Completed Only Joy

[Leyus]

Liberty. Be it damned. His lips crooked at the answer, in a distant parody of a smile, that looked more like a painful grimace. Liberty was a joke, an illusion that nobody had, and it didn't answer a single question. He had some choices that he could make, but ultimately it was all out of his control. "I see," a bitter reply. Because nobody could just grace him with the simple answer, right?

Amygdala's next words only confirmed what he already knew. You are not a monster, what sweet words those were, before he did as much as slipped a bit. Changed a bit, gave in to the itch. And then it was all drawing blades, screaming curses and trying to kill. Because he was different, because he was one of a different kind even though he was born from a human mother and lived with human blood his whole life.
Leyus leaned back a little when Lazule and the creature stepped forward, but he did nothing more to step back further. Was there a point? "Such scum, aren't we," he couldn't help but muse, even though counting himself in with whatever Amygdala was stung with remorse, but this time, for once, there was a creature next to him who could relate to the feeling of seeing the dagger raised above their head.
A creature that had possibly put that dagger there in the first place. But who cared about details like that anymore? "Death and misery right next to us."

But, oh, if there had to be death here, then he wouldn't be ready to accept that of himself. Or Lazule. He had lived long enough to survive many times, his fair share and then an infinity more, and Leyus wasn't ready to give in to this thing, to the itch, to the weird drum that came in place of emotions he usually sensed, to the speeches that this thing made.

Only... What could he do?

As Lazule was pushed near him, Leyus took a wider stance, as if preparing himself for a fight, although in reality he knew very well that he would loose any combat against the woman. It was written here, plain and clear.

He was apparently a monster, and she was a monster hunter.

His only escape would be for that to be broken, untrue, at least for some time, but how could he break the tie she wanted to secure between them, forget and put into motion by Amygdala's words?
Leyus was no miracle maker.

As she chanted, he only whispered, "Be I damned."

And then the hit came. Hard. In his face. Not a lot of glory in that, although, for the moment being, all that Leyus felt was pain and the sickening sensation of being thrown back, hard enough to bruise in more than one place. Seconds later he felt the warm trail of blood on his cheek.
And then, through the ringing in his ears, he suddenly understood. This was his word, these were his letters, engraved into his very skin by Lazule's fist.

His fingers moved almost without his will, swiftly yet messily, scribbling a word in the dust of the road. He imagined reading it, imagined the tone, the lens it would go through. How had that teacher said it? Renown is to gather those around and nurture relationships. Maybe he wasn't exactly nurturing. Or maybe he was.

After all, a blow to a good relationship was scarring, so wouldn't a blow to a bad one be healing? A logic only he could muster, but it was last he had.

As Leyus' finger stopped moving, and he felt the still unfamiliar sting on magic pulsing through him, from the road grinned the crooket word: "HIT".

 

[Lazule]

Lazule had readied herself for another punch. Amygdala watched from his vantage several paces away, curious as to what Leyus was drawing in the dirt.

And then the magic of the lithomancy snapped out, like a silent shockwave felt only by the mind. Renown:HIT. Neither Lazule nor Amygdala harbored any measure of defense against it.

Amygdala's grin faded, his disinterest in the two immediate. His whole journey, the meticulous searching for another being of Father's making, hearing of a monster slayer's recent presence in Brevick and the description of her matching the painting of Lena in Father's tower, his ploy to draw her to him by the inciting the slaughter of the men sweeping the forest for monsters and the inciting of the traveling mages to commit an explosive suicide, all of it hinged upon a sole quality. That he cared. He cared for reasons he had already expressed and for reasons yet beyond those. He cared about Lazule's liberty, and had instantly cared about Leyus' liberty once he encountered him.

That was now gone. In its stead, apathy. So Amygdala simply turned on his heel and started walking away from the two of them. There were other aims that he sought to accomplish, and the pull of those were far more enticing than them now.

Lazule, meanwhile, stopped. Froze. Her face blank. Her cocked fist slowly drifted back down to her side. Her face blank in that moment when the lithomancy worked. But a creeping hopelessness deepened in her expression and made her sink down to her knees and sit on her heels.

The damage to her had been far worse, for it was existential in nature.

Lazule bore no true anger or hatred or revulsion or any compulsory feeling of the sort toward the monsters she sought to slay. She slew monsters because it was so demanded of her; it was her purpose, her way of being. The mantras that Father instilled into her, over and over through repetition, made her repeat ceaselessly during his lessons, they were the guiding light of her life, and she knew nothing else. The mantras were Father's word, and he was to her a God. Lazule knew and understood well that her being was never intended, that she was merely a doll pretending at life, and yet Father in his grace had given her this life regardless. In this she knew boundless gratitude for him, Father the very nexus of all her awe and reverence and love. And it was through him, and only through him, that these emotions extended out to Mankind as a whole.

And the lithomancy snapped that bond she held sacred between herself and Father.

In an instant that which gave her mantras power had been severed, the awe and reverence and love she held for Father made to flutter away like dead leaves fallen from their branch. The essential gravitas, the soul behind the words and the letters of the mantras--that which defined her very way of being in the world--gone. Without them her mantras were as a words written in foreign script, there to behold upon the page but their true meaning incomprehensible. She had no innate sense of right and wrong, of what constituted a life worth living and a life not, no ingrained narrative nor attunement to the collective unconsciousness of Mankind or Elvenkind or Dwarvenkind and therefore any investment in the continuation of the grand story of these races and their shared being upon Arethil. Lena's body offered faint advice in this regard, but these were feelings so blurred and vague that any true definition of them was hopeless. Lazule may yet inhabit a human body, but she was not human, merely a creation of magic and sacrifice, an arcane Fire to which spontaneous life had been bestowed. Without the awe and reverence and love for Father, there was no prism by which these raw emotions were extended to all humanity, no reason of which she could conceive to follow the mantras Father had instilled in her, and no light in which to guide her through the darkness and immensity of sheer being.

And so she sat on her heels, gaze distant and lips ajar, as the sole purpose and meaning in her life vanished. In that moment she had been returned roughly to the state in which she began: a blank slate, only now plagued by memories of her own actions that she no longer possessed the capacity to understand.

She noticed a person there. Leyus. That was his name. He was a shapeshifter. A monster by Father's definition. He had recently written something in the dirt. And none of these facts mattered.

Her eye trailed up to his. He was only one around.

She said, "I do not know what I should do."

 

[Leyus]

Leyus had seen the power of magic, real, proper magic before. Not the kind that he used every day, planted under his skin, ready to serve him as a second limb, but, at the same time, not much more powerful than a mortal hand could be. Oh, he had seen the true magic, which made flames roar, water sing and transformed all the elements into mere servants of the mage. He had seen it, observed it, felt awe, respect and even fear for it, but he had never ever used such magic himself. Nothing more than a few small tricks.
Right now Leyus was thinking, that it had probably changed.

He knew what lithomancy could do, in theory, he had seen different sides of it, even if only briefly, but he had only practiced it a bit and for very simple tasks.
Not like this.
Never before like this.

What was first a tingle soon turned into light burning, seeping through his arm, his whole body, leaving him breathless. When it finally stopped, he was dizzy, even more so than before. A part of his mind mused, that another hit would definitely make him flicker out in an instant.
But another hit never came.
And when his vision regained sharpness, Leyus raised his head to something that his mind simply couldn't comprehend for a second.

Amygdala was walking away. Just like that, without a word, without anything else, just like that. Walking away, step by step.

And Lazule was looking somewhere in the distance, as if he wasn't there, her face blank. After a moment Leyus understood that there was even more than that to it, not only was her expression blank, the subtle hum of feelings, no matter how odd they were, had... not exactly stopped, but become even more dull. As if she had been drained of them, at least most of them.

Oh, shit, shit, shit, what on earth had he done?

As Lazule spoke, Leyus could very well agree with her words. But he had to be sensible now. If he wanted to live that is.
He didn't know for how long the spell would last, and something told him that whatever he had just broken would come back sooner or later. And that would include Amygdala and all sorts of different trouble.
"What about getting away from here?" he tried getting up to his feet, slowly. His head still hurt, jaw ached and there was definitely blood on his face, but Leyus had had worse. And now, when the confusing presence of the other shifter was gone, he could actually control everything else. So, then he rose to his feet, he was still a bit dizzy and unsure, but at least his appearance had become steady once more, "How about we do that and you figure out the rest later?"

There were still many questions left unanswered, probably even more so for Lazule than him, since Amygdala had actually been here for her, but Leyus believed, that this was a thing to be puzzled about somewhere safe.
At least, safe if Lazule didn't try to punch him again. Or use her magic properly.

He doubted that his luck would work on one more suddenly brilliant spell. Or that he had enough energy left for one.

 

[Lazule]

What about getting away from here?

Lazule regarded him, her face one of serious and deep consideration. The sheer immensity of choices possible, the vast scale of freedom, contained a haunting horror which burrowed deep into her mind and chilled the fire in her chest. Before she had the light of her mantras to guide her through the labyrinth, a surety in her path and what she was doing, in this illumination a simplicity that brought her contentment, and the infinite maze of being troubled her not.

Now she didn't know the ramifications of any choice she could make, or even the meaning of such ramifications; her gauge of what was "good" and what was "bad", for her and for others, broken.

A subtle terror pervaded her perception of the world. A thing great and complex and mysterious, and she now without the most basic tools with which to comprehend it.

But that terror was something. A miniscule something, but something.

How about we do that and you figure out the rest later?

How about we do that.

We do that.

Lazule stood. Slowly, carefully. Like a newborn doe rising up seconds after birth. And she made a choice. The first free and conscious choice she had made in her life.

"Yes. We can do that."

She once had a means by which to act in and understand the world. That means had been shattered; by what and by whom she did not know. What she needed now was insight. A new understanding of the world and a way of being within it.

And perhaps Leyus could help.

 

[Leyus]

If there truly were any gods or other mighty creatures like them somewhere out there, then Leyus was ready to believe that he was on their good side today. Or that they simply had taken a pity on him, because he was already left without a coin, hungry and in the middle of nowhere. But at least he had gotten out alive once more.

Maybe Lazule's answer and posture hadn't been steady and secure enough to make him completely sure of the reliability of his position, but at least they didn't mean an instant kick in the chest. Which was good. His face still stung and his jaw ached.
But that could wait. They had to get moving now.

"Very well," he said, and he meant it. Perhaps this whole situation was far from what generally would be considered well, but for Leyus it was enough.

Now it was only left to decide where should they go. Which wasn't that difficult of a decision altogether. They had a road. And Amygdala had left, following it in one direction. Therefore they could simply go the opposite way. "Let us do so then," and with that he started walking, his feet thankfully steady enough. Although, hadn't he walked in shape a lot worse than this?
Of course, they wouldn't be able to stick to the road for too long, that would make them very easy to track and, well, roads in the wild like these were simply dangerous. But they could see where it would lead them for a bit. And then choose a different direction.

To be honest, he had no idea what that direction could be. To be completely honest, he was still very much lost. "You wouldn't happen to know if there are any settlements near by, wouldn't you?" he turned his head to Lazule, only halfheartedly expecting a reply. She could very well be in no shape to answer questions like this. Or simply not know anything more than the previous town she visited.
Or maybe his spell would fall the next moment and she would try to hit him again.

Ah, world was full with glorious possibilities.

 

[Lazule]

"Brevick," Lazule said. "Brevick is nearby. To the south."

Brevick. The thought and the mention of the town spurring through association the thought of her satchel. She looked back, over her shoulder, at the satchel there in the road and the dire wolf scalps spilling out from it.

In this purpose so clear I find only joy.

Did she? Truly?

What am I then?, Leyus had said to Amygdala.

And Amygdala had said in return: And that is the great and terrible question you must ask yourself.

Lazule did not know what happened. Why suddenly the bond of emotion she held between herself and Father had snapped and vanished. But in its absence, in the absence of the influence of her mantras whose guidance she regarded as sacrosanct, she was afforded an unprecedented clarity of thought. Great and terrible, perhaps. For at the onset of this abrupt shattering in her mind she had been stunned into petrified inaction, now came a burgeoning flame, a craving for insight. A thirst to simply know as much as she could. This akin to living in a locked room for one's whole life, unaware even of the existence of the door, and for this door to suddenly be thrown open, a vast and alien and majestic landscape there just beyond one's perpetual confines, enticing in its wonder and inviting to the curious mind.

The rising smoke from the crater some distance behind them abated, the last unravelings of uncontrolled magic sputtering to peace and calm again.

Lazule looked at Leyus. Studied him. Made no motion to follow after him.

"You are a shapeshifter. A monster by my Father's classification," she said. An inquisitive cocking of her head. "In what do you find joy?"

 

[Leyus]

Ah, yes, of course there was that place called Brevick. The one from where all those now dead men had come. The one which Amygdala probably knew as well as they did. The one that was the closest to them, so they probably didn't have all that much of a choice. Looking for something else might take too much time, and Leyus wasn't that sure about anything about Lazule anymore, but he sure did need to eat, drink and, sometimes at least, sleep.
So Brevick it was. And from there he could return to Alliria. To Elbion. To places far less mysterious, although not much safer.
"Very well."

But, obviously, it wouldn't be that easy. They wouldn't just go ahead, reach more civilized places, so that they could then have their personal identity crisis there, no. Because Lazule didn't move at all when he started walking, and so he himself stopped soon as well. Turning to her, right as her question came.
Or perhaps more of an accusation. Where did the whole "you are not a monster" thing go?
"I am above all a person, so I like all the things anybody else might. Good food, good company, getting paid and not getting beaten up," a wry smile crossed his face. Maybe he was playing with fire now, but all this episode was stating to tire him. And tired and scared Leyus meant snarky and sarcastic Leyus. "I like meeting my family on the rare occasion I can. And right now I would get the most joy out of getting away from this place," he added, making one more step forwards.

He knew that he had made a great part of this mess, of what must have been going on in Lazule's head right now, and he felt somehow sorry for it. But he was also still mildly terrified and confused, and exhausted from nearly dying several times during last couple of weeks, and he wanted all those things that could bring him joy. A hearty meal, a company, to forget it all, maybe a new job. He could even go and see his family, although that was usually a difficult task, since they moved constantly. But he could manage. And then he could ask some questions.
Or maybe he would go to Elbion first and find one of those wise and uptight scholars first, ask what they knew of creatures with his blood.
Perhaps.

In any case, all of those things involved getting out of here.

 

[Lazule]

Lazule listened with a calculating intensity to everything, every syllable of every word, that Leyus answered her with.

He was a monster by father's classification. Yet he called himself a person. Interesting. This was contradictory to everything she had ever known. People could become monsters, see the cruelty of raiders and torturers and murderers, but in so doing they lost the sanctity of personhood. The slaying of them permissible under the guidance of Father's mantras.

Good food, good company, getting paid and not getting beaten up.

He smiled at this, but Lazule did not know what to make of it.

Why should she like any of these things. She had no particular preference for food, the only significant friend she had ever met was Rebecca Fourtuna, and she had never cared about currency either before or now. "Not getting beaten up" resonated with her to a degree. The logic of violence being the supreme authority was absolute and unquestionable to her, so solid was the foundation of the argument; even all of her anecdotal evidence lay in support of it.

Yes. The right of self-defense was a worthy constant to be maintained.

I like meeting my family on the rare occasion I can.

Another strange thing. She knew Father existed, that it was possible for her to find him and meet with him once again. But she saw no value in it. Not now. She had a plethora of nonsensical memories expressing a range of emotions with regard to Father, but these held no value either. All Mankind held no value to her, for she was not human and all the reasons stemming from her memory were unsupported in the present. This answer from Leyus amounted to nothing, like much of his preceding answer.

And right now I would get the most joy out of getting away from this place.

This made no sense. Borderline irrational. The other monster, Amygdala, had gone. There was nothing any more or less significant about this particular place in relation to any other equivalent place. This was a suggestion impulsive, done to express a degree of fear or to manipulate or both. This was not something upon which to base a new way of being.

She had thought Leyus might be able to help. But he did not provide much insight, other than the affirmation to the right of self-defense.

"Goodbye, Leyus."

Lazule turned around with a sharp precision and walked away from him, heading the opposite direction down the small dirt road.

There were other answers. Deeper insights to be gained.

A curiosity, sparked in her mind from the insufficiency of the answers she had received: how would another Monster Hunter answer her questions?

She intended to find out.

 

[Leyus]

He was a bit stunned, really. Not that Leyus had really wanted a big continuation for this scene, for this whole dialogue and everything, but he had pictured that there had to be something more there. Some remark that her would have to reply to, maybe some more aggressive motion. Skies, he was even ready to imagine Amygdala jumping out of the bushes right this instant, ready to liberate him once more, or whatever he had intended to do.
He did not expect his.

Goodbye, Leyus.

And off she walked. And so he was left there, staring at Lazule's back as she made her way down the road, away from him, away from all of this. As if nothing had really happened here. Had anything happened? And what was all of this, really?
"Farewell," he managed to mutter, far too late, and far too awkward sounding. What was this?

It was truly surprising how much one day could rough you up. And not in the sole physical sense, although he felt that too, more and more so with every instant, but on a moral, spiritual, intellectual level. What was he to do with these events, with this information, with these revelations? It was as if somebody had taken a bucked of ice cold water and poured it right on his head. He felt some sort of clarity, something that he had never truly experienced before.
He also felt cold and soaked with anxiety, mixed with an assortment of existential dread. What a marvelous combination it was.

Leyus sighed, finally regaining the ability, or rather the wish, to move. It could wait. All his moral dilemmas and "what am I" could wait. Till a warm bed, good supper and some resemblance of civilization.
At least now he knew where to look for that. And where not to go, because he had to intention to seek the field of corpses once again.
So he lingered for a moment longer, although there was hardly anything to wait for here. Lazule was gone. He was once more alone in the middle of nowhere.

With one last confused shake of his head, Leyus started walking. Where to, he did not know. Yet.