Chapter Text
There’s a cold comfort to the stone beneath her feet, it is not like the bedrock of Hyrium’s dark depths, but it feels more like home than the hardwood floors of L’université de Autun ever did. Though perhaps the years - she’d lost count of how many it had been - spent under lock and key had driven her mad, the only sound ever reaching her ears was the crashing of the waves outside and the occasional scream of a gull. If she had the bedrock of Hyrium under her feet, would she even recognise it? Or, would it feel as foreign as Gaul’s vineyard soil?
She’d been so naive when she was first thrust behind the bars of her cell, surely someone would advocate for her, Urial would try, surely, for Artoria, their shared care for her outweighing the man’s duty as an Inquisitor. Dr Allard’s family would not stand for the wrong person being convicted, for his killer to run free, Allard had cared about the truth above all else, he'd instilled that belief in her as well. But nothing changes. Only one day a bloodied dog tag is brought to her cell and is thrown in front of her, Urial’s name barely visible through the brown stain.
There’s no chance for her. If she wants to leave, if she wants to see the killer of Dr Allard brought to justice, she needs to get out herself. This prison was not built with holding Hyrimdire in mind. They’re for holding humans, with their bodies of soft flesh and eyes that see light, not the so-called devils that lurk in the dim underground. Not made to hold the mind of a woman, who, in her hubris, sought to understand God. ‘Her presence is all around us’ is what the Sisters and Priests used to say, and they weren’t wrong. Indeed, there is the same matter that condenses and crystallises into âmetite all around them. Even on an island prison where no one is said to have escaped from, the core of magic, of thaumaturgy, of onmiyōdō, or whatever else someone wished to call it is always around her. Casting units are only a crutch for those who do not call out to the beating heart of the truth.
Ripping apart the bars is simple work, like tearing pages out of a notebook. She could have done this a long time ago, yet, fool that she was, she believed in the justice of Aurelia. It’s a justice not for her, not for a devil, not for a heretic who wishes to understand the power of their God. Justice is for those who submit to Aurelia, to the Inquisitors.
She can’t stay in Gaul, no matter how much she wishes she could return to the now alone Artoria. Heilig is the closest place, only two days away on foot. She won’t stray too far for too long, for now. Corvis should still be in Heilig; the old codger never liked moving his headquarters around. She can join them, the Schwarzritter or whatever they call themselves these days.
The Schwarz Mercenary Corp, as it turns out. Corvis still sits at that gaudy mahogany desk he took from Sir Augusteen’s office way back when they were children, she still doesn’t know how he managed to steal the desk and get away with it, and she’ll never ask, it lets her preserve a piece of her childhood whimsy. He gives her a job, he even lets her commandeer a dusty storage room to turn into a laboratory. Eris, Eris my friend this isn’t charity, it’s an investment he tells her, having a semi-functional lab can keep them ahead of their competitors who don’t have any laboratories and rely on arms manufacturers for weaponry. She’d never taken Corvis for a shrewd business man, though perhaps the twenty years it had been since they last saw each other had forced him to grow from the naive knight wannabe to someone much more reasonable.
The blade she’s given is sheathed in a royal blue scabbard, dark brown wood wraps around the handle and locks the blade in its place. The Lady of the Lake, her mother, her mentor, Vivian - the sword fae, is sending her off on her trial, her journey to the world outside the Sylvan Grove, Land of the Fae, Deirdre, my child, you must see the world outside, you must learn all manner of things that I cannot teach, so go, and see humanity for yourself, is what she says before softly pushing her shoulders and sending her into the outside world.
The world outside is a cloying place, the air in the dwellings of the people of iron is noxious, the young fae’s lungs burning with the fumes of Vapren’s smoke stacks. This small island was no place to find the name she was instructed to seek. So she leaves, across the sea, landing in Gaul, though no friar, nor monk, nor nun, nor even the wisest inquisitor could render her assistance. The Fae are not of the Goddess, they have rejected the Goddess Aurelia and their knowledge was of no use to them, they did not care to learn from it. Yet there was an old scholar, blue eyes dimmed with time, hair scraggly and white, who told her of a heretic just over the border in the Kingdom of Heilig. A beast of chaos with claws for rending flesh, a tail for slicing throats, and horns for gouging out entrails, who could help her. You’ll find her working for a man named Corvis in the capital of Heilig, also called Heilig. Her name? No, I can not repeat that name, he told her, not after what he’s done. So the wandering fae leaves the vineyards and groves of Gaul and walks along the road through the fields of grain and beasts of the land.
Heilig is an old city. Its buildings are simpler than the ones in Gaul, few are adorned with anything more than flower beds and brightly coloured paint on their walls. It makes plain coloured buildings, all carved with grand scenes from history and the crests of noble houses, some still standing and others destroyed, look like nothing more than fancy quarries. There’s more colour in Heilig than in Gaul, and less machinery than Vapren’s cities have. It feels closest to home she’s been since leaving the Sylvan Grove.
The woman she finds is much like the old man described. Dark purple horns that burst from the side of her head, standing out from black hair, adding a few more quint to her already towering height. Her hands made of the same, hard, dark purple stone(?) that spreads up to the middle of her biceps, and her fingers tipped with sharp claws. Her tail is long, about two svence long from the base of her spine and ending with a sharp, scythe-like tip. It looks like the tails of the dragons Vivian had shown her when she told Deirdre the stories of the many blades she had given to the outside world’s knights. When the woman takes her boots off, her legs are the same as her arms, dark purple stone spreading to her mid-thigh and feet more comparable to a bird of prey than to those of a human.
But “beast of chaos” is not the phrase she would use to describe the woman. She may have the strength of a beast, the appearance of a beast, but not the countenance of a beast, not the mind of a beast. Bright red eyes look upon her with understanding, knowing, filled with quiet wisdom. Eris Yithe is kind, gentle, perhaps even motherly, taking her to the laboratory and lecturing her the way Vivian was known to create blades; the name, a vessel for the soul, taken and forged into a weapon. Most fae do this, they take the name of those who wander into their dwelling and use them for their mischievous purposes. Eris asks her many things: Who were you before you were in the Sylvan Grove? You were always in the Sylvan Grove? Do you remember meeting anyone who could not say their name? No? Then this will be difficult. Eris had looked away for a few moments, looking her up and down before saying, “Stay here, us mercenaries travel far and wide in our work, you’re bound to find some kind of clue eventually”.
In the year 2078 of the Aurelian Calendar, across the ocean from Gaul, below the Aephon Wastes, in the mostly jungle nation Nahua, a gloved hand reaches through the light from the prison spire of St Edwardo’s Basilica’s only window. For a moment she wonders if Aurelia herself has come to deliver her from the wicked spirit that had possessed her. Hissing in her ear in a tongue she doesn’t understand. But the Goddess would neither wear a black and green cloak nor would she carry two blades on her person, not in her own envisioning of the Goddess. Aurelia would need no blade, let alone two.
Footsteps dampened by the feathers on the hardwood floor grow ever louder in the quiet of the spire, the light no longer blinding her to the stranger’s face. Pale, almost ghostly, much like those of the foreign Inquisitors, hair, white like the horses kept by the General in his stable, long pointed ears - the kind she’s only ever seen in fairy tale books - adorned with silver chains and studs. With clear wings that refract the window’s light, scattering rainbow shards across the walls of the spire.
The woman lifts up a piece of paper in front of her face, blocking one, emerald coloured eye from her view. She nods her head, the silver chains on her ears swaying with her, and she then places the piece of paper into the pocket of her skirt. It’s a swift, single movement that takes her off of the spire’s floor and into the arms of her strange liberator. “I’d advise against any sudden movements, I cannot guarantee your safety if you attempt to free yourself from my grasp.” Her voice is as clear as St Edwardo’s hourly bell, ringing above her ears for the past week, “Now, do not open your mouth, unless you wish to dine on your own tongue.”
The woman takes her out of the spire’s window and, in her arms, down to the cobblestone road of de Compostela. She wishes to ask what her mysterious saviour is doing. Why rescue one condemned such as herself? But no words come out of her mouth, any attempt at rationality drowned out by her own racing heart. Her savior also doesn’t seem interested in telling her why she’s been saved, nor to where they’re escaping to, she only starts running in the direction of the Harbour.
They’re on an airship - ‘The Theseus’ painted in white on its black exterior - accompanied by a woman whose appearance is also like those she’s seen in storybooks: horns, claws, and a tail, all sharp, as though she was pulled out of Hell itself. The women’s red eyes look surprisingly warm. Telling her savior - Deirdre Vimere - to patch up her wounds, small cuts from Inquisitor Laurence’s metal boots and gauntlets, dragging her away for St Rosa’s and into the Basilica. Deirdre’s first aid technique is sloppy, but there’s an earnestness to it. She means no malice when she uses too much alcohol to clean the wound on her leg, or when she wraps the wound on her arm too tightly. Deirdre’s trying her best and that’s what counts.
Still, the wrapping on her arm is too tight. Though she does not want to be rude so she waits until Deirdre leaves the small medical office to unwrap her arm and fix the bandages. Patching herself up is harder than doing it for someone else, she fumbles and has to restart a few times, but by the time she’s finished her wounds have stopped throbbing and her head is suddenly clear.
Where does she go now? There’s no returning home for her, not now that she’s taken on such a monstrous form. Her fingers run across the fluffy down that had grown on top of her head. She remembers still living in the monastery and finding a bird that had been attacked by a cat in the garden of St Rosa’s. She remembers picking up the light brown bird while shooing the stray cat away. She’d taken off her habit and cleaned the blood off of the bird before laying the bloodied habit down in a box and setting the bird down inside. She’d gone off for a few moments, taking the time to find seeds and bring them back for the small creature to eat.
When she went to get a new habit from the monastery’s wardrobe she was scolded for ruining her previous one by the head nun, Sister Nueda, though the head nun softened her tone after she was told why she’d ruined it Dear Maria, Aurelia smiles upon the merciful, the head nun had told her. She wonders if she still believes that.
She kept the box on the window sill next to her bed, feeding and watering the bird until one day, after mass, the box was empty. The bird had flown away, no longer needing her care. Perhaps it had flown back to the cat’s mouth, maybe it had flown back into the jungle.
The red eyed demon returns to the medical office. She asks her where she wishes to go now. Their only job was to extract her and take her to a safe place, an anonymous buyer she says, if Maria had to guess it was Sister Nueda, she’d get in trouble for using monastery funds for that, if she were to be caught. The red eyed woman tells her there are many places safe from Inquisitors: Vapren - where mechanics take the place of god, Aephon - close by, though it’s wandering cities are rather harsh to single women on their own, Heilig - convenient, considering that’s where they were going anyway, Goryeo - The peninsula in the north east where they’ve been enjoying a long spell of stability, Asahi - only recently ended 200 years of civil war, still a little politically unstable but not a terrible choice.
“Let me stay with you,” the words were out of her mouth before she could really process the implications of joining a mercenary force. But they had been kind to her, even beyond what they were paid for. She owed them something, at the very least, and it’s not like she has the money to settle down somewhere.
The demon says, with an almost bemused smile, “Don’t let me down.”
It feels like someone’s replaced his spine with a draft stopper, a long, heavy, rigid thing full of uncooked rice that grinds up against each other creating a cacophony of noise, leading to a debate about whether or not it would be better to cook it and go cold, or leave it be and go hungry.
He supposes this is what a life of selling his soul got him. He could have just gone into the furnaces, maybe he should have. He may have died in the same way he was dying now, but at least he could have gone on without the souls of so many others pulling him down to join them.
But his soul got sold for more than his labour. His siblings ate better, he was able to send Uriah to college and get Harmony a good apprenticeship. And where had that left him? Slowly dying in a dry alleyway in the lower levels of Carson’s furnace, the city’s beating heart, the warm core that kept cold neon city speeding through the Wastes. Despite the heat of the eternally burning engine, ice begins spreading through his body.
Death.
Death had finally set its eyes on him.
Well, live by the sword, die by the sword, as they say.
His vision blurs and the last thing he sees is a flash of bright blue approaching from the main street he’d just been on.
When he wakes up, he, well, wakes up. He’s alive, somehow, and in some place that he doesn’t recognise. There’s the slow drone of an engine coming from somewhere, but it’s much softer than the roaring scream you hear in any part of Carson. “Congratulations on waking up.” A woman’s voice, enshrouded in a Nahua accent, rings out from across the room, “It’s truly an achievement, considering the state you were in. Give praise to Aure-” She cuts herself off, “Whomever you must.”
He tries to sit up, though the sharp pain in his back makes it difficult. “I guess I’m praisin’ you, missy.” He looks over to the woman on the other end of the room, sat on a stool wearing a black dress with white embroidery around the hem and an elbow length shawl over her shoulders. Although the most eye-catching things about her are the plumes of blue-green feathers perched on her dark black hair and the iridescent snake’s tail curled over her lap, made all the more obvious against the black of clothing. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard of such people, feathered serpents of some kind, let alone seen anything like that.
“I did nothing to be praised, your condition was dire, but your bodily functions have since been stabilised.” The woman’s tail swishes off her lap and curls around the stool before she continues, “You’re a resident of Carson, you ought to know what Crystalline Throat is.”
“Yeah, s’what the furnace workers get after a couple ‘a years. Why?” He’s not sure what Crystalline Throat has to do with him. He’s never been near the furnace, aside from, well, just before he’d met the woman across the room from him.
“Do you know what Crystalline Throat actually is?”
“What, like, why the throat gets all rocky?”
“Correct.”
“Why the hell’d I know that?”
The feathered woman huffs, “I assumed with how common it is here, the details would be common knowledge. Though I suppose not. It’s a kind of silicosis. Essentially, it is a build up of âmetite particles in the throat and lungs. Once it builds up enough it starts growing on the flesh in the same way it grows underground.”
“Cool fun fact, but that hasn’t got anything to do with me.” He shrugs.
“You are rather impatient. Whoever stabbed you did it with a sharp chunk of âmetite. Now it’s growing in your spine the same way it grows in the lungs.” She explains.
There’s a short beat of silence.
“How much time do I have left?”
“To be entirely honest, I do not know. There is no record of such a condition anywhere I could find, seeing as most people perish upon being stabbed in the back. For all I know the condition may not be terminal. It may kill you, it may leave you paralysed, it may not do anything at all. Only Aur-” She cuts herself again and shakes her head, “Only time will tell.”
“Kay then Doc…” He sighs, the sound of something grinding in his ears, “Will it be possible for me to go back to work?”
“What do you do?”
“I fight in the arena.” A promoter had found him shooting bullseyes in an underground marksmen competition. That'd been a way of getting money in between taking the motorbike he couldn’t legally drive between wandering cities as a courier, there wasn’t always mail to deliver, but he still had to eat something. He hadn’t hesitated - at fifteen - to sign on and become the Onyx Judge. That was almost ten years ago.
“I can’t see that ending well.” She kicks one leg over the other, “Crystals or no, you’ve still been stabbed in the back. You can’t be exerting too much physical effort for at least a month. Quite possibly more.”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ me.”
“Do not ‘kid,’” she huffs, “neither do I jest or joke. You should consider yourself blessed to be sitting up.”
He should have just bled out.
“Not to mention someone here wants you dead, your safest option would simply be leaving Carson, nay, leaving Aephon entirely.”
They should have just left him where he was.
“Are you listening to me?”
He turns his head to look at the woman.
“Yeah.”
Another beat of silence.
“You shouldn’t have wasted your time on me.”
“Nonsence,” Amber eyes narrow in his direction, “there is no time wasted in a life saved.”
Stated as plainly as that, he might believe it to be a simple fact, and not some old proverb from… well, from whatever Word of Wisdom the woman gets her morality from.
“Tell me, can you write well? Perform mathematics without a calculator on hand?”
“If I could, I wouldn't be in the arena. I can drive, but I don’t think I’ll be doin’ much o’ that either.”
“Can you cook?”
“Can I cook?”
“That is what I asked.”
“Yeah, not like that’s anything special. Line cook ain’t exactly an easy goin’ job anyway.”
“Is spouting nonsense a hobby of yours?” She folds her arms.
“Um, no.”
“You can join us then.”
“‘Us’?”
“The Schwarz Mercenary Corps, you can work in the kitchens and, if you get well enough, I’m sure Director Weiss would consider reassigning you to a squadron, if you so wished.” She unfolds her arms and turns her gaze into a less scornful one, “And, there’s no one better than Captain Dantês to monitor the condition of your back.”
He doesn’t exactly have much of a choice.
“So long as it pays.”
“Wonderful.”
A third beat of silence.
“Ain’t there something you’re forgetting to tell me?”
“What? Our sick leave policy, you’ll see that-”
“Doc, your name.”
“Oh, Maria Fernandez. I feel as though we’ll be seeing a good deal more of each other.”
Sitting on an unused writing desk in the Heilig office of the Schwarz Mercenary Corps there is an old, leather-bound diary, recently retired due to being filled to capacity. It doesn’t escape the notice of a sniper’s keen eye.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 8:45, eighth day of the ninth month. Few hunters were selling their quarry at the market this morning. I heard from what few were there was that all their traps were filled with spider’s silk. It was reported to the local lord, (I believe the local term is Daimyo) and they are sending out a squadron of their soldiers to investigate. The hunters I spoke to seemed sceptical that the soldiers would have any success, the Daimyo and his retinue are corrupt and easily lured into the traps of malevolent Yōkai, they believe all that shall be left of them is bone. I decided to forgo meat in my meal for the day.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 8:45, tenth day of the ninth month. Indeed, the hunters found a collection of bones in the forest outside of town and they say that the Daimyo (That is the word for it, I checked with Lady Sumire) does not intend to send any more of his soldiers to resolve the issue. The merchants are having a meeting later in the day to come up with a solution themselves. I have once again decided to forgo meat. The fish in this town is rather delightful (as to be expected from a coastal town), though the fish market in the harbour is much too busy for my tastes.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 14:30, tenth day of the ninth moon. I was scolded by Lady Sumire for being too direct with patrons. I do not know why she wishes for me to be chatty, we are not a bookstore, we are a library. Patrons ask where books are and I tell them, guide them there if they are particularly feeble minded. They do not pay for the books or scrolls they take, they are only here because they wish to read a book, I do not have to sell the concept to them.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 9:00, eleventh day of the ninth moon. I heard from the hunters at the market that they have decided to hire foreign mercenaries to deal with the problem. I am once again forgoing meat, at this rate I shall become a monk before the issue is resolved.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 16:45, eleventh day of the ninth moon. Lady Sumire was complaining about water damage to the basement of the library. We do not get enough money from the Daimyo’s cultural endowment to repair the rotted wood. I believe she was implying she wanted me to fix it. Though if the hunters are to be believed, a monster that devours men to the bone is lurking there, and I do not want to be only bone, I’ve grown quite fond of my flesh.
What a wonderful thought to put to paper.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 8:45, fifteenth day of the ninth moon. Today at the market I met a strange man, not like one I had ever seen before. He stood at least a head taller than most others I have ever seen, except for maybe the dragon of Xià Huán. Though that old dragon was a thin man, and this one was not. His skin was a colour I only seldom saw from south western traders. I suppose he must have been one of the foreign mercenaries hired by the hunters.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 17:30, fifteenth day of the ninth moon. Lady Sumire pulled me aside and said in plain language she would like me to arrange for the wood in the basement to be replaced. It is all local, though it is in the forest where hunters have been going missing. I do not want to go into the forest, though I doubt I will be having much of a choice. Setting out tomorrow morning seems prudent, perhaps I should indulge in a proper meal tonight.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 19:20, fifteenth day of the ninth moon. A Hyrimdire came into the library this evening. I have not seen a cave dweller in a very long time. She rifled through some texts about local legends and a few old geology records of caves in the mountains. I assume she is another of the foreign mercenaries. She tried to ask me about the local stories, but I do not know much, I am not a local, after all.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 15:45, sixteenth day of the ninth month. I do not like spiders. I do not like the way their spindly legs feel crawling against my skin, and I do not like how their silk latches onto my garments and gets caught in my hair. And I am not at all impressed by ones that grow too big for their britches, a spider should not be larger than a foot, and it should certainly not be triple my size and have the body of a woman instead of a head. Silly, it’s not supposed to look like that. I killed it because it tried to eat me, worst of all, I cannot eat it. I have harvested the bamboo and will repair the basement in the evening.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 20:00, sixteenth day of the ninth month. The Hyrimdire came back as I was fixing the basement. She was not impressed with me. I have ‘sniped her contract’ and ‘made a real mess of this’. I do not know why she is upset with me, so I asked her if she ‘expected me to let that thing eat me?’ She laughed at me. I am no less confused, but she said I was wasted in the basement of a library, ‘If you can take down a Jorōgumo on your own, you’re wasting your time down here. Expect to hear from me later.’ I do not know what this means, I fear I may be kidnapped.
Nyūgō, Asahi, 7:30, seventeenth day of the ninth month. Lady Sumire fired me today, she said I was being ‘given over to Squad 10 of the Schwarz Mercenary Corp’ and that ‘I will not allow someone of your skills to languish here, so off you go.’ I am not sure if this is how employment agreements work, but I do not know enough about employment law to argue. Perhaps Lady Sumire is right, my skills are more suited to being a mercenary than being a librarian. Maybe I can learn more about ‘How to be a person’ as Lady Zǐ Yú said. Perhaps… I am already more than the shadow I started as.
“Emile Hall, has no one ever taught you manners!?” A thin hand snatches the dark leather notebook out from the mercenary reading it, “You don’t just read someone’s diary!”
Emile shoots his hands up in the, “Hey, hey, didn’t mean anythin’ by it. Didn’t know who it belonged to, so I gave it a quick skim to see who I should hand it off to.”
He glares at Emile while puffing out his cheeks, “My name’s written on the front page…” Sure, it’s surrounded by a bunch of failed attempts to write his name, but Yú Fēng is there as well!
“Oops, guess I missed it.” He laughs and tosses the book back to him, “But you shouldn’t just leave things like this layin’ around. Someone who ain’t as nice as me might pick it up.”
He rolls his eyes, “You need to be more observant.” He states, “I am meeting with the captain and Director Weiss for a while, you, Maria, and Deirdre can start dinner without Eris and I.” He quickly puts his diary into the pocket of his coat, “Good evening, Emile.”