Aboard the Winnow: August 2021

Lili can't possibly fight.

In the face of dragons and beasts, she might be able to hold her own for long enough to call for help. That said, Lili’s ability to fight falls flat in the presence of a B-ranked mammalian. She's scared; she can tell in the way her ether shrinks when Lethe meets her eyes. Lili is not mentally equipped to do battle at all, despite her eagerness to do so.

Avett, on the other hand, is fully prepared to shoot and bomb his way out of an underground bunker. Ether coalesces between the twins’ hands, and Avett is already poised to react; he pulls Lili by the sleeve behind a vat large enough to cover all of them. Auren follows suit. Their attack splashes against the vat, and it shakes slightly from the impact.

“Keep moving,” Avett hisses. They squeeze their way through the aisles; Lili hangs a good ways behind them, her body straining from the simple act of carrying the girl.

They crouch behind a line of dragon eyes. Avett makes sure that they’re out of earshot of the twins before he starts hissing at Lili.

“Just what the fuck are you doing?” He gestures to the girl in her arms.

Lili begins, “She’s the artifact. They were going to kill her—I couldn’t just leave her behind!”

Avett is a right mess. He clenches and unclenches his hands at his sides, darts his eyes around his surroundings like a cornered cat. Guilt wrenches at her stomach. She’s doing it again, she’s taken Avett’s only salvation, his only ticket out of this mess and now she’s the one to blame for all of this.

Auren takes this moment to voice his opinion: “Astounding performance of collaboration on the field, frontliners. Had I known your level of teamwork, I would have attempted to accompany you on your missions more often.”

"Fuck, man." Avett lets out a long, winded groan and readies his blasters. "I'm not letting you fight after your run in with Will from last mission. The moment someone raises their fists at you you're like a deer caught in headlights."

"I can handle two teens," Lili hisses back.

Before Avett can even start refuting Lili, they're wracked by another explosion just to the left of them. They dive behind another line of shelving in a panic; Lili tumbles to the floor from the weight of the girl. One of the twins sings out, "A caster, an arms specialist, and one unfit Gallian man. Not the brightest group to infiltrate our laboratory in a while, hm?"

Avett’s already hoisting Lili up by the scruff of her robes by the time she’s started apologising. She can’t handle the extra load without being a liability to both herself and the people around her. The arms specialist curses. “Pass her over.”

“I can take her,” she says. “I have to take her. He needs you.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“Auren can’t handle himself in a fight.”

Auren’s eyebrow twitches. “I am sure that I would be more than able.”

Lili’s hands tighten around the girl, causing the fabric of her surgical gown to scrunch up at the sides. A muscle in her jaw tenses. “No. You wouldn’t be.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There’s a reason why you’re not a frontliner.” Both Auren and Avett are about to argue back when she continues, “I don’t doubt your skill. But there’s a reason, isn’t there?”

Something flies high over their heads and crashes into the wall, shattering into a thousand glass pieces. Blue liquid rains down, staining Auren’s robes brown and the frontliners’ gear… bluer. Lili hears a sigh from Claire—they're not too far off from their position from the sounds of it.

“You are stepping out of line, Lili.” Auren’s tone is sharp. "I do not need an arms specialist for assistance, I will be fine on my own."

Lili’s ether shudders into her arms, and she hoists the girl onto her back. She’s not sure of how long she’ll be able to hold onto her—she’s worried that her ether’ll sputter out the moment she encounters a danger of any sort—but it’s all she’s got. Auren needs Avett, not her.

Avett touches a hand to his chin. Recognition flickers in his eyes. “They called you unfit, didn’t they.”

Auren bristles. He’s about to snipe right back at Avett but the younger man continues, “There’s no point in having you run. They’ve already judged our strengths and weaknesses from our gear alone—and I’m willing to bet that they’ve been in enough fights to know how to exploit them. You’d be caught in seconds. So would I, though I’d probably put up a better fight.”

Fear runs down Lili’s spine. “So what?”

A grin sweeps over his features. “So we swap clothes.”

—

Avett hasn’t let down his hair for a long time. He’s upset to say that Lilith’s robes are just a touch too large on his frame, but he’s surprised to find that her boots fit him snugly. He’d worried about how his clothes would look on her body earlier, though upon seeing her in his signature blue jacket he’d stopped worrying altogether. Alexei was right; save for Lilith’s rounded pupils and Avett’s Kattish markings, they are nigh-identical. All Avett has to do to really sell the disguise is to press his ears flat to his head.

With a bright flash of light from an impromptu battery flashbang, he sends Lilith off running with the girl bouncing on her back. One of the twins grunts out loud and covers her eyes—but the other only curses under her breath.

“Cass—Lethe,” Claire spits. “Where are you?”

Avett looks into the darkness. Lilith is far gone, leaving only himself and Auren to battle the twins.

“My sister, you must retreat.” The other twin’s—Lethe, he assumes—eyes glow an eerie blue in the darkness. “My vision is unaffected. These two casters will prove to be nothing in the presence of my strength.”

“So your ether protected your eyes?”

“It would appear so.” Lethe throws a hand back. “I shall see you within the hour, sister.”

“Please don’t be so dramatic.”

Lilith’s wings rattle against his back when he shifts his stance lower. He’d given a spare blaster to her in return to really seal the disguise, but it’s all just for show; operating machinery is foreign territory to that girl. It’s about as useful as her wings on his etherless, Kattish body.

Claire retreats into the darkness. Several whips of light snap out at her, but she’s long gone before Auren can get a good shot. He curses in Eldrakian.

It doesn’t take long for Lethe to do what she’s stayed here to do. She pounces at Auren, her hands glowing with cerulean knives. The backline caster barely manages to teeter backwards to avoid her attack.

Avett dives between them, but he keeps his blaster by his side. His arm moves faster than he can think. His knuckles crack against a spongy shield; the air reverberates and ripples in movements of blue.

“Silly girl.” Lethe smiles. She raises a hand at him, and he feels icy talons spearing into his wrist. He bites down the urge to scream, to give away his disguise. Auren is picking himself up already.

Avett can’t move. He’s frozen to his bone marrow.

With a wild swing, Auren sends his ether rolling towards Lethe. She flicks her hand to deflect it; Avett falls back, his vision blurring into obscurity. Auren is meeting each of Lethe’s blows with his own power, but Avett can’t stop his teeth from chattering long enough to help him with his encounter. His head aches and his joints feel brittle. He’s so, so cold.

And he’s doing so well. In his stupor, Avett wonders why Auren had chosen to become a backline caster in the first place. He’d punched Lilith pretty well back there, he muses. He should probably get up.

Avett grips the shelves and hoists himself back up. Auren parries like an ill-trained dancer. He knows all the moves, has pored over stances and motions in the pages of a book over and over—but his body shakes with fatigue, and every parry looks like it could be his last.

The shelves shake from their clashes. With a shaky hand, Avett brushes over the cool metal casing of his blaster, hisses in pain from the biting cold. He holds his firearm by the battery instead, and he feels the warmth spread over the pads of his fingertips. Time slows to a crawl; each of his heartbeats lasts an eternity. He needs to fight now. He needs to move, now.

He aims for Lethe’s shoulder, but she’s way too close to Auren for him to make a safe shot. He’s not even sure if he can shoot her. No, he definitely can’t.

Avett aims up at the ceiling lamp instead. He fires—pain darts up his fingers and into his frigid arm. The recoil feels like it might’ve broken his bones. His shot lands true, but all Avett can hear is the ear-splintering crackle of glass against the concrete flooring, the twin’s light footsteps as she bounces backwards and away, and Auren’s low grumble of pain.

He fumbles through the darkness. For all of the shit he gives Lilith, he’d kill to have some Human eyes right now; having to rapidly swap between white-hot light and pitch-black darkness is really killing his visuals. He drops to the ground and crawls on all fours. His hands grope around, and he closes his fingers around various objects before hitting his mark. Glass shard, glass shard, then—cloth.

He grabs Auren’s body by the scruff of his robes and drags him back behind a shelf. He’s adjusted to the lack of light by now, though he wishes that he hadn’t. When Avett sees Auren’s bone-white complexion and sweat-drenched hair, he realises what Lilith had meant by her ballsy proclamation earlier. Not even slapping the man’s cheeks rouses him.

His ‘superior’ is deathly unfit.

A laugh shudders out of him. He’d let a man like this bully him into subservience for a year.

A spark of cerulean ether skirts past his shoulder, and Avett crouches behind the shelf again. He swears under his breath. What’s the use of having an ‘invisible’ ether circulatory system if everyone who matters can see him anyway?

“Perhaps you would like to surrender, Human girl?” she gloats. “Yes, you heard correctly—despite your ears and tail, I know what you are: Human.”

Avett whips his blaster around the corner and fires a few warning shots, but none of them land. He’s doing an amazing Lilith impression right now.

Despite knowing his location, Lethe only continues, “What gave you away, you must be wondering? I can assure you, your ears are very much convincing, and though your tail appeared limp at times, I truly believed you were of Kattish descent.”

He has to get out of here. He hoists Auren up in his arms and runs further into the laboratory. Lethe thinks she’s got him on the ropes—he has to keep deluding her into believing that she’s won herself a premature victory for the time being, and that means turning tail and fleeing. Deeper and deeper into the labyrinth he goes.

“So what gave you away?” Stars, Avett can practically hear the smirk on her lips. “Your movements. Earlier, you fought like a Human: clumsy, inefficient, yet wholly powered by your own ether. Your ability to fight is artificial.”

Avett hopes she’s referring to another fight that the real Lilith had with Lethe, and not to the fight they’re having right now. He ducks behind another shelf, though he’s only now realising that this is all pointless—his assailant is acutely aware of his position within the laboratory at all times. He’s alive because she wills it.

The twin stops in front of the shelf he’s crouched behind. She runs a finger over the vials of liquidised ether and admires their transparent, blue glow.

“Were you useless before the Migration, I wonder?” she muses. “Less than a normal girl?”

He bites on his tongue and lowers Auren to the floor. He might as well get his defeat over and done with. They’re just distractions after all; Lilith is what they’re really after, not two working class off-landers who can’t even hitch a ride back to Therius without overdrafting. She’s special.

While gritting his teeth, Avett picks himself up and steps out from the shelf.

Lethe’s smile turns smarmy. “Perhaps I hit a nerve?”

Avett says nothing and readies his fists in front of him instead. He tries not to remember the sweet embrace of her ether’s talons, the way she’d so easily thrown him aside with nary a care. He’s sick of these weird overseers and their even weirder personalities. Fuck them.

His fist swings through the air. He feels his knuckles stop in the air like he’s hit an invisible cushion and not a rock-hard shield instead. A scowl spreads across his features.

Lethe does nothing to counterattack. “Would you prefer a fair fight then, girl? Speak your answer, vixen.”

He pulls his fist back like a fully drawn arrow, readying another full-body punch. His opponent doesn’t react. He stops his punch midair and whirls into a roundhouse instead.

Avett hits another shield.

He curses and bounces back from the girl. There’s no blindsiding these overseers either. He's fucked.

A bolt of energy darts towards his ear. Avett can't dodge out of the way fast enough. He bobs and weaves through Lethe's sudden barrage, maneuvering himself further and further away from Auren's unconscious body. He's sweating hard into Lilith's gear, and he's registering a dull ache in his calves, but the worst part is that she's still just playing with him.

The barrage of ether stops for a split second, and Lethe folds her arms. "I proposed a question, girl." Her tone is ice cold. "It would do you well to respond."

Avett responds by hip firing into the twin's general direction. Like he's going to give himself up so easily.

No sooner does he feel the shot leave the barrel of his blaster does Lethe dart up to him with inhuman speed, her eyes glinting that blank and sinister blue. Avett barely manages to register the gleam of ether between her fingertips before she slams that power into his stomach, and he's sent careening back like he's a ragdoll in a toy box. The shelf behind him topples over, and he feels a distinct wetness on his arms as he tries desperately to refocus his vision. Shards of bloodied glass glint up at him from the floor.

He blinks rapidly. Lethe doesn't approach him at all; she chooses to leave him reeling from the impact of her blow instead. He's not even sure of what's hit him until he wobbles back onto his feet. It feels like he's been pried open and hollowed out of all of his bones and organs.

His gut churns. If he had to guess, Lethe's deprived him of his ether circulation.

The twin taps her cheekbone with a dainty finger. "My shields are down. Your revenge is by your command, if you so desire it."

What an idiot.

Avett closes the gap between them in one easy stride and wastes no time knocking the daylights out of this twin. She's out before she's even hit the ground—if he'd let her hit the ground at all. He props her unconscious body against a shelf, mulls over his decision for a bit, then claps a handcuff over her wrist and the shelf instead. He doubts that his standard issue cuffs will hold her down for long, but at least they'll be long gone by the time she stirs. Hopefully.

He hauls Auren's arm over his aching shoulders and hobbles down an aisle of tall shelves. He should probably find Lilith.

—

Lili's body won't stop shaking. Her arms and back could snap under the weight of this girl at any moment, and they're not even halfway out of the bunker yet. Her ether only answers to her command sporadically; she's running through this mess with nothing but her unfit, untrained self. The girl isn't too heavy, thankfully—she's malnourished and skeletal—but if Lili runs into Claire again, she's fucked. There’s no way she’s fighting like this.

She whips her head around. No one’s directly behind her. Not yet.

Corridors bleed into large openings, little crannies lead to rows upon rows of shelves that don’t exactly make much sense. The further she goes, the more she sees. What use is there for B5 gelatin? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care to dwell on it. The entrance can’t be far. If she keeps travelling in one direction she’ll reach the wall, and from there finding the exit will be a cinch. She’s sure of it.

Footsteps on her rear. She whips her head around again. Her breath quickens for a split second before she manages to calm herself down. She hears nothing but the pounding of her own heart.

Lethe's twin has gotten closer. Lili swallows. She wonders if her assailant’s just playing with her, or if she genuinely doesn’t know where she is. Lethe was stupid enough to fool once or twice before she eventually bit down on her pride and barrelled into Lili with full power. Her twin is doubly dangerous, like a knife on a whetstone—precise and bloodthirsty, ready to sink her edge into flesh and bone. Lili is less than that. She’s about as strong and sturdy as a piece of wet paper.

A flash of blue. Lili’s breath catches, and she looks down. The floor is glowing cerulean, lighting her boots up from the soles.

Lili wastes no time throwing her body forward. A spike of pure ether rockets upwards from the ground then dissipates as quickly as it had come. She’s not thinking, but her legs feel both strong and weak at the same time, and she’s using all of that energy to run, to get the hell out of this lab or at the very least, these tight rows of shelves.

Another spike. She dodges that too, but the edge catches on her boot and she’s sent tripping forward. She careens into a pile of empty vats. Bits of glass stab into her thighs.

The girl. Lili’s mind is whirling, whirling, but all she can think about is the girl. She rolls over. Pain sluices up her thighs, through her palms—she sinks back to the floor, defeated. The least she can do is brace herself up with her arms, and even in her pain-addled state she knows she’s not escaping on her fours.

She shakes her head. This is it. It’s over.

But then the girl lets out a light moan. She has a fairy-like voice, like she’s speaking to a cat or a small child. Thankfully, she’s uninjured; a small boon of luck to prelude the shitstorm Lili’s about to face.

The girl blinks slowly—her eyes are wide and red, Lili notes. Then she looks at Lili.

“You’re not…?”

Lili is about to respond, but the girl has other plans. Her eyes dart around the area instead of waiting for an answer, and she picks herself up after she’s accessed the situation.

Fear strikes at Lili in waves. She reaches out. “Wait—don’t leave me here!”

“Are the twins after us?” the girl asks.

Lili can only manage a nod. The girl chews on the edge of her thumbnail.

“I’ll ask questions later, I guess…” She looks to the ceiling; Lili follows her gaze. The girl is scrutinising the very make of this basement, though for what reason, Lili doesn’t know yet. And from her jerky movements alone, Lili knows that she’s just as scared as she is.

The girl raises her hands to her chest and touches her fingertips together. “I haven’t really done this in a while,” she says. “You’ll have to bear with me for a bit.”

They don’t have that much time to waste, but Lili keeps her mouth shut when she catches the aroma of smoke and blood in the air. Her heart leaps into a panic. For a moment, she’s sure that Claire has already found them, and that she’s brought Avett and Auren’s maimed bodies along with her to make a statement.

But then she sees the girl’s hands. Red ether eddies between her fingertips—it’s like she’s handling her very own miniature sun. The light bleeds into her red skin, brighter and brighter, until Lili can’t look directly at her anymore.

“I, Kashira Hellsborne, request a boon from the dragons.” The air begins to swirl around her head, lifting her silvery hair from her slim shoulders. "Impart upon us the terms of your prophecy, or remain forever silent."

There's so much ether that Lili can taste it on her tongue when she breathes in. It's like she's standing next to a plume of smoke.

A golden scrawl hovers in front of the girl's face, but no matter how hard Lili tries to make sense of the words, she can't make out what they say. In a mere matter of minutes the words are gone, lost to the darkness.

The girl—Kashira, Lili assumes—takes a slice of glass from the ground and brushes her thumb over the edge. She leaves behind a wet line of red, and she drops this piece of marked shard onto the floor.

"Your terms have been met, and your prophecy has been fulfilled." Her eyes remain on the ceiling. Everything about her is scarily tense. Lili finds herself holding a breath.

She scents her assailant’s ether—some kind of apple and lime—before she really sees her. Claire is silent and precise; she maneuvers herself between the shelves like she’s a thrown dagger. Like the two of them are her bullseye.

Kashira raises a single, red arm to the ceiling.

All of a sudden, it’s not ether that’s pouring out of her fingertips anymore. Lili squints at the younger girl, but she can’t tell what it is she’s doing. Her ether—if Lili can even call it that—is heady and dreadful, like Lili’s been plunged headfirst into the never ending vacuum of space. It’s not power that a mere mortal should have, let alone to be commanding at all. Her teeth chatter together. The blood staining her thighs goes cold.

The lamps on the ceiling pop and fizzle. The vats come tumbling from their shelves, spilling their contents to the floor. Even the shelves, once bolted down by reinforced Therian metal, topple over, shaking the ground to its very foundations. Lili’s hands instinctively fly over her head. Her nails dig into the roots of her hair. The shelves—they're going to crush her, bone and all.

She squeezes her eyes shut. A second passes. Two seconds.

She loosens her grip on her head and allows herself to sneak a peek upward. The dust's settled, and everything's stopped toppling. Even Kashira has gone completely silent.

Lili squints and looks beyond her savior; she sees blue, spiked ether in the dark. Unfortunately for them, Lethe's twin is well and healthy, and she's standing between what looks to be two low shelves. No. Lili's breath catches in her throat.

Not two shelves. She's split one shelf cleanly in half.

Kashira's ether is now completely gone, and she's just standing, standing in wide eyed fear. Her skin is a ruddy mauve. Her knobby legs shake like they're twigs in the wind.

"We've managed to keep you in your container for the past three years," the girl spits. She flicks her wrist, and her ether dissipates into fine mist. "I know all your tricks. Everything that affinity of yours can do. You're outmatched Fateweaver. I'd get back into that vat if I were you."

Lili shakes her head. "You're not taking her back. I don't care that Alexei's blackmailed us. This is torture, you don't do this to anot—"

Her voice chills Lili to her veins. "The reason we keep her down here," she says, pointing to Kashira, "is because she's part of something far larger than the both of us combined. I don't like torturing children for fun. I'm Human too. But for the sake of both of us, let me do my job. Please."

Lili opens her mouth, but the words don't come to her. Claire looks like she's bargaining with the teacher for a grade, and not like she's arguing over the life of a tortured individual. She's so genuine. That's the scary part. Maybe she's right. Maybe Lili's the irrational asshole here.

She grits her teeth. This is somebody else's life that they're talking about, for fuck's sake! There's always another way to solve things, Lili thinks. Kashira doesn't have to live like this.

Lili flashes a glance at Kashira. She eyes her red skin, her silver hair—if she's not mistaken, Kashira must be a Gallian. She could easily take in Lili's ether. Victory could be a cinch.

She looks back to Claire. "You're—you’re overseers. I'm one too."

Kashira looks back, her eyes wide with shock. Lili flashes a grin at her and feathers her ether against Kashira's own. An invitation.

Her eyes narrow, and she accepts it.

Claire makes her way forward, her steps precise and deadly. "You're a liar. I don't recognise you from the biannual seminars. Which sanctuary are you?"

Shit. She'd called her bluff so easily. Lili needs some kind of proof, some kind of knowledge only an overseer would have. She wracks her brains for anything, anything Alexei might've told her back in his ship.

A flash of genius. "Alexei can't visit anymore because his sanctuary's mostly Humans, and they need someone to keep them in check," Lili says.

Claire snorts. "Everyone and their mum knows that one. His competence reaches far and wide."

Lili swears under her breath. There's something else—surely there's something else she can say, but she's only just realising how little she knows about power she has, and role of the overseers as a whole.

Behind her eyes, Kashira is reaching into Lili's personal ether, inhaling her smoke like she's smoking a cigarette. Just a little bit more time. Just a bit more.

"Smoke," Lili blurts out. "The overseers have ether that stinks of smoke. Am I wrong?"

The twin's eyes flicker. She tenses her hands.

"That's not all,” Lili continues. “You don’t smell of it. You twin, however...”

Her proposition hangs in the air like acid condensate. Lili hides a hiss as Kashira siphons the very dregs of Lili’s ether into her body, leaving her with only the scraps left. Her vision wobbles, her arms are shaking uncontrollably, but they’ve long passed the line of no return. The very least Lili can do is offer a slanted, toothy grin at her assailant as Claire realises exactly what she’s done.

Kashira rises. She raises her arm—Claire flicks a spike towards the girl and hops back, but it’s no use. Kashira deflects it easily with a snap of her fingers.

The twin snarls. She’s no overseer. She can’t possibly hope to beat one, and she knows it.

Kashira starts again, her tone low and rolling. She states her name, her request, and all Lili can do is falter against the steel ground, her consciousness rapidly melting into an uneasy black. Her savior's incantation follows her into her stupor.

"Impart upon us the terms of your prophecy, or remain forever silent..."

And then Lili slumps to the ground.

—

"I'm betting my balls that they're not too far from here," says Avett. Upon catching one of Auren's infamous eye twitches, he adds, "Not that I don't trust her to do a good job of running off. She's a natural."

And to really seal his act as the carefree masterminded-bastard, Avett shrugs at him with his hands raised. Auren only half buys it; Avett can tell by the way his upper lip curls and how his eyes remain narrowed. In truth, they both know what the other’s thinking: Lilith's fucked up and gotten herself caught, because she can't possibly win against such a lethal fighter as Claire. Their assailants are blades that have been honed to kill—they’re just kitchen knives compared to the twins, and Lilith is starsdamned plastic cutlery.

He exhales. Carrying this exoskeleton of a man isn’t as physically exhausting as he thought it’d be; Auren takes his taxes through the way he continues to glare at Avett through his droopy eyes as he hangs from his shoulders by an arm. Avett knows that this isn’t a predicament Auren wishes to be in. The fight earlier has left him ragged, sweat-drenched, and pale faced, and all he can do is allow Avett to hold him upright as they make their way through the lab.

By the time they’ve made it past the first set of shelves, Avett decides that he’s had enough. “Listen, grandpa, I hate this as much as you do right now. The least you could do is make this bearable for the both of us. And maybe get some exercise.”

Auren only lets out a grunt of disapproval. He’s so angry, stars, Avett can just feel it. He’s done it, he’s torn off his 'superior’s' stone cold exterior and exposed his innards for the world to see.

He’s still smiling up a storm when Auren starts to speak again, albeit quietly. “You seem to be taking all of this well, Avett.”

“Not the first Human I’ve had to punch out.”

He coughs. “That was not my intention. You fought… admirably.”

Avett touches a hand to his face. He finds a smile stuck there, and it’s hard as concrete. He shakes it off, but even then he still feels the remnants plastered against his cheeks; it’s giddy joy. Probably an adrenaline-laced remainder from his prior victory. He’ll ride it off soon.

“Trying to get on my good side now that you’ve seen what I can do?” he teases back. "I'm just that good, huh?"

Auren falls silent for a bit.

Then he says, “You work well with Lili, yes?”

The answer comes easily and with a laugh. “No.”

“Avett.”

“Defend her all you want, it’s true.” Avett doesn’t look back at the larger man. “She’s a nuisance. Think about all the dough we could’ve been rolling in if you hadn’t taken her in. Now we’re stuck in some underground basement fighting little dragon girls who look like they’ve skipped class for the day.”

Another pause. “Are these your true thoughts?”

“It’s not like I haven’t made it clear how I feel about Lilith from day one.” He blows a stray strand of hair from his eyes. “What, having your second thoughts too? Come on, we’ve gotta find Lilith before she bites it.”

Auren exhales and pushes away from Avett. He seems to be walking fine now, so Avett leaves him be.

“There is really… no need. Do you recall when Alexei took me aside?” he asks.

“You really think I give that much of a shit about you, huh…”

Auren continues unabated. “He informed me of Lili’s true nature. She is not the Human that we believed her to be. She is abnormal.”

“You’re right about one thing there.” Avett snorts.

“She is abnormal beyond the mere scope of her mannerisms, Avett.” His tone is deadly serious. “There is a dragon’s soul nestled within her Human soul, and it was melded there by artificial means.”

“Yeah, and?” Avett bristles. What does this all have to do with why they’re stalling on saving Lilith? “Isn’t that just what’s normal for the lifeforms on this realm? Alexei’s got one too, right? So did the villagers from our last mission, sort of. And the twins—”

“This is different. Alexei has informed me of the exact prerequisites for the existence of the overseers.” Auren makes his way to Avett’s side, clutching onto the shelves for support as he goes. “There are only seventy sanctuaries on this realm, and thus there can only ever remain seventy overseers. No more, no less. The system will attempt to balance itself should the need for such arise.

“The artifact we were ordained to retrieve is an artificial overseer, created from the death of an overseer willing to sacrifice himself. She is not meant to exist, and she possesses certain fate-altering abilities as a result of her status as an anomaly. The artifact is a weapon crafted to end the universe itself. She is dangerous.”

Avett folds his arms. “Just like my cock and balls. Get to the point.”

“The existence of Lili brings the grand total of overseers to seventy-one.”

Avett is about to snap at Auren again when he really lets his words sink in. The artifact is basically an artificial version of whatever Alexei is, and because of that, she’s dangerous on the cosmic scale. But then so is Lilith—and not only is she artificial, but she’s also a living hitch in the system that’s managed to wriggle past the rules.

He looks to Auren with uncertainty.

“Ergo, she cannot lose. It would be near impossible given her potential,” Auren finishes. “Alexei does not know the extent of her abilities, though we can only assume that they are nigh-fatal should they end up in the wrong hands. Which brings this back to us.”

Avett lets out a choked laugh. “Us? You’ve just dumped all of this fate and destiny shit on me and now you want to talk about us? Get your head out of your ass, Auren. It sounds like we don’t quite matter here.”

“Precisely.” Auren brushes a hand against the glass. “We do not. Which is why we have the option of abandoning Lili entirely in order to pursue our own interests: working inter-realm on a mercenary vessel under the jurisdiction of the IRC.”

His words stop Avett cold. He swallows. “Really?”

“It was an option offered to us by Alexei. He would be more than happy to take her under his wing, though he does not mind should we choose to stay with her."

Avett feels his world crumbling under his feet. The thought of being able to experience the true mercenary life excites him to no end, and yet it also leaves a hollow in his stomach that makes him mull over the options. He doesn't quite get why he's so antsy until he realises—

Loud, unrelenting energy sears past Avett's ear; a blaster bullet. He looks in front of him, expecting Claire or Lethe to be standing there, guns ablaze. He gets none of that. The figure wears a piss yellow jumpsuit that's been tied down at the waist and is wielding a modded rifle-blaster. Her hair is a dirty brown.

It's Eltia. His hand darts to his own blaster, but the woman is faster: she brings her barrel up to Avett's head. He freezes.

“Stars, Avett.” Her voice is a low growl, and there’s nothing kind left in her tone. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

It takes a moment for Avett to find his own voice. “Sorry, Eltia,” he says. “I’m a caster now, and it’s not a phase. Don't shoot at your own son next time."

"I didn't miss by accident, kid." She cocks her blaster to the side, then lowers it. "You’ve seen bodies before. Check your rear.”

He does. He wishes he hadn't.

Draped over a pile of boxes is Lethe's limp body. There's a large splotch of red in the middle of her forehead. Her limbs have fallen the wrong way, and her eyes are wide open.

Auren is the first to lose his composure. He starts to wobble again, but Avett grips his superior by the forearm to steady him. Avett's steadying himself more than anything. He whips back around to stare down at Eltia.

"You bitch," he snarls, but he's far too shaken to be intimidating. "You—you didn't have to, she's just—"

"Just a cold hearted bitch of a killer." She makes her way over to Lethe's body and prods her barrel into her cheek. Lethe doesn't react—Avett can't bear to look. "She's been on my shitlist for some time now, kid. Killed my best men and my closest confidant. You can't replace good people, but you can give them what they deserve: revenge."

"Then you know about the overseers," Avett chokes out.

"Thought I was just fucking around for all of these years?" She scoffs. "Nope. I spent 'em forming grudges with people from all walks of life, kid."

Avett and Auren say nothing at first. Auren especially; there’s nothing for him to say. But as soon as Eltia turns and starts to make her way through the shelves, Avett takes a hasty step forward.

“You’re not getting off that fucking easily,” he snarls.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." She doesn't turn around. "I've just saved your life."

Auren, despite his state of shellshock, manages to wrinkle his nose at this new slew of profanity.

"Why were you down here?" Avett continues, his voice hoarse. If Eltia is after the artifact herself, this might just make for a good excuse to beat the shit out of her. His hands tighten around his blaster.

Her boots click into the ground, and she stops for good.

"Because someone," she says, her tone thin and harsh, "couldn't keep his nose out of New Therian business. If you think I'm down here for some extra credits, or some other underground shit, you're barking up the wrong tree."

"So you killed her—"

"She was going to kill you."

Avett sinks his fingertips into the folds of Auren's robes. There's a thought forming in his head, and he doesn't want to let it finish. He swallows.

Eltia continues, "I tracked you down here. I thought it was strange that my estranged son would come to New Therius—my turf—willingly. Which is when I realised: you were being blackmailed, or at the very least, under some kind of desperate duress. Couldn't just stand and do nothing."

"Just because you act like you own the place doesn't mean I…" He trails off, narrows his eyes, then shakes his head. "What, so you care about me now, is that it?"

"Now?" Eltia glares back. "Only now? Really, Avett, that's the best you could come up with? You think I only care about you now?"

Something cold settles in the pits of Avett's belly. He holds Auren even tighter, so tight that he thinks that he'll pierce right through the fabric of his robes and into his skin. He's not strong enough to, of course. He's never strong enough.

Eltia turns and makes for the exit. "Try not to get into any more fights with the locals, kid," she calls back. "And tell your Gallian backliner that he's not the hot shit that he thinks he is."

Then she's off for good, melting into the darkness like a creature of the shadow. Avett doesn’t look back at the body a second time.

Aboard the Winnow

Saturday, August 21, 2021

22.5

Friday, August 20, 2021

22: the encounter