When the Battle's Lost and Won

[Imogen]

Ash 72

Sunsinger Safe House In Zaichaer

It had been about a week since Imogen's successful execution of the Pact of Severing, but she still woke up every morning feeling like someone had just beaten her bloody with a sack of bowling balls. It was a marked improvement, but still sufficient to force even a particularly exuberant warrior to stay abed.

The Grymalka healer who Aurin had called for her had done wonders in treating the truly profound overstepping she'd incurred during the rite, but there was no magic cure for that sort of thing. Each day, she made an effort to use just a little more aether, to reacclimate herself to the process, but it still felt like she was trying to squeeze blood from a stone. Aurin had left under his own power the first day, and Ansel--for all his complaints about age--had been out and about the day after that, but she wasn't quite recovered enough to consider more than brief walks about the Sanctuary.

Still, it could have been worse. The wounds which the void creature... the disciple, as the soul-scribe had called it, had left on her flesh had been tremendous, but translated to little more than blood loss thanks to her gallstone. It was the second time Animus had saved her from certain death. She was going to have to try to convince her superiors to start initiating novices with it.

But while the gallstone helped a lot with cuts and gashes, it seemed much less effective with bones, and so she had splints on both her left leg and left arm. Grymalka's orders, and all that.

"I really think it'll be fine." the Ork had told him, wheedling, "I won't get any better with my sword if I keep an arm strapped to my side, you know?"

"Very true." the necromancer answered, tone indifferent, "And when your radius bone cracks and sets sideways, you'll be the pioneer of a whole new and exciting style of swordsmen." That had really killed her enthusiasm.

~~~

So it was, when next Aurin did arrive, Imogen was in the middle of rehabilitative exercises.

In theory, anyway. In practice, Imogen had fallen asleep in the middle of a calisthenics session. She wore only a loose white robe of chiffon and was perched on a wooden block set out in the middle of the safe-houses' training room, displaying remarkable unconscious balance by remaining upright while audibly snoring. Kitty had attempted to join her, preferring to snooze with his mistress whenever possible, but there was only room on the block for him to shove his fuzzy black face between Imogen's feet and pretend that situation was comfortable.

(It was a curious feature- apparently all but the smallest Sunsinger safehouses set aside a significant amount of room for drills, sparring, and duels, an odd luxury for sanctuaries intended to house criminals and terrorists from the watchful eye of the Order.)

As soon as Aurin arrived, however, Kitty woke- and woke Imogen in turn, licking her leg with a rough, sandpaper tongue until the wetness and pain dragged her out of Thiovan's grasp. She spluttered as she came to, but again did not tip or topple from her perch.

[Aurin]

"Well," he said from the doorway with a grin, "the void monsters didn't beat your vigilance out of you."

If anything, trauma made one hypervigilant—not that Aurin had trauma; none, not even a little bit. Shut up.

The ginger chaos goblin walked in like he owned the place. It was a Sunsinger sanctuary, but he thought of himself as the Witch-King of Karnor already, apparently. Ansel owed him his life, Imogen probably owed him her life—sooner or later, he all the witches would owe him enough for all the particular favors he did that he could cash in and cash in big time and maybe, just maybe, finally feel secure against the Dread Mists and the more mundane winds that threatened to rip people from the world like dead leaves from a tree.

"Storlock said you needed to eat a lot to help your body rebuild, so I brought snacks." A netted satchel full of wax paper bundles followed him into the room. "Does the pussy just eat meat like a regular big cat? There's a whole big river fish in here with pussy's name on it."

The Railrunner got a round—figuratively and literally—and had already been to Kalzasi and back since their date. He had to keep the Golden Peacock Theater running; thankfully, he was able to do the bulk of the heavy lifting when he was there and delegate some quotidien garbage to his secretary. The theater hadn't defaulted on any creditor or vendor under his watch; everyone got paid, so nobody complained that he was a man about town and a man about the continent, as well.

The witches had plenty of work for him, and he was still working deals—legal and otherwise—in the Imperium, Sol'Valen, and even Solunarium.

He just handed her the snack, then looked around for a bar.

[Imogen]

"Aurin!" Imogen said, and there was a genuine happiness behind the surprise in that exclamation, "Just in time- I'm starving. I'm wasting away in here, and that cruel man won't budge an inch." It seemed that both Ansel and his protegee had a great fondness for complaining about their doctors, even when receiving life-saving care.

The Ork hopped lightly off the log in the center of the room, landing fully on her good foot before carefully bringing the other one down, keeping most of her weight to the right. She moved with surprising ease, probably the result of having to get about with wounds like this before. "For Kitty too? Now that was thoughtful. Here, let me put it down and watch what he does with it, I promise you've never seen the like-"

As soon as Aurin mentioned fish, the big cat's full attention had been on him. Imogen had never been entirely clear on how smart Kitty actually was, but he obviously knew that word; well, he was a witch's familiar, who could say? In any event, Kitty was between Aurin's legs moments later, brushing up against him like an overgrown housecat, plainly trying to get his attention. Once he handed the wax paper bag over and Imogen found the fish, he pounced on it.

Where a cat usually nibbled and tore at meat, Kitty focused instead on the fish's shadow. He dug his teeth into the floor and pulled upward viciously, tearing bits of umbral matter out of it and leaving hole in the middle of the shade the dead fish cast upon the table. Kitty smacked his lips, choking down the bit of writhing darkness with obvious pleasure.

"Damndest thing, ain't it? Convenient when splitting rations, though. Here, I got you something too-"

The Sunsinger hobbled gracefully over to the side of the training room, knocking on the wall with her good hand until the raps returned a hollow noise. She slid her palm around the wall for a moment, then popped a panel open, revealing a small compartment stuffed with little sackcloth pouches, bottles, and a very small wooden keg. This last item, she hefted with a single hand and brought back to the log in the center of the room.

"Should be glasses and a tap around somewhere, if you can spot 'em. This here's the last of the cider I brought with me from Gihah K'uvfoi'uv Fi'uv." The unfamiliar Ecitherese name flowed easily off her lips, "They make it outta mango, pineapple and grapefruit roasted in the herd-fires of the Vonaid Koid, chilled in the spirit-lake of Gihah, and they brew it to have enough alcohol to get men with a hundred fifty pounds on you drunk, so do with that what you will."

Having identified the strongest alcohol in the room for Aurin, and thereby fulfilled the most sacred duties of any host, Imogen let herself rest again, drawing up a bench from the side of the room, obviously meant for onlookers observing a duel. After a moment of quiet, she spoke up again, her tone uncharacteristically sheepish: "I do want to apologize for the whole, uh, void adventure thing. I promise you, I had no idea that was going to happen when I began the ritual, or I would have said something. All I knew was that once I started going, something suitably dangerous would show itself."

[Aurin]

"Huh," was all he managed when he actually got to watch Kitty feed.

Aurin understood from some of the other witches that due to shenanigans, the rebirth of Arcas and the fallout of that had led to the return of Shaeoth—called it—and that the old archenemy of Kalzasi's prince had leapt from mere demigod status to full Mistlord. Because of course he did. Apparently, divine emblems were the stuff of demigods rather than full members of the pantheons, and somehow that had changed the nature of Shaeoth's gift to a Rune of Nyx.

While Aurin was quite comfortable in the shadows, he wasn't sure shadow magic was his thing. These shadows were linked to the Void and that reminded him too much of the Dread Mists and those actually made his bladder threaten uncivil disobedience. His pants couldn't take it.

But Kitty seemed all right. He didn't understand how a shadow could be eaten, but even as he had come to be quite powerful with several of his tricks, he didn't understand the nature of magic well enough not to see some of it as, well, magic. There would always be parts of it far too esoteric for his dumbass understanding. He was clever and canny, not a brilliant scholar.

"Well, don't mind if I do..." He poured himself some of this exotic spirit. As it was the last of it, he was polite enough not to kill the bottle, though.

Her apologies underscored his careful tipple, so there was a pause as he considered the drink.

"Gonna have to find a supplier of this..." He waved off her apologies. "I was going to give you shit for it, but even if Ansel says you're a shitty Sunsinger," though it was also clear to Aurin at least that the man cared for her, "I know you plan as best you can and it wasn't as though you were leaving me in the dark on purpose. The best laid plans tend to go awry here and there. A little chaos always creeps in. Good on you for having us standing by, though. Ansel and his aidolon kept the voidlings in the Void, and I was able to get in and get you out.

"We were successful, though?" he asked, hazel eyes searching. It might look like they were only searching green skin for lascivious reasons, and they were, but they were also taking into account her health. He knew a little bit about how to keep a body alive, and that informed what he could semble, but he was still not all in the same neighborhood as young Storlock as a diagnostician. Shame that lad was one of the sacrificial lambs offered up to work with the Order so the rest of the covens could have a bit more autonomy.

"You're good?"

[Imogen]

"Am I good...?" the witch repeated, her voice trailing off with a thoughtful little lift. The question sounded straightforward, but it wasn't not really. In a way, she was- she'd been successful, to a greater extent than she had any right to hope for. Even as she sat there, talking, she could feel the natural respiration of aether, the admixture of soul and world suffusing her body, where for months she'd had to fight tooth and nail to keep even a trickle of it from draining away into nothingness. On the other hand...

Imogen raised her good hand and summoned her new Pact Weapon. Even in her convalescence, the act of merely manifesting a Reaving was of no clinical concern; it was one of the most basic of all magics, unless you were summoning something truly esoteric, like her dagger.

The ranseur shimmered into being in the air next to the ork. It was a simple weapon with a shaft of sanded ash and a butt and triparte spear made of the golden metal she'd derived from Kegumu Rekaka's invincible feathers. The Voidrillium Aurin had provided to Imogen had been fused with the spearhead--not just inserted, either, Aurin could see fine veins of it running through the metal at right angles, like Geleran circuitry--and its ominous light seemed to chill the room.

The Ork regarded the weapon curiously, watching as it vibrated and strained minutely, feeling it try to break free of her grip. "The rite was a success. My aether is no longer pouring out of me- but the curse remains, trapped in this spear, and it aches for my extinction." No matter how it strained, it was caught in her power. That had been the point of the ritual, after all. As puissant and unknowable as the strange aether drain was, you couldn't beat Imogen when it came to Reaving. Her will was honed by years of practice, and it would find it much harder to erode her spirit than her body.

"But I'm in no immediate danger. I might be a shitty Sunsinger..." there was an echo of real pain in her admission of that, even though she knew (and agreed with!) her Master's assessment, "...but I'm good at Reaving. Now that I've got this thing where I want it, I'm going to squeeze it until I figure out who cursed me, and then I'll express my opinion to their face."

Well, maybe. If she had time for that, anyway. There was a lot to do, yet, and her illness had trapped her on Ailos for the better part of a year. She still needed to finish out her contract with Vexhur, for one thing. And then there was her promise to...

Ah. Right.

"I think you should know, though, that I didn't finish the rite alone. There was something in the shadows, in the Void. A woman made of smoke and grasping mouths, who helped me in exchange for my blood." Imogen's tone suggested that she wasn't particularly put off by the price. Witches were accustomed to that sort of thing. "I don't think she was a demigod--I've only met Arcas and Vexhur, but they had a sort of feel to them--but she definitely wasn't mortal. Said she was trapped in the Void by a Dornkirk, somehow."

[Aurin]

Aurin appreciated that Imogen answered the question honestly, even if it was disjointed. That was how he would answer if someone asked him: broken pottery shards of answers that might or might not make up the entire amphora in the end. Pieces got missing along the way, he found.

"Revenge is good," he said with a savage grin. He could help with revenge. He liked to help with revenge.

But she kept going and not only was his interest piqued; he was alarmed. A shadowy woman made of smoke and grasping mouths made him think of the Stitchmother Herself, but he did not believe Dornkirk and his Watchers could trap a great goddess. No, but something with the power of a demigod; he would have to report this to Eshar, at least. They were the unknown-by-most patron of the covens. Whether or not he sounded this out with Dornkirk himself, he wasn't certain.

"Well, your friend sounds ominous. The Railrunners and the Myshalarai are tracking a Zaichaeri Vampir, but he's not made of smoke and mouths. Not sure what a Vampir can do with their thaumaturgy, let alone what a Voidspawn could." He squinted at her, plying his sembling trick to see if he could sense any ties binding her back to this creature she had given blood to. He might also have been hoping his use of the word thaumaturgy would impress her. He was low-key always trying to impress Imogen; it was kind of stupid at this point.

Perhaps Jacq and some other talented semblers ought to have a look at her. She might piss Ansel off by not following orders, but she was still a member of the covens and they took care of their own. They also wouldn't want her infecting them with the byproducts of her curse if it could be prevented.

Better safe than sorry.

"If that's true, I wonder what she did to piss off Dornkirk. Seems the type to protect his people; his brother-in-law, the new High Sentinel... I would believe that he traps venomous spiders for ulterior motives, though."

[Imogen]

Having established that she was fine--for a degree of 'fine' which certainly didn't include the median--Imogen set to work eating with gusto, freed from the cruel constraints of the Kindred doctor who had been trying valiantly to restrain her worst instincts. If Aurin had imagined that the cider was for his sole use, he was also in for a rude awakening.

As Imogen ate, Aurin's silent Semblance revealed-

► Show Spoiler

Discerning that the Ork's aetheric signature was tied to something outside of herself was not difficult; the hard part was disentangling all of the magical connections she'd somehow forged to her own spirit. Meandering lines of power led away from her in every direction, culminating in a dizzying array of bizarre things. Her spear, of course, was connected to her by a mystical link- but so were Aurin's weapons. And the doorknob. And the ground. Lines of connection ran from the Sunsinger's soul off in every direction.

Through Sembling, Aurin could detect that Imogen's own aether was at a low ebb, much diminished, but her physical vitality had recovered quite quickly. In fact, she possessed an enormous surplus of life energy, to the point that it was quite noticeable even though he hadn't been looking for it.

"Fwahmaturgy, fhuh?" she grimaced at that, and spent a moment chewing, then swallowed before she continued on, "I knew a couple of Vampir back in the day. They could wiggle their fingers and paralyze a horse, let alone a man. Just like this-"

Imogen wiggled her fingers at Aurin, grinning, but no paralysis wracked his bones. Certified Ancient and Great Witch she might be, but none of her Runes had any such effect. Frankly, she hardly saw the point of it. She had quite enough ways to kill someone already.

Of course, Vampyr were, if legend served, immortal beings- presumably, that was the thing which drew practitioners. Endless life, infinite time, time to grow stronger and make plans, to cultivate power in all of its many forms... it was an exciting idea, she had to admit. If it weren't for the whole bloodsucking thing. That was a serious issue.

Next to Imogen, Kitty finished stripping the shadow off the fish Aurin had brought him and began eating the actual flesh- the witch was never sure how well the shadow alone filled his belly, and she wasn't really sure who she could talk to about the veterinary needs of an exotic shadow leopard. Instead, she simply ran a hand over his back, scratching idly at a clump in his fur as he tore ravenously at the fish skin.

"It's funny, I'd always heard that Dornkirk was the shy, retiring type, not like whatshisname, his brother. Then the buildings start floating, and I don't know what to believe, you know? Still, I'm not too concerned. Whatever he's planning, the Order's never come up with an effective countermeasure to nova fire." Imogen reached over and rapped her knuckles against the cursed ranseur floating at her side. The air around the weapon seemed to contract, and then it erupted into an aura of silvery flame, a pillar of the mystical fire reaching from the floor to lick at the ceiling. The witch wagged a finger at it, and the silver light contorted into a narrow nimbus around the blade. Heat radiated from the flaming spear in waves, much more intensely than Gerhard's manifestation at the theater.

Imogen gazed at the flame for a few moments, then brought her hands together in a light clap. The instant her palms met, the flaming pact weapon faded from sight, taking the light and heat with it.

"As for Angevin... truth be told, I don't know anything about him at all. I've been pretty busy with this client down south." She hooked a thumb in the general direction of where she thought south was (it wasn't), and gave Aurin a nonchalant shrug. "But I should be done with that soon. Howsabout you, Aurin? How's life?"

[Aurin]

Her aura was weird. Well, it was settled. He would show her aura to Jacq, and he would ask Storlock about the balance of her humors or whatever: full up on a certain sort of life energy, but drained of aetheric energy, which was another sort of life energy the way he understood it.

That was a problem with Aurin: a lot of his power didn't correspond with a lot of understanding or wisdom.

"The ones I've met have been creepy, sure, and I don't know the full extent of the tricks up their sleeves, but I know they can wiggle their fingers and make me hard as a bastard. Thaumaturgy, I guess. Makes all the blood rush to your crotch even when you know there's a decent chance that they would blow you all right, but with way more teeth than even a masochist might want."

Aurin put a fist to his hip.

"Stop flirting with me about nova fire and what a good reaver you are unless you're going to be an even shittier Sunsinger and give me that sweet, sweet magic trick. Life would be so much easier if I didn't have to waste time deciding which tools were right for the job and could just have access to my arsenal wherever I am." He smirked, but there ought not to be any sting in the 'shittier Sunsinger' bit. He would have wormed his way into their order if he didn't want more people thinking they could tell him what to do.

He accepted orders from Eshar as they were one of the true powers behind the Myshalarai and, truly, all the covens. He accepted orders from Valencia because she had been the first person to give enough of a fuck about him to actually teach him how to use his power and because he recognized she knew more than him and could be trusted. He just couldn't feel right about joining them and having a whole hierarchy of try-hards trying to call him Private Parts or whatever and tell him what to do.

Ansel Gerhard knew firsthand how hard he would fight to protect his fellow witches. He could probably worm his way in. He just needed to be given the freedom to be the loose cannon he was, but he did show up for the covens when they needed him. He had shown up for Imogen, for Carina, for Ansel himself, and several others.

Being a 'bad man' was just another one of his guises. It fit better than most, perhaps, but he was not a monster. Even if he was occasionally an assassin.

"Oh, you know, Railrunners jaunt all over the fucking place. Trying to figure out how to turn a profit on my ability to go to both Sol'Valen and Solunarium at the moment. Their little cold war is mostly a formality anymore, I think, except among the zealots. Still running the theater in Kalzasi, turning it into a Railrunner safehouse like the Pfenning so it can still be a terminus on the underground railroad should Zaichaeri witches ever need to get the fuck out on short notice. It mostly runs itself now, though. So I get around. You know, living the life."

[Imogen]

"Sol'Valen, huh?" Imogen said, eyebrows raising, "Lucky boy- I've always wanted to see what their swordplay looks like after six hundred thousand years or however long the fuck the Hytori have been faffing about. And Solumarium... that's the name of the desert kingdom, right? I always heard that place sucks, but nobody ever actually explained why very clearly."

Her entire expertise on the matter were people in Drathera shit-talking the kingdom and the one unfortunate time that she and Norani had nearly been caught in the Expanse after the whole to-do with the fire elemental. Thankfully they'd managed to escape before the desert-dwellers' knights had arrived on the scene, or she'd have been forced to slaughter them. Imogen never really liked killing people, whatever the circumstances.

Sol'Valen, of course, was the subject of an entire canon of myth and legend which she'd heard since she was a child- but as neither Zaichaeri nor her own ex-Ecithian storytellers had any real expertise, she doubted many of the stories held much real weight. Still, when you lived for centuries, you had to have a couple of tricks everyone else had forgotten, right? The Sol'Valen king, the one they called the Phoenix King, she bet he would be a spectacle on the battlefield, assuming he wasn't actually so old and decrepit that he couldn't lift a sword.

"Sad to say, but I ain't giving up that quirk without the Marshal's say-so. Anyway, I don't know if you would care for it-" Imogen leaned in, conspiratorially, "Don't tell nobody, but I learned a year or so ago that your ex-prince Novalys can sense whenever anyone uses it. Maybe even more than just knowing. Just goes to show, you can't rely too much on divine toys, eh? Never know when the gods might decide you're done playing around."

This was certainly information she shouldn't be giving up, but Aurin had saved her life, after all. Plus, if anyone was going to try to use Arcas against the Sunsingers, she expected his ability to detect the use of dawnfire was a relatively minor concern.

No, the thought had been troubling her for other reasons. When she had been a child, she'd dreamed of going to Drathera, taking up arms against the God of Truth and being granted Raxen's mark. In the past three years she'd had several chances to see Arbiters in action, and she could confirm that their divine gift was fearsome. But more and more, she'd come to wonder what the faithful who accepted a demigod's mark gave up in exchange for that power. Maybe not much, but it certainly didn't seem to be nothing.

Well, those were concerns for another day.

"Well, once that doctor-" the Ork somehow made the word sound like a slur, "-clears me to travel, I'm gonna leave this safe-house, because Ansel got me the title to one of the coven's old safehouses, a manor to the north called 'Sharp's Edge'. I reckon I'll be ready to travel again in a season or two, but the place has got pretty extensive grounds, offices, barracks for a few people, what have you. You let me know if you ever need a place like that just outside the city, no questions asked. Sadly it's a Zaichaeri manor, so I'm afraid it lacks a boudoir or anything of the sort."

Imogen patted Aurin lightly on the hand, as if to console him. Her flesh was oddly cool for her size and color, but then again Orks were distant cousins of the dragons. Maybe they were cold blooded, or at least lukewarm-blooded? Her hand was also remarkably hard and calloused, a fairly usual side-effect for those who spent their lives swinging swords around.

"I been thinking about the Captain's words, about how the order's running low on recruits. Maybe I'll try my hand at teaching, y'know? They say it's a good way to learn stuff."

[Aurin]

Noting her interest, he figured he could fill her in on Solunarium and Sol'Valen if he stayed around long enough to shoot that particular shit. In the meantime, she kept talking and was perhaps tossing some pearls before swine so he plucked those right up.

"Huh." He considered. "I've got my share of tricks, but Valencia's the only one who ever sat down to teach me so I suppose I understand traveling better than any other magic... Trying to learn more, though, you know, even if it's just context for being a witch. A warlock? Anyway. I heard Reaving disappeared for a long time. Thought it was before Arcas was... begat? Begot? Anyway, but he brought it back for his Dawnmartyrs. Did he tie the whole Rune to himself or just... the Sunrunner style?

"Anyway, believe it or not, but there's a possibility he can already tell when I'm warding things. He gave me that particular trick in order to protect something bad, but had to learn it on the fly, really. Thankfully, I could semble what he was doing when he warded and I've observed a lot of people much better than me and learned that way. Oh, and... even though a Senue is Shokaze, they're still calling him Shinsei even though I thought he was going to focus on being Daizoku of his house. Perhaps once the new Shokaze pops out a few heirs they will be more likely to inherit, but I don't really understand the intricacies of the legal Avialae dominance of what was once an Orkhan settlement."

She offered him information; he offered her information. He didn't see why they couldn't do so over sex, but he was playing the long game.

"Well, I can take you to Sharp's Edge now if you want... Might have to ask someone who's been if you haven't so I can find it properly in the slipspace. I can even run to Gel'Grandal and fetch Carina for you if you want some sexual healing." He smirked; if he did so, Carina might ask him to watch or join in. She seemed more the libertine than Imogen.

"Wait, are you trying to recruit me?"

The Rune was tempting, but of course, with as many as he had, he had been warned that more might be dangerous. There was, apparently, both an inclination toward survival, where if one survived one initiation, other initiations were less likely to be fatal, but there was also a point where so many alterations of the soul began to interrupt its function.

Or so they said.