#so its either in the walls or its on the other side in halies room but i have no way to really know because i dont wanna investigate atm

[kawaiianimeredhead]

Tried to make heart shaped peppermint patties for a work party tomorrow. Made a decent mess of the kitchen but they have been made

[coreshorts]

Chance

Wind whipped through the drahn’s hair, violent and unabating. The smell of the sea, the silence of the rock, of the motionless water, washed over her senses. She descended rapidly, eyes closed to the blinding, unnaturally-radiant light that suffused the sea around her and her horns, through the whipping of the wind, the shouts and angry clamour of men from above as it grew more and more distant, eventually drowned out entirely by the rush of air.

Below her lay not water, but rock. She knew well where she was destined to touch down, headfirst. She knew she would not survive. Doubts welled in her mind, but she tamped them down. She wanted to struggle, to stop her descent, but failure, in her mind, rage in her soul, and a horrible, aching corruption welling in her body for not the first, but the second time, all told her one thing: death was her best chance.

Taking a breath as the rocks grew closer, she held it, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the presence of the ground drawing near…

Holly Morningtide, known once as Hali Naras, or even Asashio no Haruhi, had been given an assignment: as a guard of the Crystarium - the last bastion on Norvrandt against the force of primordial Light and its terrible sin eaters, creature much like voidsent, but aspected to the light, rather than a corrupted, dark nothingness - she was tasked with gaining information on Eulmore.

Tensions had been growing thicker over the last few years, Eulmore’s trade becoming somewhat-strangled by its lord, Vauthry, whose decree had been to focus on enjoying the supposed last days the world had. Eulmore’s Free Citizens and their “Bonded” - indentured slaves, as Holly understood it, bound to their masters for a chance at a “better life”, or at least to spend their last days in relative comfort as they worked for those who did nothing - made the woman somewhat ill, the more she watched them. They had no interest in trade, anymore, but, military might they once were, some still engaged out of courtesy. She was to figure out why things had taken such a turn. No other could enter - not without becoming a citizen - and so it was that she would become one… after gaining entrance.

Trained as a shinobi, a ninja, she made a good spy for the Crystarium Guard. She touted her skill and showed it well, earning her a place of importance as the first of the Crystarium’s agents to sneak into the island. She was to observe the citizenry, to emulate them and take on a persona for as long as she could that would get her ingratiated, then slip away once she could find any information on the goings-on.

For three days, by her reckoning, did she watch the city, hiding amongst the shantytown nearby, watching and listening. She gathered information as best she could. The city itself was accessed by a single bridge, leading to a guarded stairwell. The beach around the small islet was best by yet more of the shantytown: The Derelicts, she learned. She’d find no allies, here. To a man, she surmised, any of them would sell her out for their place amongst the elite, living easy in the gaudy city above. Swimming up to the shore would be difficult without being seen. However, there would be no easy way to get past a guarded gate with nothing but cliff to either side. Being noticed would not be to her advantage, and she was not to cause a fight. Thus, for two more days, she waited…

After nearly a week of camping in squalor, dirty and uncomfortable, she witnessed a ceremony at the gates that drew her attention and gave her what she needed: her in. A pair of jesters, dressed in red and blue and speaking in insufferable rhymes, presented themselves to the shantytown’s residents like saviours, handing out a strange food that felt strange to her. It felt of nothing, and even beholding it from afar, it turned her stomach. They called it meol, and the people were elated. They lined up for it, then they performed, promised, begged to be let in, to earn their keep. In the end, one was chosen: a young drahn girl - a Xaela, she’d have been called back home - was taken in for her cooking skill, presenting a dish she’d made from gathered herbs, meats and vegetables. It was deliciously fragrant, gaining the attention of quite a few, given the living situation. She had to have been saving those ingredients for some time. Holly gazed on from her place in the shadows and felt a pang of familiarity with the girl. Despite the ragged ingredients, the dish was expertly-made. For a moment, she even felt proud of the girl. Then, she was let in. At that point, the guardswoman followed from the shadows. Following them might be her way in, so long as she could remain unnoticed.

Undetected she remained. Up through the doors into the bottom level, she had to take a moment to slip aside and allow herself a moment’s respite from the culture shock. In an instant, she had passed from broken stone and wooden planks from the derelict military ships that once served as part of the nation’s great navy to a decadent, colourful - garish, even - and altogether clean place. All-too-suddenly was she aware of the smell she’d accumulated while hiding with the paupers of the shantytown for so long. Stealth would avail her no longer if she could be sniffed out. She would have to make her entrance somewhere…

She found it. A queue for registration. It was unsupervised once behind the city walls, and so she slipped into the line where a gap formed only briefly, just behind another blonde woman. She quickly patted her hair about to make it as close to identical as she could, given her silver streaks, and there she stood. She encountered little resistance, the man seeming to be preoccupied with the riches that had already surrounded him - promises of a better life… while it lasted - and before long, she was at the registration booth. The other drahn girl had already come and gone, hurried along to meet with her new “owners,” as Holly understood it.

“Name?” rang the bored, vapid question, rousing her from her thoughts. She found herself before a rather well-to-do-looking mystel man with blue hair and very a look on his face of boredom surpassing even his tone.

“...Leah,” she spoke quickly, assuming a familiar role - the anxious, shy girl, so similar to how she’d been so many years ago - before she cleared her throat and stuttered, “L-Leah Arlon.”

“Talent?”

The first word to her mouth wanted to be “chef,” but with the dark-scaled girl having come and gone, that might be too soon…

“Songstress.” This gained a pause from the man, who checked his records then shrugged. Holly’s heart raced.

“Uh… to whom?” he asked, gaining a bitten lip from her in response.

“I-I don’t remember, sir, I… I-I-it was… only mentioned once.”

The man sighed, then pulled up a monocle to check the papers, muttering, “...well, we’ve… two Citizens expecting a songstress. In high demand of late, aren’t you…? Anyhow, you’re either for Ryn-Tokka or Madame Haylin.”

“O-oh! I- I was to see M-Madame Haylin,” she says quickly, “S-sorry, I, ah-”

“Mgh,” the man muttered, looking irate, “You weren’t scheduled until the morrow… Well, whatever. I can take it up with them later. Go on, then. Get yourself made proper. Madame Haylin is on the north terrace, all the way up the stairs once you’re… presentable.”

The man’s disgusted face at her made her want to snap back, but she kept the persona intact, nodding and sputtering apologies before being lead, blessedly to a room with showers and fresh changes of clothes, where some other number of Bonded milled about, ushering those who had been registered along. She, too, was hurried on and shown to a shower and given new clothes into which she could change with some additional commentary on her state of cleanliness. Again, though, she bit back comments and hurried along, eager, really, to get cleaned and refreshed. When she changed her clothes, she bundled up her old pauper disguise and left it. It had nothing she needed, given her gear and weaponry were hidden beneath, in bands of kunai and shuriken. She had elected not to carry any larger weaponry, given the nature of the mission.

So it was she was shown up to the upper levels… and that was where she disappeared once again. The Mistress to whom she was supposed to report, undoubtedly wouldn’t know any better, though she had to feel sorry for the registration clerk who had to explain the next day why a slot had already been filled by someone who wasn’t there. Regardless, she had her mission. It was time to find what she needed to blend in.

A trinket here and there, stalk this woman or that man, then take a bauble or an outfit from their drawers when they’re not looking… and there she was. In just under a couple hours, she’d assembled the perfect look for a free citizen. She restyled her hair, pulling it back out from the long ponytail it’d been in before and up into a tight Ishgardian-style chignon that Dahlia - Odellia, here - had taught her, and, with a bit of pilfered makeup, she was a different woman. Finally, the air was hers to take, and so she puffed out her little chest, lidded her eyes ever-so-slightly, batted her eyelashes and took to a confident swagger around the city. 

The difficult part of the mission was over. She was in, engaging in small talk with the citizenry, snooping with what her sense for aether could tell, every little detail finely standing out for inspection in such a barren, sleeping world, so frozen as it was by the Light, and taking notes in private. A day passed, and she remained awake for the whole time. Exhaustion wore heavy, but she continued with her mission. 

She’d learned much, and all of it was written in her notes. She was resolved to hear more of their Lord Vaurthy, though, and so she stayed a bit longer… and then she saw her once more: the waifish, black-scaled drahn girl - the chef - from before was being lambasted by a lanky man with a grating voice and an all-too-familiar sneer, both speaking on a nearby balcony.

She knew the sneer. A man, once, with such foul intentions as to traumatise her at every turn, to belittle and crush her as best he could with every step, had worn the same. She dared not recall the name for the fury it brought in her. Fury, however, would not be denied.

“And you expect to call yourself a chef?” the man asked, a mixed drink in his hand, freshly delivered by the girl, “The dodo was good, of course...”

The girl looked confused, piping up as if to ask for clarification, a confused look on her face. She didn’t get a word in before the drink was splashed on her, staining her shirt, soaking her hair, and pelting her with ice. She gasped, flailing as if to try and defend herself against the liquid offence.

“Do I look like I want good, girl?” the man hissed in her face as she began to sob, shaking her head and giving a choked “no, sir,” as she reeled from the suddenness of the assault.

“I want phenomenal. We are going to have another talk,” he said, grinning sadistically, pointing to her, then grabbing her roughly by the wrist, which, Holly noticed, was already bruising, the girl’s pale blue skin already mottled with a few bruises that briefly flashed in the part of her dress as she was yanked along.

Fury, however, would not be denied. She was too tired, too worn from the atrocious, ignorant opulence of the place. To see such an abuse, the threat of more atop it, brought back memories within her that brought a terrible flame to her heart, dark and angry and vengeful.

Vengeance, too, came quick, nor would it be denied. She’d already drawn stares as she felt herself move. She was no longer in control. The dark craved vengeance. It called for blood. The girl was no longer real, but a spectre of her past, whimpering and struggling, soaked in alcohol and fruit juices. The man became as Crawford.

The drahn saw her advance first, eyes wide at the woman who approached, wreathed in darkness that drew hushed stares from nearby and eyes ringed with hateful red that caused people to part like butter for a knife. A knife.

That was all it took. With one practised, fluid motion, she loosed a kunai into her hand and let it fly with deadly aim. As the man turned to see the cause of the hush, he found himself struck dead, a black, foreign blade lodged in his temple and out the eye of the other side of his head. His grasp fell limp and the girl was the first to scream. As she scrambled, a panic ensued, and guards came storming the area, several spears thrust within inches of her head before she could react. 

The Might of the Eulmoran military… she thought to herself, then raised her hands in obedient surrender.

“Move!” She was jabbed roughly in the back. Though it didn’t tear cloth, it hurt.

“Now!” A soft cry rang out from elsewhere.

“Take them to Lord Vauthry!”

Them? she thought, then froze, realising the other cry, causing her heart to skip a beat and her blood to chill. Looking toward the girl, she, too, had been surrounded by guards, and in much the same manner. There was no choice but to go along. She would damn the girl if she fought, let alone her mission. Even if she escaped, which she could have, the innocent girl whose life she had just taken from bad to worse in the sake of deluded vengeance would suffer even more. Slowly, she began to march in time with the soldiers, on across the balcony, up a lift, and toward a massive room.

Her senses burned. Sin eaters were surrounding the room. Sin eaters. At the other end, across a vast, empty floor, sat a man more gargantuan and more grotesque than some monsters she had seen: Lord Vauthry sat, reclining against a great, winged lion of an eater, another stroking its plaster-like mane softly.

“Hm-hrmh?!” the man exclaimed in surprise, massively obese form wobbling from the shocked motion he made as the doors were flung open, “What is the meaning of this? Explain!”

“My Lord,” the guard at the head explains, “This woman has murdered a fellow Free Citizen in cold blood. The deceased’s Bonded was brought, as well.”

“Well, what do you expect me to do about this, hrm?!” the man rumbled irritably, “You are here for a reason!” “Y-yes sir, but… she is clearly guilty. Many here witnessed it. It was done in plain sight.”

“Wha- how unbelievably brazen! I can’t believe my ears! You! Woman! What is your name? Speak, this instant!”

She spat the first pseudonym that came to mind: “Vivian Blake.”

“And why, Miss Blake, are you under the presumption that your magnanimous lord would allow you to… to murder another? In my paradise?”

She remained silent, the red still burning in her eyes, ever so faintly. The man felt an awful presence. It was like he was part sin-eater, though, with the whole room practically withered with static, Light-seared aether, it was hard to tell.

Vauthry flailed his meaty arms in anger, setting himself aquiver again, “Answer me, you harlot!”

“I beheld… a wicked man who would harm an innocent. A criminal in, as you say, your paradise,” she said in a low rumble.

This brought a befuddled noise from him, though he looked no less angry.

“You are not here to serve as a guard, woman!” he shouted, already throwing aside her name, “You are here on my good graces to live out your remaining days in PEACE! PEACE! And you have the gall to bring violence upon another? Bring her to me! At once!”

“W-what of the girl, Lord Vauthry?” asked one of the guards. 

The globular man turned his head back to look at the guard with a suddenly-bored expression, then grunted, “There’s no more use for her. There is no place in my paradise for the worthless and the craven. She goes over.”

The girl began to weep bitterly, begging for her life, and as she was ushered out into the room and beyond the line of lounging eaters toward the edge of the open-air room’s edge, Hali shot forward an ilm before she was clubbed on the back of the head and sent staggering forward, dazed.

“Ohoho! So eager to see the death of the girl you damned?” crooned Vauthry, “No. You must be… redeemed…! Come! Come to me, my pet.”

At his command, the eater that had been stroking the lion rose and gracefully stepped through the air as if walking on land to float at the grotesque lord’s side.

“You-... this is… insanity…” Holly grunted as her head spun.

“No, my dear Vivian,” the man retorted as his guards escorted the girl to the edge, “This… is paradise.” 

A trailing scream from off the side of the balcony was suddenly met with a sharp one from Holly as the eater reached out and sunk spindly, gold-tipped fingers into her chest as though they were knives. They felt like knives - worse than knives - and she knew what was happening immediately: she was being corrupted.

“Leave her with me,” Vauthry commanded, “I will watch her redemption… myself.”

The hand pulled back and she slumped forward, gasping for breath as the guards filed out of the room in an orderly fashion. A hand gripped at her chest, no open wounds of which to speak as the gleaming, burning light from the touch faded.

“What- what did you do?” she barely wheezed. Her chest burned within like something had been left in her.

“Redemption, dear Vivian, is an agonisingly slow process, normally, but within my company, and that of my sin eaters, you will turn more quickly,” the man explained with a ferocious grin that plastered his several chins together against his chest and spread his overfull cheeks into a bizarre mockery of a hume’s face, “Oh, it will be gruesome and painful, but when it is done, you will have atoned for your grievous sin… this… atrocity that you have committed against me. Then, you will ascend.”

The Seed of Light, as it was called, was a slow and torturous way to die, body and soul. Those afflicted were doomed to spend days, weeks, even months, sometimes, in horrible agony as their skin began to petrify and their minds slipped away. It was so similar to that day that she had met an eater bearing what felt like a fragment of herself. She had died, then, too, infected with the Light, only saved by her wife’s grief and rage, destroying both Holly and her killer and fusing them back together in a maelstrom of tormented magicks. She had no such saving grace, this time.

“Holly,” Vauthry cooed. She looks up, only to see him, hands resting on his gargantuan gut, a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

“Yes? If you wish to thank me for this chance, you may,” he said, then chuckled, wobbling about as he did.

“-Holly.”

Before she could retort, she heard her name called again. Looking out of the corner of her eye toward where she thought she’d heard it, she spied a brief glimmer.

“Mum!”

“Mum…!” “Hali. Mes etoiles. Come home safe,” Dahlia cooed softly as Light began encroaching upon her vision. Two young half-drahn girls stood with her, one on either side: their twins, Suisei and Ryuusei. When she looked straight at them, they vanished.

Vauthry laughed, “Yes. She’s gone. Over the edge to oblivion, if she’s lucky. Go. See for yourself... while you can.” The smug look made her want to drive a kunai right between his eyes, but she barely lacked the strength to stand.

She glanced back once more. The images were gone, likely a hallucination from the searing pain blossoming in her chest. However, the flame was lit once more. With a groan, she lifted herself to her feet and began to stagger over toward where the girl was thrown. Slowly, she paced toward the edge and leaned against the railing. The girl was gone.

“You see? Consider yourself lucky,” Vauthry said from behind her, still lazing where he was on the great bed-like couch.

One foot made it up onto the railing.

“What are you doing?”

She pulled herself up to kneeling.

“Get down from there.”

She turned. “What are you doing?!”

She looked directly at Vauthy and croaked through the searing pain climbing up her throat from her chest, “Defying you… my Lord.”

“What?!” Vauthry roared in anger, his corpulent arms slamming down on either side of him, causing a surprising amount of rumbling that caused Holly to stumble, “You would cast aside this gift?! My mercy?!”

“Oh... Just... you... watch me,” she rattled, arms outstretched… and plunged backwards off the balcony, eyes closing…

Taking a breath as the rocks grew closer, she held it, squeezing her eyes shut as she felt the presence of the ground draw near. Was it too late? Would she turn anyway? Would she come back at all this time?

No, she thought, No time for questions.

Her final thoughts had her body dashed against the rocky beach below, a gruesome cacophony of crunching and splattering heralding her end. Then, moments later, in wisps of darkness like smoke, all that she was coalesced into a barely-visible ball of writhing darkness that drifted off to sea… and down into it.

Within time, her soul found what it sought: the girl, half-drowned already, her body beaten and bruised as if from a bad impact from the water, and her leg twisted and maimed. She would die within minutes just from the lack of air.

There were no thoughts that passed through her disembodied soul. She had no time to deliberate in that strange liminal space in which she existed. A moment of thought could be hours that the girl could drift if she was unlucky. Within the space of a moment, the soul met the body of the younger drahn… and flesh began to twist. Slowly, painfully, it reorganised itself. Slowly and painfully, the leg mended wrong. Slowly and painfully, lungs filled with water began to function in a new way, for which she had to thank the Kojin of the Blue and her history in Blitzball back in their old home, wherever - or whenever - that was.

Pain shocked her awake as she drifted. Reforming a leg so had left it still mostly shattered and even more deformed. She swam as she could for the surface, but with the strength that she had expended to get where she was in the first place, she couldn’t keep going. As her arms gave out, unable to be aided by one twisted leg, all went black.

“You,” said a familiar voice, “You ruined my life.”

When she opened her eyes again, all around her was yet another familiarity: a manor room, massive and sprawling in every direction. Behind her was a long carpet, two bodies lying on it, spaced out a ways behind her, one crystalline and the other a mangled form of burning, gleaming light that barely looked human. More littered the carpet much further back, but they were shrouded in a strange shadow.

“Are you listening to me?” came the voice - her voice.

She turned forward and peered down at herself. This version of her was slightly shorter, hair tied in a chignon, makeup running, glasses broken, and a simple, but almost gaudily-ornate sundress, splattered with stains of alcohol and fruit juice. Her horns were adorned at the base with golden earrings, set in the centre with black pearls with an amethyst and ruby dangling from the hoop of each. Beneath her were two legs, on which she could only stand on one, the other mangled and twisted.

“You ruined my life,” the smaller Hali repeated.

“I… I’m sorry,” she replied, looking visibly confused.

“I’d waited to get in for so long,” the younger said, and, as realisation dawned, she found herself looking at a different figure altogether: the black-scaled girl, “Why? Why did you kill him?”

Hali found herself unable to respond.

“I didn’t need saving. I… I could’ve made it.”

Hali nodded in concession, sighing and looking away, “I… suppose I should understand that.” “Then why, damn you? How could you do such a thing? Even if he was cruel to me in that moment, you didn’t know him! He was a person, just like you or I were!”

She didn’t have a chance to respond before the girl cried out, accusingly, “Revenge! Is that all you cared about then? Was I just… just some bystander for you to toss aside?”

“No, I-”

“Am I just some body for you to claim?”

“N-no! Listen-”

“What gives you the right?” the girl spat, gritting her teeth and taking a step forward on that maimed leg as if nothing was wrong with it at all.

“I’ve-”

“Got a family. You’ve your… your wife, your children. I see that, now. You do it because you can, because you’re some… bloody pompous immortal creature. How are you any different than the people up there? Better than people like me because you have what I wanted! What I could have had!”

“No, you don’t-”

“No, I get it. Deny it all you like. I see you now, Hali Naras,” the girl seethed, “That was your name right? Your original name. Not any of those fake ones you spout.”

“How do you-?!”

“Know? You made me part of you,” the girl said through clenched teeth, though her lips quivered, betraying the tears that would start soon.

“Not your soul!” Hali protested.

“No, but mine isn’t gone yet… Not yet... “ the girl relented, taking a step back, then asked again, “What… gives you… the right? I didn’t want this…”

“Nothing,” came Hali’s voice again, though it came from beside her.

She turned and saw a most horrifying sight: the remains of her last body, seething with darkness, nought more than splatter and gore with clothes loosely fitted around it, though it soon began to congeal into a single creature. That creature, however, was decidedly not her, but the elven bandit whose body she last stole.

“You have no right,” the man said in Hali’s voice, “Don’t deny your guilt. You’ve gotten too good at forgetting, Hali Naras.”

“Too good. Too good for us, too good for anyone,” the younger girl continued, “What happens to your family? Will you be too good for them, too?” “No!” Hali spat in anger, now, “How dare you!” “How dare I?” the girl said in shock, “How dare you! Thief of flesh, murderer!”

“Murderer!” the elven man echoed.

The guilt was overwhelming and the darkness in the room grew thicker. She sank to her knees and looked up. For the first time, she saw what was behind the girl: a door. A great door that once stood chained before her. She had broken those chains long ago, but still, she had no way of opening it.

“Murderer! Monster!” the two chanted, their voice beginning to echo with the phantom of others’ from long, long ago that she didn’t even recognise.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I… what choice did I have?”

“Let go, Hali Naras,” the bandit said softly.

“N-no… no, I- why damn myself when…?” she practically wept in grief over the guilt weighing on her, crawling across her back and threatening to crush her wholly.

“Why damn us?”

“I- I didn’t want to! I didn’t! I- y- you were- the things you did! A-and you would’ve died in any event!” she protested in tears, pointing at each of the two.

“That does not make us yours,” the girl said.

“No… It… it doesn’t…,” she conceded, “It doesn’t…”

There was a long pause where the two left her to weep, her sins weighing on her as she was lost to reflection, before the girl spoke again, “I cannot stop you.”

“Just as I could not,” the bandit added.

“So what will you do?”

“What?”

Hali knelt on that carpet in silence, darkness closing in as she muttered, shaking her head, “I don’t know…”

“Your selfish fear and desire for vengeance nearly drowned you once,” the bandit spoke, “Look around you.”

Raising her head, the drahn peered about, watching as the room was slowly being devoured by writhing black darkness, as if smoke filled with hues of crimson and violet had begun to choke out all in sight.

“You would return to your family. We no longer can,” the elven man said, shaking his head.

“Remember us, Hali Naras,” the girl said, “Remember that we lived.”

Every life is sacred, she had been taught by Kaori long ago, Even if you can’t comprehend them, you must respect them. From her knees, she fell prostrate, forehead touching the blood-stained carpet as she wept, “Forgive me…”

“Forgive yourself,” the two said in unison before, though she couldn’t see, she knew, they crumbled to black ash, leaving two more bodies behind her, “Learn...”

Slowly, she rose, a hand over her face.

No more, she thought to herself in that encroaching darkness, No more. Their names… their faces… I can’t let them be lost. Not like they were. No matter who they were. They died so I could live. No more.

The guilt weighed heavy on her as she stood straight again, saying aloud, “I won’t be a monster to protect those I love. I’ll live to protect them. I’ll live to honour those who I took away that I could live.”

With a shuddering crack from before her, a flood of darkness came pouring out of the great manor doors as they came slowly swinging open, the doors themselves just barely brushing past Hali. The wave of darkness washed over her, but beyond, she saw that flame once more. Crimson and violet in the black, burning bright, were four figures: Dahlia, Vivian, Suisei, and Ryuusei - her flames, her life.

She reached for them, staggered forward against the flood of darkness that threatened to devour her for her avarice, her hubris, and all faded to blinding white.

“Hali, mes etoiles,” echoes Dahlia’s voice in the recesses of her mind, “Come home safe.” Then, white melted away and left only the cold blackness of oblivion.

The door is open, but, this time, I have to earn this chance.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Fantasy Vacations

I took some time to think about the fictional places I love to visit; either to go to school, drink, dance, party, read books, swing a sword or simply just explore the local culture. Below you will find 47 of the best must-visit fictional locations (according to me) and some reasons why I would love to go there. Don’t take this to serious it's all written for shits and giggles. Let me know if I made any mistakes or if you have any late additions and thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

Alpha The City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets did not do well in the theaters, to say the least, it was poor casting choices that sunk it. However, the opening of the movie with ‘Alpha’ growing in mass starting off as the original International Space Station and adding alien visitors over time before becoming a massive city in space was a pretty cool concept and scene to watch to the music of David Bowie. With 3,236 unique species on board, there is a real chance you could live there your whole life and still not meet every kind of alien life form. Who wouldn't want to live in a hub of alien cross-cultural?

Arrakis

The “Spice Must Flow” and “Fear Is The Mind Killer”. Arrakis and the book Dune, which is celebrated in Scifi much the same way Tolkien is celebrated in Fantasy, is a sand world with giant worms, a scarcity in water and a world in the center of political conflict all in the name of Spice, a mind/body-altering drug that extends life and allows space travel. Arakis is hardly a place you would want to go on holiday but you go to a place like this for cultural depth of the Fremen people and if you’re lucky, ride on the back of a Sandworm. Which frankly is good enough for me. Please note consumption of spice may turn your eyes blue.

Asgard

A city of gold floating in the heavens and home to literal gods? Asgard has a lot to offer in the way Norse Culture and would be my kind of place to visit. It’s one of a few vacation spots on this list that might be considered a utopia even if you're under a Mythical Monarchy; a balance between a combat culture, art, music, literature, rowdy partying and it also happens to be the center of the Nine Realms giving you access to the other worlds to explore. I suppose the greatest feature (despite the golden architecture) is the flat slab that holds itself in space and defying science and reason. This is about the only place Flat-Earthers would be correct (save the Disc World which is another flat earth on the backs of elephants on the back of a planet-sized turtle which makes about as much sense as Flat-Earth Science). 

Atlantis

I had to make a tough choice between the DC Atlantis and the Stargate Atlantis. Considering I can't breathe underwater and I already have the Themyscira from Wonder Woman and Rapture from Bioshock I opted for Atlantis from Stargate. This vacation spot is at best a weekend trip with mostly the same alien architecture to see but with the Stargate being in the middle of the facility it perhaps opens THE most options for day trips to various alien worlds across the universe, even more so then Asgard with the nine realms. So it makes it onto my list.

Bay City

Only once I started writing this list did I find that there is a lot of sci-fi love for New York City and San Francisco (I imagine Tokyo would also make the top 5). The show Altered Carbon takes place in a city called Bay City which is San Francisco unless someone else built another Golden Gate Bridge and covered it with shipping container apartments (cool concept). This city is all about vice and digital pleasures much the same way Future LA is in Blade Runner. Despite having its gritty side this place no doubt has a lot to offer in regards to a nightlife and what I hope is a great selection of food. Just let me pull on my long black leather trench coat with neon trim.

Canto Bight

A clever ‘twist’ the Tattooine trope from Star Wars is Canto Bight. Basically suggesting crime doesn't always start from the bottom up but sometimes the top down. While this whole part of the story was literally pointless to plot and outcome of the Last Jedi, I can appreciate another location being added to the vast universe (had it not been cut back by the idiots at Disney). Point is it’s a lavish location with gambling and ritzy living so long as you don't peel back the finish and realize it is basically built on slave labor. Oh, Capitalism.

Castle Black

While Castle Black is basically filled with bastards, volunteers, and criminals it makes a pretty good metaphor for aimless people joining the military. Only your enlistment is forever, you're stationed next to an ice wall and on the other side of that wall is ice hillbillies and nightmares. I do actually like some seclusion for some holidays and this works well if I take a bunch of books and mead and spend 3 months reading by a fire while doing some sword practice in the yard with the Crows. Sounds kind of peaceful and I might get to pee off the wall.

Citadel

Yet another superstructure in space shared by multiple species. The Citadel caught many gamers imagination both being a massive space city but also the seat of power between the various sentient species in Mass Effect. The Citadel (like most future cities) has its extreme highs (wealth and luxury) and deep lows (poverty and criminal underworlds). Granted its criminal world is nowhere near Omega’s level of corruption but if Canto Bight showed us anything is corruption can start from the top. The real reason to go here is to party the nights away and drink a bunch, kind of like Singapore and like Singapore, after a week you pretty much hit all the hot spots and ready to move on.

Cloud City

Cloud City for me isn't THAT exciting to go by myself but with my significant other for either honeymoon or weekend getaway? It perhaps can a nice place to relax, stay in a comfortable room, go on long walks, enjoy nice meals and take cloud tours flying around the gas giant and seeing the massive vapor plumes. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Columbia

Columbia is a proper steampunk sky city which is nothing short of elegant, beautiful and a marvel in itself. I always wondered how people breathed so high up but that's far from the only concern if you visit a city like this. Behind the vale of beauty is a hyper-religious society, fascism, and racism all hanging in the heavens like some sort of GOP paradise where anyone non-white is kinda screwed. If we managed to cut out the lingering problems of Conservatism in Columbia, this place would be a paradise! Just watch your step its a long way down and railings are only hip high.

Coruscant Jedi Temple

The Jedi Temple, Hogwarts, Highland Mountain, and Kamar Taj all represent a kind of school/academy. An I might make another list of fictional educational institutes we all wish we could sign up for later but as of right now we are on vacation and the Coruscant Jedi Temple has much the same appeal as Castle Black with books to read and swordplay in the afternoon and peeing off one of the spires (preferably off the middle one where the Jedi Council convenes). Naturally, I have also the whole planet to explore but spending time with mystical philosophical laser sword wielding space mages sounds like a pretty unforgettable encounter.

Diagon Alley

Presently the shortest visit on the list, Diagon Alley is pretty much a long street of shops for people to get their magic on. I do enjoy some window shopping and strange old things but really we are here to get spells and wands no? I can't imagine being here more than a few hours but I can see Diagon needing multiple visits because you are bound to miss something and need to make a second trip to fucking find it. 

Diamond City

I was split between Diamond City and Megaton as two fallout locations to add to my list. Ultimately living next to a nuclear bomb drove me away from Megaton and living in a baseball field turned fortress appealed to me. I love the care put into the creation of this city by Bethesda, I know I give them a hard time for their multiplayer and money grabbing for mods but the effort put into Diamond City makes it seem like a viable and logical settlement in the Fallout Universe... hell I am thinking about playing that game now after writing this. Oh, what is there to do here? Not much save eat and drink and pee off one of the front walls on some Super Mutants.

L.A. 2049

Where Bay City was full of sexy holograms, L.A. 2049 is full of sexy synthetics. Really though this setting really established the idea of Cyberpunk for a lot of people and have one of the early images of vast American cities being pushed closer together and then reaching towards the sky. Like so many other settings it's overcrowded and has its dark side but dark sided cities tend to have some interesting nightlife and like Bay City you can probably do a lot with your time and money assuming you have a lot of both.

Gotham City

You can probably get more out of Future LA or Bay City then you could from Gotham which is why I won't be trying to sell you on the city. I hear they have a big crime problem and lots of people dressing up as bats. Don’t get me started on this Police zeppelins humming around and shining a spotlight through your window at 2 AM. No, you went to go to the Ice Berg Lounge for some late night Jazz, catch Haly’s Circus when it comes through town, and visit the various museums across the city. Just don’t take any shortcuts and if at all possible pay for a driver to take you around the city, the locals know which areas are safe.

Highland Mountain

I imagine many of you are thinking “What is Highland Mountain?” and I am glad you asked inquisitive Tumblrs. Highland Mountian is the secret location for the Spartan-II program on the Planet Reach. In other words, this is where Master Chief had his survival training and general training to become a Spartan. If you’re still not with me it's from the video game Halo. Like the Jedi Temple it is more fun to be trained here but as a vacation option, I like camping with some Spartans and roughing it on the frosty mountains in some power armor playing war games. It’s like paintball with soldiers if the soldiers were 7 feet tall and flip over a tank with their bare hands.

Hogsmeade

A cozy little-frozen town in Britain called Hogsmeade is basically the main settlement of non-muggles beyond Hogwarts or so Wikipedia tells me. It’s a magical town and has lots to offer in the way of shopping much like Diagon Alley. The benefit of this community is that it is a community; bars, library, shops, restaurants, and more can be found here. Good for a romantic getaway or even raising your kids and making Snowmen during the winter. What else is there to say?

Hogwarts

Say what you will but I imagine Hogwarts might take one of the top 5 places people would love to see. It’s magical, hidden, filled with secrets and a rich history to get emerged into. Despite being just the right age when these books first came out (I was like 12 or 13), I still have not read them (I know... I deserve your ire). Truth is we all kinda wish we could go to school there, personally, I can see myself just reading all the time and experimenting with magic 24/7. I can only imagine how much trouble I might get in with spells/potions going wrong.

Jurassic Park

Not exactly a good track record for Jurassic Park but quite honestly the people overseeing this parks (in regards to the movies) despite being the most brilliant minds in their fields appear to be inept over and over again, as bad as the Sticky Bandits from Home Alone. Beyond that point, a day vacation with the family to Jurassic Park would be amazing and perhaps something we would indulge in every couple of years. Easy to imagine the kids losing their fucking mind over Dinosaurs but then again so would I.

Kaer Morhen

Hard stretch to call Kaer Morhen a school mostly because the students are all old men already trained to kill monsters. This is less about vacationing at this castle and more about living there and fixing up the place. Really, I feel like its the perfect little slice of Scandinavian land to build a long-term residence at. If I was to stay here as vacation spot pretty much reach Castle Black again and repeat without the wall and white walkers.

Kamar Taj

Another school of magic where Dr. Strange learned his abilities along with many other students of magic. I appreciate the seclusion of it. Kind of a Castle Black feels with a pinch of Hogwarts. Like the Jedi Academy, the ‘students’ here are very much adults and there is an appeal to that considering I am 32 now.

King’s Landing

Really though King’s Landing pretty much only works as a vacation spot if you are A) staying at the Red Keep and B) having a bachelor party to enjoy the brothels. Not that any of us would do that sort of thing...

Labyrinth

You can either assume this trip will take a few days or a few months. I like the Labyrinth for the same reasons I love Myst and Wonderland. A strange world and I love a good puzzle. Not sure how I feel about the Goblin King and his junk in spandex... I mean I don’t want to rain on his parade but I think I might do the maze in reverse instead of seeing him do his “Dance Magic Dance” in his castle with his junk in my face. No issues here if you’re a gay guy or straight girl that would love King Bowie to do that to you.

Mother’s Cradle

In a world where machines have taken over and humanity had been regressed to primitive tribes, Mother’s Cradle is a secluded valley of protection and nature. If you ever played Horizon Zero Dawn, you can see how peaceful that place is and could easily imagine building a home there and living off the land. I enjoy city living the most but even I can't resist Mother’s Cradle and the community that lives there.

Myst

Who doesn't love a good puzzle? Like the Labyrinth, this place is all about sharpening your wits and solving the puzzles in the world of Myst. I would suggest above all other things take a notebook with you because some things need to be written down. Did I mention it has multiple words you teleport too by opening a book.

New New York

I always wondered why the waterline in New New York in the Fifth Element is so low, really wish someone would explain that to me. Anyways it's better than Waterworld and its good to see the big apple become so large that it absorbed New Jersey. Like most big cities the nightlife would be awesome but why I really want to go here is for the fast food and flights to other planets. I won't lie the uniforms in the future are all about dressing to impress the customers and that's kinda hot. Looking at you McDonalds Girls from 2263AD

New Vegas

It’s like the Wild West with gambling, mutants, robots, and atomic weapons. You already know Fallout from Diamond city but New Vegas brings its own charm with the gambling scene. I imagine the Sin City is still very sinful and perhaps more violent. You can get into a lot of fun trouble here and who wouldn't want too. It’s Vegas!

Omega

If you were to combine the Citadel with New Vegas then Omega would be the outcome. This mining colony/way station is where crime comes to make a name for itself. The various Mass Effect species can be found within and most of them fight for territories inside its walls. It’s the sins you come from for like gambling, drinking, dancing, fucking, and fighting that make Omega so great. Don’t worry do you don't need to indulge in them all.

Pandora

Camping may not be an option in Pandora for humans but with some extra suspension of belief that you can either breath the air without it being toxic or perhaps have a Na’vi body waiting for you. The wildness of Pandora appeals to the hiker in me. I would want to climb the trees and the floating mountains, fly a wild beast or ride a wild horse in this world. The bioluminescence of the world draws me to explore it at night even with the predators lurking about.

Rapture

From my understanding, Rapture throws a hell of a New Years party. Such a crazy party that it turned into a revolution but that's a different issue altogether. The city under the sea makes my list as a more desirable alternative to that of Atlantis with me lacking gill and all that. Like Tomorrowland, this city is driven by progress and is a libertarians wet dream that is until you realize there are always people looking to take power and that being a Libertarian Society is a fantasy.

Risa

This might be the #1 vacation spot on this list because the whole damn world is about fulfilling desires and vacationing. Want to hide away and read a book? Go for it. Massages all day? No problem. Walk out into the ocean and find a boat serving sushi? Apparently, that's a thing from a Star Trek episode. It’s paradise and with their weather controls, there is never a cloudy day at their beaches. Doesn't hurt Risa women are all basically supermodels.

Rivendell

Rivendell, yet another peaceful refuge away from the harsh world. I can imagine this place having comfortable rooms and library somewhere to read. Granted I can't read elvish so I hope they have some proper English books among their shelves. If I do get bored I imagine hiking/climbing the surrounding cliffs and forest might be an option. I am sure I will piss of some elves exploring their hideaway.

San Fransokyo

Not the first movie to combine cities into something new. I admit I do love the like the new look of San Francisco and how it makes the world of big hero six feel. I think what makes me want to see this city so much is their altered architecture and more importantly the food that comes with this deep blend of Western/Asian culture. The sushi, the Kobe burgers, and literally everything else is gonna be leaps and bounds better then either city did on their own.

Skellige

There is no party like Skellige Party! Not true Asgard might throw down hard with this Nordic Pirate/Fishing community of the northern islands. Basically, the number one reason to go here is to drink or go to a royal party where you feast, fight, fuck, and drink some more. Don’t think that men have a run at the place, Skellige woman can fuck you up if you don't treat them right. Consider this a helpful PSA.

Skyrim

Truth be told if Skyrim (was to scale) of the real world, it's not a very big province or even plot of land. Think about how fast you can run from one side of the map to the other? What 15? 20 minutes at the most? That's why I kept this location as a broad vacation spot because the keeps aren't THAT big but each one has enough charm that it justifies you visiting them all and get a taste for each unique area. Like Kaer Morhen this place is all about settling down and making a life for yourself. Hell, you could pick flowers all day and sell that to shop and make that your living. Not saying you should make that your career but you could.

Starfleet

The third and final nod to San Francisco on this list (told you they got a lot of love). I always found it interesting that Gene Roddenberry would establish the federation in San Francisco. I might look that up but with the options of London, New York, Washington, and other locations making just as much since he still settled on SF as the home base for Star Fleet. Anyways I wanna go to school here because you know... space travel, alien babes, seeing new worlds and all that jazz.

Stark Tower

There is no doubt the Stark Tower has a stocked fridge, great food, killer view of the city, and a fully automated AI to improve your day (even if she is watching you shower). The fun of Stark Tower requires one thing and that is for you to invite people to come to a killer party on these top floors. I think we can all agree once you have the party rolling that it will likely go to the break of dawn.

Stormwind

I have no strong Allegiance Alliance or Horde one way or the other. Truth be told I play Warcraft 3 and then stopped never getting into WoW. I suppose the draw of fantasy species pulls me here much the same way it pulls me towards Lord of the Rings. I imagine if you find the might pub you can have a good time but the places of magic will have good books. I suppose I could wander into the forest and bath in a Moonwell and hope for a chance encounter with the Night Elves.

The Shire

It doesn't take much to imagine that food-based holidays are a big hit with hobbits. So if I was to vacation here Thanksgiving (assuming they celebrated it) or something like it would be the time to visit. Eating, dancing, drinking, and fireworks. Yes, I realize I would be a giant among them and hit my head but I am ok all the same staying in their small community.

Themyscira

Clearly, a theme in some of these hypothetical visits is to meet hot girls. On one hand, I should know better than to post such things because admitting anything like that on Tumblr is slightly sacrilege but you know what fuck that I want to go to an island full of beautiful strong independent women dammit. I don’t mind strong woman, I don't mind a matriarchy society and I don't mind admitting that I like looking at a beautiful woman and I wouldn't mind making love to Amazonian beauties on their beaches. So sue me! I fucking love women.

Thessia

Read the Themyscira post above. Same thing. Only they are a blue alien woman named Asari and apparently they can do something like a “Vulcan Mind Meld” in the bedroom. Sexy.

Tomorrowland

As someone who’s always wondered what society MIGHT be like without religion and uninhibited society focused on knowledge over profit and power, Tomorrowland is an expression of that or at least what I hope it would be like. This is the sort of place you to be impressed by the technology and the marvels of invention. I can imagine flying around a jetpack, experiencing new depths to virtual reality, zero gravity chambers, teleportation and pretty much every other sci-fi invention you can dream up will likely be found here. Hell, I don’t want to visit the world of Tomorrow I want to live there.

New Tristram

Probably the worst place to visit on my list with all the undead and demons and all that. I can't help but find Tristram a little enchanting with the Gothic Ruins and struggle that is found there. Diablo (the game) has a habit of having building look small on the outside big on the inside which is fine. I personally would like to wander into the layers below and crawl through those dungeons and collect loot. I am not sure if this is still a vacation or some sort of video game fantasy I like to live out.

Tron City

Tron City pretty much feels like nighttime 24/7 but with the arena combat, the races, and the high rise clubs. Its hard not admit there is something exciting about being on the grid. I personally love to derezz myself and spend a few weeks in the world of Tron and maybe bring back Siren or two.

Wakanda

Birnin Zana is the capital of Wakanda and that is what you see in the picture just in case you didn't know that fun fact. The city itself draws me with lots of things; food, music, culture, technology, and architecture. I medium of all things I imagine my stay could be a week or two before I seen everything I care to see. I can imagine (while not really suggested in the movie) that there is a great nightlife here and very engaged community.

Winterfell

Yet another getaway to swing swords, practice archery, read books and ride horses. Winterfell (despite being apparently the middle of nowhere) is the kind of keep I would love to live in. Not by myself mind you but with a community of people upkeeping the keep. Its a good balance of community and seclusion to read my books. Sansa Stark can keep me company under the animal skins. 

Wonderland

Wonderland, you go for the Tea Parties and you stay for the Mushrooms. Pretty much a long acid trip, Wonderland gives you the excuse to bend your mind and alter your perception on reality while encountering a variety of strange and wonderful... um... people. I wouldn't mind making this trip with Alice herself (or the White Queen) but I can make do with going with my friends and ‘feed’ our heads.

[coreshorts]

Open

She was asleep, dreaming. She had to be, or at least hallucinating as she began to doze off. She felt the strange out-of-body sensation for that slow moment that passed like pushing through a barrier of some kind, and then the world asserted itself around her, bit by bit, as she noticed its various features.

It was a manor, strangely familiar, though the Raen, dressed in little more than the oversized shirt and underwear in which she fell asleep, exposing chubby thighs and scaled arms and legs, swore to herself she’d never seen it before.

Portraits lined the walls of the worn and broken-down manor, so distant as to be unreachable, but so massive that they were unmistakable, but they, each, were charred and blackened. A crimson carpet with gold trim spanned the length of the room, from the open double doors far, far behind her that led into naught but a yawning maw of nothingness to the next set of doors that seemed to change their shape every time she looked at them, though were always chained shut. The massive room had furniture, broken down and sometimes in pieces, strewn about haphazardly. Some intersected with the carpet behind her, and she realised her body bore bruises and wounds from when she’s tripped over what was in her path. In fact, a tear in the carpet lay just behind her, soaked in her own blood, she knew. The tear was familiar, too, but she, again, swore to herself, I’ve never been here, so… why?

“Have you? Or’re you simply not rememberin’?” came a familiar voice that caused her spin around.

Standing not ten fulms down the carpet toward the chained door was a knight, a lance strapped to their back. However, the armour was very much that of a dark knight she’d met: iconic blackened, spiked plate with a crimson shawl and wicked, horned helmet. Two purple ears sprouted from it, though, and, as the figure removed their helmet, the familiar voice was placed: Keerith.

“Think. Remember what we talked about, Hali,” the purple-haired Keeper told her with a stern, yet comforting look that soon melted into a smile as Hali felt herself remember facets of the conversation she’d had just the night prior. “Y’got a lot to think about. Got a lot to recall, too, huh?”

“Like… this place?” the Raen asked softly. She realised that, though she was wounded, she felt no pain, here, no fatigue. Keerith nodded.

“Look around a moment,” she said, casting an arm off to the side, “Tell me what y’see.”

As she turned to look around again, the portraits on the walls shed dust and char, as if they’d been burned, though the walls, despite showing wear from age, were not at all singed.

“Remember what those were?” the knight asked her patiently.

“I…” she started, but instead, the lance on Keerith’s back was unsheathed, and the Raen was blown back by a single, mighty swing. She found herself flying backward, away from her body, and landed on her backside on the other side of the tear in the narrow carpet where it’d been sewn back together atop her blood.

As she looked around again, the portraits’ char fell away, revealing face, people. Figures from her past: the Naras Matriarch, the Crawford Brothers, the Immortals, the Fustuarium, Dahlia as she was when possessed by Mirseleiris, and the Outriders. Behind Keerith was one more, though, that she hadn’t seen, even covered by soot: Dahlia and Vivian, their backs turned away. The portraits struck her with a wrenching pain as she saw various gestures or expressions or body language indicating hatred, frustration, and contempt.

“This… this… but it’s not what I deserve,” she protested, standing and walking forward toward her body, frozen as if in time. 

As she crossed the tear in the carpet, each of the portraits around the room on those much-too-distant walls burst into a familiar black-and-violet flame. It licked at them, charring them to nothing. Her heart shot into her throat, however, when she saw that all of the portraits had begun to burn, even that of Dahlia and Vivian.

“No, no!” she cried, and broke into a run, calling out, “I can’t- they don’t deserve that either! They didn’t! Stop!”

She collided headlong with the back of her own body and felt herself stumble, feeling and seeing her arm outstretched, wretched with that same dark flame as it threatened to char her beloved and her sister to nothing but black. The flames died, and the portrait was whole again as her arm dropped.

“Remember yet?” Keerith asked, “Y’know what you’re fighting, now, no less what you’re fightin’ for.” She gestured up, above and behind her to direct Hali’s attention back to the portrait.

The de Bellechier twins beamed down at her, their expressions full of love and affection for the poor Raen, they hands both extended as if to free them of the portrait and offer to bring her with them. Her eyes teared up and she sniffled, the warmth of the two she’d loved so wholly - Dahlia and her sister, Vivian, alike, her family - calling out to her and bidding her to right herself.

Unbidden, she felt and heard herself speak in tandem with Keerith, her own voice different: harsher, sharper, almost angry, “I need to remember. Every night spent feeling loss and guilt and self-loathing. Every morning waking in tears, forgetting, and denying. Every day stumbling and suffering. All of it. I need to remember… me.”

She winced. It wasn’t from pain, or against a light, but almost reflexively. When she looked back up again, a familiar figure took Keerith’s place: Hali, dressed in that black dress she’d come to love so. She wondered why she did, as it was so new, but it came to her as the other her twirled on the carpet, miraculously not ruffling the gold-trimmed crimson at all.

“Yes. That’s why I had this made,” she said to herself, prompting her conscious self to look down and see herself in the same outfit, “To remember. But it didn’t work well, did it?” She laughed a bit bitterly.

“Time after time after time. Every night for moons,” her other side said, frowning and taking slow steps to approach her, hands upturned in a prolonged shrug, “I danced this dance with myself, ignorant. Making my own pleas to my own deaf, deluded mind. Stuck in fear and denial. In confusion.”

“You’re… you’re one to talk,” she told the other Hali, “If you’re part of me.”

This got a look of utter glee from the one she recognised, at last, as her darkside, as crimson eyes and an aura of abyss flared up and she clapped her hands together.

“I remembered…! I remembered! Yes!” they both said at once, one in shock and the other in joy, “This is me! You are me and I am you! We are no different! And there is no shame… in being me. Is there?” Both shook their heads, one hesitantly, the other with a wolfish grin.

“I think… that I’m ready,” she told her darkside as it reached out to gently carress her cheek as one would a lover, “Once and for all. And…”

“No forgetting,” they both said at once. Both nodded.

The darkside raised her other hand, both resting on her shoulders, and she did the same, looking up, past her own face to see Dahlia and Vivian beaming down at her, beckoning. Even through the darkness threatening to take command of her very sight with such close proximity, those faces, one to protect with all her might and one whose memory deserved so, so much better, shone like burning beacons.

“Listen to our heartbeat,” her darkside said softly, closing her eyes, “Listen for my voice. Listen… L i s t e n . . .”

Darkness began to take her, rising up over her ankles, pouring from her chest, embracing her, choking her. She wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to wake up. She wanted to run, to deny, to- to fight. 

I have to fight, she thought to herself in the midst, For them.

With the choking grasp of the abyss closing tight around her, those faces, that warmth, almost vanished entirely. She couldn’t see anymore. She couldn’t feel. It became like a cold, dark maw, comforting, yet obliterating.

“This is where I belong,” she heard from her own voice, neither from herself or her darkside, echoing around her, and then it repeated, “This is where I belong.” She sank. She felt oblivion. It was cold and inviting. It was alone.

“Non, mes étoiles,” came a voice, speaking in Ishgardian, its delicate, feminine tone and flowery accent unmistakable as that of her wife, “You do not belong there, but here. With me.”

“Hali, ma chérie,” chimed in another, sweeter voice that she immediately recognised as Vivian’s, “Don’t leave her just yet. She needs you. I am waiting… but the longer I wait, the happier I will be. Go to her, ma sœur bien-aimée.”

“Hali…?” called Dahlia’s voice. She sounded worried, distant. Not like before. She was falling away from her...

No, Hali thought, but the darkness pulled.

She growled, “No.” It pulled.

She roared it, “NO!” Everything stopped.

The hold the abyss has had on her stopped dragging her down and, instead, she felt it fall away. She, too, fell, and landed in a heap on the carpet once more, just in front of the chained door, the portrait of Dahlia and Vivian above her shining with a burning, violet light. It was unlike the darkness, but still cool and comforting. Her beacon, she realised, was here, pulling her back from the brink of oblivion.

“What... now?” she asked herself, reaching for the chains that barred the door before her. Her hand wreathed itself in dark flame and passed through one, then another, and they fell away with a heavy clatter, melted through. However, not all reacted so, and when she grabbed one that she could not melt, she heard a voice again.

“Child of darkness,” came a deep, cold voice from behind her, though when she turned, there was nothing, “You have your beacon, your guiding light in the dark. Do not lose yourself to evil or oblivion, for that is what it means to be a Dark Knight. If you cannot master yourself, the nightmares will never stop. You must prove yourself - master this power within you. You must become more. You. Must. Be. Free.”

She sighed, rubbing at her face beneath her glasses. Great. Now he’s a Mysterious Monologuing Disembodied Voice, she thought to herself, only to feel the tip of a blade press to her throat.

“Mind your goal. If you lose yourself to the darkness, I will destroy you. It is my duty. My charge.”

She had no snarky comeback about immortality for the man who called himself “The Unrelenting”: a tall, imposing figure wearing armour much like Keerith had before - his armour, she realised - and keeping a greatsword’s tip barely pressed to her throat as he warned her, “Master your power, ere it masters you. You will lose your wife, your soul, and all you cherish. You will fail, lest you heed that which keeps you tethered - your light, your love.”

She backed up, but impacted the chains. The Unrelenting lowered his sword and gazed up at the portrait.

“This door will not yet open. You are not ready. You will be,” he said, cryptic as she remembered him in the waking world, though his voice abruptly changed, sounding like her own as he continued, “I will be. Or I will be devoured. Where that leads… not even Vivian awaits.”

The figure turned, began to walk, and the armour crumpled, as though there was no one wearing it, the greatsword all that remained as the armour turned paper-thin, leaving Hali there to stare at that blade and contemplate. She didn’t have long; she was seized by a shoulder and jarred.

“Hali!” . . . . .

“Hali! Please!” begged Dahlia, shaking the Raen awake as she laid in their bed, cold sweats drenching her from horn to tail, her skin nearly a pale blue and her breathing shallow.

All at once, Hali took a deep, laboured gasp, and shot up. The world spun. She laid back down.

“N-no, no. Just… just lie down. Are- what happened? You- you-” Hali blearily allowed Dahlia’s face to come into focus. She was crying, this time, looking panicked.

“How,” Hali coughed as she croaked, “How long was I…?”

“It’s barely sunrise, ma chérie,” the Ishgardian said, worried, “What- what happened? You… y-you started tossing. You woke me up and… then stopped. You were… so cold. You’d stopped breathing for several seconds and I-” She was overcome by a heavy shudder and collapsed against the Raen, sobbing, “I thought you…!”

Hali chuckled tiredly, getting a look of disbelief from the younger girl, “I’m… I’m okay. I know… what happened. What’s been happening… this time. I’m sorry that I… mh… frightened you. Daijobu desu.”

She smiled, taking a long breath and sitting up, guiding Dahlia up with her.

“What… are you talking about?” she asked, only to be met by a smile.

“Do what you need to do with, ah… Aoife and Aedremor,” she said, reaching of to cup the witch’s cheek with a hand and leaning over to kiss her, “I trust you. I love you. And... ahah... I’ve… a bit of explaining to do… but I’m going away for a little bit. I won’t ever be far, and... I will always be there to protect you. I promise. But… I’ve, ah…”

She chuckles to herself at the ludicrous, dramatic thought.

I’ve got a door that I have to open.

[coreshorts]

Inexplicable

She’d been dreaming lately. That, in itself, wouldn’t have struck the Raen as odd if it weren’t for the recurring feeling she got every time, waking with a deep-seated rancour in her heart, recalling all the pain she tried so desperately to hold down. She never remembered details, and that bothered her more than anything.

She lay next to her fiance, the Ishgardian witchling fast asleep, curled up against her, but facing away. Hali lay in silence, in the dark, listening as the cats tore around their house in a late-night craze, either after each other or nothing at all. She smirked a little at the sentiment, the thought rising unbidden, I know the feeling, I suppose. It’s all I feel like I’m doing some days, chasing after nothing at all just for my own - or someone else’s - entertainment.

Rather than amusement, however, the thought brought her sense of resentment back. She scowled to herself, her thick, scaly tail giving a twitch of the side of the bed in her irritation. There was so much injustice in the way she’d been treated for so long. She wondered why she put up with it.

As her tail gave a heavy whump against the side of the bed, it gave her a start and caused Dahlia to turn, groaning softly in her sleep, a hand reaching out for her. When she met it with her own, a sleepy smile crept over the girl’s features as she fell into a deeper sleep once more.

It brought peace, the touch and that smile. They’d worked hard and suffered so much to get to the point where they could both sleep easily like that - or relatively more so, given the issues plaguing Hali’s own sleep. Within a few moments, she began dozing again, and blackness took her.

When she was once again aware, she found herself in an endless expanse, like a manor room where the walls seemed distant, ever out of reach, their expanses covered in cracks and peeling crimson paint, revealing blackened stone beneath. Cracked, and, in some places, crumbling, pillars of dark marble rose ever into the ceiling, shrouded in darkness from its sheer height. Hali briefly wondered to herself if there ever was a ceiling. Beneath her were tiles, like that of a kitchen, ornate and geometrical in design, but where she stood was a vibrant red carpet with dark golden trim. It extended ever off behind her, but before her, it ended abrupty, frayed, as if torn just there.

She stared at it for some time, pondering silently as to where she was, tryig to decide if it was more wise to return along the carpet or to venture past the frayed portion. One by one, notions occurred to her, as if explaining her situation: This room was hers. It had always been hers. It was only waiting for her, and now she was here.

It brought a sense of satisfaction, but it was hollow, as if an empty victory. She felt betrayed. Was there not some reward for reaching her final destination? This place was hers, but felt so unwelcoming. Unbidden, the thought crept into her mind: This was what she deserved. The faces on the portraits on the walls turned grotesque, becoming mockeries of people who had brought her misery. Looking behind her, the face of the old Naras Matriarch leered in disapproval, finger extended as if to shoo her away. Three more set alongside of her, all men of indeterminate origin clad in Thavnairian turbans with faces shrouded, all with weapons drawn and hate in their eyes: the Immortals. On the On another wall were the Crawford brothers, smug and condescending, Maximillian most of all, his stomach an open wound. A portrait next to that shifted unsteadily between two forms: one Dahlia, sporting demonic horns, red eyes, sharp teeth, fur, feathers, and claws, grinning madly, and the other a massive, hulking form with similar features, but monstrously contorted, the same mad grin still in place with a clawed hand holding two featureless bodies in its hands. On the other side was a portrait of the IIIrd Legion, Zheng at their head, staring in cold contempt, the rest faceless, but giving a feeling of the same. A second frame bore a picture of the Outriders, their faces weary and annoyed, fed up as they stood mid-way to turning their backs on her.

When she turned to face ahead, past the torn carpet off of which she had been so hesitant to tread, she found a swirling mass of bloody red and black, tendrils of visible aether and palpable anger writhing wildly in place before taking shape. Within moments, she faced down a familiar figure: herself, standing off of the carpet just a yalm away. Her heart sank. She could go no further, she found herself unintentionally knowing.

“Really?” her reflection asked, irises ringed in hateful red, a flowing black dress with heeled boots, fishnet tights, and fingerless gloves, all decorated in the same dark gold as the carpet beneath her feet, “That’s it? That’s where we stop?”

The angry shade pointed at Hali’s bare, scaled feet on the edge of the carpet, then glared at her. She slowly looked down and, at her feet, lay a body, halfway on the carpet and soaking it with blood from a knife in the stomach. With red hair, similar features to the woman with whom she fell asleep, and a sweet, serene smile, eyes staring lifelessly up at her. Her cold lips were unmoving, but she heard the voice in the air as Vivian - Dahlia’s twin sister who had been tempered… and who Hali killed, herself - repeated her dying words, “I’m… sorry…” Her heart wrenched and she felt herself tear up as the body crumbled to dust, leaving nothing but a blood stain. She could go no further.

“We came this far,” the reflection continued when Hali twitched, unsure of how to respond, “Look at everything we’ve done. Look at all the people who we showed we were better. Fuck the rest!”

“How- how c-can you say that?” Hali argued, tears in her eyes and voice quiet, looking up at her own face, contorted in anger as it stared back at her from that simulacrum, “It’s not enough. I’m… I-I’m never going to be enough. Not… n-not to… make up for all I’ve done a-and everything I’ve failed and… how? How- h-how is this enough?” She was so close to crying. She would, and she knew it.

The other Hali growled in anger and reached a hand out to her side, head held low as she glared forward over her glasses. In the hand appeared one of the portraits: Mirseleiris, in his primal form. She held it up in front of her, showing it to her conscious self.

“See this? We killed it. We saved Dahlia. And we lived,” the shade said in anger, punctuating the last word by punchig through the back of the painting right where the void-primal’s face hung grinning in mad glee at Hali, leaving nothing but a fist, wrethed in violent, swirling red aether that began to turn the portrait black from the hole outward until it all grew dark and she tossed it aside. Its frame clattered noisily against the floor, shattering… and then appeared on the wall again.

“Wha-” the shade looked over and stomped a heeled boot in anger, “You can’t be serious! Why are you fighting this fight? You know it’d make things better if you just listened to me!”

Hali’s gaze dropped as she shivered, staring down at the blood-stained carpet that still ended in such an abrupt tear before her, muttering, “I… I dunno.”

“You gave me a chance, already,” the darker Hali rumbled, “What happened to that?”

The knowledge was there, suddenly. She knew the Hali before her. The voice in her head that had been growing louder, the feeling of wanting to just unleash all of her pain and not try to hide herself anymore, all of her anger and rage stood before her, as her. She knew what this was from the descriptions she was given: her Darkside, the persona borne of the abyss that raged within her, brought forth and given a more perceptible form by the soul crystal Naomi had lent to her to help keep her from being devoured by it.

“That may be what I am,” the shade said with a scowl, knowing her thoughts, “But I’m still you. I’m still us. I’m still a part of you, and vice versa. But you won’t accept me. Why?”

“You still lost,” Hali said with a dejected sigh, “You p-promised you, um... could- could win. Against Shadow that night. But y-you lost. We had a deal.”

The Darkside growled in irritation and rolled her red-limned eyes, “That’s not what I meant. You know what I mean. Answer me. Why won’t you accept me? Why does it have to be deals and bargains and games?”

Silence.

“Fine,” she sighed in exasperation, “But you know you can’t outrun this. You’re stuck for a reason.” She threw her arms out wide, staring Hali in the face with a look of annoyance.

“You can’t move forward if you can’t acce-”

“SHUT UP!” Hali nearly screamed, teeth grit and staring daggers at her own shadowy reflection, “Just… just shut up…!”

“If that’s all you’ve got to say to me,” her Darkside said, shaking her head in disappointment, “Then you’ve already lost. Just tell me. If you can’t be honest with yourself, with whom can you be?”

Again, Hali stood in silence, her gaze dropping.

“Exactly,” cooed her reflection, “If the world won’t have you… if it would betray you, look to kill you or worse, why not trust yourself? We’re all we’ve got, Hali. Me, myself, and I.”

She couldn’t respond, even as her eyes drew toward the picture of the Outriders to her right. All of their backs had turned to her, the painting radiating a familiar sense of exasperation… abandonment.

“You’re just setting us up to fail,” the shade sighed, “I’m not going to let that happen. You know that. We have to make it. Even if we can’t truly die, if this keeps up… don’t you think that’d be preferable?”

A pregnant pause hung between them as her Darkside watched her expectantly, before, “...isn’t it already?” Hali’s eyes closed as she tried to look away, but she saw the eyes on her - all the portraits, their hatred, their resentment - including those of her own inner darkness boring into her.

“Then accept me.”

“Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Hali swallowed hard, then answered her own question in barely a whisper, “...because I’m… I-I’m not good enough. I’m too… t-too… weak. I’m falling behind…” The response was for the Darkside to extend her hand, smiling calmly, saying with unnerving gentleness, “Just listen… Listen to our heartbeat. Listen for my voice. Listen…”

She hesitated. There was so much she needed to know, so many warnings she had been given, but if this was the only way, she had to take it. There was no other way she could be safe.

She reached. Slowly, hesitantly, she reached for the hand, out over the carpet’s edge. She didn’t make it. The room abruptly collapsed around her and silent blackness took hold as she awoke, feeling that pain again as it all began to slip from her memory.

“Hali?” came Dahlia’s voice with her notable Ishgardian accent, then her concerned face as she opened her eyes, “Hali? What’s the matter? Are you alright? You were crying in your sleep.”

“Huh?” was all the Raen could muster. Her eyes were wet. She was a bit congested. She had been crying… but why? “I… I dunno… D-don’t, um… remember…”

She couldn’t remember why, but she was certain of what she felt: the pain, the frustration, all completely inexplicable.

[coreshorts]

Ghost

Hidden from prying eyes, in a nook atop the deck of a merchant ship stopped in the Rasen Kaikyo, sat a hooded Raen, blue eyes focused on a small rowboat that crossed the Hingan sea to a small island. Deep currant purple was her colour of choice, her hood, over-shirt, boots, and all matching, hidden beneath a cloth tarp on the vessel’s deck. Blond and silver locks of hair were tucked inside, framing a rounded, almost cherubic face, though dark maroon lips turned downward in a thoughtful frown.

The isle was wooded, and above its low canopy, rooftops were visible. The rowboat made landing upon a small dock and the man occupying it departed with a small payload: a cut of profits for the trader that lived on and owned the small island home. Heading for the dock, she sought out to steal away in another of the ship’s rowboats once there were none to watch and made her way around the side of the island.

Hali had stood before her mentor, her best friend in all of Hydaelyn, Kel Lin - Kaori - after yet another training session. She had managed to impress the other Auri woman with a rather daring, if reckless, manoeuvre in dodging balls thrown at her to practice evasion. They had finished, and, she was told, it was time for her first trial: a true mission worthy of a shinobi.

“There's a scroll you must obtain, from people that would like to keep it from you. I can tell you who has it: a wealthy Hingan merchant by the name of Takeda,” Kel had explained, “He recently acquired the scroll after it passed through a number of hands in trade. You must get it, and you must not read it. You must not even open it. The how, the where, and everything else... Is up to you.”

It had been a long few days. She had become Naeuri no Katsu, the songstress from Doma, again, and spent two days flitting from bar to restaurant, offering her services as a performer or simply spending time relaxing, all the while eavesdropping on other merchants about this Takeda. Much was said, but what stood out to her was that he was known, so she began to trace her way through public records or sneak her way through those less-so. Eventually, it led to a ship that had only just made port, offloading textiles and drink.

The ship itself only ever off-loaded in Kugane, and so she stowed away, hidden cleverly in a space not often checked with another nearby in case she had to move. She left “Katsu” in Kugane, proceeding as herself, her currant purple adventurer’s armour protecting her body, her shirt’s hood and a stolen Imperial filtration mask protecting her identity.

Eventually, the ship arrived in Bukyo, where the crew departed shortly to begin the process of swapping out and loading new goods for trade. During this time, she managed to steal away with the ship’s manifest. Having worked in Ul’dah under the Crawfords, she knew how she could find the merchant: follow the money. Soon enough, she found it. Though much was kept in circulation, buying low, selling high, and increasing profits ever-higher, at the end of each week or when a threshold of net profit was reached, an overseer would depart for a small island while the trade ship made a short detour, anchoring just off the coast.

After dragging her rowboat up into the treeline and covering it to keep it hidden, she made her way to the outer wall of the estate, climbing one of the nearby trees and making herself comfortable, hidden in the foliage while she observed. A large outer wall, likely about twice as tall as she was, surrounded the outside with only one clear entrance: the front. A long outer building at the edge of the wall surrounded the three-story pagoda in the centre, all of it appearing to be of traditional Hingan design, the outer building all screens and sliding doors and the wall and inner pagoda bearing sloped, tiled roofing. The bottom of the pagoda, like a large, open-air lobby, was open on all sides. 

From where she watched, she spied multiple guards roaming the grounds, as if already watching for intruders. That, she thought, boded ill already. All were dressed in fabrics, but carried katanas, marking them, likely, as hired samurai. Two were at the gate, likely more for meeting - or in her case, turning away - would-be visitors, about four more roamed the stone paths about the courtyard, and yet four more practised their blade work in a small training area within the courtyard proper. Ten guards, she counted. They changed shifts, it seemed, every two hours. Two came from inside the second floor of the house as two entered, the guards at the gate switching as well. Those on the grounds staggered with the others, switching every two bells, but on a bell’s difference to keep them moving.

She pondered how to approach. The wall itself would be a poor choice: it was featureless and tall, requiring tools to climb on either side, in all likelihood, and getting over the top would make her stand out clearly. Even if she used vanishing dust, a grapple or rope would make her ascent too obvious. However, the only other way would be through the front, and past the two guards. How to do that, however, would be the question. She couldn’t wait for them to switch shifts at the gate. It was too open. She had to find another way around.

Climbing down from her vantage point, Hali sneaked her way around the perimeter of the wall, slowly and silently, observing the trees near it, the top of the wall, stopping when she got to another side of the estate to observe from that angle. Around the opposite side from where she had first approached, she found her answer: a nearby tree - small, yet sturdy, leaned precariously close to the wall, its branches obscuring the area directly over the wall, only a spare few fulms above its roofing. The corner of the estate itself seemed less-watched from what she could see. The chef’s quarters were just on the other side and she could drop down behind it. It’d been just over four bells that she’d been watching and pondering, and dinner was beginning. One chef had just left to convene with the other for that very purpose, and so the quarters would be empty.

With a bit of haste, she began to climb the smaller, leaning tree, keeping herself as steady and light on her hands and feet as possible. Given its size, if she went too quickly, it would shake, giving away her position. Once just over the wall, she applied vanishing dust to herself and dropped down. With a poof of the small clay ball in her hand as it cracked, she became little more than a shimmer for a precious moment, the clay shards discarded behind her. By the time she hit the dirt with a soft thud, it had worn off, but that was enough. Waiting for the sound of approach, she began to make her way into the chef’s quarters.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she remembered Kel’s words, "This will test you. If you end up in a fight, something has gone wrong. No great beasts to slay, or people to stab. In fact. You are not to kill anyone.” That made this difficult. She knew why that was important, and relished the challenge, but it made things stressful. She was to be a ghost, in and out without notice, without touching a single person. That was the plan, and she was going to stick to it.

The chef’s quarters were humble: just a few tatami mats, a bed, some personal effects, and necessities. It was simple, and there was, Hali felt, a charm to it all the same. She took a breath from behind her mask, however, and made her way to the other side, cracking the white screen door just enough to peer out, obscured by the darkness within the room. 

One of four guards passed on his way around the courtyard. From here, she had a clear view of the lower level. The kitchen and lounge areas of the main building were down below, and the smell of rice, fish, and vegetables filled the courtyard, reminding the would-be-shinobi of how hungry she was and causing her to exhale sharply. The next problem presented itself clearly. The four guards on patrol were spaced evenly, each watching down their own part of the paths in the courtyard surrounding the building, and all four had a constant view not only of the entire bottom floor, but through to the other side. Minimal furniture also meant minimal cover. She would have to make her way through the kitchen and avoid the chefs, who were now both busy with dinner preparations.

Waiting for a chance, she shot across the courtyard, low, silent, and quick, and darted behind a counter in the kitchen. These provided her with her best cover, but not for long. The chefs, as she knew from personal experience, though focused fully on their work, were likely quite mindful of their space. She had to keep out of sight; they would likely notice her even before the sharp-eyed samurai surrounding the building. The kitchen itself was beneath the stairs leading to the second floor. She would have to duck around the stairs and ascend before being noticed. With only two more applications of vanishing dust, she couldn’t risk it. She simply had to be quick.

Darting out from her cover once one of the guards passed behind her, she slipped out into the foyer beside the stairs, watching the guard on her side of the mansion pass by with his back to her. The next one would be coming, though, and very soon. Though it was not great cover, there was a large vase with decorative flowers to either side of the stairwell leading up to the second floor. She ducked behind it and waited, making herself as small as possible. In the nook, she was out of side of all but the next guard should he look directly to his left. Fortunately, as the guard passed, his eyes focused before him. She began to scoot the vase out, little by little, until she could slip around behind it and up the stairs.

As she reached the top of the stairs, she slowed to a stop, keeping low once she was out of sight of those below, her heart jumping into her throat. She found herself, at the top, face-to-heel with a guard as he patrolled the second level, pacing past the stairs in his rounds. With a silent gulp to clear the lump in her throat, she slowly eased into a corner beside the stairs to watch the man depart. Peeking out after him, calming herself from the near-miss, she looked out in either direction. Windows lined the hall, all white and opaque, but coloured orange from the setting sun. To her immediate right, a sliding door caught her attention, and, as the guard rounded the corner and disappeared, she softly slid it open and ducked inside the room.

The room was clearly, from the moment she silently shut the door behind her, a library. Various shelves stood proudly, stacked to the ceiling with books, all in Othard’s native languages, but mostly in Hingan.

“Hm?” came a decidedly male voice from around one of the shelves, causing Hali’s heart to jump back into her throat when the man spoke in Hingan, “Now who might that be? Takeda-san?” Footsteps began to pace on the hard wood of the library floor with the clacking of geta, leaving the intruding Raen to scramble for cover behind one of the neighbouring shelves.

“Huh,” came the voice again, sounding puzzled. The man opened the door to peek out into the hall, and Hali wound her way further into the library. She had to find a spot to hide until this man - Takeda’s advisor, Tadayori she presumed - left. A trio of desks atop a large tatami mat, arranged along three of its sides, sat before her. One in particular had a small lamp lit, and a book stood open upon it. She heard no footsteps and saw no one round the corner, so she scanned through the book, crouching low to the desk so she could read it.

It was nothing of importance, unfortunately, appearing to be some kind of ledger for Tadayori’s own transactions, some of the ink still drying. He must have, she figured, been perusing the library while he waited for it to dry. The footsteps began again, and she ducked behind another bookshelf, crouching low. Fortunately, the man was easy to track. A very tall male Raen with a severe but weathered expression rounded the corner as she watched him from the other side of a shelf in the gap above a number of books. He didn’t notice her, instead kneeling down at the desk to check his ledger. With a sigh upon finding it still drying, he opened a book and began to read.

The next moments were excruciating. However, Tadayori’s attention was called away at the sound of a bell being rung. Dinner was served. He shut his ledger and made for the door. Hali remained until she heard the door open and shut again. She was alone, and all but the guards on duty, she presumed, would be gathering for dinner in the lounge downstairs.

Opening the sliding door again, she peered down the hall to see a guard standing at the top of the stairs, staring down them with a hawkish gaze, likely after someone. He took two steps forward and nodded silently when another, younger, voice spoke to him from what sounded like the stairs. One of Takeda’s sons, the girl surmised. She used the momentary distraction to her advantage and rounded the corner, sneaking off and around the hall. As she approached the other side of the building, she found the other guard, standing still as a statue, his gaze panning left and right as he stood before a door beside the next flight of stairs, likely, she thought, to be a vault or treasury of some kind. She’d need to find a way in there.

For the time being, however, she needed to focus on getting out of sight. The guard’s gaze was slowly moving toward her, sandwiching her between the guard who would be approaching her from behind very soon. She pulls back around the corner, waiting and listening. Voices came from below, all from Takeda, his sons, and Tadayori. She couldn’t be certain of the guard had begun moving again, yet. A moment more, however, and the beginnings of his silhouette passed into view. When he turned to peer down the corridor, however, Hali had made herself scarce, having ducked around the corner and into where the next guard had been looking just moments before. Her luck was still with her, and she avoided his peripheral vision as she crept silently along the hall, slipping up the next flight of stairs.

While she waited, she figured, she could at least investigate the rooms on the third floor. Those rooms, upon quick investigation, belonged to Takeda, Tadayori, and Tadeka’s three sons, all bearing purely-wooden sliding doors with no screens, and rather out-of-place-looking modern locks. She headed first for Takeda’s room, hoping that, should it not be in the treasury, the scroll would be in his room. She tried the door, and found it locked. She silently cursed her luck and began looking for a lock to pick until she heard a voice.

“Yes, yes, I will return in a moment! Patience,” echoed a chuckling voice up the stairs. Takeda was coming, and she needed to hide. She ducked into the first room next to his, belonging to one of his sons. The door slid open and she slipped through before leaving it open just a crack to watch. The man walked past, whistling merrily, before using a key to unlock the door to his own room. Minutes went by as she listened to footsteps in the next room, and then, the whistling audible again, the door slid open and shut once more, geta clacking on the floor again as he walked down the hall until, descending the stairs, he was gone.

Hali slipped out of the son’s room, closing the door, and began the task of picking the lock to the room and making her way in. The door closed behind her and she was met with a surprisingly simple room for a wealthy merchant. Though there were some decorative displays, there was little that would show the man’s opulence or wealth. It looked comfortable, but nothing was too extreme. Within moments, however, her eyes fell on her prize: a sealed scroll sat in a case, held by a large suit of traditional samurai armour that stood in a recessed area behind Takeda’s desk. With quick steps and a keen eye to make sure there were no traps to spring, she set forth to pluck the scroll from its case.

She had expected as much when the case proved to be locked. She didn’t expect, however, for Takeda to make a second return. Geta clacked down the hallway again, and her heart skipped a beat in panic. As the door opened, she had nowhere else to hide but behind the armour, mimicking its stance perfectly, arms tucked behind her back. It was to her benefit that the armour’s helm was wider than the fin-shaped horns on either side of her head.

“...I know I did not forget to lock my door. Who is there?” the man demanded with a bit of anxiety to his voice. He began to pace around the room, causing Hali to purse her lips, eyes wide behind her mask as she palmed another clay ball of vanishing dust.

Footsteps approached the armour and then silence reigned for what felt like bells, days, months, even eras before, with a huff, the footsteps began to depart again as the man muttered, “I am getting too old for this...” The door opened, shut, and clicked as Hali found herself locked in. At least it would provide a little extra warning than her carelessness had left her the last time. She slipped out from behind the armour very carefully and began the work of picking the lock on the scroll’s display case. Popping it open, she tucked it safely into her satchel and closed the case again.

The hardest part, now, would be leaving. The treasury, tempting as it might have been, was not only a bad stop, but expressly forbidden by Kel. She was to take the scroll and nothing more. But how to get out? The son’s room beside Takeda’s was at the back of the house, and she could slip out onto the roof from there. At the back of the house, she wouldn’t be seen now that the sun had set, and so it was that she made her way toward it, unlocking Takeda’s door from the inside and shutting it, unlocked again, but only for lack of ability to lock it from the outside. She shot into the previous room, and opened the large shuttered window before easing out onto the roof and shutting it again behind her.

From here, she could begin to climb down the ornate building, and so she did, though only to the second level’s slanted roof. Crouching down, she waited, listening to the voices below and the light of a lantern causing the opaque windows of the second floor to glow softly as the guard passed where she remained crouched, blissfully unaware of her presence on the other side.

Eventually, the sound of dishes being cleaned ceased, and the cook staff returned to their rooms in the outer building. The family sounded to remain in the area below for a time, chattering on and enjoying themselves. The guards in the courtyard began to change shifts, some heading off to sleep while others began their own rounds. If she was fast, she could drop down and duck back into the kitchen. The stairs would shield her from the family’s attention, so she would only need to concern herself with the guards. Peeking over the edge, she watched as the next came around the corner. 

She’d watched this one round the corner several times, now. His  She would need to land as lightly and as quickly as possible. His eyes were somewhat sunken and his gaze dim. He looked tired; she knew the look well, given she often wore it, herself.

As the samurai passed, Hali dropped off of the stone roof and onto the path below with a soft thud of boots on stone before immediately ducking back into the entrance to the kitchen, just in time for the guard to stop and turn. However, he was slow and not fully alert enough to catch the blur of movement that ducked into the kitchen. To Hali’s benefit, he was also in a sour enough mood to simply grunt in annoyance, rub his eyes and turn to continue his patrol, apparently too tired to care. 

Once the next guard walked past, she darted out behind him and made her way to her last and worst obstacle yet: getting back over the wall. The tree had helped her in, but it would not be helping her get back, and she cursed herself for not realising this earlier. Hiding behind the chefs’ quarters in the darkness between them and the wall, she pondered silently to herself. Attempting to scale the wall would take too long and would get her spotted. She could slip around to try getting out the front, but she would need a way past the guards there. Worst yet, she only had so much time before Takeda returned to his room and raised the alarum when he found his new display piece missing. She was trapped until she could figure out another way.

Eventually, she realised, there really was no good way out. She left herself with no route of escape. Kel had intended this as a lesson in and of itself, and she had learned a good deal, she felt, from those few slip-ups, and especially now that she found herself trapped by her own lack of foresight. Reaching for the rope in her satchel, she attached a clawed grapnel to to the end, tying it off tightly and tossing it for the tree from before. With a slow tug, she tested its strength. Silence for the moment was her sign that no one had seen, yet.

She quickly ascended the wall after watching the guards for a moment more. The tree shook, leaves rustling softly in the darkness, but no voices came, and no footsteps approached. The lack of light, for the time being, was on her side, so long as she didn’t make too much noise. As she climbed, she coiled her rope behind her to keep from leaving a trail and so that she could yank the grapnel free and hop down to the other side.

As she crested the wall, a lantern lit one of the chefs’ rooms, the opaque screen glowing a soft yellow, briefly and just barely illuminating her as she yanked her grapnel free and jumped off of the other side of the wall, leaving the tree rustling a little again in the dim light.

“What was that?” Hali heard someone ask, and she swore silently. She began to creep her way around the wall again, quickly, as footsteps approached the other side of the wall to investigate. Her rowboat was on the other side of the island, thankfully. By the time the alarum was raised as Takeda found his scroll missing, she was already rowing on the long trip back toward Kugane. It wasn’t perfect, but she did it, and the scroll was secured. Pride made her grin, even though she knew she could’ve done better.

She hadn’t needed to lay a hand on anyone, and with more practice, she would be like a ghost.

[coreshorts]

Dismantled

“You could not have come at a better time,” the middle-aged Hingan midlander had told her, “I require your expertise, now, more than ever.” His features were drawn, hints of frustration pulling his brows taut across his forehead, jaw set, and tone soft, but tense.

The man before the heavyset Raen was wealthy man named Takeda no Kazumoto, a merchant and daimyo of Hingashi. She had spent much of her time on the his estate, set on its own little private island, much like her own village, doing one of the things she did best: cooking. She had been brought on, officially, as a member of the cook staff so that she could, along with Tadayori, the daimyo’s trusted friend and adviser, act as his eyes in the shadows. Much of her early missions after being brought on under his command involved silently accompanying him to some locations for trading deals or simply for leisure. She had not had to do anything taxing, until now.

With a polite bow, Hali, known to her lord by her Hingan name, Asashio no Haruhi, or “Haruhi of the Morningtide”, in honour of her mentor and sister in the shadows, remained respectfully at attention as Kaori had taught her and awaited her instructions silently. She had been summoned to the library and beside him stood the rather tall Raen man known simply as Tadayori. She had evaded the older shinobi’s gaze just barely when she underwent the trial that took her to the very estate at which she had come to happily serve as both chef and shinobi. The severe expression on the other Au Ra’s face, though not directed at Hali, made her somewhat nervous.

“A ship has been waylaid,” he explained with a distant frown, “The overseer of the last shipment of textiles bound for Kugane was sent back with a missive from the Red Moon smuggling ring. They are demanding a ransom. Tadayori can tell you more.”

The older Raen spoke up, giving his younger counterpart a nod, “They have seized the ship and its crew and are holding them hostage on a remote island approximately sixty malms from here. They intend to sell off the textiles for their own profit while keeping the crew and money already earned. There are approximately sixteen crew members. Two have been executed for resistance. The ship’s captain has also been executed as a warning.”

The younger shinobi frowned, looking concerned at that, and, picking up on it, Tadayori added, “They are not known for this kind of blatant barbarism. Since the reclamation of Doma, however, and the increase in activity from the Confederates, they have been driven farther from the Ruby Sea and have begun engaging in more questionable activity. It is unknown why, but it is my suspicion that they are under new leadership. If that is the case...”

Hali canted her head slightly, following Tadayori’s gaze as he looked to Takeda, who finished, “This new leader must be investigated. I do not ask this lightly, but if it is confirmed that Soratsuki no Shigetoki is no longer in command of the Red Moon, and this his successor is reforming the them so, this successor must be dealt with. A clear message must be sent that such barbaric actions have no place amongst these isles.”

Hali bowed and Tadayori nodded, before she said in fluent Hingan, “I will ensure only absolute and efficient success.” It had become her favourite phrase to use, and it seemed to please both Takeda and Tadayori, the two of whom finally gave a small smile at the utterance.

“Then I will trust you with this task, Asashio-san,” he said, bowing respectfully to her before gesturing to Tadayori, “You will not be alone for this. Tadayori-san will be working nearby to rescue the captives.”

“It will be your mission,” Tadayori said, “to investigate the meaning of this attack and to ensure that such a thing does not occur again. The means you use are yours to choose.”

“If either of you also locate the shipment or money,” Takeda added, “It will be better for all of us.” Tadayori and Hali both nodded to the affirmative before the two shinobi set about their preparations.

Three ships in total were boarded to keep their trail secret. One returned them to Kugane. Another took them closer to Bukyo. The third took them from there just a bit further to the south and west again, passing through the waters now supposedly terrorised by the Red Moon. The ship, however, carried little more than lumber, and went wholly unmolested, as Tadayori had explained before they had set off.

A small bribe was paid to the ship’s captain both for their passage and the rowboat they would use to cross the final five malms to the island. The elder shinobi had humorously chided her that being a stowaway was not always beneficial, though she agreed. The final detail she was to given for this mission was also discussed on the way, and that was the description of the man supposedly in charge of the Red Moon. An older man, wizened, yet lively, with one eye and a burn scar that covered the opposite side of his face was who she was to find. If another was in his place, then the Red Moon could be confirmed as “under new management,” as was said.

Upon approaching the island, a familiar ship, as well as several more, were seen. Only the one belonging to the severed trade route was docked. Some eight ships patrolled the island, all clearly armed. The approach was slow, methodical, and patient, drifting through a gap in lantern light during the darkest part of the night. By the time their path would have been given away by the ripples of their rowboat, the waves had already churned them away.

They landed upon the shore and, both working together to take the boat to hidden location in the trees about the island, split up to go about their individual missions. There was to be no communication via normal means: no linkpearls, communicators, or otherwise. Instead, Hali had been instructed how to leave specifically-worded messages through clues in the area for times like this when they were to work together.

The island itself was built like a fortress. Palisades of large logs, all with sharpened tips and illuminated by torchlight every few paces, surrounded the small shack-like buildings at the isle’s centre. Six buildings in all, including the dock house which lay just next to the captured and docked merchant vessel. Tadayori would likely be headed there first, the younger Raen surmised. Thus, she headed for a larger building set at the back with the heaviest guard.

The large building was two stories as opposed to the others at only single-level shacks with ramshackle paper screen walls. It bore weathered, ornate walls that looked like it could have once been something more beautiful than the hovel it appeared to be. It even seemed to once have had a third story, judging by the supporting pillars and bits of wall that remained. However, a multitude of wooden planks were nailed up with straw to simply give the building a makeshift roof. Heavy wooden walls, amado, were set in place around the perimeter of the building - normally storm shutters normally meant to keep out the wind and rain, but reinforced to keep out attackers, it would seem - and there was only one way in, guarded by two alert-looking men in heavier armour with pikes. Fortunately, however, unlike her first infiltration, these guards had not been made alert, and many appeared either tired, overconfident, or just simply lazy. They were thugs more so than real samurai.

She would not be using the front door, however. Despite the well-lit palisades around the building, it would be far easier to take the back way in. The guards behind the building, as she watched, seemed lax. The only ones that ever went behind the larger building were there for breaks or to slack off. One was asleep against an amado panel, his lantern off. Simple enough. The palisade was the only thing keeping her out, and that would be easily bypassed.

She took a few steps back and began gathering aether in the shadows, a single mudra held before her for a few seconds before she vanished completely, a Shukuchi spell taking her up and over the palisade and to the very edge of the building where she grabbed onto the edge with both hands and slowly pulled herself up. The area was not lit, nor did the lighting below risk exposing her, it seemed. The guard below had not stirred, and she managed to remain silent as she slowly ascended the roof.

The next problem, however, made itself quickly evident: despite the ramshackle appearance of the roof, it was sturdy, built up and held together with lashings that would have made the stingiest sailor proud. They did not budge for her. Her best bet was to try slipping in through the narrow spaces to either side where the slanted roof left room for air. Both sides, however, were out in the open, lit by torchlight from below and in full view of the two guard houses. one to either side of the building. Chances would have to be taken, though, thankfully, none of the guards seemed particularly inclined to turn their gazes heavensward.

With a few deft footsteps and a turn, she swung out over the edge of the roof, briefly illuminated by torchlight as some few strands of straw drifted gently down and landed on one of the patrolling guards below. With a grunt, the man simply brushed it off, thinking little better.

Once inside the low roof structure, Hali was forced to practically crawl once she could twist herself to do so. Once she did, however, she came face to face with something that nearly made her scream: a hornet nest nestled in the very top arch of the makeshift roof. Every alarum in her head roared to life at once. Sweat beaded on her forehead behind her stolen Imperial filtration mask and she froze still as a statue, a tiny squeak the only noise she could make as she turned about just under it, only to come face-to-hive. There was no activity, the insects within all either having taken to dormancy in the colder fall moons or simply having moved on. She couldn’t bear to find out. With a stiff and shaken crawl, she pressed herself flat against the charred floor beneath the roof - it seemed the third story had burned away, much like she found herself wanting so desperately to do to the rest of the building for its infernal infestation - and shuddered as the corpses of long-dead insects crunched near-soundlessly beneath her armoured gloves and boots.

Eventually, however, she found the hole where a stairwell used to be, and, peering down into the darkened room below, dropped down with a muffled thud as she hit the floor. She found herself at the end of a hallway, a ladder sitting on the ground beside her with some few more hornet carcasses littering the floor besides. Ignoring the shudder-inducing sight and crunch beneath her boots, she slinked down the hallway, focusing her potent sense for aether to try and pick out nearby signs of life in the rooms around her. However, all she felt were three below. Two moved, one did not, and that, she figured, was her target. One, however, was approaching the stairs, calling back about a sound he had thought he heard - likely Hali’s rapid escape from the hornet-infested attic.

She ducked into on of the two rooms, fortunately finding their shoji doors without locks. Slipping into the one, she found what appeared to be some kind of office. The dark made it hard for her to make anything out, but the feeling of the space around her suggested things that made her nervous: an officem perhaps, but it felt from the way the air’s vibrations reaching the Auri girl’s horns that someone or something sat the desk not several fulms to her left. She proceeded carefully, until the sound of a guard approaching the door and light from a lantern alerted her to hide, and she ducked behind the desk to find shelter.

Immediately, even through her mask’s filter, the smell of death was almost overwhelming, turning her stomach, and, even in the dark, she could make out the form of a man’s corpse, leaning back against the wall. It couldn’t have been more than a few days old, but the smell was still overpowering. she flattened herself to hide beneath the low Hingan desk and the small armoire beside it just in time for the door to slide open and lantern light to flood the room, illuminating the features of the dead man above her.

“Hmph,” came the annoyed grunt of a tall, grizzled Raen with half his right horn missing, severe, red-ringed green eyes staring at the dead man - at the former leader of the Red Moon - before sliding the door shut and returning to the hall to check the other room.

Soratsuki was dead, and that answered the first question as she hurriedly, but silently, made to escape the choking and pungent odour that caused her to hold her breath for as long as she could. That left one more room and then the man below. He had two guards. They would have to be distracted. She didn’t want to cause a scene and have the whole camp on her.

One guard was in the next room. That meant she had a very short amount of time to disable him. Slowly, she slid the door open and foud herself staring at the man’s back, his scaled tail whipping in annoyance as he leaned into a room stacked with crates and purses. It seemed that was the room with the more valuable shipments and payments. Takeda’s koban would be in there, if not his textile shipment, as well, if those weren’t still on the anchored ship.

Slowly, she got up behind the guard, a good fulm taller that she was, wakizashi in hand. She was cleared to dispatch of any of the Red Moon as she pleased, and the easiest way to rid herself of these guards was, simply, to kill them. The Raen girl had no qualms with this. Death was something she enjoyed administering and, especially, feeling in her victims. With a precise and lethal strike, she raised an arm and drove her blade through the man’s neck before immediately tearing it out. His throat immediately filled with blood, choking off his ability to call out an alarum, and she eased him to the ground, back into the room with the other dead man. The tatami beneath him drank in the blood, just as Hali drank in the feeling of the man’s aether draining away.

One guard down, she waited. It was only a matter of time before the other was sent looking. Minutes passed, however, and no word was said below. She had even had time to clean the blood from the floor in the hall to cover her tracks. She began to get nervous. Was she expected? Was there something at play that she didn’t know? Had she missed something? No new guards came to replace the old one. Perhaps he was expected to retire. A change in plans had to be arranged.

Slowly, she crept to the top of the stairs and listened to the level below, much like a child past her bedtime might scout for the movement of her parents below. There was little movement. The very faint sounds of a quill on parchment and the occasional rustle of coin below made it clear that the motionless figure was counting money. She began to form a mudra to hide herself, making herself all but invisible for a short while, but paused as two sets of footsteps entered the lower level and a gruff, dark voice began a conversation.

“...you are to have two guards at all times when you count my money. Where is Yasusuke?”

“I- m-my apologies! He left to investigate a noise. I lost track of time.”

“Idiot! Find him! If he is slacking, I will have the rest of his horn and your head!”

The timid-sounding man who had been sitting at the desk, she surmised, was not the leader, but a treasurer. The leader had just walked in the door. Now, the remaining guard with the treasurer flanked the new leader while the timid man ran for the stairs, forcing Hali to back into the shadows as the short, nervous little man entered the upper hall. He paused in the darkness before the first door before letting out a shudder. It seemed he knew who was supposed to be inside, and his hesitation gave the hidden Raen her chance. However, despite the high she rode from the previous kill, she noticed something that gave her pause: his wrists bore shackles. He was a prisoner, and likely one of the ship’s crew. Instead of drawing her blades, she struck forward and clapped a hand over the man’s mouth to silence him.

“You do not belong here, do you?” she asked in a hushed tone, and the man, breathing sharp and fast through his nose, now, shook his head, “Then you will report nothing out of the ordinary. Your guard is not here. Do this and you will have freedom. Do you understand?”

A frantic nod from the man prompted Hali to release him before fading back into the darkness. He hesitated a moment, as if debating on what to do, but when the faceless shinobi drew toward the edge of the shadows, he nodded once more and shakily walked down the stairs.

“He is not here,” came the nervous, choked report, “I cannot find him!”

The sound of flesh on flesh was the reply before the thud of a body hitting the floor met the Raen’s sensitive horns. She frowned behind her mask, disappointed, but at a beaten hostage was better than a dead one, she figured. The sound of shuffling and the feeling of two moving bodies gave her reason to suspect that the man had been moved back to his spot at the desk to resume counting koban before two sets of footsteps came storming up next.

Thinking quickly, Hali ducked into the makeshift treasury and left the door enticingly cracked, as if someone went haphazardly inside and forgot to close it entirely. Threatened treasure might draw attention, after all, and, moments later, it did. The door flew open with a rattle and a Roegadyn man peered in, his face contorted in rage. He was a large Sea Wolf man, nearly as tall as the Raen man she had laid low earlier, but twice as bulky, his exposed arms, torso, and head covered in scars where it was not in tattoos. Two of the fingers on his left hand were missing, leaving only half of his middle finger, his index finger, and thumb.

With a huff, eyes flashing with anger, he stepped into the room and Hali dropped from her hiding spot above the door, wedged precariously above the doorway and hanging on to a rafter through pressure alone, both wakizashi drawn to plunge straight down into his neck. The man let out a startled choking noise and fell forward to the tatami with a heavy thud. However, the Raen atop him had no time to savour the feeling of his death as a tall midlander came jogging up the hall to check on the disturbance. What he got, however, was a kunai between the eyes that stopped him in his tracks, both of Hali’s wakizashi discarded for just a moment to give her the ability to quickly react.

She retrieved her blades from the floor to either side of the slain Sea Wolf and the face of the midlander guard, wiping them off on the latter’s shirt before stowing each properly. The sound of footsteps walking up the stairs began again, prompting her to drag the midlander’s body quickly into the treasure room with the slain leader, and, moments later, another Hingan man, older but battle-hardened with a lantern in one hand and a katana drawn in the other, rounded the corner.

This katana may have proven effective to block a strike or a thrown weapon, but it was unable to stop Hali’s most-practised jutsu: Hyoton. As he crept down the hall, she kept just out of sight, performing the mudras: Ten then Jin, before executing it from the shadows created by the lantern light beyond the open door. The air glimmered ominously around the man before suddenly flash-freezing him into a jagged ice form. Concentrating for but a few moments, one more execution mudra was made, and the ice form cracked and crumbled, the frozen man inside shattered with his prison. Three guards and the current leader of the Red Moon lay dead in the upper level of the building, and she remained still for just a moment longer, savouring the feeling of the aether and smelling the blood of the dead on the air. It was exhilarating.

There would have to be an example made, however, and soon, she began to arrange the still-bleeding bodies in the room with the former leader’s decaying corpse. The Roegadyn man was postured, though it was difficult with his bulk for the smaller Raen to move him, on his knees in dogeza. The three guards lay around him, hands clapsed over their chests, and in his back, the Hingan letters for “unforgivable” were carved with a kunai as many times as she could fit the word. It was gruesome, but a part of her enjoyed it, her mask the only thing hiding the madness in her eyes and wicked grin. The still-lit lantern of the second guard was placed on Soratsuki’s desk to illuminate them all.

After setting the scene and cleaning herself up, she moved downstairs to find Tadayori waiting with the prisoner, his features completely obscured. One of the amado at the back of the building had been pulled loose by the elder shinobi, and he nodded out that way before guiding the shackled, nervous man out. Hali, meanwhile, pointed upward as his gaze lingered on her, making signs for “target”, “dead,” and “treasure” in the silent cant she had been shown for communication between the two. 

He nodded in understand before responding with “return,” and “guard.” She was to guard the area until his return. Simple enough. Taking to the shadows once more, the next half bell went by without issue. Then, Tadayori returned, giving her a nod and gesturing for her to lead. Upon entering the hall above, she made the sign for “target,” pointing to the door where the bodies had been laid to convey their message, and then “treasure,” before pointing to the other. The next few moments were spend going through crates and identifying what was necessary. Most was simply foodstuff, but there were several large purses of koban and a few jewellery boxes of valuables to be taken. The food, meanwhile, was dumped over, leaving it to spoil on the floor. With nothing else remaining, the two shinobi made to leave.

On their way out, Tadayori chanced to see Hali’s handiwork in the other room, staring for just a moment before shaking his head and following her out, several small boxes and bags in tow before the male Raen led her along a path through the camp to keep them low and hidden before arriving at the merchant ship in the dock. The hostages had been escorted aboard and were waiting, and the shipments it carried were still in place, to Hali’s relief. The last issues was how to get the ship out without causing alarm. The docks were conspicuously empty, and Hali knew better than to question, but how would they get past the patrol ships?

A very faint smile was visible in Tadayori’s eyes as he gestured out toward the open sea, then gave a questioning motion. He was asking her how they should deal with the patrols. A rowboat was easy enough to sneak past, but an entire merchant ship? That would be impossible to sneak out. She was left to ponder that question while Tadayori motioned for the rescued crew to get the ship moving. Fortunately enough of them remained to allow for decent navigation back toward Bukyo. The question of how to deal with the two ships in their path remained, however, and it was one for which she had no answers. They would simply have to improvise. Tadayori seemed to be of the same opinion.

As the ship departed, they were, predictably, approached by one of the patrol ships, and a man from just yalms away, cannons pointed for the merchant vessel, yelled over, “That ship is not supposed to leave! What are you doing?”

Tadayori approached, shrouded by the darkness but still fairly visible in the distant lantern light as a silhouette with his cream-coloured horns and tail, and called out in return, “The ransom is paid. The vessel is being returned for collection.”

A laugh rumbled through the air as the distant midlander chuckled, “You are a very poor liar. Show your face before you and your cargo are blown to pieces.” The silence that dragged on was deafening, and action needed to be taken. However, with eyes on Tadayori, he could do nothing. It fell to Hali to intervene, and a tingling feeling already made its way up her arms. The captain of the hostile ship was the first of four on deck. Two cannoneers manned the forward guns, torches held and ready to light the fuses of their cannons. A navigator stood farther back, and the captain himself stood at the very edge of the bow.

There was no time needed  to deliberate. The ship was small with only a token crew manning it besides, likely to keep it fast. It would be easy for men not prepared to be ambushed. With a gathering of aether, she performed another Shukuchi, jumping her instantly to a spot on the ship just behind the first cannoneer before driving a blade up through the back of his neck and into his skull. In the ensuing chaos, a single mudra was made before a shuriken was sent flying across to the other. The thrown weapon multiplied in size and blazed with aether as it approached the female cannoneer, leaving a massive gash in her neck and causing her to fall overboard from the force of the impact, the water slowly staining red in the darkness. The torch from the first fell from his hands, only for Hali to kick it to the side and over the edge, as well.

With a shout of shock, the captain drew a katana and charged for the murderous Raen. She turned to him and watched, single wakizashi still in her off hand. The aether around him churned and swirled, and as his arms came up to deliver a slash for her chest, she moved with the aether, reading his movements before they could occur with a low, demented giggle. When the blade whizzed through empty air, her own found purchase in the captain’s stomach. She withdrew it, then thrust it in again, and again, and again. Several deep stabs in quick succession with the blade forced him to drop his own in the shock that overcame his body, and he fell to the deck of the ship, bleeding out before she stooped down and slit his throat.

Meanwhile, the navigator had begun to panic and found a pike with which had charged the woman slaughtering his crewmates. However, by the time he reached her, a kunai found itself lodged in his neck, much to Hali’s surprise. It seemed, with the cannons no longer posing a threat, Tadayori had chosen to assist her. In the wake of the slaughter, she spent but a moment revelling once more in the aether of the fallen as it drained away before using one more Shukuchi to return to the ship.

“That was brash,” the elder Raen scolded softly once the ship began moving again, though his words were not harsh.

“It would have been worse to leave our survival to chance,” Hali responded in the same hushed tone, “The mission must be completed, no matter the cost.”

Tadayori went silent, bowing his head as they pulled free from the smugglers’ territory. She was still young and still learning, and she knew this. Even Kaori wished to instil in her the weight of a life, to make her see that all people were people. However, that was not something she felt she could ever comprehend - at least not without losing her mind in the process - and the matter, further, was unimportant at any rate.

Her mission was completed, and with it, the Red Moon would slowly be dismantled.