Author’s Note: Fantasy piece and college assignment where I got silly with it. Wanted to try some silly perspective-y timeywimey unreality stuff.
“Gods,” the Voice said, “of all days, ‘course it’d be today, wouldn’t it?” It was behind her today, wrapping phantom limbs around her torso tight.
“Been a while,” Evangiline said.
“I know. Been busy.”
“Then why haunt me still?”
“You know well as I we’re not riddin’ ourselves of each other anytime soon.”
“Even after-”
“Evy,” the Voice said, a defeated sigh it’d been unable to suppress escaping phantom lips. “We haven’t been ones able to live those lies in a long time. I don’t give a damn about whatever excuses you’re trying to draw up about why or why not I ought stay away.”
“But-”
“Evangiline,” it said, “breathe, darling. You made it to tomorrow. That was always the promise. I sure as shit don’t give a damn about whichever miserable wretch fell upon your blade — you’re alive.”
Breathing? Really? That was the aberration’s world-shattering advice for the day? In, the dry air burning against her lungs and skin. Hold, gods, she was listening anyway, a heartbeat stuttering, staggering, pausing; out, the build up and release, the adrenaline and panic, the– In, notice, nothing; draw it all down. Hold, pull the breath up and with it all ills, but not yet– out.
/// IV:X ///
Evangiline’s breath was hot against her helmet, trapped in and close by its steel. The humidity didn’t do much to help, though her ward had strapped cuirass and scrap tight enough across gambeson today it’d not come loose and clatter. Her ward, and a dozen other things if she dwelt on it, was only a few steps behind her, silent as the damned Void. Ahead, the northernmost Auteran post was finally audible with distant sounds of industry and orders. The hilt of her sword felt heavy, even at her hip; the rhythm of her heart slowly building into that dreadful hymn of horror laced with anticipation.
\\\ IV:VIII \\\
“Why’d you do it?” the Voice asked.
“Hmm?”
“Let me turn you into a killer.”
“You didn’t turn me into a damn killer, Aura. I chose, the moment that first thug swung on you, I chose. You don’t get to take that away from me.”
The Voice hummed something pleased, that godsforsaken melodic hum that she hated–
That she missed enough for her mind to torment herself with it. Gods. And she was talking to it. Not that she particularly cared anymore — she was far too tired to even try such a thing. It was as close as she’d been in years and so she’d savor it, this time.
/// ∅:II ///
You’re nearing me, aren’t you? I can feel it in my blood, in my bones, in my breath. The franticity of it all finally calming, slow as it may be, week to week, month to month — the slow, winding death of war drums. Soon, my love, you will see the labors of my work; the beginning of our new work: that which hath surely occupied your mind as it has mine own, an end to that which haunts and chases. I cannot wait to learn what you have and to teach that which I’ve; soon Ilistia will be made anew, new faces and names in tow and none to behest of us. Hence I make three us: the machinist — a sister esotericist of yours — the alchemist — better with a spear than even I — and the huntress — sunsister o’ mine; and name them thus: three of threes, two of threes, and one of threes.
\\\ ∅:IV \\\
“How much longer do I have to–”
“Evangiline Taris-Rose,” the Voice said. “I swear on the Swordbearer Herself I will raze hell itself and drag you lifeward just to gut you myself if you die first.”
Gods, it was eerie how lifelike it was.
“You’n I didn’t spend every waking and sleeping moment of seven years of war and espionage in lockstep just to not know the other.”
Also eerie, that her mind could read itself. “Why today, after all these months?”
“Solstice. Always made you homesick when we missed it. I’d wager it likely got you thinking, got you missing.”
Evangiline shrugged, eventually turning to a reluctant shake of the head.
“Back to that trick? Damming your mind off well enough you can’t miss someone or feel like shit? Took me a good year to pry your brain open, don’t go an’ tell me you’ve gone and welded it shut again.”
“I do what I have to,” Evangiline snapped, a spike of wretched anger making it harsher than she’d meant. “Even so, look where we are, I’m talking to a ghost and waiting for the Swordbearer to whisk me off to the After.”
“Talking to someone who’s rather alive for a ghost.”
“Prove it.”
“Send me something, anything, telling me where you are. Pen the damn Herald if you must.”
“I don’t trust anyone here well enough. I–” Evangiline paused. “I can’t risk them finding me and you walking into a hiding pair of manacles.”
The Voice sighed. “I know, I know.” Silence washed through Evangiline’s mind. Long enough to feel the breeze atop the derelict warehouse she’d been squatting in, long enough to hear the distant shouts of the final minutes of dockside work after the suns had dipped below the sea.
/// IV:X ///
The clearing betwixt the trees and the Auteran palisades was only a few meters wide at its thickest and at its shortest hardly a step of sunlight between its shadow and the treeline. Evangiline let her last breath go, slow and relaxed before hell broke. She shook her gauntlets, both secure, checked her bags and sheaths, all tight and accessible, before letting herself draw her sword — a gift from her ward yet to see its first drop of blood.
\\\ IV:X \\\
Long enough Evangiline had thought the Voice had left, before it spoke again. “Do you spite yourself for making me a killer? Because you did. I didn’t choose this. You know that, right?”
“A killer? Gods no. I thank the Moonmother every day that I did. Means you’re something akin to safe, even when without me.” She paused. “And I do know. I taught you the sword as mother taught me, as mother taught us both.”
“Not the swordplay, you idiot. The moment you chose to kill someone to protect me, the same choice was robbed from me. No questions, no doubt, I would do the same.”
Evangiline sighed. “Gods below, what a pair of lovestruck idiots we were.”
“We were teenagers.”
“We went to war proper a month later, Ari.”
“Doesn’t mean we weren’t young. Gods know the only reason we weren’t more careless was because of the other.”
Evangiline gave a noncommittal, vaguely affirmative grunt. “And would you question or doubt killing to find me again?”
“Gods Evy, the hell kind of question is that? We spent the better part of a decade killing for each other and just as long being each other’s own mind.” The Voice paused. Softer, it continued. “I would damn the whole world to find you.”
“Then fucking-” Evangiline paused. “Damn it faster, would you? I’m losing it, darling; far more than just a conversation with myself.”
/// II:XII ///
You were there again, in the shadows of my vision; in the dusty corners and the dark recesses. You’re real enough my heart spikes enough to punch me in the gut and do a double take, which hurts just as much as ever. Just a curtain in the breeze; a trick of the light, an odd speck of dust doing a lonely dance in the sunlight.
Gods almighty above damn it all to hell. I need you, y’know? And you just up and go goddamned missing and–
~~~
~~~ ~~~
~~~
The sting of salt and seawater spraying across Aura’s arm felt like someone’d torn the sutures from their place and lit fire to the blood underneath. Even so, it felt divine to be stung by air that felt almost like home instead of the harsh, crisp air of the north, like the Light herself had finally remembered to shine, warm, and burn the world all at once. The thick gauge of copper wire that held her forearm shut had finally begun to green after a week at sea, once the salt and water had seeped back into her soul.
/// V:II ///
The world went quiet as Aura took a deep, slow breath. In, the birds and the leaves, the distant sounds of industry and life all fading into the stillness. Hold, her heart beating soft against her ribs and the steady breath of Evangiline crouched not a step ahead. Out, and the world caught fire: searing pain and heat and warmth — gods, the warmth was incredible — coursing through her body and soul; weight filling her hand, solid and real from nothing, thin threads of light spilling into reality weaving themselves into a gauntlet around her hand and arm before snaking upwards and out, across the rest of her body, leaving nothing but the fire and a thin gossamer of arcana across her skin.
\\\ V:II \\\
Another spray of sea and salt misted her, the hull of the Astersail doing its damnedest to hold itself together against waters warning of distant skies turned gray. A few specks of salt stuck to the wire. Aura traced them with her eyes, trying to muster the will, the energy, the care, to make her hand brush them off. She knew she should — surely the wound would appreciate being kept clean. Then again, it was a damned stupid wound to have at all, regardless of how little it hurt anymore. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so…
“Reckless?” someone — Evangiline, of course — suggested from a step behind.
Aura jumped slightly. “Gods Eva,” she said, glancing back just long enough to make sure. “When’d you go and get so bloody quiet?”
/// I:IV ///
When I find you, I’ll never have to speak these dreadful tongues again, if my own even remembers the Moonmother’s. I’ve been studying — some old tomes out of the Verasi Academy’s libraries. Zariilk is truly a horribly boring language, isn’t it? Even the Auterans’ have vestiges of Ilisyra’k hiding amongst their mismatched tongue. I think I’m beginning to understand why the scholars always disdained me — their rigid monotony bores me, regardless of the magics or machines they can create; none can claim my magics neath their theories. My very being unsolved to their minds, the modern theories of arcana akin to Zariilk aside thine own tongue.
\\\ I:IV \\\
“I told you, I’m a quick study.” Evangiline took a slow breath, then another and another. Aura watched as her knight’s face passed through a dozen competing feelings all at once — fear, anger, calmness, hatred, loss, happiness one after the other after the other like the clashes of steel on steel–
/// V:II ///
The taste of iron came next; teeth and tongue barely keeping the scream down until the flame receded into a lone, flickering candlelight of warmth. Evangiline placed a gauntleted hand, finally checked and secured, atop the sword at her hip, wait. It wasn’t one of the handsigns either’d been trained on, though they both knew each other well enough that hardly mattered any longer. Aura heard her knight take two, deep, rhythmic breaths — since when had Evangiline needed to steel herself before a fight?
Evangiline raised her free hand just enough to curl her forefinger into a claw. Move. The knight slowly stood — and rather silent for all the steel she bore — as she began to inch them closer to the haphazard Garrison. It was one of a half-dozen others like it scattered atop these mountains, all searching for the Hidden City in hopes of crippling the Coalition’s wartime industry. It would be fruitless. Aura and Evangiline would make sure of it.
\\\ V:II \\\
“Besides,” she said, “not wearing armor makes it rather easy without all that dreadful clanking.”
Aura cocked an eyebrow. “And here I was thinkin’ you liked the noise.”
“I’m offended. I enjoyed annoying my commander, not being a walking cacophony.”
“There a difference?”
“One’s being a prick, other’s being stupid. Plenty of difference, darling.”
Aura rolled her eyes, letting the silence consume them for another moment, a minute — the first peace she’d felt in years; the crest and crash of wave on water and wood, wind on sail, the calls of a hundred flocks of far-off gulls. “When did you start annoying me for fun instead of spite?”
It was Evangiline’s turn to go quiet, silver eyes fixing on distant clouds before glazing over. Gods, the woman looked a dozen years younger without her armor on, despite the scars and callous across her hands, arms, face — whole body, really, these days. Made her look frail, if you looked past them while she held no sword nor grim determinance on her face.
/// I:IX ///
When’ll you be home? Where’ve you gone? Because gods know your mind is same enough as mine. This isn’t better than before, is it? It can’t be. It’s that same eternal chase as before, though now alone and with silence instead of bloodshed.
Hells’s with us havin to see anything at all anyway? I know we chose this life — as much as we could’ve, gods know we’d’ve keeled over in some dingy back alley boathouse otherwise — but–
I mean fuck, maybe we ought just return to duty just to kill that High Prick of theirs that caused everything. Or maybe the Coalition for fucking us over at every damn turn or your father or the whole fucking world–
Gods, Eva. I used to be mad at you for even having a father, you know? Yeah yeah, fucked up of me, considering the man he is. Then I was mad at your sister, for having a sister. Of us, I’m starting to think I might be the more fucked up one, though I hardly know a thing that goes on in that head of yours.
You ever wonder if we could just be normal one day? Be happy, have a little cottage an hour out of some Erathi town, away from war and death?
\\\ I:IX \\\
“I never spited you.”
“Certainly felt like it.”
“I– Sorry. I didn’t, I promise,” Evangiline said. “Just was hurting was all, despite the freedom.”
“Thought you were happy I got you out?”
“I was, I am. Just… Expected more than only Eve to give a damn I’d gone missing. I think I was hoping that maybe not having me around would suddenly make any of them give a shit.”
“When did it change from you just being you and to trying to annoy me, then?”
“Year, maybe.” Evangiline hesitated. “Would’ve been sooner, but I was scared it’d push you away.”
“Not sure you’d’ve been able to be rid of me if you tried.”
“Maybe, though that’s why you’re at sea, ain’t it?”
Aura turned to glance back at the woman, though she’d never been there at all.
\\\ ∅:∅ ///
Will we know? When it stops being a lie, how’ll we tell aberration from apparition, girl from ghost; blade from banshee, spear from spectre? Love from loss? Then what becometh of mind — assuredly you and I are past the possibility of ones that are sound. Are we to be cursed once more with blood and faces of late or is it to shift anew once more? If only for novelty I hope upon the Swordbearer old and new it is to be the latter, though I fear the mere possibility of separation shall plague us, now that we have known it.
I miss the cold, darling, though I miss thine mind and direction more. I was never one for strategy or leadership. I am drowning and drowning, falling and falling, o’ commander mine. The dry and drudgery and death and death and death all bore me; wear at my edges as wind upon stone. I fear soon my walls, my façade, my will, shall shatter.
I miss the warmth, my love, though I feel not the safety of your steel aside me nor even your teachings any longer. Worn memories like distant starlight akin to nothing against sunlight; paranoia seeping through the cracks upon the star-filled night. I have blotted it out with power and arcana; burning myself bright though alone — the once-sun — though I know not how long until I follow into her stead to ashes upon the wind and soil. I am burning alive, my knight. Save me one last time, my shield.