Going down in flames...

[The Cinderella Man]

Even though in that moment, as he braved the stony halls of the dungeon, he might’ve given out the impression of somebody who did heroic acts before breakfast, Victor was probably just as scared as the pair of girls he escorted. His heart was rampant, his palms showered with the same cold sweat that seemed to creep over every square inch of his skin, his train of thought running on circular tracks that kept reminding him that death could be lurking around the next corner. It was easy to be courageous and believe that death was ‘just a beginning’ (as one of his favorite sayings claimed) when you weren’t neck-deep in crap that could be the end of you. It was easy to punch somebody in the face when you had a ref that would stop the fight before the worst happened. But when your life dangled on a thin thread and you risked losing it every moment, it turned made the insides of even the boldest men into a queasy mush.

But courage wasn’t the lack of this sensation; Arslan the Ever-complaining Trainer of boxing told him that before his first bout. Courage was feeling like a sissy, but reaching into the maw of the beast anyways and ripping its guts out. That was what Victor was doing now. Not so much for his own sake, but for the sake of the two that followed him. Knowing that a terrible fate awaited both Lehana and Cadee should he fail or give up was like a slap that woke you from a drunken tantrum. It set his eyes on the goal; getting them out alive.

Achieving that wasn’t a walk in the park, but more like a walk through a forest, where you never quite knew what expected you on the next step, but you still didn’t have a hard time doing it. It was this ease with which the boxer dealt with the inattentive brutes that lazed in the shadowed hallways that made him believe that they were actually going to make it. Through the benighted passages they went, as silent as a trio of people with absolutely no knowledge in the art of stealth could be, up the stairs, reaching the halls where the air was less damp and more energizing. They even ran across a room with their possessions. The man in charge of the equipment unsurprisingly objected against the pair’s claim, but with the combined efforts of Vic’s mitts and Hana’s feet they made their case and got their stuff back. The prizefighter even decided to liberate a big fat pouch filled with shinnies which he stuffed into his pack. Shouldering his sack o’ stuff and donning a pair of his fingerless, iron-plated gloves, Victor led the way towards the door that led out into the night.

Opening door ajar just enough for one of his eyes to check out the surroundings, Vic waited and watched, watched and waited until he was certain that there was nothing underneath the silvery film that the moonlight cast over the courtyard. It appeared to him that they were in something that once used to be a fort, but the lack of upkeep made the entire complex look decrepit and rundown. The fortified walls were neither fortified nor walls presently, just continuous knee-high heap of rubble that separated them from the hollow darkness of Concordia.

“I think the way is clear,” he whispered to his two companions that looked just as antsy to get out of here as he was. He looked Cadee in her wide, innocent eyes and couldn’t stifle a reassuring smile even though he was currently as unsure as a city slicker in the middle of the Fallien desert. When his eyes moved to the blackness of Lehana’s irises, sought for some sort of reassurance that wasn’t there, then returned to Cadee’s as he continued speaking. “When I open this door, we run for the forest as fast as we can, alright? Will you be able to do that or do you want me to carry you?”

The mousy girl wanted to be carried away, not just out of this prison but somewhere far away, somewhere where the bad men wouldn’t be after her and where Victor and Hana could take care of her. She wanted to close her eyes and keep them shut until she finally found that which she lacked her whole life; safety. But regardless of how she looked like, Cadee wasn’t a child anymore. If all the hardships of life taught her anything, it was that she had to fight for what she desired. She needed to run and win her freedom. Her grimy face nodded skittishly before she said: “I will run.”

And run they did. With nothing left to say or do, Victor shoved the door out of their path and led the sprint through the grassy yard. He could hear some voices from within, distorted and agitated, probably cursing the gods and fighting the fires that Cadee started, but they wouldn’t be able to catch them now. His eyes were everywhere and nowhere, their motion driven by panic, making them notice nothing. Luckily, there was nothing to be noticed. It seemed that most of the bastards that entrapped them were either sleeping or dealing with the commotion the trio left in their wake. “Amateurs,” the boxer allowed a cocky thought as he closed in on the degenerating outer wall. They are going to make it. The forest was right there, within their grasp.

And then it was gone.

A wall made of spikes shot out of the ground as if the ground was the back of a porcupine, making Victor collide with it. Its texture was as smooth as glass and as cold as... Ice? Yes, it was a wall made of ice, conjured out of nowhere to murder their hopes of liberty. Before they even tried to go around it, two more were erected, trapping the three escapees in a blind alley made of ice. It was then, when he looked towards the only route that they could take, that Vic saw the man responsible for thwarting their prison break. Standing on the ledge of one of the crumbling watchtowers, a man in monkish white robes stood, his white hair dyed silver by the full moon. There was an aura around him, a mist both vague and tangible, and it seemed to pulsate as if it was in sync with his heartbeat. He stepped forward from his perched position, looking as if he was about to take a leap of faith into nothingness, but even as he did so, a platform made of ice appeared beneath his foot, serving him as a step, then another, and another, until he stood on the ground. The grass bended before his aura, first succumbing to frost before it was completely petrified.

“You didn’t actually think you’d get away that easily?” he asked, his voice emotionless and bland, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. His eyes spoke a different story, blue flames raging within them chaotically. “Oh, you did? Isn’t that absolutely marvelous!” he added, chuckling at first, but then breaking into a maniacal laughter that seemed to echo despite the fact that the sound had nothing to ricochet of.

“I don’t know who you are, magician, but if you don’t let us leave, I’ll...” the prizefighter threatened him, standing before the pair of girls and feeling his heart jumping into his throat.

“Oh shush,” the mage retorted coolly, barely sparing a glance on Victor and his chest-beating. Instead, his eyes peered at the girl that latched onto Hana as if the brown-skinned girl was her ticket to salvation. “You’ll do what? Punch me? Your brutish kind disgusts me! So ungainly.” Still looking at Cadee, the wizard’s fingers snapped and a wardrobe-sized segment of the surrounding wall snapped off and came at Victor from his right. It knocked the pugilist off his feet and slammed him against the opposite wall, nearly crushing him to death. With the brawn dazed and temporarily out of the picture, the malicious wizard was left with the brains and the sheer magical talent.

[Hana]

Hana clenched and unclenched her teeth, trying to shake off the bout of homesickness that suddenly descended upon her. These last few seconds, as the three sprinted toward the edge of the woods, were crucial, as they tempted catastrophe to fall upon the group. She wanted desperately to believe she would get out alive; it was only characteristic of her. If there was anything Hana believed in – excluding her concrete faith in the distant B’neshan deities – it was the notion of a fairy tale. The age-old conviction held in a sort of stalwart reverence by children across the continents, the principle of right against wrong, good against evil. Nice guys finishing in first place and sweeping up all the glory that came with it. The heroes were supposed to win, and any other ending would upset the world’s balance, only to be righted again by whatever eventual hero came along. It was, as Hana had gleaned from her parents’ stories, the way of things. Before tonight she had not imagined it possible for that way to be rerouted completely.

Hana saw that solid belief deteriorating before her very eyes.

Their exit quickly made itself into a barricade, the ground tearing apart with a metallic sound like several swords being drawn from their scabbards. Ice rose in tall pillars above them, the ends as sharp and lethal as teeth. More erupted out of the wet grass, locking Victor, Hana, and Cadee in another prison that was, clearly, far less escapable. The very air seemed to freeze, clogging itself up with frost that bit at the Fallien girl’s skin. Shivering, she drew Cadee closer, all the while staring at the ice spikes standing firm around them. “Victor,” she managed to choke out, fear and gruesome fascination suffocating all other thoughts. Cadee, breathing raggedly, tried to muffle her crying by burying her face in Hana’s shirt.

One arm still wrapped tightly about the girl, Hana stretched her arm out to touch one of the ice pillars. She yelped and pulled her hand back, seeing a silvery residue fade from her skin. It felt as though she’d been burnt. But then why was there coldness seeping through her flesh to the marrow of her bones…?

“Your brutish kind disgusts me! So ungainly.”

Her heart flip-flopping in her chest, Hana whirled around. She hadn’t noticed the other man descend, only saw him staring at the frail girl clinging to the Fallien woman like there was no tomorrow. Victor began to protest, and was immediately silenced by this white-garbed fiend. At the snap of the magician’s fingers, a portion of ice slid cleanly out of place, and hurled itself at Victor. The boxer was thrown back against the back wall of the prison, crumpling instantly beneath the massive segment of ice.

The Fallien girl shrieked, and turned around to gape in shock at the perpetrator, her numerous braids whipping the side of her face. Smothering the urge to shrink away from the wizard, she thrust herself in front of the little girl, who’d begun to scream as soon as Victor was knocked out. The wizard seemed, finally, to register Hana’s presence, though he didn’t look away from Cadee.

“Why are you doing this?!” cried Hana, her voice mounting in pitch and horror. Cadee was clinging to her waist, crying and whispering consolations to herself. “How can you hurt people like that? Where’s your compassion?!”

“Compassion?” The magician laughed, the nastiness of his voice grating on the ears. For the first time, his glance flicked over from Cadee to Hana. “You are in no position to argue anything, dear girl. Least of all compassion. Was it compassion you demonstrated back in my dungeon, knocking the head of every innocent spectator come across? Or the unfortunate souls burnt raw and red by young Cadee’s fire?”

Hana’s jaw dropped, stunned by the ridiculousness of his rationale, yet she could think of nothing with which to justify herself. The wizard smiled, satisfied by her silence. If it weren’t for the cruel laughter and the raging ambition in his eyes, he would have been able to disguise himself perfectly behind a mask of cold detachment. “Thought not! Do not presume to declare some childish recital of rights and wrongs to me! It’s unflattering in someone as young and new to reality as you. You’re too green to properly judge anyone.”

He angled his head to examine the Fallien woman, the moonlight silhouetting his profile, but not enough to hide the unpleasant smirk. “Though ‘green’ is hardly appropriate for someone of your….hue,” he said evenly. “‘Dirty’ might suit you better.”

Hana growled and swore noisily in a vulgar mess of Common and Fallien. Normally she let such trifling remarks on her color slide, but in this particular situation the envelope had been pushed a mite too far.

Seemingly amused by her fury, the wizard only chuckled. He snapped his fingers again and let the ominous chink! of cracking ice fill the silence. Hana, her hands thrown out to shield Cadee, felt as heavy as stone and couldn’t move. She watched a hunk of ice, as big as the first, extract itself from a spike, then vault across the grass in her direction. It crashed directly into Hana, but was close enough to Cadee to graze her skin and knock her off her feet. With an intense pressure from the cold weight on top of her body, Hana struggled to grab hold of her consciousness before it slipped away into a painful void.

“Now,” began the wizard as though he’d just finished a tedious set of chores. “My pet. Cadee, is it?”

Cadee still lay on the frozen grass, sobbing quietly to herself.

“I suppose I should’ve been more careful about roughing you up like that,” he continued apologetically. “But you do have a tendency to cling. It isn’t becoming. We’ll attempt to fix that.” He looked down at her, his eyes cool except for the spark of greed. “Get up, girl, and come here.”

The sobbing had stilled, but there was no answer. No movement, apart from the occasional twitch.

“I said, come here,” said the wizard impatiently.

The little girl’s body, so tense and hard from the wearisome night, seemed to release itself. “No,” she answered, in a voice that was not quite her own.

The magician’s blue eyes, already steely, hardened. “What?”

“No. Leave me alone,” came the stern reply.

“I should inform you that I don’t tolerate this sort of disobedience,” said the wizard, apparently offended. “Come here before I am forced to move your legs for you.” He held up his fingers and mimed snapping them. “I am quite capable.”

“I—said—NO.” Cadee shot up from the ground and sat on her knees, her hands curled into knobby fists. It would have been a comical, infantile sight were it not for the look in her eyes. The irises had gone from a soft brown to a metallic gold, making it appear as though they were aflame. She gazed at the wizard with alarming ferocity.

But the wizard stared back, with anything but fear. “Aha! I see,” he exclaimed, clapping his hands in delight. “So provoking defiance is the key to unlocking your true potential. How marvelous. I will harness you yet.”

“You hurt them,” said the incensed Cadee, throwing out her bony arm toward Victor and Hana, both of whom were still unconscious. A shower of white-gold sparks flew from her fingertips. “And you were gonna hurt me. But you can’t now.” She rose to her feet, her knees shaking. “You can’t hurt me anymore.”

The wizard opened his mouth, all set to chastise the girl for her babyish sentiments, but no words came out. A red flush stained Cadee’s cheeks underneath the fiery golden eyes, and around her delicate frame spiraled streaks of brilliant scarlet and orange. Her hair lifted from some unseen wind as the scent of burning copper sizzled in the air.

Then, all at once, the ring of ice around them melted at a startlingly fast pace, water pooling in the ground and evaporating. The wizard sensed the ground beneath his feet heating up, felt the grass singing his feet through his shoes, and he raised himself above the ground, walking backward into the air on frozen steps that appeared at his whim. The ring of holes from the icy spikes were suddenly shooting flames as high as the prison, the fire licking the walls and igniting every dry tinder it touched.

Hana’s eyes flicked open. Her vision seemed to be revolving, moving from white-tinged red back to darkness, until she resolved not to let it rush up and swallow her again. Her head and stomach ached, but she could no longer feel the intense weight of the chunk of ice. Looking around hazily, she saw that the ice was gone. And the world was flooding fire above and below, eating up everything in sight.

Scrambling backward against the prison wall next to Victor, the Fallien girl shrank back from the flames. Though somehow the fire wasn’t engulfing the little patch of grass where they sat, Hana felt singed by it. The black girl who, until yesterday, had lived her entire life underneath the harsh Fallien sun, had never felt heat as fierce as this.

“Hana.”

At the sound of a familiar voice, Hana looked up. And up. There was Cadee, floating above the ground and glowing with red and gold like some hellfire angel. But her face, looking back down at the Fallien girl with eyes like hot iron, was still the face of the frightened little girl tied up in the wooden crate.

“Wake up Victor and go,” said the voice that was and wasn’t Cadee’s.

“Cadee…” Hana’s own voice began to break. “I can’t leave you here.”

“Yes, you can.” The words were soft and resolute, echoing with an astonishing volume from such a height.

“No, I can’t,” said the Fallien girl, trying to stand up, but wobbling back to the ground with a thump. “Cadee, no. No!”

“Please, Hana,” pleaded Cadee, letting some of the little-girl pitch back into her tone. “Just go.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Hana felt obliged to obey this strange new incarnation of Cadee, a Cadee that seemed to have broken out of a shell. The Fallien girl crawled over to Victor, careful to avoid standing too high and getting her braids caught in the fire.

“Victor.” She shook his shoulders hard, wanting him to fix this somehow. “Victor, wake up, please, wake up.”

[The Cinderella Man]

Cadee was tired. She was tired of life lived as a fifth wheel. She was tired of being pushed around, shoved in the corners, hiding in the shadows in fear of the next bad thing that would bring her life another step closer to hell. She was tired of being a helpless nobody whose secret wishes went in smokes, whose words fell on deaf ears, whose very existence was insignificant. She was tired dancing to the sad tune the fate played on the harp of her life. Her entire life was a one way street that kept winding downhill, leading her to this point in space and time where she finally had a choice to make a difference. To make a stand.

Cadee remembered. Early days were vague to her, but she remembered all the mocking and prodding and jesting and malice that made no sense to her young mind. She remembered the filter of tears through which she looked at other orphaned children who pointed fingers, threw words at her that hurt more then any rocks, alienating her from their little band. She remembered the foul names that signified how different she were from the rest. She remembered the loneliness and that one-armed doll made of rough canvas which her hands smoothed and smothered every time they played and she wasn’t invited. And she remembered the flames. These manifestations of her childish wrath danced at her whim, leaping from one bed to the next, eating everything she grew to hate. She remembered the screams. She blocked them out ever since that day, buried them under the floorboards of her brain, but she remembered them now. Their accusations, their pleas. Their announcement of death.

Cadee was guilty. None ever pointed a finger at her and blamed her for the fire at the orphanage that day. None who knew her true nature were alive to throw a different kind of fire and brimstone at her. But she was guilty of a gruesome execution. Her juvenile mind found a way to suppress the memory, to deceive itself that no such occurrence ever took place, to carry on, but she knew. In a way, she always knew. She just wasn’t ready to wrestle that demon from the past yet. She wasn’t ready to look into the faces of all those who wronged her and ask them for forgiveness. For, even though they took away her youth, she took away from them everything else.

But now, she wasn’t a child anymore. Now she knew that closing her eyes and hiding in the corner wasn’t going to make everything go away. Now she had a chance to redeem herself. A dam somewhere in her mind broke and the tide was making its way to the final resolution. She would stop the inferno from ever occurring again.

Her saviors were at her feet, both pleading her to snap out of it, to make a run for the woods with them, but their words got scorched by the hell she raised all around her. In a lifetime of misery and heartache, Hana and Victor were a lighthouse, something that shone far on the horizon, reminding you that there was something other then storm in the world around you. But they weren’t a part of her world. They never could be. She would never be their adopted daughter and they would never live happily ever after. Such stories were for children and she wasn’t a child anymore. Heroes only lived in fairytales. In the real world, you did your utmost and hoped it was enough to achieve a personal victory. Because, in the big picture, everybody lost.

She didn’t say goodbye to them. Such a words would tear her little heart asunder. Instead, an innocent “thank you” left her lips, defeated the constant hum of the burning flames and reached the pair of the only two people that were ever kind to her. And then they were gone. Vibrant flame tongues built a wall of fire between the pair and Cadee in an instant. Only a narrow trail wasn’t scorched, leading away from the fortress and into Concordia, ushering Hana and Victor away from the young pyromancer.

Once again, Cadee was alone, but this time she was going to do the right thing.

***

Neither of them wanted to leave. Neither of them ever voiced that thought, but it was apparent in their eyes, their facial expressions, the reluctant way they trudged away from the emblazed courtyard of the decrepit citadel. But Cadee never gave them a choice. Her fire was mad, making their skin hurt from the sheer heat that it emanated, but still leaving them oddly unharmed. The coolness of the night beneath the tree crowns should’ve been soothing, but wasn’t. They both would’ve gladly traded it for being able to stay with Cadee, help her out somehow. Little did they know that they would only be standing in her way. Standing in the way of something she had to do not only to save them, but to save herself.

They were well past the underbrush and beneath the stately elm trees when it happened. The flames receded almost completely, until there was nothing but the light of the moon illuminating the landscape again. And then, like an earth-bound supernova, she exploded. The light was eye-scorching, her roar deafening, her might quaking the earth as if it was breaking by the seams, sending a wave of heat darting through the forest. Cadee unleashed her regrets and let them fade away forever in the flames. In those flames she was liberated. In those flames she was reborn.

Somebody was screaming into the explosion, a futile cry that got lost in the thunder and the subsequent sonic boom. Only when his throat started to ache did Victor realize that he was the one screaming.

[Hana]

Hana watched Victor scream. But she couldn’t scream herself.

The night, it seemed, was to be peppered with hints of irony. The Fallien woman’s mouth was constantly in motion, ejecting her loves, her fears, her musings, her boasts, her favorite swear words; anything the people around her weren’t interested in hearing about, they heard it anyway. She wore her heart on her sleeve, as goes the old adage. Yet in the one hour she ought to be howling with grief, with despondent relief, not a sound broke from her mouth.

Instead she looked up at the billowing black smoke curling around rings of gold and white, the ignition that was the final phenomenon in a grim, startling night full of phenomena. And began to have thoughts that didn’t bear thinking about.

Cadee was a story that wasn’t supposed to happen. In the tapestry of Hana’s life she was a stray thread, something that had loosened the tight-knit familiarity by a notch. And after only one night, she’d snared that tapestry on a hook, leaving an irreparable break in the folds, just by the mere fact of her existence. Now that she was dead, the threads of her life that had so swiftly interlaced with Hana’s hung loose, unable to be woven back.

Death, however minor its victim in the eyes of society, was still like a chokehold around the Fallien woman’s neck. She’d never known anyone who died before, excluding those she knew by family association. A feeble great-aunt, an ancient neighbor from three generations ago, maybe. But never a friend.

A friend. Hana pictured Cadee hovering several feet off the ground, rising, her lank hair and thin face ablaze in a corona of sulfurous flame, yet her skin didn’t burn. She’d looked as though she were lit from within, the beneficiary of some secret authority and confidence. And unease.

It was unfair. It was completely, horribly, terribly unfair. Cadee had lost the chance to change her miserable life and Hana had lost some small inner portion of herself that believed in the innate goodness of all things. And worst of all, Cadee had chosen her death. She’d chosen to be a martyr and had crafted the means of her demise herself. What was childish innocence, what was hope if it could be twisted so? What was the worth of preserving the appealing naiveté of the young, when the young themselves now had the ability to corrupt it long before time required them to?

She was wrestling with more than her vanished innocence and Cadee’s death. She had the guilt to deal with, too, and guilt was a thing that Hana didn’t often allow to perch on her shoulder. The weight of it was too much, even when it was dispensed to other characters. There was herself, of course, and Victor. And then there was Cadee, the wizard, and the wizard’s thugs. Somehow everyone was to blame, and part of her was glad for it.

Hana looked back down at Victor, who stood in the same position, his mouth partially open in a scream that had already ended, and left his throat dry and swollen. With the same sorrow, the Fallien girl walked up behind the boxer and wrapped her arms around him, holding tight.

* * * * * *

At her insistence, Hana and Victor traipsed back in the direction of the fortress. Or whatever was left of it. Victor hadn’t flat-out refused, but it was clear that a restless hesitation held him back. He, like Hana, was probably not imagining the site of the explosion to be the most pleasant of spectacles. But Hana had to see it. If there was something left behind, maybe she could finally shed some of her waiting tears. If not….well, either way, she would not abandon Cadee’s soul to loneliness. In Hana’s culture, one did not walk away from the newly dead. They respected, even celebrated their ascent to heaven.

As they came nearer and nearer to their destination, the canopy of trees soaring high above their heads couldn’t quite smother the lingering scent of charred wood and ash from the fire, but it lifted Hana’s spirits by a margin. The ground was cool and soft beneath her feet, lurching slightly is she pressed down hard, not like the stiff soil of R’uuya spice fields. Moonlight fell against the leaves in splashes of pale emerald, and though it was silent now, there was a certain atmosphere in the spaces between the trees, a comforting stillness. It was a beautiful landscape, and its beauty was all the more obvious because it distracted the Fallien girl from what lay ahead, if only for a moment.

The moment was gone as the soft brown earth turned into blackened cinders. The height of the trees dwindled until Hana and Victor were passing only burnt stumps. The stench of smoke grew razor-sharp, and Hana’s heart – rather acrobatic these last few hours – did a back flip in her chest.

The deadened part of the forest gave way to a vast clearing. It hardly looked like the same forest, until Hana realized it was where the fortress used to be. Her breath catching in her throat in an audible gasp, she strode ahead, the steps quicker and quicker. When she finally stopped, she stood almost in the very center of a wide, gaping crater. The large jail in which they’d been imprisoned not two hours ago was demolished. Not even the remains of a skeletal frame, save the piles of soot here and there, stood as testimony to the fortress. Everyone inside – and outside – was gone as well. There was no trace, as far as she could see, of the wizard, or Cadee.

The Fallien girl sank to her knees, her hands folding in her lap. Her shoulders heaved with the last effort of trying to contain tears, and as she blinked hard to keep them back, she caught a glint of – something, something shining amidst the blackened earth. Reaching wordlessly into the soil, she sifted dirt and ash through her fingers until they revealed a small, hard lump.

She stood and walked back to Victor, wiping the lump with her thumb and examining it with an open mouth. When she reached the boxer, she held it up in her fingers: a coarse gem the color of blood, flashing like a thorny star. A diamond, a diamond in the rough. Like its creator.

Hana smiled weakly. “I guess she liked us okay,” she said in a husky voice. It was then that sorrow really fell upon her, and she dissolved into tears, sobbing quietly and wrapping Victor, her remaining friend, in another embrace.


((Spoils: A small red diamond that was formed from the intense heat of Cadee’s fire.))

[The Cinderella Man]

A part of him hoped to find Cadee standing in the middle of this hole in the earth, grimy-faced and scared, just as she was when they opened up that crate a day ago. It was the naïve part of him, the part that still believed in the goodness of the white and the malice of the black part of the spectrum. But that part believed in a different world, an alternate dimension where there was always some deus ex machina to ride in and save the day. Here and now, in the land of Corone on the world of Althanas, there was no place for such naivety. The good didn’t always win. And even if it did, it was never a clean victor, never a straight-out kayo that left no room for discussion on who won and who lost. It was always that irritating shade of gray that left an ashen taste in your mouth, making you weigh and measure how much you gained. How much you lost.

He didn’t want to go back to the blast site. He knew that there would be nothingness waiting for them there, a lousy replacement for a sweet little human being that was supposed to be sleeping in a bed somewhere, childishly ignorant of the troubles of the world around her. Even though Victor knew Cadee for only a short while, she grew on him like a habit. The good kind. She was an incarnation of the daughter he wanted to have, an embodiment of his younger sister who he never protected as much as he should. And now she was gone and they were supposed to walk away with nothing but a memory of her sacrifice. A memory. Memories were overrated, they faded away with time, like pictures taken several decades in the past. How long before he forgot Cadee’s face? How long before he forgot today’s date? How long until she became a victim to the forgetfulness of the mind?

Because he feared the answers to those questions, he followed Hana as the Fallien lass backtracked towards the citadel. He thought that if he witnessed the aftermath of Cadee’s sacrifice, he would find some solace, feel the magical residue of her goodness. But there was nothing magical to be found. The entire place smelled like a volcano eruption, charcoaled and left for the forest to cover with its greenness in the subsequent years. There were no bones, no debris, no trace that there was ever something here except billowing ash that forced a bitter taste into Victor’s mouth.

Unlike him, Hana was more perceptive. The girl was wrestling with the events of the night courageously enough, but when she fished out a blood diamond from the very center of the crater, she couldn’t contain her emotions anymore. She whimpered and sobbed into his shirt, holding onto him almost desperately, and it was in Hana’s flood of emotions that Victor did find some abatement. Losing Cadee in such a manner was devastating, but knowing that somebody else cared made it almost bearable. Almost.

Stroking the girl’s braided hair, the boxer stared at the sky above that was completely oblivious to what unfolded below its starry dome. “Aye, she did,” was the only reply he could conjure. Words were needless here; they didn’t have to tell each other that they felt like crap. They both realized that in the theatre play that was Cadee’s life, they were but statists in the final chapter, playing the role assigned to them and unable to change a damn thing about it. It was this helplessness that hurt the most, the fact that they couldn’t save Cadee from all that haunted her. They were simply witnesses to the love that only a child could have. Unreasonable love, unheeding, unstoppable. Absolute.

He wanted to offer some condolence to his companion. He wanted to tell Hana the pious crap that his father served every Sunday, preaching how people went to better places once they perished. But right now, in the wake of Cadee’s death, he couldn't force such words past his lips. What kind of a better place was there if the only path that led to it went straight through hell?

“Come on, let us leave.”

Radasanth wasn’t far, but Victor was certain that trekking to it would prove to be the longest walk of his life.

((SPOILS: The pouch that Victor snatched while running out of prison. It contains 1000 gold pieces which Hana and he shared evenly.))

[Witchblade]

Story

Continuity: - 7.5 Well, the story was set up easily enough, giving the reader a good idea where both of your characters are coming from. Victor himself never needs much of an excuse, his lives in Radasanth; it was Hana that had to come up with something for being all the way in Corone from Fallien. Her reason was plausible, travelling there to earn money and good on a few adventures. Her first day in Corone and already she’s getting pulled into massive amounts of trouble, poor girl.

The quest storyline was interesting. In the beginning when you found the poor kidnapped girl, it was rather obvious where this was going to lead to in the end. With some kind of eventual conflict between Hana and Victor and the people that hired him to move the ‘cargo’, as it was. You really do leave the reader to believe the girl was captured for some kind of sex trade, but as you move through to the end you learn it’s something completely different. I honestly thought for a few posts there until that wizard guy showed up that you’d thrown that in to make it more convenient for your characters to escape. That’s not exactly something you want your readers believing. By the by, the ending scene was very emotional, especially Hana’s post. I really enjoyed it and I’m sure being more attached to the characters I would have cried. But the conclusion felt a little lacking, the quest just ended with them hugging. A very nice emotional conclusion, it just felt like it was missing something and I found myself going ‘now what’.

Setting: - 9 Setting was beautifully described throughout the quest. I really enjoyed the fact that it started pissing down rain in the beginning of the quest. It served no actual purpose to advance the storyline, but it just made the weather and environment a lot more real. You two work well as a team, what one of you doesn’t manage to describe in one post, the other will pick up and finish it off. It gives it a nice feeling, like setting from the perspective of two different characters—because this is honestly coming from two different people—who each notice different things.

Pacing: - 8 It was a slow start in the beginning, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I actually enjoyed the moment of talk between Hana and Victor. Even after the crate was opened and they found little Cadee, the pacing of the story was rather slow and steady allowing the characters to interact and get to know one another. Once the illegal smugglers, kidnappers, whatever you want to call them showed up everything went to Hell in a hand basket and things quickly started moving along. I didn’t like how easily Cadee started coming out of her shell. It was a matter of hours and the girl was already trusting Hana and Victor. Yes, they were nothing but nice to her, but someone in her position should be a little more cautious. After all, she’s not really a child anymore after going through all that.

Also, post 20 from Hana. The post above that was of Victor taking down one of the guards and leaving Hana to do the same with the other. Now the following quest Hana, you take the reader right out of the action by going into the escape part and then reflect on the fight. This can work sometimes and really well, however not here. It completely destroyed the tension that Victor had set up, I already know Hana wins against the guard and gets away unscathed, why do I want to read about it now?

Character

Dialogue: - 7.5 Dialogue flowed from character to character and even inner dialogue seemed true and real to me. I find of missed Victor’s sarcastic remarks in this one. From all the other quests I’ve judged with him in it, he has a habit of making these cynical, sarcastic remarks about what’s going on around him and I believe I only caught that once in this quest. It didn’t take anything away from the quest, but I always enjoy those remarks.

Hana, your character has a habit of switching to Fallien when she’s upset and swearing in her own native tongue. As someone who also uses a Fallien character, I know how much fun this can be, especially when the other characters don’t know what you’re saying. However, I think you should look into actually putting the words she’s saying into the quest, it always ads something when you can actually see and read what she’s saying, even if you don’t understand. This takes nothing away from your dialogue, which is fabulous, I just think it’s something for you to consider.

Cadee’s dialogue was good, in the beginning very child-like, very innocent. Kids do say the darnedest things sometimes, but I found that Cadee was saying some very adult-like things, even before her strange little transformation. Sometimes, kids do surprise you with what they say, but I believe you overused this and I found myself wondering sometimes if a child, even a traumatized one, would say something like that.

Action: - 8 Action was true to the characters. Hana easily coming out and showing off her mothering side once they had Cadee out of that crate. There wasn’t a lot of fighting in this quest—kind of surprising for a Victor quest—but that’s not only what action stands for. However that being said, I would have thoroughly enjoyed it if Victor had gotten the chance to punch that mage right in the face, repeatedly. Cadee seemed to learn to control that little fire gift of hers rather easily for someone who didn’t even know she had it before, but I suppose as a natural gift to her it wouldn’t take much. I would have liked to see more of the sneaking around the fortress they were in. There was mention of Victor having to knock a few other guards out and from the description it didn’t just sound like a few. Some of that tension in those moments of creeping down the hall would have been nice to read about.

Persona: - 9 I love Victor is his uncomfortable behaviour, mixed with a child that just seemed to adore him by the end of the quest. Hana’s flamboyant, bubbly and talkative nature was a wonderful conflict to Victor and quiet reverie and the fact that Hana could actually read Victor so easily was nice. I think those two compliment each other rather nicely; I’d like to see them thrown into another kind of situation. Maybe Hana would be able to bring Victor out of that little shell he tends to hide in from time and time. And of course, between these two characters we have Cadee, controlled by both of you. She comes across great for an NPC, a lot of the time NPC’s get stuck with dead personalities and they only serve to move the story along, but Cadee played between the both of you like an actual character.

Writing Style

Mechanics: - 7.5 The usual mistakes really, Duro you have a habit of forgetting to put words in a sentence. Things like ‘the, it, to’, just it still tends to break the flow up. The reader can easily substitute the word in where it should be, but watch out for that. I know you re-read your posts, but you’re still missing this as well as the wrong tense and just the wrong word in general. One I noticed was from your first post; you used ‘meet’ instead of ‘meat’.

Hana you have similar problems, but I’m rather certain I noticed fewer of them in your writing, especially towards the end.

Technique: - 7 Both of you have an interesting writing technique that is clearly yours. There was some foreshadowing used in the quest, especially when Cadee mentions the burning orphanage that she herself set on fire.

Clarity: - 10 It’s clear, what else can I say? Sentences were written clearly and I never once had to go back and read something, besides for my own personal enjoyment in doing so.

Wild Card: - 8 This was a good quest and a good read. I would have liked something else to happen after the incident with Cadee, it just felt like it was missing something.

Total: 81.5

Reward:

Hana receives 850 experience and 500 GP!
Victor receives 2,900 experience and 500 GP!

Victor also receives another 500 GP that he stuffed in his jacket and forgot about from the beginning when he received half his payment!
Hana also receives the blood diamond found amongst the ashes!

[Cyrus the virus]

EXP added! Good work!