Out of Character:
This will be what I had previously intended to be my Main Quest for this chapter. Since I'm no longer running the FQ, just role-playing in it, it's just a regular thread. I'm still going to use all the NPCs and do all the things I had planned to before. How cannon it is will be up to the FQ mods. This thread is a direct sequel to Scaling Heaven. It will be a solo unless someone is interested in joining in, provided I think it will work.

"For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or in the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather. For as the nature of Foule weather, lyeth not in a shower or two of rain; but in an inclination thereto of many days together: So the nature of Warre, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is Peace."

-- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651
Ashiakin's bedchamber was awash in gray, northern light that crept through the room's lone window. It saturated everything: the mahogany desk looked like a metallic workman's table, the rows of leather bound books looked premature with age, and cheeriness of the room's foreign embellishments was cast in doubt. Ashiakin stood before a large mirror, running a white drake-bone comb through his white hair. His movements were precise and methodical, but his eyes drifted with his thoughts, his mind ambling through an archive of memories.

It had been months since Iorlan Rathaxea, the King of Salvar, had dispatched him and two companions, Aerran Ivkinik and Yesirvn Jaicnec, to break into Saint Denebriel's Cathedral and slay the Justice of the Ethereal Sway. They had accomplished their task, but Denebriel shown herself in public and taken command of the Church. The course of the war had changed. He spent the months since as half-prisoner, half-guest within the Cathedral. Aerran was held prisoner as well, though he had only seen her twice since the assassination. Yesirvn had escaped three days after their capture. Dorian, the composer they had encountered while on their mission, was missing. Despite his captivity, Ashiakin felt he was likely better off than all of them.

A knock at the door ruptured the atmosphere of the room like a murder. Ashiakin composed himself, strode over to the door and opened it. Denebriel was there, greeting him with a cool grin.

"You haven't forgotten that I need you to do something for me today, have you?" she asked. She slipped past him and closed the door behind her.

"No," he said, turning to look at her. "I didn't know that you were going to come by so early."

"I missed you," she said with an uncertain amount of sincerity. She walked over to his dresser and ran her fingers over the cold prongs of the comb. "Besides, you never would have minded all those years ago. You're out of touch. This place, this time... It's so difficult for us. We have to be careful. You've been too long without me."

Denebriel was as tall as Ashiakin and thin to the point of nearly looking gaunt. Her hair was red, long, and wavy and her skin was as pale as eggshell, though dotted with freckles. She looked so out of place in Salvar, but no place had ever been more her home. Thousands of years ago, during the Wars of the Tap, she had raised him up from nothing and he had devoted her life to her service. Now their failure, their millennia of seclusion and imprisonment, were over.

"Perhaps I have," he said.

He walked over to the window and opened the curtains all the way, soaking the room in haggard light and unveiling the cityscape beyond in one swift act of legerdemain. The gardens around the Cathedral were dotted with scorched pockmarks and silent cannons, cadres of ecclesiastical militants trooping through the ornate greenery. Beyond the dry moat, royalist forces had stationed ballistae where the streets of the Shifty Man's Run opened like mouths before the bounty of the Cathedral. Snipers watched with doleful eyes and cocked crossbows from the mercantile highrises across the way.

"You know, Ashiakin..." She walked over and stood beside him, slipping her arm around his waist. In her grip, he felt that electric intensity, that sense of eternity, that no mortal could her fathom. "You still haven't asked me what it is that I want you to do."

Ashiakin said nothing at first. His eyes were on the grim scene below them, watching the soldiers oscillate like pieces on a game board, denying stalemate. Then he closed his eyes and asked her.