Private Tales Archnemesis

[Zael]

THE RAGGED BAND​

They were a concourse of wretchedness, those men riding in the back of the wagon. Strangers to each other, nonetheless it had been a peculiarity of fate that each of them had a common destination, if uncommon origin. The driver of the wagon, an elderly man with long gray hair, a long beard to match, and whose face had been etched by its wrinkles into a permanent look of severity, picked each man up along the northerly road which led to the great city of Elbion. An act of charity for some; mercy, perhaps, for a few of them.

Among this weathered band sat an Anirian—Zael Castomir. He sat like the others, his head bowed, not bothering to make any manner of small talk or personable conversation. He sat with a savaged brown cloak covering him from his neck to his knees, and thereby were the battle wounds, the sorry state of his broken armor (what pieces remained, anyway), and the sling which cradled his broken arm hidden. He had no weapon. His sword had been lost in a city, plagued by battle, far to the south.

Zael glanced up when the gates of Elbion stood tall above the wagon. His solitary eye passed over that now familiar sight. And for once in now a long while his spirits were lifted.

Some distance inside the city on the main thoroughfare the elder man halted the horses pulling the wagon. He turned back to the assortment of men.

"We've made it," he said, a statement of fact and a prompt for them now to depart and each go their own way. As Zael and the other stragglers began to rise, the elder man said to them, each younger and in their ways in far more dire straits than he:

"Gods help ye."

Sable Pembroke

 

[Zael]

ELBION​

Gierliadel and Herrim had a morning free from classes and College duties. As it so happened a mutual friend of theirs, Yuna Fairweather, had tipped them off to a nice cookshop not far from the College. They sold delicious sausage wraps, and these made for an excellent breakfast, she assured them. And—for once—she was right. Gier and Herrim had among themselves almost made it a routine to partake at least once a week.

The cookshop, small and modest, had but windows and counters facing the outside, no sort of interior nor exterior seating. But this was hardly a quibble. Gier and Herrim, along with a few other Elbioners and Students, stood around the cookshop, eating their wraps and chatting.

"So what is this about a group of monster hunters wishing to study the Stalker's corpse?" asked Gier.

The Stalker of Minds. An infamous monster which had plagued the poisoned town of Rostok, and all its surrounding environs, in Epressa for years. Herrim, a budding anatomist under the tutelage of Maester Shikishimi, was thrilled to retrieve the Stalker's carcass from the deadly town. No mean feat, that! Especially with all the competition. It took the combined efforts of himself, Gier, Yuna, and two Anirians named Ollie and Zael to find and slay the fiend. There were some...mishaps, one could say, but overall, what an adventure!

"Oh." Herrim shrugged. "Maester Shikishimi mentioned it to me herself. She didn't...well, give too many details, and it's more her domain and the domain of the College to decide who gets access to the carcass—not me. I think I'd like to at least talk with the monster hunters though, just a friendly talk, see—"

They both noticed someone approaching them. Up the street he came, his path directly toward them. Only could he be recognized when he stopped a mere few paces away and lowered the hood of his cloak (such as it was, for the hood was hardly more than tatters, much like the greater bulk of the cloak itself).

Zael Castomir. As it happened, one of the very Anirians who had helped—and betrayed—them in Rostok. And as well, the man who had made amends and kept his word during the College's mission for the Pinnacle artifact, not only training Gier and Herrim but in fact saving Yuna's life during the last stand on the mountaintop. They counted him now as a friend.

"Hey," he said. His voice was hoarse and scratchy, like a man left to a desert's cruel designs.

"Zael..." Gier said, looking him up and down in astonishment. "Good gods, man, what has happened to you?"

His face was pale, cheeks a bit sunken, and there was a lingering discoloration on his jaw from an old bruise. The lowering of his hood had revealed wild blood-matted blond hair. He stood unsteadily, teetering from fatigue and weakness ever so slightly. The only thing which seemed alive, which seemed not to be a constituent part of a walking corpse, was his eye—therein a resolution was tightly held.

"Had a bad time down south..." was all he could say in one stretch.

"Hold on, hold on," Herrim said, coming out of his initial shock and hurrying to Zael's side to support him. By chance he had chosen Zael's good arm to drape over his shoulder. With the rustling of the cloak, however, the sling which held his broken arm was revealed. "You look like hell."

"I haven't eaten in days."

Gier pressed forward to, as much as he could, support his other side. "Far more than hunger ails you!" He looked past Zael's head to Herrim. "Which is closer? Your family's home or Yuna's?"

"Uhhh...Yuna's. I'll say Yuna's."

"Then to the Fairweather Residence we shall go. Let us hurry now!"

"Gier, Gier," said Herrim to the elf. "I can take him. You go and tell Yuna."

"Very well. We will meet you there."

Zael only remembered walking. Walking, as Elbion passed by as indistinct shapes. Walking, nibbling some on the sausage wrap that Herrim offered. That resolution to endure, to survive beyond what he thought his body was capable of, was at last flickering from a flame to an ember, now that the promise of rest awaited.

Sable Pembroke

 

[Zael]

THE FAIRWEATHER RESIDENCE
YUNA'S ROOM​

Many a night traveling with the elderly man and the ragged band Zael stayed up to keep watch. He would look mostly to the south, wondering if anyone might be following after him. Neither friend nor foe did. Many nights he had kept watch, yes, but he did find small pockets of sleep during the long travel. He had in fact gotten a fair bit of sleep the night prior to the wagon's entry into Elbion. Now at last he felt like he could relax his guard, and this was the true rest he sought.

He drifted in and out of awareness as he lay on Yuna's bed. Herrim was there, he knew, and Fairweather servants filtered in and out of the room, tending to him as best they could. They had stripped off the remnants of his armor and his dirty, sweaty, reeking clothes and given him a sponge bath, clothing him again in fresh garments. Herrim gave him some food to eat and water to drink, but not too much. Zael, having been starved before, knew why.

Kress did it feel good to be here though. To be here in Elbion. It felt...it felt...

Like home.

When Zael was at length more alert, with a renewed vibrancy in his eye, Herrim spoke. "She's...going to be a little mad with you."

"Don't I know it."

"You could have told her."

"Did you tell her?"

"No."

"Gier?"

Herrim sucked his teeth and said, "Yeah...he had the honor."

"He has it again, lettin her know I'm back," Zael said, laughing lightly, weakly.

"Hopefully the walk from the College will have calmed her down."

"Hopefully."

Herrim exhaled through his nose. "Really though, Zael...you couldn't have just told her yourself that you were leaving? Like you told us?"

"You know how that woulda went."

Herrim, with high brows and pursed lips, nodded slowly in solid affirmation.

"I left her a gift. Right there in her College room. A little somethin to make it easier." He distinctly remembered the Zael of some couple months ago thinking that would smooth things over. Seemed that was a hopeful estimation.

"She didn't want you to go."

"I know." And Zael looked away from Herrim, toward the ajar door of the room, and sighed. "So I'm gonna tell her."

"Tell her what?"

He looked sidelong back to Herrim. "That she was right."

Sable Pembroke

 

[Yuna]

Yuna couldn't believe it. Gier came and told her and she couldn't believe it. Zael almost died on that mountaintop in the Seret Mountains. And when he left, left to go fight that war of his in Vel Anir, she thought he would die. She thought the last time she would see him had already come and gone.

As Yuna followed Gier out from the College, there in her chest a swirl of shifting emotion was caged. Uncharacteristically, and unlike both Zael and Herrim's prediction, she was quiet for most of the way. She turned over everything in her mind as they walked.

Swords and sails, her time with Zael was like a stormy sea! A couple years ago now, was it? Back when they first met? Oh, nothing so out of the ordinary, just doing a little bit of streaking during the Festival of Fiery Skies, her and Eric and Iliana and Zael and Delaney. First time she had met an Anirian (two, counting Zael's fellow Initiate Delaney), and also the first time seeing one naked! She didn't mind the view. Not at all. Things ended pretty well that night. None of them got busted, and they all had a good laugh and great fun.

Then came Grishino and Rostok. Now, look, was she mad about that? Of course! Not as mad as Gier; Herrim wasn't all that mad, not in the long run, because he got that big smelly Stalker's carcass out of the deal and impressed Maester Shikishimi with it. Okay, so, but before Zael and his other Anirian friend Ollie (he was gorgeous) decided to steal the Burning Heart and ditch them in the spooky underground mines, things were great! Fun! She was glad to see him again! And it was there in Grishino, in a little place called Angrim's Apothecary, that Zael said something to her that changed everything. He said, Look, Yuna, one day I'll fuck your brains out, but I won't tell you what day that'll be. Keep you guessin. So that wasn't the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to a girl, but Yuna also wasn't a princess out of some storybook. She wasn't! She knew she said plenty of funny things like that herself! To her, Yuna Fairweather, constantly frustrated as she was because she was a stupid virgin who didn't want to be a stupid virgin because all the boys she happened to like didn't like her back, this was like liquid music being poured into her ears. Not just regular music. Liquid music.

From that day, she fancied him. She had no idea whether or not she'd even see him again after he and Ollie betrayed them in Rostok, but she fancied him.

Yet she did see Zael again. As fate would have it one night, close to the commencement of the Festival of Fiery Skies for that year, she was feeling fancy (fittingly!) and skipped her way right into the One-Legged Flamingo, a well-to-do place to get drinks, and the place where the cool College people went. There she chanced into Zael. Was she mad? Of course! She called him an asshole and slapped him right across the face. But her anger went away! They spent that night talking and drinking and catching up. AND THEY WERE SO CLOSE! Zael brought up the "promise" he had made to her in Grishino and Yuna was all for it and they were kissing and tearing off each other's clothes and RIGHT when she was finally going to get what she wanted...Zael stopped. Said it didn't feel right. And left. Yuna had practically melted into a puddle of disappointment and frustration when he left the room and shut the door. She tried again, that very next morning, asking him as sweetly as she could. Essentially: do you want me? Do you want to do it, and maybe keep doing it, and maybe stay together, and all that? And he said to her with a smile: I'll tell you soon.

Gods, how'd he know exactly how to get her worked up every time!? But this was something. This was certainly something that certainly wasn't a "no." So maybe, just maybe, using her incandescent genius, she could get Zael to like her—like her the way her friend Eric liked Iliana. Boyfriend and girlfriend.

And the Pinnacle mission was the time to do it! Zael needed her help getting in on it with the Department of Acquisitions; namely, convincing Gier and Herrim not to blab about Rostok, wouldn't look good at all if what Zael did there was known. And she did help him! Only to have him reveal his orders from the "Rogue Dreadlords" to steal the Pinnacle artifact. Was she mad about that? Of course! She called him an asshole and slapped him again! But, look, now the stakes were raised. Now, not only did she need to get Zael to like her for her own sake, but for the sake of Elbion itself! So she convinced him to have a night of fun with her the day prior to the mission. They had some nice food, went shopping for some new pants (least he could do after burning a hole in hers for a prank!), went dancing in a rowdy tavern, and went up to the top of one of the floating towers of the College for some stargazing. She stole a kiss that night. Not like all those kisses before, when they met in the Flamingo! This one was special. And she said, "If you betray us, I'm taking that back."

She wanted to think that her kiss was the reason why Zael sided with Elbion over the orders from the Rogues. She really wanted to think that.

But it wasn't meant to be. Zael saved her life on the Pinnacle mission—tossed her the artifact and shoved her onto the last available flying carpet—and he lived! He lived and she thought it was so absolutely meant to be. But when they returned to Elbion, not so many nights later she got Zael to tell her, tell her the answer to her question that morning after the Flamingo.

And the answer was no.

She was crushed. She cried and he held her and he told her "It's okay" over and over and all she could do was call him an asshole, like so many times before, between her sobs. Maybe he knew he was going to leave and didn't want to hurt her worse, or maybe it was something else, she didn't have the strength to ask and he didn't have the heart to tell. They let it be what it was. BUT! They stayed friends. They stayed friends even though she—aaaaaaa~dmittedly—was sour about it for longer than she should have been. And that—aaaaaaa~dmittedly—was probably why he told Gier and Herrim but not her that he was leaving Elbion to head back south to Vel Anir and fight that war. Yeah...she would have been mad. "Feisty", as Herrim sometimes said. Still, it hurt when Zael left without telling her.

Alright, so they weren't going to be boyfriend and girlfriend like she had hoped. But that didn't mean she couldn't still care about him.

So when she and Gier at last arrived at her family's house, at last ascended the stairs, at last stood before the door, all this had played out in its entirety within Yuna's chest. Gier opened the door, and there lay Zael, right in her old bed, looking awful...but alive.

"You asshole..." she said meekly.

And then she went to him, bent over, and hugged him. No slaps this time.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Sable Pembroke