Completed In the Eye of the City

[Petra Darthinian]

The song weaver leaned against the outside of the safe house with cold trepidation eating away at her nerves. She was fiddling with a dagger while she watched Norvyk nap under the guise of nonchalance. But she could feel his mind, wide awake and curious to the peculiar magicks happening behind her.

Faramund had been out for three days. And all Bebin had told her was to guard this door. His tone discouraged any rebellion and the grim expression that cut his face into sharp lines had Petra feeling that he wasn't so much asking her to keep anything out, as he was asking her to keep something in. Or someone.

He must be mistaken. She anxiously tried to reason. This was Faramund they were talking about. He couldn't mean Fara. Right?

Memories they had shared flashed through her mind. Laughter and danger in equal measure. But always a ready smile in between. She had shared parts of her past with him that no one but her dragon knew. And still, he chose to stick by her. If she was a storm, then he was the mountain upon which her fury could be thrown against without fear of him crumbling. So what was going on?

Norvyk tensed for a frozen moment and then raised his obsidian-crowned head and let loose a rumbling growl in her direction.

Confused, she asked, "What is it?" A growing sense of unease at her dragon's alarm.

"I sense there are now three inside." Petra knew Norvyk meant by way of the other consciousnesses that he could sense. As a storm dragon, he had the capability to speak telepathically to almost anyone he wished. Although everyone was different, and how easily he was able to communicate with others was based on their own innate openness to communication.

But the fact that he could sense three people inside had alarm shooting through Petra like hot knives of dread. How the fuck had she missed someone getting inside?! She was preparing to break down the door against Bebin's wishes and personally cut down whoever had intruded when—

"Stop"

She turned back to him, brow raised.

"I said that I could sense three now inside, I did not say I could sense three bodies." He answered cryptically. "It feels as if the essence of two of them are... Separate and distinct. But entwined all the same. That is all that I can tell you, for that is all that I can sense. There is a wall, for it does not want me intruding." His sibilant cadence ending with an indignant hiss.

Faramund Bebin Theros

 

[Faramund]

'Help?' The Doppler smiled. Bit late for that, don't you think? Glancing at the door, the thing that was Faramund but wasn't weighed the odds. It knew a lot of things about Bebin Theros and Petra Darthinian that others among their order did not. Certain... titbits of information that would give it a slight advantage should they come to blows. Should they come to blows?

The Doppler reckoned it could kill Bebin Theros in a straight fight. But what would that achieve? Its cover would be blown for good. And It would be trapped in this room, like a rat in some mad sorcerer's cage.

The Doppler knew it could kill Petra Darthinian. They had gone toe to toe before, "sparred" together. She was nimble and strong for her kind, but every bit the mortal he was. However, to do that, he would have to kill Bebin and escape this room. Doable. But it would take time he just did not have.

Then, there was the dragon, Norvyk.

Not looking good, is it? a voice in the doppler's head commented. Blinking, Faramund's eyes returned to their original colour. His mind had drifted off for a second there, and no wonder. It was hard to listen, hard to think when the enemy had managed to get their poison inside of you. The Doppler was more than that.

'How is it you think I can help?' the dawnling asked, trying to make sense of the runes carved about the room. 'You said it yourself. We don't even know what the thing inside me is, let alone what it can do.' Or had done. That was the worst part about it all. Not knowing.

Faramund shivered.

Bebin Theros Petra Darthinian

 

[Bebin Theros]

The air was no less charged when Faramund's eyes had turned back to their usual brown. He posed questions. Sounded more... himself.

Bebin grunt. Still as calm water. Though the currents that flowed through his veins kept his limbs ready, his feet keenly aware of where they stood, his hands measured the distance of their reach against the bigger mans. Fingers twitched as they remembered points to slip into the guard, grab hold of and let leverage do the work.

Broken bones and torn ligaments could heal. Would make transporting him all the safer too. If he failed, he had little doubt he would be dead in this room. He smirked at that thought.

"You let us take you back," how simple. "You sit in this room, and wait for us to prepare your safe transport, friend Faramund,"

He had no doubt the thing within Faramund would find pleasure in that. Parasites oft needed their hosts whole and well, until it was time to spring forth.

"Well, what say you?"

---

Faramund Petra Darthinian

 

[Faramund]

Bebin was worried. Not for himself, of course. The dusker had always been selfless when it came to serving the Order and those they were sworn to protect. No, he was worried about him, the dawnling, the big oaf of a man that was no real man at all.

He had been, once. A long, long time ago. But that man was dead.

Faramund didn't know. He didn't know what Bebin had sensed in him, but he knew it scared him. 'Well, what else am I going to do?' he asked, deflating slightly as he took another step back. Another. 'Hurt you? Hurt Petra?' He wasn't really asking, anymore than Bebin appeared to be listening. His warrior's intuition told him that the dusker was ready and willing to fight.

Strange, considering they weren't enemies.

Oh, but we are, thought the dawnling, feeling his back press against stone. 'I'd never harm you, Bebin. I'd never harm anyone I call friend.' It was true, too. Faramund would never do such a thing.

The Doppler had no such qualms.

Bebin Theros Petra Darthinian

 

[Bebin Theros]

Bebin's eyes remained fixed upon the man he knew as Faramund. Weighed the words that were let loose from his mouth.

A mind so used to the sympathies of the psyche, the way in which each feeling pulsed and ebbed out to the rhythms of emotion. He watched as the man he knew as his brother twisted and turned over all that was implied.

"No, you would not," but the rest needn't be said.

The gambit had been played. Whatever was within Faramund. The thing that seemed to change the Dawnlings eyes. It bore witness to all that had transpired in that sealed room the two men occupied. How much it could understand. How much it stitched together. How long it had been watching them. Learning.

"You must allow us to bind you, Faramund," Bebin said coolly. "Blind and deafen you," each ask required more trust. From one man to the other. Each move made, added weight. "I cannot let you out of this room, until that is done," his tone left no room for argument.

Faramund Petra Darthinian

 

[Faramund]

Faramund levelled his eyes at him. 'That bad, huh?' Sinking into a low crouch by the wall, the big man stared past the dusker, through the window and out into the world beyond. It was amazing just how beautiful a small square could be when one's world began to close in on them.

'I suppose there's no way you're mistaken? That this is all just one big misunderstanding?' It was a thin hope, but one Faramund harboured all the same. 'Mother's mercy, Bebin! I've been fighting alongside you for years now. Years! Is my compliance not enough? Do you really have to bind me like some sort of fuckin'...' Traitor, he had been about to say, thinking better of it.

Pausing, the knight slid further down the wall until he was sitting down. Outside, the birds were singing. Gossiping about him, no doubt. There was a shadow poking under the doorframe. A listener? No, just Petra, thought Faramund, gazing up at the ceiling. As if things weren't bad enough...

'You don't even know what the corruption inside me is... what it can do...' he frowned, searched long and hard for an answer that wasn't forthcoming. Bebin watched him all the while. He had that look in his eye. The kind of look a man got when he stepped in shit.

And here I am, up to my neck in it!

Smiling, Faramund began to laugh. Before long he was rubbing tears from his eyes as his body convulsed and shook. He took a breath to steady himself. 'Well, ain't this the fuckin' worst,' he smiled, meeting Bebin's gaze and holding it for as long as it took to grow uncomfortable. Faramund opened his mouth to speak, then, closed it.

He sighed.

'How did it ever come to this, brother?' the dawnling asked, sensing something inside shift and withdraw.

Bebin Theros Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Norvyk had not taken his eyes off the door since he had sensed the third presence with his mind's eye. His body taut with the ready preparedness of a predator waiting for the hare to make the first move.

Petra watched him with the same intensity. Waiting for any signal from him that she could turn and rip down that fucking door and past Bebin's seal with every drop of magic she had.

But duty and yes, even the fear of what might come next; of what new truth she would be asked to face within, kept her on this side of that door.

That didn't stop lightning from crackling frenetically at her fingertips. Or a tight pressure to begin coiling in her chest, settling with a permanence that unnerved her. Why must it be so heavy?

Petra was beginning to lose whatever little patience she had left when Norvyk startled her by surging to his feet, wings flaring and talons sinking into the earth.

"It is gone." He rumbled.

"Gone?!"

His teeth flashed with a snarl. Suspicion bleeding from his thoughts.

"No, not... gone. But I can no longer sense a third entity. It is just those two now."

Her brow furrowed, for she had not seen nor heard anyone come or go from the safehouse. She had made sure of it after Norvyk had sensed it originally. And to her knowledge, there was no portal stones inside that anyone could have used to teleport in and out.

Deeply disturbed for the well-being of her fellow Sworn, the songweaver finally turned to the door and knocked in a quick coded staccato with her scaled hand. It was a check-in that demanded a coded answer, one taught to the Knights when discretion and secrecy were called for.

She trusted Bebin. And his competency. What she didn't trust, were the machinations of something beyond their ken. Something they weren't prepared to face if they didn't understand what it was.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Discipline.

It was the only shield he had against the scene that played before him. While his mind flared with waves of reds and purple feelings. Waves of blue that pulled at him. He remained as stone. His breath, calm. Measured. Even when Faramund held his gaze, Bebin did not falter.

When words could not be trusted. What else was he to do?

How did it ever come to this, brother?

"Perhaps I am to blame," he said in low and stony rumble. Let his eyes shut for but a moment as the sounds of bird song filtered through the paltry window.

How he had held the Cloak of Many eyes, when all Sworn had gathered. How he had been so sure that Demiex too was loyal. That their plan of attack, so far from home, would yield success.

Yet what had he to show for it?

His eyes came open. Faramund curled onto himself. Shaken and unsure, save for the knowledge that something was within him.

Josai wounded. Merrycourt dead. Demiex still lost to the wind.

A knock came from the door. Bebin's eyes narrowed. as he let hot breath push through his lungs.

Darthinian, disobeying orders.

"Brother," Bebin said sharply. With urgency. He trust Faramund to understand. Bebin was before the door, but to respond to the code. To assuage the nerves of this freshly sworn knight. "I am going to knock upon the door," he stated flatly. "And you are going to remain upon the floor, where you are," he did not budge from where he stood. His eyes did not blink, no matter what may come from the outside. "Do you hear me, Faramund?"

 

[Faramund]

Faramund looked up from where he was sitting, a dumb expression on his face. 'Oh, I hear you, friend Bebin,' the dawnling replied, an amused cackle splitting his features like a battle-axe. 'Don't worry. I won't rush you the moment your attention is split.'

Alas, his grin did not stand up to Bebin's scrutiny.

Holding up his hands defensively, the big knight folded them against his chest, made himself comfortable. Unless the Everwatcher Himself came barging through the door, Faramund didn't intend on doing much fighting today. But then, he wasn't in his right mind, was he?

Anything could happen, really.

Bebin Theros Petra Darthinian

 

[Bebin Theros]

Bebin's jaw set firm, and his fingers loosed, flexed. Loosed. Flexed.

Nerves were a dangerous thing. Desperation. How it twisted the mind.

"If I had no trust in you, Faramund," the knight spoke aloud. "I would have killed you in your sleep," he let the words sink in. "I would have let you die, when the toxins threatened to take you," though whether he spoke to settle his own nerves, or try and speak to the knight he knew so well... "Were you a thrall to that... thing within you," he searched his brother's face, as he took one step from the runic seal, and toward the door. "You'd have slayed the Seer," conjecture on his part. Little more. "Slain me in the sewer when you had the opportunity,"

His hand reached back behind him, knuckles low as the rapped the codesign back.

Knock... Knock... Knock...

Knock...Knock. Knock...

A flat palm slap against the flat surface ended the message.

Status normal.

A second flat palm slap to start a new message.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Knock.Knock...Knock.Knock.

A flat palm slap.

Hold.

Faramund Petra Darthinian

 

[Faramund]

Something probed at the back of Faramund's mind as he sat, staring up at the dusker, like a squire keen to learn. 'Maybe you should have,' the knight spoke. He didn't really mean it. For all their talk of dying for the Order, Faramund would much rather kill for it. And if he had to meet his end, well, he would much prefer an enemy to a friend.

Which one was Bebin in that moment? Enemy? Friend? Or both?

'You, Selene, Helena,' he recited the names, as if they were on a list. Perhaps they were. But not his. 'I've had plenty of opportunity over the years, and yet...' Faramund shrugged, frowned as the pressure at the back of his mind grew.

Faramund had not harmed them 'cause he had felt no need to. They were his brothers and sisters, friends and family. Family, you fought for. Not against.

An image flashed across his mind's eye; Merrycourt, in all her war-splendour, looking down at him with a smile on her face. Perfect, and yet somehow flawed. It's the eyes, he thought with a start. It's always the eyes.

Faramund felt something warm and sticky in his throat, coughed to clear it.

His hand came away red, speckled with blood. The corruption's doing?

Wiping the blood away on the wall at his back, Faramund went back to watching as Bebin knocked, counter-knocked. His eyes, brown in the sunlight, had a touch of black to them now.

It's in the eyes, he recanted, always in the eyes.

Bebin Theros Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

"Hold."

A breath left the cage of Petra's chest in stark relief. Bebin had confirmed for her that he was still presently in control.

And that Faramund was still alive.

For now. Came the insidious creeping voice of doubt. Her mouth pursed in anxiety at the thought.

Patience was not a virtue that she possessed with any excess. And so with the end of what was left of it, came the wild sensation of being completely out of control of the situation, like grains of sand slipping through her finger faster than she could stop it.

The frenetic energy demanded that she do. Do something, damnnit. Fix this.

But how?! All she could manage within her orders was a steady digging of her boots in the dirt as she began pacing. Her dragon tracking the movement with a calculated gaze.

Several moments passed before he rumbled cryptically, "It is gone, Rider.... Or, at least,' His eyes narrowed as they flicked to the building behind her, "-at least it has finally succeeded in cloaking itself from even the eye of my mind." He ended with a snarl. As if the very thought that there was something with the audacity to be beyond his ability to ken was abhorrent and offensive.

Petra stopped in her tracks as she turned to stare at him, crossing her arms to cover the fact that Norvyk's words kickstarted the staccato rhythm of her troubled heart. The urge to find whatever it was and eradicate it viciously, was enough to leave her digging her talons into the muscled flesh of her biceps.

Because she hadn't told him how she felt...

The thought of never being able to tell Faramund how his presence quickened her breath and that the way their banter tore a grin from her, even on her bad days, was suddenly an overwhelming gift she was resentful to have ripped from her.

But her trust in the Basilisk would hold out until then.

For now.

 

[Bebin Theros]

A push and pull. An ebb and flow.

This was a game, far older than the two knights that were confined in that same room. A legacy as old as the Order itself. Darkness and Light.

The burn of distant stars against rippling surface. Reflections, only pretending to be as bright as those things they imitated.

Bebin slowly reached for something behind his back. A cold clink and soft ring. Iron bracelets, with a chain that linked them close together. His face was grim. He worked the key in the lock, and they came open with a click.

"Prove to us you are still our brother," he said flatly, and presented the shackles "Come peacefully, " he hid the key away. "It is a bitter drink, but, what choice do we have?"

They could not know how far ahead their enemy was before them. Nor how near.

How miserable he felt. How small and powerless. But he would do what need be done.

"All I can do now, is trust you, Faramund,"

Faramund

 

[Faramund]

There was always a choice, but Faramund did not know if he had the strength to make it. 'Trust me?' It was enough to make him snort. 'Why, friend Bebin, it seems you no longer do.' The fetters were proof enough of that, weren't they? Climbing to his feet, the big man stared at the heavy iron, like a man destined for the gallows.

He counted the links, and wondered why fate had decided to be so cruel. To him, yes, but to those he cared about, also.

Did they still care about him, or was this moment to be a rather telling indicator of how things were to proceed? He didn't know. Not knowing scared him, more than the threat of blade and bloody end ever could. 'You would blind me,' he said. 'Deafen me. Take away the very senses I have used to serve our Order these past years, or at least I thought it was our Order. Now... now I'm not sure.'

He took the shackles from Bebin, tested their heft. A stupid idea came, went. Brown eyes regarded the metal. Iron in hand, and the steel on Bebin's belt. Faramund smiled sadly. 'I was loyal, Bebin. Astenvale was my home!' And he had served, loyally. Only now his oldest friend had cause to doubt his intentions.

And if Bebin Theros -the Basilisk- had reason to doubt, well... what hope was there for him, really?

With a rustle and a clank, the shackles landed on the floor at Bebin's feet. Heavy, the choice was. But what choice did they have?

'Let's just get this over with,' Faramund sighed, his gaze meeting the dusker's for what felt like the last time.

 

[Bebin Theros]

Bebin's eyes measured the dawnling. Did not look to the fetters that laid upon the floor. He took a step back.

"You are hurt," he said calmly. "And feel betrayed," he let the words sink into the room like heavy iron in river mud. Cold. "What would you have me do to show you trust, Faramund?"

There was no steel on his hip. But a troubled mind oft saw what it feared. Made manifest objects and ideas that were not there.

Who was Bebin to say his mind did not pretend the mystery within Faramund? That there was no thing within the Sworn Knight of Dawn. But a figment of his own imagination.

A reflection of light, come ripple across the water. A shadow on the other side of the wave.

He had entered this room with not but the shackles to take the man, and the cloth to blind him.

"When our Order called council, was it not your voice that said suspicion must be dolled out, not just to those of Loch, but so too all of our Pursuits?"

Bebin bent low, and reached out for the shackle, his head bowed to the potential traitor. His fingers curled around the cold iron of the bracelets.

"You have always been a mystery, friend Faramund,"

 

[Faramund]

'Now you know how the rest of us feel about you,' remarked the dawnling, not moving from where he stood as Bebin bent, straightened with shackles in hand. Faramund saw now that there was no blade at the dusker's hip, merely an impression of where it had once been.

He frowned. To lose the trust of one's brothers was one thing, but to lose control of his own mind...

'You're right, by the way. I am scared. I do feel betrayed. I'm also angry,' he paused. 'At you, for thinking me a traitor... and at myself, for not having sensed something sooner.' With a shake of his head, Faramund began to pace. The room was small, too small for the likes of him. He needed air. To feel warm sunlight on his skin. To breathe freely, openly, without the fear of someone else doing it for him.

Something behind his eyes wriggled, causing the light in the room to fluctuate erratically, unnaturally.

'I'll go with you, Bebin, to wherever it is you wish me to go,' said Faramund, stopping to stare at his feet. 'Just don't put me in the dark. I'm not good in the dark.'

 

[Bebin Theros]

A breath in. A breath out.

The words that had left Faramund's lips stirred about the waters of Bebin's mind. Sensed something sooner.

Was it not his duty to find the next threat to their Order? The next enemy that lurked within the dark.

Bebin's eyes did not shift their gaze. Fixed on the Dawnling's own stare. He saw the ripple across the pools of Faramund's eyes.

"I must, Faramund," his voice was grim.

How he had held the Cloak of Many eyes up before the gathered Sworn. How he had boasted, so proud, that their number could blind the eyes of their enemy.

"The darkness of the eyes, drinks in the light," he said, like a prayer. The rune web beneath his feet traced with the feint blue light of Loch. "For the distant stars in the sea of night," He placed a palm at his center, his hand open. An aura, like gentle waves azure, pulsed about his bare flesh. "Are but memories of a flame long lost,"

He raised the manacle to Faramund.

 

[Faramund]

The jangle of chains made Faramund lift his gaze. For the man responsible for flipping his entire life upside down, Bebin was being surprisingly... gentle for a man of his reputation. It was hard to look him in the eye and not think of doing something irrational. Something Faramund knew he would regret, should it come down to it.

'I know,' the dawnling confessed sadly. 'That's what makes this so hard.'

Taking the manacles, Faramund held his brother's eye, even as the man continued weaving his magic. Bebin was not a vocal creature. He did not need to speak to sow destruction. Faramund realised the dusker was doing him a favour. A courtesy of sorts.

For a while, that courtesy was the only thing keeping Faramund's desperation in check.

Bebin had nearly finished his recital by the time the dawnling spoke. 'I s'pose there's no getting out of this, is there?' he asked. 'Fucked, no matter what I do.' The short chain linking the manacles dangled loosely across the bridge of his fingers, and again the bad thoughts came. He was tempted to humour them.

'Oh well!'

With a flourish almost too quick to be seen, the manacles came up... and slapped back down around his wrists.

'Just so you know, I still expect breakfast.' Faramund smiled as he secured the manacles. 'Some bacon. Eggs if we got 'em.'