For Lack of Empathy

[Rayse Valentino]

Closed.

Many years ago...

The first time you come to Ettermire, you keep your eyes to yourself. Your fear makes you watch your feet, your back, anything that makes you think they're not looking at you. But they are. They're burning holes into the back of your head. You stay close to the people you came with, you don't wander off the path you're given. Your concern over your own safety trumps that of your curiosity for these strange black structures all over the city. The steam that rises out of them, making you think that the whole place is just one huge set of armor that's on fire. Even the streets are straight, makes you feel like you're walking on glass.

The second time, you notice them. You catch a glimpse of one of the drow. They're still staring at you, but now you stare back for an equal display of foreign hatred. It gives you power. You remember why you're here, what you're supposed to do. No longer is your only impulse to just leave as fast as you can.

After the fourth time, you realize that you're not the one scared of them. They're scared of you.

It was Rayse's third year in the academy. Of course, his name wasn't actually Rayse. It was Trent Loryn Junior. But, between him and his best friend Vincent, it was Rayse. There were two types of kids in the academy: The ones who cared about their career and the ones that didn't. Vincent was the former, while Rayse the latter. Although only one type of kid got into the damn thing in the first place: The rich. All the poor kids of Salvar go to boot camp a little later in their teenage years, but the rich kids go to the academy where they start as officers. It's not unusual in the Salvar military to be outranked by someone half your age.

Since the Ettermire-Knife's Edge train was established a year ago, somebody in charge decided it was a good idea to get rich academy kids experience with drow. Up until the train was built, the average Salvaran's perception of drow was based on stories by traders coming from the Kachuckian border. Now, they were damn near everywhere. Since they only dealt with the higher-ups anytime one was seen in Knife's Edge, they gained a sort of illusive status among the populace. But to the military people coming to perform government duties in Ettermire, they knew the truth. They knew what it was like to become pariahs everywhere they go in the city. They knew that it was likely the same feeling that drow felt in Knife's Edge.

This trip, Rayse was accompanied by at least a dozen officers from a real military base and a few students like himself, including Vincent, who was coming here for his third time. The two were thick as thieves, often playing pranks on their underclassmen. Vincent was a strange kid, because while he teased and bullied the same as everyone, he refused to participate in the little academy smuggling ring that Rayse conducted with another friend, Robert.

The contingent was on a fairly important assignment this trip. Some sort of rare magical tribal kid was caught and the maniacs back in Knife's Edge decided that they wanted her. Alerar was quick to offer gifts to foster their relationship, so they arranged a secure transfer of the prisoner. All of the men from Salvar wore red grenadier jackets with black sashes across them, some more decorated than others. The academy kids also wore them, although they were not officially graduated into the army yet.

Right now, Rayse was marching in formation down one of the streets of Ettermire. The pure flat ground allowed them to march in unison, and at their sides were the tall square buildings of Ettermire. They were black structures, built several stories tall although only the first couple floors were in use. The drow say that they made the foundation from steel, but it was a hard pill for a Salvaran to swallow. Nonetheless, the streets were surrounded by these tall structures, with alleys between them so thin that from the center of the street it looked like you were surrounded by two black walls. Even the ground was dark, the flat stone mixed with bits of metal. It was sunset already, giving the buildings a strange glow like they were reflecting a huge fire somewhere far away. To first-timers in Ettermire, they were terrifying. The streets were cleared out for this contingent, with drow standing at the sides and glaring.

Rayse and Vincent were in the back of the group, walking in lockstep with wandering eyes. In front of them were a few more soldiers that surrounded the prisoner, and then a couple more at the front leading the way. The whole formation looked like a snake that just swallowed a rabbit whole. They could see the barefoot prisoner in front of them, and it was a young child.

The kid wore what looked like rags; probably her old clothes before they were torn up getting captured. She had chains around her arms and legs, but the kicker was she looked no older than 8 years of age. She had long black hair that went down everywhere, reaching down to the small of her back. Her long bangs covered her bright blue eyes, and on her bruised and dirty face was an expressionless look. The kid looked like she shut herself off from the world.

"The hell is up with this, man?" Rayse whispered to Vincent. "Why are we escorting some little kid?"

Vincent replied in whisper, "I heard some of the higher-ups talking about it. Apparently her tribe is like, pure magi or something. Like she was just born being able to do all kinds of crazy shit."

"That's fucked up." Salvarans had a bit of prejudice against magi. They stopped talking when an officer in front of them looked back for a moment, and then continued his march.

[Taische]

Though bare brown toes probed the unforgiving worked stone, Taische couldn't hear the earth sing beneath her feet. Instead, Ettermire sighed and screamed in its weariness and agony. Not for the first time, the child wished for her shoes so she could drown out the sound of Althanas's suffering. The air hung heavy with ash and grime, filling her lungs with its putrid bitterness. No matter how much she coughed, though, it lingered in her chest.

Ten days had passed and then five more since she'd been abruptly delivered to the land of elves whose skin was dark as sand and soot, whose food was mushy and full of bugs (although she didn't mind those as much as the mush), and whose language hooked and bumped around a flowing base. This dark elven tongue almost reminded her of a river running too fast and hard for its bed. She'd figured out a few words from her captors - she was l' dalhar, for one thing - but no one had told her what was happening or why she was there.

Sure, she might have hit a couple of them with a metal pole... and maybe those four men were pretty badly burned, but she'd been scared and everyone would be okay. Didn't the grown-ups know she was scared? She was only eight summers old.

Where's matháir?

Taische's most prevalent thought since her arrival had been of her mother, who was absolutely, definitely for sure coming to get her. Even after two weeks of nothing, she still knew that lightning would shatter the sky at any minute, that Taodoine would scream angrily, and that her mother would beat up all the bad guys and take her home.

Over time, every other thought had faded. She didn't wonder what had happened to bring her here anymore. She didn't cry at how miserable and dirty the city was. She wasn't homesick, she didn't miss her doll Hannah. She wasn't even mad that she'd been kidnapped anymore. She just knew her mommy was coming, then the bad guys would all be sorry.

Dragged down by the misery around her and the beatings when she acted out, Taische's initial defiance had turned to listlessness. She hadn't questioned when the guards had come into her dingy cell or complained about the heavy shackles that hurt her wrists and ankles. She had even trudged obediently out of the big prison and into the hazy light of day. Dull blue eyes watched some humans march up. She watched without interest as some fancy man and a fancier elf stepped forward to dance the careful steps of not-quite friends making a trade. Now she trudged along, as fast as she was able with the heavy chains hindering her, but still not fast enough for the men in red and black, so sometimes she got a rough push to keep her moving.

The wind shifted, bringing in hot, dry air from the south. Something murmured in the breeze, a whisper of warning. The child's eyes sharpened and her head lifted, turning to look around from under the matted mess of black hair. When her eyes crossed the Salvarans, they didn't linger; the men weren't what she was looking for. She even ignored the hand that grabbed her to keep her moving, for she had stopped completely to listen to the wind and heed it.

Where is it? And what is it?

[Rayse Valentino]

Vincent was, well, Vincent. About the same size as me, but with brown hair and brown eyes. We clicked immediately when we first met in our first year of academy. He lost his mom at an early age as well, but he had about six years to my two, so he actually remembers her. We always talked about the absurdity of nobility, how being born into this life somehow made us better than other people. We both wanted to grow up into our own men, free from the expectations of others. He was like me in that we tried to skirt the nonsensical orders we were given, but I was doing it out of spite; him out of some notion of true justice or whatever.

If there was ever a person I would trust to watch my back in my weakest moments, it would be him.

The red-clothed human procession stopped in the middle of the street. In front of them were several overturned wagons, all leaking hot refuse from some construction work. The waste was being transported across town to a dump site, but the hot metal burned through the frames of their transports, spilling out into the street. It gave off a noxious odor, and the only drow near it were in masks. The man with the most decorations on his uniform walked up to one of the drow and told him their situation, but the masked drow simply shook his head and pointed at one of the alleys.

Rayse and Vincent questioned this whole spectacle in whispers. Why not just stick the prisoner onto something with wheels and covertly take her to the train station? Vincent heard that the prisoner would just slowly burn through whatever they put her in somehow, so by keeping her on the move she remains too tired to resist, but the logic of such a claim was questionable. Couldn't they just cover her with something fire-retardant first? Rayse's theory was different: It was a show. Having a Salvaran military presence prance through the streets of Ettermire conveyed a message to the lower class drow- that this was normal. Humans in this city showed a future to everyone that they must accept, and any action against them could be considered an action against the Queen of Drow herself. Ironically, it was safer to do it this way than trying to keep it a secret.

Still, this situation was odd. Rayse expected them to turn around and take the long way, but the leader of the contingent wanted to maintain his schedule. Vincent agreed with Rayse, but being mere academy students they didn't dare to speak up. So that was how a bunch of uniformed humans with a prisoner entered the back alleys of Ettermire.

You never appreciate the sky until it disappears. Looking up from the alley you could only see smoke. The walls were close, each one part of a long windowless building that the drow love constructing. There were some windows on the floors above the ground floor, but it was impossible for any thieves to enter without a long ladder. It was from these windows that smoke seeped out, creating a ceiling of fog that settled not far from the heads of the contingent walking through. There were some doors along the way, but they were made of steel with intricate locks on them. Some of the soldiers were starting to feel short of breath, which was reasonable given that they only had about three meters of walking space between the menacing walls. Rayse looked back, and noticed a couple of masked drow standing at the entrance to the alley. They were pretty far away now, but still there, staring at him. A few rats skittered around, which kept everyone looking down. One of the soldiers lit a torch, since the light from the sunset did not reach into this cramped area.

Halfway through the long alley, a few pebbles fell on Vincent's shoulder. He looked up, but nothing could be seen through the smoke. Were they in-between two factories or something? Rayse saw that Vincent was distracted and looked up as well, and both of them stopped. There was a shadow. It was just barely visible, but it was there. Long strips of shadows between the buildings... were they planks of wood? Beams of metal? Then, they noticed it: The shadows were moving. Someone was on top of the beams. They both stopped, but it was too late.

In front of them, drow wearing chain mail, armed with maces and axes, leapt from the shadows and onto the soldiers. Both of the teenagers felt that dreaded feeling in their hearts, like a sharp knife being plunged into their chests. The soldiers, completely unprepared for the ambush, fell quickly despite outnumbering the drow nearly four to one. The torch fell to the ground, its flickering light giving the gruesome details of the battle in bursts. One of the drow noticed the two teenagers, who were frozen with fear, and was about to charge them when there was a great flash of light. They all shielded their eyes.

"We have to go now!" Rayse said with urgency.

It was then that the little tribal kid fell in front of them. She was the only one to move during the flash of light; a mad dash back to the entrance of the alley. She didn't make it far before tripping on the chains. The drow who was going to charge them finally recovered from the light, and decided to pull out a flintlock pistol to dispatch the teenagers. What they saw next amazed them.

While lying on her side, the kid conjured a spark. It looked like it appeared from nothing, but small trails could be seen coming from the torch. She flung the spark into the pistol's barrel, which caused it to burst in the drow's hands. The drow dropped the burnt weapon, screaming out in pain from the burns on his hands and the shrapnel that lodged into his dark skin.

"Give me a pick!" Vincent demanded. He knew that Rayse always carried a few lock picks on him.

"Screw that, man, let's go!"

"I'm not going until you give it to me!"

Rayse begrudgingly produced the pick, fumbling it in his nervous hands and giving it to Vincent, who then applied it to the kid's chains.

"What are you doing?!"

Vincent didn't answer, instead maneuvering the pick with precision to relieve the child from the chains on her hands. He then helped the kid up and grasped her by the shoulder.

"Whatever you did, do it again to that lock," said Vincent, pointing to the intricate lock on the metal door next to him.

"What?! You lost your mind, Vin-"

"Shut it, Rayse! You think we can just go back the way we came? They're waiting for us!"

Rayse looked back at the entrance to the alley, and there were indeed several drow now running at them. He fell to his knees, almost giving up until he looked at the tribal kid and saw her holding the lock to the door, watching the lock start to change from its blueish-black color to a bright yellow, then orange, then red. The next thing he knew, the whole damn thing fell to the ground. Nobody needed to order them to do what they did next. Leaving the carnage of the soldiers being slaughtered, the three of them pushed the door open and ran into the building on one side of the alley.

[Taische]

Taische turned a hard left as soon as her tiny body slipped through the door and into the lightless building. She hated it, the lack of air and space, the feeling that the walls would fall in around her and that she would never find her way out. But though sore and tired, her feet drew her left, and she knew better than to doubt her intuition. She was only just starting to grow into the O’Sheean birthright, but it would not lead her wrong.

“Hey!” Called a male voice from behind her. Obviously one of the two northerners thought they would be taking the lead, but not when they were slow.

“This way!” She called, holding up her right hand and setting it alight, still running down the long, narrow hall. “Hurry or they’ll get you!”

With no choice but to follow, the older kids were quick on her heels, with the one who wanted to leave her behind passing her in a few quick strides and the one who had unchained her following behind to make sure she kept up. Her little legs needed two steps for every one of theirs, but she was almost running, half panicked… and with good reason.

The door banged open harder behind them, letting four of the armed dark elves into the building behind them. Crossbow bolts peppered the walls and floor around them as they took a hard turn up a flight of stairs. Taische screamed and fell hard on the steps as one quarrel passed so close to her that it tugged on hair. Her light faltered, threatening to go out, and she flailed uselessly on the steps, limbs refusing to work in concert. Thankfully, the strong, gentle arms of the teen behind her lifted her up and carried her up the rest of the flight. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered, trying to soothe her even while adrenaline sent the blood pounding in his ears. “Just gotta keep moving.”

He set her down when they reached the top, nudging her to the right to send her back after Rayse, who was waiting for them impatiently. Thankfully, the child was able to get her feet back under her immediately, and she hurried to catch up to the other boy, dirty bare feet slapping the cold tile.

Rayse led them on a rapid course through the factory, turning them right and left seemingly at random to throw their pursuers off, and Vincent pulling things down behind the group to slow the quartet of dark elves down. Right, left, left, up some stairs, down some stairs, down more stairs, right, right, up again, right, left.

“Not that way!” Taische cried when Rayse went to turn them right again, reaching for a door as their pursuers burst into view once more. He didn’t listen to her, charging them into a cluttered factory room with two ways out: the door the armed Alerians were converging on and a rare window. The wrong turn had cost them; there was no choosing another way to run.

Desperate for escape, Rayse hurried to the window, throwing it open with a mighty heave of his arms. “The street is clear! We can make it,” he called to his best friend, planting a foot on the sill.

Bitter wind roared into the room, and Taische looked up at Vincent, chin bleeding from the hard fall. “Pull down that shelf!”

She didn’t have to tell him twice; the wooden shelf, loaded with turpentine and cleaning chemicals, clattered to the floor, breaking open some of the containers. She flicked her hand, killing the flame that had lit their path and sending sparks to consume the whole flammable mass in an inferno of choking smoke.

“Come on!” Rayse shouted, jumping out.

[Rayse Valentino]

Old Ettermire.

The city they don’t want you to see. The last landmark of the history of drow servitude. They built tall factories around this whole area, sectioning it off, hiding it from the glare of other kingdoms. The derelict structures that remain serve as hideouts for criminals, revolutionaries, fugitives, and those without true homes.

The three of them stood at the edge of the massive opened window. Smoke poured out of the top, and the drop to the alley below was about 12 feet, about triple the height of the tribal kid. Sitting on the edge, Rayse dropped down first, feeling a bit of strain as he landed on his feet, but nothing that would keep him from running. He turned around and motioned for Vincent to follow. The other teenager mimicked Rayse's motion and also dropped down. Rayse took that to mean they were ready to go, so he started running only to find that Vincent was still standing under the window.

"What's the hold up?!" Rayse yelled.

"Come on, kid, I'll catch you," Vincent smiled. The girl was still climbing up on the edge of the window.

Rayse couldn't believe it, "Are you serious? You're going to get us both killed! Let's go!"

"I'm not leaving without her!" Vincent shot back, and then looked back up at the kid, holding out his arms. "Come! There's no time to be afraid! Let yourself go!"

The kid perched in the window with her toes gripping the sill. She looked toward the source of some noise behind her, then back down, adjusting herself a little and leaping. Her body crashed into Vincent's chest, and they both fell to the ground. After getting up, they joined Rayse and ran into Old Ettermire.

The first thing that assaulted them was darkness. The factories around the old city were like walls, keeping everything inside. There was enough light to see, but not enough to make out the details of where they were going; they simply ran, passing by large shadows that threatened to swallow them whole if they lingered too long. Few of the houses had doors, and those that did, Rayse tried to see if they would close before heading over to the next one. Eventually they found a door with a functional locking mechanism and ran inside.

They were all exhausted, the tribal kid especially. She was laying prone on the stone floor, sucking in air like she’d never breathed before in her life and wasn’t sure she’d ever get the chance again. Rayse, ever the one to forget the immediate danger to pursue other priorities, looked incredulously at his friend.

"What's up with you, man?" He said in a harsh whisper. "Why are you taking the kid with us? She's only going to slow us down."

Vincent understood where Rayse was coming from. It was a reasonable concern, as they had all come very close to getting axes lodged in their craniums.

"I know what you're thinking too," Rayse continued. "The whole damn reason we got jumped is because of this kid! We don't owe her anything!"

"We owe her a promise," Vincent replied. "We agreed to guide her to the train station. Nothing has changed about that."

"So this is about duty? Who cares about that shit?"

"I do."

Their eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and they saw that they were face to face. The thing about friendship is that true friends aren't carbon copies of each other. They can have disagreements and fights about all sorts of things, but they will always move on. Sometimes they would fight and not talk to each other for a day or two, then go back to normal as if nothing ever happened. Other times, Vincent apologized even though he didn't truly believe he was at fault. Rayse would never apologize, but his sheer helplessness made him drop the subject this time. Vincent was the only one among them with any semblance of a plan.

"Do what you want, man. Just don't get us killed."

"I won't. I promise." Vincent looked at the kid. "Got a name? I'm Vincent, and my idiot friend over here is Rayse."

The kid hadn't said a word since leaving the factory, and she had no reason to trust these boys. After all, one of them wanted to abandon her to die. However, the sincerity of Vincent's voice, the way he had carried her when she fell and caught her when she jumped made her trust the teenager. He wasn’t like the other one; he could have run, but he didn’t. So she answered him. “Taische.”

"Tasha?”

“Tash-ka,” she corrected.

A light suddenly illuminated the old room, showing the faces of the three. Rayse held a lit match, and used it to light one of his pilfered cigarettes. Before he could put it in his mouth, Vincent slapped it out of his hands and stamped it out.

"H-hey!" Rayse said, in a tone that changed halfway to a whisper.

"You trying to get us killed?!" Vincent scolded. "You think they won't bust down the house that smells like smoke?"

"Damn it, man, I haven't had a smoke since I got off the train."

"You're so single-minded, Rayse."

"Listen to the kid," came a gruff voice from the back of the room. The three bolted upright and put their hands up, looking for the source of the voice. "Calm down, I'm not after you."

"You don't want to get caught, after all," the voice continued, coming into the light. It was a tall drow with long white hair, and a certain sadness weighing heavily in his eyes. He was wearing a brown tunic. "It didn't look like you were leaving, so I thought that I would go first."

"Who the hell are you?" Rayse asked.

"There are two kinds of elves that go into houses like these: The poor and downtrodden, and illicit deal makers."

"Which one are you?"

"Don't get me wrong. I may be poor of heart and soul, but I am not lacking in coin. I thought I had a deal here, but apparently I was ditched. It happens in this business. Look, I'm not going to tell anyone where you are, but you better leave soon. Once they figure that you stopped running and started hiding, they'll check places like these as well."

"Why are you helping us?"

"I don't know. I'm no good guy. Let's just say that us drow aren't all the same. I look forward to the day where we can openly trade with Salvar, you know the kind of trade where merchants can come into town without fear and set up shop. I long to see your city of Knife's Edge, but instead the only ones allowed to go are Graf-lovers and royalists." He sighed. "Take it easy, little ones." He walked up to the door and unlocked it. He looked at Vincent for a moment. "Duty isn't all it's cracked up to be, kid."

Opening the door, he looked around to make sure nobody was seeing him leave, and closed it behind him. Vincent did not think of his words at the moment, but little by little they started to eat away at him. Was he really doing the right thing?

Poor of heart and soul. I would not learn the meaning behind those words until much later.

[Taische]

With the elven man gone, the three kids looked at each other in the thin slivers of light that passed through the cracks in the door and shutters. The darker boy wore a sour, irritated look on his face, the lighter boy’s teeth raked his bottom lip as he tried to think his way out of their predicament and to the assumed safety of the train station, and the little girl looked between the two of them from under a thick mane of matted black hair.

Vincent looked down into the wide blue eyes and gave the kid a reassuring smile, kneeling down to check that her chin wasn’t bleeding too much. “You’re doing great so far, Taische. You’re being very brave. Can you keep being brave for just a little longer?” Behind him, Rayse let out a sigh that was very nearly a disgusted scoff.

The child nodded, and the kind teenager patted her on the head. “Good. Now, we’re going to leave this building and run so the sun is on our left side. That will take us deeper into the city, where they won’t be looking for us. Then we find a better hiding place than this, stay very quiet, and try to get to the train during the night. Then we’ll all go back to Salvar, where it’s safe.” Considering what the child was, safe might have been less than true for her, but it would almost certainly be safer than Alerar.

“You’re going to get us killed!” Rayse snapped from by the door. He hushed instantly when heavy treads passed by, scarcely daring to breathe until whatever had caused the sound was long past. “We are humans in Ettermire,” he whispered harshly. “We have to get out as quickly as we can, or we. Are. Dead. We stick out like furboars in the king’s palace! What part of staying here for even one more second is a good idea?”

Vincent stood, setting his jaw and looking at Rayse. “Right now we are being actively hunted. At night -”

“They can see in the dark! We are-”

Taische raised her hand uncertainly. “Um. We can’t stay here anymore. We need to go. If we leave completely and go to where it’s really outside, my mommy can find us easier! She’ll beat up the bad guys and take us all home,” she promised with both the naivete and sincerity afforded to small children.

Rayse glowered at the small girl. Vincent glared at his friend. “Do you have any plans, Mr. Sneak and Smuggle? Then let’s go deeper into the city.”

The kids waited until it was quiet outside, then cracked the door open and carefully peered around. The street looked quiet, so they rushed out in single file, Vincent in front this time, holding Taische’s hand to make sure she kept up, and Rayse grudgingly brought up the rear. They fled quickly, alert eyes probing for any movement. There was plenty of it - the occasional vagrant wandering around, the cats and crows that hunted for whatever scraps of food the dingy streets offered, shadows that flickered all around them like frightful ghosts...

The child looked up, at the hazy sky and the tall chimneys that belched black bile upwards, choking both air and earth. The smoke twisted and coiled, like a noose slowly tightening. Like… like…

“Stop!” The child dug her heels in before Vincent could turn them around a sharp corner. “They’re coming.”

The boy tugged on her arm. “That’s why we have to-”

“No!” Taische pulled free, head whipping around frantically, irises white as fog. “No, no no no no no no… They’ll be here soon and they’re coming from there and we can’t go back the other way because they’ll see us!”

Finally, her eyes lighted on a thin metal pipe, cast off as refuse from some project or thrown out as trash when it had broken, and she reached for it. Thick black sludge ran down the side of the building, gleaming in the sick light of the day. It pooled in cloying puddles at the base of the building, but while its very existence disgusted the girl, just at that moment it gave her hope.

“Stand over there because I can make them run away, maybe.” She pointed to a tiny alcove in the wall, one of many, coating both ends of her pipe with the tar. The boys opened their mouths, both in some form of protest, but she looked up at them with eyes blue as fire. “Just do it or you’ll get burned!”

Without waiting for them to do as she said or arguing more that they should, she started drawing on the street with her copper pipe and the rancid pollution. “Circle for truth," she recited, trying to keep her magic right, "square for strength… A line across and across for intersecting fates. Umm…. uh…” She scrunched her face, trying to remember what went into the arcs where the square and the circle didn’t touch. “Earth to bind… and...and air to breathe. Fire and fire to burn bright and hot. And the word of power in the middle.”

While Taische was drawing her magic circle, Rayse took note of their immediate surroundings. They were in a narrow alleyway, made much more tight by the apparent collapse of the building on their left. There was a makeshift ceiling above them created from the rubble that looked unstable, making the alley appear triangular. A thought lingered in the back of his mind, but he put it away.

She stood in the middle of the circle for a few seconds, tiny body shaking in terror and breaths coming in hard, fast gasps. But her blue eyes focused on the street ahead, where, sure enough, their pursuers burst into view. One of them shouted, leveling his crossbow at her, but she let out a shout as well, as loud as her lungs could manage. She lifted her makeshift staff, igniting the ends with a pair of sparks from her hands and spinning it around with precision belied by her age. A pair of bolts flew for her, but she spun low, letting them fly over her head as she began a stomping, kicking dance.

“A leanbh mo chléibh go n-eirÃ* do chodhladh leat!” She chanted purposefully. “Séan is sonas gach oÃ*che do chóir! Tá mise le do thaobh ag guÃ*dhe ort na mbeannacht! SeothÃ*n a leanbh is codail go foill!”

Both little bare feet planted themselves firmly on the ground, and fire burst forth from the girl, igniting the circle with potent blue flame that flared viciously skyward. The dark elves looked at each other, uncertain, but kept advancing on the group of human young. The circle flared again, blowing the girl’s hair and rags every which way, but not burning her despite the roiling, shimmering heat. Her eyes glowed gold at the dark elves, full of magic and malice.

“Do ya want t' see what it does?” She challenged, hands gripping her weapon and knees bending. One of the elves snapped a command to his comrades, and they all withdrew. Why risk injury when the child would soon tire?

Taische fell to her knees when they were out of sight, starting to breathe again. Her circle of fire, no longer needed, flickered and died. The boys hurried out of their hiding place to her side.

“What was that?” Vincent asked her, helping her to her feet and back on the move.

“Just something my mom used to sing when I was little to help me go to sleep. I thought if I said it scary, they would be scared and go away. I really, really wanted to run away, but she says that if you face scary things, most times they’re more scared of you.”

Rayse shook his head, hurrying along behind Vincent and Taische again. How little this kid knew.

[Rayse Valentino]

They ran for what seemed like an eternity, the setting sun chasing through the cracks of the crumbling derelicts. Pain grew in their legs until each step felt like someone was driving a splint through their knees. Taische’s strength gave out first, and while once again Rayse pleaded to leave her behind, Vincent started looking around for some place to rest. While they ran, factories clanged ever louder, echoing throughout the streets like a warning. They continued for a little while longer until the girl collapsed in pain, tears in her eyes and teeth biting lip tightly to stifle the cry. She rolled over to her side and held onto her foot as if it was about to fall off, noticing a sharp metal shard that had pierced the thick callous.

“You’re playing with our lives here!” Rayse spat. He slammed his fist into a nearby wall.

Vincent ignored Rayse’s outburst, rushing over to Taische and noticing the splinter. His eyes darted around their immediate area. “I see an alley we can duck into, there might be an back entrance. Carry her, you’re the stronger of us.”

“No way.”

“Come on Rayse, you owe me!”

Rayse hesitated, his eyes blinking in disbelief. He never expected Vincent to pull that card. Grudgingly, he walked over to Taische, who didn’t seem too pleased about it either. He knelt down, his face flushed. “Get on,” he mumbled.

They ran into the alley, praying for some sort of shelter, but found themselves in a dead end. Before panic could set in, they saw an opening covered by old cloth. Running inside, they stumbled into a long hallway, filled with doors on each side. Leaky pipes dripped water from the ceiling, and rats scurried into holes. The metal thumping turned to clanking, so loud that it caused the loose plaster to shake and the ground to vibrate.

“Are we near a factory?” Rayse wondered, recognizing the sound of machinery. “It could lead us out of here.” He set Taische down and looked around.

Most of the doors were missing; the few that remained were torn off their hinges. A musty scent of rotten food permeated the air. Ordinarily, it would have drawn a disgusted reaction from the child, however exhaustion and a fortnight’s worth of exposure to Ettermire’s foul smog had inured her to the new smells, and she did not react. Vincent leaned against a wall, his heart beating rapidly in his throat and his breath hoarse. He was far more winded than Rayse, even without the passenger. He never knew where Rayse’s seemingly infinite stamina came from.

Taische nearly collapsed to the ground, lying on her back and taking deep breaths. Vincent walked over to her and told her to stay calm as he pulled the piece of metal out of her foot and wrapped it with a rag. Surprisingly, she did not give much of a reaction, merely biting her lip momentarily at the crude medicine. After she assured him that she was okay, he walked over the doorway they came in from. Peeking out from beyond the tattered cloth, it looked like they’d evaded their pursuers for now. When he turned back around, the grimy little girl was seated on the floor, staring at him expectantly through streaks of soot.

“Tash.. ka?” He asked, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“What’s he owe you?” She asked, leaving Vincent blinking in confusion. “When you said he owed you. What did you mean?”

“Oh,” said Vincent, smiling for the first time in hours. “It’s… complicated.” He put his back to the wall, hearing it crack under his weight, and slid down until he was seated, grunting along the way from the pain in his joints. Despite their situation, this is what the girl cared about, and Vincent couldn’t help but smile.

“Complicated?” She asked, tilting her head.

“Well...” Vincent scratched his head. “He doesn’t really owe me anything… we’re friends.”

Taische held a hand up, calling forth a flickering light that seemed to consume the appendage. “He doesn’t seem nice enough to have friends.”

“Hah. Maybe not.”

Rayse walked back with a look of dejection. “No good. It’s all caved in up ahead. I think it was some sort of housing complex for the factory… but I don’t see any way to get to it from in here. I tried to check upstairs but the staircase is completely destroyed.”

“Then we need to keep moving.” Vincent tried to get up, but his legs wouldn’t listen. “Shit!”

Rayse sighed, “Let’s stay here for a while, we’ll just be sitting ducks out there at our pace.” While he hid it well, he was also exhausted. “I’ll take watch.” He thought of letting out a sarcastic quip before he left, but he was just too tired to think of anything.

Taische and Vincent limped into one of the rooms and sat against the wall together, Vincent lending the girl his handkerchief to wipe away her sweat. The room was fairly bare except for the debris of a dresser and a ruined bed frame. A large crack ran along the ceiling, and Vincent swore he could see little eyes up there.

“Thank you,” she said politely, throwing him a smile. He wondered how she could be so calm, what she knew that they didn’t. It was like she was in another world. “If he doesn’t owe you anything, why did you say he did?” Just like that, she started where she left off. Maybe this was her way of coping with the situation, so Vincent decided to oblige.

“Well, it’s something that happened a couple years ago. I barely knew him then, but I helped him out anyway. I never felt like it was something he needed to repay, but he’s not the kind of guy who lets things slide like that. Debts are very important to him.”

“What happened?”

Vincent was a bit apprehensive given the thought of talking about Rayse like this, but there was no guarantee they were getting out of here alive.

“We met in our first year of academy. Back then, Rayse started up a smuggling ring, and he wanted me to join him. I wasn’t interested, and he apparently took offense to this and started a fight with me. We both beat each other up and that was the last I saw of him for a while.”

“What?!” Taische’s mouth was agape. “How did you become friends, then? Boys are weird.”

“We have a mutual friend named Robert, who Rayse managed to get roped into his smuggling operation. One day, he came running to me, and begged for my help. To help Rayse.”

“What did he need help with?”

“A few days prior, someone had caught wind of Rayse’s dealings and wanted to get in on it. He threatened to blackmail Rayse, and got his arm broken for it. Unfortunately for Rayse, he was Melor Tivarian, the headmaster’s son, and wasn’t used to such treatment. He was furious, and organized a trap for Rayse, and planned to… kill him.”

“Just for breaking his arm?”

“It wasn’t just that. He never suffered that kind of humiliation before, and that resentment made him a bit more… extreme. He went crazy. He bought off one of Rayse’s clients and in a back room, jumped him with half a dozen people he paid off. They were really going to kill him. At the time, I was studying military engineering and prepared a smoke bomb. I got there as fast as I could and threw it into the room, hitting as many of them as I could with a baton in the confusion. Before the smoke cleared, I got Rayse out of there. It was in the nick of time too, he was beaten half to death when I got there.”

“That… is amazing! So you saved his life?”

“Yes… and ever since then, we’ve been friends. I don’t think he ever figured out why I risked my life for a stranger.”

“Why did you?”

“You know… even now, I don’t really know. Part of me felt like it was the right thing to do, part of me just felt like it, but really it was just on impulse. I didn’t want to see him die… I wanted to see more of him, what he could do in the world. He was interesting to me.” Vincent was becoming self-conscious of his candidness. “Anyway, I never used that against him. I always felt like we were equals. But this time… it’s not about us.”

“So you’re a hero, like my mom. You help people and make the bad guys go away.”

The teen chuckled. The child’s adulation felt good to his ego, even if the rest of him was sore and winded. “I don’t know if we could say ‘hero.’ I just...don’t like seeing people get needlessly hurt.”

Vincent noticed something in the air, wafting among the pungent odors of the deprecated building. He recognized it immediately, stood up, and ran over to the exit.

“Rayse!” He said sharply. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Rayse stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette, “What’s your problem? It smells so bad in here there’s no way they’ll notice this. Give me a break already!”

Vincent pressed a palm up against his forehead, thought about lecturing Rayse, but gave up and walked back down the hall. Rayse, shocked by this action, tossed the cigarette aside and followed him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Rayse asked.

“Nothing,” Vincent answered. In his mind he was scolding Rayse, but right now he just didn’t have the energy. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Rayse didn't respond at first, he just pursed his lips and stared at his friend. “Go relax and I’ll keep watch, okay? Once the sun’s completely gone we need to get out of here.”

[Taische]

An hour passed, maybe two. The thin strips of light that filtered through the shutters sank and darkened from dingy saffron to muddy peach. The human children grew more anxious and restless with each passing heartbeat. Doubtless someone knew they were there by now; if they weren’t out before dark they would be more trouble than a furboar piglet in a hungry bear’s cave. The longer they stayed, the worse their already-slim chances.

Vincent turned to Taische, checking the bandage on her foot and giving her a very serious look. “All right, Tash. We’ve really got to find a way to get out of here, and we have to do it sneaky. There might be a way from the second floor. Rayse and I would check it out, but the boards don’t look like they’d hold us for long. You’re a lot lighter. If we boost you up, can you be very careful and look for a way?”

Taische looked at Vincent, beyond exhausted from the long, hard weeks imprisoned and their headlong flight across the city. The restless nap she’d taken, curled up on the filthy floor where they hid, hadn’t helped much. For a moment, Vincent thought he’d need to repeat the question - or, worse, that the girl wasn’t up for the task. This day would have pushed many grown men past their breaking points, and she was a child half his age, not a hero. She was doing admirably well to be so calm and have so few tears and complaints.

Then she rubbed the grit from her eyes and nodded. “Give me a boost, and the last one to find a way out is a stinky toad!” She clambered to her feet, hurrying over to a hole in the battered floorboards. Though it was jagged and barely large enough for her to squeeze through, it was also against a sheltering wall where she should be safe from immediate harm. Vincent didn’t really like sending her up there on her own. But he didn’t really have much choice.

With a little bit of a heave and some precarious balancing of calloused little feet on bigger, softer hands, Taische wiggled through the hole and into the building’s second level. “Be careful,” he whispered up after her. But she was already beyond his help if something went wrong.

Dust hung thick in the air on the second floor, immediately clogging her lungs, nose, and mouth. The light was quickly dying, but she resisted the urge to pop a flame to light her way. The hairs at the back of her neck prickled in the quiet of the upper level; she felt like she was being hunted. Something… something was definitely not right.

On tiptoes, she started exploring the room, flinching when some floorboards creaked loudly beneath her feet. Old blankets and furniture littered the floor haphazardly, and she could see crusty brown stains on the floor and the upholstery. It smelled like rust, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was or how it had come to be there.

After a few minutes of careful creeping, she found a stairway that seemed to lead out the back. It was as good a plan as any that she could see, and the boys hadn’t called her for their way out, so either they were playing a trick on her or she wouldn’t be the stinky toad.

Taische was almost back to the hole when pain lanced through her skull, blazing behind her eyes with a ferocious rage. She collapsed to her knees, clutching at her head so hard that strands of hair started popping out beneath her nails.

A bolt, whizzing through the window, faster than the wind. A turned back, an unaware boy. A shout, and explosion of blood. A look of horror on one face, a look of agonized death on the other.

“LOOK OUT!” Her cry tore through the building, shrill enough to pierce through walls and eardrums, loud enough to shake ancient dust from rafters.

Vincent and Rayse only had a moment to respond, each diving into a room on either sides of the hallway on the ground floor. They hit the dusty floor and scrambled back up, pressing their backs against the wall near the doorway. They heard the bolt hit the wall, its shape torn in half by the force, whatever left of it rolling down to the ground.

“What the fuck?!” Rayse whispered harshly. “Who the fuck fires a crossbow into an abandoned building?”

Vincent put a finger up to his mouth, “Shh!” He signaled the entrance of the tenement with his eyes.

Their pursuers must have known they were there. For how long? Rayse took a quick look beyond the doorway and saw that nobody had entered yet. They fired the bolt through the cloth without even looking? Maybe they never truly lost them after the kid’s light show, and they were just waiting for them to come out.

“We’ve gotta rush him,” whispered Rayse from his room across the hall. “We can’t let him in here!”

“Agreed. If he shows the rest of them it’s safe, we’ll get swarmed.”

They both reached for their belts and pulled out their military knives. Rayse looked again quickly, and waited for any sign of entry. When he saw a hand clearing out the cloth and a large figure stepping inside after, he lifted his left hand and curled all but the index finger inwards, pointing it at Vincent and then himself. As Vincent nodded, Rayse broke out into a sprint, holding the knife with both hands with a desperate, crazed look in his face. Vincent followed closely behind, trying to stay in Rayse’s shadow as closely as he could.

The elf bared his teeth as the first thing he saw was a teenage Salvaran charging him, so he took the crossbow with both hands and swung it in front of him, hitting Rayse in the side of the head with the length of the weapon, sending him crashing into a wall. Vincent took their pursuer by surprise however, his concealment allowing him to cleanly run through his opponent with the knife. The soldier grunted in pain as the blade was driven into his side, dropping the crossbow, reaching down and clamping his hand down on Vincent’s head.

“Let go of him, you pointy-eared piece of charcoal!” screamed Rayse as he nearly flew at the enemy and went straight for the neck.

The hunter lifted Vincent up and kicked him in the gut, sending the young soldier hurtling back down the hall. He lifted his other hand and shielded his head. The knife sliced through the elf’s arm, but not enough to stop him from responding by elbowing Rayse in the chest, then following it up by throwing him into one of the rooms.

Upstairs, the tension of being a stalked prey animal had exploded into adrenaline at the moment of attack. The boys below engaged in mortal combat while Taische lingered upstairs in relative safety. She could run; she had a head start and she was clear. She thought about it for a second; she was way too young for all of this scary stuff. But if she didn’t do something, both of the boys would die. She couldn’t let that happen.

Bare feet padded through the building’s rooms, taking the child in search of something she could do to help. Was there anything, anything in her power to do? Could she burn the building down? No, she couldn’t make a circle to focus it; there wasn’t time. Could she… could she…?

There!

A broken chair made of solid wood, thick cloth, and probably rats’ nests lay toppled by a small hole in the floor. The planks beneath it sagged dangerously, it wouldn’t take much to push it. A thud from down below told her that she had only moments to make her move, and she didn’t hesitate. Little brown hands pushed on the decrepit furniture, little brown feet shoved on the floor. The chair creaked, then it shifted, then it toppled.

The elf cursed in his native tongue, pulling the knife out and tossing it aside, blood pouring out of the wound. His left arm shook violently from the pain, a huge red streak growing across it. He growled and took a few steps forward, eyeing the prone teenager vengefully, lifting up the crossbow and ready to bash Vincent’s head in with it. He lifted up the weapon and was about to swing down when the ceiling collapsed on both of them, dirt, rocks, and a large chair burying both of them in an avalanche of filth.

Rayse limped out of the room he was thrown in, clutching his head in pain, blood running down the length of his face. “Vincent!” he yelled, running over to the big pile of dirt from which nothing was moving. He painstakingly removed rocks until he saw the drow’s unmoving body. With a heave, he removed it and saw Vincent underneath, who was still breathing. “Hey! Get up!”

Vincent coughed, spitting up some blood and opening one eye to see Rayse’s hand. He took it without hesitation, and was pulled up to his feet a little too quickly, nearly losing his balance with a wave of nausea that passed through him. He bent over and continued coughing, mixing in a bout of dry heaving. If he had any food in him, it would have been purged right now. Rayse himself leaned against the wall, gnashing his teeth at the pain he felt in his head. He saw something brush up against his foot; a letter. It was covered in dirt, but it looked recent.

He bent down, picked it up, and was about to look at it when Vincent got his bearings and yelled, “How do we get out of here?!” Rayse pocketed the letter and shook his head.

“Up here!” came a voice from above. “There’s a way out up here!”

The young soldiers looked up and saw Taische, looking at them through the hole she created in the ceiling. “There are stairs over in the next room. Some of them are broken, but I think you can come up.”

The boys scrambled over rubble and shoved through a decrepit wooden door to reach a rickety staircase. More than a few steps were broken, and one shattered as Rayse tested its strength, but within a couple of minutes, the teens were on the second floor. The little girl’s wide blue eyes scanned them anxiously to see if they were hurt very badly. While Vincent was weaving a little after having had a massive piece of furniture dropped on him, he was better than dead.

Not reassured, but with no choice left, she led them down the next set of steps and back out into the streets. It was quieter here; fewer people milled about, though the factories clanged ominously not far away. With fewer people, they had less cover and would soon be overrun if they didn’t find another place to hide. With that thought hanging heavily in all of their minds, the three young humans ran toward a fairly small but foreboding building not far from the exit of their former haven.

[Rayse Valentino]

Justice. That is what the decrepit halls of that courthouse represented. We grow up to learn the rules, the rewards for abiding them, the punishment for not. But what justice did the elves who were “processed” through here have? What were their crimes? Breaking a tool? Causing an injury? Being unable to work? What crime did we commit to deserve being hunted down in the dark? The fact we were soldiers? What about the girl, was it simply existing?

I learned that day that there’s no such thing as justice. It’s an empty word for people who want to be Right. When enough of those people get together, they create laws and export their sense of justice all over the world. No, there is only one true form of justice:

Revenge.

It was an easy decision to make. The doors were still intact, so they headed towards the large wooden frames. The ground floor was built with masonry blocks up to the second floor, where wooden pointed protrusions made up its roof. They swung the doors open and piled inside, desperately looking for a way to bar the entry. On the inside, the doors had square-shaped hooks that looked like they were used to bar entry… or exit. Rayse spotted a long, rusted pipe nearby and with Vincent’s help, they dropped it over the hooks to seal themselves in.

Inside, they were presented with rows of pews leading up to an open area with a podium in the center. In front of the podium was an elevated table with several chairs behind it. At either side of the podium was another row of benches, and behind them were doors. The young soldiers realized that they were in an abandoned courthouse. A reflector and sounding board were above the podium, to shine light onto the accused’s face and amplify their voice.

Knowing that they couldn’t leave the way they came in, and likely not having as much time as before due to their macabre deed, they all split up and started searching for an alternative way out. Rayse immediately checked upstairs, but the second floor was entirely collapsed. Vincent checked the walls, which had many loose boards and missing sections. Taische provided some semblance of light with a flame on her finger. From the ceiling hung several chains that once housed chandeliers, and many of the pews were torn up or outright missing. The few that remained were up against the walls. The podium in the center was the only thing that suffered no wear in this room, as if looters intentionally avoided it. Cobwebs fell like a curtain over what remained.

“No good,” said Rayse with a sigh. “Everything’s wrecked beyond the doors, and there’s no way to get upstairs.” He could see some file cabinets, desks, chairs, and long tables in the small rooms.

“I think I got something,” said Vincent. He stretched his arm into a hole in the wall and could feel cold air brushing against his palm. “This way leads somewhere.”

“Outta the way.” Rayse picked up his leg and slammed it into the wall, breaking through rotten wood to reveal a small opening between the inner and outer walls. He crawled in, and after a minute, came back out. “There’s a pile of rubble along the wall near the back. It looks weak enough to break through.”

“Great, we’ll go out that way once they find this place. They’ll spend all their time looking for us in here, there are hiding spots everywhere.”

“Then what?” Rayse asked. “Are we getting any closer to the way out of here?”

“I don’t know.”

They pulled out one of the more intact file cabinets from a small room and pressed it up against the wall near the opening. The idea was that they would pull it over the hole on their way out to mask their escape.

While they were waiting, Vincent noticed that Rayse was intermittently clutching his head, leaning against the wall with a lowered posture, “You okay there?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rayse said with one eye closed. “Doing better than that pointy-eared bastard we left back there.” Ever since they left the tenement, he had an intermittent ringing in his head.

“Any way I can help?”

“Yeah,” Rayse spat on the floor. “Go back in time and pull us off this mission.”

Vincent had had enough. “At least I’m trying to get us out of here alive, all you’ve been doing so far is bitching.”

Taische, searching for escape routes at the other side of the room, looked back at the boys. The sudden heat in Vincent’s tone didn’t sound good to her. Were they going to fight? They couldn’t fight in here, it was too scary.

“Who are you trying to impress?” Rayse snapped. “All we’re doing is running around in circles, I’ve done just as much as you.”

“Do you have a problem with how I’m doing things? If you have anything valuable to add, please be my guest.”

“Please, no,” called a tiny, worried voice. “We have to be nice or the bad guys will win!” Unnoticed, the little girl slowly approached the teenage boys. Her pleas for peace went unheeded.

“I’m just saying it seems all you’re good for is sucking up to your superiors!” yelled Rayse.

“That shit again?” said Vincent. “It must be really easy for you, right? Getting everything handed to you on a silver platter and you still manage to fuck things up.” Vincent’s lip curled as Rayse stood up straight, black eyes flashing fury. “Yeah, that’s the look. You know how hard it is to get into a royal military academy when you’re of low birth? How many favors my father had to pull? You were basically guaranteed to get in, and even then military service is optional for you. You can just retire and then attend parties or whatever it is you nobles do.”

“I’m not like them, you know that!”

“Every day we wondered if we would have enough money to survive the next month. My position is the highest anyone in my family has ever gotten. Do you know what it’s like to live in the shadow of your father’s expectations? I don’t have a choice but to do well. If I don’t, I have no future. Military is the highest position we can have! Status is everything!”

“You’re wrong,” Rayse said, rubbing his temples in an attempt to relieve the pain. He walked over to Vincent and lifted his hand, pressing his thumb and fingers together. “Wealth is everything. Have enough money, and status doesn’t matter. That’s how the world is run.”

A tiny hand gripped each of them by the wrist, forcibly drawing their attention to the child who had been forgotten in the argument. She looked between them, as much fear in her face from the way they postured and spoke as from any of the dangers they’d faced that day. “You have to stop! We aren’t safe yet, and sometimes when it’s not safe, people die. If someone dies, you will be sad forever that the last things you got to say were angry. So you have to be nice now, and later, when we’re safe, you can punch each other until you’re friends again.”

Their conversation was cut short by the pounding on the courthouse’s doors. The pipe held steady, barring the intruders from entry, but it looked like the doors themselves would give way soon enough to the strength of the elves.

The three of them ran to the hole, and Rayse spoke up, “Okay, you two go through, I’ll pull the cabinet over the hole.”

“It won’t cover all the way,” Vincent objected.

“It’s good enough,” Rayse asserted. “Tasiche, you first, go!” Tasiche crawled into the opening and disappeared into the darkness.

Vincent paused, and then said, “Wait, I have a better idea, so just go on ahead. Be quick and don’t look back.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes. Now hurry!”

Rayse felt a nagging apprehension, but it was clouded by the ringing in his head, which intensified at Vincent’s words. He shook his head and entered the hole, vanishing after Taische. The remaining soldier limped to the side of the cabinet opposite the hole, and started pushing until it was completely covered up. He then made his way to one of the small rooms before the courthouse’s doors gave way. The hunters stormed the room and surrounded the boy, who only made it as far as the podium.

While crawling behind the walls, Rayse looked behind him and realized what had happened. He panicked and grabbed Taische’s ankle from behind to keep her in place. He was confident that when it came to his life, Vincent would give her up. He wouldn’t give up his life for a complete stranger, right?

Vincent reached for his knife but was stopped short when two elves on either side of him grabbed his arms.

An elf in front of him kept his hands at his sides as he asked in Tradespeak, “Where are the other rats?” Vincent didn’t answer, not wanting to give them any hints with his response. He wanted to keep them in the dark as long as possible. The sounding board above them allowed Taische and Rayse to hear everything that was being said. “You’re in a good place, kid.” The elf reached into a bag and pulled out a pair of sickle-swords. “The execution grounds weren’t far from here. Sometimes they didn’t even bother to wait. Want to see how it was done?”

Sweat rolled down Vincent’s face, but he couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s so funny?” asked another elf.

“A few kids outsmarted you, t-that’s all. We... we split up a while ago. They’re long gone.”

“Just kill him already!”

Rayse was speechless. What the fuck are you doing, Vincent? All it took was dragging her back in there. They would go in, present the little pyromaniac, and leave like nothing happened, right? Or maybe just use her as bait. An easy ride back to Salvar. No, Vincent would never go for that, and at this point, neither would Rayse. They were in too deep. They killed someone. So then what? What could he do?

Something!

Anything!

The original elf placed the swords on either side of Vincent’s neck. “Enough!”

Rayse heard nothing for a moment, and then a thump.

[Taische]

Taische huddled against the side of the building, hot tears racing down her cheeks in Ettermire’s hot and oppressive air. The earth beneath her feet screamed of suffering, and the elves who lived on the land channeled it into further cruelty and violence. Blood had washed the streets around her almost from dawn, but though she had seen it and smelled it and felt the lives extinguish around her, that hadn’t been quite real. It was if they were puppets in a play, destined to die from the beginning so the hero could shine in the moment and tell his story - their story - again and again when he was old.

But the hero was dead. Vincent had kept her with him and Rayse even though the elves might have let them go if they’d handed her over. He had reassured her, protected her, and stood up to his friend when the dark-haired hothead was being a bully. He had sacrificed himself so they could live, and it wasn’t fair.

Rayse stumbled out of the hole in the building shortly after she did, nearly tripping on the pile of rubble beneath him. His breath was hard and halting, like he had an iron band tightening around his chest. He looked dazed, like he knew he couldn’t collapse and weep, but he didn’t know what to do from there.

“W-we...we have to go,” the child managed to whimper. “We can’t stop. They’ll be here soon.”

Not for the first time, she wished for her mother’s presence. If Karuka were here, she would stride through the city like the embodiment of protective fury, and anything that dared stand in the path between her and her child would be beaten or zapped back by the famous spear in her hands or incinerated by her phoenix. Then everything would be safe. She and Rayse would be okay, and maybe the wise redhead could even do something about Vincent.

But her mother was not there. Just her mother’s words of wisdom, and the young soldier didn’t respond to them. He merely stared at his feet listlessly, as if nothing mattered to him anymore, so she tried again.

“If we don’t, then what did he die for?” Taische sniffled and rubbed a grimy sleeve across her tear-streaked face. “My...my matháir says that if you stop when bad things happen, then you end. So we have to go.”

A heavy thud sounded on the other side of the building; the dark elven soldiers had opened the courthouse and were beginning the hunt anew.

Taische grabbed Rayse’s hand and started pulling him through the dark alleys. She had liked Vincent, and he had sacrificed himself even more for his friendship with Rayse than for his duty to her. So she couldn’t let him die. She’d just have to protect him, somehow.

[Rayse Valentino]

They raced through the dark, dirty depths of Ettermire’s alleys, navigating tight turns and cramped corners. The child led the dazed youth by the hand, nearly dragging him despite not knowing where to go. Away seemed as good a direction as any. In the middle of their mad dash, she skidded to a stop so suddenly that Rayse bumped into her. Taische didn’t seem to notice. Her body pulled itself so far up she stood balanced on the tips of her toes, her head turned alertly, like a deer scanning for wolves.

Rayse momentarily snapped out of his haze, “What… Is this your power again? Did they find us?� He looked around, but there were no footsteps, no voices, nothing. Then, he followed the girl’s gaze as she looked up and saw a flash of light that blinded him for a moment, causing him to stumble backwards.

Something landed in front of the two, and just as Rayse opened his eyes, something hot and bright grabbed him and threw him against the wall. He felt arid air escaping his lungs and a new pain in his chest. He fell to the ground, clutching his stomach. The light faded and he looked up, seeing Taische standing in front of a fiery figure. He couldn’t make out what was inside the living bonfire. The ringing in his head returned, greater than ever, and he spent the next few moments clutching his head in pain.

“Finally found you,� growled the man in the flames. “We don’t have any time. Let’s go.� He realized that Taische wasn’t buying any of this. “Your mother sent me.� He lifted his hand, a ball of fire forming inside of it, pointing his palm at Rayse.

Taische flared, flames curling out from her body in a miniature mirror of the larger figure. “I’ll not let you touch him again,� she spat, taking a tone that could have etched steel. The man’s hand lowered and he regarded the girl, almost annoyed, almost puzzled.

Through an act of will, Rayse opened his eyes and dragged himself to his feet, ignoring his suffering. Whoever this was, he was here for the girl. He was an ally. He would help… He was here to help.

“Please!� Rayse pleaded. “My friend, he -� a hacking cough paused Rayse’s sentence, but he pressed on, his voice hoarse. “He died protecting her. I beg you, help me avenge him! Help me kill those pointy-eared bastards!�

The figure in the flames shook his head. “Sorry, not my problem. Let’s go, kid.�

Tasiche stepped back, raising her hands and flaring hotter and brighter. “No! Don’t touch me!�

The figure in the fires moved faster than the eye could see, snatching Taische up and engulfing her in the flames that surrounded him. Then both of them were gone. All that was left were wisps of fire that fell faintly on the ground.

Rayse sunk to his knees, clawing at the crumbling cobblestones in the road. Grief erupted like a long-dormant volcano, spewing forth red-hot rage. It burned in the back of his throat and sizzled in his eyes. He choked back tears and stood up, clenching his fists so tightly that his nails were digging into his skin. There was only one thing he could think of doing now.

[Rayse Valentino]

Heavy footsteps echoed in the alleyway. With each step, dust cascaded down from the ramshackle ceiling and ash billowed up from underfoot. He remembered this strange, abandoned pathway. One of the walls of the nearby factory had collapsed onto the other building, creating an unstable enclosure that threatened to fall at any moment. His destination was the burned out circle of power that Taische had earlier inscribed on the ground. Rayse had returned to where the girl kicked up threatening flames, staring down at what was left of her drawing. Although the lines were not entirely straight and the circles imperfect, it still represented the evils of magic.

Rayse had no time to be prejudiced. He found the pipe that she used, and noticed that tar had been slowly pouring from the ruined walls, pooling among the debris. The fiery stranger gave him an idea, but he had to test it. He lit a match from his pocket and dropped it into the circle, and there was an immediate reaction, the fire spreading through the lines before Rayse hurriedly stomped it out. This could work…

It had to work.

He redrew the circle, trying to remember what Taische was saying at the time.

Intersecting fates… Bright and hot… word for power...

In the end, he didn’t know if he accurately fixed it. It looked different, and yet somehow it felt right. He spread more tar around the circle, and knew that the fire would carry itself up the walls. He took a few steps back, searching his uniform for a cigarette, when his fingers caressed the seal on the letter he had forgotten about. He lit the cigarette and ripped the seal from the letter.



To the promising young cadet,

Congratulations! You have passed the selection process. His Majesty expresses pleasure at having such a devoted young man such as yourself joining the Royal Guard. After your next mission, you are to report to the headmaster and make arrangements for transport to Rathaxea Square, where you and your family will be given adequate lodgings and welfare. After you are determined fit enough to enter our service, you will be granted a title of nobility as per requirement of any military personnel working in the castle.

May Saint Denebriel's light guide y-


Rayse crushed the letter in his hand. Wisps of smoke escaped his lips, which twitched as he struggled to keep them from forming a frown.

He lifted his head and yelled out, “Stop! Don’t go there!” The hunters assumed an argument had taken place, and made their way to the trap. Covering the crumpled letter in tar, he held it precariously close to a lit match as he stood and waited. The sound of rushing footsteps echoed closer and closer, until they were almost upon him. He saw their silhouettes in the darkness, the flicker of the flames blinking them in and out of his vision. He lit the paper and threw it into the circle, not waiting to watch the flames run across the intricate pattern and burst upwards in a pillar.

Then, all was white.

[Rayse Valentino]

In the present…

A loud crash woke Rayse up, although it was hard to tell how long he had been out. A bottle of whiskey was tipped over on the table in front of him, but it was nearly empty anyway. Drool stained the spot on the couch where his face was, and as he wiped his lips, he heard the sound of someone banging on a glass door..

After the most violent war in Salvar’s history, the city known as the epicenter of the conflict was starting to recover. Knife’s Edge had undergone numerous changes in the past few months, and now it was starting to become a respectable center of commerce and tourism. Old Quarter was already ruins before the war, but now it was made into an attraction. Rayse headed up one of the premier hotels of the area, suitable for dignitaries and lords. The Northern Star had a single penthouse suite, and that was where Rayse spent most of his time in the city. It made matters easy for meeting with the important people in the world, even better for business since he put them in a good mood with the hospitality and service.

Not today, however. He was alone the previous night, with nothing but alcohol and cigarettes to keep him company. It was early in the morning, too early for any hint of sunlight, but someone was here to see him. When he realized the sound was not coming from the front door, but the balcony, his half-closed eyelids opened all the way. He cracked his neck and walked up to the glass doors, seeing the silhouettes of two figures outside in the snow.

With a tense grip, he opened the doors and stepped outside, finding himself face to face with Malak and Sariss, two mercenaries he sent after Karuka a while ago. A large stone slab was situated behind them, likely their mode of transportation up here.

“I thought you two were dead,� he said matter-of-factly, the revelation more of an entry in a mental ledger than anything else.

“We would have been if we’d stayed around that red-headed bitch much longer.� Sariss stepped down from the platform, brushing her long purple hair back. “But we heard that you had some trouble with her too, and thought we’d offer you a way to get even.�

Rayse briefly considered what their heads would look like on a pike. He wouldn’t even get them separate pikes; they would have to share.

“Turns out she has a kid.� Malak, Sariss’s muscular, dark-haired brother interjected quickly. He motioned to a small stone pyramid with a badly blistered arm. “We had to knock her out to transport her. She’s feisty.�

The pyramid fell open, revealing a little brown girl with thick black hair. Her skin showed some bruising; restraint wasn’t Malak’s strong point. “The redhead will think twice about messing with you after you…� he looked at his sister, not sure how to finish his sentence.

“Any threat of harm to her will keep her mother in line. Or you could just kill her,� Sariss suggested helpfully.

Rayse’s fists had been clenching harder and harder throughout the exchange. “You blithering idiots. We came to an agreement. Get out.�

The pair wasted no time in taking the slab back to the ground, leaving the child behind for Rayse to deal with.

[Taische]

Her head pounded so hard she could hear each beat of blood rushing past her ears. Her tongue felt like an oversized ball of cotton in her mouth. When she cracked her eyes open, browns and grays swam across her vision like a school of drunken fish, and she clenched them closed again as if it would ward off a sudden wave of nausea.

Tiny fingers dug into the thick, soft carpet she was lying on, and her body arched painfully while she tried to retch. Between her capture more than a week before and her various escape attempts, there hadn’t been much time or opportunity to eat anything, so the carpet remained pristine.

After a futile minute, Taische pushed herself up, shoving her thick hair out of her face to look around. She was in a windowless room instead of a cramped stone coffin. Above, a strange ball hovered close to the ceiling, providing plenty of light, but not much heat. The room wasn’t cold, though, which meant that wherever she was, it was either not on an outside wall in the chilly land her kidnappers had gone through, or they weren’t in the same land anymore. How long had she been out?

The little girl wobbled to her feet, stumbling to the door and trying to push on it. That was cold beneath her hands, solid iron. She didn’t see a handle or another way to open the door, which meant she had no escape. Her mouth curled into a scowl. When her mother got here, everyone was going to be in big trouble.

Taische turned to examine the room some more. If there wasn’t a way out, someone would be coming to get her soon. Kidnappers didn’t just leave little girls to die; Karuka had been quite clear on that from the time she was little and had a penchant for sneaking out. Very bad things happened before they died. Worse than being hungry or thirsty. Even worse than getting hit. Her mother hadn’t been clear on what worse things.

Probably very worse things, she mused.

None of the fancy tapestries on the walls hid secret doors she could sneak out of. The big chest in the corner wouldn’t open, so she couldn’t hide in there. There were shelves full of stuff, but the things she picked up were either far too light to be good as a weapon or they were far too heavy for her to throw.

They didn’t even have any staves laying around, and Taische wasn’t sure if burning the carpet and tapestries would do any good. Maybe she could burn the bad guy who had captured her (again), punch him in the nose, and run. If they were in a building, there were probably places she could hide.

Why would anyone collect this stuff? Taische’s hands roamed over a few pieces of bric-a-brac. It looked like the sort of stuff the Duke of Jalaan would display, except it was all tucked away in a room. It wasn’t even toys. It was just dumb stuff.

A glass ball about the size of her fist started glowing when she approached it. Amidst the neatly-organized shelves of boring stuff, this one thing interested Taische. For one thing, it looked like an eyeball, and eyeballs were gross. For another, it was actually doing something.

She reached for it, turning it a little bit up and to the left, so she could look straight into the eye. All she felt after that was a sharp tug.

[Rayse Valentino]

Molasses. Barley malt vinegar. Spirit vinegar. Sugar. Salt. Onions. Garlic. Anchovies. Spicy sauce. And a raw egg to top it off. That was the cocktail Rayse drank to cure his hangover with one hand. The other hand was on fire, holding a boiling pot of coffee. If there’s one thing Rayse knew how to do, it was getting his affairs in order. Well, except for the matter of the little girl in the relic room.

He wondered if it would be enough to find Karuka and dump the kid in her lap. No harm no foul, right? He remembered her as… a reasonable sort. No, that’ll never work. He needed the kid to back him up. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? Get some candy in her, a few teddy bears, and then Uncle Rayse is the best guy ever! He downed the pungent cocktail in one gulp and then poured the coffee into the same glass. Wait… waking up in a giant safe probably won’t leave the best first impression.

The glass of coffee was poured down his throat, and the next stop was the relic room. His hands glowed and a red warmth spread across the door, engulfing it until something clicked inside. After the click, Rayse simply pushed the doors open. His expectation and hope was that she was still unconscious, but instead she was missing entirely.

What the fuck?!

He searched frantically but even a mouse wouldn’t find a hiding spot in there. The only thing out of place was the shining object on the floor. He reached down and picked it up, his mind racing through the multitude of lists in his memories. He turned the spherical object around and was staring right into a familiar iris and pupil. This is… that witch’s eye. As he stared at it, he noticed there was a small crack along the side, and within a moment another crack formed, growing from the source. Was he holding it too hard? No, this thing couldn’t be smashed even with a hammer. It was because it was active. Somehow, the girl must have activated it. And soon it would break.

It had been a while, but he knew from researching the material it was a common teleportation reagent. He had taken it to Beinost on one occasion, but the wizards there could not figure out how to activate it either. He thought the secret had died with Denebriel until today. Luckily, he knew how to use it. He pictured the girl in his mind and then stared straight into the eye of the vanquished demi-goddess.

[Taische]

A small burst of fire ushered Rayse and Taische back into the present time. When her burst didn’t phase the man, much less make him drop her, she started pummeling her tiny fists into his face. They passed uselessly through him. “Let me go! You abandoned Rayse and Vincent just died and there are bad people hunting him and he’s going to get killed! You could have helped him. You’re a bad man, and when my matháir gets here, she’s going to kick your butt!”

She glowered at him, through eyes that overflowed with tears. “And he looked just like you! You’re a bad father!”

Rayse froze. “What did you say?”

“Let go!” With desperate, vicious rage, Taische dug her feet into Rayse’s side and kicked out of his arms, landing on her butt on the carpet. She hurried to her feet, standing straight up. “If you went all the way to get somebody out of danger, and it was only one person, it should have been your son, not your prisoner. You don’t deserve to be here with all your boring junk. And you shouldn’t have hit him.”

Taken aback by the outburst, Rayse dropped the glass eye that started all this in the first place. It rolled on the ground, momentarily forgotten. “Stop!” He clutched his head, a familiar ringing echoing throughout. Rayse, Vincent, son… ?! Where exactly had he gone? Who was that young soldier with the girl? The uniform looked dated. Ettermire itself looked different, but he was moving so fast he didn’t take a good look. By Vincent, does she mean...? How else would she know him? They were there, in Old Ettermire, but for her to know him would mean she was there all those years ago. “Who are y… what’s your name?!”

“Taische Asthore O’Sheean, daughter of Karuka Eithne O’Sheean," the child spat. "And if you don’t let me go right now, I will… I will tear this building down with a mighty earthquake!” It was a bluff, but an impressive one from a filthy, bruised, and tattered child. The building seemed to sway just a hair underneath their feet just at the sheer bravado.

“By the goddess…” Rayse nearly lost his balance, stumbling out of the room and reaching for the coffee mug. There was nothing in it unfortunately, but the glass was still warm. Very warm, in fact. Was he only gone a few minutes? Coupled with the realization that the eye not only traveled through space, he rushed back to the room and picked it up, fresh beads of sweat running down the side his face. It was almost completely cracked, he couldn’t even tell where the pupil was anymore. As he looked for it, he heard the spine-tingling crack. The relic turned to dust in his hand. His fingers twitched, and his mouth hung open. He didn't know how the child had activated it, and it didn't matter anymore.

Taische wasn’t one to waste an opportunity, and this man, with all his confused rushing back and forth, provided a good one. She bolted out of the room after him, emerging for the first time into the suite. Light streamed through the windows and balcony doors, but the absence of other buildings and ground told her she was too high up to jump, so she ran for the biggest door - the one with the keyhole. She gripped the heavy handle and heaved, but it didn’t open. She glanced back at the store room, where the man was frozen, staring at one of his pieces of junk, and reached for the latch, fighting with the stiff piece of iron that kept her from her freedom. Hurry, hurry…!

Rayse shook his head, called back to the present by the little girl's grunts of effort. Get your shit together, idiot! The plan! He dropped the dust and turned around, watching the frazzled, worn down child of Karuka try to escape. He put his hand on the iron door and walked outside. Taische gasped and backed up, clenching her fists so hard that flames engulfed them, but Rayse dropped his shocked expression. He reached into his pocket and lit a cigarette with a flame on his thumb.

“I know this may be hard to believe, but all I want right now is to get you back to your mother.” He walked up close, with Taische’s expression like that of a cornered cat - one likely to attack out of fear - and looked her in the eye. “I don’t have a son, Tash-ka. I did have a friend, though. You’ve met him. He pissed me off on occasion, but he wasn’t a bad guy. As for the one I left behind… I guess you could say we meet again. A few seconds for you, over a decade for me.”

“So he’s your nephew.” The girl raised her fists, ready to lash out at any false movement from her captor. “Why is it taking you ten years to see him again? Is he going to jail because he’s mean? You should go to jail with him, because you’re even worse!”

Rayse opened his mouth to form words, but nothing came out. This was too much. She didn't understand what he was saying, and he needed to calm her down if he was going to accomplish anything. “Wait.” He walked over to his kitchen and poured a new glass of orange juice. He set it on the table in his den and sat on one of the couches. “I don’t care if you drink it or not. But it’s for you.”

[Taische]

Taische’s mouth hardened and her eyes narrowed a little bit. She couldn’t lift the heavy latch. She probably couldn’t jump out the window. Her mother had to know that she was in trouble right now, and she couldn’t be too far behind. She couldn’t hit this man, because her fists went through him. He didn’t even seem bothered by her fire powers. Even the big, brutal, black haired man had burned when she’d burst at him. The purple haired woman had reminded him - often - that they needed to deliver her alive.

Her captor didn’t seem to react to threats, even about her mother. Well, maybe a little bit. He’d been more overwhelmed about Vincent and Rayse. If she kept him talking, eventually he’d make a mistake that would let her get out or give her mother time to get there. Okay. I can try this different.

She stepped up to the glass, looking into it. Two bubbles, a little bit of white. A strange orange color over all. Some pulp on the bottom, but no weird pale swirl. A cautious sip gave her no unusual aftertaste, though sweet citrus and Alerian grit wasn’t particularly tasty. So he wasn’t trying to knock her back out.

“Why am I here?”

Rayse crossed his arms and leaned back, smoke escaping his lips, “You’re here because two morons brought you here. It had nothing to do with me. I only want to return you to your mother as soon as I can. You hungry?” He stood up and walked back to the kitchen.

“No.” Physically, yes. But she had just been forced to listen while somebody got murdered. For Rayse, Vincent’s death had been a long time ago. For Taische, it was barely an hour. “Where am I, and who are you?”

When Rayse returned, a bowl containing a few fresh pears and cherries was placed on the table. He grabbed a pear and bit into it, avoiding displacing the cigarette in his mouth with such ease that it was as if it wasn’t even there. “You’re in my home, and I’m... Mal.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “Rayse is fine. They were only after you, so he got away.” The images of that night were vivid in his head, and he suppressed the feelings that they caused. After he used Taische’s magic circle to blow up the alleyway, he managed to barely escape. On his own, he found the way out and rejoined his fellow soldiers at the train station. While he was the only survivor, he still failed his mission. There were no promotions, no fanfare, but he was not punished. He preferred it that way anyway; there was nothing to celebrate. “This may be hard to believe, but we’re back in Salvar. In Knife’s Edge, specifically. The magic I was using to transport us here only had a few seconds left before it stopped working. I didn’t have time to explain to you why I was there. Listen, your mother Karuka and I go way back. I have nothing to gain by abducting you. Have a pear.” He took one from the bowl, stood up, and placed it in her hands.

Taische nibbled a little on the skin of the pear, looking around. How would he know how his nephew made out when it was only ten minutes ago that he'd found her in the dark elf land? Something didn't add up right, but she wasn't going to let on.

Mal lived in a big house, but it didn’t look like he had a family. He didn’t need the space. A bottle of strong alcohol laid on its side next to his couch, so empty that it hadn’t spilled, but there was only one glass. So he’d drank a lot all by himself. He was an empty man.

“How do you know my matháir?"

“We first met around nine and a half years ago. I was in Fallien on business and we were going the same way. Probably before you were born. How old are you?”

"I'll be nine at the turn of the season."

“Huh,” Rayse mumbled. He took another bite off the pear. Turn of the season, eh? So she was born maybe eight years and nine months ago… She was really good with fire, too.

…

…

“W… Who is your father?”

Taische shrugged. “My mother said he was a man she helped in the desert once, but that O’Sheean girls don’t need fathers.” It really didn’t matter to Taische who had sired her; she’d grown up with lots of uncles and plenty of love. A father hadn’t been anything important.

The cigarette fell out of his mouth and rolled on the couch. Rayse couldn’t process what he was hearing, so he tried to rationalize: maybe Karuka got knocked up by a pyromancer after she met him. Maybe before she met him. There was no reason to think otherwise. A pregnancy wasn’t always nine months. Maybe she conjured Taische with runic magic! It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. She did kinda look like him though. Ugh!

He tried to change the subject. “Anyway, as you can see this is just a misunderstanding. How about you get some rest, and I’ll go about finding your mother to reunite you two. If you want, you can leave right now and go find her yourself, but what do you think your mother will do if she thinks I kidnapped you and finds out I lost you? I would appreciate it if we avoided her rage. For both our sakes.”

Taische looked at the cigarette beside Rayse, and foggy white trickled into her eyes while they tracked the smoke. “She’ll be here soon. Days, maybe. And she’s mad.” She saw fire, she saw lightning, she saw ice. “The people who brought me here might be dead soon.” And her mother would kill Mal if she thought he’d caused her harm. But that wasn’t what he was afraid of. There was something worse her mother would do to him, but she wasn’t sure what that could be. Maybe break his stuff? If the empty man only had stuff to fill his life, then of course losing it would be worse than death.

Mal wasn’t going to hurt her, she was sure now. He had too much to lose. Which meant she had leverage. “I need a bath first,” she told him. “And something clean to wear.”

Rayse picked up his cigarette before it could do permanent damage to his furniture, eyes never leaving Karuka’s child. She was thin and dirty, and he wouldn’t be caught dead accompanying someone dressed like that, even if he wasn’t trying to convince her mother that the abduction wasn’t his fault. “Sure. We can take care of that.”

[Sulla]

Title: For Lack of Empathy
Participants: Rayse Valentino, Taische

Sorry this has taken so long to get around to. In addition to my procrastinator’s nature, I’ve been rather busy with a lot of real world events. But even when I had free time to spare after reading the thread, I found it especially hard to dive right into the judgement. Rayse, I looked at this for you when it was still six or seven posts long. I was glad to see you address some of the issues I pointed out, but now that it’s all complete, I realize there are some whole new issues with the beginning. I really enjoyed the thread, which is why I’ll have to tear it apart with nitpicking and hold you more accountable for the mistakes that you didn’t manage to catch in the editing process.

Plot

Story: (6 / 10)

I’m going to start off with my biggest complaint for this thread - Vincent. Not the character himself, mind you, or his soothing words to Taische or repartee with Rayse (both of which I thought were expertly done), but instead what he represents. I knew he probably wasn’t going to survive the thread when I first saw Rayse’s imposed future narration, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It creates expectations for a reader and can certainly help with foreshadowing. But just before he died, I saw a writing cardinal sin committed - The Swan Song. If done well, it can certainly bring a gravitas to the story that will really draw your audience’s attention. But it wasn’t. I’ll touch more on its failings in other categories, but from the argument in the courthouse and up until his beheading, Vincent stopped being a real character. He was a sacrificial lamb so blatant that you might as well have highlighted the event by having Rayse and Taische cry out “pathos!” in unison. A clumsy misstep like that becomes all the more obvious when you compare how well he (and the others) worked throughout the thread. When you kill off a character you’ve invested that much time into, there are a number of precautions you can take to make sure their death has the all important impact you’re looking for. Space out the their penultimate moment (which conveniently explained a bit of backstory in his argument with Rayse), use a more subtle quirk or habit the audience has gotten use to with the character just before as a brief reminder of why we care (instead of pounding us over the head with why we should care), or give us an example of how the protagonist has gotten so use to having them around that a world without them seems unthinkable. As it stands, I was left with that uneasy feeling I get when I realize someone’s trying to pull my heartstrings. If a reader realizes they’re being emotionally manipulated, you’ve failed in your job of immersing them into the story. That’s not to say don’t try it. All writing is on some level manipulative. But you need to be careful with how you go about it, because once a reader becomes aware that it’s happening, it sours them to everything that precedes it.

The story itself was a mix of fantastic build-up and fast-paced action before the swan song, and then it had a rather strange tonal shift when the curveball of time travel was thrown in. As it stands, it feels more like two partially complete stories instead of one full one. When you commit to a change in focus, and especially when it includes temporal relocations, the key isn’t just connecting events and perspectives, but keeping other elements of the previous part alive in the new. When Rayse awoke in his hotel suite with a hangover to find the mercenaries he’d sent out arriving with Taische, only to go on a bit of a time traveling adventure to reclaim her, these were explanations for what occurred, but there was a massive gap in style and personality that needed to be filled. If the story was longer, and Rayse’s second (or first) meeting with the child had mirrored or reflected on the first (or second) encounter (the one with Vincent), this would have better bridged the two pieces into a cohesive whole. Perhaps Rayse could have thought back to another time he had to watch out for a kid he had no interest in, perhaps you could have stretched out the interaction with Taische to bring back some of that awkwardness and disdain from earlier. I’ll jump into this point a bit more in pacing.

Setting: (10 / 10)

Ettermire was described fantastically, and I think a lot of that had to do with an outsider’s perspective in a very alien world. Foreign soldiers parading in unknown streets, the prisoner they lead who can’t hear the earth through the slabs of stone and metal that make up its foundation; these are the cornerstones to a wonderful chance to really describe something that’s hard to imagine, and I think you really took full advantage of the opportunity. Not only did you give detailed nuances, but the setting was almost a character throughout. The cramped quarters and derelict buildings, shantytowns and rubbled foundries - these added to the claustrophobia and urgency behind the escapees actions. And not only did it valuably serve as a backdrop, you used the set to your advantage against your pursuers. Having Taische drop rubble on top of the dark elf during the melee, using the file cabinet in front of the hole in the wall, and spending a few stressful hours restlessly resting among the debris really made the city seem like a living entity all its own. It was neither good nor evil, and served no master but circumstance and chance encounter. I, simply put, loved the way you used it to delay the antagonists, which was a worry I had from the beginning. It’s difficult to draw out attacks when the force behind it are natives of the area and can see in the dark. Your characters were at a disadvantage, and it is all too easy to forgo this entirely to make up some ridiculous excuse as to why you’re not overwhelmed immediately. You did an admirable job in avoiding that, and went above and beyond to answer the doubts I had in my mind.

Even after the change of scenery, inside the penthouse, you played up the strength again by having it mirror Rayse as a character. Empty, superfluous, and existing only as expected between some aloof and frozen background (up high, in Salvar). Simply put, there was no real fault in this category, and it’s easy to see why it was your strongest.

Pacing (6 / 10)

As I’ve mentioned, the swan song was the big changing point in action for the thread. Truthfully, you could argue it was the arrival of future Rayse to whisk Taische out of harm’s way. But Vincent’s speech and then death were when things slowed to an unnecessary crawl, after what had been a tightly maintained sequence of chase and anticipation. Before it, I can honestly say I was thoroughly engrossed in the story at hand. The build-up was noticeably brief and perfectly adequate to introduce the reader to everything they needed to know. Taische was a witch (for all intents and purposes) and Vincent and Rayse were the junior officers in charge of her guard. After two posts, we get right to the action of the chase that dominated the thread, and from there you did a good job balancing the hectic need for flight with intermittent periods of rest and character building. Rayse, I’m glad you took some of my advice earlier when it came to cleaning up the pacing, because the protagonists’ flight really improved from where last I read.

But afterwards? Rayse and Taische stand outside the courthouse - having sneaked through the wall. Things had already slowed down because it’s dawn and their crawling seems to have taken some time. Rayse is dispodent and near catatonic, and Taische tries to urge him forward before being whisked away by some unknown factor that leads past Rayse by himself, and finds future Rayse asleep in a plush hotel room with an unconscious (past) Taische soon joining him. This a markedly full stop for the story, and another beginning to events. It answers questions that existed for the authors of the thread without those same questions being asked to the audience. Up until this point, the reader had some small notion as to Taische’s predicament. She wonders where her mother is, she’s confused as to why she hasn’t been rescued yet. There are reminders of this throughout the thread, but for the most part it wasn’t the most pressing issue put forth. Children can’t understand a lot of the adult world. It makes sense that she’d be at a loss for answers in regards to her mother. And later we’re treated to the real reason Karuka hadn’t yet arrived - more than a decade separated the two. This revelation is systemic of the latter half of the thread, which slowed so much because it needed to wrap up loose ends in the story. And it lasted quite a long time. Post 12 finished the past storyline without Taische (now removed), and we discover future Rayse and the events that caused the entire chain of events, as well as the revelation that Rayse is very, very likely Taische’s father.

That’s all well, but one of the big reasons there feels like there is a disconnect here is because not all the loose threads are tied up neatly. The audience has an answer to a question that wasn’t paramount in their mind, but no answer as to who the attackers were, what their motivation was, and what really wraps up the past’s storyline is the brief mention that no awards were given for a failed mission. A bit more backstory from future Rayse, or even another ending post from his past self discussing issues that would be dredged up because of this (minor international incident, an investigation, some small semblance that Rayse did right or wrong by contacting or ignoring Vincent’s parents) would have helped bind the two parts together much more fluidly. Instead, both halves can pretty much stand on their own when it comes to having a full story and they don’t really mirror, compliment, or contrast each other enough to be in the same thread.



Character

Communication (8 / 10)

Communication in this thread was almost flawless, and I mean that with no exaggeration. Taische and Vincent complimented each other perfectly. I can’t really recall reading interactions with a child that felt so natural, bustling with naiviety and hopeless optimism that one needs when communicating with someone not fully capable of understanding the situation. And more than that, it was downright excellent to use a child’s love of stories and outsider perspective to mention backstory in dialogue. Vincent’s tale of Rayse and how they became friends feels much more engaging when we put ourselves in Taische’s place, and that may be one of the best benefits of the character. Even with that use, Rayse and Vincent had a bond that was inexplicable but totally relatable. Vincent, playing at notions of chivalry and honor, and Rayse, pragmatic and cynical - the audience didn’t even need to be told they were friends by their back and forth.

Beyond just the verbal pale, though, were the habits each displayed. Rayse would constantly crave a cigarette to calm his nerves, reminding the reader he’s actually afraid, despite the scowl that only Taische saw. Vincent’s first move was to free the child in his charge, and no matter the motivation, both honor in duty and honor of character fit the mold of what we’re told of his character. But I think my favorite part of all this was how simple and real everything felt when Vincent and Rayse took on the first dark elf that snuck into the factory they were hiding in. It was a tense moment, but the looks exchanged and the quick knife gestures to formulate the plan were absolutely all that was needed. These are green recruits, but they’re trained in warfare nonetheless. They’ve worked together before, if only in simulations, and the end result was what you would expect from people putting theory into practice the first time.

My big complaint, again, is the speech Vincent gives to Rayse in the courthouse. It comes out of nowhere to the reader. Something like that needs far more pent up frustrations before exploding outward, especially in the given situation. They’ve hidden or run all night, and they know that arguing is pointless when they have a need for haste. For Vincent to just blurt out his resentfulness for Rayse’s opportunity and and attitude because of it felt out of character, and worse, it included the synopsis of a sob story. As I’ve mentioned, I had an inkling he was going to die, but when I read about his family's financial troubles in the middle of an escape for his life? He was a dead man walking at that point.

Action (7 / 10)

It’s good this category comes next, because I can continue more with the chain of events that really soured me on the story.

Why did Vincent need to stay behind? They could see the hole a bit from behind the cabinet, sure. But Rayse and Taische didn’t need the extra time to escape, they didn’t hustle as the blade fell, and to be honest, it felt like they all would have had plenty of time to escape if they had blocked the entrance up a little bit. Even if they didn’t, they’d relied so much on Taische’s skill with fire up until that point. Why didn’t they try and set fire to the room they were in, if only to fill it with a bit of choking and blinding smoke? Maybe even in front of the door their assailants entered? Anything to delay them. Everyone had been so careful and thought quickly up until this point. And while I can understand the archetype of the noble sacrifice, especially from Vincent out of the three, at no point had he come off as stupid. He’s a trained officer. If he wanted to slow their progress, him stabbing at them as they climbed into the hole after the kids would have made more sense, his body acting as a barrier. The dark elves didn’t believe him, they would continue with their search no matter what.

Another issue, much smaller, was in post 3. When the group is first attacked, and Taische first shows off her gifts, Vincent asks for a lockpick from Rayse (because he always carries one on him, a good bit of character building and foreshadowing for the later story of his black market in school, but I digress) to undo Taische’s restraints. But then he asks the little girl to melt the lock on the door behind them. All he’s known of her abilities in rumor (the story of the carriage) and what he has just seen (a spark igniting gunpowder). Why would he risk precious time on a process he’s not sure will work, that may take too long, when he has a lockpick in his hands. Vincent no doubt had skill with it, he undid the cuffs very quickly. Picking a door lock wouldn’t be that much more difficult, is a reliable skill, and the door can be locked behind you afterwards.

The attackers motives were unknown, so it’s a little difficult to know just what was going through their minds in this. It’s not the most imperative thing in a story, especially when you devote so much time in creating your protagonists, but I always find a properly defined villain easier to relate to and jeer for. Early on, when they first strike, they’re highly organized. No specific is given to their number, but the element of surprise is on their side. Later, it’s just four, with one inevitably being taken out by falling furniture. But it was at this moment that I found it hard to reason through their plan. The kids needed to stay a certain amount of quiet the entire time to avoid detection, and Rayse and Vincent’s entire plan revolved around taking out the intruder in one swift motion. But the ensuing struggle and eventually victory must have created a lot of noise. There was some modicum of haste given to their retreat, but how far apart were the pursuers at this moment? Did they split off as individuals to hunt? When the first flew into the factory, I expected to see at least a pair of them come in. It seemed needlessly futile, though still an entertaining read. I suppose Vincent and Rayse would have less of a chance against two.

Of course, besides a few lingering questions, the escape portion of the story was spot on. I’m not used to seeing characters fleeing for their lives and actually doing something useful to avoid the danger. Vincent, Rayse, and Taische rested only when they needed to, and only as much as they could savor in between bouts of running and hiding. There was a hectic feeling to it all, like allowing a child to go first up into the above room because it might not support weight, or the desperate attempts of that child to just do something to save her new found friend’s life, that drew my attention more intensely. I feel like you can claim a fair measure of success when a reader finds themselves in the scene, pushing along with those tiny hands in a frantic moment.

Persona (8 / 10)

I know this thread was extraordinarily collaborative, so I’m not quite sure who to praise when it comes to some specifics. Saying that, I’m more than certain both of you deserve some large amount for each character involved.

Taische, writing as a child is difficult. I mentioned children seeing the entire world differently from adults, and it takes some special magic to channel back into the innocence of that time. You were more than successful in this. Taische didn’t just speak and act like a kid, she thought like one too. It’s difficult to tell if it was just a standard childhood or one influenced by the long arm of Karuka, but there’s an absolutism to everything, a clear division between right and wrong, and a certainty that the right will win out in the end. I have a hard time remembering anything I’ve read that so closely encapsulates what I consider the child’s mind, though I can’t say I read many things with kids as their focal point.

Rayse, you had the benefit of showing your character at two different points. While I wasn’t entirely sold on the story mechanic, you did a wonderful job showing how markedly changed (though strikingly similar) your character was by the years. The younger Rayse is petulant and self-assured in a way you can imagine any sixteen year old boy to be. But it went beyond that, and you could see the glimmer of someone who had already figured the world for a rotten place, and the only solution to it was money. There’s something juvenile in the thinking, and frightening when you consider he may be onto something. And, despite the flaws of a rough exterior and youthful world-weariness, he was extremely loyal to someone he called a friend. Older Rayse, though we get just a glimpse at him rising from a hangover, seems tempered by comparison and more willing to go with how the world works because he has a hand in its manipulation. You succeeded in showing the audience that Rayse obtained some semblance of his dream. He’s made it, he has the penthouse and a few hired thugs to do his bidding, even if they do it poorly. He even has his own vault filled with treasures that he rarely seems to visit. He was almost Gatsby-like, obtaining his dream for the sake of appearance, but certainly without the teetotaling.

Besides my large complaint, Vincent came off as a fairly perfect friend. He was that guy you know that was bound by his word and sense of honor, risking his neck no matter the circumstance. I enjoyed seeing him wearied a bit by the situation he was caught in, and given his later outburst, I would have liked it if you peppered just a few more hints in about his past. Making a character seem too perfect is alright, if a bit boring. But giving them some flaw or hurdle they work past? That makes them human.

Prose

Mechanics (10 / 10)

I read through the thread three times, and I can’t really find a single mechanical flaw. Usually when I see a thread that was rushed through to finish, especially one that seems a little obvious given the ending to the story, I expect to see an error or two. Nothing spellcheck would catch, but a misused homonym or stray comma. There wasn’t a single mistake I could find in this, though, and that’s because of the intense proof-reading I know Taische is capable of. I only wish I shared that same dedication.

Clarity (8 / 10)

I had some issues getting a clear image a few times in this thread, though they were mostly minor, and some very well might have been intentional.

During the lead up march and eventual ambush, I had a hard time finding out the numbers on either side of the skirmish. I’d originally pictured the procession fairly long as military parades are oft to be, but that can’t really be the case if they all squeezed into the alley. I was unsure of the number of initial attackers, but that might have been purposeful to create same tension in the reader that Vincent and Rayse were feeling.

It was hard for me to keep track of the passage of time (again, maybe intentional given the looming Alerarian buildings). I wondered how it was dawn by the time they escaped from the courthouse, how long it took for them to crawl through the passageway, and why it took so long for the attackers to find Rayse after Taische’s disappearance. Most of this happened at the transition anyways, so it added to my mixed feelings to the shift in story.

Finally, I would like to mention that some more info as to what occurred to Rayse when he returned to the train station. Did the rest of his platoon survive? Did they only have his word to go on? This question nagged me until the end of the thread.

Technique (8 / 10)

The imagery you used to describe Ettermire gave the city both body and soul. It was impending, giant, and monolithic, and filled to the brim with empty space and decrepit ruins from a history not nearly modern enough. I liked having an alien’s perspective for it, almost personifying his surroundings to everything. Taische did well here too, keeping with the child of nature motif to make the city sound and feel entirely different to everything she was used to. It worked in terms of deepening your surroundings, and it also worked to forebode the inevitable attack.

Rayse, the bits of narration you threw into most of your early posts were insightful to character, but I can’t help feeling like there was a missed opportunity here. When I mentioned the disconnect from past and future, part of that includes the journalistic style entry imposed over the past that had no mention with present Rayse. If he’d awoken from the drunken stupor with some images or voices calling at him from the past in his dreams, or if he’d spent the time hammered writing half-formed ideas about his early exploits, I think there would have been a better mesh between the two stories. As things are, the narrative bits kind of stick out, adding flavor but without any real substance to them.

Wildcard (9 / 10)

This thread had a serious flaw and felt disconnected from itself as it progressed, but these flaws became all the more obvious when compared to the superior quality of the earlier half. While I’m disappointed in the eventual conclusion, it was by no means bad. It just had an entirely different flavor from the rest. For all the negatives I mentioned, your positives were stellar enough to warrant me nominating this for a Judge’s Choice. Because, no matter what issues I took with how things turned out, I can’t help but find myself floored by the success in execution - technically almost flawless and worthy of being used to show the best Althanas has to offer.

Total Score: (80 / 100)
Rayse Valentino receives:
EXP - 6048
GP - 450

Taische receives:
EXP - 3585
GP - 405

(x3 Althanas Day rewards)

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added!