Sight Unseen [Vanessa] [Memory]

[Anton]

A • L O V I N G • F A T H E R

Ash 2, 115 Age of Steel

The scheme was wildly illegal, carrying the death penalty if they were caught, but the lords of House Michaelis did not care. Laws were for commoners. Enough wealth to make or break the fortunes of lesser families had flowed from its coffers in pursuit of this goal, this most important of tasks. They were beyond caring about the dictates of mere men, having already resolved themselves to spite the cruelties of the gods and the vagaries of fate. None could stand before a father's earnest wish and honest love for his son, not when partnered with the immense resources at his command.

General Franz Michaelis knew he would hang for this if he was lucky, and burn if he was not. That was why he had made sure to hire only the best for this insanity, this audacity, this heresy, this treason. He had set into motion events that did not only fly in the face of New Atheism, but flaunted the authority of the State itself, the old family asserting itself above and beyond the reach of the relatively new Order of Reconciliation. For he belonged to an old family, one that had known many glories, and brooked few limits to its wishes. Oh, the State claimed dominion over Zaichaer, and his House had long supported it with fire and sword, but that did not mean he felt bound to follow its orders or seek its blessing for family matters.

And the fate of his son was the most intimate of such matters there could be. Anton had had to fight for his life, and the price the boy had paid for it had been great. Robbed of sight by the same hand that had saved him, the quiet if excitable child had been confined to a miserable existence for years, dwelling in a city and with a family that had little concern for those who did not fit the mold of a mighty son of Zaichaer. His opinion was not asked when his father had set his plans into motion, for this was not his decision. It was his obligation. His duty. His curse.

Despite his youth, Anton knew enough to be aware of what would happen this night. He waited for the appointed hour in silence, sitting by himself in his bed, dressed in nothing but a shift and a plain white linen band about his sightless eyes. If all went well, then by the dawn he would be able to see, after a fashion. And he would be marked forever as that most horrid caste of humanity, a mage. This was his father's decree, and this he would see done at his word. Understanding was not required of him, only obedience. And so he obeyed, blankly staring into nothingness as the minutes slowly passed by.

The clock struck the hour, and Anton stirred. Things would begin shortly, if they had not already done so. The smugglers would go about their business, bringing a foreign mage into the city and then to the manor. And then his room. Where the mage would ink the same rune they bore upon their body upon his in turn. It would not be long now.

[Vanessa Quill]

Men loyal to Franz had been ordered to take Vanessa in without injuring her. Her uncle had retired from the smuggling trade, but had given up her name as a suitable replacement. They had approached her at the docks days ago, carrying proof enough of her crimes but with promises that they meant her no harm. There were assurances that this proof was could disappear in exchange for single risky job.

Vanessa had tried to kill them once they were alone.

It had taken six men to overpower and restrain her, and still she had left them worse for their troubles. One man had lost his pinky and ring finger down to the second knuckle when Vanessa had bitten him, and two others had bones so badly broken they may have been forced into an early retirement. She remembered little else from the fight, save for the almost rhythmic smashing of her head against the stone that had finally drawn it to a close.

She had thought that was to be the end of her story, stones slick with blood in a dark alley. But that was not her fate, nor could it ever have been. Instead she had been dragged bloody and beaten before Franz personally. She had refused to hear the ultimatum from anyone else, and he had owed her that much.

It had been an easy choice. Death awaited her down one path, and life the other. She did not envision failure, as Vanessa did not fail. There were no concerns raised about what might happen if she had gotten caught, because Vanessa would never get caught.

The next few days had been spent plotting the route, Vanessa refusing to delegate the task even as she nursed a concussion. Ever had she dreamed about 'One last job', but never like this. Never had she envisioned she would have been browbeaten into service, but after this she would be set for life

Questions were raised by her crew, and summarily shot down. She was ensuring a better life for them too, even if she kept most of them in the dark regarding who they were working for and what this job truly entailed. Only Vanessa, her boatswain, and her quartermaster knew the truth of it.

Finding the mage had been the only easy part of the expedition, as Franz had given them a location and time to be present for the pickup. Convincing the mage to come along had involved more than a bit of sword-point diplomacy, but Vanessa cared little, as the wizard was assuredly going to be paid a king's ransom for his service.

They sailed exclusively under darkness, hunkering down in no-name ports during the day and regrouping. They avoided known Zaichaeri patrols as well, flying through clouds for cover or sticking so near to the ground to be easily missed. There were many close calls as particularly inquisitive Zaichaeri gunboats broke off from their established paths, and Vanessa though to abandon the job there. But she did not. Vanessa Quill was many things, but one who fled from danger? Hardly.

Getting the mage into the city was where things had gotten ever more difficult, wrinkles added upon wrinkles. Vanessa's vessel was a nimble thing, but no good for stalking. She stood out proudly, but that meant that dock authority never missed a chance to check her manifest and cargo. Finally, she had settled on a deceptively simple plan. It was a plan used to smuggle all sorts of contraband into the city, and she hoped that would extend to mages.

The mage settled into a large shipping crate, and above him was affixed a false bottom pressed just as close to his face as Vanessa could get it. Then the rest of the crate was loaded full of supplies. Spare rope, hooks, oil and anything else that enterprising sailors might need in a pinch.

When the bells tolled, Vanessa slipped her ship into the dock and tied her down. Crate by crate, the cargo was unloaded, with the mage sequestered away in one of the last boxes. He rightfully feared for his life, but Vanessa had made clear that if he ruined this job, she would have split him stem to stern herself. Thankfully, fear did not win over greed, and the mage remained silent during the entire inspection process.

Once the guard had taken the bait and gave them leave, Vanessa broke away from the rest of her crew, grumbling something about a special delivery. She placed a crate on a box cart, and stepped onto the cargo lift, unnoticed by the oddly attentive nightguard.

Once far away from the docks, she hailed a carriage and took it to the Michaelis family estate.

After arriving, Vanessa realized how late she was by how quickly aid came rushing to assist her, and she had two men carry the crate inside while she limped her away up the stairs and into the entryway.

"Got held up," Vanessa said without further explanation for her tardiness, holding her side in an effort to sooth her cracked ribs. Her adrenaline was waning now, pain returning once she had fulfilled her end of the bargain. "Your prize is in there. False bottom. Slip the bolts out on either side and lift."

She searched the room for the boy now. She had forgotten his name, but she had demanded that she be allowed to see him. She would not save a child's life only for them have never known her, she had told Franz. There was nothing holding General Michaelis to his promises now. She knew this, and as such did keep one hand near to her cutlass just in case she was now disposable.

[Anton]

Franz himself awaited Vanessa in the foyer, on this night foregoing his military uniform for the archaic costume of a Northlander Duke. It was that title, his noble title, that justified the actions he was taking now; not his station in the City of Brass, but a pedigree that predated the current order by centuries. He was flanked by a troop of what were clearly soldiers, but like their master they did not wear the uniform of Zaichaer's defenders. The duchy's knights and feudal levies were long gone, but those in the now landless lord's personal employ still donned the slate-grey uniforms that would have rendered them invisible in their nominal homeland of Windrock.

"Captain Quill," Duke Franz said in a voice that had long come to expect obedience, looking at the woman with the same sort of an impassive expression usually reserved for examining a kill brought down by hounds. "Calm yourself. Anton is currently abed, he needs all the rest he can for what is to come. But I am a man of my word and you shall see him as soon as I am certain you are a woman of yours."

As the nobleman spoke, the men who had brought the crate inside of the building did as Vanessa had instructed, revealing the false bottom and the befuddled mage. He was not, technically, kidnapped, Franz having made careful inquiries for months in cautious correspondence with the man. But this was not the manner or fashion in which he expected to perform the requested service. "The warmest of Zaichaeri welcomes," the man grumbled as he was lifted to his feet by the workers, rubbing his sore limbs.

"I would see your runes, sir," Franz told him in the same imperious voice he had addressed Vanessa in. "I would advise that you do not make me ask twice." With a sigh, the mage moved to obey, rolling up his sleeve to reveal a twisting series of tattoos that made their way from wrist to shoulder in an unbroken series of unnatural shapes. "Leave us," the Duke ordered his guards, not waiting for his order to be followed before turning upon his heel.

"I shall take you to my son." Whatever he felt about the arrangement with the pirate captain, he made no move to betray her, and she was given the freedom to follow him and the mage she had smuggled to where the boy waited.

His room had become alive with activity as soon as Vanessa's carriage had been spotted entering the mansion's grounds, the blind child brought from his bed to the sitting room in his apartments. Gently, he was placed in an ornate armchair, accepting the indignity of being placed exactly where and exactly how the family's servants directed him. Soon enough he was alone once more, waiting again, but this time on the scale of moments instead of hours. Dressed in only white, and deathly pale from a lifetime spent in doors, he could easily be mistaken for some forlorn spirit.

The door opened, and only three sets of footsteps entered before it was shut again. Franz, the mage, and the smuggler, if all had gone according to plan. Despite himself, despite everything he had been told and trained for, his face fell when he realized that there were only three. He had hoped for his mother to be there, but he knew that was impossible. She had only accepted the use of these heathen magics due to the base barbarity of Zaichaer, which was a far cry from liking what was about to be done to her son.

"Anton, it is time. Are you ready?" Franz asked in a soft voice. He crossed the distance between the door and the chair in swift strides, kneeling before his son without making any attempt to hide his concern. There was only the mage, who he would hopefully never see again, and the pirate, who he had enough evidence on to see hanged, to witness the moment of weakness.

"Yes, father," Anton lied. There was no way to truly prepare oneself for initiation into magic, even one as relatively tame as Semblance, and they both knew that. But they both also knew that the lie made Franz feel better about what he was forcing his son to do. It let him pretend that he was not forcing it at all. These were lies, but this lie was Anton's duty as much as accepting the rune was.

"But father, are you not going to introduce me?" Anton asked, turning his head towards where the mage and the smuggler stood.

"No, Anton. Not to him, you know that," Franz whispered back, squeezing his son's hand as he shook his head. The mage was a means to an end, and once his job was done and he was away from Zaichaer, he would never again cross paths with Anton. He paused for a moment before he continued, the Duke wondering at the last if he was truly going to indulge the mad woman's request. "But this is Captain Quill. She is why our friend could join us here today."

"I hope you have had a good night, Captain. I am very sorry for any trouble you may have had upon my account," Anton said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I trust that this endeavor will be worth your while?" he added, voice rising in a question. His blindfolded face cocked its head in her general direction, and he addressed her with a gentle smile that seemed ignorant of what was about to happen to him. "I am afraid we will not have time for a lengthy conversation, but when father told me of your terms, well. I was intrigued. I insisted that I at least speak with you."

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa kept her hand at her side for a few more seconds even after the order for calm. Like a caged animal, Vanessa's first and only instinct was to respond with violence. The moment stretched on for hours in her mind, trying to decide what she should do.

Every part of her wanted to fight, even now. Even as she stood here having done the job, she wanted to lunge at Franz. While he may have looked at her flatly, Vanessa's eyes stormed with a collared fury. her lips twitched, wanting to scowl but unable to commit. "I brought him." was all she asked, nodding towards the box. "Wouldn't be here if I didn't."

Once the mage was freed from his transport, Vanessa did actually remove her sword belt. She left her sword propped up against the wall, disarming herself in a show of good faith. Then she was walking behind the mage and the patriarch, lingering a few steps back due to both her injuries as a general desire to not be so near to them that either one could have stabbed her. If this was meant to be a trap, then Vanessa did not want to make it so easy for them.

Along the way, Vanessa wiped the blood from her her face and hands, using the lining of her jacket as kerchief. Then she stepped through the doorway and into the sitting room. It was all she could do not to gasp.

Anton looked half-dead to her, the boy delicate as gossamer and posed like a doll. He was pallid skin pulled over bone, little else. She could not even place his age, not with any degree of certainty. His anemic appearance paired with his blindfold together made a knot form in Vanessa's stomach, the same sort of feeling she got examining wounds after a grisly battle. The feeling that before her was a dead man walking. A child living on borrowed time, with but one chance to refill his hourglass.

At once, Vanessa understood why Franz had been so desperate. While she knew little of magic, and even less of Semblance, she knew at once that this must have been the boy's only chance. How could it have been anything else? How naïve she was to think it was all so simple, that the boy's life was of utmost import and not what the boy should have been.

Vanessa straightened when Anton himself asked for an introduction, bringing her shoulders just a bit straighter even as she stood in the shadows of the room. "A damn hard job your father put me to." Vanessa said, the sentence starting out harsh and losing its edge midway through. "But yes. He says he's got more work for me. Says I may see you again soon." These were not lies, not exactly. She was to be 'hired' at a comfortable wage, but her job existed largely on paper. She would keep up appearances enough to not draw attention, but both parties had agreed that this was patently a bribe.

"You insisted on meeting me?" Vanessa said, taken aback. She took a step towards Anton now, briefly looking at his father before deciding not to wait for his leave to approach.

She crossed the room with heavy, thudding strides, and dropped herself onto her haunches once she was in front of him. "Aren't many folk that want to cross my path." She said, taking her measure of him. "You're brave, but then you've got to be, aye?" She looked back towards the mage, then to Anton once more. She had thought long about what she wanted to say to the boy, but each idea splintered the moment that she had seen him. Lording the job over him at once felt so small of her, and she instead opted for something a tad more neutral.

"Won't keep you long." Vanessa confirmed. "Got some things that need tending to myself, but I couldn't put in all that work just to miss the payoff." Then she placed her hands on her knees and rose back up to her full height. She pat his shoulder then, but did it so lightly for fear that he might break under the tiniest strain. "Just... had to make sure it was worth it, you understand." Then she stepped away from him, though not wholly back into the darkness.

She had not actually asked to watch the ritual, so technically the deal was done and she could have been sent away. But she pushed her luck, thinking Franz would let this minor intrusion slide lest he make a scene in front of his son. It was a bit underhanded, but Vanessa did not care. She wanted to see her work succeed, needed to know that this job had not been for nothing.

Deep down in a part of her that Vanessa did not recognize, there was the smallest echo of the woman she might have been and that tiniest little geist needed to know something as well.

That she was capable of saving lives, and not merely taking them. For even the smallest seed of regret could one day bloom to redemption.

[Anton]

"That's very good," Anton replied at the news that Vanessa would have more work, the moribund child sounding truly happy. "My apologies again at the difficulty, I hope that your future endeavors will be less burdensome." A smile split his wan face, and though his eyes were covered by the cloth it was clear that it reached them nonetheless. "But I do not understand your surprise, Captain Quill. Believe it or not, but I do not get the opportunity to meet very many people, let alone interesting ones. And I must say, you are quite interesting."

The more he talked the quieter his voice became, his breaths growing deeper and his poise fading away as even the mere task of speech began to take its toll upon him. "One must be brave to live with death, or they will pass into her embrace before long," he recited, his tone still cheerful despite his growing exhaustion. "And I have lived with her for a very long time now," he added wryly. "Tell me, Captain. Am I worth it?"

He let that question hang in the air as he began to laboriously lift himself from his chair, his father rising with him and holding most of his weight. "Wait for me to get you," Franz said softly to the mage, ignoring Vanessa for the moment. Father and son worked their way back into Anton's bedroom, the door shutting behind the pair of them softly. Gently, Franz placed the boy face down upon his bed and lifting up his shift. A blanket was immediately placed over the boy, leaving only a thin stretch of pale skin draped over visible bones upon his back exposed to the air.

Returning to the sitting room, Franz motioned for the foreign mage to follow him inside, and for a moment considered dismissing Vanessa. The last words his son had spoke rung in his head, and a deep sigh escaped him as he locked eyes with the cutthroat. "I believe he would want you here. Come," he told her curtly, He made no effort to hide his displeasure at the situation, but he was thinking of more than his own wants at this point.

When all were inside, the door was closed once more, and this time locked. Throughout the manor an uneasy silence fell, guards and servants following bizarre and unexplained orders. Doors and windows were shut and barred, curtains were drawn, lights snuffed out, and every entrance manned by armed retainers. The approved rumor to be distributed was that the Duke had received relics from his ancestral estate, delivered by a daring sky adventurer, and did not dare risk the details being exposed. Only a precious few could be allowed to know the truth, even among those sworn to the family's service.

In this gloom the mage finally began his work, drawing forth his tools to begin to inscribe the first shapes of a Cardinal Rune upon the child's flesh. He worked slowly, uncertainly, forcing himself to draw despite his unease. Age was not the issue, nor for that matter was the boy's physical state. Many mages received their first rune at such an age after all, and Semblance very rarely created physical demands with its threshold sickness. Instead it was a question of ethics. Ordinarily, a new mage would be apprenticed to the one who gave them the new rune, ensuring that they would grow in their power under the tutelage of an expert. The reality of life in Zaichaer meant that such an arrangement was impossible for Anton, and he wondered if he was truly doing the right thing. He continued with his work despite his misgivings.

Anton remained still and unconcerned as the first marks were made upon his body, the boy well used to both pain and discomfort. This was neither, at least for the moment, the marking of the rune instead causing a tingling sensation where the mage found his mark. "He is disciplined, that is good," the mage murmured to Franz. "The sickness will test that will of yours child, you must not falter," he added in a gentler voice to the boy himself, guilt and a sense of responsibility compelling him to give what advice his own master had given him. "You will see wondrous, horrible, impossible things."

"I understand, sir," the soon to be mage replied, drawing in a soft breath to steady his speech as he did. It had begun.

[Vanessa Quill]

"Never asked for an easy life, just a back strong enough to carry me through a tough one." Vanessa replied, but even that felt a toothless boast in the face of him. Vanessa was strong, but Anton already matched her in that respect at a third her age. "But I'll never say no to an easier life, so long as you promise to let me bore you with my stories after you've recovered." She finished, trying to bring a bit of levity back to their brief conversation.

Then Anton went on, and Vanessa's confusion only grew. "S'pose I'm not used to being wanted. Not by folk like you." She blurted, unable to keep her true feelings on the matter suppressed. "Don't mind it though. Just ain't my usual arrangement."

There was little place for her here, not as she was. While she may have been tolerated and her dues paid, she would never be truly welcome. Bluebloods and Rustbloods did not mix, that she knew.

But that did not stop her from caring for the poor boy. If ever there were a poster child espousing the truth of New Atheism, Anton was it. If there were gods that would have watched impassively as this child clung so dearly to life despite it all, then those gods each deserved to be broken upon the altar of indifference. If those same gods had never raised a hand to stop Vanessa's plunder of the skies, then it was all the more true.

Only, perhaps the gods had noticed. Why else would Vanessa be standing in this room? The winds had carried her safely here, despite it all. Perhaps it was just another sign that the gods cared not for the toiling of mortals, that a dread pirate could slip the noose and live free under the banner of a noble house. Or perhaps, to those more inclined to believe the divine, it meant something far more interesting.

That the gods were not always kind, but that they did have a soft spot for plucky underdogs like Anton.

"Worth it?" Vanessa asked him, throat tight. That single sentence had brought all other thoughts to their knees. It was a cruelty beyond measure that this boy could have ever wondered it, even in jest. She could feel the cracks begin to form in her heart, but stone rushed quickly to cover them. It blotted out the most intense of the emotions, but left the blunted echoes.

"Do you know how much my airship is worth?" She answered him finally, but with a question. "Guns and all, she could fetch me fifty thousand avens if'n I could find a buyer." Finding a buyer for a ship with a forged bill of sale and bloodsoaked lower decks would not have been easy, but it illustrated the point well enough. "All that up in smoke for a single life?" She looked to him again, giving him a terribly tired, but genuine smile."I say I got a bargain."

Human life was priceless, even a cutthroat like Vanessa knew. Oh there were prices men paid for lives, ransoms, bounties, or slaveries just to name a few. But that was not, and could never be the value of a human life.

A short time later, and Vanessa was alone with her thoughts. The estate sprung to life around her, and she had half a mind to do so as well. There was no reason for her to flee now, yet still that pressure remained. The pressure to cling to her past life even as she saw it slipping through her fingers. She locked those feeling away, steeling herself to see this night through. For Captain Quill was many things, but Vanessa was no oathbreaker.

She was surprised to see Franz return, and even moreso to hear him speak. She did not think to question him, instead following silently behind and into the room. Posed as he was, Vanessa felt the pressure to look away from Anton, but she did not. She rounded slowly on the bed until she was standing across from him as he lay on the bed.

Looking at him laid over the bed, again her worries felt so comparatively small. There was still a storm of uncertainty in her core, but it was drowned out by her investment in this boy she had only just met. Would he even remember her come the morning? Perhaps this was all an act, nobles were good at those. Once she left, and once he had healed, perhaps Anton would snicker about the dolt of a captain that his father had found.

And yet that was a risk Vanessa was willing to take.

And so she stooped down again, so close now that he could smell the sourness of her clothes and the alcohol on her breath. "If you see death looming tonight, you tell her I've paid her enough and to leave you be, aye?" She laughed humorlessly. "Otherwise you'll just have to be brave, but eh, what's one more night?"

Then she stood back up, stepped back and hung her head. She offered a prayer. A simple refrain that she often heard her uncle weeping on late nights whenever she would return home with a black eye or broken fingers. She could not remember the whole thing, just a single verse, and so she mouthed it silently, in the vain hope it might attract divine attention.

'May the gods protect us, even when we're in the wrong.'

[Anton]

Anton did not reply to Vanessa's kind words in his sitting room, though his small smile turned into a true grin at the mention of stories. Franz shifted his weight slightly, the sound almost imperceptible. But not to his son. That slight hint of displeasure saw the look of joy repressed once more, the boy realizing that the gulf between himself and his savior was far too great for his father to truly approve of. He somehow doubted that the pirate would have much opportunity to tell him of her stories, as much as he wished otherwise.

Moments later and within his room, the heir could not help but smile at Vanessa's words. He was tempted to tell her that she was wrong, that it would be far more than one night. That the rest of his days would be sent with the specter of death over his shoulder, Wraedan forever ready to welcome him. For he had smelled, he had even once seen, the pyres and knew well the sword that would know hang over him. This was no release from death. But he could not bring himself to do so. He could not tell the ugly truth to one who had already done so much ugliness for him. She deserved at least this moment as recompense for her deeds.

Instead he said something else, the boy quite unaware of the truth of his words. "I cannot imagine death will pay me much heed with you at my side," he murmured, his voice quiet as the mage continued the work.

While Vanessa prayed, the man beside her did as well. Franz knelt at his son's bedside, his own lips moving in a whispered plea. "O blessed Michael, beloved of Aileor, speed now to the aid of your sons and hear our prayer. Fix your sight on your servants' plight, and our weakness do not spurn. Our days are known to He who you serve, our comings and our goings, our greetings and our partings. May He warn us of all dangers, and grant us a measure of His peace." Such faith was a crime almost as great as the commissioning of the Rune itself, but a man damned once was as sure as one damned twice.

Throughout their beseeching, the augur continued, working to turn Anton into one himself. Perhaps the gods listened, perhaps they did not, but it mattered little for what had begun could not now be stopped. The mage had begun with simple ink in imitation of his own, but as the mark neared its completion it settled into Anton's skin as a far more permanent and personal mark. Sinking into his flesh it morphed and changed, the ink bleeding away into what could only be magic. There would be no removing this, short of a miracle, and his mind was already beginning to open to things that it was never meant for.

Flashes of sights and sounds blossomed inside of Anton's mind, places he had never been and things he had never seen. They were muddled, half-formed things, much the same as his rune, the ink twisting into shape. The mage pressed the pen against the boy for the last time, and the power was imbued. At once, the hazy image snapped into shape, lines and curves following the contours of their host's fate and soul. It took the form of a serpent with the outstretched wings of an owl and it coiled itself about a spear, its head crowned with laurels, all set within the disk of the full moon.

The serpent's eyes opened with a sudden flash of light, and then Anton saw.

And screamed.

[Vanessa Quill]

There was a small fire of pride that stoked within her core as she watched the mage work. Troubled as her journey had been, Vanessa was glad for where it had ended, with a child given another chance to roll the dice. She did not consider that the life she had brought him was perhaps no better than the one he had led in her absence. Unlike Franz though, Vanessa truly did not know the full weight of what she had done. That small echo of an upstanding woman reveled in the false reality that she had done something unequivocally good. Anton was right to keep the truth from her, for she felt more alive now than she had after a dozen battles.

That bloom of pride lasted up until the exact moment Anton screamed. Then it all came crashing down around her.

She was used to screams, that did not alarm her. Not, what alarmed her was that they were coming from Anton, and were surely the fault of something the mage had done. She had never seen an initiation before, but had heard stories. Still, those stories meant nothing when she heard those desperate howls. Vanessa practically lunged forward, shoving the mage off to the side with an elbow. "You prick, what the fuck did you do?" She hissed, going for a knife in her boot.

She only stopped when she saw Anton, and her priorities shifted from vengeance to protection. She held out her arms, both of her hands hovering above him. Her fingers shook, unsure of what she should do. Every part of her wanted to gather him up in her arms, but her mind for once screamed logic at her. If Franz was not drawing steel on the mage, then this must be part of the plan. This had to be the test they had alluded to. But this was no test, this was torture, and that fire of pride extinguished once Vanessa realized she had been been an instrumental part to it.

"Anton, Anton?" She said quickly, keeping her tone level and her voice of steel intact. "It's okay." she lied, feeling the words turn to ash on her tongue. Nothing about this was 'okay', not what Anton was feeling, not that she was here, and certainly not that she was the one trying to render aid.

Finally, she decided on what to do, having done so with delirious crewmates aboard her ship. She placed her hand atop his own, blanket separating them. "Focus on what you feel." She said first, trying to give Anton an anchor. "Or on what's real." She added, a bit less helpfully. "So long as you can hear me, you're safe." If she could not dictate what he saw, then she could at least try to control what he heard.

Her bedside manner needed no small amount of work, and when she finally looked over at Franz it was with an expression that bordered on feral. "Feel free to start helping your damned son any time you please." she snapped at him. But what was he to do? In fact, what was she trying to do? She knew nothing of magic nor how to safely ease a Semblance initiation. Franz and the mage had done far more of the necessary prep work, yet it was she that had been thrown into action when Anton had begun to cry out. Whether her actions were admirable or foolish remained to be seen, but in either case Vanessa had no lack of initiative.

Glaring at the mage now, Vanessa spoke again, this time channeling every ounce of her authority to transform into the dread pirate Captain Quill. "You." She barked. "You went through this. What's happening to him? How did your master help you? Spit it out, damn you, or you'll wish you were still in that crate."

[Anton]

"I did my job," the hired mage shouted back at Vanessa, pulling back from the boy's finished rune as the magic set in and true work began. "Semblance is the magic of sensation, and no one is in control of their magic when they first receive it," he explained in a calmer voice, as if lecturing an apprentice on something that they should already know. "He is strong, I have no doubt he will make it through the sickness," he added, realizing just who he was addressing. Though Anton seemed to lack much in the way of physical strength, that did not seem to be what the kind that the mage was referring to.

"Continue speaking to him, it's critical that he have something of the real to anchor him. The greatest risk is that he loses the ability to distinguish between what is and what he sees," the mage at last explained to Vanessa, the threat finally spurring him into giving practical advice. The words seemed to finally spur Franz into action, the father having spent the entire time merely looking down at his son as he went through the agony of threshold sickness.

"I'm here, Anton. Do not forget that. You are my son, and I will never abandon you," the general said in a soft voice, kneeling down at his son's bedside. If he felt any hesitance at such emotion in front of the hired blade and hired mage, he showed none, his entire focus upon the boy. It was clear however that he was unused to providing such comfort, the man at length settling on placing a hand atop of his son's as he watched and waited.

All the while, Anton screamed. It was a long, drawn out, cry with neither variation nor pauses for breath, changing in tenor and volume only when the strain of such sound began to run his throat hoarse and his lungs began to run short of air. The rest of his body remained still as he did, as if it were entirely divorced from the travails assailing his mind. Eventually, the scream died away, replaced by the franctic sound of breathing as his eyes scanned wildly but locked onto nothing, staring at grim phantasms that only he could know.

And then he spoke.

"Long are the days of fire and blood the executioner's block is black and red the mind is chained but it is its own jailer I can see the sea and the sky and rivers of blood there is no hope yet I can taste it on the wind tinged with ash nonetheless," Anton said all in one breath, the words running into one another without concern or regard for sense or understanding.

[Vanessa Quill]

Vanessa's hand clenched tightly around the pommel of her knife, leering at the mage while he spoke. She pulled upward, and a sliver of shimmering steel reflected in the low light of the room. It was a promise of retribution, if his advice turned out to be false. Though he had no reason to lie, Vanessa was used to liars. So used to them that the line between painful truths and blatant lies was stretched so very thin. "You had better be right about this." Was all she could muster though. A painful truth though it was, it was far better than believing she had no control over the situation. She thrived off of control, was nourished by her ability to imprint her will upon the world. And now a mere boy's screams were cutting through that strength like cordwood.

God, the screams. They were unlike any she had heard before. She was used to the terrified wails of women and children when she came aboard. Those screams had a rhythm to them, they rose and fell in time with her actions. Even in their terror, Vanessa had control. She could quiet them with kindness, or stoke the horror with bloodshed. This abject, unquenchable scream was unrelenting, and Vanessa could feel her handle on the situation slipping like sand through her fingers.

"It's okay, lad. I'm not going anywhere either. Not until this is done." She practically needed to shout to be heard over his screaming. The sound rung in her ears, and she set her jaw and clenched her teeth while she merely endured. It was not easy, and Vanessa could almost feel her bones shaking under the strain.

When he spoke, Vanessa had a moment of hope. Perhaps too tired to scream, perhaps the worst was over. but no, Anton merely spoke nonsense to her. He spoke so quickly and without pause that she found herself only catching every few words. What she did understand was not comforting, but she did not know what to do. How could she help? What could she say to him to try and provide an anchor?

It took her only a moment before she knew. If she never saw Anton again, if Franz forbid her from ever entering the house, then she would not leave this room a liar. She was going to tell Anton a story.

"When I was just getting my legs under me as captain, some folk tried to cut them out from under me. It was the dead of night when they slunk out of the pier, even as everyone warned 'em that it wasn't worth it. Five gunships, loaded as you like." She neglected to mention that these were Zaichaeri military vessels. That wasn't an important aspect of the story. "But my cabin boy, he spotted 'em. Woke me up, and we got the crew to their stations, all the while those ships thought they could get the drop on us." She looked to Franz, but decided he had enough information to see her swing and rot, so what was a bit more? "I wish you could have seen it, lad. The cannon fire from our ship chased the darkness off, and you could see for miles. One by one, those gunships fell, and yet here I stand."

Vanessa was usually a much better storyteller than this. She loved to exaggerate and linger on each and every detail, but those fell by the wayside. Instead she just wanted to give Anton anything to latch onto, even a story about death.

"They've got a song about it now. Oh they don't sing it around these parts, but only because they'd like to keep their tongues. I'll teach you it sometime." A promise, small as it was. She had nothing else to offer him for the future. Nothing he did not already have, anyway,