Mystydjinn
[Insert rimshot]
Mystydjinn = Aelflead Kirastes
Dysney = Ignis Animi
Heavy casualties were taken in the battle with Ferocitas, some more mental than physical. Even for the multitude of battle-hardened mercenaries that made up most of Terminus’ forces seeing so many of their comrades torn to pieces, burned, and eaten in front of was horrifying.
Demons had no qualms and no code of honor, they all knew that when they stepped onto the boat that brought them here, but it was something else to witness in practice.
The march further into Krevati Evimerias felt less like a march into battle and more like a funeral procession. Most were weighed down with a combination of weariness and dread, the fear of new horrors was more concerning than fear of those that had already passed them. One of the driving forces behind their steps now was pure stubbornness, too much blood had been spilled to turn around now. At least for most of them.
Aelflead was consumed with other thoughts. She walked near the back of the pack, trying to keep out of the eye of the Conexus personnel mixed in with mercenaries that made up Terminus’ forces, grumbling to herself about a spat from nearly an hour ago.
“Didn't your mother teach you unkind words are like poison on the tongue, Toast?”
The words burned in the woman’s mind like hot coals.
“Didn't your mother-”
The phrase drew memories to the surface that would have been better left forgotten. No, she didn’t. She thought as flashes of her home cut across her mindscape with images of the enlil’s face like a flickering tape. She scowled and her body stiffened in response. As if it were attempting to restrain or bind itself up to keep the woman’s anger from spilling out and sweeping the marching forces out to sea.
Though, anger wouldn’t be the proper name for the sense of ire building inside the woman. No, jealousy would be more accurate.
Once again, Ignis was patched up after surviving a confrontation by the skin of her pointed teeth. Each event was more terrible than the last. In hindsight, the basilisk hadn't been that bad. Sure, it had cracked her skull, crushed her ribs, and bruised her entire body in its dying throes, but that had been a brief pain. Burning alive was more terrifying. The threat of imprisonment still made her panic more. Nearly falling to her death and burning again had pushed her close to if not over the edge.
Now, she trudged towards the next challenge. Ignis wasn't particularly brave, just detached from the reality of death. None of it seemed quite real until she got hurt or cornered. Despite the terror, she craved it. No matter how many times she got hurt, the engineer would follow her whims through hell and high water.
This time, she had ambition. After the dragon and first wave of demons ravaged Terminus, the possibility of safety was erased from her sense of reality just like the potential for dying. She was still the hero, the knight with no armor. Although this time, Ignis had little choice. Leaving, though physically possible would only condemn her to hiding and being trapped. That was an unacceptable outcome for someone like her. Her enlil blood wouldn't allow it. The need for freedom was too strong.
Ignis would die seizing her fate in her hands before spending another moment hiding or trapped. Even now, still raw from her last brush with death, she went ahead. Even if she crashed and burned, the enlil would rise from the ashes.
The rust feathered woman continued uphill, walking towards Aelflead without truly seeing the spurii.
As she continued her walk the two fell into step with one another. If this were a poem the sight of such strong personifications of pride and envy walking side by side and nearly hand in hand would have profound.
But alas, that is not what is happening here.
Pride and Envy’s children walked together silently for a long while, neither one of them noticing the other until Ignis caught a snippet of a mumble coming from her right. Just low enough to be undecipherable and barely loud enough to be heard, but something had been said for sure.
Ignis glanced over, catching sight of the spiteful woman beside her. She blinked and then looked ahead, focusing on lifting her knees to make the hike upwards more manageable. Freshly healed and sore, the pale woman had plenty to keep her mind busy --especially if it meant avoiding the fear dancing at the edge of her consciousness.
Unlike Aelflead, the unpleasant exchange between them wasn't in the forefront of the pureblood avian's thoughts. Now, with the spurii beside her, Ignis recalled the other woman's tantrum from before vaguely.
“You're not going to spit again, are you?” the enlil asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.
Aelflead cast a sidelong glance at the enlil but did not turn her head to speak. “Depends, you got my money, bird?” The woman’s deadpan expression didn’t change, but her words carried more than enough sarcasm to make up for it.
“Ah, you're still upset about that.” Ignis inclined her head slightly. “It was a bit of harmless fun.” The avian shrugged.
“If you need it that badly you'll have to ask Deni,” the pureblood told Aelflead casually, as if she were talking about the weather. Theft wasn't something befitting of a hero, but jokes were something anyone could do. “You should be more worried about making it out alive.”
Perhaps it was hypocritical for Ignis to suggest concern for one’s own welfare, but she didn't particularly care to think about it. She continued to focus on the march forward. Her legs ached and if she reached the top before the rear caught up, there might be a chance for recovery.
Instead, the next thing Ignis did was struggle to keep her breakfast from passing through her gizzard backwards.
“Harmless fun?” The spurii’s face had morphed into an almost comical caricature of an annoyed grin’s bastard child with an incredulous scoff. “What on Castus’ good green ball of shit is wrong with you?”
A look that could curdle milk was the enlil’s response. She shoved the angry redhead away with one hand and held her stomach tightly with the other as if to hold her meager breakfast in place by hand. Ignis had expected an outburst from the woman eventually, but the woman’s gut check was still a surprise with all the conexus presence.
She continued her tirade in hushed, hissing tones, while the enlil gathered her breath. “You get some kind of thrill from that shit?”
Ignis shrugged. “It's just money. Besides, you'll get it back.” She paused her hike upwards, letting her sore muscles rest for a moment. The avian realized that stopping was worse than going and with a short sigh resumed trooping forwards.
“It wasn't even that much. They jipped us all if I hadn't owed Rapax I might have been a little annoyed. Why not just make more?”
The enlil glanced over at the infuriated woman and her gaze met red and green daggers grafted into a face.
“Well y’know I might have tried, having a bounty on your head does weird things to people.” The spurii’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
She’d been trapped in Terminus over the past year because after breaking out Orator, the city itself became a prison. Checkpoints went up hours after the group returned to the city and nigh impassable natural barricades made it impossible to leave the city without detection.
No, her route out of Terminus was sealed when she lost her fare. Without a way to pay for regular travel outside of town unscrupulous fare was her only option and that became impossible the minute her bounty reached the ears of the underground. Security had not let up until demons attacked and sent the city into chaos.
“And if it’s not that much money why the fuck’d you steal it?” The woman’s eyes seemed to flare with intensity for a brief as she said this, and she advanced on the enlil, looking as though she were going to try to hit her again.
“I wouldn't know anything about how a bounty affects someone,” the enlil said innocuously. It was a bald-faced lie, though the sarcasm might have been lost on the irate spurii. To say Ignis felt little sympathy would have been an understatement. She felt none.
“That money wouldn't have gotten you out anyway. It was barely enough for a month’s rent. It's no wonder you haven't gone anywhere if you were too busy blaming me for your problems. You wouldn't have gone anywhere even with the exa.”
It was harsh, but the avian believed it. Work had been hard to come by after the jailbreak, and the vulnerability a bounty forced on someone wasn't easy. However, setting up shop, even if it was in a less savory district wasn't impossible. Aelflead's presence here instead of a jail cell proved the spurii hadn't been completely helpless. Ignis hadn't tried to escape, instead, she'd been seeking refuge. She had navigated the underworld with a combination of sacrifice, fear, and luck to get where she was. Perhaps the money might have kept Aelflead afloat, but it wouldn't have been enough to make up for her lack of ingenuity or effort.
“Besides, you're going to get it back if you live.”
“If I live through this, I’m gonna wring your pure privileged ass!” Aelflead snapped, narrowing her eyes and then suddenly paused. Her eyes had stopped focusing on the enlil but had caught the attention of something beyond her.
The enlil merely shrugged, already familiar with Aelflead's volatile nature. “You won't,” Ignis replied, “you care about your money too much to do that.” Despite her blithe attitude, the avian secretly wondered if the spurii were stupid enough to attack her even though that would guarantee that Deni would pay her in revenge as opposed to exa.
When spurii spoke again none of the fire had left her eyes, but her expression had abruptly and unnervingly receded back into the stony mask she usually wore. “It must be really hard to see with your head so far up your own ass.” She paused again, taking a deep breath before continuing and releasing her next comment with a spiteful sigh. “Spero te furias.” Then she turned sharply on her heel and roughly shoving Ignis with her shoulder in the process, disappeared into the crowd.
The enlil saw Aelflead's reaction coming, had been more surprised it took so long. Rather than put up a fight she let the spurii knock her aside, rolling to her feet to resume her trek afterward. Ignis brushed off her tattered robes and sighed in relief. She glanced around, taking note of some Conexus officers nearby. No wonder Aelflead had been so restrained. She'd learned some self-preservation.
Aelflead continued her march alone and forced her mind wander through inane topics. She pondered the sharpness of her swords and tried to remember the last time they’d seen a proper whetstone.
She considered the strange reality of how far north Krevati Evimerias was and for a moment pondered why she wasn’t cold. After all, leather pants, a cloak, and a short tunic didn’t amount to much in winter.
She considered the sense and nonsense against the pendulum of her mind.
She contemplated the feel of feathers ripping off in her ha- cold water sliding down her throat.
She mused over the price of tea in Songen.
It was all she could to keep herself from marching back to find Ignis and flinging the enlil off the plateau by the feathers around her neck. Instead, she kept finding her thoughts turning back to fantasies of flinging the enlil off things or their conversation.
After fighting it for too long she decided to focus on the latter since it was less likely to get her arrested in a warzone.
The redhead had two phrases to fume over now. “It’s no wonder you haven't gone anywhere if you were too busy blaming me for your problems.” And the enlil’s “mother” comment that had primed her before they met.
The bitch says that like I’ve been sitting on my ass all year. Her left hand slowly curled into a fist around her sword pommel. Straight work in Terminus was hard enough for a spurii to come by, and she’d long since accepted this. Having a number on your head made it impossible. Nobody wants to hire a criminal after all.
So instead of beating the street with resumes and a fake smile, Aelflead had spent most of her time after the Arx trying to hit up old contacts to cash in favors.
It was a method that might have worked if the target she was wearing hadn’t been so big. In the face of 5000exa favors turned into thirty-second head starts and “one time passes”.
One-liners like, “Cross that corner before I find my gun and I won’t pump your ass full of lead” grew stale quickly in a year and the longer the thought burned in her mind the more frustrating the enlil’s words seemed to grow.
Worst of all was the idea that had risen from the implication of Ignis’ words.
Had her spite kept her there? She’d known Ignis and Deni were in Terminus same as she was, and unless they had the same contacts as her before the city was locked down, they had been trapped as well.
But it wasn’t as if she’d exhausted all her options.
There were ways to slip through dock security and disguises and secret compartments would get you out of the city in a pinch if you knew which guards would let things slide, there were at least one or two favors she hadn’t called in yet.
Instead of those options, she had wasted time looking for the two of them more often than she should have.
“It’s about the principle,” she’d told herself. “Nobody steals from me and gets off scot-free.” But experience had taught her thinking that way was stupid.
She knew better, right?
But then why-? “No.”
Aelflead stopped walking and took a deep breath. She refused to give that line of thought the time of day. She was smarter than that.
She took another deep breath and lamented her face stiffening from trying to hold her mask for so long. She needed to relax.
Two more deep breaths and she felt she was calm enough to move her body without punching a nearby stranger. She went to reach under her cloak for her canteen and jumped instead.
She pulled her hand in front of her face and stared at it intently and then reached for her canteen again.
It seemed fine now so whatever she had felt must’ve just been her imagination.
But she could have sworn that the first time, her hand hadn’t moved.
[2,493]
Dysney = Ignis Animi
Heavy casualties were taken in the battle with Ferocitas, some more mental than physical. Even for the multitude of battle-hardened mercenaries that made up most of Terminus’ forces seeing so many of their comrades torn to pieces, burned, and eaten in front of was horrifying.
Demons had no qualms and no code of honor, they all knew that when they stepped onto the boat that brought them here, but it was something else to witness in practice.
The march further into Krevati Evimerias felt less like a march into battle and more like a funeral procession. Most were weighed down with a combination of weariness and dread, the fear of new horrors was more concerning than fear of those that had already passed them. One of the driving forces behind their steps now was pure stubbornness, too much blood had been spilled to turn around now. At least for most of them.
Aelflead was consumed with other thoughts. She walked near the back of the pack, trying to keep out of the eye of the Conexus personnel mixed in with mercenaries that made up Terminus’ forces, grumbling to herself about a spat from nearly an hour ago.
“Didn't your mother teach you unkind words are like poison on the tongue, Toast?”
The words burned in the woman’s mind like hot coals.
“Didn't your mother-”
The phrase drew memories to the surface that would have been better left forgotten. No, she didn’t. She thought as flashes of her home cut across her mindscape with images of the enlil’s face like a flickering tape. She scowled and her body stiffened in response. As if it were attempting to restrain or bind itself up to keep the woman’s anger from spilling out and sweeping the marching forces out to sea.
Though, anger wouldn’t be the proper name for the sense of ire building inside the woman. No, jealousy would be more accurate.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Once again, Ignis was patched up after surviving a confrontation by the skin of her pointed teeth. Each event was more terrible than the last. In hindsight, the basilisk hadn't been that bad. Sure, it had cracked her skull, crushed her ribs, and bruised her entire body in its dying throes, but that had been a brief pain. Burning alive was more terrifying. The threat of imprisonment still made her panic more. Nearly falling to her death and burning again had pushed her close to if not over the edge.
Now, she trudged towards the next challenge. Ignis wasn't particularly brave, just detached from the reality of death. None of it seemed quite real until she got hurt or cornered. Despite the terror, she craved it. No matter how many times she got hurt, the engineer would follow her whims through hell and high water.
This time, she had ambition. After the dragon and first wave of demons ravaged Terminus, the possibility of safety was erased from her sense of reality just like the potential for dying. She was still the hero, the knight with no armor. Although this time, Ignis had little choice. Leaving, though physically possible would only condemn her to hiding and being trapped. That was an unacceptable outcome for someone like her. Her enlil blood wouldn't allow it. The need for freedom was too strong.
Ignis would die seizing her fate in her hands before spending another moment hiding or trapped. Even now, still raw from her last brush with death, she went ahead. Even if she crashed and burned, the enlil would rise from the ashes.
The rust feathered woman continued uphill, walking towards Aelflead without truly seeing the spurii.
As she continued her walk the two fell into step with one another. If this were a poem the sight of such strong personifications of pride and envy walking side by side and nearly hand in hand would have profound.
But alas, that is not what is happening here.
Pride and Envy’s children walked together silently for a long while, neither one of them noticing the other until Ignis caught a snippet of a mumble coming from her right. Just low enough to be undecipherable and barely loud enough to be heard, but something had been said for sure.
Ignis glanced over, catching sight of the spiteful woman beside her. She blinked and then looked ahead, focusing on lifting her knees to make the hike upwards more manageable. Freshly healed and sore, the pale woman had plenty to keep her mind busy --especially if it meant avoiding the fear dancing at the edge of her consciousness.
Unlike Aelflead, the unpleasant exchange between them wasn't in the forefront of the pureblood avian's thoughts. Now, with the spurii beside her, Ignis recalled the other woman's tantrum from before vaguely.
“You're not going to spit again, are you?” the enlil asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.
Aelflead cast a sidelong glance at the enlil but did not turn her head to speak. “Depends, you got my money, bird?” The woman’s deadpan expression didn’t change, but her words carried more than enough sarcasm to make up for it.
“Ah, you're still upset about that.” Ignis inclined her head slightly. “It was a bit of harmless fun.” The avian shrugged.
“If you need it that badly you'll have to ask Deni,” the pureblood told Aelflead casually, as if she were talking about the weather. Theft wasn't something befitting of a hero, but jokes were something anyone could do. “You should be more worried about making it out alive.”
Perhaps it was hypocritical for Ignis to suggest concern for one’s own welfare, but she didn't particularly care to think about it. She continued to focus on the march forward. Her legs ached and if she reached the top before the rear caught up, there might be a chance for recovery.
Instead, the next thing Ignis did was struggle to keep her breakfast from passing through her gizzard backwards.
“Harmless fun?” The spurii’s face had morphed into an almost comical caricature of an annoyed grin’s bastard child with an incredulous scoff. “What on Castus’ good green ball of shit is wrong with you?”
A look that could curdle milk was the enlil’s response. She shoved the angry redhead away with one hand and held her stomach tightly with the other as if to hold her meager breakfast in place by hand. Ignis had expected an outburst from the woman eventually, but the woman’s gut check was still a surprise with all the conexus presence.
She continued her tirade in hushed, hissing tones, while the enlil gathered her breath. “You get some kind of thrill from that shit?”
Ignis shrugged. “It's just money. Besides, you'll get it back.” She paused her hike upwards, letting her sore muscles rest for a moment. The avian realized that stopping was worse than going and with a short sigh resumed trooping forwards.
“It wasn't even that much. They jipped us all if I hadn't owed Rapax I might have been a little annoyed. Why not just make more?”
The enlil glanced over at the infuriated woman and her gaze met red and green daggers grafted into a face.
“Well y’know I might have tried, having a bounty on your head does weird things to people.” The spurii’s tone dripped with sarcasm.
She’d been trapped in Terminus over the past year because after breaking out Orator, the city itself became a prison. Checkpoints went up hours after the group returned to the city and nigh impassable natural barricades made it impossible to leave the city without detection.
No, her route out of Terminus was sealed when she lost her fare. Without a way to pay for regular travel outside of town unscrupulous fare was her only option and that became impossible the minute her bounty reached the ears of the underground. Security had not let up until demons attacked and sent the city into chaos.
“And if it’s not that much money why the fuck’d you steal it?” The woman’s eyes seemed to flare with intensity for a brief as she said this, and she advanced on the enlil, looking as though she were going to try to hit her again.
“I wouldn't know anything about how a bounty affects someone,” the enlil said innocuously. It was a bald-faced lie, though the sarcasm might have been lost on the irate spurii. To say Ignis felt little sympathy would have been an understatement. She felt none.
“That money wouldn't have gotten you out anyway. It was barely enough for a month’s rent. It's no wonder you haven't gone anywhere if you were too busy blaming me for your problems. You wouldn't have gone anywhere even with the exa.”
It was harsh, but the avian believed it. Work had been hard to come by after the jailbreak, and the vulnerability a bounty forced on someone wasn't easy. However, setting up shop, even if it was in a less savory district wasn't impossible. Aelflead's presence here instead of a jail cell proved the spurii hadn't been completely helpless. Ignis hadn't tried to escape, instead, she'd been seeking refuge. She had navigated the underworld with a combination of sacrifice, fear, and luck to get where she was. Perhaps the money might have kept Aelflead afloat, but it wouldn't have been enough to make up for her lack of ingenuity or effort.
“Besides, you're going to get it back if you live.”
“If I live through this, I’m gonna wring your pure privileged ass!” Aelflead snapped, narrowing her eyes and then suddenly paused. Her eyes had stopped focusing on the enlil but had caught the attention of something beyond her.
The enlil merely shrugged, already familiar with Aelflead's volatile nature. “You won't,” Ignis replied, “you care about your money too much to do that.” Despite her blithe attitude, the avian secretly wondered if the spurii were stupid enough to attack her even though that would guarantee that Deni would pay her in revenge as opposed to exa.
When spurii spoke again none of the fire had left her eyes, but her expression had abruptly and unnervingly receded back into the stony mask she usually wore. “It must be really hard to see with your head so far up your own ass.” She paused again, taking a deep breath before continuing and releasing her next comment with a spiteful sigh. “Spero te furias.” Then she turned sharply on her heel and roughly shoving Ignis with her shoulder in the process, disappeared into the crowd.
The enlil saw Aelflead's reaction coming, had been more surprised it took so long. Rather than put up a fight she let the spurii knock her aside, rolling to her feet to resume her trek afterward. Ignis brushed off her tattered robes and sighed in relief. She glanced around, taking note of some Conexus officers nearby. No wonder Aelflead had been so restrained. She'd learned some self-preservation.
Aelflead continued her march alone and forced her mind wander through inane topics. She pondered the sharpness of her swords and tried to remember the last time they’d seen a proper whetstone.
She considered the strange reality of how far north Krevati Evimerias was and for a moment pondered why she wasn’t cold. After all, leather pants, a cloak, and a short tunic didn’t amount to much in winter.
She considered the sense and nonsense against the pendulum of her mind.
She contemplated the feel of feathers ripping off in her ha- cold water sliding down her throat.
She mused over the price of tea in Songen.
It was all she could to keep herself from marching back to find Ignis and flinging the enlil off the plateau by the feathers around her neck. Instead, she kept finding her thoughts turning back to fantasies of flinging the enlil off things or their conversation.
After fighting it for too long she decided to focus on the latter since it was less likely to get her arrested in a warzone.
The redhead had two phrases to fume over now. “It’s no wonder you haven't gone anywhere if you were too busy blaming me for your problems.” And the enlil’s “mother” comment that had primed her before they met.
The bitch says that like I’ve been sitting on my ass all year. Her left hand slowly curled into a fist around her sword pommel. Straight work in Terminus was hard enough for a spurii to come by, and she’d long since accepted this. Having a number on your head made it impossible. Nobody wants to hire a criminal after all.
So instead of beating the street with resumes and a fake smile, Aelflead had spent most of her time after the Arx trying to hit up old contacts to cash in favors.
It was a method that might have worked if the target she was wearing hadn’t been so big. In the face of 5000exa favors turned into thirty-second head starts and “one time passes”.
One-liners like, “Cross that corner before I find my gun and I won’t pump your ass full of lead” grew stale quickly in a year and the longer the thought burned in her mind the more frustrating the enlil’s words seemed to grow.
Worst of all was the idea that had risen from the implication of Ignis’ words.
Had her spite kept her there? She’d known Ignis and Deni were in Terminus same as she was, and unless they had the same contacts as her before the city was locked down, they had been trapped as well.
But it wasn’t as if she’d exhausted all her options.
There were ways to slip through dock security and disguises and secret compartments would get you out of the city in a pinch if you knew which guards would let things slide, there were at least one or two favors she hadn’t called in yet.
Instead of those options, she had wasted time looking for the two of them more often than she should have.
“It’s about the principle,” she’d told herself. “Nobody steals from me and gets off scot-free.” But experience had taught her thinking that way was stupid.
She knew better, right?
But then why-? “No.”
Aelflead stopped walking and took a deep breath. She refused to give that line of thought the time of day. She was smarter than that.
She took another deep breath and lamented her face stiffening from trying to hold her mask for so long. She needed to relax.
Two more deep breaths and she felt she was calm enough to move her body without punching a nearby stranger. She went to reach under her cloak for her canteen and jumped instead.
She pulled her hand in front of her face and stared at it intently and then reached for her canteen again.
It seemed fine now so whatever she had felt must’ve just been her imagination.
But she could have sworn that the first time, her hand hadn’t moved.
[2,493]