Dreadlords The Worth of Our Deeds

[Kristen Pirian]

Seeing Lumen cradle her wrist and still having the heart to be so forgiving when the pain was still so very fresh filled Kristen with the urge to embrace her right then and there. The Academy did have good people who survived through the hell of the old way; virtue found home even in the most hostile of environments. No naysaying, no bleak pessimism, so often crippling the spirits of fellow Initiate, could sway her from this truth.

Perhaps later, in a quieter setting, without their armors getting in the way, she could give her that hug.

What can we do?

"The only thing we can do," she said. "Be the light which can lead him from his darkness. If our examples are not enough, then we must keep him from slipping into inhumanity. If, or perhaps when, his rage flares..."

Kristen could only imagine what might happen the moment they caught sight of Zael.

"...we must be ready to temper it. For his sake."

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen was quiet for a long moment. Only after Kristen finished speaking did her eyes flicker away from her fellow initiate's and back to where Sable's retreating form continued to go. Her mind was thinking along the same lines as Kristen's.

What would happen if they actually found Zael?

If they ran into him?

Her gaze turned back to Kristen. Her usually bright, golden eyes a little dimmer. Perhaps due to a deeper sorrow she felt for the lost ones like Zael. For Sable's pain. Because Lumen of all people, felt like she could understand his pain. What if it had happened to her class? What if she'd lost Caeso. And Zinnia. And Ysobel?

She swallowed.

"I'll try, Kristen. Try to keep him from doing something he might regret."

But she was also wondering if she and Kristen were just going to have to let him have his moment with Zael, if they ever found him. That they'd have to work things out between themselves. If that was even possible. Would Zael try to kill Sable, too? Try to kill Kristen? Try to kill her?

"But do you know what happened to Zael? Because he wasn't always like the way he is now. Do you know what might've made him...do all this?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen spoke to Lumen, quietly, solemnly, "He spoke to me on the day before Graduation, Zael did." She kept her eyes forward, recalling the bouts they had and the casual conversations throughout. "He seemed so...happy. He was not worried in the slightest about anything. He and his friend Sieglilly even made fun of it."

She sighed. Looked off and away.

"Yet...now..."

Back to Lumen.

"I cannot be sure what happened. All I know is that Zael was in the infirmary recovering from his wounds, then he disappeared for a long time, and then...as you know all too intimately...Ganfarred." She shook her head slowly, woefully. "If he wanted to defect, why did he not do so in the Blackwood? It does not make much sense to me."

In some small way, through the frustration of just not knowing, she could understand the anger that Sable harbored.

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Infirmary.

Something sharp and quick pierced through the hazy bubble of Lumen's pain fog. Even as she clutched her busted wrist gingerly against her chest. Golden-eyes widened as she stared at Kristen.

'J.S. is Jenna Siris, the bitch of a nurse who used to work in the infirmary.'

"Wait." Her good hand reached forward and gripped Kirsten's shoulder gently and she leaned in a little closer as if they were about to share an intimate moment. "I think Jenna Siris had something to do with it all. I don't know much about her or where she is now. I guess none of us does? But I wrote Zael a letter a while ago and he wasn't the first to respond."

She'd never gotten a chance to speak to Caeso about it. Like Zael had suggested when she'd finally gotten a letter from him. Now she felt stupid.

"I got something saying Zael was indisposed and it was signed J.S."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Jenna Siris?

"The nurse? She helped me to see Zael in the infirmary. I thought..." She sighed, realizing her lack of information. Kristen couldn't know that Jenna's help had been intentional, that Jenna had been counting on Kristen inadvertantly inciting Zael against Caeso, and in so doing perhaps providing the prime opportunity for Kimble to abduct the former. She had unwittingly done exactly as Jenna had hoped, and Zael's anger played right into Jenna's designs as well.

"...I thought she had...left the Academy because she had been reassigned elsewhere..."

Kristen covered her mouth as shock dawned on her. What if that was not so?

"When we find him," she said, gathering resolve, "and we will find him...I think Zael should be made to answer all of our questions."

One way. Or another. And before...they did what they had to do.

Lumen

 

[Lumen]

A slow nod.

"Agreed. Let's catch up to Sable." She used Kristen's shoulder as leverage to help her gingerly stand. "Let's find Sable. Should we...tell him what we just talked about?"

She didn't know how Sable would react or if he would even listen. But she'd defer to the older initiate in this case. Tawny-eyes swept the area. She'd still like a splint, wrap, and sling. Hopefully they'd pass an apothecary on the way.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen considered the question. Considered it for a good while.

"Yes," she concluded. "I believe that it is best we tell him now our concerns, before, when we find Zael, the passions of the moment have a chance to overtake him."

But how could Kristen not worry? She'd been through something like this before during the Canal campaign. Alistair and Kalix were at odds with one another, and she had failed to do any good for either of them—what greater reminder than her porcelain hand? If she then had the resolve and wherewithal she had now, Raf might still be alive.

She felt horribly that Sable was standing on a similar precipice as Alistair and Kalix, that over its edge was something terrible from which he could not return. She and Lumen had to make every attempt to reach him...if, by the grace of the gods, he could be reached. If they were not already too late.

No. She would not allow herself to think that.

Instead, Kristen put on an encouraging smile for Lumen and said, "Let us go and find for you that sling and splint."

* * * * *

ZETTAL'S CRAFTSMEN ROW
THE TRAIL GONE COLD​

The Zettal guards had at a certain point lost contact with Zael, and that certain point was here in the Craftsmen Row. Beyond here, they could not direct the Dreadlord nor the Initiates, because they just didn't know. From here Zael could have gone anywhere. For all anyone knew, he might have even fled from the town.

But it was here in the Craftsmen Row that Kristen and Lumen caught up with Sable, still busily engaged with manually searching anywhere and everywhere he could, shops and alleys and storage sheds and everywhere that had a functioning door (not that a locked door might stop him).

"Sable," Kristen said, coming up to him from behind. "May we have a word with you?"

Sable Pembroke Lumen Alistair Krixus Kalix

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Frustration was mounting. Was there any wonder the guards had lost the trail here? For every nook and cranny Sable inspected there were at least a dozen more. He'd been shouted at by merchants who didn't realize who--or what--he was at least that many times now. When Kristen first approached, Sable thought for a moment it might be another one. He bristled even after recognizing the voice.

He turned to face Kristen, glaring down at her. Yes, even Kristen, lofty as she was, could be loomed over.
"...What is it?"

 

[Lumen]

Lumen had her wrist now splinted and wrapped and tucked into a sling. And though Sable's good intentions had backfired, she'd still thank him for it. Because being cut off from her magic for over the past month had felt like living without a limb. A strange absence that had been so sudden and swift only now to return did she realize how much she'd truly missed it.

And while magic didn't necessarily define who she was, it was a big part of her.

Lumen stepped next to Kristen, keeping her gaze locked with Sable's. One bulwark meeting another. Tawny-eyes holding just as much steel behind them as his did.

"It's about Zael. Are you familiar with the nurse that used to be at the Infirmary, Jenna Siris?"

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Sable's eyes shot to the towheaded girl as she spoke, then glanced down. A splint and sling. His eye twitched, then his gaze returned to meet Lumen's.

"I'm familiar with the former Nurse Ingrid, that disgusting, loyalist ideologue. We had to pry Zael off of her before he beat her to death. I know not of this 'Jenna Siris.' Is there a point to this, or are you just keen on wasting my time?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

...or are you just keen on wasting my time?

Kristen bristled slightly at this, just the stark disregard Sable showed toward anything that was not his current task, but she kept her cool.

"We think that Jenna had something to do with Zael's disappearance, and, in any case, we believe it would be good to press Zael for answers regardless."

She paused slightly, looking up to the tower of a man.

"If by chance we can subdue him, then we should take it."

Could they, though? Would Zael even allow for that? Or would he fight them to the death? And would Sable be driven into further torment if they the three of them had to attend to such grim business? Kristen bore chilling concerns over the confrontation from every angle she could consider.

Sable Pembroke Lumen

 

[Lumen]

All the upperclassmen, and even her class, were fairly split on their opinions of the revolution. Lumen stored the small gem of knowledge Sable offered about Zael away. If he'd been pro-revolution then why had he done all that he'd just done?

As Sable's eyes twitched, her eyes softened.

"We have to try," she agreed with Kristen. Obviously. A small plea to Sable.

"You knew him before, right? Before he went rogue. If there's any chance of us finding out what happened to him of reaching him...we have to try. Wouldn't you want someone to try for you?"

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Brow furrowed, Sable sighed and rubbed one of his temples. All this distraction...he had no time to focus on more than his current objective. No more energy to do so. The gnawing in his head was distracting enough.

Both of the girls were talking at him now. The glare turned into a wince, then a grimace. Sable clutched his head.

"Wouldn't you want someone to try for you?"
​

That phrase bounced around in his skull like a sling bullet, distorting slowly. Over and over it played.

"Wouldn't you want someone to s̵̲̤͈̅̈a̵̧͖͍͂͒v̴̼̘͍̀ḙ̸̙̻̋͋͑ you?"

"Wouldn't you want someone to "s̵̲̤͈̅̈a̵̧͖͍͂͒v̴̼̘͍̀ḙ̸̙̻̋͋͑ m̵̱̉͝ȇ̶̠͐̑?"

"Someone s̵̲̤͈̅̈a̵̧͖͍͂͒v̴̼̘͍̀ḙ̸̙̻̋͋͑ m̵̱̉͝ȇ̶̠͐̑"

S̵͇̣͎͝A̵̜̓̄V̶̘̿͗̿E̵̹͐̓̚ ̶̠͂M̸̡͒̐̒ͅE̵̡̼͝,̸̹̄ͅ ̴͚̘̈́͜͝S̴̟̍A̶̠͋͗̌B̶̞̚L̶̝̒̃̕E̵̮̍͑
​

"GAH, FINE, if you just STOP, just MAKE it STOP!"

Sable's right hand smashed into the side of the warehouse he stood next to while his left dug into the side of his own head. Sweat dripped from his brow, his breathing heavy. No time to waste. Already he'd begun to turn to continue his search.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Sable's response gave cause for boundless alarm. Kristen tried to keep it under wraps, and yet her brows, arching high, betrayed some significant portion of it. This wasn't helped by the fear of what she, instinctively, knew she was about to do, the fear of what could happen, this fear so well immortalized by her artificial hand.

Sable was turning to leave, to press on with his search. Kristen stepped forward, placing a hand—the one of flesh and blood—on Sable's arm. It wasn't her intent to grab him. Just touch him. Punctuate her forthcoming words with human contact.

"Sable," she said, face now laden with evident concern, "are you alright? What do you mean, 'make it stop'?"

Sable Pembroke Lumen

 

[Lumen]

Lumen sidestepped the behemoth and slid right in front of his path, planting her feet firmly apart. She braced herself with her slinged arm slightly tilted away from Sable's body in case he ran right into her. Her good shoulder pointing toward him. Despite her firm stance, her voice was gentle.

"Sable." She may not know him as well as Kristen did but the same concern was there.

"Will you just stop for a second? Look at us." Eyes flickered back to Kristen. "What's going on?"

 

[Sable Pembroke]

His eyes glassed over and the hand on the warehouse wall went weak, fingers slipping down the side until his arm swung weakly at his side. The other hand continued clawing at his face. Sable began to mutter subconsciously, answering the questions the girls posed as though he was a machine.
"My head...she won't stop...something is...like it's right on the tip of my tongue but I can't..."

Suddenly his eyes snapped back to focus, but on nothing. They searched, manic and frantic, looking for a lead, a trail, for Zael himself. He had to move on, there was no time.

"NO! It's...nothing, I can't stop, I can't afford to stop!"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen returned Lumen's glance with eyes sharp and focused. A tense cord threaded throughout her taut expression kept her alarm just barely at bay. What's going on? Gods, she wished she had an answer to that question. Not only was this nothing like Sable, but Kristen had personally not seen anything of this manner before: the closest perhaps being a poor Guardsman whose nerves had been frayed by the stresses of battle at Trien.

This was something...much like madness. And while Zael was dangerous, being the enemy without, this seeming madness of Sable's was even more so, being the enemy within their own midst. Worse still, if Sable decided that he did not want their help, if he decided to simply push right through them, there was nothing Lumen or Kristen could do—not without resorting to drastic and disproportionate measures, altogether unwise.

"Sable..." Kristen said gently, her highest impulse being to not escalate things further by feeding into his aggression with aggression of her own, "...who is 'she'? You can talk to us."

Would he, though? Or would the teachings of the old Academy break through whatever barriers the Sable Kristen knew had left?

Sable Pembroke Lumen

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Sable's body seized in place. He desperately sought an answer to Kristen's question. What had he even been thinking about? Why did it hurt so much? At last he turned to the side and looked back at Kristen. His face was stoic and stern, but his eyes were red, tears rolling down from them unbidden.

"Isa...belle..."

He could barely bring himself to say it. It felt like he was in a dream. The name had no meaning to him, yet it hurt him all the same.

Then he turned away once more, trying to move on. Lumen stood in his path...

"Please, stand aside. We've got a job to do."

 

[Lumen]

Lumen did not move. Even though he said please. At least not at first.

Her good arm reached forward and very slowly, her fingertips brushed across Sable's upper arm. Just briefly. They did not stay. "I'm not going to say it'll be okay," she spoke, looking up at Sable Pembroke.

"But Kristen and I," tawny-eyes flickered back to Pirian's Chosen. "We've got your back. So," she took a breath, then held it, then slid out of his way. "If you want help trying to deal with what's going on. We're here. Okay?"

She wouldn't push him to share more or work through more. But she wanted him to know that they'd be there when he was ready.

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Lucidity and reason were fighting against madness and purpose. One of Sable's eyes was squeezed tight shut as he fought through the pain. He flinched as Lumen grazed him.
"You...shouldn't..." Sable grunted, panting. "You'll only...get hurt..."

He laid eyes on the sling the blond had her arm in. Another pulse of pain shot through his head.
"...Happens every time...I try to do good...Hurts me too, now...if I do what I'm meant to...makes the pain go away..."

He growled again as yet more spikes drove themselves through his temples, like the children of some hellborn wasp trying to burst from beneath his skin.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

TWO DAYS LATER​

Things with Sable went unresolved. And as such, it was practically a blessing that no sign of Zael nor of any Rogues had come in the two days following. Not that it made Sable slow down his search at all, taking only small breaks for such sustenance and rest as he needed, but more and more Kristen was starting to believe that Sable encountering any Rogue would ultimately be a bad thing for him. Something was deeply wrong with him, and so far as Kristen could tell this had been so ever since the horror of her erstwhile class's Graduation. She believed that Sable lacked the appropriate wherewithal right now to do his duty without causing further damage to himself.

Each night and each morning over these past couple of days, Kristen had prayed long for the departure of Zael and any other Rogues from Zettal—this for Sable's sake above all. The murder of Proctor Penworth was still the talk of the town, but this was dying down, and soon it would follow that the Zettal guard force might dismiss their presence. Truly it would be the best case if Zael had fled from town, and it was very much the smart thing for him to do, so notorious and blatant was his slaying of Penworth. She and Lumen need only wait perhaps a few more days, then they could take Sable from here and maybe by the grace of the gods get through to him—even if only in a small way—on the road back to the Academy.

Sable did not need war. Right now, he needed peace.

Today was looking as quiet and run-of-the-mill as the previous two days. Zettal's thriving produce market was the hub of activity as it always was, and, with lunch approaching as the sun neared its apex in the clear sky, Kristen, Lumen, and Sable all found themselves here.

"I'm going to get some fresh apples," Kristen said to Lumen and Sable. "The green ones."

There was a vendor's stall not too far from where they were now. All she needed to do was navigate through the busy crowd without—

Bump.

—making too much of a fool of herself. Not much sooner after she stepped off from Lumen and Sable's company did Kristen collide with some poor Zettal townsman. He was a bit shorter than her, but that wasn't very unusual; he wasn't really knocked over, barely even budged as a matter of fact when Kristen bumped into him, so that was good. She would've felt bad if she'd caused him to stumble or maybe to spill something out of his hands.

"Pardon me," Kristen said as the sea of townsfolk flowed around them. "I really did not mean—"

The man looked up to her, and from beneath his hood she saw him. Zael. Long blonde hair was obscuring his eyepatch, but she knew unmistakably that face. It was him. Right here. Standing before her. She froze in place, utterly shocked, completely caught off guard. In Zael's eye there was surprise as well, but he was masking his a lot better than she was hers. They stared at each other for what seemed an interminable time.

Then Zael, only his eye moving, glanced to his left and right, and then back up to Kristen. "We shouldn't do this here."

Around them, scores of innocent townsfolk, each minding their own business and proceeding through their day at the produce market, completely unaware.

Lumen Sable Pembroke

 

[Lumen]

While Kristen had been more spiritual in her approach concerning Sable, Lumen was more practical. She found herself sneaking in some watches outside the door of his room. Though while he was with them, she was sure to give him space. Only responding to anything he felt like he wanted to bring up or talk about. And her other time was spent doing her duties to assist them in their search for Zael and the outlaws. Dreading a run-in with him more so than none at all.

And though her broken wrist was healing, still splinted and held in a sling, it was more stabilized than it had been a few days ago.

Im going to get some fresh apples, Kristen said to Lumen and Sable. The green ones.

Lumen immediately straightened. "Will you pick up one for me?" She'd told Caeso once that green apples were her favorite food. She wondered if he even remembered. Or cared. As Kristen walked off, Lumen turned to Sable.

"You'd think they'd have to come out and get food eventually, right? Do you, um, have a favorite food?"

 

[Sable Pembroke]

Frustration burned in Sable's chest. He'd managed to keep it at a low simmer since the events two days prior, but he wasn't certain how long that might last. To come so close to having Zael within his grasp, only to let him slip through his fingers was...

"You'd think they'd have to come out and get food eventually, right? Do you, um, have a favorite food?"

Sable sighed. Kristen and Lumen were supposed to be his charge and subordinate respectively, but it felt like they were playing baby sitter to him.
"You don't have to play at niceties with me like this, you know," he replied flatly. He was less annoyed with the girl and more...defeated. After a few seconds he hunched his shoulders and his brow fell flat. "...Meatloaf. With gravy."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Strangely, Kristen came back earlier than she ought—no green apples in hand. She was walking stiffly, and her eyes were plastered wide open with taut worry.

"Lumen. Sable," she said, voice tense.

There was a man, actually, who was beside her. A man who slowly lifted his head. At last the hood of his cloak was such that his face was revealed.

Lumen Sable Pembroke

 

[Zael Castomir]

Zael could understand the fuck out of Kristen's worry. All she had to do was mention Sable's name and Zael knew the big man was gonna be pissed to see him. Now, Zael wasn't under any illusion that Kristen herself wasn't pissed, that she wouldn't sock him one or even bury that sword of hers in his gut, what with that look she gave him before the worry set in. She was at least willing to give him a small allowance of trust to take this someplace else, someplace that wasn't packed full of oblivious and innocent townsfolk; Lumen (she'd mentioned her too, Kress, this was going to be rough) might even give that allowance too. But Sable? Kristen didn't seem all that sure about Sable. Zael couldn't know why, the man was as upstanding as they came.

But Kristen's uncertainty was why she had gone pale with anxiety. Not for her own sake, no, but for all these Zettalians just going about their day in their cozy little town.

Zael looked to Lumen. To Sable. And said, "We should take this outside the walls. Where it's just us."

And for the first time in his life, Zael was hoping, maybe even praying, that this wouldn't come to a fight. But he couldn't be sure of that, and he didn't want to make a bet with all the lives around them as the wager.

Lumen Sable Pembroke