Dawn Through Darkness

[Karuka]

If Karu couldn't fight on Seth's level, he couldn't swear on hers. What he'd figured would be a few vehement expletives in her funny not-quite Dheath tongue became long minutes of blistering abuse - abuse that always started fresh when he jerked the chain to keep her hanging upside down and away from his face. As long and hard as she went on, the ghoul figured even he would have needed a breath.

Eventually, she calmed down enough to remember that he didn't speak Dheath, so her swearing transitioned seamlessly into Tradespeak. The positive part of that was that she finally stopped trying to climb the chain. "Damn you to every damned horrible afterlife that anyone ever dreamed up, you maggot-infested, worm-riddled, twisted, murderous walking corpse! You can take these chains, shove 'em up your arse and pull 'em out your throat, you jackal-sucking son of a one-eyed vulture!"

It went on for several more minutes, each insult more stunningly abrasive and perplexing than the last. The ghoul hung across from the girl with an eyebrow raised, unsure whether he should laugh or be offended. Probably both. He'd been cussed out more times than he could count during his life, but never as long, creatively, or by someone he was hanging upside down. That she had yet to pass out from the blood all rushing to her head was nearly impressive as her tirade.

At long last, she tapered off, the steady stream of enraged and bewildering profanity replaced by panting breaths that expanded the redhead's belly and ribs nearly to bursting. When her breathing slowed and the verbal barrage didn't resume, Seth tried his question again. "Are you done?"

"Yeah. I'm done. Bastard."

The ghoul chuckled, climbing to the branch and starting to haul his exhausted charge up behind him. "Don't yell at me for making you cool off."

For a second after he set her down and released her chafed and swollen ankle from his magically-wrought chain, he thought she was about to lunge for him again. Weak and woozy calls from inside her bag demanded her attention, so instead she fished her phoenix out to tend to him. For once, fire-death bird worked in Seth's favor.

"What was the blind rage about, Karuka?"

"I'm exhausted and Fiorair is angry. Can't you hear it?"

Seth raised an eyebrow. This must be a primal thing related to the irrational rage that had turned her on him in earnest. He had seen it before, long ago, when an emaciated teenager had refused to be shackled and enslaved. When she had mouthed off to - and then bitten - a man more than twice her size. When she had mouthed off to him when he was the Lavinian Demon again, under the influence of Gift of the Magi.

The girl never lost her fire, he realized at last. She just got lost. Corone, even the forests of Concordia, had been too tame to find that burning primality. Out here, where she had senses that he didn't - senses that let the bog drum its thunderous song of wrath into her head - she was grumpy, but nearly herself.

They spent an hour in silence, an exhausted mortal grabbing at bugs to feed her bird and a hex ghoul tending to the stab wounds he'd let the girl give him. She'd laid back, Taodoine on her belly and her head on her pack; they weren't going anywhere else for the night. He hurt, she hurt, and she didn't have enough steps left in her feet to get them even to the trunk of the tree they were crossing, much less any significant distance. She was only a breath or two from sleep when her eyes snapped open and she rolled to a crouch, peering into the foggy dimness of Fiorair and setting Taodoine aside. Sky blue eyes went pale blue and a low growl sounded from her throat.

"He's here."