, looking for the right words. “Kevin, I.. I have one more question for you. Can I get you to answer me honestly?”

“Always.”

“Why are you asking to join?” Anji asked seriously.

Kevin felt uncomfortable; he did not want to give her cause to suspect her own guild. Still, he had sworn to answer her. “There will be many who ask the same question you did-- who will think you easy prey because you were less than you were once. I have faith in your strength to defend yourself, Nova… and yet, I will sleep easier if I can be one more pair of eyes watching your back, one more sword to discourage anyone who thinks you weak. I would join your guild not just as a bodyguard, but I would guard you while I join it as a friend.”

Anji glared at Kevin for several moments. Sighing, she stood and walked out onto the balcony, refusing to meet the man’s gaze.

Kevin remained where he knelt, head still downcast but eyes following Anji’s path, looking a little forlorn.

“We’re friends... Right, Kevin?” Anji spoke up after what felt like an eternity.

“Always,” he said again, his voice cracking.

“Then yeah, I think I’d love to have you with me in Storm…” Anji said quietly. “But, you’re my friend first, Kevin.”

He looked up at her, relief washing over him like sunrise after a long, dark night. “Thank you, Anjali. My sword is yours.”

Turning to meet Kevin’s eyes, her own flashing angrily. She stalked over towards the kneeling man, and held out her hand for him to take. “I’m neither a hero nor a king, Kevin. You’ll not kneel to a common street thief.”

He frowned at her words, but accepted the hand and stood. “You’re my liege lord,” he pointed out. “Guild leader. Same thing.”

“Yeah, but friends don’t ask each other if it’s okay to go to the privy or sommat.” Anji said, staring coolly at the taller man.

He chuckled at that, and enveloped her in a spontaneous hug. Anji relaxed into the hug, tightening her slim arms underneath his broader ones. “I’m still the Nova you know,” she whispered up at his ear, burying her head in his chest.

Timelime note: Takes place at about the same time as Zi and Nova’s first meeting.

The stranger with his arms full of hessian sacks uttered a gruff apology as he shoved past Tamar on the corner of the business district. Tamar only stumbled a little, glancing back at the man on impulse, fighting down the anticipation that the stranger had a sharp weapon concealed somewhere and was about to pull it.

It never happened, of course. Not now. Tamar was sure he’d seen the man’s countenance before; perhaps in one of the riots, but it was near impossible to say which side he had been on. It was all memories now, and most people in town had better things to do than dwell on them. There were buildings to repair, businesses to reopen, tentative gestures of friendship to make to people whom you may possibly recall threatening with a knife the previous week.It was all a bit awkward really, but awkward was infinitely better than what it had been before. So Tamar kept walking towards the main square trying his best not to look uneasy.

“Okay... please be a short list,” he muttered. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to bargain with. The list would be there, whether he liked it or not, and it would probably contain the names of people he knew, other names that Hector hadn’t understood. By the saints, Tamar was going to teach that man the basics of reading if it was the last thing he did. Not Eliziya’s name, though, he thought, and the idea gave him the nerve to look up, hoping and holding his breath.

The list was oddly shorter than he had expected it to be. Maybe four or five hurriedly dashed out columns of names. Tamar scanned them quickly, heart pounding, trying to pick out the names of someone he knew... Wasn’t Smith that guy who ran the baker’s shop? And what about the Inn keeper? Damn it, Tamar hadn’t even known his name, had he? There was guilt in that, mixed with the relief that he saw no more familiar names mixed in with the others.



...Except his own name, apparently. Tamar did a double take, and... yes, there it was. Plain as day. His own name, on an obituary post. That was... okay that was strange. Still after a moment he realized that whoever had written on that name had not been the same person who made the Obituary. The handwriting was much rougher, for a start, and ... there was a message there, too. It wasn’t just his name.

Tamar read it, and immediately let out a laugh.

--------------------------------------------------------

What is this now, three days?

Marcus looked around the hive of scum and villainy that passed for a tavern in this part of the castle. He must really be avoiding the notice boards. The waitress came over to him.
“Are you here again?” she asked irritably.

Marcus glared back before responding. “Its a free castle, I’m paying to drink here aren’t I?” The waitress turned and left muttering. Its so nice to know this little event has brought us all closer together.



“Excuse me... yeah, beg your pardon, sir. What? Oh sorry, I mean... ma’am. Uh is this yours? Sorry, here. “

Well that explained the sudden change in atmosphere all throughout the bar. Tamar Delaney, possibly the only boy in the world who could rile a bar full of people up by being polite.

“...S’cuse me, I didn’t see your... erm... hand axe there., I’m actually looking for someone.”

Heavens, that kid. Marcus thought rolling his eyes. “Tamar!” he called across the room before motioning with his arm.

The way in which Tamar’s face lit up when he whirled in the direction of the voice somewhat reminded Marcus of a ten year old, and he started edging his way completely carelessly through a crowd of people with swords that were probably the same size he was. “Marcus, hey! -Oh, sorry, s’cuse me, sorry! Marcus! Oh thank the saints, you’re not dead!”

Marcus chuckled. “Don’t count me out yet, still plenty of floors, still plenty of enemies.”

“Yeah, but at least now we don’t have to worry about those enemies being on this floor. I got your message. Hey, the next time you decide to get in touch, how about not leaving my name at the bottom of an obituary notice? That was... really confusing. Also disturbing, you shouldn’t disturb people like that, Marcus.”

Marcus shrugged. “I was out of paper, besides it got your attention didn’t it?”

“You could’ve contacted the guard or something,” Tamar sighed. He had apparently procured a cape at some point in the last couple of weeks which was a) weird and b) not something he seemed very used to judging by how he kept pushing it out of the way to do anything. His face fell slightly. “...I... suppose it’s hoping too much to say you put Anjali and Julius’s names on there to get their attention too, huh?”

Marcus took a long pull of his drink. “Unfortunately not, but they aren’t actually dead. Well at least Anji isn’t, I haven’t seen Julius since….well its a long story.” A thought occurred to Marcus. “No, Tamar wait stop that excitement right there…”

The words apparently cut Tamar off before he could even formulate a decent reaction. “She... she’s not dead? But... the notice board, they’re on it. You’re telling me Anjali’s not actually dead? That’s... I need to tell Zi, does Zi know?” Someone has to let Zi know-”

“Tamar!” Marcus barked. “Don’t forget to breathe.”

“To heck with breathing. I breathed fire earlier, Marcus, normal breathing? Easy, I can handle normal breathing, not please explain what’s going on.”

Marcus sighed before throwing the rest of his drink in Tamar’s face.

This went down about as well as he had expected and there were a couple of moments while Tamar cursed and he waited for the kid to come to grips with the whole thing. “No, they aren’t dead. But Julius is still missing and Anji….has amnesia, its my fault.” Marcus proceeded to relay his story about the gem, the trip and Shard to Tamar. “So you see she doesn’t exactly want to talk to me because I was probably pushing too hard to try to recover her memories, Also I’m pretty sure Kevin hates me at this point but I can deal with that.”

“Oh... but... but they’re alive, right?” This seemed to be by far the most relevant point to Tamar. Marcus sighed.

“Yes, Tamar, they’re alive.”

Tamar let out a breath of obvious relief. “Right... right, okay, that’s good. Um... who’s Kevin?”

“Severed Claw’s new second-in-command, remember I told you about him when I was going through the whole amnesia bit?”

“Yeah, but I’m still catching up with the part about you going to the middle floors and finding some crazy guy with a weird name...” Tamar frowned. “Why does everyone we fight have weird names?”

Marcus gave him a flat look. “Really that’s what you’re concerned about? Not the fact that he had giant hostile mutants acting like kittens? Or that fact that somebody has already organized an army of the dead on that floor?”

“W-well I’m sorry, but I was going to panic about that part when I got to it. You went to the middle floors? Are you crazy? Of course there was going to be weird stuff up there, have you ever read anything in the library? It’s in the books, Marcus.” He leaned forwards on the bench, frowning. “Puppets, Inferai, that kind of thing. The higher people got the darker things become.”

Marcus made an irritated sound in his throat. “Look Tamar, I don’t do a whole lot of reading. My education in that area is very informal.”

“You say that like mine isn’t. And yours seems to have worked out for you. You went to the higher floors, you fought an army of corpses, and you saved Anji. That... that’s pretty awesome.”

“Tamar I somehow doubt you’re education was second hand lessons from a female officer you weren’t supposed to be fraternizing with, It was more like a patrol of corpses and even if I saved her it still left her without any memory of who she is.”

Tamar paused, clearly debating this fact in his head. “No memory... at all? She doesn't remember anything?”

“Tamar, she said hello instead of calling me a crow-brained idiot.” Marcus said gravely. “I can barely think of a conversation she didn’t start off by insulting me.”

“Oh... oh dear,” Tamar seemed to deflate a little. “But... even so, Marcus. That has to be better than dead. I’d rather her be alive and not know who we are than the alternative. I know Zi would feel the same way.”

“Speaking of which where is Zi? I promised Anj...Nov...whatever her name is, that I’d protect Zi. Anj may not know what I did for her and might think I’m a threat to her but still...”

Two things happened at once now. The first was that Tamar visibly suppressed a grin. The second was that his face turned a shade of rather vivid red. “If you want to protect Zi,” he said, with a smile in his voice. “You... might have to slow her down first. Trust me. Not easy.”

“Stop her from what? Burning down another building?”

“That was an accident! Sort of... but she hasn't burned anything since. Well not really. Not buildings. She’s... she’s fine. She’s definitely fine. She’s been with Hector and I for the last few days. After Luca and Asha... died we just... went back to where we’d been before, we’re hiding out near the slum areas. Stuff... happened." Tamar frowned. "I'm still not sure I understand half of it.”

Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. “Well that’s something at least, though I’m not exactly thrilled to be headed back to the slums. Still I have been imposing on Rachel for long enough...You sure you guys don’t just want to come up to the 3rd floor?”

“If that’s where you’ve been, no wonder we couldn’t find you,” Tamar smiled. “I don’t know about the third floor, but we’re not staying in the slum area. Eliziya can’t stay in the slums, she deserves better than that. And Hector knows this... uh... friend, who might help us? I’m going to call him a friend for want of anything else to call him. He drank all the alcohol, that counts as a friend, right?”

“Uh...sure lets go with that.” Marcus said somewhat befuddled. “Anyway...In light of recent events, there is probably something else I should tell you about. Anji….never exactly told you or Zi much about why I joined the guild.”

Tamar blinked, realization slowly dawning that he was about to be told something he hadn’t known before, and was already mentally preparing himself for yet another assault on his sanity. Give the kid this much: he took things as they came and rolled with them. Awkwardly, and with lots of stumbling, but he rolled. “Okay... Go on.”

Marcus breathed out. Well at least I won’t have trouble convincing anyone of vast conspiracies anymore. Then Marcus proceeded to tell Tamar in hushed tones about the Assassin’s guild. “....Of course we were going to get around to telling you two eventually but they seemed to be everywhere. Plus I was trying to work out what their game was when the war hit.”

Tamar nodded slowly. He seemed a lot let nervous about this than he might have done. More... concerned than anything. “Okay... what is there game? Any ideas?”

Marcus scratched the back of his head. “Not really, They’re very random in their movements, in fact if it weren't for the fact that they personally sent someone to threaten me I would think that they are just doing things completely randomly. Hell they were playing both sides in the war.”

“So the war has nothing to do with them, they’re just... here. For reasons you don’t know yet.” Tamar sighed. “Okay... so the odds are they're still out there. Maybe they took a break during the civil war, but that doesn't mean they’ve stopped trying.”

“Yea that seems to be the case. In fact my bet is they’re just waiting for when they have the greatest advantage.”

“But you still have no idea what they actually want,” Tamar shook his head in frustration. “Just when we thought things couldn’t get anymore complicated, huh?”

“Well that’s the way life goes sometimes. What about you? Some big bad you haven’t mentioned to anyone?” Marcus joked.

Tamar paused for long enough that Marcus thought he wasn’t going to answer. “...No. No Big Bads. Not really. Asha’s dead... you know, she wasn’t all that bad after all.”

“...Really.”

“Really. So I guess we had all better focus on yours now. Help Anjali, or... whatever name she wants to go by. Find Julius. Go up.” He nodded, seemingly to himself. “I mean... that’s why we’re all here after all, isn’t it?”

Marcus grinned. “Seems like a solid enough plan for me.” he replied.

There was something different about the woman who walked into her room, and even distracted by an odd combination of painkillers and persisting pain, Ben couldn’t miss it; she held herself straight, confident, with no anxious twitch to her face. “You’re Anjali Torvantine,” Ben said bluntly.

The other woman stopped at the sound of Ben's voice, hesitating for a moment before meeting the injured knight's eyes, her own glinting mischievously. "What gave it away?"

Ben closed her eyes, trying to decide if she owed this question a response. “You’re… louder. Without saying anything, you feel loud. Like Charlie being quiet instead of Emily making noise.” The comparison made sense in her jumbled brain; she didn’t bother explaining it further. She wanted to sleep, but the human presence reminded her of a problem that was still bothering her. Struggling to push herself into a slightly more upright position, so she could face the other woman more comfortably, she asked, “But… you remember… Do you remember that afternoon by the ruins?”

The light left Anji's eyes, and she sighed sadly. "I remember everything." Pulling up the nearest chair, she sat facing Ben.

“And what did you see?” Ben asked, her voice suddenly sharp, an almost angry clarity to her words.

"I saw an idiot playing hero. And I wish I had been in control of myself in order to prevent you this.... hell." Anji grimaced at Ben's various wounds and dressings. "Granted, if the tables were turned, I would have made the exact same choices as you did, though obviously our executions would be separate. I can say honestly that before... I always thought you too snobby to give someone like me any help."

Anji paused, then laughed harshly, "I'll be certain not to make that mistake again, Ben."

Ben considered the woman’s words slowly, chewing them over in her mind. She didn’t really know what she’d been looking for with her question; she certainly didn’t want Anjali’s pity… but this didn’t sound like pity, not really. It sounded like something she could respect. The next logical-to-her-mind question presented itself: “I suppose you’re going back to Storm and Drive now?”

"Yes. As soon as I can hold my own." Came the slightly shaky response. Anji glared stonily at Ben, as if daring her to challenge her claim.

Ben struggled to sit more upright, tilting her head to look Anji in the eye. “How…” She licked her dry lips and began again. “What would you say if I offered you the Severed Claws?”

Eyes like frost bitten spring shoots widened slightly, though her face remained stubbornly unreadable.

“You’re a good leader,” she continued in a rush. “I do a disservice to my guild--” she nodded in recognition to her bedbound body-- “I’m no leader like this, and I never really wanted it. The two guilds aren’t so different in purpose, at that, if you were willing.”

Anji sat very still for a few moments, glancing Ben up and down appraisingly. Then, with a deep breath, she stood, and began walking out of the room. "Get some sleep, Ben. We'll talk about all this later."

God damn all the-- There was still something more Ben had to say to the girl, and she hadn’t said it yet. She wasn’t particularly eager to, but damn it, it had to be said. “Anjali,” she called, before the woman could get out of earshot. “You saved my life.” She struggled with herself a moment; “why” would be the easy thing to say, but it wasn’t the necessary one. “...Thank you.”

Anji smiled softly, and shut the door.

Timelime Note: About three weeks after the boss fight

Ben struggled to lift the spoon of broth to her mouth. It hurt. What else is new? The past few weeks had been long ones, and she would take the pain of stretching healing and atrophied limbs over the indignity of having to rely on someone else to feed her any day. At least like this, she felt like she was doing something. Though she still wouldn’t be able to stand, he had said, for at least a week more.

She sighed lightly, relishing even the tiny freedom of one arm’s mobility, and recalled a story Alex liked to remind her of.

When her older brother had been little, he had been slow to speak, always considering his words carefully before letting them into the air, even then. Not so Ben and Charlie; they had begun speaking young, and spoke often, with abandon, picking up vocabulary like it was a shiny toy scattered in their elders’ sentences.

The only word they’d had to be taught, reluctantly repeating it at Alex’s insistence, was ‘help’.

She laughed, but the sound came out hollow. She formed her mouth distastefully around the word, considering it more seriously than she would like to. Kevin was her partner, her… family. She didn’t need help to eat anymore, true. But she did need help. And while she would have wanted to turn to Alex, she knew she owed Kevin her trust, knew that she could trust him-- knew that she needed him.

Steeling herself against her own censure, she raised her voice only a fraction, knowing he was just in the other room. Regretting taking him away from Anjali. “Kevin?”

He was in the room and at her side in a moment, taking the bowl and spoon from her shaking hands. “Do you need--”

She shook her head mechanically. “I’m fine.” Ben closed her eyes, willing herself to go through with this, and shook her head again. “No.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not fine. Kevin, it’s been weeks. And every time I close my eyes, I still see his face, hovering over mine; every time I sleep, I just relive that afternoon. I can’t live like this.” She didn't lift her eyes as she spoke, staring at the abstract pattern her fingers traced on the quilt.

He set the bowl and spoon down and reached over, wrapping his hands around hers. "You don't have to."

He wanted to just... make it better. He wanted to tell her, Show me how to help you. He was afraid of hurting her by saying the wrong thing. Afraid of saying nothing at all.

He removed his hands before she could object to them, and commented, "You never said in detail what happened that day. Sometimes it helps to just talk things through... talk to me, Ben. I'll listen. I'm not-- I won't be judging you. We're a team. You can't make me think less of you."

Ben nodded, and, eyes still fixed downward, she began to talk. "He came out of nowhere. He was too fast, too strong for me. I never really had a chance. He pinned me down, broke my arm, trapped my legs. I only stopped trying to fight him when I couldn't move anymore. Not like it made a difference.” She blinked away tears and went on. “He could have killed me in an instant if he’d wanted to. But he wanted to have some fun first. To make sure I knew I’d lost. His hands on my face... whispering taunts and threats we both knew he could keep. And laughing every time I let him see how much it hurt. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop him from taking what he wanted, Kevin. And he w--” she suppressed a shudder. “He was going to hurt Nova. I couldn’t let him do that. I couldn’t move to stop him. God help me, I couldn’t even tell her to run. He was holding my mouth closed and I couldn’t...” She looked up then, her haunted, searching eyes finding his. “I know Charlie suffered so much worse. But I can’t help thinking-- in the end, at least he faced Innis. He killed him. He won’t have to spend the rest of his life wondering if Innis still owns him.”

Kevin flinched. “He doesn’t own you, Ben.”

She glanced at the still-fading finger-shaped bruises on her wrists. “Does he?” she asked quietly. “He left his handprint on my skin. That will fade, with time, probably. But how many scars has he left that won’t?”

“You’re one of the strongest people I know. You may have been bested in that fight, but he’s the one who lost. You’ll walk away from the encounter. He won’t.”

“Shut up, Kevin,” Ben snapped, her voice abruptly fierce.

He fell silent at her command, and hugged her, tightly, as though seeking comfort himself.

At last she pushed him away lightly. “You should go back to your guild leader.”

“Ben--” he began, warily.

“You know I can’t stand having a babysitter,” she pointed out. “I don’t need you with me right now. She does. I’m… I’ll be all right. We’ll talk more, Kevin. Just not right now.”

He nodded, slowly standing up. “If you’re sure. You know where I am if you n-- if you want me. Thank you, Ben.”

She waited until he had left the room before she began to weep, huge wracking sobs that shook her whole body-- partly out of sheer relief that she had shared her burden with someone else, partly out of the built-up pain from her injuries, her humiliation, and her own self-loathing. She would be all right. But not just yet.

Timelime Note: About 4 weeks after the Boss battle

“He said the bone was healed, not that you should be throwing your weight on it.” There was a note of irritation in Kevin’s voice.

“I’m going to be getting up and about sooner or later,” Ben argued, matching Kevin’s irritation magnificently. “And if I have to lie uselessly in this bed any longer than I absolutely have to, I will go insane.”

Kevin sighed; he knew Ben was going to get what she wanted. She always did. Ben, though, already swinging her legs over the side of the bed, shook her head at his approach. “I have to do this myself.” She sounded determined, if ridiculous, so Kevin stepped back, leaning against the door, ready to run over if she needed him.

Ben stood up. It hurt, but not like it had hurt the last time she tried to stand. This was a pain that she could manage, barely. A pain that she would damn well live with, rather than lie around doing nothing. She took a step; her leg wobbled a bit, but her balance held. She was really very tired. So tired. She took anothe--

Late night carnival of sights sounds smells tastes too many faces voices talking cheering ferris wheel spinning in the yellow glow against the darkened sky and she was sideways or the world was sideways the sensation of the passage of time and now she was walking down a hallway, still lit by yellow light, but this was a clinical, sterile yellow, rather than the frenetic glow from the carnival that had in any case been half a lifetime ago. She took a step. Off in the distance, she thought she could hear someone calling her name, but she was alone. She took anothe--

“Ben! BEN!”

Ben woke up. She didn’t remember going to sleep. Good thing I made it back to my bed, she thought groggily, trying to root herself to the present. She blinked. Or… not. She’d spent long enough in that damned bed to know that this was not the usual view.

“Why am I on the floor?” she mumbled.

“You… fell asleep,” Kevin told her, already gathering her up in his arms to carry back to the bed. There was no “I told you so” in his voice-- the thunk she had made as her body simply fell to the floor had left him too shaken to feel smug-- but she made a face.

A few minutes later, Ben had sipped some water and returned to herself. Kevin settled in the armchair, which he had dragged close to the head of her bed.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Kevin,” she snapped, not referring to the fainting spell. He nodded, and sat quietly, looking at her as she looked back.

She examined his face for some time, before she wrinkled her nose at him. “You need a shave.”

Kevin laughed a little, at that-- he hadn’t had the time to worry himself about personal grooming that much lately-- but obediently walked over to her washstand and got to work.

It wasn’t until he had the razor in his hand that she began to talk. “My body-- and my life-- was forfeit. I knew it. He knew it. It was in his power to do as he pleased with me… I was in his power.

“‘There’s always a choice,’” she quoted bitterly. “That’s what I’m always saying, isn’t it? So this was my choice: unable to speak or act, I prayed. I prayed for Nova to escape. I begged, pleaded with… God... to let her get away unharmed.

“Should I have prayed for her to help me, instead, like she did?” Ben paused, as though considering the question seriously for the first time. “It was better for me, I know. But worse for her.”

Kevin methodically finished shaving before showing any reaction to Ben’s words; he knew she would be furious if he did any different. When he put the razor down, though, her demeanour suddenly changed.

“Do you know where Anjali is? I need to borrow her knife.”

Kevin looked uneasy, but he left the room, returning shortly thereafter with knife in hand. Anjali stood behind him, in the doorway, remaining there as he walked to the bed and cautiously passed Ben the knife.

She accepted it with her left hand. Then she flipped her hair over her left shoulder, to grip it taut with her less-mobile right, and with the knife in her left, hacked the whole thing unevenly off in one swift swipe. She threw the severed locks into the wastebin, as though it pained her to hold them a moment longer.

Anji raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“You love your hair,” Kevin reminded her in a soft, shocked voice.

“I hate it!” she burst out, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Kevin sat beside her bed again. “Do… do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head mutely, tears still flowing freely.

Kevin nodded understandingly and took her hand in his, holding it silently until the tears abated.

At last, she seemed to calm down. “Go away, Kevin,” she told him.

He glanced warily at the knife, where she had put it down, to the bin, full of shorn hair, and back to her. “Ben--”

“Go,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine. I’m not suicidal or anything.” She smiled a bitter, self-mocking smile. “Hair grows back.”

Anji stepped forward silently, grabbing the bin and her knife in one swift motion. Sending a quiet glare to Kevin, Anji left the room without glancing at Ben.

Kevin followed her out, casting one last look over his shoulder before he closed the door, wishing there was something more that he could do to make things right.

"I'm going to burn the bin now, and sterilize the blade." Anji said, walking swiftly towards the nearest fire.

Kevin raised an eyebrow, snagging a few strands of hair from the bin and absentmindedly folding them into a pocket. He already had a focus, but it still might become useful. “Her hair is probably clean,” he pointed out mildly.

"Any mildly talented mage could use it to do several creative things to Ben, and you know it." Anji tossed the basket into the fire and stared into the flames.

“The knife?” he asked gently.

"I don't want that on my knife." Anji growled.

Kevin looked at her, startled, his expression pained.

Anji glared back, arms crossed protectively. "She's a danger to herself and others."

“She isn’t going to harm anyone,” he told her, sounding sad. “She isn’t mad, or at least not… permanently. She’s hurting, and she’s healing… slowly.”

"She tried to give me the Severed Claws. Willingly." Anji's voice cracked.

“Did you accept?”

"Hells no. It's not my decision." Anji curled up, pulling her knees to her chest.

“Whose is it, then?” he asked, curiously, drawing himself down to sit beside her.

Anji shrugged. "the members of the guild itself, Hector... Hell, even the members of Storm have a right to vote on a merger."

His mouth bent in a crooked curve. “I imagine she didn’t want to consult those involved before speaking to you, in case you refused.”

“In the end, I’m just a leader.” Anji said, staring into the fire. “If people don’t agree with the decisions I make, they have every right to stop following.”

She turned to face the taller man, “And it’s my responsibility to make sure that they want to stay.”

“The decisions you make are still your choices to make, though,” Kevin commented softly. “And do you really think that anyone would choose to leave rather than accept your leadership?” He didn’t add, When they accepted Ben’s without complaint.

“It’s their choice. I can’t ask them to move blindly because it’s what I think is right.” she grinned softly, “It’s not like I’m royalty or anything.”

He grinned ruefully, remembering the way in which he had asked to join her guild. “But is it a choice you would put to them?” he persisted. “Is it something you would want, if your people wanted it?”

“I don’t know.” Anji sighed, falling back to lie on the floor, arms splayed in exhaustion. “I’m not… I’m nobody. I don’t know up from down, half the time.”

“Relax,” he said, smiling at her gently. “Don’t feel pressured to respond right away. Ben’s just… she’s feeling bad about abandoning her guild when she can’t do anything about it, and she’s always expecting a quick fix.”

His smile flashed at her and fell away, replaced by darker thoughts. This is Nova. I can talk to her. Trust her… “I hate seeing her like this,” he admitted. “But she has to heal on her own terms, in her own time. She’s scared of needing help, so there’s only so much help that I or anyone can give without doing more harm than good.”

“But she’s hurting you in the process.” Anji said, raising up on her elbows to meet Kevin’s eyes. “It’s not fair to anyone… What’s she’s doing, or has gone through.”

He sighed, trying to find the words that would do justice. “It hurts me that she’s hurting. It hurts me that there’s little I can do, that I’m not a doctor or a mage to take her scars away. But Ben, herself, isn’t hurting me.” He tried to smile, and almost succeeded. “She’s letting me in.”

Anji snorted, “She has a funny way of letting people in.” Seeing Kevin’s frown, she coughed quickly, wiping the smile off her face. “You’re right, Kev. She’ll be fine.”

He eyed her, and then smiled a little himself. “No, you’re right, she does have a funny way of showing it… but I understand her. It’s hard for her, harder than it is for me or you. When she’s suffered enough of that honesty, she needs to be alone sometimes. It doesn’t hurt me to be told that.”

Anji sat quietly next to Kevin, unsure of what to say. The fire slowly died as the pair watched it companionably. When Anji did speak, it startled Kevin out of deep thought. “So, why are you two together if you can’t stand to be in the same room as each other half the time?”

He chuckled at that. “And here I thought she stood me so much better than she used to.” He fell silent, contemplating how to answer the question. “Ben and I are… a team. We’re family, according to law and oath. Our alliance is something each of us needs… And, more importantly, we’re friends. We’ve worked together long enough that we can do it well.”

What might have been tears fell onto the floor as Anji nodded her head quickly, and stood stiffly, looming over Kevin. “Well, I hope you two are happy together.”

She turned away without waiting for his reply, and walked out of the room, her spine rigid with tension.

“Nova-- Anji,” Kevin called, afraid to rise and follow her but wanting to draw her back. “Wait.”

Anjali Torvan stopped by the door, gripping the jamb as her knuckles turned white. “Yes, Kevin?”

“No,” he said, sounding defeated. “No, we are not happy together, and we will not be. We can be happy, I suppose, and in each other’s company, but… neither of us has the freedom to be with the ones who would make us happy. But at least we can be unhappy together, rather than alone.”

Anji frowned, glaring holes into the floor, “It must be a strange place you’re from, to be forced to stay with people you don’t want, all the while pining after those you do.”

His mouth quirked in a poor facsimile of a smile. “It has its moments. ...And better Ben than someone I would care for less. We are friends. At least we have that.”

Anji said nothing, still refusing to meet the man’s gaze. “Whatever works for you, Kevin.”

Kevin looked away, swallowing. For once, he didn’t know the words to say to make it right. “I’m sorry, Nova.”

Anji stared at the man, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. “Don’t apologize. You have… obligations.” Turning to stare at him, her eyes locked like steel doors. “Apparently, I have a few of my own.”

Kevin looked up at her, his face tired. “Yes. Anji… please consider Ben’s suggestion,” he said. “She doesn’t trust easily. If she offered you the guild leadership, it’s because she’s certain that you’d do a better job of it than anyone else could.”

Anjali nodded, eyes twisted in pain, her voice hollow as she responded. “Thank you for the advice, Kevin… I’ll. I’ll bear it in mind.”

She turned to go, and he stood, shaking his head. “It’s your room. I’ll find someplace else to be.”

“I need to leave anyway.” Anji said, striding out into the hallway. “Suddenly this place has become a bit cramped.”

“I’ll…” I’ll walk you to where you’re headed. He didn’t finish speaking. Instead, he turned at the first corner he came to, walking away from her to nowhere in particular so that he would not burden her with his presence, would not need to hide the pain he felt.

Anji walked quickly out of the guildhouse and headed around the corner, not really paying attention to the people around her, focused on putting as much distance between herself and the place that she had begun to call home.

After twenty minutes of walking, she began looking for an address she knew was written on a piece of paper in her pocket. She dug through her pockets until she located it, the discovery causing her to grin as she set out for the apartment.

Kevin followed just a few paces behind her, trying to remain unobtrusive though she knew he was there. “Go away, Kevin. I’m not really in the mood right now.” she said, with a voice more tired than upset.

“You’re going to meet Marcus Oracon,” he stated.

“Now, who said anything about that?” Anji said, allowing him to catch up with her, eyes narrowed. “I don’t remember sharing my plans with you.”

“Look, it’s not my business how you spend your time,” he said, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace. “But it’s my responsibility as a member of your guild, and as a friend who cares, to keep you safe. That man can be dangerous; I’m just going to be nearby to make sure he’s not.”

Anji raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more, turning away from her guildmember to continue walking towards Marcus’ address. Five minutes later, she was knocking on his door as the sun began to slip beneath the horizon, “Hey, Marcus! You in there?”

The door was opened up by a woman Anji hadn't met before. “Sorry but Marcus isn’t here right now.” She said cheerily.

“Oh, I’m sorry for interrupting, ma’am.” Anji apologized to the woman, “I was unaware that Marcus had a lady friend.”

The woman threw her head back and laughed. “Hahaha...Oh heavens above, me and Marcus? Haha...oh no, my name is Rachel. I’m a childhood friend of Marcus’.” She replied giggling all the while

Anji’s face turned red from embarrassment, “I’m so sorry. Er, it’s nice to meet you, I suppose. I’m Anjali Torvan, I used to be Marcus’ guildleader. I was just popping by to say hello, see if he needed any help.”

Rachel grinned. “Yes Marcus has told me about you, all horrible slander knowing him. Anyway Marcus is at the tavern a few streets over. From what I gathered he went to go celebrate the fact that he wasn’t being hounded by fanatics and bounty hunters anymore.”

Anji laughed, and held out her hand to shake Rachel’s. “Sounds like him. Thanks for the information, it was nice to meet you, Rachel. Sorry again for intruding.”

The bard took Anji’s hand with a surprisingly strong grip. “Don’t worry about it and it was nice to meet you as well.”

Waving her goodbye, Anji turned away, sending a glare toward Kevin as she began walking down the street. He ignored the look, continuing to follow her stolidly. Growling with irritation, Anji stepped into the busy tavern, looking for the blond fighter.

It was then that she noticed Marcus drinking and talking with some other people at the bar while a lively tune played in the background. Walking up to him carefully, dodging plates and tankards, she tapped him on the shoulder, saying, “Hey, dumbass, where’ve you been?”

Marcus whirled on her and glared. “I could ask the same of you. I go up against a being whose nature I do not understand to cure you and you don’t even get your damn memory back until now?”

Anji smirked, “To be fair, you were half-right with your hypothesis. I’m still Nova as well as Anji.” Glancing back at the door, she said, “and I still have my shadow. How’ve you been, Marcus?”

“How’ve I been?” He growled. “I go through great pains to heal you, have to deal with your damn amnesiac self, and now you show up with that moron who needs his brain checked?” He continued to glare. “You have some nerve.” Sensing the man’s anger, Kevin quietly moved closer to the pair, slipping past the other people in the room.

However before she could respond, Marcus threw his arms around her and lifted her in a bear hug. “Oh its good to have you back.”

Anji grinned, choking out, “Missed you too.” before he would set her down.

“So Anj, the amnesia. Timed thing or did you actually get a cure?” Marcus asked, curious.

“I… borrowed Zi, it seems. Went through this whole trippy mage cure.” Anji said, wincing at the memories. “I’m back, but I remember everything that happened now.”

Marcus nodded and turned to the bartender. “A drink for my friend here.”

Kevin frowned. “That stuff can be strong,” he commented mildly. “Is Anjali used to it?”

“Stop being such a spoilsport. We’ve defeated one massive threat, sure as hell won’t be the last one. Might as well enjoy the peace while we can.” Marcus replied.

“Doesn’t mean you should get a lady drunk.” Kevin’s expression was unreadable.

“Guys,” Anji spoke up, daring both of them to speak, “I wasn’t planning on asking you this, Marcus, not now at least, but what were your plans as far as guilds go?”

“Well Tamar and I talked about continuing on with Zi to the upper floors and looking for Julius because now he’s up and disappeared. Basically my plans for guilds hasn't changed. I was trying to get the guild back together throughout this whole mess.”

Anji nodded, passing a full tankard to Kevin absentmindedly, “So you want to lead it now?” She asked softly.

Marcus looked at her solemnly before bursting out into drunken laughter. “Are you kidding me? Me. Lead? That’ll be the day.”

“Who’s running Storm then?”

“We hadn’t really worked that bit out yet, last I talked to Tamar the first order of business was getting them out of the slums and up to this floor since...ya know...none of them wanted to live in the slums.”

Anji laughed mirthlessly, and went to stand, “Well, let me know if you need my help with anything. I’ve been staying at the Severed Claws guildhouse for the time being, but I may move sooner or later. If I do, I’ll make sure to drop by Rachel’s and say hello.”

“Ah, so you met Rachel then?”

“She’s a lovely person.” Anji grinned, “I didn’t even know a grumpy ass like you had friends, much less pretty ones.”

“Yea well we go way back.” His eyes darkened for a moment. “Back to the village. But enough with the sad thoughts. There have been enough going around lately. Now tell me what you’re dodging around. I could have figured it out if I was completely sober but I’m not.”

“Eh, not much. Trying to find my place in the world, is all.” Anji said.

Marcus raised one eyebrow as he looked at her. “Its funny but I seem to remember this sister you have, and this guild that you lead. What about you Kevin do you remember that?”

Kevin sipped absently from the ale. “Either she’s your leader or she isn’t, Marcus. If she is, it’s not your job to tell her how to do hers. If she isn’t, then it’s really none of your affair.”

Marcus turned back to Anji. “Really? This guy doesn't even have a sense of humor.”

“What can I say?” Anji rolled her eyes, thrusting another ale in Kevin’s direction, “He’s under my leadership, at this point. I assume that if I’m no longer a part of Storm and Drive’s leadership, he’ll go follow you people around or something.”

“And what would make you think you aren’t part of Storm and Drive’s leadership? Would it be the part where I followed you up to this floor running from the anti-guilds, the part where I de-stoned you or the part where I wanted to help you get your memory back?” Kevin glared at the man, wondering whether he should put the mugs down or whether they’d make handy weapons if things got dicey.

“Nothing’s ever simple with you, is it, you big dope.” Anji growled, setting her half empty tankard on the counter. “Fine. I’ll lead your dumb ass up the entire castle if it means you’ll stop being so damn sentimental.”

Marcus nodded. “You just got out argued by someone who’s half-drunk, I just want you to reflect on that.”

“Not the only one,” Kevin muttered darkly, eyeing the half-empty mug Anji had set down.

Anji glared at Kevin, and then turned back to Marcus, “Marcus, meet Kevin. Kevin, Marcus. You two are guildmembers of Storm and Drive now. Act like it.”

“Does that mean he gets all the chores the first month like I did?”

“No, it means if I catch you two trying to kill each other--” She grabbed both of their shirts, pulling them down to her eye level-- “I will personally put you both in the healing ward.” With that, the short redhead left the tavern, stepping out into the night.

Kevin put the ale down, and offered his hand to Marcus to shake, with an apparently-forced smile of goodwill.

Marcus looked down at the offered hand. “Aw, what the hell.” he said as he took a hold of Kevin’s hand. “Welcome to the guild get used to that...its her favorite style of giving orders. That, and insults”

Kevin smiled, a little wistfully. “Yes, I’m getting used to her. It’s good to meet you. Uh, properly. Marcus.” He hurried outside to find and follow his leader.

Marcus went back to his cup before realizing something. “Those bastards didn’t pay for their drinks.”

Kevin stepped out of Ben’s room and into Anji’s. Closing the door behind him, he sat on the floor, against the wall, propping his elbows up on his knees and resting his head on his fists.

"Kevin?" Anji set down the book she had been reading, puzzled. "Are you okay?"

“Yeah… I am. Sat with her until she fell asleep. I couldn’t--” He took a deep breath, and looked up. “You said the other day to tell you if there was anything else you could do to help. Is… Is that offer still open?”

Anji's eyebrows knitted together in concern. Carefully, she left the book and windowsill in peace, padding over to the blonde guy. "Of course it is, how can I help?"

He kneaded his forehead with his knuckles. “This isn’t fair for me to ask of you,” he admitted. “But… Ben’s scared, and that has me scared. She’s trying to let me in, but it’s hard for her, and not just because of trust. It’s hard for her to find the words to say. She’s told me some, what she can, but what she’s told me doesn’t quite explain all the… trauma. She didn’t sleep all night because of the nightmares she knew were coming. I want to help her, I want Ben back, and I…” He ran a shaking hand through his messy hair. “I don’t know what he said to her that has her so spooked even with him dead. I don’t know what he did to her, to leave her like this, and…” He turned pleading, haunted eyes up at Anji. “You were there.”

There was a momentary pause as the two made eye contact, shocked green meeting scared blue.

Kevin looked away again almost immediately. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-- I should go.”

"Stop it." Anji said hoarsely. "You.. " Her voice cracked, and she winced painfully. Gathering herself, she looked away from Kevin, staring intently at the door. "It wasn't pretty... I'm not sure you want to hear it."

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to put you through that again.”

"Honey, I got monsters in my head you've ain't even heard about.” Anji said softly, smirking.

He smiled humourlessly. “For someone who’s led such a charmed life, I’ve seen enough of the other side as not to be afraid of monsters anymore.”

Anji nodded, and sat on the floor in front of Kevin. "This is my last warning. I'm not pulling punches for you." Waiting a moment longer, eyes silently pleading for Kevin to give in. Steely blue eyes stared back, the question lurking behind. Nodding, Anji took a deep breath, "He started by telling her about how he was going to.. Use us. Break us and burn our souls.

"She couldn't move. He was... Crows... I've never... He took Ben, all of the things that made her work, and he broke her. Not quickly, not cleanly. He laughed the entire time. That damn laugh." Anji shuddered softly at the memory. "She couldn't do anything. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. She had to sit there and let that... Thing, control her."

Anji paused, her voice shaking. Laughing tremulously, she added, "Then at the end she had to rely on a psychopathic amnesiac, the one that she had to order to hide and watch her die."

Kevin reached out and wrapped his arms around her. No words, this time, just his arms, hugging her close, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of her hair as though to ground himself to this reality.

Anji walked down the street, heading for the bulletin board as Marcus had directed. Eyeing it suspiciously, she saw where people had left flyers, missing persons lists, and one handwritten scrawl with an address and time. Grinning mirthlessly, she strode off to where Tamar should be.



*

Tamar was worried.

Alright, that wasn’t accurate. A better descriptor might be scared.Noticeably scared, that was, which, given that the whole world seemed to be filled with a constant underlayer of tension these days, was worth making note of. Eliziya could handle herself, he was sure of that. He had seen her doing just that, time and again, but for some reason, the knowledge that she could quite easily set anybody who tried anything funny on fire wasn’t reassuring him very much.

But it wouldn’t do to show that. So he stood quietly at the corner of the [wherever the heck we are], scuffing his feet, occasionally instinctively checking for Echo and hoping. Mostly hoping. He had no way of knowing for sure whether Anjali would even see the message, but it had worked well enough for Marcus, right? And Anjali had seen Eliziya already, right? She must have done by now. Which meant, logically, that the two of them were probably together right now, right?

Right. Okay, that was a reassuring idea. He could work with that. So he made himself stop pacing, scuffing and messing around with his cloak, glancing up and down the street in search of familiar faces.

*

Anji walked up to the building, Kevin ambling along quietly beside her. "I really wish that you wouldn't follow me everywhere."

“What else do I have to occupy my time?” he asked, making an attempt at humour. Anji grimaced, and added, "You could be watching Ben. We both know she needs help "

“That won’t help her right now,” he said tiredly.

Anji snorted, saying "You could at least relax a little. You're stiff as a board."

Kevin spread his hands expansively. “Who’s not relaxed?”

Anji turned a corner at that moment to see a rather nervous teenager standing outside the building. Being who he was, Tamar had chosen not to step inside the actual building, but was sitting on the wall outside, head tilted to gaze along the road like a slightly awkward, white feathered owl. Had the eyes for one, too. At some point, he had procured a cloak but not any idea of how to wear it properly. If that were a thing, anyway. There was a flicker of sunlight, bouncing off the too-bright blade attached to his belt. No sheath. The blade was too strange of a shape for one to be practical.

Glancing back at Kevin, Anji raised her eyebrows slowly, and walked up to the kid. "Hey, Tamar. What's up?"

Tamar fell off the wall.

Of course he did. He stayed on his feet though, reaching out to grab the wall behind him for support, wide purple eyes turning on Anjali as if he’d just seen a ghost. It took a couple of seconds of awkward silence for him to react. “...Anji?”

"Hey." Anji smiled tiredly. "You've grown."

Tamar blinked as if this were the absolute last thing he had expected to hear. He still didn’t honestly seem convinced that what he was looking at was the real deal. “I... I have? I mean... it’s hard to tell when your frame of reference is Hector... You’re not dead.” He grinned broadly.

Anji laughed, "Barely. But I'm sure you've got a better story than i do. How have you been?"

“W-well you’re the one who everyone was saying died, so I’m guessing yours is actually more interesting, it’s been... we missed you. Zi especially. A lot. But you’ve seen her now, right?” he smiled. “She must’ve found you by now.” There was a note of nervousness in the words.

Anji bit her lip nervously, voice cracking as she spoke, "Yeah, we've met."

Tamar seemed to relax a little. “So she’s with you. Good. She just keeps vanishing these days, I’m trying to keep track but... I... what exactly has she told you, about... you know there’s a magical construct following her around, right? It’s not dangerous, it’s... I...” he trailed off, biting his lip. The whole situation had an awkward feeling about it. His gaze kept falling to the man stood nearby. At first he’d thought he and Anji just happened to be walking the same path, but now they were quite obviously a party. “...Um, sorry. Are you a guard, sir?”

Kevin grinned, and offered Tamar his hand. “I’m guarding Anjali, yes. But no sir, please. I’m just this guy, you know? Name of Kevin.”

"Bloody ghost, you are." Anji growled. "Don't mind him. When Rabbit made the world he got two sticks up his ass rather than one."

Tamar grinned. “I’m really glad you used the Askinov world analogy there, seriously, you don’t want to know how the Veil mythology would have sa... uh... I mean, it’s a pleasure to meet you sir.” He took the offered hand and resisted the urge to ask why anybody would be guarding Anjali and whether Kevin was certain it wasn’t actually the other way around, but he sensed the awkwardness of this situation had already reached a crescendo as it was. No need to make things any worse. “I... guess you’re new to the castle? Or I’ve just never seen you before, we’ve been doing a lot of hiding lately and... you know. Trying not to be seen.”

“New to this guild, certainly,” Kevin answered, without really imparting any information.

"Oh, right." Anji said, smacking her head comically, "Tamar, Kevin. Kevin, Tamar. If you try to kill each other I'll stab you or something."

Kevin sighed dramatically. “Well, I’d been planning to, but now you’ve put a damper in those plans.” His eyes danced laughingly at Tamar. “See? No sir here.”

“Uh...” Tamar stepped backward clearly trying to parse whether or not they were joking, hand flickering to his sword on impulse. “So erm... don’t call you sir, don’t get stabbed? Okay that seems fair enough. Okay. Got is si... Kevin. Your name is Kevin.”

Anji grinned despite herself, green eyes sparkling in the sunlight. "Kevin saved my life a couple of times while I was away. He's a... Friend. Play nice."

“You’re the boss,” Tamar smiled faintly. So there were new faces in Storm and Drive. He bit down on the nervous idea that certain faces seemed to be replacing old ones.

Anji glared at him, "Stop that." she ordered. "Julius left of his own volition, Kevin came of his. There is room for everyone."

“Hey, I’m just glad we even have a guild, for a good while there I thought half of us were dead!” Tamar shuddered. “You were on the Obituary board, you and Julius. I couldn’t find anyone in Storm and Drive to ask what the heck was going on! And then there wasn’t a Storm and Drive at all and then Zi was with Luca and...” Tamar paused. “Okay look, “ he said slowly. “How much has Zi told you so far? Because I think we both have really long stories to tell here, and I don’t want to get mixed up.”

Anji grimaced once more, "I'm sorry about the obituaries. Julius and I got severely injured fighting Kavros. Lori had us officially recognized as dead to keep him away. I... Lost my memories. Kevin's the one who found me. He... Along with Zi, helped me regain myself. And, well, here I am.

Before Tamar could interject, Anji blundered forward, "I've been taking care of Zi since. She's comatose for the time being, for her own safety."

It shouldn’t, logically, have been possible for Tamar’s eyes to get any wider than they were. They did anyway. “Z-Zi’s WHAT?”

"Well, my loving, insane sister did something. She's safe, Tamar. That's the important thing."

“W-well where is she? She said she was going to find you, to... help you,not... what about Numen? Is Numen still there? Numen has to be there, he’s important!”

"She's someplace safe, where she can rest. Numen's fine, but she's not going to shift anymore, Tamar. That was the price of my memories." Anji said, face stern. "You'll see her when she's ready to see you."

Tamar’s face shifted into a glare. Or something like a glare anyway. “If she’s unconscious how are you supposed to know? Where is she?” Kevin shifted closer to Tamar, hand drifting toward his cloak.

"She's someplace I can keep an eye on while fending off potential dangers to my sister. Don't presume to know better than me on how to help someone, especially on a matter like this." Anji's eyes shone silver green as she glared at the teen.

Tamar took a deep breath clearly pushing down on whatever anger was building. The air seemed suddenly colder, which was probably just the fact that it was windy in this part of town. Probably. “Anji, please, I just want to know where she is, I need to... if she doesn’t want to... if I can’t see her that’s fine, but I need to know where she is.”

Anji looked at the boy, appraising. Nodding curtly to Kevin, she said, "Severed Claws guildhouse. She's taken my room for the time being."

“Okay... okay,” Severed Claw. Okay, that, at least was very reassuring. Tamar couldn’t honestly think of a safer place to be right now for Eliziya than somewhere in the vicinity of people from Severed Claw. It took a fair bit of self control not to just turn and bolt in that familiar direction right now. “Can... can I go there?”

Kevin’s face tightened, and he looked at Anji. He wouldn’t say anything if she allowed it, but that room was next door to Ben’s. If she said yes, he’d have to make a decision about whom to protect for the time being.

Anji glanced between the two, and nodded. "Only for a little bit." She cautioned.

Taking his cue from her, Kevin turned back to the younger boy. “Let me show you where it is,” he offered, forcing an easy cheer into his voice. “Anjali… don’t get killed while I’m gone.”

Tamar almost smiled, but only almost. The whole situation was unfolding slowly in his head, even though common sense was rapidly being drowned out by a repeating mantra of the words “Zi’s in trouble, Zi’s in trouble, Zi’s in trouble,” rapidly building into a panicked hum in his head. He made himself look as utterly harmless as he possibly could, even going so far as to Shift Echo’s hilt away from his stronger hand.”I... I know the way, S-- Kevin, but you can come too, if it makes you feel better.” He managed to say with reasonable calm.

"I'm sure it would make me feel better." Anji remarked calmly. "Zi has been having nightmares lately, and Kevin used to be a medic."

Kevin flashed a sharp glance at Anji but mentally shrugged. Whatever works.

Tamar nodded. He had no idea why his guild leader was suddenly so reticent about this but... shouldn’t she be? Eliziya was her sister, after all, and Tamar had seen that love in action, watched it fight through anything.

Anji couldn’t know how similarly he felt, and yet how different at the same time. She couldn’t known what he had destroyed for Zi, and would do so again and again. “I know about the nightmares,” he said evenly. “I was there for them, I... I know. Anji, you know I’m not going to let anything happen to her, right? Anymore than you would. I wouldn’t ever... not Eliziya.” And yet, his mind was already forming slow, uncomfortable connections that he didn’t want to believe and couldn’t help believing anyway. Luca, bleeding in the underground, the instability of Asha’s magic, the fight in the mountains. If it hasn’t been for that... if he hadn’t been so blind with rage towards Luca...

He pushed the mental images away. What mattered now was Zi. Everything else could wait.

Anjii looked at him sadly. “I don’t know anything anymore, Tamar.” Turning to walk away, she glanced back at the blonde man. “If Zi starts panicking, there’s some sedatives on my desk. Please don’t let her suffer more nightmares, Kevin.”

He nodded. “As you will, Anjali.”

Tamar felt a strange rush of sadness watching Anjali go; the kind of cold rush you get when you realise just how much things have changed without you even trying. But she was Anjali, and she was alive. That was important. He gave the older man a half cautious, half curious look. In his own strange way, he almost reminded Tamar of Hector. Albeit a Hector from a very different world. That helped. “Uh... so... we can go?” he asked hopefully.

Kevin glanced once over his shoulder at the departing Anji before starting forward. “Let’s.”