“You’re… Ave’s hero!”
A fairly laidback encounter around a fake fire should’ve stayed as a meeting of teammates with their masks slipping off slowly. With Adris’ calculated stab, Still’s porcelain fake smile that lies between her and the accusative stares, cracks. Her entire career at the side of these three girls has been filled with hidden abuses that might now boil her.
(Dance, Partner. Dance.)
“It’s wrong. The doll didn’t see it right, right?” It’s only deserving that her worst crime is against this emerald worm that drags Still above the surface of the lake like a lure, leaving the sneak wriggling on the line as she’s pulled in to be gutted by Ave’s shaking hand extended toward her. “Tell us… everything that happened!”
(Diminish! Crumble! Hahahaha!)
An immediate out offered by Ave should be freedom; but, if Still’s frozen hands suggest agreement with any “out”, then Neesiette will immediately recount every last physical detail and progression toward treason with crystal clarity. And so Still’s hands just hang in the air, for her sight is locked on the doll that smugly awaits the chance to.
“Total impotence” fits Still well.
It makes her look cute for the first time Adris has found her as such, struck stiff like a baby deer before a timider tiger.
“Figures! Kol, very much knew, Puddle do shit like this!” Kol’s claws are what she chooses to tear into Still with, marching forward while bulging her eyes in anger!
“No…”
“Tear, APART!” Dry heat starts to rise from Kol’s body, sending Ave cringing backward.
“No, listen, Kol…!”
“ELF! MOVE, OR BE MOVED!”
A slap and crack booms when Ave clamps onto Kol’s wrists.
“… STILL HAS ALWAYS BEEN FIGHTING THE MOST FOR US!”
“LIE!”
Leaned over and pushing back against the kobold, Ave’s snake body digs into the soil as her full, swishing length resists.
The air within the clearing saturates with intent, prickling Adris’ skin as it rushes about with murmurs coming from the trees protecting them. The murmurs are a warning, at first, then irate threats guised as creaking!
(What is she calling to?)
“NO!” Ave’s own sweet voice cracks like a snapping branch, then she crowds the fiery menace before her with a huge push of energy!
“Nah!?” Kol drops to a knee when crushed back.
“Still always helps us!” Kol seems mystified by the weakness forced on her, succeeding through great resistance to rise again as Ave starts to rant.
“With money, she budgets for me! If I can’t find something, it’ll be there the next morning, even if Still isn’t! I know she isn’t stealing it…! So, she’s… generous! Sure, we’re… always seeing her back, but she takes us through to safety when she’s at the front!”
Ave’s brief victory turns backward with Kol’s growing frustration. The elf’s wrists crack at the disparity of strength despite giving it her all.
(But you’re not scared, and that’s why you can challenge Kol if only for a moment.)
A momentary example of overcoming an aura of terror is an interesting experiment for Adris, proving both a boon for him and a detriment for his student.
It’s Adris’ secret, too: zero fear triggers not Kol’s hunting spirit.
“She… came back smelling like…?
KOL, Still found your weapon AND went to restock her own witchcraft! She put herself in danger… after using everything to save the doll! Taking reagants from the gardens to make more witchy stuff… Ugggh!”
Still balks at this claim, brushing off her hands as if she’s guilty of doing no such thing.
“Nunu!? Kol, not care! Boss, enemy then, but Puddle, not supposed to be! Always is, anyway!”
“But… before Adris saved us, Still was the one doing it!? And!? And, even after, Still was the one that wanted most to save you, you dumb ‘professor’!” At this utterance suddenly directed toward another, even Neesiette’s smug frown lessens.
(Hard to argue with the sheep hound’s benefits.)
“Adris, right…?” A desperate pondering crosses the elf’s gaze. “Adris was with Still right before we fought?” Narrowed sight placing him somewhere in her rationalization, a sick bloating of her cheeks as if he tastes bad leaves Adris sighing at how the debate quickly turns on its head.
“Still would only… do something bad to do something good! That’s it! Adris ordered her to betray Neesiette?”
“Why, Boss, responsible for Puddle’s bullshit!?”
The two cease their titanic struggle to both stare at him, then at Still when Adris doesn’t turn cowardly at the accusation.
(Hey, Ave, please explain to me why I’m the bad guy when your dear little tramp came to me! She sold you out!)
“Wait, of course it was Adris, everything that happens is because he’s guiding it to happen from the shadows he controls!” To Adris’ dismay, Still succeeds in earning a path through the blockade he formed.
(But, if this is how the story is turning…?)
“… One’s argument, by historical norms calculates as technically plausible. However…” Neesiette pipes in to interrupt the elf’s glee, pointing between Still and the identified “true villain”. “Dispatching a frontliner and newt single-handedly, a despicable intercession at moment of true challenge starting indica—!”
“As if Adris would need Still to beat a weakling like you!?”
“Idiotic ramblings, clarify immediately to remove slight, substituting one’s own incapability for this lady’s proven capacity.”
“No matter how strong you think you are, Adris…! He, well, we saw just earlier!” Ave’s sadness is past completely, a hysteria almost in how she points at at Adris’ chest.
“At the moment he wants ‘aid’, Adris could’ve just called someone like Miss Rantil to pop out!”
(Okay, if this is the tale you four want to make you feel comfortable, then I’ll be happy to service it.)
Rather than deepen Still’s grave, Adris chuckles at the seeming banality of this argument and glances sidelong at Neesiette’s scrupulous frown.
“Perhaps my obsession would’ve demanded it, for think how strong it was even then, Neesiette.”
“One’s… obsession?” Catching on immediately, a flush of fear brings Neesiette’s touch to her midsection.
“Before our oaths bound us, I was…? Somewhat wilder of spirit. Unmastered…?”
“To… seek victory over this lady before settling one’s authority, without self-control in evidence and unrecognizing of inferiority…?” She gasps at the admission, then mildly pouts with a whisper in continuation. “Comprehending this lady does that a… ‘manifestation’, both unpredictable and malicious, probable to occur would’ve been… unwelcome in its advances.”
(A little fear is useful, though, especially when you scare me so much, Neesiette!)
Neesiette settles off of her mountaintop and loudly speaks at Ave. “Argument’s validity and soundness… stands as acceptable! Events as interpreted by third party, both plausible and accepted as likely true.”
“Really!? Did Ave actually beat the doll at being right!?”
With Neesiette acquiescing, Kol too winds down her violence, but maintains that evil grin full of the same hateful feeling.
“Not [good], though. Never ‘good’! Puddle… can’t stand doing anything but [bad], even if forced not to!”
The kobold in question goads Still on, earning no signs in response despite them always being fresh when the rivals spark.
Still just remains rigid, stuck silent in a slouching standing stance.
“Puddle… Kol, only one, really understands.” Kol pulls out of Ave’s grasp, then points to her own shoulder blades when turning to show off her back.
“Only TRASH can do when in ‘back line’, is want to stab at ‘front’! Only happy, ever, when tastes pain. When others not happy, feels ‘not bad’ for that time. Only real smiling, after others harmed.”
“She… Still isn’t…!”
(Probably accurate. Still is… viciousness given seductive form.)
Not even Adris would try to disprove this concept, for he’s witnessed the instances that Kol speaks of.
When Still was first absolutely ‘alive’ to Adris was on the back of a creature related directly to the Alchemaster. Pleasure like lightning when a silver-soaked poisoned blade stabbed into it and it screamed.
Even now, Adris feels a tremor of doubt about Still’s silence. As if being unwilling to deny even a bit of the abuse cast toward her lets her enjoy the truth. That lingering in the form of a human beneath the thick black mesh and heavy fencer’s clothing is what protects her true motivations from judgment.
(But, I’ve also met “Cyrene”.)
So when Ave won’t tear her gaze from Adris, letting him bask in her sudden fright at having no response, he nods once before a monologue of his helpful thoughts.
“[Witch who brings pain], [hateful undead], and [student of evil].”
Each title he purposefully spits out with heavy revulsion brings a tiny shudder to Still, then she draws tight with anger.
“Every… boring soul who meets her shall forever be repulsed by one of these titles.” He allows himself to sound unconcerned, hoping that others will catch on when he sighs easily. “No one can prove heroism when forced away from the sunlight that would let others witness it, especially when… [humility] is the virtue exhibited most strongly.”
Still’s shudders stop, then she tilts her head at Adris as if he’s gone completely insane.
(You’re entirely too “humble”, Still, taking 90% of my credit instead of all of it.)
“Still was sacrificing everything to prove that we were worth Adris’ help, by telling him all of our secrets! Showing him all about us with action and stories, I’m sure! To prove that we deserved his attention!”
{?!?!?}
Still collapses to the ground when Ave snags her hand and won’t let go, failing to sign a plea for mercy with the elf still shouting.
“You didn’t have to do it alone! Ave would’ve made an oath, too! Ave…!
No, I…! I wanted to accept Adris’ help from the beginning! If you’d told me, I would’ve backed you up!” The witch struggles to stand, but also jerks at this promise and the physical shaking to punctuate it. “You weren’t thinking straight!? Kol didn’t need our help to lose to Adris! She would’ve followed him when he beat her! And the dumb doll…!?”
“‘Doll’!? Continuing slander, desiring quick oblitera—!”
“That Neesiette’s just a kid that acts tough, but falls over the moment you say ‘no’!”
Still drags on her thick butt when Ave pulls her toward Adris, helpless to resist. Ave extends her free hand to him. A broad smile as if all the gloom is clearing showcases her belief!
“Even if you can’t tell us, you’re always… making sure we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons!? That’s… what you do.” When Adris makes no offer to take up her hand, Ave pulls it back to her lacking chest and makes a long sigh.
“Once we were found worthy, you knew that we’d eventually figure out that Still agreed first without telling us, but weren’t sure how we’d react? So, this is just another test? To see if we comprehend that Still did it for good reasons, reasons only she would be able to explain. Even if she still can’t tell us what you two agreed to because of… an oath?” Ave’s ponytail dances about when the elf sways from side to side, tittering at him. “What a bothersome trick! My, my, how naughty of you, Adris, to set us up like this~!”
(N-Naughty…?)
Understanding nothing whatsoever, Ave’s direction appears unchangeable.
In the midst of three suspicious types is where she boldly lifts up further on her snake tail to proudly boast.
“Still and Adris are inseparable, he wouldn’t want to hurt her with some secret let loose~! Ever since we met, they’ve been working to show us how we can work together. And… we’ve been only keeping apart, afraid to open up! But, no more! I’m tired of that…”
“Elf wrong! Kol, work best with Boss. Puddle! That trash always lies and do—!?”
“Kol, don’t get buried in the past like those dumb birds.”
“Nah?”
Some brilliant deduction leads Ave to firm her usually quivering chin. Solemn, totally committed, and bustling with enthusiasm, Ave drags Still closer to the raging kobold.
“We spent… two days buried in their boring mess! I don’t really get what happened, but that… girl? Whatever it was, you… I think it was you that did it?” As if details can’t firmly come to mind, Ave squints at Kol and then peeks at Adris for confirmation. “That ‘Fehr” was saved from everyone else in there because you believed in her, Kol! Adris made it sound like the old butler was drowning in his memories. That’s what… we’ll end up doing if we don’t break free of this plodding cycle!”
“But…!?”
“No ‘buts’! We’re… footsteps from glory! I’ve got an entire paradise waiting, Kol! If you can’t let go of the last measly six months, then… I…? I just won’t let you in!? Hmmph!”
Ave harumphs and turns from Kol, dragging Still with her as the sneak keeps trying to slide away without success.
“… Ho?”
“Urk…!?”
Ave’s bravado collapses the moment Kol leans in around Ave, staring up and into the taller elf’s face with a stern expression.
“… Hmm…? Not completely dislike.”
“Really!?” Ave pulls Still’s hand to Kol, outstretched and opened by pain. “Then, let’s put the past behind us!”
“Never agreed to this.”
Nor does Still, for her mask is still its impossible jovial smile that belies how the sneak’s anger radiates outward when near Kol in spite of her own constant pain.
(This is unexpected?)
Everyone present wants nothing more than to be elsewhere, stewing in their resentments. A proponent of the potential to be more is such a rarity when it’s not Adris’ voice.
This was meant to be an execution, but with Ave left to roam and demand, it’s almost cheerful and comic.
(My dear, sweet, impressionable little idiot, let’s make you the heroine of the stage since you won’t stop singing.)
“They’ve long since first surprised you with their true worth.”
Adris collapses his plan, salvaging the parts he needs from its implosion. Exasperated beyond the point of boredom, he leans to his side and sighs at Still.
“Nagging about ‘their safety’ was unnecessary. All your sad crying… misguided, when they always were destined to exceed your concerns. Even more so when Ave is the one you worried most about…”
(… as a threat to our success.)
So long as it doesn’t touch upon the true terms of their contract and he speaks only of after, Adris can suggest any sort of motivation innocuously enough to avoid offending the deity they pledged to.
(Every one of you is so vulnerable. If you give me a single truth, I can spin fifty half-truths to have you licking my palm for more!)
“Still, you don’t have to worry about me!”
In total support of Ave’s misunderstanding, Ave brightens up even more and nods vigorously, crying bitter tears of happiness at a “friend”.
“Come now, won’t you meet them openly as you finally met me… Partner? So stop sulking in the shadows, Cyrene.”
“‘Cyrene’!?” Ave rears back, then lifts Still off the ground to swing and stares with wonder! “That’s the name of one of the goddesses of [Dharmic Minos] beneath Petripolis! Are you from that age!? What a cute name, what does it mean~!?”
{!!!!} Still tries to sign, but ends up scraping the ground with her flailing feet when Ave’s enthusiasm hurts even Adris’ sinuses.
“Presenting an incomplete and misleading impression of motivations one’s constant behavioral flaws do. Devoted so entirely to this party’s successes, perhaps sharing with more concrete words one’s thoughts to resolve apparent inconsistencies one could in advance of them?” The prickly moon princess returns to her assembly process, shaking her head at this raucous show. “Abolishing thereby that one might be justly, consistently mislabeled as a corruptive influence instead of appropriately as ‘friend’?”
“Anything you do without us knowing is something you can do with us knowing, right, Still?”
Ave’s clutching only grows stronger when edging Still’s body toward Kol.
“Before… we were…? We couldn’t do anything, but now? Still… let’s!”
Ave snatches Kol’s hand, joining the two bitter rivals in a shake when Still touches down again.
“Nah!?”
“We’re a real party! Not just… pretending. Even if it’s bumpy…!”
The energetic snake starts them to shaking, then lets go.
“Rather than dragging the thorns that stick to us ahead and back into our path, let’s cut them loose, okay, Kol? Still?
Truce?”
Those two who are thrust into a truce both turn to stare at Adris, with Kol’s face lined with rage.
(Do I have to do something every time? I thought it was quite “heartfelt”!)
“The past is a source of strength, for the deepest impressions linger. They motivate!” Adris’ fist clenches to sample that word, then he stands up with an easy-going posture to merely retrieve the last of the crisped apple peels. “But, if we never move past the pain that emboldens us, the future tale cannot be told.”
“What, important, a ‘future tale’!? Not care, just fix ‘now’!” Kol’s grip tightens when rejecting his first explanation.
“Tales are my true power on Zennia.” Adris’ deeper voice grips as needed!
“From that fake doll maker’s own, I… STOLE the name of what underlies all of what you see and mistake before your eyes as unchanging!”
All four go stiff at Adris’ growing mania, letting his “revelation” flow outward into his demeanor. As if it is still as fresh as when he first called it out, he tries to recall that and let it brush past his lips!
“To remake the world according to my needs, the absolute truth!
It was called…!”
At the moment of naming, Adris gasps to a halt.
He shuts his mouth.
His wide eyes grow sly, then he brings a finger to his shut mouth.
And merely suggests with a “shhhh” that the name shall never pass to be heard.
“Boss… found… realest power of all?”
“A pathetic family drama I thought completely unworthy of my hearing suggested it. But, the truth manifested only after I unburdened my mind and soul.”
After this revelation, Adris seats himself again. Thinking only of the future. Smiling knowingly at the girls, as if he’s simply bemused at how they squabble.
“Ok. Kol, moves on, too.”
The kobold shakes Still’s hand, flopping the liquid sneak across the grass. There’s no similar humor on Kol’s face, though, only a cruel sneer.
“What Kol does, doesn’t matter: Puddle, even when dragged forward, always running away.”
{… !}
“Not change, ever, because always losing inside, even when ‘win’.” One of the rarest emotions Kol has shown is now “condescension laced with pity” when staring down at her rival.
(Yes. True, it is up to Still now.)
Kol grunts and releases Still, then walks over to plop next to Neesiette.
“New thing, better than old?”
“… Potentially so.”
The reluctant artificer stares in shock at their closeness, then resumes her construction efforts with an aim toward letting the curious Kol watch.
“Let’s not dwell on anything but what’s happy, right, Still!? Oh? Oooooh, sorry…!”
Ave’s overwhelming mirth clouds over, and she goes completely rigid. “Ave… forgot.” Still’s pain ceases at the same time and the freed sneak climbs up from the ground with Ave’s aid.
“Well… I’ll try not to feel too much, so…? Um… we’re… friends, so… you can burden me back, ok?”
{… We…?}
Still sits back on her rock with Ave coiling around it. Helping her to stay upright, Ave makes sure that Still is okay before letting go with a wave of the sneak’s hand to thank for it.
{… I…?
… Friends? Us? Really?}
Every sign she tries is regarded as a mistake when she flicks it away. Still tries to carry a witty “tone”, but can’t manage except to finally hammer out a few words.
{… I’ll try to…}
“Great! I’m… I… didn’t have friends before you three. If I’m… too strong or… weird, I apologize!? So… I know I’m bad at this, so of course it’d be hard for you to be a friend to someone like me… but…!”
Self-deprecating finally, Ave’s mood sours when Still remains withdrawn even with rambling going on.
Adris had accused her of sulking, yet it’s now that for the first time Adris gets a glimpse of how she behaves when actually doing it for social reasons and not because she got her ass beaten by Lycia. Legs crossed over and stroking the edge of her porcelain mask with a permanent smile painted on, his precious little backstabber seems to be staring inside as her posture turns sloppy.
(Despite all your boasting to me about how “hard” you are, you fold up into gnawing guilt the moment it’s revealed how much of a backstabbing bitch you are~!)
Adris wants to point and laugh, howl all night at Still as the sneak festers at her loss, but it’s not proper.
No, it’s not permitted.
(Next time you brag about something, I’m going to mimic Ave’s voice and…?)
Instead, he must simply appear all-knowing, grinning at his handiwork and—
“Adris is also bad, hogging Still’s kindness before she felt strong enough to try being friends with us! Being her ‘confidant’ is too guileful!”
“How is that my fault, that she should confide in me about her true cares?”
“Anyway, it’s Adris’ fault this time, so we can move on now! That reminds me, we only told you half the story of how we met? There’s also the ‘group meeting’!”
After blaming him one-sidedly, Ave ignores his attempt to engage her by tapping Kol on the leg with that sensually long tail.
“Hmm? What, Elf?”
“You got woken up by the wind clattering the shutters, then wouldn’t go back to sleep, right~? So you grabbed me and barked ‘early start, early treasure’, and out the front door we went…”
“Oh? That day, run into…”
“Yes, into destiny! Kol and I were at the Castillo just after breakfast, triumphing through the hedge maze by avoiding any real big noises…”
“Elf, Kol was talki—”
“… and at the very end of the maze a surprise beyond surprises…!
Well, there was a pretty flash of light!?”
(Light, glinting off a thrown steel edge.)
With one voice taking over completely, the story’s truth is flamboyant and dazzling!
Past the last archway of twisted green, the grand side door with its flattened gold metal covering over three-foot-thick wood was curiously opened already.
A comical fellow dressed in blue and purple held a doll before, with darkness behind!
No great danger seemed looming. So, the brave elf had slid forward, only for a storm of iron from behind to howl from a curious twinkle of the sun ahead and charge against a hapless fel—!
“Kol, not know ‘hap-whatever’, but ‘twinkle’ was Puddle trying to stab Kol’s eyes out!”
(That figures.)
“Was that what happened? Well, you probably spooked Still!”
“Why, everything become Kol’s fault when Kol is the first to get hurt? Explain.”
“… AAAH!? Yes, explaining further, it was all a misunderstanding…!”
A friendly greeting became a war zone.
To the ground the ugly doll slid, squealing out something offensive before turquoise exploded beneath Kol’s feet!
Into the air bounced again and again a noble friend, end over end as…!
“Kol, remembers. Sick, inside went round and round, up and down, not need to remember!”
“Schhoooo! Theyn…!” With Kol’s paws clamping onto her cheeks, Ave’s oration gets difficult to comprehend even as the events grow more comical.
As a blur the stranger came, flowing along the aromatic grasses below like a snake!
But the blades that screamed out missed by great distance, as if never meant to do more than warn off!
(Still’s dirks went wide because you were blinding her with your divine presence.)
With the supreme kindness of a put-on show, this dancing fencer had cornered without traction after sliding on mud…!
A whip was flung out when that startling slide happened, then withdrawn immediately so as not to offend…! The slight graze against this fellow’s neck turned into a curling choke with no harm intended!?
Strange were the events leading to this dancer coincidentally tripping on an exposed root and thus flying into a wall when the whip was pulled to free her!
“From the moment we met, Still has always been trying to protect me…”
{You… you’re strong… inside. You don’t need me.}
“Nonsense! When the wall you hit started to crumble, which is weird because very little ever falls down in the Castillo, you pushed me out of the way!”
{… Right.}
(More like you tried to jump out of the way and bumped out Ave by mistake.)
In full force at the moment of meeting, “luck” butchered a witch.
{… W-Well… I… couldn’t let such a…?} Still’s folded up body just groans with a heave, sliding off the rock she’s claimed to instead resemble a melting slush. {… Disturbingly… innocent girl get crushed…}
“So we just stopped ‘fighting’, and then I tried to get Kol to quit bouncing so she could apologize?”
Ave glares at Neesiette, who shares the same energy back with a sharp retort.
“Sacredness of geometry: no confluence, convergence, or divergence of ‘random fortune’ may surpass effective design.”
“Yeah, so, my whip couldn’t get past your weird barriers! But, but…! You also weren’t even moving or doing anything really difficult, y’know!?”
“Irrelevant the necessity of movement be when holding the high ground. One’s own movement registered as quite frenetic when impossibly avoiding intricate traps by sheer happenstance.”
“I didn’t know where to go!? Ave was screaming for you… to stop, but…! You just kept shooting at me!?”
And so to a standstill this war of attrition went.
The forest warred against the evil moon, with cries for peace met with only silent ire.
Though the wind blew mightily and wished only for pursuing the cruel Alchemaster, future friends quarreled!
Most dangerously after elf freed kobold, for behind when rising to rejoin did two titanic opposites meet in annihilation!
“Ave stopped running, just to turn and watch Kol’s neck explode from Still’s witchy curse. A sword point drilled through and… back of her head…!? It was horrible…”
“Indeed, and hafted by mid-length to exit out a witch’s back did a squire’s entire axe-head when thrust by fullest strength.”
“Still and Kol were grabbing each other, but then just flopped to the ground, then kept flopping!” Ave cradles her head and hunches in horror of the memory, sending Still into another quivering fit! “Kol spun on the ground while loudly gurgling, and… poor Still, her arms and legs kept swishing around as she bled all over the grass. Like a squished leech trying to get back into the river!”
“Hostilities… ended by necessity. From gardens we four fled with mutual aid. Sounds of combat drew great numbers for unknown reason?” Neesiette’s de-ices and returns to her busywork, but not before patting Kol’s side. “One’s efforts proved the quality of ‘perseverance’, Kol. Worry not. Highly regarded this lady’s student has ever remained.”
“Kol, not worry, just angry. Remember, first time tasting Puddle’s ‘sneaky trick’!”
(I wish I’d been there, if only to watch Still and Kol’s idiot death dance!)
“And so… we… well, I…?” It’s Ave who caps off this tale by sheer stuttering, grinning wistfully the whole time like a fool.
“… Since… they didn’t have anywhere to stay, and I wanted to apologize for Kol attacking them…?”
“Kol, one attacked? If Kol’s friend, why not ever feel bad for Kol?”
“So, we invited Still to stay at Welcome Web!
… But, only the doll agreed to.”
(Right, of course. “How could such idiotic girls possibly meet and end up together?” I wondered for a long time…)
But, wondering was unnecessary.
Knowing the particulars of one girl’s true power should’ve been enough.
(“The wind was blowing” both times that “coincidence” brought them together.)
The true uniting party was always a pathetic wastrel named Avenalliah Aurmaris.
And so Adris bites his tongue with this realization that not even Still likely has reached.
Neesiette slots her scepter into a holding piece wrapped around the orb that hears the cries of the earth, locking it together as a finished product. “For a transitory period agreed firstly only, that period elapsed. Began instead a true collaboration once identifying the advantages of supporting such children. Requiring extensive attentions from this lady did they.” Salvaged from her rod, this switch-out scepter is a fusion of two different devices for as yet an unknown purpose. “Such a contrivance, mangled together from disparate parts and forming a more elegant design thereafter.”
Neeisiette flicks the handle to cause an audible cracking sound when it shortens just like her old rod could.
“A… family, however dysfunctional, this dynamic transformed into without artificiality. Nor true appreciation.”
Ave stares awestruck at Neesiette, drawing back quietly but not insulting at the claim. Kol then agreeably quips in her place.
“Family? Sure, that’s fine. Kol, knows what that is now after bird house. Cute, Elf, Echo, and…? Maybe Stalker, Kol’s ‘family’. Hmm, Boss, too, maybe?”
(Oh, I did indicate I wanted something like that as “a boy”.)
And so Adris must look suitably surprised, inching upward an eyebrow in recognition of his mistress from the moon’s chosen topic.
“Well, ‘disciple and master’ are a similar sort.” So he chuckles, resuming his placid job of being their audience.
Dismissing any advancing of their narratives is Adris’ useful deflection.
Keeping firmly in their sights, but always a bit ahead.
“Per this designation, adjoining topic now must be brought to consideration. A false stain, cleansed!”
Neesiette stands up and unruffles her skirt, then marches to stand between all of them.
“To drag others into this lady’s… ‘debt’, unseemly this be. Allow for suitable recompense in future.”
With a hand sweeping up to tidy her kravat, the doll turns suitably apologetic in countenance.
Then, she strikes out with her hand open, mimicking one of Adris’ grabs for attention!
“Fear not any blight upon reputation, however!
Ignore false judgments!
Association with this lady, actions of a Lunamaton always impeccable in motivation and result, be forever beneficial! Guiltless all stand, save for crimes against each other, and therefore in accordance with a newt’s suggestion shall we absolve prior offenses to wipe, as Zennians would colloquially suggest, ‘a clean slate’ for the future!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Neesiette. Thanks for being such a ‘perfect’ (BROKEN) inspiration for us lesser beings~.”
“CONDESCENSION, DARE A GECKO!?” When Ave just waves Neesiette off, the doll’s imperious stature droops. Neesiette’s completed scepter raises in ire, then she just purses her mouth and lowers it.
(It’s absolutely futile to try and harm Avenalliah with any earthen power.)
“Benefits of entry into manse and collaboration with Falke, many be there! Treat not this lady as woe, for power of ‘earth’, taken from the undeserving to perfect under anot—!”
“Right, we saw a lot of great stuff? Still, after all, is a noble fencer who keeps getting nobler!”
As Neesiette’s rant dies with a cute squeak, Ave taps the melted Still’s hat and beams with happiness. “That peacockatrice couldn’t help but be fascinated, too! Who did you learn to fight from, to dance so beautifully like a floating leaf in moonlight!?”
{Ah!? Le-Learn…? Who… why would I have to have had some—?} Still gets those catty movements back to her fingers, but succumbs the moment Ave blinks and grows worried about the question.
{ELIGIO!} This is the name she scrawls into the dirt with a shaking finger, a loopy cursive language that has too many dots and accompanying along-side marks. Adris cranes over to see it, then finds himself tapping on his stone when Still’s response to Ave’s growing mirth is…?
{… His name was… Eligio. A wandering duelist… “red as a ripe apple, in both dress and swordpoint”.}
“Hmmmm!?” Ave’s smile returns to full and she leans in conspiratorially to be right next to the tortured shade. “What was it like!?”
{W-What?}
“How’d you feel, being in looooove with him!?”
{WH—!?}
“‘Amateur, uncultivated’, those stupid rainbow fops insulted you, but you…!” Ave gestures like she’s darting a sword around. “A grace like yours that comes from dedication and… wonderful feelings, really storybook ones, could only be l-o-v~eeeee!”
(Tell me more, Still. Tell me more about this man. Please, more…)
{We weren’t like that!?}
Adris’ heart is quite controlled as he leans in, absorbing all he can about the man whose name sends Still into a fit of waving her hands around at everyone else.
“Was he a traveling prince, incognito and searching for a princess!?”
{… That… sleaze was definitely not a prince! And I wasn’t royalty…}
“Sleaze!? Did… did you go to him under moonlight, or did he come to you?”
{WHY IS THE PRESUMPTION THAT I…!? That we! He, with me!?}
Still’s mask is still a smile, but the witch seems childlike with how she keeps twisting with rejection.
{Eligio… didn’t… see our “sport” together the same way that…}
“I’m sorry!”
{It’s not, well, there’s no fault.} Still bravely pats Ave, who gazes off in another direction with a queasy face when Still seems despairing over the past.
{It wouldn’t have worked, anyway, for him to try, because he could only run away after impressing everyone and drinking up the attention. I knew exactly what he’d do, so I’d never give him the satisfaction…!} Mercifully, Still is left to heave a “sigh” and stop having to answer.
(Of course not. He’s not me.)
Only Adris has the rhythm to dance with this dangerous female. Any other is just a source of something to be stolen by her, to use against either Adris or his enemies.
(I could teach you to fight better.)
“… Ave… really gets that. Sorry.”
{O-Oh…?}
The elf can’t explain her sympathies, so Still just rolls her shoulders and climbs over Ave to escape.
{Eligio was more of a “guiding principle” than a real teacher? Yet, I guess he…?}
(For being so reticent to even name him, you sure are waxing fondly? Boring conversation. How about…?)
“Neesiette surely can’t be the only one who grew from our detour?”
Any other conversation than this one is better, so Adris offers a question related to their growth as bait for Still.
The sneak catches in mid lurk away from Ave. Adris’ next service to her is to nod at the chance to shine.
“Best disciple grew!” Kol howls this before the two can conspire further. The dour squire hoists up her shortened poleaxe and slaps its head.
“New Talent! Alone, because shitty Rooster wasn’t let to steal, Kol wiped out bunch of slayer blood goops! Kakakaka!”
“Kol got a new Talent? That’s… scary…”
“Elf, should be scared~! But, more than Elf!”
With a click and a whir, Kol twists her weapon to shoot its end to point toward Still.
Kol’s glee is more malice than mirth.
“Fresh start, means Puddle burns with new record next time acts up~.”
Still leans back with this threat before her, then lifts her arms and swings them.
{… TRY ME, MUTT?}
That’s what her languidly swinging short swords say when Adris’ head buzzes from the blood rushing around.
The dual blades pointed at Kol pull backwards into an open stance.
Still rolls her head, then flicks her pointy hat at Kol.
{Stay. There.}
“Huh? Think… hot trash, now?”
Kol’s smile turns into a growl when her poleaxe lifts before her centerline.
Short swords that were to the side draw behind Still.
In a full windup, the shadow duelist dips forward and begins to shiver.
(Oh… there’s no other way to impress Kol than this!)
A sickly weight invades the crisp air of the clearing.
The trees surrounding them slowly weave and groan, despite the air drafts also dying at the same moment.
“S-Still…? What are you dooooo~ing?” Ave’s newfound bravery vanishes in the face of the bluish-green murk that flows up Still’s blades.
Adris, by instinct, pulls free his cross to hold it before him. The taste of carnage polluting his tongue has the same acidic sweetness that filled the hollows beneath the tree in Falke’s manse.
(You found your answer!)
From within Still the feelings for this witchcraft awaken!
Adris’ own grow chaotic when drinking in their shared link.
“HNNN!?” Kol’s bravado collapses, and the fearless kobold leans forward to brace against what she cannot yet comprehend, digging her clawed feet into the soil so as to not ever yield!
(Still is straining a lot.)
Still’s arms shake even harder when the gases winding around her blades cling firmer and solidify.
The weight droops them until she lifts free from the gloom perfectly formed shearing edges.
(Can she… hold it?)
It’s a mystery if the witch will be able to survive whatever witchcraft she’s brewing within, for the shaking becomes her entire luscious form vibrating with the screaming dirge of what’s called forth issuing from the blades!
Separated scissors angle behind her body, invisibly repulsed by their back ends against her firm grip. Adris’ soul quakes with seeing how the black threads of darkness that only he can detect weave a winding path in the air toward Kol.
(It’s ready!)
“… Not bad, Puddle!”
An inferno erupts from the armorless kobold, lifting her tunic with its red-hot flames!
The fire travels up her poleaxe until it too glows.
“TRY KOL, NEW TRASH!”
An itch flows through Still, and the witch’s building pain passes!
The shadows of every object within view, from the smallest blade of grass to the Castillo’s own, seem to swim in a rising current of an unseen ocean.
(D-Drowning? I can’t breathe!)
Adris chokes despite the breeze surrounding them all. He clutches his chest, but can’t tear his view away from the witch.
A playful grin is painted on her porcelain mask.
The challenge of a trickster.
And with a snap death’s shears close with the speed of midnight. To bridge the distance they stretch impossibly long and encompass the full arc of Still’s view!
The ocean that’s unseen briefly washes into view in its wake, the depths unimaginable as they steal Kol’s sight!
(Wait… FIRE AND WATER EXPLO—!?)
“Nah?”
All manifestations pop away at the moment of the shears clicking closed upon striking Kol’s poleaxe. Still’s shears shatter into hanging fragments that darken out of sight.
An audible VOIP concludes the interaction between terrifying fire and watery curse instead of an explosion. The kobold stares dumbly at her hands, flexing them to discover nothing to grip.
“Where… perfect weapon?”
(It just fucking popped like a bubble the moment the two shears clipped against it at the same time!?)
Still retracts from her lunge, drawing up and then whipping her arms to the side to fling away the residual curse clinging to them.
The two part blades separate and vanish into their still-unknown storage somewhere along her body when she swings her hands forward to posture with a curious expression.
{[Thievingways], Mutt-Mutt. Maybe that’s where, just as the name implies: “bye-bye and sooooo long”!} A waggling finger is what she brings to dance beside her mask, all a giggle outwardly while she just “sighs” as if the show was unneeded.
“Thieve? Puddle… steal!?” Kol stomps her foot, then drops to the ground and starts sniffing! “Where!? Where hide!?”
Neesiette’s senses are what Adris feels brush over him next. “Where, indeed? Slayer’s Friend, detection radius immensely encompassing, yet… registering zero remnant trace?” He clenches his guts at the idea of even this maniac being unable to see through Still’s newest trick.
{Wheeeeee~re? Hmmmm~mm?} Still coyly swings her signing hands around, shifting in place and swinging her butt likes he’s in a stage song to match. {“Deeper than deep, wider than wide, darker than black, and older than time”… that’s your easy answer as to where my little new toy now lies~?}
“Fuck!? ‘FUCKING’ NOT ANSWER KOL’S QUESTION, THAT DOESN’T, FOR KOL’S TOY!”
As Adris just stares at the show, finding he’s more giddy about Still’s trick than horrified…
(Instant apprehension!? Anything you touch between those blades you can pilfer, is that it!? Partner…! My Partner is the best… tool I could possibly pocket, ahahahaha!)
He’s up on his feet and earning a sidelong glance from that partner. Though Still doesn’t sweat, the way she struggles to keep her center is what gives away the limitations.
For she required far too long to form the blades and an immobile target to swing them at, calling for quite a lot of that [Vim] by how weakened her aura feels to Adris’ senses.
(It’s pretty poetic! Your halfway point between two extremes.)
[Partingways]?
[Joiningways]?
Who cares about either being forever when you can just [Thievingways] to what you really desire, here and now!?
(What an immaculate “fuck you” to your mentor!)
“Mysterious!? Still, you’re so… strange, but cool!?”
{T-Thanks… I think.}
Ave rushes up to gush at Still from various heights, leaving the witch punched clean of her new arrogance and swaying tiredly.
Both the fawning snake and the “cool” witch fidget when their clothing starts to flick in the growing rush of wind.
(Eh?)
Adris turns to take in a ball of heat with lifted hands.
Cupped together and pointed at Still, a once-composed squire now furiously chews on her lips and strains from the veins bulging over her proudly toned body.
“FUCKING…!
PUDDLEEEEEEE!”
Kol leans forward and braces her legs again!
Neesiette hustles to Adris, dragging her belongings behind her as the usual fiery bubble of terror that surrounds Kol when she’s angry deforms.
“ERROR: Unknown manifestation intensifying, light spectrum beyond visible primarily! Danger evident!”
The air rushing in from the surrounding trees carries more groans that the flames devour.
(Hey… disciple. What the fuck are you about to do?)
Yet Adris has no reason to ask, for his senses are the most attuned to this mystery in action.
All of the energies Kol is outputting are gathering at her hands, collecting like milky, swirling liquid fire simply because it’s obeying the visualization within Kol’s inner sight.
“Kol…!
STOP!
PLEASE STOP!” Ave’s saccharine screams help her not, for both she and Still end up yanked at by the storm of air straight toward the kobold.
“BURN UP, TRAAAAAASH! KAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKA!”
Only the unyielding ground keeps Still in Ave’s clutches.
This screaming manifestation they stare in horror at clinging to Kol is, of course, coalescing aura primed to become a Technique!
(WHO THE FUCK TAUGHT YOU TO DO THIS!?
WHY DO I KEEP GETTING SHOWED UP AT THE ONE THING I’M SUPPOSED TO BE GOO—!?)
Adris privately rages while circulating his own aura to resist the draw. The unnerved lady in his hands lifts into the air with the attraction, her evil tome pulling too towards the growing Kol-flagration.
“[HEAVEN]—!”
Kol screams its true name!
Birthed from a vision only she knows, it will now consume them!
“—[FALLLLLLLLL]!”
The gathered aura…!
Kol’s fur stops whipping with the wind dying off.
“Nnn?”
The pure white idiot brings her glowing hands closer to her face, sniffing at the sunlike substance still clinging on. It swirls around her fingers, palms, and wrists like swarming serpents.
“Why, not do anything? Go burn her!”
(… What… did you visualize!?)
Instead of becoming anything, the incarnated aura simply pulses on her hands.
A growing, more regular beat of life emits radiance with each one. The air that blew now seems to creep away from the kobold.
Who also starts to glow red.
“Hey? Say name, remember thing did with last time, so…!?” Kol swings her hands at the now collapsed Still, acting like a child trying to swat a fly.
“Get off Kol’s hands, destroy Puddle!”
At her feet the soil turns into a tiny barbecue!
The sweat that clings to her skin instantly sizzles off!
(It’s… it’s still growing, Kol.)
“Kol, feel strange?”
From Ave to Adris, each is already backpedaling at the rising shriek from the kobold’s inner world. The gentle pulsing of the aura angrily spikes outward, then thrums!
“Why… weak? Nnnn, Boss, what’s happening to Kol’s super cool…?”
(BECAUSE YOU’RE DUMPING EVERY LAST BIT OF AURA YOU HAVE INTO IT, YOU’RE ABOUT TO PASS YOUR LIMIT AND…!?)
“She’s… unstable.” Adris blurting this finally frees them, and they independently start for anywhere that’s not here. The ring of trees won’t save them, not even if they could escape the circle in time.
“BOMB KOLLLLLL!? RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!” Ave is the first to lose all hope and sanity, wrapping up the sprinting Still and rocketing from the clearing. Even the statues outside burst from inanimation and try to scamper!
(We’re… dead!)
All they witness shakes with the kobold’s incorrectly called Technique. In mere moments, Adris intuits that [Heaven Fall] will mean instead that [everything within view transmutes into fire].
“NEESIETTE!?” Adris tumbles over when his baggage slaps his hand with a scepter and trips up his attention.
The diminutive lady who drops free staggers against the tide of aura spreading out to flick her scepter to its fullest length and point at Kol.
From her lips vomits forth an incomprehensible amount of information when the orb’s slits begin to bleed their green radiance and the incensed voices of the earth rouse!
“Hnnn? Why, agai—?” Kol’s last words before the earth slams two half-cylinders around her get shut off.
The towering artifice with interesting angles and features starts to glow at its opened ends.
Then a rumble bloats the immense earthen prison!
The ground cracks and rises, and from spokes in the top of the cylinder infernal gouts of explosive fire erupt to crack every last one of the greenhouse’s windows.
Summoned aura cakes the trees and flowers and architectural pieces, roaring, burning, and exploding without end!
Adris’ hearing is ringing even after shielding his ears with his hands. He coughs at the thick soot from the explosions’ aftermaths on the nearby flora. Only the circle of elvish-touched trees is spared from malicious ruination.
(… Neesiette… saved us!?)
“Indeed, such grotesque complaints now!? Performing as explained did it not!? ‘The design is ugly’, how uncouth such criticism be deemed in turn when compared to the glories of efficiency!?” That very lady yells at her scepter as the prison she conjured up collapses into falling jagged pieces.
Revealed within is a smoking figure that is part white and part black, shriveled up into a naked mess of pain and on her back like a dead roach.
“AVE! THROW ME AN ALCHEMICAL HEALER!” Adris rushes into the wreck, kicking away burning earth that still lives with the failed aura technique Kol summoned.
“… Boss… why…?
Why did Kol explode…?”
A burnt disciple ponders this with what’s left of her scorched lungs wheezing it out. Her mercifully-spared pink eyes stare at betraying hands. They’re so burnt that the Vigor bubbling through cracks causes the cindered flesh to simply slough off.
(Sure, we’re starting over.)
As Adris catches the orange stone full of twinkling lights and slaps Kol with it, he is forced to endure her full-lunged howls. A dragging headlock is necessary to keep the kobold from launching herself away from the pain.
(Just like any “fresh start” that idiots think will fix their problems, the purest beginning is one unburdened by useful things like “prior common sense”.)