Sight Unseen [Vanessa] [Memory]

[Anton]

Alien realities and dreamlike absurdities forced themselves into his mind's eye, Anton unable to truth from phantasm. Were these images of things that were, that are, or may yet come to pass? They were just as, if not more, likely to be the falsehoods created by a mind struggling to comprehend and interpret the impossible and unknowable sensations that the Rune caused.

He spoke what he saw because he had to, the sublime surreality rising up in his throat like bile demanding to be expelled. Neither the comforting words of his father or Vanessa slowed him as he continued in his monotone speech, slowed only by the needs of his body to breathe in air. "-the sins of fathers will be redeemed by their sons generation upon generation world without end brass will tarnish and copper will shatter while wages the war eternal 'twixt light and dark but what good is justice against the shade of righteous shadow weep weep weep I smell the ash and the blood and hear the song of a pitiless savior and all its sorrows shall blanket the land and it shall depart so skies may part and all may bathe in the light of peace ever after and from the sweat of his brow and the fruit of his labor shall he endure until the age is ended and all shall rejoice and despair-"

On and on and on Anton went, until at last his speech began to slow - though not for any mercy upon the part of the magic working through him. Visions of destruction and contentment mingled with paradise and toil without surcease, the chaotic medley surging forward without concept or care of harmony or relent - but then a new voice rose to sing in the impossible chorus. Vanessa's tale intruded upon the sights and sounds and sensations he was grappling with, the image of the story seen so clearly by the boy it was as if he witnessed it himself.

"I can see it," Anton said, the first words he had spoken to anyone in what to him felt like an eternity. "A rolling wave of flame and ash erupted from her side a tempest fit for a dragon more than any artifice of man the air choked with burning pitch and screaming men they sing openly in freer ports and beneath their cups in closed ones for never since has there been such a pirate bold and lived to tell the tale," he continued in the same listless, breathless monotone as before.

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa tried to focus on his words as he blathered, but the meaning was lost like sand through her fingers. She felt powerless. She was powerless. The sourness of that reality twisted her insides and left her equal parts enraged and disgusted. It had ever been easy for the pirate to impose her will upon the world, she needed only to use violence. Left without such tools, she could no longer move mountains, nor even soothe a blood-mad boy.

The corsair had little room for regret, and yet now it tried to claim her mind. Should she have even been here, or would Anton, like so many others before him, have been better for her absence? Looking down at him as he finally fell into a momentary silence, Vanessa cast those thoughts from her mind. She could consider them later, if at all. For now a storm stirred in her soul, a bitter determination tempered by anger. It was directionless though, her anger of no more use than cursing the stars.

Until Anton spoke.

Her eyes snapped down to him again, and for the first time she could tell he actually intended for someone to hear him. Had his torment finally ended? She opened her mouth to reply, only for him to express his momentary clairvoyance. Stunned, her jaw hung open for a few seconds, her mind sputtering. The silence stretched onward, the pirate floundering for purchase. Finally, she simply nodded. "That's right. Exactly right." She said, the words coming slowly as the shock still lingered. "We were picking over the wrecks for weeks. Our ship was so laid down with plunder she could barely fly, but we made it." She squeezed his hand. "Just like you will."

Figuring it was better that Anton speak to someone rather than be set adrift in his own mind, she spoke again. "What else do you see?" She could not pull him from his delirium, and though that pain gnawed at her, she was intent on rendering aid. At least this way, she had some understanding of what he was witnessing. "Do you see the ships, hulls cracked and smoking on the rocks? The gold and sliver glittering in the flames? Do you hear my crew cheering so loud they're drownin' out the winds? Tell me what's rattlin' around in that thought-cage of yours." Her voice was even, but still it rumbled with a lingering, restless power.

[Anton]

Anton saw, though whether it was a true vision of the past or his brain drawing a picture from Vanessa's words was quite impossible to tell. What he saw was quite different from what she described though, the boy seeing through the veneer of glory and treasure. "I see the ships," he began, as cautiously as anyone could while droning in a constant monotone, the constant stream of words slowing ever so slightly.

He did see the ships. He saw them all too well. "Gas bags rent open and masts aflame an all consuming blaze beyond what any man could endure the screams are short for there is no air with which to fill a man's lungs so greatly does the fire burn there is no respite for those left upon the mountain side no rescue no hope those who survived met a pirate's welcome when you and yours arrived any who stood in the way of the prize could not be tolerated but so great were the spoils and so impossible the victory."

On and on he went, but slowing, finally slowing as his visions were focused upon Vanessa's great and terrible conquest. His pauses for breath became more and more regular, and his eyes began to blink. Only then did it become obvious that he hadn't been before.

"He's through the worst of it," the mage who had inked the lordling's rune confirmed in a soft voice, looking between Franz and Vanessa. "Perhaps a less... morbid story to grab his attention as he goes through the last of it?"

Franz cocked a brow at the pirate he had hired, giving her a moment to consider such herself. The general wondered if she had any.

[Vanessa Quill]

Good, he was still talking. She adjusted herself backward on her haunches so she was no longer crowding him while he saw her for what she truly was. Her lips twitched when he mentioned the butchery of the survivors. She had wanted to draw his attention elsewhere, but now knew it was no use. She couldn't even remember them clearly, not anymore. She did not remember how some begged. raising their hands in feeble defense before her blade sliced through their fingers on its way to their throats. She dimly remembered a few of the mercy killings, swiftly ending the lives of those who would otherwise suffer an agonizing death from injuries sustained in the crash. But Anton did not have the luxury of time to dull the way he witnessed the massacre. Vanessa just hoped that he would forget.

She just watched him then, transfixed. Her hard eyes bored into him, and she examined him intently for any changes. That she didn't know what she ought to look for never once crossed her mind.

When the mage spoke, corsair's head didn't even turn to regard them. She grunted her agreement, and only tore her eyes away from Anton when she felt Franz's gaze boring into her. She could see the doubt on him, plain as piss. She could feel that burbling in her core, welling up to her throat. The juvenile desire to prove someone in power wrong.

"So, kid." She said, bringing her attention back to Anton. "When was a girl, not much older than you, I think, my uncle took me out on his airship when he had to make a run. Rickety little thing, not more 'n a floating cargo hold. The decks creaked so bad that I swore I was going to fall right through and get stuck with my legs danglin' thousands of feet above the ground." She didn't smile, but there was a warmth to her voice that had not been there before. "My uncle, he woke me up in the middle of the night, and dragged my sleepy ass back above deck. I'll never forget the way the sky looked. So many stars. Can't see a damn one in the city."

She remembered his memory well. The cool air against her skin, the warm guiding light of the single lantern hung near the captain's wheel. Most of all she remembered how dark the night truly was, the world an utter void around her.

"He spent hours teaching me how to fly it. I had to stand on my tiptoes so I could hold the wheel right. I started gettin' the hang of it though, and after a while, I ask my uncle why we couldn't learn during the daytime, since that has to be easier. And he tells me, while pointin' right off to the east with the biggest grin on his face, 'because then you'd miss this'."

Sunbeams smattering across the clear skies like paint across a canvas. Vibrant blues and purples streaking clouds and pouring over the landscape while a warm pale glow lagged only slightly. The evening's chill fled, and instead warmth drew her close and almost seemed to apologize for its absence. Before long, the towering shadows cleaved by mountains were the only reminder that darkness had ever laid claim to the endless stretches of nature's brilliance.

"And there it was. The most beautiful fuckin' thing I'd ever seen. The sunrise."

[Anton]

Within Anton's mind's eye, the vision shifted away, the tableau of fire and death fading away. The burnt wrecks and screams of the dying were swept away by the far gentler glow of the moon and stars, and a single lantern shining in the night. The vast dome of the sky opened up before his unreal sight, a sight that was not sight, a simulacrum more real than the real. So astonishing was the vista that he at last fell silent, the constant drone of speech ending.

The mage looked visibly relieved, giving Vanessa an encouraging nod, while Franz arched his brow at her. The officer gave the pirate an appraising look, reevaluating his sense of the woman. She could be used as more than a blunt instrument, which spoke well of her continued employment.

"I had never seen the stars before," Anton finally said, his voice no more than a whisper. "Can't see one in the city," he repeated after her, her swear conspicuous by its absence. "I never thought I would see them after..." he began before trailing off with a slight shrug, the first motion he had made beyond speech in what felt like hours. "I can see them now," he at last said, the monotone finally fading under the sense of awe pervading him.

A smile of all things broke out on the newly minted mage's face as he sat entranced, watching the memory of the young girl and her uncle go about their tasks aboard ship. "You had fun," he continued in a soft voice, a hint of jealousy slipping into his voice. This was a thing he never thought he would do, that he assumed now he would never do, and even the vicarious experience was enough to set his mind alight.

And then came the sunrise. He had seen those before, in the days when he still had sight, and he had always enjoyed when he woke with the dawn. Even now the warmth of the morning could rouse him, and with it the memories of those old days. But this was something else, the sun unfettered by the surly bonds of earth, her rays boundless as they stretched out over the open sky.

"Oh."

[Vanessa Quill]

Seeing his demeanor change did her good. He was already looking and sounding better. She sat back on the floor and brought her knees towards her chest. She stared into his eyes then, holding his gaze until discomfort forced her to blink. "Maybe when you're better your old man can arrange a trip for you. I hear the mountain air's good for this sort of thing." She gestured vaguely to whatever 'sort of thing' Anton had. Still, she hoped against hope that when this was over, he would not need it. This was meant to fix him, wasn't it? To make him well again?

Her face scrunched up when he mentioned fun in a way that made her think the concept was alien to him. " 'Course I had fun." she said, giving him a look. "I flew her in big circles, never goin' nowhere. Didn't matter to me. I was happier then than I'd ever been in my life." It was an odd confession that she found herself making. Usually concerned with appearing fearsome, the pirate seldom had reason to dredge up the happier moments of her youth.

"There was something else that day too." She said after giving Anton ample time to gorge on the sunrise. "While me n' my uncle chewed on hardtack and salt pork, I saw somethin' I'd never seen before or since. A huge bird, bigger than I was. Hell, maybe still bigger n' me now. Dark as pitch, with tailfeathers so long I wondered how they could fly."

And there it was. A beautiful creature, darker than black. Its coat of feathers looked as though it was cut from the cloth of the night, a void of pigment as it beat powerful wings against the colorful sky. A train of tailfeathers swept out behind it like a fan, making the beast appear even larger than it was. It flew beside the ship, silent as the night.

"He hopped on the rail, and just sat there, proud as you like. Didn't even preen himself or look like he was resting. It was like..." She felt foolish -- was foolish, but she pressed on regardless. "It was like he just wanted to see me."

And there the bird sat on the railing, crowned by the sun as she rose behind it. A silent, still arbiter of the skies taking measure of one it knew could not be kept from them. And across from him stood Vanessa, slack-jawed with crumbs of hardtack still stuck to her lips.

"And then, after a while. It just... flew away. Swooped down so low I couldn't even see it anymore." Vanessa reached into her inside coat pocket. "But he left me somethin'. A good luck charm, least I hope so." She laughed dryly as she withdrew the item from her pocket.

A single pristine feather. As dark as she claimed. Even in the low light of the room it seemed a stark contrast. She looked down at it, turning it over in her hand contemplatively. "I think its done me enough good, and I figure you need all the help you can get. Here." She reached out and carefully set the feather down next to his hand.

[Anton]

Review

Anton

Lore: 13
Points: 10, may not be used for Magic
Injuries/Ailments: None
Loot: None

Vanessa

Lore: 13
Points: 10, may not be used for Magic
Injuries/Ailments: None
Loot: None

Notes: I thought it was okay