Thanatyr
Member
Reclusion
2,137 words
Fiora lay on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her blanket was discarded to the floor, kicked off the night before. Tossing and turning caused her to tangle in the fabric. In turn causing nightmarish flashbacks of being trapped under the body, jolting her awake, trembling, in a cold sweat.2,137 words
A book her brother provided sat on a crate she used as a nightstand, within the pages it told the story of Sir Astor. The same knight whose story was told at the opera. Here she could see more nuances in the story, allowing her to jot lines of notes along every margin, with the same ink that currently stained her fingertips. Notes about the creature, the Fæstrines, only brought about more questions. What was it? A Vistra? A demon? Some unholy merging of the two? Regardless, few people of importance believed the story, wanting instead to insist that the accident on the docks was mechanical failure.
Her gills ached from being parched, still the discomfort and dull burning sensation did not move her. Only when voices and footsteps were heard coming into the apartment did she sit upright and listen more closely.
“She’s been torn apart by what happened for nearly a week, hasn’t left the apartment, not even to go down to the pool, and now you show up?” Lorenzo stamped his foot noisily, closing the door behind him. He had invited his family’s lawyer upstairs to avoid a scene, unaware of the commotion that he was still causing. Beneath the apartment the faint muffled yelling was joined by cascading columns of dust, customers who made the trip during their lunch hours shuffled to the side and continued their transactions.
“I do have a law practice to keep running, Lorenzo,” Amatus removed his short brimmed hat and set it on top of his briefcase which laid on the table. He then propped a paper wrapped package, just over a meter long, next to it. With a Cheshire smile he quipped, “in fact I do believe the saying is ‘better late than never’, is it not?”
Lorenzo’s scowl did not phase the older man, “Now, part of the delay for my arrival is I was setting something up. In fact it might lift your sister’s spirits. A bit of negotiations with the conexus.”
“About the gangsters that attacked us?” Lorenzo snapped, stamping his foot once more, “What were they identified as again? The Manus Viskar?”
Just then the door to Fiora’s room creaked open. She emerged with bags under her eyes, her hair a disheveled mess, wearing little more than a linen undershirt and shorts. Both men’s attitude drastically changed, they both stared awkwardly at the table as if they were politely unaware of her current appearance.
“Don’t mind me, you can yell loud enough for the whole block to hear you once I get a drink,” She motioned to Lorenzo, only to turn to Amatus, her face contorted with anger, “You, you can just get out. I don’t want anything more from my ‘father’s friends’.”
“Before I go there are a few things I would like to tell you. Perhaps go put on a few more layers, and have a seat,” Amatus held a hand next to his eyes to block her from view. An act that to her reeked of his disdain for the sight of her velen features, she had seen laicar do the same to spurii many times back in Prenditus.
“Bellator’s flaming ass,” she borrowed the curse she had heard on Diana’s lips. Fiora slammed her hands on the table, “they’re just fins you dolts! If you’re going to get all clammy pick a better reason than a few blue scales!”
“I wouldn’t say that myself and Lorenzo are so unused to your velen inheritance, young lady, that we would look away. In fact it would be the matter of your clothing. You are still dressed for bed, apparently oblivious to the fact that company is over. Your father always emphasized manners in his social circles, surely he taught his own daughter that.”
Amatus dropped his hand and looked her straight in the eyes, his cool gaze reminiscent of her father about to go on a judgemental rant. Fiora gasped and took a step back, he continued to speak. “So please, go put on a bathrobe at the least, take a deep breath, and we can talk things through.”
The judemental tone in his voice felt insulting, Fiora snapped forward and screeched in his face, “Forgive me for having feelings, I’m only mortal! If only any of the all-powerful Vis didn’t treat my life like their own personal dumping grounds!”
Lorenzo reached for her hand slowly, she yanked her hand out of his reach, looking at her fins in shameful recognition. Some feral part of her wanted to tear them off, to better hide away as a laicar. Another thought spiraled out of control, flowing freely past her lips, “Or perhaps I should blame the great and powerful Castus!”
Fiora stalked past the men, taking a seat on a couch she quieted only just enough to be the patrons and staff below could not hear, “He who has an entire sect dedicated to hating what I am! Why is it the Solaviskar claim he’s the only divine being, and then take it out on everyone else as if they are his inquisitors? In fact, you’ve been quiet since that night about what happened to your friend, did Ennius even survive?”
“He did,” Lorenzo spoke up. He opened a cupboard, retrieved a glass, and filled it to the brim with water from the tap. He walked over to the couch, handing the drink to his sister before taking a seat himself. “Nearly didn’t, of course. What with damn near bleeding out before the guard arrived. Something tells me he’s not going to want a second date.”
“A poor joke,” Fiora mulled over the glass for a moment. She had come out more to tell Amatus to leave, but a drink would be nice. She tossed back most of its contents and paused. The last few drips she inhaled, allowing the drops to moisten her gills slightly, just enough that the dull ache stopped. After the events of that night, she could not bring herself to come out to the apartment that often, much less make the trek down to the pool, even if she felt she deserved a swim. Which on the whole, she did not.
“You know, there was one thing the feathered bastard told me before he passed out. But, you might not like it.” Lorenzo studied his sister’s face. When she nodded he took a breath. “The captured thugs confirmed what the leader of that group told Ennius, that his grandfather wanted him dead. The thing is, he has no grandparents still breathing. Given their dislike for Spurii, something tells me they weren’t sent after him.”
Fiora went silent, her eyes shut and her clenched fists pressed against her forehead. Amatus took the opportunity to take his jacket and try to drape it on her shoulders. No sooner did the cloth touch her than she jumped away from him and off of the couch.
“Maybe, just maybe if my own family didn’t have people in it who want me dead I could be myself.” The water she drank earlier seeped through her gills, causing her shirt to stick, patches of her tanned skin and blue scales showed through the thin material. Grudgingly she snatched the jacket, and put it on. With each button she grumbled. “Instead, I have to live a lie and hide what I am to prevent social castration.”
“Did you know, I saw one spurii that was being yelled at by several people for not holding a door open for a laicar?” She moved to the window, staring out at the sunlit street through the curtains, “It didn’t even matter to that mob that the poor man had their own hands completely full!”
“That sounds unfortunate.” Lorenzo made his way to the window, he scanned the street to see if his sister was looking at something in particular. He went to speak, but was sharply interrupted.
“Oh, didn’t you notice, Lorenzo?” Fiora scolded him, he unknowingly had failed her test, “That was the front door of your shop, three days ago, you idiot! So maybe, just for once, my life can just get on without being a nightmare of drama!”
“What you’re asking for,” Amatus finally spoke up, his voice was soothingly smooth, “is just that the Vis make your life easy, you have to know that will not be the case. You have two options. Lie down and taken what fate was dealt to you, or make something of it.”
Fiora started to talk, to insist she just wanted a normal life. The words caught in her throat he turned to walk as if to leave suddenly. She cocked her head to the side, curious about what the lawyer had up his sleeve. Amatus stopped just short of the door, snatching up the paper parcel and an umbrella, and with equal vigor he briskly moved back to where she stood.
“Study, practice everything!” He threw the package her way, taking up a fencer’s pose with the umbrella as he did. “Learn to make it through the hardest moments and thrive because of them!”
“You look ridiculous,” she dropped the package ungracefully to the floor, metal clanged loudly within, “and you still haven’t made it clear why you’re here. Fine. Talk.”
“Alright, just remember you cannot win a fight if you do not try. Have a seat, if you please. I’ve got something to show you.” Amatus flipped his hat off of his briefcase, opening the snaps simultaneously. From inside he fetched a single sheet of paper, the crisp ink lettering denoted it came from a professional press, something mass produced. But without the smudging of a constant run.
“This was the first of the batch, I asked specifically for it.” He slid the paper towards Fiora, she picked up the sheet and two things became instantly apparent. In large bold lettering, the name of the creature from the opera. Fæstrines. Her fingers moved across the lettering, including the incredible sum that was being offered for the bounty.
“Alive? Why alive?” She asked in complete bewilderment. “Why would you possibly want something that can blow an entire airship out of the sky, alive and in chains? The thing would just break out!”
“You forget my dear, the conexus found no bodies. Yet this vistra was spotted two days ago five hundred kilometers south east. There the creature reportedly blew up a caravan whose guards tried to stand in the way of its journey back to the Denuntiares Mountains. Now those men are craters, so the reports say. They were careless, but this means the infection has a host.”
“Meaning Captain Ventus could be this... monster?” Fiora followed the verbal breadcrumbs he was setting before her. Her brow furrowed. “There’s no way that thing is him, he would never do these things. That ship was his home! He... “
Fiora’s eyes lit up hopefully, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. She darted towards her room, throwing open the door, showing a mess of turned over boxes. She picked her way through the spare parts that spilled out of crates she had thrown aside days before, grabbing her clothes, showing more energy now than she had since the night of the opera, “I’ve got to be part of this! I’ve got to save him, bring him back, has to be me.”
“No,” Lorenzo firmly stated, his voice raised with frustration, “no it doesn’t!”
His eyes darted from her to the chaos of what had been a spare room. He knew the largest mess in that room was his sister, a realization that broke his heart. His frustration boiled over, he shouted, “If it took several well trained knights of old to take out one of these vistra, you have no chance. If you go here and now, you will die. I can not, I will not, let you go!”
“Then what would you have me do? Sit locked away doing nothing, afraid of something no one believes exists? I need to do... something! Anything!” She screamed back at him, tearing up.
“Like Amatus said, practice.” Lorezo collected himself, smoothing back his hair. He picked up the paper wrapped package, a faint hint of a smile broke through his scowl as he peeled it open. He handed the rapier that was within handle first to his sister, now with a grin. One of his devilish smiles when he was up to no good, “Maybe take out your practice on the assholes that attacked us, couldn’t hurt.”