Almost Heroes

[Saxon]

(Closed to those who registered here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=18920). This story contains time travel and is the beginning of a non-linear saga. All bunnying has been approved beforehand.)

Prologue

Charlie Morris didn't feel ready to take up the burden he had promised to bear all those years ago. As a young man, the mariner had scraped together a business and life upon the savage seas and led many a man to certain fortune by battling an untamable nature up and down the coasts of Corone and Salvar. It had made a man out of him by the scars he would endure and the place in the world he carved out for himself, and he was all the better for it.

Though his life would always belong to the waters blue, the sailor had met and accompanied men and women who had tasked themselves with the burden of heroes. They would all fight and many dying to destroy a group of people that would devour a country, people, and century with war and strife. Most of them even fighting for the freedom of a people they couldn't even call countrymen. And most of it without their knowledge, either.

But even if the enemy was vanquished and the day had been won, it was always time that survived to savor the victory. These heroes Charlie had grown to call friends parted ways under the promise that something like this was to never happen again. Over the years, most of them had met their fates in one way or another, eventually dwindling those who had fought for something more than themselves down to a measly few. However, no matter how they parted ways or from even life itself, every one of them remembered the somber vow they had all made on that fateful autumn night.

Now, that unshakable vow rested with Charlie. And all he was supposed to do once the time was right was to pass the torch. The only problem was that the mariner had grown bitter and age did not treated him kindly. The strength and quickness that was usually awarded to those who lived at sea wasted away through old age, and the thirst for life that once burned bright in his youth had long since died in his eyes. He was no longer a man for action, not after discovering that first gray hair, instead he chose to leave the life of heroes to men that were better suited and still had youth on their side.

It wasn't life that had made him bitter, but the realization that Charlie had outlived his usefulness, and that his continued existence was proving to be unnecessary. Most of his friends were either dead or missing, each meeting their fate before they could realize the horror of what it is like to begin to think of life as a curse. Heroes were no longer needed now that a government and several factions that rested in Corone excercised the power necessary to hold the evil in check that the mariner and his friends had held at bay for most of their lives. The time for such things was fleeting, and each new day grew more and more difficult for the ugly sailor to balance the promise he was meant to keep with the realization that his time had long past.

But, something about today was different and Charlie knew it. There was something in the air that smelled of the old days and the creeping suspicion that an old enemy was rising from the dead, beginning to give the mariner a purpose again whether or not he realized it. Too many dead friends and sacrifices made in his youth kept him from ignoring the call for action and the promise he and others had made. Soon Charlie would be ready to play out his role, for whether or not he knew it, destiny had a way of sneaking up on somebody in the end.

And strangely enough, this story is started with pen and paper.

(I've another post to make before you guys can do your first round of posts, but this at least sets the stage. Thanks for your patience and sorry for the long wait, we'll get this puppy on the road soon enough. ;))

[Saxon]

Present Day - Radasanth, Corone

Walking upon the same street he had always taken on his way home for years, Charlie felt the weight in his knapsack grow heavier and heavier with every step. A great deal of importance rested under his arm, and the old sailor knew that if this hadn't reached it's rightful owner the past year-and-a-half would have been for not.

As Charlie traveled closer and closer to his apartment on that old cobbled street, night followed after him. Twilight was fast approaching within Radasanth as shadows grew long and the sun began to shrink in the distance, and the old mariner would be a fool to stay out past dark with this burden under his arms and ever present danger dogging his every step.

When Charlie approached the bricked, three-story building that grown to be his home, he laid his eyes upon a trio of strangers that had dressed and acted differently but still looked the same as they huddled around the door. Like part of a group. If one spent enough time looking for it, you could always pick out the people who were trying to hide in plain sight.

But, being at the age of seventy and vulnerable while protecting the contents in his knapsack, Charlie did the only thing he could as he approached the them. He ignored it. Giving the burly men that were easily half his age a curt nod and a grunt, the ugly sailor brushed past them and into the building. They didn't follow him.

Taking to the stairwell and up several floors, he eventually reached his own apartment, 13B, which rested on the top floor of the building. The hallway to Charlie's home was a mess much like the rest of the place. The floorboards were warped, the wallpaper chipped and the colour faded to a moldy green, and most of the electric lights had stopped working. But, the mariner hadn't moved here for the cozy atmosphere.

As he began to dig the keys out of his pocket while he strolled over to the door, Charlie paused to look up when the smell of old food and garbage that normally dwelled within his room was carried upon a breeze. The same solid oak door with the tarnished, embossed letters that he grew to recognize over the years hung open, the door frame broken and splintered. It didn't take good lighting to realize your door was kicked in, and that normally wasn't what somebody worried about when they knew their home had been broken into.

Moving his hand against the grain of the broken wood, porous from termites, Charlie began to peer into the darkness of his own apartment. Like any victim, the old mariner's thoughts hadn't turned to the damage that had been done or what might have been stolen from his place, but the most important question of them all.

Were the intruders still in there?

[Saxon]

Not taking any chances, Charlie turned to rip off a loose piece of the threshold and held on tight. Holding the hunk of gnarled timber over his head like a bat, the sailor skulked into the darkness, only stopping to switch on the lights. "I don't know if you're still here," Charlie called out, "But if you are, you just got yourself a lot of trouble!"

As he began to navigate his way through the mess his home had become, he surveyed the area. Boxes of old takeout, discarded wrappers, books, and crumpled up papers littered the floor as cockroaches darted in and out of the shadows, trying to escape the glaring light. That was his doing. He had been so busy over the last couple of weeks that he just seemed to ignore everything else, and it showed. But, the broken furniture and possessions that lay scattered in the sea of garbage he attempted to wade through wasn't.

Whether or not there was anybody still here, Charlie had still come back for something, even if now he regretted coming back and putting himself and his work in danger to get it. It took about fifteen minutes for the old man to inspect each room and come to the same conclusion his intruders must have when they broke in. Nothing. Although almost everything had been battered or broken, nothing seemed to be missing. Not his money, none of his valuables or anything any ordinary thief could hoc for some easy cash, which meant..

".. Which meant they weren't after money." Charlie said quietly, his jaw growing slack at the realization as he felt his feet carrying him fast to the only other thing somebody would break into his home for.

Making his way to his maple desk that lay propped against the wall on it's side, the sailor wrestled to get it upright again with a loud thud. Pulling open the top most drawer, the sailor cracked open the false bottom and pulled out an old, leatherbound journal that had once belonged to a dear friend of his. Running his hand over the worn surface he remembered why he had kept it. He needed to keep it safe.

And he had. First to everything else, the only thing mattered was that this journal fell into the right hands when the time was right. Despite whatever resentment or bitterness the old man might have felt over the years, the journal's safety had kept at least some meaning in his life. Falling out of nostalgia, Charlie knew he had to leave. Run. In the morning, I'll set things right and it'll finally be out of their hands, He decided.

Opening his knapsack, he stuffed the journal away for safe keeping. But, as his mind raced to think of where he'd run off to, all of his plans to set things in motion came to a jarring halt when he heard footsteps beginning to wade through the garbage.

Turning just in time to see one of the thugs who had stood outside the door of his apartment just ten minutes earlier lunge at him, Charlie brought his makeshift weapon up and across in time to belt his assailant across the face. With enough force behind it, the blow knocked his attacker sideways and onto his head. But, that wasn't the end of it.

At the age of seventy, Charlie was 5'11'' and 180 pounds soaking wet. His body was battered and scarred with age and experience, gnarling most of his limbs. He was missing two fingers furthest from his thumb on his right hand. With a squashed face and the late stages of balding, the mariner was certainly no looker, but despite whatever strength his body retained from his years at sea, the man was still seventy.

Before the fight even began, Charlie knew he was going to lose. The second intruder who was easily twice the sailor's size and three times his weight barreled through the door like a charging bull. Looking briefly at the timber which had served him so well the sailor knew he might as well be smacking an elephant in the face with a toothpick. Seeing the other thug just getting back to his feet, Charlie swung with all his might and cracked him hard against the right ear and was rewarded with a rolling scream.

Still trying to steer his way through the sea of garbage, the brute was a few steps away from reaching the mariner. Licking his dry lips, Charlie waited until his attacker was almost upon him to spin around and pull at the glinting steel he had noticed earlier as his penknife and turned back the other way in one fluid motion. Although age hampered him, Charlie was still quicker than he looked and as the thug raised his ham of a fist to meet him the mariner darted to the side with his knife gliding upwards and slashing the thug right across his jaw.

Charlie watched out of the corner of his eye as he saw the brute yelp and began to stubbornly turn in his direction. But, as the sailor made for another attack, this time on the intruder's kidneys, he didn't see the third assailant who was far more nimble than the other two make a grab for the back of the sailor's collar. Tugged backwards, part of Charlie's mind though he might have tripped over some junk, flailed his arms as he tried to stop himself from falling as the third attacker put an arm over his neck and pulled him downwards.

And then they were upon him. Although it took awhile for the first intruder to get to his senses, the other two held the mariner fast while the bigger of the two dealt out punishment for resistance. "See, I told you it'd work!" One of them said as he took the sailor's knapsack and rummaged through it.

Now Charlie understood what had happened. Staring at the ceiling, forced to stay still against his will he felt stupid. Stupid for letting this happen to him. Tearing up the place, when they saw they wouldn't find anything they went back outside and waited for him to come back and show them where he was hiding the journal. The searing feeling of shame and embarassment far outweighed the pain that had been inflicted upon him.

What are the others going to do now without the key? Charlie felt himself wondering. Better yet, What are the Sons going to do with it?

The old man's train of thought was interrupted as the first intruder who had long raven locks that hid most of his face moved into view. Waving two books in the sailor's face, one the journal that would make sense of it all and the other was something he'd give to the only other living member of the original group. "The Father will be pleased to hear of how you helped us. But, I think he'll be overjoyed to learn that we finally found one of your journals. Intact. Don't you?"

It took a moment for Charlie to grasp what he was saying, but when he did, he began to squirm violently and yelled, "No! You can't! You'll undo everything! Don't you see wh-"

Swatting the mariner across the face with one of the books, the intruder laughed, "I'm sorry, but were you just about to tell us what to do? After all you shitheads have done to us, you're trying to reason with me?"

Charlie felt his struggling was in vain as he watched the assailant thrust one of the journals in his coat pocket and pulled out a match for the other. Bending over to strike the match against the sailor's face as he cried in protest, the raven-haired assailant jeered as he lit the journal whose yellowed dry pages fed the flames like kindling and chucked it into the dark. "Make sure he stays put, Bill." The hawk-faced fanatic said before walking over Charlie and out of the room.

"Sure thing, boss." Was the only reply.

As smoke begn to fill the room as cackling flames devoured the sailor's home, the only thing Charlie heard was a grunt and saw the sudden shade envelope him as the brute dropped his maple desk onto his ribs with a disgusting crunch. Feeling his blood begin to pool around him and his vision growing dark, the sailor began to scream with rage trying to get free. Whether or not the Sons of Purity had realized it, things had already been set in motion and even if they threw a wrench into the works, the gears of war began to turn after all these years.

In the other room, the journal that would've tied everything together and given the next generation some inkling of what they were being shoved into crumpled black in the fire and soon crumbled into ash.

~*~

[Saxon]

The next day came as the sun rose and fell over the horizon, just like any other. Radasanth was busy as ever as money exchanged hands and hundreds of thousands of people walked about the city not knowing what events had transpired last night. It seemed as if everybody moved on with their lives, walking around the charred ruins that had once been an entire apartment building.

Well, almost everyone.

Pulling his fedora to keep the sun out of his eyes, Saxon strolled out of an alleyway and paused only to loosen the cufflinks of his pin-striped suit. Strolling with his hands in his pockets, the eldritch turned to his thoughts about how he'd play out the day, growing tired of pool halls and the usual whorehouses. He needed something fresh.

Approaching the corner of a street, Saxon heard the call of a newsboy and figured the paper was as good as any to find something new to do. Making his way over to the toeheaded boy who stood at the corner with a stack of papers under his arm and under his feet as he called out the headlines, "Extra! Extra! Train in Alerar derails and kills hundreds! New theatre, The Alambra, is poised for a grand opening tomorrow! Read all about it in The Gazette for a crown!"

Pulling the money from his pocket, Saxon handed it to the boy and was offered a paper, "Thanks, kid."

Opening the yellowed newspaper up in front of him, the eldritch flipped through the paper until a story caught his eye. "Dharma Apartments burns to the ground... four dead .. no suspects. Most of remains have yet to be identified except for one.. Charlie.. Charlie Morris?!"

Reading the entire story, Saxon was left speechless. He hadn't heard from Charlie, an old friend of his, in years. "Not since I gave him that.. journal." The eldritch mumbled as memories came flooding back and realization painted itself on his face.

Feeling something amiss, the eldritch pulled his fedora further down this time to hide his face, and tucked the newspaper under his arm. Walking down the street, Saxon knew he'd have to look into what had happened, but as of now he already knew he was the last one of their group, The Splinter, left alive and suddenly the burden of a forty year old vow fell to him.

(Alright. I had to break this monster up after realizing how truly long it was. If you missed the note, the first series of posts from you guys should take place a week after the burning and you'll get your journals/notes. See the recruit thread for more information.)

[Inkfinger]

“Here.”

The quiet voice out of the darkness shocked Cael Inkfinger awake as readily as a shout would have; dragging him out of a dream of being somewhere safe and warm, and back into the cold, dank reality of his cell, his heart pounding in his chest like a frightened jackrabbit’s. The voice was followed by the fwump of something hitting the straw-strewn floor, something that rustled like paper against soft leather.

That was the first sound I’ve heard in days…

That realization dawned slowly, and subtly, like the growing awareness of a dull pain. Cael shifted on the narrow bunk, not moving towards the sound. His eyes were fixed in the direction the voice had come from. His cell was dark. Not dim, or shadowed, but black– around several labyrinthine corners from the nearest prisoner and the nearest light. The torch mounted on the wall opposite his cell had guttered out several days (or perhaps nights) ago, leaving him blind.

The next sound that hit his good ear was the clank-rasp of a flint lighter being snapped open. The flint snick-snick-snicked a couple times, rebelliously, before the torch flared to life, the red-golden light almost blinding after the overbearing darkness. Cael just stared at the flame, despite the brilliance: it was a thousand times better than that darkness.

It was also better than looking at Viktor.

Viktor Janda was not, in normal circumstances, a threatening man. He was a clerk by trade: a short, stout paper-pusher with inked fingers and weak eyes; someone Cael could have half-identified with, on most days. He had also been, Cael learned weeks ago, partially responsible for his brother’s rebellion’s failure. He had found the portals they were using. He had hounded the portals master and the rest of the Church officials until those officials sent the soldiers.

And yet, somehow, there had been something so very familiar about the man that Cael hadn’t the heart to hate him.

He’d paid for that, in spades.

Now, all Viktor’s round, bespectacled face called to mind were the memories of being pinned to the desk in his clinically clean office, of being at his mercy and discovering he had none, the feral look in his dull gray eyes, and the violation that had followed. He hadn't been the only one (hells, he hadn't even been the first one) or the worst one but that unspoken betrayal had, somehow, hurt the most.

“Well?” Viktor’s voice was high; that of a young man barely an adult, but it contained a shaky arrogance today that had not been there the first time he had stood outside Cael’s cell. Last time, he had been accompanied by guards - ones with shackles and leering expressions. This time, he was alone. “Aren’t you in the least bit curious? It won’t bite you, you know.”

Cael gave the clerk a look that contained as much hatred as he could muster. Viktor, much to his vindictive gratification, took as step back, regardless of the chains between Cael and the open door.

“It’s a reward.” Some of the arrogance had bled away; the tone of his voice was almost like that of a child seeking approval. Cael didn’t move, staring at the inflamed skin where his thumbnail had been. Looking at Viktor would be taking part in the conversation. He wasn’t even going to give him that satisfaction.

Since when do rapists seek the approval of their bedmates?

“A reward for…” Viktor continued, shifting from foot to foot. The movement made the fabric of his robe brush against the bars, silk against iron. “…ah.” And, against all odds, the damn fool was blushing. “For performing so well.”

Cael looked at the thing thrown on the floor. It was a book, leather-bound and old-looking, with pages hanging out here and there. And, despite himself, he felt his fingers itch. Paper. Words. Things written that weren’t from him scribbling on the walls with his own spit and blood. It was close enough that he could pick it up, if he moved.

I’m not going to move.

He finally looked at Viktor, mostly so he could stop looking at the book. Viktor couldn’t meet his eyes. Cael blinked – and something clicked into place in his head, a realization tinted in shades of cynical amusement.

…oh holy Sway, you must be joking...

“You didn’t like it, did you?” He almost crowed when Viktor flinched, just to keep from crying in something that felt very much like frustration. “Or you did, but not now. Now you feel guilty.”

“I. Uhm. N-no? That's...that's not..”

The momentary falter in Viktor’s words was enough for Cael to realize he was right. “That’s it, though, isn’t it?” His mouth twisted into a smile that held no real happiness. “You don’t like the thoughts, do you? You liked being civilized, you liked being tame. You don’t like thinking of yourself as a rapist, do you?”

“Shut up!”

“You’re scared someone will find out!” Cael finally moved in a bone-deep rattle of iron, leaning forward to fix Viktor with a long, condemning stare. He could feel heat behind his eyes, annoyance and frustration and shame escaping the only way they’d left available. “If I’d been anyone else, bottle of wine, retire nice an’ willin’ to your rooms, everything’d be fine, right? But no, you had to have me beaten and chained,” he watched Viktor cringe with every word, grinning like a skull though the words hurt him almost as badly. “Before you ever even had the guts to touch me.”

“It…it wasn’t my idea!” Viktor’s distress seemed real enough. Cael took some small triumph from that fact. “I just…”

“You just went along.” Cael sneered, ignoring the way his teeth felt gritty against the back of his lips, the way they tasted like last week’s blood. “So what’s the Sway’s books say about that, hmm? Seek forgiveness, while you can, or risk freezing in all nine hells? That’s really swell for you, isn’t it? Because I’m not in a forgiving mood.” He gave the book one last disparaging look, and turned around to face the wall of tally marks and blood stains.

Viktor didn’t seem to know what to say after that. Cael, pointedly, kept his back turned, counting the marks. He’d reached forty by the time the silk sounds faded down the hall. Only then did he turn and look at the book, almost reluctantly. It was a book. It was something to do…

His resolve didn’t last very long after that.


-

The book, once he picked it up, felt warm against his numb fingers, and it smelled good – old leather, dust and faded paper all combined to bring his mind to happier times. The paper crackled when he flipped it open, his stained and grimy fingers kept, almost reverently, to the edges of the pages. The pages were yellowing, but the ink was as dark as it had ever been, a stark contrast to the way the leather was worn and fraying in places.

The words were written in the familiar symbols of common, modern Salvic. Which is, Cael thought, gently turning the cover page, a relief. I wouldn’t have put it past them to give me something I couldn’t read… Another form of torture, like the open door just beyond his chained reach. They could have given him something written in, say, Fallien, or the intricate loops and scrawls of any of the Elvish languages…

But it was Salvic. It was also, according to the first page, a journal. Sergei Zykov, it said, with a date some sixty years ago. So he was right. The journal was old. It’d be a personal history, or something of the like, given how thick it was. If he read slow, maybe he could make it last a couple of days. Maybe.

He settled down on the bed as comfortably as he could manage, the thin, worn blanket tucked around his shoulders, and began to read.

He’s a good writer, whoever he is, he found himself thinking, halfway through the journal, all thoughts of taking it slow long gone. The author’s words were few, but each seemed carefully chosen to convey a very particular feeling. The effect was more like reading an artistic take on a memoir, over reading someone’s journal.

“It was still cold this evening,” Cael read aloud, his voice a low whisper, “but the sun shone bright enough, even as low on the horizon as it was, to chase the chill from the bones. The crowds, excited by this first break in a long winter, were their own windblock.” Maybe it was his imagination, woken for the first time since they’d chased him down (well, woken in a way that didn’t involve pain and the fear thereof), but he could almost feel a cool breeze, warmed by the golden rays, caress his hair. He heaved a small sigh, and turned the page. “There is a camaraderie in being cold, a brotherhood to be found in shared discomfort, and-”

“Oy!” The loud voice startled him out of the reading. He looked up, almost-cringing, expecting to see a guard or magistrate, someone to take the journal away, someone to take him to the next round of torment. But, instead - in a sharp, bone-deep jab of realization – he looked up into a world that he knew he hadn’t been in just a moment before. The speaker was an older man, a merchant, to go by his clothes. He was scowling, but not in an overly unfriendly way, and his accent (though he spoke tradespeak) was as familiar as Cael's own voice. “The hells are you doing in the middle of the street? You’re going to get run over if you sit there.”

“I…” Cael’s words failed him, sitting there just staring at this man, at the golden sunset visible between the buildings that lined the street. Everything seemed so real, the cobblestones beneath him, the cool fresh air sweeping across his face. “...what?”

The man swore in Salvic beneath his breath, reaching out to grab Cael by the wrist. Cael almost recoiled away from the touch, until everything sank in. He no longer ached. His body no longer felt as if it had a second skin of dirt and dried blood. And his hand, when the man’s hand closed around his wrist, was clean in a way it had not been in, literally, years; the ink stains that had decorated his fingers since he was fifteen had been washed away. Only the sharp black and red of the guards' brand remained.

What…?

Stunned, Cael allowed the man to tug him upright, muttering though he was about half-wits and idiots. He probably wasn’t helping his rescuer's assumptions by standing there, staring silently at his clean hands as if he’d never seen them before in his life. Magic, he thought numbly. That had to have been magic. There was no other way to explain it – why he was suddenly healed and whole and standing in a city that did not look like Knife’s Edge.

“Hey.” Cael looked up again to see the man pointing down at the ground. There was something in his eyes that almost looked like sympathy. “Don’t forget your book.”

And then he was gone, leaving Cael behind staring at the book on the paving stones. The book. It had to be the book. The thing didn’t look magic, didn’t seem to be anything powerful, but it was the only thing that made sense. The book had dragged him…here. Where-ever here happened to be.

That only begged the most obvious question.

Why.

[Alydia Ettermire]

To the people of Radasanth, Paige Turner was perhaps one of the most average people in the world. A rather aptly (if unfortunately) named bibliophile, she ran a newspaper called The Coronian Sentinel, the direct competition of the Radasanthian Reader. The thirty-six year old woman had inherited the paper at her father's death ten years earlier. She liked Dheath food, Salvaran ale, and Fallien art, had no husband or children, and had been sympathetic enough to the Raiaeran refugees that she had even taken in an Elven woman and two children whose husband and father had remained behind.

That was the image the willowy brunette, whose deep green eyes peered at the world from behind light glasses, projected to the rest of the world. That was how she wanted to be seen by as many people as possible.

What very few people knew was that she was one of the world's movers and shakers. From behind the scenes, she collected information - some of it hard to come by, some of it technically forbidden, and most of it dangerous - and then sent it on to others or suppressed it, as needed.

But even fewer were the number of people who knew she ran the Coronian branch of a nameless organization. Fewer still were the ones that actually contacted her about that position; the two people she was nominally in charge of, the seven other information gatherers in charge of the seven other teams around the world, and of course the head of the organization.

The scarlet-clad Alerian who was in her kitchen, baking cookies with the two Raiaeran children, did not look very much like the leader of an international ring of spies and thieves. Alasse and Uial Maliaya were the children of Kelvar Maliaya, a Raiaeran member of Alydia's team. Their mother, Vakha, wasn't as confident in her presence as her husband would have been, but she still trusted her enough to be out of the room while "Aunt Aly" spent some quality time with the children.

Little quips and jokes floated around the kitchen while Alydia helped the children spoon the thick dough onto the cookie sheet, and Paige couldn't help but smile when they sneaked a taste of the raw dough when she turned to pop the tray into the hot oven.

We aren't the most hardened criminals in the world...but where else would you see something like this?

Aly stood up, tugging the wide brim of her fedora down a little with a grin and ruffling the children's hair. "Tanya nae i'quelinin kirma," she told them. That's the best part.

The scarlet thief looked up at that moment and her expression turned serious. As much as she enjoyed spending time with Kelvar's children and helping them take their mind off the fact that they might no longer have a father, the thought was never far from the front of her own mind. Paige was a reminder of that; it was only through the newspaper owner that she would get any word of her missing men.

In that moment, the cheerful atmosphere of the kitchen had changed, and Aly very deliberately overturned the ten minute sand timer, looking down at Alasse. "When this runs out of sand, the cookies will be done. If I'm not back, get your mother to take them out of the oven."

She started stepping out of the kitchen, gesturing Paige up the stairs and into the upper office, when a confused call reminded her that the two children weren't fluent enough in Tradespeak yet to understand what she had told them. Paige watched Aly forcibly relax her expression and turn back to the children. "Iire i'litsea rimuva n'e, utua ataralle," she repeated her instructions in Elvish. Now sure that the children understood her, she followed Paige out of her airy but ordinary kitchen and into a small room that was anything but.

Aly slipped behind the desk that was crammed into the room, taking the file Paige produced and cracking it open to skim it. Paige herself sat in one of the chairs wedged between the desk and the wall, digging her feet into the luxurious green shag carpet. "Before you ask, no...I've had no word from Sintta. Nor does that information say if they are alive or dead. All I can tell you, Aly...and Bron agrees with me - if they are alive, they will be in Eluriand."

A heavy silence hung over the room while the scarlet thief read the latest reports out of Raiaera carefully. Paige knew she had been heard, but she also knew that her news was not good news. Every day there was no news was one more day the waist-high waifs in the kitchen had to hope against all odds they still had a father...and one more day that they had to brace themselves for the fact that they may not. It was difficult on the children, and even worse on Vakha. Kelvar was a farmer, and with the blight upon Raiaera, she had no hope of being able to support their children without him. Alydia herself had made one of her rare absolute orders that everything possible was to be done to help the Maliaya family, but Vakha was too proud to accept enough charity to do more than keep them from starving out on the streets.

"Istien." It was Aly who broke the silence, carefully closing the folder. "Having everyone spread out over all of Eluriand would be an untenable position. They will be in Istien. It's smaller, more defensible." Gloved fingers tapped out a pensive tattoo on the rough wood of the desk while Aly weighed her options. On their own, the survivors in Istien were in for a long, hopeless siege that they would not be able to escape on their own. The area was far too dangerous for a normal force to risk getting through, performing a rescue, then extracting themselves safely. It seemed so hopeless...but...

"I'll have to go," Alydia muttered. Paige sat up straight, her green eyes wide in shock and jaw almost on the floor. It took a moment for her to find words - Aly was good at coming up with crazy plans, but this HAD to be the worst she had ever come up with.

"Alydia, going after Shynt Aubrey was one thing, and it was stupid...but Shynt was still one man, and he still almost managed to kill you. Accompanying Izvilvin through his scheme was stupid, too, and you have a scar on your thigh to remind you of how that went. But what you went through there was still not as dangerous as what going to Raiaera would be. In Raiaera, if the necromancer and his legions don't manage to kill you, the Elves you will be forced to seek shelter with will. Because you're a - "

"A am an Elf," interrupted Alydia sharply. "Yes, most Alerian Elves are not fond of most Raiaeran Elves and vice versa. But we are all Elves, just the same." She stood, reaching up reflexively to secure the brim of her hat so that it was obscuring one eye, then tucking the file Paige had handed her into her coat. "Now, I must make arrangements." She couldn't sail to Raiaera directly, not being what she was. So first she sail go to Alera. From Alerar she would trek to Salvar; it would be easier to get into Raiarea via Salvar than Alerar, or even through the broken-down port that had once been a shining beacon of Elven pride.

Paige held out a hand to stop Aly from rushing off with only half an idea in her head. Despite the capacity Alydia had displayed time and again for complex plans and brilliant deductions, the information gatherer swore that there were times the broad-brimmed fedora the thief was accustomed to wearing concealed naught but air. As one of her helpers, it also sometimes fell upon Paige to babysit the precocious purloiner.

"I found something else of interest today."

Aly sighed, tucking some hair behind one of her pointed ears. "Anything that does not relate directly to the status of my endangered men isn't something I care about much right now, Paige."

The willowy woman held up a battered leather-bound journal in her ink-stained fingers. It was enough to give Aly pause; a book like that had to have some sort of historical significance somewhere down the line. Paige had been counting on her friend's innate curiosity to pull her in.

"How much do you know about the situation in this country, thirty eight years ago?"

"Not too much. There was a situation between Corone and Alerar at about that time, but I was a detective solving domestic crimes in Ettermire; what the navy was doing was of little concern to me. I do know that the timing couldn't have been worse for Corone." The thief took the old journal, running a hand gently over the beaten cover. "The Alerian navy is bigger and more powerful than Corone's, and this nation's ports were so heavily blockaded that sailors home on leave boasted that not even the tiniest minnow could pass by undetected. The weather turned on Corone, and there was a terrible drought, followed by a famine. The war didn't last too much longer, apparently something else happened that dragged the Coronian government away from the Alerian threat."

"The Sons of Purity," Paige provided. "A somewhat backwoods religion that has risen up and been repressed for the last few centuries. Their last uprising was thirty eight years ago, and now their remnants are taking interest in history. The journal you're holding now happened to be one of a few they were after... I found it first and sent Filch to get it...and here it is."

Aly's head snapped up at Paige's mention of using one of the men autonomously. "Paige...you know not to do anything or send anyone on any errand unless I'm there too. It's far too dangerous for -"

"I did not send him into danger, Alydia!" It was one of the few times Paige had ever raised her voice, much less at a member of the team, but she was not about to be preached at for something that Alydia was more than guilty of herself. "I sent him in before they even knew where it was. He wasn't seen, or heard. They weren't even within miles of his location when he retrieved this journal. You, Alydia, thrive on the narrow escapes and ending up mere steps ahead of whoever you have baited last. Do not lecture me about the safety of the men for whom I am responsible when you are reckless." She reached forward, touching a scar beneath Aly's right ear, where serial killer Shynt Aubrey had marked her bare weeks before.

"Shynt was not a target, he was a case. A final case, one that I handled to the best of my abilities, without endangering any of my boys, because I value all of you far too much to actually risk your lives in these schemes I create for my amusement. I have the experience to know to always leave at least three ways out on any phase of any heist, and I know how to find them. I know how to create distance, or at least the illusion of distance. Most of my people are human, Paige. Human lives come and go so very fast that I wouldn't want any of them to end before very old age, and certainly not on my watch."

With a weary sigh, Aly sat down once more, looking down at the journal Paige had given her. "Just make sure he's safe, Paige. And make sure they can't know that you are behind this." She looked up, fixing her visible blue eye on the editor's face, waiting for confirmation that her wishes would be carried out before inspecting the book once more. "Whose journal do I hold?"

"His name is Jared Keyes. He's actually still alive...although maybe not much longer, if the Sons think he still has it. This is his war journal, from back when he was a young Lieutenant of twenty seven. He's the reason Corone did not see Civil War until just a couple of years ago, rather than back then." Paige stood up, heading for the door. "Why don't you take a look at it? History is your interest, current world affairs are mine. I'm going to go pull some cookies out of the oven."

Paige left, and Aly traced over the cracked leather bindings that concealed the yellowed pages for a few moments. The war journal of the Hero of Lamm...it was certainly an interesting piece of history to hold. She'd lied to Paige when she said she didn't know. She'd known even back then how dire things were becoming on the island nation. She'd watched with interest as it solved its problems and pulled itself back up from the brink. To be able to read the journal and see the Coronian side of history through the eyes of one of those major players...that was the sort of treat that only came once in a lifetime.

She opened the book carefully, gently traced the now faded name of the journal's owner on the first page, and then settled in to read it....

....

She wasn't more than a sentence in when she found herself outside, sitting under a tree, rather than comfortably arranged in a plush chair with a straight back. From the other side of the tree line she could smell the smoke from dozens of campfires, hear men speaking with a mix of weariness, anxiety, and excitement that was peculiar to a mobile military unit on the edge of battle, and, when she cautiously peeked at them from behind the cover of her tree, she could see the uniforms.

It didn't take her any time to figure out where she was. The soldiers' Coronian accents were distinctive, and she knew Concordia forest well enough. It took her a few moments to accept when she was. Unless she was wrong, she had somehow been transported to or was somehow experiencing the past. And it wasn't just any past she had been transported to - she was in Lieutenant Jared Keyes' past.

The scarlet-clad thief ducked back behind the tree, running through the situation presented to her. She had only what she was carrying in a land currently hostile to her dark complexion and pointed ears, and it was years before any of her boys would even be born, much less amenable to joining her. She knew time travel was theoretically possible, but at the moment she was trapped in the past with neither a clue as to how she was there nor any idea how to return to the future.

But at this particular moment, those details weren't necessarily important. For all she knew, she might have nothing but the now. She didn't know if she'd be captured, or if captured if she'd survive...and that of course brought to mind the unsettling question of whether a death in a past she hadn't actually experienced would kill her in her own time. But she wasn't going to let that get to her. She couldn't, if she expected to keep a clear head and survive.

What an opportunity for chaos, she thought with a grin, firmly pulling her fedora down and starting to sneak off through the leaves. I should try to get to Lamm ahead of the army...and we'll see what happens from there.

[Ataraxis]

Morning had broken over a lethargic Radasanth, as always without much notice or a fuss. The sun enveloped the city in a soft coat of light, letting its playful rays slip through the curtains to rouse each and all awake with the tender warmth of a lover’s kiss. Some, however, did not see the break of dawn as a welcomed mistress, and these rare few souls would in fact much rather hear the cool song of rain than the chirping of a sunny day.

With a lazy, outstretched hand, Lillian shut the blinds as best she could. The girl turned away from the window with a ruffle of bed sheets and a muffled moan, face buried deep in a straw pillow to avoid the glare of sienna on the opposite wall, lit as it was by stubborn stripes of sunlight. In that half-witted daze that came before full awakening, she could only think of how much she missed those rainy countries and their stormy weather, how everything was so much sharper, so much livelier in the presence of water.

And so, desperate to soothe that aching melancholy in her heart, she visualized cool runnels over a blade of tempered steel, pictured the trickle of rainwater on dusty windowpanes. Finally, she imagined clear dewdrops upon lips like clover, the uncharacteristically romantic imagery making her blush ever so slightly. Alas, no matter how vividly she could reminisce, memories could not replace the innocent delights she yearned for the most. Knowing none could be fulfilled with Corone’s current heat wave, she suddenly felt distraught, as if there was nothing left to distract her mind, nothing left that could help her cope. The teenager bit her lower lip in hopes of regaining composure, wincing as she inadvertently drew blood.

“Get up, Lily,” she ordered herself wanly, without much authority. “Get up and do something,” she repeated miserably, her voice almost breaking.

It was another hour before she could manage to leave the dark haven of her bed, and still she traipsed about her rented residence like the living dead. Falling into a particularly dismal routine, she walked to the restroom and went about her business, washing her hands and face afterwards while attempting to ignore the red-stained spider web of fissures in the mirror above the copper sink. The blood had since dried, and her knuckles had healed: there really was no use remembering the night she lost her mind... the night she saw the monster growing within her, staring back through the looking glass.

Though she tried to disregard it, that ordeal was effectively at the very source of her anguish. Lillian had always prided herself in her integrity, even in times of great hardship, and especially of her steadfast values and principles. Since her exile from Fallien, however, she became aware of the slippery slope down which she was being led by forces much greater than her own. Among those forces, the powers she had discovered in herself were the greatest culprits: though of unknown origins, she had always trusted them to be good-natured and entirely under her control, but much to her dismay, recent events had shown her quite the contrary. How she would often wake experiencing lost time, how she would sometimes find her fists covered with someone else's blood, or how she would feel this untamable rage not her own, a fury otherworldly... it frightened her to the very core.

It was, however, an entirely different fear to see in her own reflection the warped visage of the very being that was wresting control of her body. That twisted sight had been meant only for a twisted mind; thus, the workings of her psyche had been altered by its viewing, and part of that wretched entity had become permanently fused into her own identity. She had felt it when she broke that mirror, had felt the wrath that was not hers, becoming hers. Her hands began to tremble, their grip on the sink hardening as they shook until the copper yielded, bending inwards.

The ring of a brass bell woke her from her daze; her fingers quickly unclenched, releasing the sink in a metallic groan of relief. Lillian struggled to pull back the tears she knew were coming, long enough to deal with whoever was at her door. Straightening herself, she called out a weak ‘coming’ as she made her way to the entrance and unlatched a series of locks.

“A parcel for a miss Lillian Sesthal,” the deliveryman declared, monotone.

“This is her, but... I don’t remember ordering anything. From anyone. Anywhere.”

“Could be a gift. Either way, there’s no return address. If you’re taking it, I’ll need a signature,” he said, offering a pen.

With a quick scrawl on a clipboard and a pair of crowns, Lillian sent the man on his way. Closing the door, she mused about the package she was just given, weighing and sizing it up by feel. “Rather light... book-sized, perhaps.”

It was, indeed, something of a book – a journal, to be exact, and a relatively old one at that. The rich, blue suede binding made it look like a pricey antique, but the contents proved much more fascinating to the girl’s scholarly mind. It seemed to be an autobiography of one Abagail Turner, with daily musings and notations interspersed in the prose. After verifying that there were no immediately detectable traps or arcane devices placed within the pages of the journal, Lillian brought it with her to bed, where most of her reading had been done in the past few weeks. Finally, there was something new with which she could distract herself, something to keep her darker musings at bay, if only for a few hours.

And I’ll take anything I get.


~

It was unusual for her to fall asleep while reading a book, however tedious it might have been – especially when she had just woken up and that there were still a few bells left before noon. That was her first clue that something strange had just transpired. The second clue was, to any common person, the much more reasonable choice of a first clue; namely, the fact that she had woken up in what could only be construed as an immense and aptly bloody slaughterhouse. Up against the dark brick walls, cattle and poultry were hung up to dry like laundry on a clothesline, the blood seeping in darkening streams down the drains in the floor. Closer to her location were dismembered, bovine corpses: a leg to the left, the other three attached to a stump of a torso spilling visceral matter, while the head had rolled half a dozen feet away, dragging behind it a rumpled esophagus.

Standing over the cadaver with an oversized cleaver hefted high was a middle-aged man, his hair gray and thinning and his eyes exceptionally quizzical. In nonplussed awe, he stared at this black and white, blue-eyed apparition that was itself looking back at him in the middle of his rather repulsive business.

Without thinking, the man brought down the cleaver, messily hewing off another of the cow's leg in a spatter of remnant blood. He released a string of curses as it stained the girl’s dress, neck and chin, dropping the blade to the side as he rushed forward to apologize.

The moment she felt the cold ichor upon her skin, however, Lillian recoiled. As if in reaction, something gruesome inside her began to agitate, sending a tumult of emotions directly into her heart, as well as an inexplicable... hunger. In fear, she jumped to her feet, backing away from the man’s outreaching hand, and ran towards the doors of the slaughterhouse, evading a crowded zone of hanging meat-hooks on the way.

When she stepped into the open, Lillian was greeted with the sudden yet soft pelting of a light, summer rain. Slowly, the blood on her face was washed away, as did the turmoil in her heart. In that fleeting moment, she felt her worries vanish, felt the anguish dissipate into nothing – felt only peace and quiet. Whatever had happened, she knew this was reality: no dream had ever felt so true, so comforting.

“I’m very certain you don’t work for me, dear,” came a husky voice that drew her back to the outside world. A woman in her late thirties stood not far away, staring at the soaked teenager rather curiously. “The usual protocol here is to kill cattle thieves, but I will give you benefit of the doubt – if only because a newborn calf seems to be all it would take to trample you to death.”

“Thank you... I think,” Lillian replied hesitantly. “My name is Lillian Sesthal, and I swear I’m not a thief. In fact, I’m not quite certain where I am, or how I even came to be here.”

“Well, then, It’s an unusual pleasure to meet you, miss Sesthal. I am Abagail Turner, owner of the Turner Slaughter Yards – this place, to answer your first question. As to how you came here, however, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Abagail Turner?” A pang of realization crossed her mind, and her fingers purposely gripped tighter on the suede-bound journal she still held in her hand.

It would appear you answered that question after all, madame Turner.

[Saxon]

Present Day - Radasanth, Corone

The world grew dark around Radasanth as shadows swept in and held the city fast. By day, the metropolis was a place of business where people from all walks of life moved about it's crowded cobbled streets and wealth beyond measure exchanged hands. The smell of riches literally became palpable as merchants bit coins and travelers haggled over goods, spawning a feeling of excitement that something, for better or worse, was changing. But no matter how busy Radasanth became, the feeling of excitement died around night fall. Merchants closed shop, and many of the city's citizens and travelers withdrew to whatever dwelling they could find to wait out the night.

At night, the once busy cobbled streets lay barren with only the soft, sallow glow of lanterns to keep it company. The buildings that made up much of the city began to collectively sigh as the same people from all walks of life slumbered safely within their walls. Fortunately, life hadn't completely left Radasanth. Soon, city workers appeared upon the streets and scoured the metropolis, attempting to clean the streets and fix whatever needed to be fixed while the city slumbered. And eventually, the workers would finish around the stroke of midnight and retreat back to their dwellings. Then, only drunkards, drifters, and those up to no good wandered the city at the dead of night where the feeling of loneliness and depravity remained.

The city's change from live to dormant was so swift and different that to an outsider it felt as if all of Radasanth had fallen under some kind of spell. But, to everybody else the difference between night and day depended on how you set your watch.

Once a home for dozens, mostly to the poor or working class people, Dharma apartments was now a wound in the earth. It sat amongst the other crowded buildings around the block like a kind of eye sore. In a couple of days the ruins would be excavated and demolished, making way for another building to take it's place as soon as somebody either bought the lot or it was claimed by the metropolis itself. Such was life in the big city.

The crumbling, week old remains of the apartment complex lay charred and still smoked in some places as embers died. Alone on the street, Saxon walked over to the ruins of the apartments and did whatever little digging he could. The fire had destroyed much of the building and burnt anything inside of it to a cinder, and any of evidence or implications of whom or what started the fire with it. The fire had tore the building down to the first floor where little remained. Only the staircase that led to the upper floors remained, acting as both a monument and cornerstone to the building.

Remarkably, only the apartment building had been burnt to the ground while buildings hugged it on either side. The neighborhood's saving grace? The two domiciles that shouldered the apartment complex were made of brick and stone and were hardy enough to give the local fire fighters time to arrive and douse the flames before they spread across the neighborhood and eventually the city.

It took them about two hours to put the fire out, and as the eldritch witnessed from visiting the ruins, little could be salvaged. According to the reports he had swiped from both the coroner and fire marshal, nothing seemed out of place from the fire. In fact, something like this was expected and the only thing that was surprising was that it hadn't happened sooner. Upon closer inspection, the fire marshal had found the apartment complex was built with out-of-date materials and the conditions were so deplorable that upon it's next safety inspection, which was supposed to be some time next week, it would've been condemned.

". . . The owner of the building must have bribed inspectors off for years or a far more grave reasoning might be that Dharma Apartments and it's residents had slipped through the cracks of the system. Further investigation in the matter is needed." The report had read. Though Saxon took a fine comb to the ruins as he looked into the matter of Charlie's death, his heart was heavy with grief.

For over forty years, the eldritch and sailor had held a strong friendship and eventually became allies when they fought against the Sons of Purity. Looking back upon what he could remember about those days, Saxon recalled them being fast and dangerous. Many friends had died in the name of this so called shadow war, and in their memory he would be damned before he let the chance of shutting the Sons down again slip through his fingers.

Charlie's death had been so sudden and unexpected that at first, Saxon didn't even know what to do. It had been a good ten or twenty years since the eldritch had even uttered the words Sons of Purity aloud, so something like this didn't dredge up anything but ugly memories making Charlie's death just that; A tragedy. As the eldritch tested the stairs to feel the scarred wood crumbled beneath his foot, he stood back and stared at the remains of the stairwell.

From what Saxon had gathered from the coroner's report, there had been only one reported death. Charlie had apparently been trapped in his apartment during the fire, but he didn't die there. His dwelling was the place where the fire marshal concluded must have been the source of the fire, based on the rate of consumption and how the building was destroyed in the flames which raised the first red flag in Saxon's mind that this hadn't been an accident.

The second came with how Charlie's body was discovered. Moving about the base of the stairs, Saxon held the coroner's report in his hand as he stopped dead and looked up to where the mariner's apartment would've been if it hadn't been destroyed. "The victim had suffered from compressed rib fractures indicating some sort of beam or heavy object had fallen on him during the fire. At some point the victim must have freed himself and attempted to flee, based on the scrapes on his knees, hands and how the victim's own blood is smeared across the front of his person. It is my guess that the victim managed to make it down the stairs but was soon overcome with both smoke and the extent of his injuries." The coroner's report read.

"A fighter to the end, eh Charlie?" Saxon muttered with a grin as he stared up into the darkness.

With both reports in hand and his own intuition, the eldritch moved back to the front of the staircase. From what he had read, Charlie had died at the bottom of these stairs, crawling down the stairwell and stopped just short of freedom. There he was recovered by the fire fighters and his corpse taken to safety before the flames had consumed the rest of the apartment complex.

The thought of it all left a bitter taste in Saxon's mouth. Alone in the ruins of the building, the eldritch knew this couldn't have been an accident. Somebody had murdered his friend and tried to cover it up with the fire, and if it weren't for the mariner's will to live and to get as far as he did when trying to escape the fire his remains probably would've never been identified. "And then.. then I wouldn't have even known our fail safe was already happening." The weird muttered.

With nobody to bother him, Saxon spent a couple more minutes gathering what little he could from the fire before leaving the complex for good. Though the eldritch now began to bring the pieces together, he needed to find some way to jog his memory and remember everything he and his friends went through to put their hated enemy down like the dogs that they are.

~*~

(Sorry for the wait. I have one more post to make, given the length of this one. So if you guys could hold off until I get this last story builder in before we continue our rotation, it'd be much appreciated. Thanks.)

[Saxon]

March - 38 Years Ago in Corone

An ominous, chill air spilled into a country already at the mercy of winter's harsh and bitter grasp. The signs of a long, terrible winter lay for all those to see. Towns, hamlets and cities lay buried under tons of snow while fields of once fertile, hardy soil lay frozen beneath several layers of ice and slush. The effects on the land were subtle compared to the effect this winter had on Corone's people. Labor and farming had come to a grinding halt ever since the season began, leaving only factory work for those brave or daring enough to peril the terrible machines that commonly maimed those who tended to them and killed you if you were lucky.

The decline in the economy compounded with such a horrible winter left many in the country trapped in the vicious cycle of being out of work and too deep in debt to not be working. If that weren't bad enough, the bite of nature's wrath grew more rabid the deeper Corone sank into the heart of winter. Sudden drops in temperature throughout the season killed hundreds, but nothing compared to the tens of thousands who died to the growing food shortage that began to plague the country.

In big cities like Radasanth where labor in factories, slaughterhouses and anything requiring assembly line work was very common had been taken up by the majority of the labor unions in the cities and left those who weren't part of an organization out in the cold. Most of the unions at the time were populated by Salvarian immigrants, first generation types who had probably stepped off the boat months before and couldn't speak a lick of anything other than their own native tongue. They had become the majority of Corone's growth in population during the few recent years as wars between clans, peasants and feudal lords had opened a new bloody chapter in Salvar's history.

For many of the Salvarian communities who resided in the cities, work was plentiful and food rarely seemed to be an issue. Mostly keeping to themselves, the new immigrants formed tight-knit, clannish communities that were more concerned with taking care of their own than trying to assimilate to a culture that was dying before their very eyes. This seemingly privileged status of becoming Corone's new source for workers had created an animosity between the new immigrants and the country's citizens. Eventually, it would boil down to bigotry and a hatred only one could know if they had watched friends, neighbors, or family die in the streets while these new additions to the country prospered. This alone spiked the rate of murders and robberies in Salvarian parts of town that commonly went unreported due to the giant rift that had been created between the Salvic and the police who usually were far more brutal and harsh to the newcomers.

It'd truly been a bad year. What with Corone being on the losing end of a terrible war with Alerar, the attrition and effects of the battle had left it's scars on Corone. The factories that dwelled within the country had become occupied majorly by the government and pro-war companies bent on fueling the war effort. Weapons, armor, ammunition and supplies for the military had become the major export in the country, making an already bitter country steeped deep within the war trade.

However, whatever the country began to produce in order to change the tide of the war had come too little, too late. Alerar had already driven Corone from it's borders and with some poor choices made strategically, Corone had been put into a rout back to their own country where word of an approaching invasion by the elves in the coming months was becoming just more than a rumor. With Corone's military spread far too thin and mismanaged by bad leadership, it led to the dire situation it was in right now.

The famine within Corone quickly became a reality, it didn't take a genius to see how it had come to be this way. With stores of food within the country being grossly exaggerated by government officials in order to allow the military to feed it's tiring, bitter soldiers there was practically nothing left for the citizens. Salvarians having their own secret stores within their communities weren't as affected by the devastation as the natives were.

Few sources of food remained in the country. As Alerar formed a blockade that cut off most of the access to the coasts and outside trade, supplies and food from the seas themselves was very unlikely. Even worse, when the food shortage became an issue, naturally Coronians outside of the big cities overreacted. Wild game in the winter was hunted beyond the point of what was necessary. Then, many towns in the countryside hoarded food and lied about it, leaving countless people to starve.

The most crushing blow from the famine came months before winter during a key point in the Alerar-Corone War. Entire communities of farms that had fed the country for generations were bought out by the government and handed out to the military to feed their soldiers. Much of the land was over-farmed and any livestock on the grounds was taken to be slaughtered within weeks of purchase. This grave mistake in taking too much from the land itself had left these patches of farmland inaccessible for many seasons to come and would cause the country to live off a fraction of the food supply they were used to, the majority of which included depending on the coasts, stores and outside trade.

With the stores almost bare and the knowledge of a bad harvest season only months away, the problems in Corone became entirely overwhelming. Anybody who hadn't planned ahead for the season paid for it in spades. Entire families starved while the poor were driven out of their homes by taxmen and left to die in the streets, beginning a trend of shantytowns that were usually set up in public parks, in the slums, or on the outskirts of major cities.

It looked grim with the odds stacked against Corone, making recovery from this nightmare look like a dream and the race becoming not what would save the country but what would be it's undoing. And there were more problems to come, the most glaring of which would come out of nowhere around April.

For now the people of Corone continued to drown in this war and the problems that surrounded it. Unexpectedly, in the coming weeks the frozen landscape in Corone begins to crack under the hammer of the spring thaw. With winter near it's terrible end, the country and those who dwell within it must reap the sins that had laid buried and secreted away for so long, now being dug to the surface like unmarked graves and laid out for all to see.

(Apologies for the long wait, but the story building is finished for now. Rotation begins again with Ink.)

[Inkfinger]

Late Winter/Early Spring, 38 Years Ago
Radasanth.

“Get him!”

Out of the frying pan, into the fire - the old saying had never seemed more apt. He hadn’t even been out of jail half an hour and he was already running.

Cael skidded wildly around a cobblestone corner and didn’t even stop to get his bearings before he was off again, his bad leg knotting with the familiar sharp pain that came any time he ran. He would have looked over his shoulder, but, well. He already knew what was following. He needed, instead, to see what was coming.

His pursuers rounded the corner in a pack; he could hear the clatter of heavy boots on the stones over the sound of his own ragged breathing. There were more of them than he thought entirely fair, and they knew the streets better. Cael was fairly sure he knew where he was (though he hadn’t had the nerve to ask the man who had found him in the street to confirm it) but that didn’t help much. He’d only ever been to Radasanth once, and that had been a long time ago.

He spun around another corner, vaulting an ornamental fountain long since gone dry to reach the abandoned mouth an alley, ducking under someone’s laundry as he did. He almost paused, almost turned to misappropriate the clothing, but the shouting made him decide against it. He could always get different replacement clothes. It’d be hard to get replacement skin.

The rest of the alley was a blur of colors, streaking in the corner of his eyes from other washing lines and from the decrepit advertisements plastered on the sides of dingy brick buildings – colors darkened by the long shadows of the men chasing him.

Cael careened out of the alleyway mere feet before his pursuers, and faltered for a moment at the crimson-and-gold uniformed men lazing on the street. A quick glance at the building they loitered before hit the sign – it was a Watch House. He let out a sigh of relief. Radasanth was civilized. Street thugs might be street thugs everywhere, but so were watchmen and police. Letting someone get killed in front of you was a dereliction of duty, and that just led to paperwork and nobody wanted that…

Right?

He fought the nagging doubts in his mind as he put on a burst of speed, skidding to a stop right past the watch house’s door. He stayed there, doubled over with his hands on his knees and his heart in his throat, watching as the men reacted the same way police everywhere reacted to suddenly being confronted with running people: instant suspicion.

“What the hell are you doing?” The expected words came from the man with the biggest hat and the largest number of buttons on his jacket’s sleeves – a sergeant, if his long-ago research into the city was anything close to correct. The golden buttons were polished, shining in the first flickers of the glass lamps that lined the streets, but the hilt of his sword and the elbows of his jacket were worn. Apparently, this sergeant was not the stand-off sort. The other watchmen still lounged, though they were watching their superior – if there was to be a brawl, the general body language seemed to say, they’d be ready.

“Chasin’ him,” said the largest (but not meanest looking) of the small group on his heels, waving at Cael with one meaty hand, as if the sergeant needed further clarification. The sergeant looked over his shoulder once before dismissing Cael as a potential threat. The panting inkmage glared at a red-clad back, unsure whether to be relieved or insulted.

“I see. And why were you chasing him?”

“’cos,” said the smallest (and, coincidentally, smartest and meanest looking) of the bunch, “He came outta the Salvie’s quarters wi’out showin’ papers. Didn’t stop to talk to us, neither. Just started runnin’ the moment we said how d’ya do.” He affected an air of deeply injured innocence. “Just seemed suspicious if you ask me…”

Something shifted in the sergeant’s stance, and in the other men’s attitudes, a sudden relaxation that had Cael staring, feeling the cold fingers of dread tighten around the ankles of the hope that had started to rise in his chest.

“Ah,” said the sergeant, shaking his head. “Well then.” He took a glance at Cael, sizing him up. Cael tried to stand tall, but it was hard. Prison uniforms, like soldiers uniforms, looked about the same almost anywhere, and the tatters of his blue-gray uniform barely passed as respectable. He was dimly aware of the night’s cold creeping in. “Why were you running?”

How do you answer that when you don’t even know yourself? Cael thought, shrugging helplessly. He’d done the worst possible thing in an unknown situation: he had ran. Running drew attention in the worst possible way; it was something bred in certain people, like it was bred into dogs: if it runs, chase it.

“Don’t think,” said the smallest man, grinning like a weasel in a henhouse, “he’s got papers.”

The sergeant cast him a disparaging look before he raised his eyebrows at Cael. “And have you,” he asked mildly, his men slowly rising to their feet, “got papers?”

What was he supposed to say? He did have papers, but they were far, far away in his pack back in the Cathedral storerooms, if they hadn’t been burned. And if he lied and said he had them, now…

He took a deep breath, and shook his head. “N-no papers…sir.”

“Ah.” The sergeant’s voice was still mild. Cael shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. The sergeant rubbed one hand against the stubble on his chin. “That…technically,” he shook his head. “Technically, that means, so far as Corone is concerned, you, sir,” he drawled the word out, mocking Cael’s politeness, “do not exist.”

“…ah.” There was a long, pregnant pause. Cael shifted his feet again, wondering what, exactly, they were expecting him to do: yell, or run, or miraculously produce a weapon from thin air, maybe? After the months of torment at the hands of his own people, he found that these men didn’t scare him, now that he really had no escape.

When whatever they were waiting for did not come, the sergeant heaved a mighty sigh, turning his back on Cael with a careless wave of his hand. “Alright. Have at him. Just don’t get blood on my steps.”

Cael breathed out in a long sigh, sliding into what he could manage of a fighting crouch, his fists clenched as the men surrounded him like so many toothless wolves. The cold had barely bothered him, after all - it was almost mild after Salvar’s winter, maybe the beating would be the same, after the winter of them.

But he never had to really find out. The biggest of the men lunged, his fist connecting solidly with Cael’s mouth, his other hand yanking him off his feet when the shout came.

“Stop!”

Cael blinked, startled, half-held off the ground by one huge hand, looking at the sergeant. The sergeant was already deep in conversation with a man who looked strangely familiar.That’s it, Cael realized, blood dripping down his lip, he’s the one I saw in the street…

Cael's assailant set him back on the street, but kept his grip on Cael's shirt. Cael just stuck his tongue out at the man, feeling the fresh, familiar slick of blood against his teeth. One or two even felt loose...damn it all. The sergeant waved them over, clutching a leather purse in his hand, an easy grin on his face.

“Seems there’s been a misunderstanding, boys,” he said, flipping the top flap of the purse open with a chiming jangle of coins. “He’s just a nutter out for a walk. Forgets his papers all the time…” It was clear that the sergeant wasn’t buying it, but had, in fact, been bought. None of the men previously raring to fight seemed all that enthusiastic about the idea anymore, not with the glint of gold before their eyes. “Let him go.”

They did, obediently. It came as a relief to be among that type of criminal again, and the blow, though it had left his mouth bloody, had barely stung in comparison. His rescuer simply shook his head, waving for Cael to follow him as he headed back up the alley. Cael wiped the blood from his lip on the back of his hand and followed, leaving the watch and his former pursuers to argue over the pouch of gold.

“Hey!” The sergeant called, and Cael, reluctantly, looked over his shoulder to catch a flash of white grin. “Tell Mr. Zykov it’s been a pleasure doing business with him!” He turned back to the argument, leaving Cael staring after his rescuer’s broad back.

“Oh, damn,” he breathed in Salvic, spitting crimson and teeth into his hand, mind reeling. “Just...damn.”


-

Cael held the warm, damp cloth to the conspicuous gap in his teeth with a distracted scowl. The slim woman Zykov had introduced as his wife just fussed around as he did, crumbling herbs that Cael had not smelled in close to sixteen years into the pot simmering on the stove: frostweed and kindleleaf and wyrmwhite mixing and mingling into a familiar sharp, but not unpleasant, scent; bringing memories of home-made remedies for a myriad of ills.

Memories that won't happen for another ten years, he thought, mind still yammering at him about that small fact.

Zykov stared at him from across the table, over the bowl of his pipe. Cael was reasonably sure that his rescuer's price would not involve the removal of his clothes, but he still rather wished he would stop staring. It made him feel undressed.

The apartment he’d been led to was small; cluttered, but in an organized way. Cael was willing to bet that Zykov knew exactly where everything he wanted could be found, and could find it in a moment's notice. The curtains over the windows were drawn tight, and made of lace – the same sort of thing his grandmother always used to knit during the long nights, though his grandmother never would have allowed the layer of dust to form…

“Cael,” Zykov finally said, drawing Cael’s attention back to the paradox unfolding around him. The man spoke perfect Salvic, though it was strangely accented, tinted with just a hint of Radasanth, “why did you leave the Salvic quarters on your own? They couldn’t have touched you here.” We would have stopped them. The phrase was left unspoken, but it still dripped with pride. Zykov’s wife dipped out a bowl of the herb water, advancing on Cael with a fresh cloth.

“I wasn’t aware,” Cael said, trying to lean away from the woman, “that there was such a thing as–ouch, that stings!- as the Salvic quarters…” Wordlessly: I’m new. Left even deeper in his mind: And I didn't study Radasanth's recent history.

“…ah." Zykov did not seem convinced, but he let the matter lie there, much to Cael's silent relief. "And your papers. You…never thought to show the guards your papers? Or perhaps…” Zykov’s blue-eyed stare was shrewd, calculating. Cael couldn't hold his gaze for long, instead looking at the medicinal water sitting on the table..

“…uhm.” Cael finally answered, once he'd managed to wrest the cloth from Zykov’s wife, rubbing it against his raw gums. “I don’t…that is to say…” he paused, staring at the red on the clean white linen. “I mean…” They won't be written for another twenty-five years! "No. No papers."

“I thought so...” Zykov shook his head, though Cael was fairly sure he’d seen a glint of humor in behind the calculations and measurements .Cael had the uncomfortable feeling that his rescuer could see right through the tatters and rags of his clothes to the layers of scar tissue and shame. He shifted in his seat, trying to return the cool, confident gaze – but it was he who looked away first, again, inspecting his neatly trimmed nails just for somewhere to look.

“Where are you from?” Zykov asked abruptly, changing the subject - Cael leaped at the change, not wanting to explain any more about the lack of papers, or think any more about the surreal situation.

“Gjovic, it's a little...” Very little. "fishing vi-"

“Ah!” Zykov interrupted. He seemed genuinely delighted. “In the North-west, right? Small village, known for its fishing fleet, kindleleaf gardens, and…” Cael almost ground his teeth before he realized how silly that would be with the teeth missing. Please don’t say fish oil… The guards at the cathedral had thought that hilarious, given some of its…unadvertised uses. He never wanted to think about it again. “Fish oil,” Zykov finished, looking at Cael strangely when he flinched. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Cael lied miserably, folding the cloth up smaller before wedging it back in his mouth. “Just fine.”

Zykov seemed to take him at his word, sucking the stem of his pipe, though the tobacco had long gone out. He spoke carefully. “If I were to get you papers, with Gjovic as your birthplace, I assume Cael is the name you would want on them…?” He trailed off, questioningly.

Cael couldn’t fight the ghost of a smile that crept over his lips at that train of thought, though part of him knew this was probably part of a test. “Better yet,” he said, “All I need is parchment, ink and a half-decent pen and you can cut out the middleman…”

Zykov’s gaze went, if possible, even more calculating. "Really. Are you any good?" He didn't bother to ask at what. He didn't need to. He already knew, and, furthermore, he knew that Cael knew that he knew.

Cael didn't bother hiding the pride in his voice. "Possibly the only thing I am good at, but I..." Fooled the Church and the Monarchy of Salvar at the same time for months in the future, his conscience cut in. Probably not the best thing to tell someone like him. He swallowed his boasts, and finished meekly. "That is to say, yes. Yes, I am quite good."

"You're confident and yet you don't brag," Zykov mused, tapping his pipe against the table to shake the packed tobacco free. The sentence cinched Cael's belief that the man caught practically everything that happened before his eyes, and quite possibly quite a lot that didn't. "I like that. I get you your materials, you show me what you can do, and perhaps from there we'll...talk." He smiled, quite pleasantly, and Cael found himself smiling back, gap in his teeth almost forgotten. "How's that sound?"

"That sounds," Cael replied, "like we have the beginnings of a deal."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Corone, 38 years ago. Mid-Late March

Aly trod carefully through the thin brush, hoping that the scraggly trees and bushes with their budding chartreuse foliage would provide enough cover for her to slink away from the army's camp and make good her escape. The last thing she needed was a bunch of armed thugs acting on their paranoia of her race, mistaking her for a spy or combatant, and chasing her through the woods.

Come to think of it, history didn't need the troops headed for Lamm to stomp out the domestic threat the Sons of Purity posed to panic at the sight of a lone Alerian, alert the army of a non-existent invading force, and get distracted from what was actually important. Who knew what it would change? What the ramifications of her so much as being spotted might be? Now that she thought about it, Alydia realized the sheer scope of the responsibility she had. If she messed something up in the past and it wasn't just an exhaustion-induced nightmare, she had no way of knowing what the consequences would be in the future as she knew it. She might change things for the much, much worse. And she wouldn't have a way to fix anything if she wound up making the world a worse place for innocent people.

Are we invading Corone right now, anyway?

Aly reached back four decades in her memory, but nothing came to mind. Thirty-eight years in her past, she'd been a young detective who had homicides to rescue and kidnapped children to rescue by day and dinners to save from the Chief, her adoptive father, by night. The war with Corone just hadn't concerned her enough to remember details so long after the fact.

"Who goes there? Halt!" The voice rang out from a sentry at the camp, deep and authoritative, but Aly didn't pause long enough to see the face of the man who had spotted her. Abandoning stealth entirely, Alydia broke into a full run. She needed to put distance between herself and her pursuers if she was to vanish.

If I'd known this would happen, I'd have turned my coat inside out BEFORE opening that journal.

As it was, the bright, gaudy scarlet of her trademark outfit made her highly visible; she'd have to work many times harder in order to get away. Crashing footfalls thundered behind her; there were at least three soldiers chasing her and no ravines, thickets, or hillocks in sight. The lack of good cover wasn't making her flight any easier.

I can't run like this forever...where am I, anyway?

With the precise knowledge of her location, Aly could have made three different escape plans while running and picked the best one based on her pursuers' moves. Instead, they were chasing her like ravenous wolves and she was fleeing from them with all the artlessness of a terrified rabbit.

Branches caught and pulled at the coat that billowed out behind her, slowing her down, and allowing the men to keep pace with her. The thief began to wonder if she was not in over her head for once in her life.

Then, just when the burn in her lungs and stitch in her side were pouring thoughts of hopelessness into her heart, she heard a rushing trickle ahead of her. When she focused on the sound, rather than the footfalls of the men tearing after her, she heard the roar of a river, rather than the mere murmur of a stream.

River? I'm at the Niema? ...No, that's closer to Radasanth. That means it's either the Bradbury or the Firewiner...and since they're headed to Lamm, likely from Radasanth, I'd bet money that it's the Firewiner. That means...xas, I know where to go now.

Pain forgotten now that her movements had purpose, Alydia put on a sudden burst of speed. Rather than crashing blindly through branches, she started navigating the woods. Movements that had been desperate a mere moment before became coordinated. She avoided catching her coat on more branches with the grace for which the Elves were famous, and heard her pursuers fall behind her. She had a way to go before she could lose them entirely, but it was a start, and a smirk crossed her face. She had a plan, and thus she was unstoppable.

"She's headed for the river." It was the same voice that had ordered her to stop, and it was the one directly behind her, at a distance of no more than fifteen yards. "Split up boys, give her no escape."

The other two men following her, to her right and left, grew ever further away as they moved off to follow their orders. They were trying to head her off, to flank her and bring her down like a pack of hounds would a fox. But the fox was never without tricks of its own.

How cute. They think they have me.

Aly was close enough to the water she could smell it, and less than a minute later the water was within view. She was in luck; the water didn't flow too quickly in this section and the stamina she'd earned in her days of chasing criminals and running over rooftops to evade pursuers was starting to give out. Her breath was coming in ragged pants, and her legs were burning. Still she forced herself to charge at full speed to the river.

Give me some real banks...

Aly jumped as soon as she reached the river's edge, turning a little in mid-air to see what she was looking at sheltering against. Luck was in her favor; the drought that had precipitated the famine had lowered the water tables and made for steep banks in which she could shelter. For the first time, she allowed her pursuers to see more of her than a mere blur of scarlet and flowing black hair, and she saw the shock on their faces when she was revealed as their mortal enemy.

She wished she could have seen the look on their faces when she vanished into a wisp of darkness, taking refuge in the shade of her hat and then reappearing back in the shade of the riverbanks. Quickly, before they could reach her location, she pressed in close to the steepest edge. Her breath was bitter and metallic in the back of her mouth, she wanted to double over and wheeze, but instead she kept still and forced herself to breathe normally.

"Where did she go?" A different voice puffed; all three men were breathing hard enough that she could hear them just above her. One move now and the chase would be back on. She couldn't afford that just now.

"She either crossed or doubled back." The voice belonged to the same man who had sounded the alert, the same one who had ordered the men to try flanking her and heading her off. "Sanders, return to camp and alert them we found an Alerian scout. Wilkinson, cross the river at the nearest bridge and begin searching...be careful, no telling how dangerous this one is. I'll search in this area."

"Yes, Sir, Captain Keyes," was the prompt response, and the two lower-ranking soldiers went off on their respective tasks. Aly remained perfectly still, but inside her heart quivered a little.

Would so formidable a commander be able to anticipate and capture her? Could she let that happen? Or could she convince him that the impossible had happened and she was just from the future and lost?

Doubtful... why must I always find trouble, even if I'm not seeking it?