Private Tales The One Doin' the Walkin'

[Lumen]

Even though Zael was a year above her, she felt a kindred sense of protection over him. Like she felt with others in her class. Like her instincts usually made lean toward.

A kindred ember of anger sparked in her golden eyes. A ripple of frustration across her brow. It shouldn’t have happened to him. She didn’t want to offer empty apologies. Instead, she reached forward and squeezed Zael’s bloody hand with her own warm palm.

“So what does that mean, Z? Are you killing off your own to prove he can’t break your spirit?”

Ganfarred. Here.

She wanted to believe he had a reason. There was something else going on. The way she saw it, he was still being manipulated whether his reasons for it were justified or not.

 

[Zael]

A flicker of that same fire when he had spoken with Kristen and Zinnia and Elbion arose here. That almost competitive drive to defend what he was doing with a level confidence, even in the wake of Armin. But all that was defused by simple touch when Lumen grasped his hand. A sharp clarity came with it—the kind of clarity the greatest Anirian minds of the Academy could never understand.

"I want to see the Dreadlords freed. That's what I'm fightin for. And Kimble wants to see me fail."

Plainly and simply stated, the whole of his turning traitor against the Republic summarized. But there came an uncharacteristic hollowness to his words that even Zael himself heard, as if he had trouble believing what he was even saying. Kress, that part about Kimble was damn true. But those first two?

Well...if he was honest, he had some cause for doubt now, didn't he?

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen stood, arms going to cross beneath her chest. She really did look like a townsfolk caught in the middle of a war with her new clothes on. Worry and the permanent stain of loss edging her eyes. Hair fell in golden ribbons around her face, long ago loosened from that no-nonsense braid.

She paused in front of Zael. Looking down at him. Jaw tightening.

"I don't think it's going to end the way you think it will."

She added quietly. "It already isn't."

Look at Armin.

How many other initiates...even Dreadlords had he killed?

"We have a choice now. We don't have to stay." Slowly, her arms uncurled and hung at her sides. One reached forward and lightly tapped his shoulder. "Maybe we should go after Kimble?" Kimble was wanted and hard to find. If Zael knew where he was...Lumen wanted nothing more than to bring that criminal to justice. Especially if he'd hurt Zael.

 

[Zael]

Zael considered all Lumen had to say, his face turned toward her but his eye adrift in thought.

When first he had set out on his mission Zael thought nothing of failure—it wasn't even a possibility. He knew that it would be hard. Of course. He envisioned it as the fight of his life. His confidence, his nature of always seeing the bright side, assured him that it could and would be done, even if he didn't know precisely how he'd get there.

Even now in the throes of doubt he thought it possible. Desirable. Gilram offered something for the Dreadlords that the Republic never would. But Kress, he felt stuck. He knew he couldn't fight for the Republic, and now had come this upstart notion that he couldn't fight against it either.

A flash of Elbion came to mind then, of just how much better he had felt while there, and he knew what he had to do—at least for a while.

Finally his eye came up to look at Lumen. "I'd love to kill 'im. But I gotta get out of Vel Anir. Take some time away. Think on things."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen followed that drift of his eyes. Her heart squeezing inside her chest for...something. Something she couldn't name. At least, not in the moment. Then her shoulders sagged.

Why did she feel like she'd lost?

Maybe it was because so many of her close friends were gone or lost. And even though she and Zael had never been close. They'd had too many run-ins for her not to consider him as...something. A meaningful presence in her life. There were voices outside their bedroom window.

"........I want you to search for any survivors. He doesn't want any survivors from the 10th left."

"Aye, sir."

"Let's go..."

Lumen stepped forward. "And I need to get out of the city. It sounds like we're surrounded. You up for flying?"

 

[Zael]

Sounded like some of Stenn's boys out there. Better than the alternative, what with his and Lumen's current dress. Still, didn't much matter who was out there, at least not at the end of it: there was nothing left in this town for Zael. Maybe Stenn would win, maybe he wouldn't, but he'd have to do it without Zael's help.

Now Zael stood from the bed and went to the window and carefully peered out through the hanging drapes.

"I should be able to get us up and over the walls," he said.

Thing was, they were going to be awfully exposed up in the air. That was how he ended up in the stables with Armin, having one too many close calls from 10th Homeguard sharpshooters. But they might not have much choice.

Coast looked relatively clear outside, from what Zael could see at least. He glanced to Lumen.

"Anythin happens in the air...just hold on."

A rough landing was better than a freefall.

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lu edged closer to Zael and looked over his shoulder. There was the bang of the door in the front room as Stenn's men crashed it open. Without hesitating, Lu stepped in front of Zael and wrapped her arms around his neck. Pressing in close.

A small wince crossing her face at the stretch hanging onto Zael did to her injured shoulder. She concentrated more magic there. More of that frigid cold to keep the wound from opening again. Even though the rest of her body was plenty warm. Overly so.

"Okay," a voice against his ear. Her warm breath a tickle. "I'm ready."

Her grip strong around him.

 

[Zael]

He'd a moment, there, when Lu wrapped her arms around his neck, that he thought about the Ball in Elbion. The dance. Doin' a little somethin' like this.

Little time for a stroll down memory lane though. The door of the home was breached, and men entered, full of aggression.

"Here we go," Zael said quietly to Lumen, planting a boot on the window sill and making ready. He wrapped an arm around Lumen's waist.

One of Stenn's men, the lead man coming down the hall, caught sight of and recognized Zael. "Hey! Zael! W—"

Flame engulfed the whole of the bedroom as fire leapt from Zael's back. The drapes of the window trailed at his feet and dissolved into cinders as he flew from the house. Jets of fire burst from his feet, stabilizing him and directing him up, up, and up. Then another big burst from his back spun him and Lu around and they soared westward in a rising arc, the rooftops of Vel Kastula falling away beneath them. Their arc came now in its downward turn, and then more controlled bursts from Zael's feet and back sent them soaring once more. Less was it like flying, as Zael had described it, and more like leaping through the air.

Then came the arrows. Just as they had earlier in the fight. They whistled maliciously up from the battle below. One pinged off of the metal of Zael's armored boot. The walls of Vel Kastula drew nearer. Nearer still. Fiery skyborne leaps brought them closer and closer. The arrows seemed to pick up in intensity, as though a clear order had now been given from an officer below. Zael felt one brush his hair and slice the back of his neck. But he was okay.

Then an arrow struck him in his unarmored side. It threw him off, right as jets of flame fired again from his feet, and he and Lumen went into a wild spiral, the whole of Arethil turning upside-down, and the sky traded places with the ground and righted and traded again, and Zael struggled to keep hold of Lumen and to get control of their flight, and he barely noticed that his head only just scraped past the edge of the Kastulan walls, and then the ground swung around to its rightful place and it came rushing up fast.

Zael at the last moment fired one last small jet of flame that turned his body to absorb much of the impact and cushion Lumen's landing. He hit the ground hard, enough to knock the wind out of him.

His right arm was twisted. Broken.

But they were outside the walls.

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Instinct begged her to close her eyes as they left that townhouse and shot up and up into the heavens. The fire from Zael's back didn't burn or hurt her. No temperature extremes ever did. A gasp caught in her throat as they dropped then rose again. As the arrows came. There was no space between herself and Zael. She pressed against his front, face nearly buried into the crook of his neck, blonde hair streaming wildly around them.

Her grip against him, lethal.

Death by fall from great heights was not on her list of a way to go.

The arrows surprised her. She tried to look to see if they were Stenn's men or her own. She assumed the latter.

"Shi-," it was the closest she'd ever come to swearing in public as they spiraled down. She nearly lost her grip on Zael. Twice.

Teeth clenched. This time she did close her eyes. She curled around Zael as if she, too, could protect him. Be the one to protect him as they made impact with the ground. But he took the brunt of it. There was a bounce on dirt then a snag on grass. Limbs tangled. She felt that wound in her shoulder re-open as she lost her grip on the magic. Knees scraped and then everything was still.

There was a warm body beneath her.

And as her heart quieted in her own chest she could feel an echo still in his.

Thank the stars.

Eyes snapped open and she hovered over his prone form. Fingertips, light as a feather traced the outline of his cheek. "Zael, can you hear me?" Tawny eyes began taking an inventory of the nicks, scratches, and wounds on him. She saw that arrow shaft.

And his arm.

She swallowed.

Didn't look good. Then a glance around. There was a bubbling stream nearby. They were at the edge of a field. The road they'd bounced on just a few yards away, and beyond that was the wall. Looked like a small patch of woods toward the stream.

"Can you sit up?" She asked and realized she was still straddling him. "Oops, sorry," she eased off him and offered him a hand as she braced her other on the ground.

 

[Zael]

There came a keen ringing in Zael's ears right after the impact. Kress, he had to have smacked his head harder than he would've liked. But even through the ringing he heard Lumen's question on that very topic.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh, fuck," Zael groaned. "This is like that time Edric broke my damn arm, son of a..." The old Proctors got a kick out of using Edric as a truncheon to beat other Initiates. Kimble was no exception, and he had once set Edric on Zael for just that purpose. Zael knew it wasn't anything personal from his now fellow Rogue, but damn that didn't help smooth out the aches and pains when it was all done.

Hurt then, and it hurt now. But at least he and Lumen made it.

Can you sit up?

Zael opened his eye then. He was about to say Tryin, but then he saw why he was having a hard time.

Oops, sorry.

"Wasn't my best landin, but it was a landin," Zael said, taking Lumen's hand with his unbroken arm, grimacing all the while from his head, his arm, the arrow in his side, all those protests coming together in an agonizing chorus as he came to sit up. Once done he let out a big breath, as one exhausted.

"We need to get out of sight of the walls."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

"Yeah. We need to find a medic, healer." Lu shook her head. "Or even just a kit. Zael," she frowned at that arrow protruding. Wincing at his arm. She knew what that felt like. That one time Sable tried to take anti-magic cuffs off her it resulted in that very thing.

"If you need to lean any weight on me?" She'd fall into step beside him. Offer her shoulder and snake an arm gently around his waist.

"I could probably numb the pain a bit? With some super cold...if you want?" A glance behind them at the wall as she trudged with Zael through the field and toward those woods. Maybe they'd find a smaller road. Or a cottage. Best case scenario, an abandoned hunting cabin.

Or an Inn.

"Thanks," she said quietly. "for taking the brunt of the fall."

That was usually her job.

 

[Zael]

Medic. Healer. Discount apothecary. Any would be nice, but Zael had something of a bad feeling about it, like he'd used up what luck he had in getting him and Lumen out of Vel Kastula relatively intact. Well, makin' do was something he'd plenty experience of, so there was that.

"Yeah, I'm gonna be leanin," Zael said, and as prophesized, he did lean on her, favoring the leg beneath the side with arrow stuck in it. Good news: the arrow didn't seem to be embedded very deep. So that'd be easy to pull, once they found a spot away from the Kastulan walls to take a breather.

With some super cold...

"Oh, Kress, no, no, no, not...not super cold, at least." Ever the drawback inherent in his magic, his innate weakness to the cold; something Kimble had ruthlessly exploited. "A little cold oughtta do it."

They walked.

Slowly. Or slower than Zael would have liked, if their injuries weren't slowing them down. But fast enough to make decent progress, considering. Neither forces from the 10th nor from Stenn came after them (best not to bank too heavily on that though), and the battle within the city for all Zael could tell from the shrinking commotion was still raging. Seemed they were all too busy to worry about a potential enemy Dreadlord, who probably was dead, they'd likely reckon, from that gigantic fall.

Thanks...for taking the brunt of the fall.

Zael smiled, small but significant. After being regarded as a son of a bitch for so long, both by people he didn't know and people he did, that little appreciative gesture from Lumen felt pretty damn good.

"I got us into that fine mess," he said, "least I could do was get us out. Bumps included."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

A curious sideways look at him. At his reaction to her suggestion of cold. He was a fire man; it made sense. "Don't worry," her thumb brushed along his side, where she supported him. "I hear you. Just a little cold, then." Her magic shifted to that cold. More like a soothing cool as it worked precisely around that arrow wound. Just surface level for now.

A cooling balm.

It had taken her years to learn precision like this. Shifting larger spaces to be cool or hot were always easier and got the most attention from the proctors and other dreadlords. A frozen city was something spectacular. But it was smaller gestures like this - the fine precision of a surgeon, that Lumen knew as harder and more spectacular in her mind.

They made short work of that field and she felt herself relax a fraction as they entered the first grouping of trees. Lumen spotted an area where a large root grew above the ground and created a natural sitting place covered with some damp moss.

"Here. Should we try to get this arrow out there?" Glancing around, she saw smoke curling into the sky further into the woods. Might be the direction they could go to get further help.

 

[Zael]

Zael grimaced but held in any protests—any gasps or groans. Owing to Lumen's practiced control, what pain there was came from the shock and suddenness of the cold, lasting but a moment on his skin. And then the sharpness of the cold became that very cooling balm, and even the pain of his injuries numbed and departed.

Now they had put Vel Kastula far behind them, and they would struggle to see its distant walls and what spires lay within the city bounds. Even the sound of battle had lessened to nothing some many steps back.

And there they came to one of the large trees, a Kastulan Arbor, that was found about the country of Vel Kastula and lent to the town both fame and its namesake. The Arbor stood like a towering big brother among all the other trees in the copse, protective and watchful. And the Arbor's roots, thick and massive and mossy, curved and twisted even above ground, and here made for Zael and Lumen a nook in which they could hide.

"Yeah," said Zael, more than ready to get the damn arrow out.

"Heard some rural boys say this on a mission of mine once: 'one good deed deserves another.'"

Funny how it came right back around, and now Lumen was the one pulling an arrow out of him.

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen shook her head, a sad smile on her face. "I'd rather neither of us get hurt from here on out." Kneeling down next to him, she took hold of that arrow shaft and began to gently work the tip out. Thankfully, it wasn't lodged deep. And with her magic, he wouldn't be healing too much of the biting stink it was causing to his flesh.

"Y'know. I wish we'd known each other more at the Academy. Before..." tawny-eyes met his own. "well, all this other stuff. I think we would've gotten along."

While Lu was known for getting along with everyone and having a likeable and easy-going countenance, there was something to be said about who she would trust. And perhaps if things had been different. Just perhaps, Zael would've been the top ones she'd trusted. She certainly trusted him enough since seeing him in the barn when he could've killed her at any time.

And back in Zettel.

A small twist and pull of her wrist. "It's out. Still need me to lean on? C'mon. Looks like there smoke that way. Could be a hunting cabin or small town." Lumen just hoped it wasn't a band of marauders or something worse.

 

[Zael]

I'd rather neither of us get hurt from here on out.

That probably wasn't too big an ask from their allotments of luck. And at least on Zael's end, he wasn't looking to get into any more fights for a good long while. The Republic might have other designs of Lumen's time, though.

Zael pursed his lips some, but thanks to Lumen's numbing cold he hardly felt anything of the arrow being pulled, save for some tugging and pulling. Even so, Zael knew he was gonna be a walking mess, and that getting back to Elbion was gonna be a bitch and a half. But he didn't have much choice in the matter. The thought of staying until he was all healed up was more intolerable than traveling in his present sorry state.

Lumen met his eye and mused a little on how things might've been different. Zael smiled thinly, and he said, "Yeah. I think so. We got a little somethin in common: neither of us let the Academy twist us into somethin we ain't."

Zael glanced toward that smoke when Lumen made mention of it, and he thought about their allotments of luck again. Whatever it was, the smaller and quieter, the better. A cabin or campsite would be perfect, but a small town would have a lot of eyes in it. Some kind of rear detachment of the 10th would be nightmare.

"Lemme try and stand on it," Zael said, and he shifted his weight onto the leg beneath the arrow wound. He took a couple practice steps. "Yeah. I'll make it. I've hobbled around in worse shape before."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

A pensive look at Zael as he commented on the Academy and twisting. She hovered around him as he stood but stepped back as it became evident that he wouldn’t immediately topple over. She fell into step beside him, working her magic on her own wound as well as his. Even as she felt more of her stamina drain. Her head remained on a swivel even though they were well into the woods.

That curling smoke in the distance becoming not so distant.

A sad little smile crossed her tired expression. “Is there nothing I can say or do to get you to leave the rebels?”

 

[Zael]

And in the wake of Lumen's question Zael kept his silence for a long while. It was not an effort through said silence to avoid an answer, for his face bore the hallmarks of a man in deep consideration. And, indeed, he had a lot of reckoning to do. All of it, from the Bloody Graduation to Vel Kastula, from his slaying of Sieglilly to his slaying of Armin. No small thing was at stake here. The very course of his life hung in the balance.

He could faintly smell the smoke through the trees now.

Then at last he said the most honest answer he could muster: "I don't know."

And after another pause, he spoke on it some more.

"I think I'm caught between wantin two things that exclude one another, Lu."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen was quiet as she walked beside him. Quiet again after he spoke. Until they could see a cabin with a cheery glow in one of the windows. Hides were set out to tan in the yard. It was clear, whoever lived here kept the place well in order. A careful hand upon the land and their possessions.

Lu turned to Zael. "I just want you to know, Z, that you're not alone. If there's anything I can do to he-," she paused as the cabin door swung open and an older woman with silver hair stepped out, making a beeline for the small garden.

 

[Zael]

Lumen got interrupted in making her offer, but Zael got the gist of it. And damn was it good to be reminded that he had friends, especially ones on the other side of the whole Gilram or Anirian Loyalist divide. He didn't quite know how this problem of his was going to play out, but any friend he could get he was sure would be a treasure—even more so, after going Rogue had burned the bridges to many he once had.

But for the present:

The cabin before them certainly leaned into the lesser of Zael's apprehensions. And an old woman was a welcome sight to see, rather than, say, a band of scavengers or bandits poised to do some looting after the battle in Vel Kastula. She hadn't yet seen them.

"Think she's friendly?" he asked Lumen. He hoped so. The chance for a proper rest, and maybe even a little patching up of their wounds, would be a godsend.

Lumen