Lifted By Levity (Closed)

[Allennia]

Prologue

Down a grassy embankment, before an ancient waypoint, a young woman called to the seven gods of her home. In the shade of indomitable woods, she repeated the same line she had formed a mantra with a final time.

“I really hope he’s alive.”

For hours, the knight knelt before the wisent oak tree and wished. She poured her heart, her soul, and her strength into a single dream. She did not wish for gold. She did not wish for power, providence, and popularity. She wished only for the truth.

“Please let him have simply been waylaid…,” she continued.

It was a year to the day since Abhorrash Isould vanished. He had left no note. He had told no one of his intentions. When Allennia awoke the following morning, and descended the oak stairwell to the family dining hall, he was not at his usual seat. His eggs, bacon, and grape juice remained untouched.

Allennia pushed herself upright, her vigil done, her energy drained. She straightened her spine, rolled her hips to loosen the stiffness, and began to stretch her arms and legs in a routine manner.

“Are you ready?” Nayeli asked. There was a plea in the horse’s voice.

“I am.” She turned to face her friend, smiled wearily, and wrenched her blade from the sodden earth. “Forgive me for delaying us further.”

Despite being hundreds of miles away from the Valley of Seven, Allennia Isould would not abandon her faith. Her knightly ways were all she had left. They reminded her of home. They reminded her of her purpose.

“It’s alright,” Nayeli whinnied. She nodded east along the road. “The next corner will bring us out onto the plains. From there,” she flicked her tail and stretched her hind legs, “its four leagues or so to Jadet.”

At the mention of the duo’s destination, Allennia broke into a halcyon smile. She had given up keeping track of how far they had travelled. She tossed her sword across her shoulder and strapped it to her back. She tightened the leather, brushed off the grass and mud from her greaves, and trundled up the embankment onto the dirt.

“Lead on, old friend. There’s a hay bale in it for you,” Allennia promised.

Without needing further encouragement, Nayeli kicked into a trot. The road would lead the last heir of the Isould family to far and foreign shores. With the tree line to their left, and the rising cliffs of chalk and granite to their right, they watched the last beautiful countryside of Corone drift by.

[Allennia]

Lifted By Levity (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8pQLtHTPaI)


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vV9Qk_QYZEM/TjUkds6-yLI/AAAAAAAAAO8/h4c5SPQLyBQ/s640/frank_frazetta_icarus.jpg



Closed to Roht Mirage (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?24821).

Sequel to Falling To Rise (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25521-Falling-To-Rise-(Open)).

[Roht Mirage]

Roht Voyage

~
One month prior...

Two women wound their way leisurely through the calmer streets of Radasanth. One was a noble knight without her armor, the other a simple Fallien traveller. The sun was setting behind them, marking the end of their first day at the Citadel, a day that they would not repeat. For all the fanfare and spectacle, it was a dark place. Neither of them had the oblivious, untouched souls required to enjoy the false battles. Yet, as goes the saying about silver linings, it wasn't all bad. They had each found an ally.

“A city in Fallien... that no one knows about?” the knight asked in an incredulous whisper. The only locals nearby were in their yards, gathering wild children or clothes from the line, taking both inside to tuck into their respective slots.

“Faroh,” the traveller nodded with a wary glance that spanned one end of the street, to the other, and back.

“Where is it located?”

The Fallien woman shrugged. “Probably where I left it.”

“Astarelle,” Allennia sighed, “You said earlier this was a story you wanted to tell me.”

“Teer, around others. Please.” She examined the street once more. A few people looked back in kind, apparently unnerved. Teer offered one stern-faced mother a small wave. The woman shooed her children inside with more haste. “Sorry,” she mumbled, “I just haven't shared this with anyone since leaving home.” Allennia seemed on the verge of saying something comforting, but Teer didn't stop talking, lest she lose the nerve to continue. “Faroh moves. Well, we move it, when we need to.”

“I was a priestesses of Roh. They're... kind of like the royal family, you could say. I wasn't made for it, though. I just couldn't take life locked in that city. It would have driven me mad. When I became Set'Roh -er, that's a period in the training when we're allowed to apprentice under one of the citizens- I decided to travel with Akashere, a gatherer. Their job is to go into the other Fallien cities and acquire what Faroh needs without revealing our people's existence.”

“By thievery?” Allennia asked, then winced as if wishing for gentler words.

“No,” Teer exclaimed, then softened her own voice and offered a gentle smile. “We have disguises, tricks. You know...” She gestured at her face, the very portrait of a tenderly-raised spice fields daughter.

“Ah,” the knight nodded, “So it's a matter of espionage.”

Teer tried to not let her pout show. “I'm not a spy.”

Except for the aliases, back alley deals, trading of noble boons, and one or two people I killed, but they really deserved it.

“Not technically a spy.” She blushed.

Allennia laughed comfortingly. “Call it what you will. I am no stranger to the subtle games.” After a pause, she gave Teer a curious glance. “You speak of it as if you regret leaving.”

Teer looked at the rutted road below, “Akashere died. I was destined to return to the temple and rule anyway, but the way he went... Everything became so complicated. It felt like the cage door was closing. So, I ran. One man tried to stop me.... he...”

She resisted the urge to glance about again. “Roh has powerful hunters. They abide by death's rules as much as the Citadel does. I keep expecting them or their puppets to jump out from anywhere. But, I haven't seen any sign, and I've travelled almost completely around this big soggy lump you call Corone. Sometimes, I think I'm just being paranoid.”

“I...” Allennia began.

Teer felt her back stiffen. Allennia seemed the essence of nobility. If she judged her harshly for abandoning her duty, it wouldn't be surprising. It would hurt, though.

“I am honored that you would share this with me.”

Teer smiled sheepishly, though she kept her eyes forward. She didn't want to read any underlying thoughts on the noblewoman's face. They were undoubtedly there, but keeping them sheathed was so kind of her, almost embarrassingly so. She let out a sigh and forced the dour mood back into its box.

“So,” she said as cheerily as if she had just discussed her childhood raising goats, “What brought you here?”

If Allennia had been receptive to the change in mood, the topic clearly soured it. “My story is hardly as interesting as yours, I'm afraid. My brother...”

~
Present

As she waited, Astarelle Set'Roh took a deep breath of the briny sea air. It felt cleansing, but only in the way of thick, dry grime being scoured off. Since she had last seen Allennia in person, much had happened. She had, among other unfortunate events, been drawn into the bloodsport of the Cell. It was a bloody spectacle, both in and out of the Ai'Brone arenas. She bore the name of Roht Mirage during that episode -not really by choice- and for some it had stuck.

When all you have is aliases, they can become too real, she remembered Akashere's wise words. Take some time to just be you.

Yet, she could not wear the name of Astarelle again, not while bound for Fallien. Her hunters had proven themselves to be far less hostile than she expected, but she would be a sand-blasted fool to announce her return home. Whatever they were planning would not come on the end of a knife, she knew now, but they were up to something.

So, she relegated herself to the alias of Teer. Simple, sweet Teer. Allennia knew it was just a mask, but she also knew how important Astarelle's masks were to her. In all their correspondence -letters that never mentioned the blasted Cell- she had signed with “Teer”. It was a comforting name to wear again.

Simple, sweet Teer lounged on a flimsy tavern porch just at the edge of what some in Jadet called the 'outskirts', among more offensive names. She could see, far up the street toward the docks, that there was a definitive change in the buildings, like a generational divide in the architecture. The city had become one of the disparate hubs amidst the continent's questionably-sleeping civil war and wore a girthy pooch of hastily constructed homes and establishments to keep the new refugees warm as well as entertained. Thankfully, few of the people who passed before her seemed like refugees anymore. The majority had some business to attend to, some place they were needed, or at the very least their coin was. It made the situation less depressing... somewhat.

She sighed. Look for the bright lights.

One such light: the new and old residents of Jadet, with its direct link to Fallien's shipping routes, barely looked at her. She had kept her daughter-of-the-spice-fields look, even the coat tied around her waist. It lent a little extra padding to the harsh wooden chair, though it had been a difficult decision with the cool sea breeze cutting its way into her plain shirt, laced as tightly up the front as possible. It was a choice her bottom thanked her for.

Any moment, she'll be here, she told herself, not for the first time. A few patters sounded on the slanted porch roof, and people in the un-cobbled street looked up, then hurried on their way. Astarelle scooted her chair back until it touched the tavern's front wall. She would wait for her friend even if it rained into the evening, but she would not get wet. Tomorrow's journey would have enough water as it was.

[Allennia]

Allennia’s wonderment at seeing Jadet for the first time was short lived. War’s effect aside, the town was unremarkable, and offered little to explore or discover to newcomers. It served, from what the knight could tell, as a port, and little more. The buildings were ramshackle, save for heavy slates guarding against the endless sheets of rain. Porches and promenades were coloured only with spindly evergreens in terracotta planters.

With Nayeli’s reigns in her right hand, the scholar ate bread from her left. It was damp, and lacking in flavour, but after the last two leagues, she cared only for maintaining her strength. There would be time to savour sweet meats and delicacies in Irrakam, if Astarelle’s tantalising description of her eastern home was worth its weight in gold.

“That hay bale is becoming more distracting with every step,” the horse grumbled. It was lucky for Allennia that the streets were all but deserted. She doubted even recent strangeness in Corone would afford them passage through the town if people heard a horse speak.

“Not long now,” Allennia whispered. She bit her bread, chewed it twice, and then stuffed the well-fingered crust in after it.

“You said that an hour ago,” Nayeli whinnied.

Allennia chuckled. There was nothing she could say to Nayeli to encourage her. She was glad they had developed a close friendship since her unfortunate accident. When Nayeli had been a bright-eyed straw haired squire, she was uncouth, bitter, and entirely not the material Allennia could construct into a knight.

They walked on in silence, happy to munch on a horse bag, and pick crust from teeth. Heavy greaves began to feel heavier on Allennia’s now fatigued body. Nayeli’s hooves sounded heavier on the flagstones, and the swish of her tail and the rattle of her tack formed a little melody of journey’s end. They turned a corner and both immediately felt relief.

“That is where Astarelle said she’d meet us,” the knight stated. She felt her heart gladden, and her load, a thick and battered leather satchel, suddenly feel lighter. She would have been truly glad, had the last four leagues not been the start of a journey numbering almost a hundred more.

With Nayeli by her side, they advanced to the porch, a half-formed smile lifting them on uneasy wings, rain pouring down every inch of their browbeaten bodies. They locked eyes with their companion, and exchanged relieved waves.

“Oh are we glad to see you!” the horse whinnied, uncaring about wherever or not the tavern’s patrons heard. Come this late in the evening, they would put it down to drink, give a double take, and get on with their banter and gossip.

"Did that horse just talk?" the brawler asked, befuddled.

Allennia nodded, as though it were perfectly normal.

"Oh, that's okay then, I thought I was going mad!"

[Roht Mirage]

In the pantheon of oddities that Teer had encountered in the last year, this was minor. There had been the Citadel, defying the laws of the life and death, as well as a dark enemy of Relt Peltfelter, tearing deadly holes in the world itself. A talking horse? Just one more grain of strangeness. It ranked alongside the 'Skittles' that Relt had offered her.

“Come on. No need to stand in the rain,” Teer said as she offered her hand through the curtain of water spilling off the roof. It rang above her with a frantic tempo, the same tempo to which Allennia's armor sounded in lower notes. With a sluck, her boots left the mud and slopped footprints onto the porch.

“Thank you,” Allennia said diplomatically as she straightened the long, dark hair that had matted into a soggy clump behind her neck.

Teer hugged her wet arm, shielding it from the view of the tavern's windows. It seemed lighter where the water had landed, not Corone pale, but pale enough that it looked odd on a Fallien native. The problem was remedied when a thin wave of dry sand, every color between Fallien burnt and Salvar bitten, flowed from her sleeve to encase the hand. It roiled upon itself until only the common desert brown was visible, and set so tight against her skin as to be indiscernible. She caught Allennia's glance, and a small nod of understanding. She smiled back.

It only takes one confidant to make a secret feel so much lighter.

Teer eyed the horse, still bearing the brunt of the downpour. Its eyes, catching the light of the setting sun, seemed disconcertingly expressive. She stammered, uncertain whether or not to invite the animal inside. It seemed inconsiderate to not, but the tavern's construction could barely hold humans, let alone a creature so large.

“Bart! Take our guest's horse to the stable!” bellowed a strong female voice from within. The door snapped open, revealing a harried teenager and his boisterous employer in the background, gesticulating and shouting from behind the bar.

Teer was suddenly reminded of Akashere and his lesson that the best way to communicate without breaking one's persona was to use the eyes. On their best days, they would have whole conversations without saying a word. Yet, even the untrained could achieve something similar, and she always felt giddily voyeuristic as she read those exchanges.

Allennia's wide eyes, ending with a flutter of the lids, said, “This pile of sticks has a stable?”

The presumed stable-boy’s heavy, exasperated sideways glance said, “Don't even ask.”

With a snap of her saturated hair, Allennia glared at her horse. “Behave.”

The horse rolled its eyes. “Whatever you say.”

Teer almost snorted out a laugh.

As Bart dejectedly stomped past the dripping knight, threw a hood over his head, and grabbed the dangling reigns, he brought the conversation to the vocal range. “It's a roof and some hay. Good enough?”

The horse answered by dragging him around the side of the building in search of it. His shouts of “Whoa! Hey!” disappeared into the rain's patter.

Teer turned to Allennia with a wide grin. “I like your horse.”

The knight seemed equal parts exasperated and amused as she said, “Her name's Nayeli.”

“Pretty name,” Teer said quietly as she walked to the door, then added, “Let's get somewhere dry... drier.” She gave a sheepish glance saying, “Wish I could offer more,” and opened the door. The tavern was as a crudely assembled as everything else in the outskirts. No less than three buckets plinked away as they caught drips from the roof, and the floor looked as if it might creak if you looked at it too hard. That being the case, something of a miracle had been worked in the room. An uneven hearth was filled with mismatched curios, the central piece being a large plaque bearing a family crest of roses and lions. The walls that didn't have lines of water running down them bore a few paintings, warped from travel, depicting great battles among red-blossomed trees and a knighting ceremony amidst common folk and their wheat fields beyond. Plain bowls were apportioned among the patrons, but the smell that wafted from them was both savory and spicy.

The woman at the bar was the focal point of the misplaced grandeur. Her grey-streaked hair was held back with a golden comb, and her brilliant crimson dress, with it high neck and silver sequins, flattered a frame that was aged but no less feminine. She cradled a bottle of wine in one arm as she gestured with the other.

“Your ladyship. I am honored to receive you,” she said with a formal bow.

There was a sigh from one of the tables, but the culprit was lost among the men fresh from their dock labors. Some slurped their stew with hands scarred and leathery. Others looked soft and bruised, but no less grateful for the meal.

After a sharp glance over the crowd, causing the men to nose deeper into their meals, she gave her new guests a gratuitous smile. “I am Meredith, the steward of this establishment. Your table is right over here, and your meal will be out shortly.”

[Allennia]

“The pleasure is ours, Meredith,” Allennia said with an equally false curl of her lips. She had played this game since the day she was born, and she was almost certainly better at it than their host was.

The party were distinctly aware of the eyes glaring at them from beneath hoods and over frothing tankards as they walked to the table. It was a strange sensation, to one born into nobility in a kingdom where it meant respect. She had never felt ostracised before, even if her namesake meant nothing to the people, and her dedication to charity and kindness felt obfuscated by necessary lies.

“She seems…,” Teer trailed off, lost in ways to curse their host creatively.

“Nice?” Allennia offered. She smiled, sat at the north end of the gallery table, and sunk into her chair. The rain was pouring now so heavily it bowed the eaves of the tavern, and she was constantly aware of the distant roar of waterfalls.

“That was not the word I was looking for…,” she replied, seating herself opposite Allennia.

Teer chuckled. “I only told her a little about you, so if you find her riding your shadow...” She trailed off, pensive. "Just go with it. Some of it was high embellishment."

“Thanks!” Allennia snapped, dripping with sarcasm.

The awkward silence rocked the atmosphere in the tavern. The veiled stares became more obvious, and Allennia had to smile coyly, wave politely, and appease their worries.

“If we could please get through this ordeal without causing a riot, that would be most appreciated,” Isould whispered, turning to the table with a disappointed expression as arid as the Ruuya Spice fields. For a brief moment, Astarelle swore Allennia had appeared Fallieni herself.

“I agree,” Teer said, cocksure and glee, “we might as well have some fun before the sea…” She shuddered.

Allennia sighed. “What’s wrong with boats?”

“Oh, nothing, I like boats now,” she chuckled nervously. "It's, well, you'll see tomorrow..."

“Right.” Allenia leant back, uncertain if she wanted to found out what Teer meant or not. “I just…well, hopefully Lord Brakert has very nice boats.”

“Lord…Brekart?” Meredith said with a half-formed gasp. She had appeared behind Allennia brandishing four plates of potatoes, gravy, and something the party hoped was edible pie. “Oh my, I had no idea!” Her ditsy, faux pau show of civility sent a shiver down Teer’s spine. Allennia, on the other hand, was used to it. This, Allennia assumed, was Meredith 'riding her shadow'.

“It is quite alright m’lady. I am but a distant relative,” Allennia encouraged. She darted Astarelle a questioning glance, her certainty about their cover not yet set in stone. The Fallieni reached under the table and appeared to write something. “Your hospitality is quite sufficient; in fact, it’s talked about even in Irrakam!” Allennia’s jubilant smile hid the worry lines forming on her brow as she tested her own, rhystic, and fading knowledge from her education of the world beyond the Valley. She knew so little she was lucky she remembered one worthwhile fact.

Meredith bowed, set the plates in front of the guests, whisked one away to another table, and began whistling with piety and humble pleasure. Her buxom features seemed to fade and wither as she stopped trying to impress, and got about her self-elevating quest to something better, anything other than here.

An awkward silence surrounded the table until Astarelle slipped Allennia a note beneath the rickety legs. Allennia peered down discretely; black fringe falling over tired eyes, and read the contents. It detailed reasoning behind their deceptions, though the spidery script was difficult to read, and the logic behind it murky and riddled with misunderstanding.

“I…,” Allennia began, before she read the final line of the note, and snapped her mouth shut. It said, clearly, to ‘not speak a word of this’. Almost instantly, Allennia wanted to know why. She doubted this was the place. “I think we should eat,” she diverted, picking up her fork and nodding. “To the desert, and friends, and Lord Brekart!”

In the cheers, Astarelle took the note back as it was passed to her, and drained the ink into her flowing sleeves. She gave Allennia an all-knowing smile, and realised they would talk again on the matter.

The toast was raucous, and the evening long, but in those hedonistic hours, Allennia finally began to feel like she was part of something…a world…a family…a story. The second she hit the pillow in the host’s bedroom, Meredith’s ‘royal’ insistence, she put the evening’s events into an idyllic dream, full of strange metaphors and glimpses of what tomorrow may bring.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle leaned back against the low window sill, her bottom on the rough floor with the sand that was Teer's coloring spread about her like a mat. The storm had just faded. Eerily, the air still smelled so thick with rain that she imagined it would resume at any moment, but the clouds were relenting one starry expanse at a time. A cool, moist breeze played through the open window, tussling her hair against her back and flicking the corners of the page she read. She had edited it a hundred times already; a lean of a letter here, a touch more bureaucratic tone there. In the spotty moonlight, it looked near perfect, yet she had trouble putting it away.


The bearer of this letter is Lady Allennia Isould, an ambassador of Corone in foreign and trade affairs. She is travelling at the behest of the Coronian Assembly in the service of Corone's interests and prosperity. Any and all requested aid is to be provided to her by the Coronian Military and the Coronian Navy as undersigned by representatives of the Coronian Assembly. Any toll accrued will be void in Corone's territory. Any toll accrued within Fallien territory is to be forwarded to the estate of Lord Awnsar Brekart.

Astarelle patted the back of a finger against the welling moisture in her eyes. You're still helping me, dear Akashere.

In honest fact, there was no Lord Brekart. No family, no estate, no ships, no man. Just as Teer was one of her faces, Brekart had been one of Akashere's. The spice field daughter's purpose was to move without notice, just another Fallien nobody. Brekart's purpose was the opposite. His name and legend were a cudgel to break down the locks they found in their way. Even after Akashere's passing, she wielded the cudgel with such affect that it seemed as if he had never left, merely stepped into the background to trim and shape her ruses to a razor edge.

Oh Akee, Astarelle sighed, laying the missive upon her lap as she leaned backward to hang her head halfway out the window. Half of her vision was suffocated by the low ceiling of Meredith's bedroom -more a creaking attic- and the rest was a field of waking stars. What was it like to deal with me when I was just beginning? I remember so many slips of the tongue and so many times I might have given us away in Irrakam. You always covered the damage before anyone even noticed. Without even blinking. Now, I'm far from home, but still hiding in the way of the gatherer. I'm alone with an 'apprentice' of my own... and tonight I panicked. I thought she was playing it too loud. I thought she would raise the question of why a noble would lodge in the outskirts. Bury me, I tried to pass her a note! You would have turned blue to see it.

Astarelle lifted her head to glance into the darkened loft. Allennia was curled up on one half of Meredith's bed, breathing slowly. She looked odd without her armor. No less stable, no smaller -she was a blasted tall woman by the fallien measures Astarelle knew so well- but still strange, like a dangerous desert insect freshly molted. Astarelle smiled. She did well. In every way, she was true to Brekart's lineage. He was too uncouth to dine with his peers. He was too busy with grand expeditions to be pinned down by pomp and status. Brekart would have enjoyed an evening in a leaky inn with dock workers and refugees.

As if itching from the attention, Allennia rolled onto her back to take up well over half of the bed. Astarelle scrunched up her face. Just when I was finally tired. The noblewoman answered her with the kind of snore that rattled piles of gold in a dragon's lair. The fallieni blinked, listened for two more board-rattling breaths, then smothered a giggle. Maybe it wasn't as much of an act as I thought... Her parched throat tempted her more than the crowded bed, so Astarelle covered her nightclothes with the previous day's attire -wrinkled but serviceable- and wrapped the darker tone of the spice fields daughter around her. Akashere had always admonished her to keep her masks close.

As sweet and simple Teer, the fallieni woman descended from the dragon's lair and toward the shadowed bar in the common room. Only the lamps in the corners of the room still burned, almost guttering out. Teer shifted her feet carefully along the floor, making far too many creaks for her liking, and listened for any alert. There was a distinct snoring. Bury me, Allennia. I can hear you down here, she snapped before realizing that the snore was from within the room. On one of the central benches, a thin man in a worn coat slept fitfully. He might have smelled of alcohol, but the entirety of the room felt like the dark interior of a cask after the celebration Allennia had thrown.

With extra patience given to her own still-wobbly feet, Teer slunk behind the bar. After a minute, she located a clean mug as her questing hand clunked it against others drying on their rims. Water, or the source of it, was even more obfuscated. There was no shortage of other beverages, all gleaming darkly in their racks, but the thought of more made her stomach twist.

She was ready to surrender her thirst to the night when the door to the shack's small kitchen creaked open and a pair of beady eyes hung out. “Hi,” Teer offered meekly, lifting one hand to -barely- wave.

Meredith visibly calmed. Her eyes turned from wary to merely annoyed. “Water?” she asked tersely. Teer nodded emphatically in the dark. With a sigh, the hostess took the mug from her hand and waved her to the front of the bar. Teer circled to a stool directly opposite Meredith and watched with some embarrassment as she turned a spigot at the very center of the racks. From a rain barrel on high, her mug was filled.

“Thank you... and sorry to wake you,” she said, still wearing meekness like a shawl.

Meredith waved again, though her expression was softer. In her modest nightgown, she looked every inch the grandmother of a babe. “Don't worry about it. I sleep lightly these days, anyway. Never know who might try to make off with a mural.”

Teer coughed lightly and nodded over her shoulder at the sleeping man. “Should we-”

“Leave him,” Meredith cut her off, “His shack fell on him last night. Nothing here was meant to be permanent. Some seem to think otherwise...”

Teer sipped her water and leaned forward attentively. The least she could do to repay the midnight kindness was lend an ear.

Meredith sighed deeply, then continued with a weary tone that seemed to crawl from the shadowed lines of her face. “I've been petitioning the assembly for reparations. But, nothing. Not even a look; for me or anyone else here. Some actually saw the fighting. Others were simply forced away by the set fires. I barely saved what I could from my own estate before the two sides clashed over it. Any later, and I might have burned up with everything else.”

“Which side burned it?” Teer asked, letting the inquisitiveness of Astarelle slip through.

Meredith glowered until the fallieni woman dipped her nose sheepishly into her glass. “I don't know, and I don't care.” There was an implied 'anymore' in her tone.

Silence fell between them like a sheath's whisper, but another question soon followed. Whether it was her natural curiosity or the 'Teer' persona's simlpeness, she couldn't say. “You risked your life for...” She glanced at the barely perceptible curios, crest, and murals.

Strangely, Meredith bristled less, even allowing some pride to rise in her voice. “My family is newly risen. I still remember the day my father was knighted.” She nodded toward the mural farthest from the door. The image of royal regalia amid farmers' fields was fresh enough for Teer to recall it in detail. “My children were already safely away when the armies came, but I couldn't let their proof of inheritance burn. With how much there is to rebuild... so much will be forgotten.”

Teer nodded and bit her tongue before she could ask after the husband Meredith neglected to mention.

“I didn't want to ask your lady directly,” Meredith continued, assuming the shawl of meekness, “But could she send word to Radasanth? I don't know if she can speed the process. I just...” She glanced at the sleeping refugee on his narrow perch. “Jadet's outskirts will come down eventually whether we are still in them or not.”

Teer reached across to take hold of Meredith's hand. She could feel the quiet desperation in her grip. “Lady Isould would never let this stand. I'll inform her, and I'm sure she'll send word to the capital before we leave tomorrow.”

Meredith paused a moment before pulling her hand back. “Thank you. She sounds more reliable than Awnsar Brekart.” Her breath caught. “Don't get me wrong. We are all in awe of his exploits. His stories just make him sound too... distracted to bother with something than this.”

Teer allowed herself a quiet giggle, then whispered slyly, “I assure you, my lady did not inherit that trait from the Brekart line.” Meredith shifted uneasily, perhaps trying to discern if it was a joke. Teer took the opportunity to finish her water. “Thank you again, Meredith,” she said as she placed the empty mug down. “It's been a pleasure to stay with you.”

The woman waved, a most motherly of gestures that said simply, “Time for bed.”

Teer stood from the stool, but couldn't resist sharing one last thought. “I'm surprised his reputation has come this far across the ocean.”

Meredith sniffed, “Oh please. Anyone who's ever stayed the night in a port city knows of Lord Brekart.”

Astarelle nodded, unable to find any more words. Akashere, I don't think you were ever aware of how much difference you truly made. With a final wave, she crept up the stairs. She had one more letter to forge before bed.

[Allennia]

Allennia had not once woken to such a scene of chaos and disrepair. Everywhere she looked, curtains, pillows, and furniture was eschew. At the centre of the double bed, where the duo had snored, tossed, and turned through the tepid night, Astarelle was unceremoniously sprawled.

“I’ve never seen the like,” she mumbled.

The Fallien-born had managed to sleep head to the ground, legs still on the bed, arms splayed over the floor. How she had not passed out or slid from the mattress was beyond the noble, but she supposed she had a strange and peculiar dignity to being so anarchic in form.

“Grbbleueue,” the sleeping beauty muttered. She rolled over, slipped from the bed, and fell into an unorganised mess on the rustic floorboards.

Allennia turned, sullen and bewildered, and observed the continue disgrace of her companion. She looked at the bed sheets, hardly slept in, and then to the door.

“Oh…” she realised. Astarelle has been up to something, as ever she was. “You liked Meredith’s hospitality more than you let on, aye?” she asked, though she knew she would get no answer.

Though the sun was hardly risen, Allennia had donned her armour and hauberk in silence, and was already well beyond ready to depart. She could not say the same for her friend, and disgruntled by that, she crossed the room to tower over her. Her cold, calculating eyes peered out beneath her still wet fringe, locks of black hair washed in lavender and thyme oils.

“When I fought you in the Citadel I thought you a lady,” she said, no shouted, far too loud. The room shook. The tavern heard her. Astarelle, dreaming of fireflies and towers crumbling to dust, almost certainly heard her.

“What the sand worm’s crack?” she roared, flailing, sitting upright and belching all in one awkward, swift, and calamitous motion. Allennia stepped back sharply.

“Morning sleepy head,” the noble continued her tone more harmonious, her smile friendlier, and less fiendish. “It is long passed the time we should be leaving.”

Astarelle glared up at Allennia, hair at odds with her eternally perfect form, and eyelids blinking rapidly, to lose what little sleep had formed in her limited window of rest. She mumbled under her breath in Fallieni, something about horses, over eager hosts, and trying to please people too hard.

“Oh, there better be poppy bread,” she grumbled. She pushed herself upright, lithe despite the fatigue in her body, and began to adjust her attire and features into something remotely presentable.

“Poppy bread?” Allennia enquired. She walked back to the window and peered out at the courtyard. Already, it was bustling with mercantile activity, guards on patrol, and steaming horse manure left in the wake of the morning’s wagons.

“Oh,” Astarelle blinked. She forgot she was not home, wherever that was, and that her companion was a far removed from Fallien as could be. “Its wholemeal bread, stone baked, laced with the seeds of a poppy flower.” She trundled to the bed, and began to make the sheets with reluctance and ardour.

Allennia looked away from the window, and walked to the viewing chair wreathed in lace curtains and her belongings. As she began to don her cloak, gloves, and sheath her sword, she tried to picture Astarelle’s homeland. The thought of so much sand sent a chill down her spine, as a daughter of Isould, the Guardians of the Woods, arid landscapes were one of the few things to scare her.

“I’ll ask the chef,” she said, trying to be cheery.

Astarelle blew a raspberry, slung her bag over her shoulder, and still dishevelled, made her way to the room’s door. As Allennia had risen, she had pulled it to and let in the fresh air. Patrons slipped back and forth along the stuffy corridor, averting their gaze on the way to their next destination, or at the very least, the breakfast buffet.

“I won’t get my hopes up,” Astarelle clucked. “It’s been…,” she paused for thought, “years since I last had it.”

Allennia nodded in sympathy. By now, she had been away from the valley for over twelve months. The memories she had of her home were swift becoming faint, worthless, and full of hyperbole. Every step of their journey, she was starting to wish she was indeed Brekart’s aid, and that Astarelle was indeed Teer. Memories and masques made more sense of the world than the truth.

“Shall we?” Teer said, donning her persona for their final act in Jadet. She gestured to the door, and without word, Allennia hauled her hefty blade over her shoulder, and walked out into the tavern’s cavernous innards in mutual silence.

[Roht Mirage]

Teer entered the common room a step behind Allennia, her eyes vacant and her pack heavy over one shoulder. She wore her long coat properly now, for the morning chill crept easily through the walls and pierced her with a humidity that her skin still wasn't acclimated to. All my work for today, she thought pensively, recalling the days she had flitted around the port, swapping masks more often than some swap shoes, and gathering the seals and names to legitimize their ruse. It would be worth it. When Allennia saw, oh the look on her face...

What is that? her own mind interrupted her -at the behest of her stomach- as she sniffed the air. It smelled of salt and dew, but also overpoweringly sweet and fluffy. Her lithe strides overtook Allennia's as they approached the bar and a plate of cut bread quarters, still warm. “Honey bread,” Meredith informed them, “On the house.” Her blue court-worthy dress had a very light dusting of flour on the sleeves. “And good morning, m'ladies.” She gave a slight bow to each of them.

“I'll say,” Teer said with what passed for Fallien country manners, then eagerly plucked a piece. “Good morning,” she said belatedly, making eye contact with their hostess. There was an unspoken question from the older woman, then a nearly imperceptible nod of Teer's head and a glimmer in her eyes. “Is your helper around?” she asked through her first bite.

Meredith blinked. “Bart? He's just outside readying your horse. You did say you would need to leave early today.” She shot a quick glance out the window, worrying at the bright hour.

With the quarter of sweet bread held in her mouth, Teer motioned “one moment” to Allennia as she fished about in her pack and stepped quickly away. Many of the workers were on the docks by now, and those with nowhere to be must have gravitated near there as well, hoping for a stray job or a holey pocket. Only a few of the patrons from the previous evening had returned this late in the morning, no doubt for the bread. By his long, unwashed coat, she recognized the common room's lone boarder and gave him a smile. He blinked and looked away, then back as if uncertain of his own eyes.

I'll see if I can get you out of here soon...er. She pushed through the door just as she produced a sealed letter from her bag. The sea breeze immediately teased it, curious to its contents. She held tight and looked across the length of the ramshackle porch. “Bart?” she called tentatively.

“Yeah yeah,” came his disgruntled voice, heralding him around the corner of the building with Nayeli in tow; or behind him, at least. The horse followed closely enough for the lead to be utterly slack and looked at Astarelle with expressive, too-human eyes. She resisted the urge to wave, but only because of the boy's presence and the light traffic on the street.

“Could you do me a favor?” she asked as she stepped down to the tamped earth. “Have this sent to Radasanth.” She held out the letter, noteworthy seal facing down.

He dropped the lead and looked at her askew. “The Post Master is two streets over,” he said, pointing beyond the inn, across the outskirts.

“We're short on time,” Teer said tersely, then held aloft a stack of three gold coins. “If you would kindly help a lady.” He shrugged, though his eyes were rampant on the tip, and took the coins more eagerly than he took the letter. Without so much as a word, he skirted around her and disappeared between the buildings.

“Not a great stable boy. Not a great stable either,” Nayeli said as quietly as a horse could. Teer stepped closer to listen and found herself petting alongside her snout on reflex. Nayeli didn't seem to mind at all.

“Did it at least have walls?”

The horse snorted. “Three, kind of. I didn't get wet. The hay wasn't bad, at least.”

Teer gave a sympathetic smile, unsure what courtesies or amenities were proper for a sentient beast of burden. Nayeli's eyes were deep with intelligence, but her manner was placid and at ease with her situation.

The door creaked open behind her, and Teer spun to, thankfully, see Allennia. A sudden thought had reached her lips, and it might have spilled out regardless of who approached. “Is Nayeli coming with us? On a boat?” she asked the knight.

~

Bart ran a finger over the seal of the letter as he slipped through the outskirts with the speed that only an adventurous youth could. He knew the shortcuts, the crevasses, the hideouts. He barely needed to pay attention, and so he wondered at the letter's contents.

“Ixian Knights,” he breathed. The -by some accounts- heroes of the civil war. Why a Fallien chick would be using their seal, he had no idea. It was addressed to the Assembly, but it probably wasn't that important. It couldn't be signed by Sei “Silence” Orlouge or anything like that. Still, he would make sure it was sent, and rack up a bit of good karma should he have to steal another coin or two later.

Unbeknownst to him, it was indeed signed “Sei Orlouge”. Whether or not it was the Sei Orlouge was a matter better left to assumption.

[Allennia]

“I don’t know,” was her honest answer. “You’d have to ask her yourself.” She pointed to her squire, smiled, and buried her hands into the folds of her woollen cloak.

Teer turned, raised an eyebrow, and then gasped.

"By the depths!” she whelped.

“What’s wrong?” Nayeli asked. Instead of a long nose, mane, and tail, the horse-come-woman was just that. She was a simple looking girl of sixteen, blonde, and covered in freckles. “Is there something on my face?”

Teer blinked. “I…,” she mumbled.

“I did say she was my squire. Did you think she could clean armour with hooves?” Allennia seemed genuinely amused.

“Well, there was that time the collar didn’t work…,” Nayeli mused. She scratched her straw-like hair sheepishly.

Teer, still bemused, looked back and forth between the duos. The thought of a horse talking had been bewildering enough, but a shape shifting equine was an altogether other matter.

“Are you going to explain?”

Allennia found herself wanting to launch into an explanation of their long and complicated past, but stopped herself short of a tirade. The difficult manner in which Nayeli had come into her care was as much a source of pride as it was a darker past of the Isould family history.

“Now is not the time. Suffice to say, Nayeli tends to leave piss, shit, and hoof prints in the deck whenever she’s allowed to run rampant on water.” The image made them all wince. “Besides,” she smirked, pointed to the door, and gestured for Nayeli to lead. “I have to let her out sometimes.”

Awkward silence ended, the trio left the room in order of height, age, and mystery. Teer continued to look back and forth between the squire and the knight whenever she could do so without being too obvious. The curiosity abated when they stepped out into the morning sunlight. At the end of the road, obscured by the previous night’s rainfall, stood a boat as large as it was intimidating.

“I…,” Teer frowned. “I didn’t know Jadet was so small.”

Allennia took the lead, heavy boots carried over the sodden road as though they were leather. She made light work of the difficult terrain, especially when the heavy pack on her back, and the sword-as-long-as-her-body weighed in.
“The sense of distance down a straight road can be deceiving,” she replied. “It’s still two miles.”

Sure enough, when Teer looked closer, the way in which the ramshackle builds started big, and ended small on the waterfront dampened her hopes of a brief stroll. In a line, they advanced her own Fallieni stride not as confident off sand, and Nayeli’s brattish charm and annoying whistling accompanist to the second leg of their adventure.


Not quite finished, but to move us on, it's the 'idea' of things.

[Roht Mirage]

Sand brain... Astarelle cursed at herself deep below the “Teer” persona. It wasn't because of her frequent glances at Nayeli; those were perfectly justified, even if rude. Her self-inflicted venom was for the way she had spoken... as Teer. As someone who had never been deeper into Jadet, though -under a dozen other guises- she had scouted much of the city.

I don't have to play that hard around Allennia, she told herself, but she knew she would ignore it. Even if it wasn't long-trained instinct, she still would have latched onto her persona. There was just too much risk to let cracks form. She half expected a random person on the street -some dock worker or merchant with their mind normally set on cargo or coin- to glance at her and shout, “It's Roht Mirage! Cell champion!” Or worse, nothing but a cold, knowing stare. The Kar'Roh of her homeland could turn anyone into a puppet, and their designs upon her were becoming a more and more infuriating mystery by the day.

“What?” Nayeli asked, breaking Astarelle -no, Teer, at least until away from the city- from her thoughts. She realized that, amid the quiet frustration, she had unconsciously been looking back at the girl and wearing a frown that was not meant for her at all.

“Nothing,” Teer stammered, “I just... Sorry about earlier.”

Nayeli gave a good-humored and very human snort. “Don't worry about it. I've seen big ol' knights turn in their armor and run.”

Teer smiled at the image, but shook her head as she stalled a step to bring herself to the girl's side. “No, I mean last night.” A quizzically raised eyebrow was the only response. “If I had known, I would have invited you inside. You could have had my half of the bed. There was a perfectly comfortable chair that I could have-” The girl shrugged, but betrayed enough annoyance that Teer clamped her mouth shut.

“If you want to make it up to me,” Nayeli said as she pointed to Teer's hand.

She looked down to the majority of the honey bread still in her grip. I completely forgot, she mused in bewilderment, then held it up. “This?”

Nayeli's small hand snatched it like a pit spider. “-anks,” she breathed around a sudden mouthful.

Allennia choked out a laugh that she had clearly been holding, but it died off quickly as they approached the dock. “Is that...” she muttered, amazed.

Teer turned back to the sight that had first made her doubt her perspective on the city. The Corone Navy had been docking a modest ship here during her preparations. Now, it's spot was taken by a behemoth that dwarfed the large port warehouses, let alone the other ships; as if it had eaten a few of it's brethren during the night. Four masts soared into the air, rigged with sails that could encase one of the smaller homes should they come loose and blow inland. From end to end (the nautical terms were in neither Teer's nor Astarelle's vocabularies) a normal man could run himself almost to breathlessness just covering the span. Two rows of portholes ran along the side they could see, each one closed, undoubtedly to keep Jadet from the sight of twenty cannons pointed at it.

Allennia tried again, “Are we-”

Teer interrupted her with a noisy flap of paper and a grin that tried to stretch as wide as the galleon's girth. “Here's your ticket,” she chirped, pressing the forged letter against Allennia's gauntlet and gesturing as a carriage driver would to his vehicle's open door.

[Allennia]

Allennia blinked.

“Err.”

Her non-chalant expression gave nothing away. Truth told: she was confused by the turn of events. Her world was trite, controlled, and organised. In Jadet, her scholarly ways and etitquite were worthless. In the quaint port that opened the world to her insular ideals, she was as innocent as a child was, and ruined further by Teer as her guide.

“What could go wrong…,” she mumbled. She immediately regretted jinxing herself. She took the ticket, pushed herself onto the ship, and glanced over her shoulder.

“Everything?” the Fallieni offered.

“That was not quite the reassurance I was looking for,” Allennia remarked. She set a boot furtively on the bottom of the gangplank. By the time she reached the deck, her nerves were a wreck. “Perhaps ‘nothing,’ or heaven forbid, a ‘little light toing and froing’ would suffice?”

Teer chuckled. It was a soft, mischievous exhalation. Portending, perhaps, the desert dwellers knowledge of the lands beyond Corone. Whatever she was hiding, name, nuance, or naughtiness, Allennia would be sure to suffer for it.

“I thought I was the one who was afraid of sailing?” Teer scalded. With a furrow, mocking brow, she gestured to the large double doors set at an angle at the centre of the deck. Rigging surrounded it, to which a tarpaulin flapped in a half-moon, sheltering people descending into, and ascending out of the ship’s bowels.

"I will join you below shortly."

"Why, where are you going?" Allennia raised an eyebrow. She did not get an answer, and she did not see Teer for several minutes. Where she scuttled off to, she did not wish to know.

Allennia's hand pressed against the railing and she trundled into the shadows. Instinct alone guided her through the winding passageway, only curved in her adjusting senses. When she came to find herself in a lantern lit room, she realised the walls were straight. Her ‘sea legs’ were making the galleon slither and slide.

Teer re-appeared behind her, as though she were darkness itself.

“You look like we’ve already set sail!” Teer chirped. Her sudden exuberance irked Allennia, who did not like teasing in her moment of weakness. The Fallieni danced across the room, pushed open a door the captain had told her was theirs, and waved the sea-sick, still tipsy, and child-like guest of honour into –

“What the hell is this?”

Teer stood upright. She threw curtsy out the porthole. She rested her hands on her hips.

“I’m sorry?”

Allennia traced the parse detail of their room. It was a cube, planked on all sides, roof included, with dark mahogany long lacking lustre. Two beds stood in the far left and far right corners. They were wooden coffin shaped boxes, mounted with flimsy mattresses suspended in hammocks. Beneath the hammocks, one was expected to ‘stow your goods’, and the Lady Allennia, moniker or not, was expected to shit in what amounted to a bucket.

“I am not,” Allennia stomped her boot. “Under any circumstances.” She clapped her hands. “Here.”

Teer pushed her inside, shut the door discretely, and whispered something unkindly into her companion’s ear.

“This is where we are staying. This, despite our grand scheme, is all I could procure given the captain is less than fond of nobility.” She paused. She seethed. She advanced around to Allennia’s front, pointed at the left bunk, and bowed mockingly. “Your bed-chamber awaits, my lady.” There was little doubt in Allennia’s mind, as Teer flopped agilely onto the right bed, that she was being brattish.

She waited a moment. She listened to the distant sound of men hastening sails and rigging bits of wood, she could never name. The creak of wood, the pressure of the sea threatening to crush the hull, began to sound like a heartbeat. When she realised, and accepted, that she had no say in the matter, she crossed the room. She turned. She stuck her tongue out at Teer. She flopped back onto the bunk and…

…crashed straight through it, her armour and bulk too much for the rotten ropes to bear.

The sound of laughter accompanied the ship as it set sail onto high, dangerous, and fickle waters.

[Roht Mirage]

Funny, how a stomach can plummet from smug, lofty heights to the churning depths of the ocean in the span of eight hours. “Urrr...” the Fallieni woman grumbled as she walked the vessel's flexing hall once more. She had abandoned their royal chambers to search a third time for something to help them repair Allennia's bed –or her's, depending who won that pre-bed wrestling match- but also to keep her lunch of gritty ship rations from painting their drab, moisture-curled walls. Teer, Teer, she chanted to herself. That woman, though fictional, was used to this. She shepherded dignitaries back and forth and through the xenophobic rigours of Fallien diplomacy like it was nothing, and never once did she complain about the modes of travel. Seven voyages to her name; no, eleven. She had the paperwork to prove it... as soon as she returned to her pack and forged them.

It helped. So long as she wore Teer's face, basked in her experience, and became one with that theoretical iron stomach, she might avoid soiling the broad finery of the disgruntled noblewomen who dominated the narrow corridors. Yes, she would be fine. This was nothing compared to that voyage to Salvar... that was farther than Corone, wasn't it?

Savoring a meal of slow and controlled breaths, Teer found a very non-noble woman in the hall. “There you are!” she squawked as if this was her destination all along.

Nayeli's flaxen hair snapped as she spun, eyes wide. “I smell grain. Isn't that weird?” she asked with a great deal of pent agitation.

“What?” Teer responded blankly. Nayeli stepped into one of the branching corridors, and Teer pushed off the wall to follow. “Allennia went up for some air. You should go see her. She's been worried.” Worried and nauseous; one more than the other.

“It's here!” the horse-woman announced as she threw open a door.

Realization finally swelled and rolled about in Astarelle's head, and she blurted, “They ship wheat to Fallien, yeah. It's hard to grow in the-” before falling silent. In a narrow hull along the outer edge of the ship (she could tell because of the darker, heavier panelling on one side) sat three or four fields of grain. It was tied into squares as long as her arm, then stacked into cubes as tall as her eyes, and lain in a line to quite possibly the other end of the ship. She could estimate the far end only by bands of razor-thin sunlight infiltrating through hatches in the ceiling. Heavy canvas lay taut over the top of each cube, tied by rope to oddly-substantial brackets in the floor. The smell of salt water was strong. It combined with the pulpy grain dust to tease her nose and taunt her stomach's resolve.

“You shouldn't be here,” a male voice scolded, too young to carry proper authority.

Teer turned with a ready apology, but the uniformed crewman, or soldier -whatever the appropriate title for someone who was both- pushed past her in pursuit of Nayeli, who apparently wanted a closer look.

It's just wheat. But, then again, she's...

“The cannons won't work this way, will they?” she asked snootily. Her clearly-hypothetical question echoed softly and quietly down the padded chamber.

Curious, Teer followed on the ship-soldier's heels. He gave a disapproving sniff, but didn't stop. Together, they rounded the corner of the grain-molded cube city and almost bumped Nayeli over the mouth end of a fearsome metal maw. Now, these were cannons. A man of medium height and starvation width could have slept in one of them, though he might not survive the wake-up call. They lined the wall in single file -ten, maybe twelve deep- all with their sides ineffectually pressed to their corresponding portholes. In the competition for floor space, it was crops one, artillery a very cowed zero.

Their unwilling guide sighed heavily, pushed up the adorably short brim of his hat, and explained. “This is what happens when you turn a military vessel into a trade and passenger class. The cannons on the lower deck are still pointed outward, so just relax and go back to your rooms.” Teer and Nayeli both looked at him in quiet contemplation, neither moving. So, neither could he. “Please,” he said quietly, “Before I get in trouble.”

Teer gave Nayeli an obliging smile with a mild roll of the eyes, then turned to lead their procession through the narrow gap 'tween wheat and wood. “Did you lose the smaller ships in the war?” Teer asked, perhaps too coldly.

He shook his head with some force. She could feel strands of hair moving in the small breeze that his impractical hat created. “They're docked. It's too dangerous. Better to be the biggest fish in the pond, even if it's crowded.” They moved into the hall. The young man clicked the door firmly shut behind them.

“The war's over,” Nayeli informed him with that same obnoxious attitude.

Teer frowned and looked away. She let the soldier answer.

“I bet that looks just great written on some fancy parchment on some counselman’s desk. Ink don't make it true, though.”

“Well, then someone should-”

Teer placed a hand on her arm. Firmly. “Let's go find Allennia,” she said with more than a little impatience. The soldier, hunkering broodily in his jacket, went one direction. They went the other. Teer found herself wishing that she hadn't left her coat in the room. The air that slunk down the ship's top-most stairs had a definite muggy chill.

[Allennia]

In the belly of the beast, an ancient rhyme mariner sang. Wizened features, whitened teeth, and a great deal of embellishment gave the skeletal crew sparse scintillating showmanship. Quite how Allennia, a supposed woman had come to be in such company consigned itself to the history books. All the knight knew was she was enthralled. The ebb and flow of his ‘jib’ drew her into a world she had never known, and perhaps would never come to know.

“What happened to the Wind King then?” she enquired, with a little too much enthusiasm and not enough drawl.

Several of the crew, through the gloom, stared at the ‘guest’. Nobody trusted her, but everybody, by virtue of the captain’s blade, tolerated her presence. One-eyed bosun and peg legged deckhand alike returned to the soothsayer in full salute.

“’e got a terrible rage.”

“Oh, well, that’s rude of him…,” she grumbled. She had expected more exposition before getting to the clichéd calamity catering to cads and cantaloupes. She leant back into her…pile of skins, and listened on.

The soothsayer rose from her chair, bedraggled, but beautifully bountiful bound in beads and bedecked in bold bands. Her hair was a nest of vipers abreast high, scarred shoulders. Her eyes, piercing souls left and right, scanned the huddled mound of men and what Allennia hoped were executives of the sea.

“Swept aside boats did he, and lay waste to pirates, princes, and governors.”

She began to move around the cramped quarters, stepping over indignant drunks and sea salty dogs. Every cliché Allennia had come to believe presently hooked by the recount of the Corone Corsair Callahan. She clapped.

“Whenever a boat sail set from Jadet now, ‘im be weary if ‘e know no ardour!” The soothsayer, whose name appeared to switch between the absurd and ‘Mary’, raised her hands, swayed erratically, and incited a small rebellion of fear in the easterly corner of the room.

Puckering lips and adjusting frayed bangs, Allennia stood slowly. She dusted herself down, a show of disgust and hierarchy, and bowed to the storyteller with half-veiled as respect conceit.

“You goin’ be?” her host asked. Her voice was accusatory and deep, piercing as the waves against a broken damn.

“I be goin’,” Allennia mimicked. Her pauldron caught the candlelight as she advanced to the door, barred by a knife wielding pantaloons fetishist and a parrot Allennia hoped received treatment for its lack of feathers. “Captain’s request,” she lied.
However, a knight, truth saying was not one of her Hippocratic oaths. If anything, Allennia had to safeguard the truth from those unable to content with the parables and fables contained within. Bowing to her host, and washing away the dredges of the dire story, she wandered into the ‘belly of the beast’ to find her damned horse and her deniable sand loving jinx.

The entire soothsayer said, bone, mouth, and muscle, staring with a singleton eye through the dark portal, the pivotal line of the tale she had told since she was a little girl. She knew now that in Allennia’s mahogany hair and behind her hazel eyes, there was a sadness. This time, however, she spoke it in its true tense, without accord for their cargo’s feelings.

“Swept aside boats did she, and lay waste to pirates, princes, and governors.”

The men at her feet writhed and groaned, realising that morals were afoot and they would get little sleep before landfall…

[Roht Mirage]

Teer savored the kiss of the sinking sun for one precious moment, then shivered in the damp air. Bury me, I need that coat, she grumbled inwardly as she started to turn. Nayeli, however, continued right past her, face raised to take in the sight that Teer (feeling some Astarellian weakness leeching through) had only glanced at.

From their point of emergence near the back of the ship, a vast expanse of planking, pulleys, and bodies thrust ahead of them into the rolling crystal of the ocean. A good number of the top-deck’s occupants were clearly passengers. They held floral bonnets and sequined jackets tight against the harsh sea breeze, making as if to ignore it. The accommodations below were likely, by their standards, intolerable – as evidenced by Allennia's own reaction. So, a rolling, adventurous vista might be the only part of this cruise that matched their expectations. They held to that dream even more tightly than their hats.

Sailors moved hastily among the nobles and above them, as well as ludicrously high above them. On the jagged peaks of Fallien's Zaileya range, there were small goats that capered about from sharp tooth to stoney blade and onward, ever higher. Those animals were insane. These men; more so. However, it was a show of bizarre elegance. They slipped through the rigging like boisterous wraiths as they bid their lives on fate and firm grip. Something seemed off, though, in their death-taunting play. Teer took numb steps forward in Nayeli's wake, sucked in hesitant breaths of the unfiltered salty air, and tried to scratch that itch in her perception.

“Some of them need to shave,” Nayeli scoffed, though her head remained tilted back in amazement.

Teer nodded blankly, then laughed out loud. “Thank you,” she said to the girl.

“For what?” she asked, looking back at Teer with face scrunched curiously.

“Two crews,” Teer informed her with an enlightened -almost smug- nod. Now that she was looking for it, the distinction was obvious. Two breeds of men worked the sails; one shaven and straight-backed, the other whiskery and sinuous like climbing beasts; one breed with their uniforms tucked and clean in spite of the labor, the other with jackets open and hats doffed. She could hear, even more distinctly, the difference in them. The younger military men shouted with the kind of practised force that made generals take notice. The older, saltier 'sea dogs' shouted back with the drawl and easy laugh of men who were more likely to see a mermaid than a vastly superior officer. Yet, in spite of the differences, the stiffer men showed impressive skill on the rigging, and both camps communicated in their distinct dialects to keep the mammoth beast's wings taut and aimed true.

Wheat and cannons, sailors and soldiers. A Corone made smaller, slimmer by war, but no less imposing.

Teer and Nayeli continued the rest of the way to the front of the ship, and tried very hard to stop gaping. Allennia would not be an easy woman to miss in the crowd, so long as they occassionally bothered to look. However, neither of them saw so much as a braid or armor-flash of her.

“You said she would be here,” Nayeli said very pointedly as they climbed the stairs to the raised forward deck and walked toward the railing over the ship's spear-like nose.

“I thought she would be,” Teer responded, bewildered and more than a little annoyed. Nayeli continued on to lean against the forward railing, while Teer kept a safe distance. Sea-legged persona or not, she had no desire to be that close to the rolling blue.

“Ship off the bow,” came a sudden, far off shout. It was repeated down the masts and toward the back of their own vessel, where the captain was roused from the wheel. He gestured -as far as Teer could make out- for another to steer, then stomped down the stairs onto the lower central deck.

“Is that-” Nayeli began.

Teer nodded curtly and said, “Rorsten. Don't give him any trouble. He's not very... hospitable.”

Captain Rorsten made the long walk to the halfway point of the ship as a speck on the horizon made an equally long journey into clarity. Teer wondered how it could come close so quickly against the wind, then she says its sails. Or, rather, where its sails should have been. All that remained was tatters that flapped fitfully like a defeated and defaced war banner. Shouts began to rise behind her, calls to loosen this rope, lock that one. She felt the change in speed as their wings were slackened.

Concerned, she turned back to the lower deck. Rorsten stood at the center, as stable as a fifth mast. His posture was stiff with disgruntlement, and his square jaw tense as he gave orders to scurrying crew members. He pushed the forward bow of his un-plumed hat upward, and though she wouldn't see his eyes clearly, she imagined the same disdain that she had witness when arranging their rooms. Captain Rorsten had far too much on his shoulders -especially these days- to deal with inconsequential matters or unexpected interruptions.

In a tense span of minutes, the damaged ship came closer, and the audience behind them quieted – nobles more than crewmen. “Bury me,” Teer remarked suddenly, eyes wide.

Nayeli grabbed her arm anxiously, “What? What is it?”

Teer looked at her with a haunted gaze. “That's the ship that was in Jadet yesterday. If you two had arrived earlier, we would have been...”

They both fell quiet -funeral quiet- as the scarred and shredded ship came alongside. Hundreds of pensive eyes looked down upon it as people crowded for the railing, for the ship was only two-thirds the height of their own.

A ghost ship, Teer thought, no doubt mirroring a chorus of the same thought.

Only, it wasn't a ghost ship. On the rear-most deck where the wheel lolled, unmanned, a figure popped into view. His uniform was tattered and torn. Bloodied, maybe. He ran for the wheel as if he didn't see their ship hulking to the side, grabbed hold of its waving handles, and spun it toward the elder vessel. The ash-scarred figurehead turned to face the broad hull. Rorsten shouted for evasion. Giants, however, are not known for being nimble.

The lone saboteur vaulted onto the lower deck and sprinted to an open hatch near the central mast. From one pocket of his over-sized jacket, he produced a bottle with a limp rag hanging from the neck, and from the other, a fire striker. A lone flame was born. The bottle was cast into the ship's bowels with a phoenix tail in its wake. And the man threw himself over the opposite railing with coat flailing into the shape of tattered wings.

“Get back!” Teer shrieked. She seized Nayeli's shoulder, trying to force both of them away from the railing and flat against the deck. The smell of gunpowder assailed her on one last breath of cool sea breeze.

[Allennia]

A fire ship was a new phenomenon to Allennia. Fortunately, for the knight it was a new occurrence to most of the crew. They expected to boarding by pirates. They expected a ram, set adrift, and left for dead. Teer, too, expected those things. Fire licked the sky and blotted the drab horizon from view.

“Get down!” cried the crew in a rag-tag chorus of desperation.

Even though a mind told its wielder to do things, fear usurped its command and waylaid the best-kept secrets and plans. The Fallieni’s body rose into the air like a ragdoll. Tossed across the deck of the ship, all her wit and guile were for nought. She could not talk her way out of pure, brute, and bitter force.

Nayeli, given her status as a horse did not attempt to gallop clear. The youthful blonde-haired person arced through the shadows just as Teer did, but landed with half the grace, and twice the thunder. Her bulwark armour, donned when they departed the docks cracked plank and piety alike. Whatever serene notions she had of one day becoming the knight she nurtured nurse like quashed in a meteor collide.

“Hello?”

The faint voice pierced nothing. It remained below the hubbub, the riot, and the rain of words that darted back and forth across the deck. It rose from below, repeated louder and louder until a flustered, wide-eyed Allennia emerged into the cold air.

“Nayeli!”

The scream was banshee-esque. It tore through the worry and the desperation with a dagger of sheer, undulated terror. However, knight and squire, the bond between the two women run much deeper. They were more than friends were, not yet lovers, and neither of the pair would admit it save for in the direst of consequences.

“Nayeli!”

Her flaxen hair trailed after her as she streamed back and forth across the bow of the ship. Port to starboard she searched shattered crates and broken dreams. Upturned corpses provided no relief, each one bridling her nerves with a jolt of lightning. She had to have survived. Nayeli had to be alive.

Deadbolt in the centre of the ship, Allennia Isould stopped deathly still. Her senses sharpened and her mind focussed on another possibility. She whispered the name, as though scared of its utterance, and clenched her fists into meteoric balls.

“Teer…”

Resuming a search amidst the ruination of their vessel brought renewed purpose to Allennia. In minutes, she found her horse upturned and legs strewn over a barrel. She bent at the knee: the only movement her mithril plate would allow in haste, and caressed the youth’s forehead to rouse her.

“Oh…” The swear word was gurgled behind a mouth of blood. Nayeli spat unceremoniously on her mistress’ shoe.

“Get up, you oath. We have to find Teer.” Only when she worked out her actions did the thought occur to her that soon, very soon, the orchestrator of the ‘fire ship’ would follow up with the unavoidable boarding action all seamen feared.

[Roht Mirage]

“I don't see the problem,” Lina said with no small amount of annoyance. She turned to the maid who had pulled her into Astarelle's room as if it was on fire, or collapsing upon itself, or been filled with a swarm of desert bugs that the foolish fallieni would no doubt keep as pets.

“I haven't had to make the bed in days. Nothing has been moved. Steward, I think...,” the maid spluttered, “I think Miss Set'Roh may have run away.”

Lina snorted. “If only,” she said to herself, ignoring the maid's wide eyes as she walked toward the bed and unceremoniously stepped up onto it.

The younger woman gasped, “I didn't mean- The bed wasn't the issue. Miss Set'Roh-” She stopped as Lina held out an impatient hand and drew her onto the bed as well. A little piece of her cringed inside at the wrinkle of sheets and creak of springs.

“Look there,” Lina said sharply as she pointed to one of the rafters overhead. From their vantage point, they could see a length of reed secreted atop the beam. Wrapped about it was a pendant bearing one large sapphire, yet strangely devoid of its inlay of fine sapphire chips.

“That's the necklace from the Cell,” the maid said with wide-eyed realization, “She can use that to travel with... magic... right? That means...”

Lina nodded curtly. “It means that she plans to return; maybe in a hurry.” She stepped down from the bed, straightened her dress, and brushed wisps back into the skewered bun of her hair. “When you're remaking the bed, do watch out for falling Fallien fools.”

The maid lowered herself gingerly, trying to minimize the collateral wrinkling. “That's a relief. I was so scared that she had- If I may, she really is quite nice.” Lina shot her a look. “I mean, as far as I've spoken to her.”

The stewart tsked loudly, then made for the door. At the threshold, her steps slowed, and her shoulders sank by a fraction. “If the staff and pendant should disappear,” she said with reluctant weight, “Do come tell me. That will be the time to worry for Miss Set'Roh.”

~

Teer. Teer. Teer, she chanted to herself. Astarelle would have been worried. Astarelle would have been pissing horrified! Teer, though... no Teer would still be, at a minimum, concerned for the long fall, the crashing waves below, and her own tenuous grip on the ship's railing. Under her shirt, gem chips moved in a panic, attempting to recreate the inlay pattern of her home-stuck pendant. One moment of mystic blue, and she would be safe. Against the adrenaline, she struggled to focus on what held her back from that.

“Git o'er here and help me!” barked a grizzled sailor as he appeared over the precipice, seized Astarelle's quaking arm, and tried to tow her back onto the boards of the deck.

Another man, much younger, with a weeks-old puckered scar down his cheek, materialized from the smoke. His hands wrapped around Teer's other sleeve fiercely. Grunting, the two men hoisted her back to safety; relative safety, or perhaps just a somewhat less dire circumstance. Smoke washed over the deck like a wave cresting on the assaulted flank. Shadows -some clutching swords, others clutching hats- frenzied in and out. Seamen shouts overrode the cries of alarm, but just barely.

“I survived the bloody war! I will not die in some flaming wash tub,” the younger of her saviors shouted to the other. His hand shook as he tried to draw his sword.

The other man gripped the lad's shoulder and towed him toward the center of the deck. “Keep yer head on, boy,” he shouted before both form and voice were lost in the chaos.

Astarelle sat up. Rather, she skittered away from the railing, then came to her feet. “Allennia! Nayeli!” she called as both eyes and throat began to seize up. The sapphire chips, the promise of home, stirred between her breasts. Not without them, she scolded herself. The chips stilled.

Yet, she had no idea how to find them. Her senses were swiftly being stolen, and the secret sense of her people only told her that her pack and its sandy contents were below deck, in a room that might be under water sooner rather than later. She bit her lip. My sand. My ink. Akashere helped me gather... Bury me!

She scrabbled toward the other side of the rolling deck, closer to their room, also closer to the destruction. My pack, Allennia, and Nayeli, then we go, she told herself as if it was a plan – a good plan. Through the thick smoke, she was just able to spot the raised hatch she was looking for. She barged through sailors and soldiers to reach it, gripped the inset ring, and heaved upward. A seadog's objection sounded behind her, but she ignored it as she slipped into the ship's innards.

[Allennia]

Allennia spiralled about and brought her sword to bear against the neck of a pirate. Divorcing the man’s mind from heart, the knight continued in her dance and stepped into another brigand’s guard. She brought the sword up through his groin, stopping it with a flex of her arm muscles above where his unified head had, seconds before, been. The two halves of his body fell bloodied and gushing to the deck.

“Nayeli, you hobbled ox, where are you?” The knight’s voice broke above the din of the battle.

Distraught and growing more frustrated with each moment, Allennia surveyed the battle. Her squire was nowhere in sight. Pirate toed and froed, hacked and slashed, and raged and roared, but nowhere was a horse kicking. What she did see, however, was the enemy vessel rearing ominously towards their ship on the portside. Its sails whipped their own, and the mooring entwined the bridges inexorably together. The ship jolted, and then an almighty crash echoed out across the waves.

“Nayeli!”

Still no squire. Allennia began to clean her blade, finding herself amidst the calm eye of a nautical storm. She kept her eyes on the crowds as they ebbed and flowed back and forth between their crew’s favour and the enemy. It was only when her blade cocked back onto her left shoulder she noticed something more troubling than an absent sister did.

“Oh no…”

The enemy ship crunched against the starboard side. Wood creaked, masts wavered, and guide ropes twanged as they snapped and whipped up into the lofty heights of the rigging. The knight rocked with the ship, using her weight and training to prevent an uprooting. Several other crewmembers were not so lucky, and the rattle of boarding blanks slamming against the handrail compounded their misfortune.

“All to the starboard side!” roared their captain.

Rorsten, if Allennia’s memory served her well lead by example. He charged. Sabres raised, dark red coat reddened darker still by blood of friend and foe alike. Before Allennia could break into a run, he had felled two brigands with a double cross of his blades and tucked both back into a reverse grip. He did not need help because he was skilled enough with talk and tall tale. The men around him felt the brunt of the pirate’s first wave, however. Gunshots and bloodcurdling cries melted together into one dirge of dread.

“If they take this ship, there won’t be a port on this Thayne loving world you can hide from me in!” A bushel of truth spat from behind a thick bushy beard drilled inspiration and courage into the deck hands. The boatswain rallied to the captain’s side and swung a mace so large it would have cracked open even Allennia’s mithril bulwark. She flinched sympathetically.

Before Allennia could muster into the fray, the enemy captain found himself his prize; Rorsten. From the left, a sucker punch rivalling heroic misdeeds, and the right, a fore-arm disabling. The knight charged, but no sooner than she found ground cleared the man raised his blade to Rorsten's neck and sealed her fealty, and the silence of all who witnessed their mutual defeat.

"So...," the half-toothless deviant smiled. "What do we do when yur captain's got a skivvy knife to is' throat?"