Dawn Through Darkness

[Karuka]

Closed to Dissinger. Bunnies preapproved. Takes place under this profile for Karuka.

Just off the coast of Dheathain, a large vessel plowed through the waves with barely a bob to acknowledge them. It was laden with commodities from all over the world to sell to the Dheath, or to trade for unique Dheath goods to sell at its next port. They were so close to Talmhaidh that the captain could almost feel the weight of extra gold in his purse, the reward of unloading his ship.

The ship's bursting cargo holds were far from the only things the captain would be glad to see offloaded. A ship as big as his had plenty of space not only for crew and cargo, but for a bevy of passengers as well. While ferrying tourists to and from their destinations paid good money, and the captain usually enjoyed having strange faces acknowledge his power as the absolute authority on board, this time around he had taken on two people who made him uneasy.

He would be more than glad to be rid of the passengers this time, if just to see the man who hid his face and the girl who accompanied him off his vessel.

The girl was on deck, he could see her red hair shining beneath him. She had spent more and more time looking toward their destination as the days had passed, watching intently though there was no land to be seen. What was so important to her to make her watch the bare seas hour after hour? What was so powerful that it drew her to a near-constant vigil? And why had it been days since last he had seen the giant of a man that had boarded with her?

~*~*~

Amber fingers tapped the rail impatiently, and bright blue eyes pierced the distance. It had been a long six days, but the journey was near its end. At last, green hills and craggy cliffs rose out of the deep, and fair winds sped the boat along on its way.

Less than an hour after she first spotted the land of Dheathain, Karuka saw the first buildings of Talmhaidh rise up from the ground. It was almost like a homecoming; the land opening its arms to receive the ship was the closest thing to Ireland the young woman would ever see again, and it was here that she hoped to seek out the answers she needed. Without those answers, she wouldn't have the strength to bear the burden that had been given her.

That burden had been a man once, with a name and an agenda, with free will. Now that man was a flesh-eating monster with a score to settle. For some reason, he had been bound to her; she was safe from his grisly appetite and had a limited amount of control over him. She was using that now to keep him confined to quarters.

Despite the fact she'd made sure he had fed before they ever left Radasanth, it had only been a couple of days into the journey that she'd noticed him eying other passengers like slabs of meat. While there were several dozen people on the ship who did not comprise part of the essential crew, anyone missing would be noticed, people would become paranoid, and eventually the killer would be caught and dumped into the sea. While that probably wouldn't kill Seth, the potential for disaster his appetite caused made it prudent for him to just keep low.

Very, very low.

But now with dock so close, it was time to return to the room, feed her baby phoenix, pack her bags, and tell Seth that they were about ready to disembark.

~*~*~

The late-afternoon sun bathed Talmhaidh in light and warmth, and Karuka breathed in the rich scent of land as she stepped foot on the ramp. While traveling by boat no longer frightened her, she liked having solid ground under her feet, and there was no relief quite like purifying her lungs of the salt that cloyed the sea air, that infiltrated every breath and created a thin crust on anything exposed to it in a matter of hours.

She held her baby phoenix, Taodoine, on her forearm, letting the warm little ball of fluff get a good view of the new land. When he'd first hatched, he'd been small enough to fit in the palms of her hands, but a mere week later the red and gold chick required an entire arm to cradle him. His bright blue eyes looked at the strange land with curiosity, but not fear; he was secure where he was nestled, safe from harm.

At Karuka's side, but still as far away from her firey little pet as he could get was the ghoul, who fidgeted impatiently while they ambled down the gangplank. Near starvation, each moment that kept him away from his prey was an age too long.

When they finally reached ground, Seth started to break away from his keeper, eager to hunt, but a strong, slender hand grabbed hold of his cloak with a speed her humanity belied, holding firmly. When he turned to her, mild annoyance outlined on the visible lower half of his face, Karuka looked up at the much taller man.

"Be careful, Seth."

That was all she said before releasing him. If they hadn't been surrounded by a crowd of passengers, jostling to disembark, she'd have been more specific - don't be seen, don't take an innocent life - but she didn't have the luxury of privacy to direct the ghoul whose handler she'd been made. She could only hope he'd be judicious when he selected his target.

[Dissinger]

The long voyage was more than enough to try the Ghoul's patience. Each day seemed to scream to the Lavinian Demon his desire to eat. Even after three days the quiet whispers had begun, urging him to feed, that he had waited too long. Obviously his red headed companion noticed this, because much to his irritation she had ordered him into the cabin they had been assigned, and refused to let him out.

Spending a week with the phoenix was in and of itself a trying situation. Knowing that if he made thing feel threatened it would kill him made every situation near it tense, added with the cabin fever and Seth was nearly insane by trip's end. He had taken to cleaning Ebony and Ivory each day, repeatedly, but even that got old after the seventh time. He doubted he had ever cared for the blades in life as much as he had that week.

When the two of them had gotten off, he moved immediately to find himself some prey, but not before she had warned him against rash action. He froze momentarily looking into her cerulean blue eyes and snorted in derision, "I could say the same of you. It won't do me much good, but I could."

Before she could reply to his sarcastic comment he had stepped off into the crowd, soon becoming lost. It didn't take much Draconians were a taller breed, and so Seth's enlarged frame benefited him when it came to not sticking out. He prowled the streets a feral glint, searching for prey. He spotted a trio of three Draconians pushing around a human boy, and a sadistic grin slashed his face.

Perfect...

~*~

"I am a creature born of your malice. Today, you have begun a cycle that will slowly choke and strangle that poor girl. She will continue forward, distressed over you and your condition, and you will slowly continue to corrupt her. One day, you will wake up, and have realized you killed her, and put a creature like me in her place..." She spoke, and then sent the Lavinian sprawling with a harsh kick. The Avatar dusted her robes and adjusted them back into position, revealing nothing. Then with a quick prayer the fabrics and wounds mended, wiping away all traces of what Seth had done to the bitch.

A punch sailed through the air, connecting solidly with the scaled jaw of a Draconian. The man spun from the force of the blow, and the crunch of his jaw echoed through the small alleyway. The victim of the devastating hit groaned in agony, sprawled on the ground in defeat. But the Demon drove a rather tattered boot into his ribs, giving him no reprieve.

"One day, you will wake up, and have realized you killed her, and put a creature like me in her place..."

The man tried to cry out in pain, only to gasp short of breath by the large hand that fully gripped him by the throat. His eyes bulged from the force of the grip, and he let out a squawk trying desperately to pry the hand away. The poor man was slammed bodily into a nearby wall, exacerbating his wounds. He looked up at his assailant, and tried for another gasp of air. His eyes pleaded and begged as they reached the Ghoul’s own.

He found no mercy within them.

"...you killed her..."

The words reverberated in his mind, even as he continued to beat the slowly choking Draconian to death. Each blow vented his frustration, until finally the large dragonoid man was killed. The lack of oxygen and the internal bleeding finally took their toll, long before the enraged ghoul had stopped pounding. The murderer tossed the body away almost effortlessly, his eyes slowly closing. In the darkness before him, the words only echoed louder.

He looked upon the body, feeling the hunger within him give a shout of triumph. Reaching down he began to strip the corpse of anything not edible, tearing vestigial horns and other unsavory bits off the body as he began the process of devouring it. Aside the sound of his own grunts, the Ghoul's rending and devouring of the body was met with only an eerie silence.

All the while, the words of Amiya the Corrupted haunted his mind, reminding him of his future.

~*~

A few hours later, the bones of newly devoured Draconians were deposited in the river, and the Ghoul had finished his meal. It had only taken a few minutes, but after the first he had drawn out the fights, taking his frustrations out on his poor unfortunate victims. Feeling better and having finally put the hat back on, he sat on the dock watching the ships go by.

"...you killed her..."

Those three days had been a mess. Spurred by Karuka's grim visions, he had rushed through Concordia Forest to try and save his love. Upon reaching the temple nestled deep in the forest, he had encountered his brother-in-law and a few members of Liliana's order of clerics. They had been kept out of the church by a rather large demon that Seth and the tawny red head helped defeat. Rushing inside to find the other Ambria sibling they were brought to a halt within by a rather gruesome scene: Amiya the Corrupted, finishing off the last of the cultists.

Seth had driven himself into a rage. Even now the thoughts of what had occurred within that temple sent jolts of fury through him. Even thinking of it wound him up, re-kindling his anger despite having brutally beaten his weekly meals. Standing up and grumbling he moved to head back into the city, his hand clenched tightly into a fist.

It had been a long week.

[Karuka]

With Seth gone to sate his monstrous appetite, Karuka went deeper into the docks of Talmhaidh. Vendors, perched beneath brightly colored awnings, hawked a wide variety of goods from all over the world. Some sold fabrics - bolts of vlince from Concordia's weavers beside sheer Fallien linens and shimmering Akashiman silks. Some sold weapons - swords of all styles made the world over.

But some stalls stood empty. One merchant that Karuka knew by name had specialized in selling Raiaeran instruments. Another whose awning she'd sheltered under during a cloudburst once made his living selling Salvic hides. Neither was anywhere to be seen, and their once-thriving shops were crumbling.

The calamities happening half a world away were impacting honest innocents now, innocents who were far away from the grip of war.

But those shopkeepers, native refugees of wartime economy, were not the vendors Karuka had come to see. His business was much more stable, as not only was his product local...everyone had to eat.

She smelled the rich scent of roasting potatoes over the hearty aromas of fresh bread and flame-broiled meat, and a smile crossed her face. Despite the fact the business was stable, the merchant she'd come to see was old, and until that moment she hadn't been certain that he'd still be there.

The redhead picked up her pace, weaving through the crowded street to the potato cart and the Draconian who owned it. She didn't know his name; he had given her her first potato and talked with her a few years before, when she was a brash lass of seventeen. He fit her image of a grandfather so perfectly that that was just what she called him.

"Hoigh! Seanair! Cad é mar atá tú?" The elder Draconian turned his head at the call, and when he saw the slender young woman coming his face creased into a big smile.

"Beag Bladhaire! Tú dealraigh bheith go maith," he responded, calling Karuka by his pet name for her and noting her apparent good health. He nudged a stool out for her and handed her a hot potato after putting some butter, salt and pepper on it. He grinned at how carefully she took her first bite, and accepted a drink of ale out of the jug she carried.

He let her get halfway through the potato before he leaned forward to make conversation. Since this particular guest at his cart spoke Dheath, he stuck to his native tongue. Her little foreign accent made it amusing to listen to her speak.

“So, lass, how have you fared since last I saw you? Was a good while back.”

Karu swallowed the bite in her mouth and washed it down with a swallow of the weak ale in her jug. “I’ve been…it’s been…interesting, Grandfather. Sometimes there will be months where very little happens, and then the whole world collapses all at once.” She sighed and slumped a little bit; though her joy at seeing the old Draconian again had pushed Seth and his problems momentarily into the distance, all too swiftly the responsibilities of being his “keeper” came rushing back to haunt her.

“It sounds like you’ve quite a story, lass.”

“Aye…and it’s a bad one, Grandfather. And long. But, there is one good point to it all.”

“What’s that, Little Flame?”

Karuka grinned, popped the last bite of potato into her mouth, and slung her bag from her shoulder, pulling it carefully onto her lap and opening it. From within she pulled a double handful of downy golden-red fluff. The little bird stirred, pulling its head out from beneath its wing and looking up at Karuka with its brilliant blue eyes.

“I have a little flame of my own.” She very gently set the baby in the Draconian’s giant palm, and the bird turned its attention to the blue-scaled man with an inquisitive chirp.

“You found a phoenix?” Seanair barely breathed the words; in all his years he’d never seen one of the magnificent Fallien fire birds, had never expected to, and had only heard stories of anyone actually possessing one as a companion two or three times over his long centuries of life. Of all the beasts of Althanas, they were among the most iconic and rare.

“I carried his egg around for three years without knowing what it was. Dropped it in the fire ten days ago, and out he came. He’s already twice as big as he was when he first hatched. His name is Taodoine.”

“What a magnificent beast you’ve managed to mother, Little One.” Very gently, the potato vendor held out a scrap of meat from his own lunch to feed the baby phoenix, and had to grin when the tiny ball of down swallowed it greedily. “What was the bad that has you so worried?”

Taking back her hatchling so that Seanair could continue to do business while they talked, Karuka started telling him everything, from the attack in the middle of the Radasanth night to waking up next to a pile of bones with that same attacker not only claiming he couldn’t harm her, but that he was bound to her. And then, more bewildering than even that, he had turned out to be a man she knew to be dead. Who was dead, a shadow of a man turned into a monster.

She also told about their trek into Concordia to save the ghoul’s love and mother of his child on a wild premonition of her own, of the demons found without…and within. Of the demons that haunted his torrid past…the ones that now haunted her present.

“It’s a man that murdered his own family, Grandfather. I don’t know why…but how can someone…how…?” Karuka had been looking down at Taodoine, at the brilliant red that engulfed his head and trailed down his back and the gold of his breast and belly, but now she turned her eyes back to the ancient Draconian. The lost, desperate expression on her face pulled at his heart strings, and he reached over to put a hand on top of her head, as though she were a small child he was teaching a lesson.

“Men are what they are, Little Flame. But they are also what they were, and what they are yet to be. The man you spoke to me of is a monster now because he was a monster while living. But all people, living and dead, have made mistakes over the course of their lives. They have regrets, things they wish they could do over and change. Speak with him. Find his reason, watch for his regret. If he is truly penitent, then he is a man, rather than a monster. If he is not…then perhaps it would be better if he were destroyed, before his stains become yours and he scars you irrevocably.”

He maintained eye contact with her for a moment and waited for her nod before letting her go.

Karuka put a sleeping Taodoine back in the little nest she’d made for him in her bag and leaned back on her stool. “Is there any news here, Grandfather?”

A cloud passed over his face, and he looked away from her. “There is, but I will not speak of it here. I will merely say that if you are planning on going into Fiorair…you had best not.”

“I have to! It’s…” A searing pain shot through Karuka’s head, and she doubled over, trying to brace against the pain a vision brought with it.

The jungle screamed with rage and pain, its cry lancing through all who could hear it. It called them to it, it shoved them away. Sturdy buildings cracked and snapped beneath vines and roots growing faster and more maliciously than nature had ever intended. Deeper in the jungle, far from the carnage, stood a shaman in his mystic's circle. Amber eyes glowered at the spirits which twisted under his command, a heavy hand lashed like a malevolent conductor's. His scales glowed such a dark blue they might almost have been black, subtly raising and flattening as he worked his spell.

A name screamed through the vision, under any audible sound but far too loud to miss. Then black fell like a curtain over her eyes.

The vision passed, leaving Karuka dizzy and reeling. Something was clamped down on her arm, and it was the only thing that kept her in the stool. Her breath came in ragged pants, and sweat drenched her face, dampening the wisps of hair that hung down.

“Little Flame? Little one, are you all right?” Seanair’s voice cut through the fog, too loud to her already-overwhelmed senses. It was his hand grasping her and propping her up, keeping her from crumbling to the ground.

She nodded slowly, sitting up on her own power and wiping her face with her tattered sleeves. “Gavan dar Eamon.”

His eyes widened. “How do you even know that name?”

“It’s a curse,” she muttered, brushing a loose lock back. “I have to go into Fiorair, Grandfather. And I’ll probably pass right through the area he’s currently in. If I find him,” and I WILL find him, “I will deal with him.” She couldn't stand a Shaman abusing his charge in such a way, even if she had turned from the Druidic path herself.

The Draconian shook his head adamantly. “Little Flame, you are still but a child, an infant in Draconian terms. That man is older and stronger than you, he has powers that you would NEVER be able to overcome. He is a monster, and you must remain.”

A touch of a smirk crossed Karuka’s pomegranate lips. “Grandfather, I’m not going alone. I’m bringing a monster of my own with me.”

[Dissinger]

It had taken them a little while to regroup after Seth's feeding frenzy, and when he rejoined her, the girl had immediately begun the interrogation. It was easy at first to just ignore her, but she was insistent. She kept asking the same questions over an over, trying to understand things she had no right to. It was beginning to aggravate the Lavinian's already short temper, and soon he took to responding, if only in biting comments meant to curb her enthusiasm to find out about Seth at his worst.

Yet still she persisted, even as they left the port town of Talmhaidh and headed towards the rain forests of Luthmor. During the day the questions tended to die down as the lass, long used to traveling alone, conserved her energy for the road, but as soon as she lit campfire she always resumed her interrogation.

"Tell me, Seth."

The demand hung in the air, as Seth glared at the young red head. The automatic retort issued from his lips, "I'm a monster, it’s what we do, now go to sleep."

"I need to know. I need to know because I do not understand how anyone can murder their own flesh and blood, I do not understand how someone can go about willfully destroying lives that ought be the most to him, do not understand the level of selfishness it takes to do what I know you've done, and I'm not sure I want to know about any other crimes you've committed."

“Furthermore, I need to know because I have been made your keeper, somehow or other. Very literally, I am in charge of a monster. I've been trying to be tolerant, I have tried to understand that you have certain needs...terrible needs, but suddenly the people you kill for sustenance are lives that I have held in my hand and decided to sacrifice so that one man might continue on. And it isn't a man I know very well. It isn't a man I know at all, save that we fought together once on a boat. You are my responsibility now, and it is not a responsibility I can take lightly. I need to decide what to do with you, whether it is to help you find the whatever it is you're looking for or whether it is to destroy you outright."

It was like a three year old, she kept persisting, and eventually she had worn a hole in the walls he had surrounded about the subject. It had taken her a week, but she had finally managed. His hand clenched into a fist as he thought about hitting the girl, something that certainly meant he was in a foul mood. As if responding to his murderous thoughts the chains unwrapped, and he saw the ends sink into the ground. No, there would be no strike, the chains always made sure of that. If anyone was safe from the Lavinian Demon, it was the tawny redhead before him.

She looked at him with impatient eyes, and her jaw was set firmly. She was going to make her decision tonight, and his survival depended entirely upon his answer. Seth sat down heavily, eying the fire apprehensively. The weight of his sins, of this sin, the one he was being questioned about, was a heavier burden than even his shackles. He had died to atone for some sins, why could he not let this one go?

The truth came to him in a terrifying moment of clarity: He had never accepted what he had done. He had paid lip service, but never truly acknowledged what he had done to his parents. For him to tell the tale would be to accept his actions and acknowledge how damned he had become. By owning his actions, he would bear responsibility for that day and those deeds. A gauntlet-clad hand gently ran through his hair, bringing his eyes into the light for the briefest of moments before the wide brim of his hat once more obscured them. Had he the capacity to weep, surely they would have been tear filled.

"Hex magi are weapons," he began after a moment of silence. His eyes unfocused as he spoke, seeing nothing that Karuka could possibly fathom. "We trade power for shreds of our very soul. Designed to be tools for use in the ancient demon wars, we were too little too late. What they don't tell you, what they won't tell you, is that every time you shred your soul, you invite corruption into it."

She looked at him, and he couldn't tell if she was starting her judgment, or merely waiting for him to continue. The silence hung in the air, pregnant and ready to explode and give birth to Seth's tale of damnation.

"I...fell. There is no other way to explain it. I didn't respect the power I had and I lusted for more. I wanted to destroy the world around me, for creating a need for people like my father, and for forcing me to live in a slum for most of my childhood. I seethed and raged at the world, and the magic fueled that hatred, it stoked the fires of my wrath, and left me but a bitter man in the wake of the inferno."

"About a year into my descent into madness, I found I could not hope to gain much more power. At first it meant I merely was more selective when I took spells, waiting for the most powerful I could. At other times, it meant I was looking for a way to restore my soul. One day, the solution to my problem came up to me in the Peaceful Promenade, and made me an offer I could not refuse in the state I was in."

"People always say seduction is a matter of the flesh, but I beg to differ. She wholly seduced me in my power-crazed state by offering what I lusted for more wholly than carnal pleasures. She offered to restore my soul, for the price of two others..."

"Your parents." Karuka's tone was emotionless as she absorbed the horrible truth.

Seth paused, taking a shuddering breath to try and steady himself. The death of his parents was the one wound that refused to close. The briefest of moments in the afterlife held no sense of closure on that topic either, for he was more than certain he could never find them. Still, he closed his eyes and continued his tale.

"We left by boat heading for the port of Otaria, and we made our way through that city. We weren't stopped or searched, no one dared attack. We were left uninterrupted to our dark work. At times, I broke through the surface, and I saw everything I had sown with despair. It choked me as surely as a noose, and Amiya the Corrupted was my executioner."

How deeply it had stung, to find out that he had created that monster as surely as she had broken him over the altar.

"Mother was first; I made her death swift, and I did it myself, rather than relying on the demons inside me. Amiya made a comment about her soul's taste, and I attacked in a frenzy, only to find I could not harm her, not yet anyways. Demanding that I finish the job, I waited for my father, using my mother's body as a decoy, before I fell back into depravity."

He once more ran a hand through his hair as he looked for any way to avoid the end, but he knew he couldn't stop. To not finish was a cop out, a show of weakness his pride, even as shattered as it was, could not withstand. And so he looked at the fire once more and placed the hat upon his head before he spoke one final time.

"When I woke up, they were both dead. I had no recollection of the conversation with my father, only that the deed had been done. Amiya was gone, and they were dead at my hands. Since that day I sought out death, hoping he would take me, and with that act gain penance."

Before she could even move he snorted and stood up. "As if something so vile could be forgiven so easily. What I fool I was, now if you'll excuse me, I need to recollect my thoughts...they seem to have spilled out..."

[Karuka]

Karuka watched Seth walk away in silence. Maybe he had his past on his mind, and she could see that memories of the past weighed uneasily on him, that despite the monster he had become, he still had a conscience, he knew what was right and what was wrong, at least to a degree. At the very least, he did regret aspects of what he had done. But did that mean he was worthy of a chance at redemption?

If he wasn't, what about her? She wasn't innocent of killing, herself. For the most part, it had been in self defense, for the rest it was always in defense of others, those without the power to protect themselves from the dangers posed by the malicious, avaricious, and murderous. The times she had gone into the Citadel seeking to find release in violence had always ended, despite her best attempts, in her own temporary death. But she'd taken no joy, ever, in dealing harm to someone else.

She looked at the violets and oranges of the sunset through the smattering of leaves that the tree she was using for shelter provided. With a brisk shake of her head, she picked up a stick to encourage her campfire to burn well.

"What do you think, Taodoine?" She looked down at the little phoenix that was fluffed up quite happily by the flames. "What should we do?"

In response, he looked at her and let out a loud chirp, begging for food. The comical open mouth and waving wings made the redhead smile, and she reached over to the carcass of a rabbit she'd killed on the road, stripping a haunch of meat and feeding the little bird one little bite at a time. Between bites, while the fuzzy red and gold head bobbed up and down to swallow the meat, Karuka cleaned the rest of her kill and put it on to roast, one piece at a time, and then wrapped a potato in leaves to bake in the coals.

She'd been eating better ever since having the little bird. He needed meat, which meant she needed to hunt. Since he wasn't nearly big enough to eat anything bigger than a mouse on his own and refused to eat old or cooked meat, it meant she was getting a lot more protein into a diet that had always been almost strictly vegetarian.

Caring for the little bird was also probably Karuka's link to sanity. Caring for one life, watching it grow and bloom, couldn't ever make up for the lives she was partly responsible for destroying, but it felt more real to her, since she'd never seen one of the victims or witnessed a murder.

He said he was a weapon...but he's a weapon with a mind of his own and his own agenda. To stop him without sacrificing my life would be to kill him. But to do that would be to ensure that a little girl would never once meet her father.

The hole left by the lack of her own father had been a defining feature in Karuka's life ever since she was five. Even though she was now well and truly independent, her nomadic lifestyle was a remnant of the journey she had started just after her mother's death. She had been determined to reach India and find the man she barely remembered, but had instead been transported to Althanas. With the drive to wander, but no direction, she had been from one corner of the new world to the other. She had lost much that was important to her, and in return had only gained confusion and a few assorted items. Nothing of real worth had come into her life until Taodoine had hatched; any friends made were long gone within a week of meeting them.

She had no reason to wander, no place she had to go, no one who was expecting her, and if she died and any of her acquaintances heard of it, they would only have a brief reflection on the time they'd spent with her and maybe experience a sense of mourning. But she hadn't made any real impact on the world.

In fact, it was probable that her biggest impact would be the direct result of tonight's decision. Destroy one man and one family, or let him wreak destruction on many families, many people?

Or...

It was a long time before Seth wandered back into camp, and even though it was Karuka's long-time habit to rise and sleep with the sun, she was still sitting awake before the fire, staring into the flames while the insects sung their songs to the stars. The rabbit's bones, innards and fur had been cast into thick grass far from the camp, where predators could claim them without threatening the baby bird.

The Irish lass looked up at the ghoul when he returned, blue eyes reflecting the weight of her decision as well as her acceptance of the responsibility it entailed. She didn't give him a chance to speak before delivering her judgment.

"After I've taken care of what I need to do in Fiorair, I will help you, and hopefully that will let you get back to a peaceful rest. However, since I am responsible for every life you take, I'm not going to sit idly by and pretend nothing is happening when the lives you take might be those who deserve to live. So from now on, I will select your targets. While I don't like what is happening, if I'm sure that the world is better off without the people I let you have, I'll be able to accept it."

[Dissinger]

He stopped, looking upon the woman, even as she spoke her words. They drifted for awhile about his head, pickled themselves into the ghoul's ears, before the brain that was probably half rotted dissected them and deduced meaning. She wanted to pick his targets. More than that, she was going to help him get back to sleep.

Was that what he really wanted?

He wasn't sure, but he was more than certain she wasn't sure of what she was getting herself into. That much, he'd save her from, "Fair enough. If you're going to play caretaker, you get to choose my victims. I will not however, let you watch, no one deserves that disservice."

Karuka's mouth twitched slightly in disgust at the thought of being a witness to the grisly event, and her hands clenched into fists momentarily, but for reasons Seth could only vaguely fathom. She held the silence for a moment after his proclamation, but when she spoke her voice was hard and flat, almost harsh.

"It's bad enough that I have to know it's happening at all. But I do not wish to see you defiling a corpse and denying them their last rites."

"Then we're in agreement," he said firmly, not giving her a chance to second guess it. He sat down heavily upon the log, eying the fire with a baleful glare. He could feel the beginnings of terror claw deep within his chest at the sight of the flickering flames, and he fought to keep it down;

"Frankly, I'd rather be in Lavinya right now, or up in Berevar seeing my little girl grow up. I'd rather be anywhere than in this cesspool of a jungle looking for my knives because three idiots got the bright idea to grave rob me..."

Karuka reached out to make the fire smaller. While it would keep predators at bay while she slept (the one she was nominally responsible for included), she didn't need to risk it throwing off a spark and starting a raging inferno due to carelessness.

"I would rather be back in Ireland or even in India right now, rather than wandering this gods-forsaken world with no destination and no true friends. There are a lot of things I would prefer to...to this!" She gestured broadly, encompassing within the gesture the entire world of Althanas with its wonders and perils, as well as the past that had led her to the here and now.

"You didn't get what you would 'rather,'" she growled, blue eyes blazing and red mouth twisting into a ferocious snarl. "Neither did I. Neither does anyone else who dares live out a damned mortal life. Get used to it."

She pulled her old cloak out of her bag - the same worn, battered one she'd torn a strip from so long ago to make a bandage for him - and wrapped it around herself, a barrier against insects and cold both. She flopped down to sleep and let her little hatchling find his place tucked under her chin, and gave Seth a last look before closing her eyes to sleep.

A soft snort left his lips before he spoke softly. "There you are, took you awhile to find that shred of yourself didn't it?" It had amazed him how after a scant few years, the woman was day and night different from the fearless woman who had stood against him, despite his blood crazed state, in an effort to save prisoners aboard a ship hijacked by slavers. Still, it was far from the fire he remembered within her, much like the dwindling campfire. At one time, it had blazed within her so brightly that her little body could barely contain it, but time had smothered it to mere embers.

He didn't want to think about what she would become if those embers were not returned to the roaring inferno she once was.

[Karuka]

The bog of Fiorair closed in on them before the next morning was out. It steamed hot and heavy, dark and damp, seething sinisterly at the invaders who dared walk within its borders. Bare brown feet gripped gray roots and probed through emerald waters, wrinkled toes slipped over rocks slick with moss, and red hair quickly plastered itself to amber skin. Taodoine, usually keen to see the world around him, huddled in Karuka’s bag, away from all the wet.

Ivys wrapped around gigantic tree trunks like lattices. Snakes wound through them, as did other reptiles and mammals that the young woman couldn’t identify even when she could get a clear look at them. Occasionally she could catch a little frog or tiny fish to sate the demands of a hungry baby, and once she had to jump and stab down with her spear to avoid having a leg taken off by a crocodilian she’d disturbed. She couldn’t tell if Seth was amused by the twitching corpse left behind by her reflexive strike or irritated at the second it took from their slog.

“You had to take us through Althanas’s biggest mosquito swarm, didn’t you?” he grumbled.

“It’s not gonna kill you any deader, now is it?” she snapped, wiping her face - damp with both condensation and perspiration - on a sleeve that was practically dripping, itself. Still, she looked around. Their hour’s march had taken them little more than a mile; without a boat it could be weeks before they reached their target.

Who knew what Gavan dar Eamon could accomplish in that time? Or if Seth, maddened by hunger, could break his shackles and go after the only meat available in arm’s reach.

“We’ll be forever at this rate,” she acknowledged, looking up. The dense fog cloaked Fiorar in a nearly-impenetrable haze. She couldn’t even see the lowest branches of the great trees they were wading around, but…

“Let’s go up. Might get better.” Without waiting for his input, she slung her spear across her back and grabbed hold of some thick vines, using strong arms and deft fingers to haul herself out of the muck and towards the distant sky.

The climb wasn’t actually bad; she found some mushrooms that might have been edible, but decided against trying, and Taodoine actually stuck his head out to snap at some of the bugs that fled his master’s wake. After only three or four minutes of climbing, she hauled herself wearily onto a branch so broad it could have comfortably borne a horse.

“Seth! It’s n-”

He was beside her before she could finish the sentence, looking at her wryly from beneath his hat. “You know, I could have carried you.”

Karuka huffed, standing up and flicking waterlogged hair out of her face while walking past the ghoul. “I’ve hands and feet of my own, and I’ll damn well use ‘em.”

There was little talk between them for the rest of the day; too much focus on not losing their way through the trees. Karuka wove herself a hammock for the night before the misty light could fade too much, and as she was finishing, she spotted a brown bird roughly the size of a quail - more than enough for a good meal for Taodoine that evening.

Lightning-fast, she grabbed a steel throwing knife, hurling it at the unsuspecting bird. It only hit a glancing blow, sending her prey skyward in a panic, to an irritated growl from one soggy, mosquito-bitten lass.

[Dissinger]

Karuka had over-extended herself in her throw, pushing too hard against the springy vines of her bedding and knocking off her aim. There was no denying the knife throw was decent; it had after all, grazed its target. However, the truth was she had failed to injure the quail and as it sailed through the air, it looked like the phoenix’s meal would escape. It didn't get far before the ghoul let Malice fly.

To throw a knife that wasn’t balanced for throwing is a tough feat, more so to hit with enough force to pin a moving target. Seth watched the hapless creature struggle to pull itself free of the knife, fluttering frantically and futilely before it lay still against the bark of the tree. The ghoul moved swiftly, grabbing the bird and snapping its neck, ending its pain. When he roughly pulled the knife he tossed the bird to the girl’s feet. “You did it wrong.”

"Another inch and I'd've had him," she snapped, grabbing the little bird and starting to rip off its feathers, sending them drifting down to the murky waters below.

“Like you'd have killed me when we first met in Radasanth, if you'd jabbed just a little more left with that toothpick?” Seth asked pointedly. The girl glowered at him for mentioning the fight that had caused the ghoul to be chained to her whims. He pressed his point home, “You aren’t ready for whatever the hell you are trying to do, but you insist on doing it. If you’re going to use those knives you could have at least asked me to teach you. If I'm good for nothing else, girl, I know how to use dagg-“

"Are you?!" Came the sharp demand. "Are you good for anything else?" She stood, rocking precariously on the thin netting that kept her from a devastating plunge into the water. "Or are you just a bottomless pit of hunger? A crazed killing machine?! What in Hel's name do I need knives for? What in Hel's name do I need with-"

“With a monster that you can’t decide if you want to even keep around or not?” Seth cut her off. The girl to her credit didn’t flinch at the blatant accusation. He looked at her evenly before he said, “Like I haven’t noticed how you glower at me and have since the Cathedral. Like I haven’t tailed you and heard you talk to your bird about me. Despite the fact I may act brutish, Karuka Tida, I am not stupid.”

"Karuka O'Sheean. My mother raised me, I need no part of my father." A final jerk of her wrist sent the last of the soft brown feathers dancing between girl and ghoul.

"Maybe you don't. But even if I can have no part of my daughter, I need to know that I haven't ruined the world for her entirely. And right now, that hope is centered on a girl with too much temper and not enough direction. So you might understand that it isn't a life I'd rather see end in this cesspool. Let me teach you some of what I know. What can it hurt to know how to use a tool you carry?"

"Pog mo thoin," she grumbled, turning and sitting gracefully on her unstable bed. The ghoul smirked grimly as she butchered the quail to feed it to her pet. She wasn't nearly as surly as he'd been at her age; he'd won this round.

[Karuka]

Dawn broke to the clang of prevalida on mythril. Karuka might have been possessed of a foul temper, but she wasn’t actually dumb enough to turn down proper training from one of Althanas’s most preeminent dagger masters. Seth wouldn’t have let her off anyway - if he was stuck babysitting the redhead, he would make sure she was at least capable of fending for herself.

He started off easy, testing her reflexes and footing, driving her backwards one step at a time. She watched him with an unblinking, unnerving ice-blue glare - more like watching past him. She moved quickly enough, always reacting to what he was about to do, rather than what he had just done. Her footing was sure on the branch as well, bare feet never once slipping or mis-interpreting a bend or a dip. When they got to the end of one branch, she sprang backwards, lithe as a cat, to land on the next one.

The ghoul pressed forward with the attack; the few minutes he’d tried explaining things to her had yielded nothing, so he would teach her by making her make mistakes. It didn't take her long.

The girl blocked forcefully, trying to knock his arms out of the way for her own counter-attack, but she put too much into it and threw off her own balance, letting Seth slip his arms past her defenses and press Ebony and Ivory to her throat. Even though she could see it coming, she didn’t have the time or speed to bring her weapons back to bear.

“Keep your guard up, and never commit everything to an attack unless you’re more than sure you have a kill shot.”

She glowered at him and stepped back, raising her nameless silver blades to start again.

~*~*~

They stopped for a few minutes in the early afternoon, mostly to let Karuka swallow some tepid water, rub an aromatic leaf on her skin to discourage the relentlessly humming swarm of insects, and feed a small rodent to her phoenix.

Seth used the lull to reflect on the girl’s progress.

She was inexperienced with the weapons, yes, but even without his tutelage, she could hold her own with them against a common thug. Just over the course of one morning her guard was tighter - fighting at her speed and level, he could hit her weak points once for sure, twice perhaps, but she had yet to yield a third touch.

Not everyone was fortunate enough to learn from their mistakes. Not everyone was capable. Karu just might have a shot, after all.

The ghoul took the defensive position when they started moving again, letting her work him slowly backwards. Thin silver blades nipped and probed at his defenses - again, good enough for a fight with common thugs on common streets. For the kind of trouble she was insisting on heading toward…

...those daggers would end up getting her killed.

So he showed her how to use them.

Things like, “Keep your arms in! You're not that big!” "You must hate having knees, because if you keep that thing out there I'm going to put a knife in it!" Or “Stab, don’t chop; it’s not a bloody axe!” "You keep swinging like that it better be for the throat, or someone's just going to take the hit and gut you cleanly," wound from his lips over the course of the afternoon, improving her form and her timing over a few grueling hours. The ghoul wasn't capable of tiring, and although the girl’s hair was plastered to her skin thanks to the air being almost wet enough to drown in, though her blows met his counters with less force, though she had to frequently shake the stinging sweat from her eyes, though her breath came hard, she didn't relent. There she was again, that tiny little thing ready to take on a whole ship full of pirates even if it killed her.

“And finally,” he said, meaning to end the lesson, “always expect the unexpected.” With a turn of speed she couldn't hope to match, he batted her daggers aside and reached behind her, grabbing her by the back of her neck and tossing her behind him.

Karuka landed hard, scraping her leg on the smooth bark and only narrowly avoiding crushing the bag where her baby bird kept safe, though his panicked chirping spoke volumes as to how unhappy he was. For one second, maybe two, she stayed still, just breathing.

Then she looked up.

Fiorair thundered in Karuka’s blood, full of old secrets and old hates, full of fear. Full of rage. Full of a thousand thousand vengeful souls. It screamed, and that found an outlet first in the throat of a slender young woman, and then in her body.

She lunged for Seth, lashing out with unfettered fury and a pair of sharp objects, with no intention of stopping until one or the other of them was mowed down, food for the trees, the bugs, and the rats.

It was the wrath of the lost and the misbegotten, of the faithless, the friendless, the forgotten. It was a daughter whose father had abandoned her lashing out at a father who had abandoned his daughter. Would Karuka's rage one day become Samantha's?

She attacked with little regard to her own safety, raining blow after blow on the ghoul’s practiced defense, leaving him with the conundrum of how to stop her without hurting her or letting her hurt herself.

Sparks flew through the air as mythril and prevalida challenged each other, as the Lavinian blocked some of his own techniques enhanced by her sheer Celtic crazy. Seconds passed in the combat, then a minute, and then more before he finally had an opening that wasn't going to take off his hand or leave her with a broken bone.

"The things I do for you, girl," Seth muttered under this breath.

One powerful swipe exposed her arm to him, and he grabbed it, whirling her around and pulling her back into his chest, pinning her arms and pulling her off of her feet so she didn't have a stable surface to unbalance them from. It was over; any reasonable opponent would quit. The redhead wasn't going anywhere or getting in another attack.

"Don't bite me, Karu," he warned the struggling girl. "You have no idea where I've been."

Said redhead, of course, was not a reasonable opponent. Her legs tensed, her spine jerked, and the back of her head slammed into the ghoul’s nose with as much force as her slender body could manage.

[Dissinger]

First mistake, he assumed he could contain her. He learned quickly she was going to do whatever it took to get free. He let her go in order to not have his guts perforated with the sharp knives she had, though to tell the truth, she seemed far keener on slamming fists into him rather than the metal he had been training her with all day. That was fine; he actually preferred it that way, because it was less collateral damage at the end of the day. That wasn’t the problem, well; it was a problem but not the primary problem;

His second mistake was letting her go. As soon as he did to check if his nose was intact she started slamming him with punches and kicks coming at him like a wild monkey. While the pain was laughable, what wasn’t was the fact she was gripping and tearing at him, trying to grip onto anything so she could hit him harder, and in more vulnerable places. Really he wasn’t surprised at the grabbing maneuvers, just frustrated that he opened himself up to them.

Then again, he reminded himself, he was making himself vulnerable because he didn’t want to hurt her.

If this were a real fight, he’d have gutted her in the first exchange. She wouldn’t have broken his nose, nor would she even be holding blades, she’d be holding her intestines. He knew this, and reminded himself of this fact as she scrambled all over him, and began stabbing at him with the knives she finally remembered she had again. Seth growled in irritation as he tossed her form away and checked himself to see how bad the Irish lass had gotten him. Seeing a few minor cuts and a deep puncture he sighed before he heard her shriek.

He didn’t even need to see her to know where she was coming from and how the attack was happening. A simple sidestep saw the red head fly past him and crash into the branch shaking it wildly. He looked upon her as she seemed to crouch low, glowering at him while growling incoherently at him. He didn’t even bother talking to the girl as he glared back at her, showing her he wasn’t afraid of her crazy antics. It was probably the best and worst thing he could have done, best because she seemed to stop for a moment, only the merest of delays.

Worst because she was coming at him again.

A side step saw her sailing off the side of the branch, heading for the jungle floor below. With a practiced flourish a chain whipped out for the young lass’ foot as he prayed he aimed true. Almost in reaction to his desire to save the girl, the chain wrapped about the ankle holding on as she began to fall. With another growl of irritation Seth slammed his fist into the bark, hooking the other chain into the branch before he jumped off with her and began the act of swinging her, so her downward momentum was directed. As she swung around a snarl escaped the girl’s lip even as he pulled back, not letting her scramble for the tree branch and a chance to unhook from his chain. As they began to pass each other on the backswing of the ghoulish pendulum Seth ignored her furtive grasps for him as they swung back the other way.

This continued for a few moments as they slowly bled out their momentum until finally Karuka was hanging upside down chained to her protector. He looked down the chain at the girl, upside down and snarling at him as she scrambled for the chain at her leg, seeing it as a clear method to reach her victim. Every time she seemed to sit up and be ready to climb, Seth swung her about in such a way as to force her to straighten out. When she seemed to calm he finally asked; “You done?”

Snarls were quickly followed by a string of expletives. He shook his head before he spoke, “I’ll give ya a few more minutes to get your head on straight…”