— THE CORONATION BEGINS. —
Dolorous bells awaken Adris out the other side of clinging gray. This suffocating muck runs off to leave him blinking at a sky above that’s pure white save for black shapes. Gray walls in the distance are all that’s left of that particular color once it drains from surroundings to become grassy greens and flowery brights.
(What did Kol release…?)
Chattering avian maids are dark shapes above, black feathers ominous. Between the numerous pillars of the garden they crowd on thick swaying cables of wrapped cloth. Even the endless ravens and crows from the aviary join them as if they, too, are treated as kin. Freed from annihilation, the maids’ body language announces that they are as mystified as Adris is by their current perches. Their unseen gazes aren’t directed toward the boy holding a sleeping beauty in his arms, though, nor even the rest of the invaders they despise.
“Hmm? Hmmm!?” Especially they ignore the skittish sylvan snake that pats her chest, whipping around to scan the area. “Why are we back in the garden!? Weren’t we… being chased by something…?”
Ave’s finger to her chin, the way she squints her eyes, proves to Adris that some of the mystery of Neesiette’s rampage will be eternal to his teammates. “Why is this woman naked?”
(Only I and…)
A blue sneak at his side, gripping his arm and amusingly clutching Ave’s hand, stares at the ground and not the sky, then glances at the sleeping Neesiette before shifting focus to Adris.
{Guess I didn’t choose wrong.} At his side, Still fidgets with her fingers tapping on Adris’ arm to covertly communicate. Her memory is firm of events.
(Barely.)
Released from violet terror to the garden’s center, four delvers are line abreast. They face thrones resting before the great orange tree that rises toward the heavens. Banners hanging from many pillars’ roosting lines, flapping loudly in the changing currents of the moment, bear no emblem yet.
(Two thrones?)
“Kakaka! Cute, just like Kol knew!” Kol stands at Adris’ right, with Still to his left, mercifully separating them. A kobold that fearlessly sacrificed herself defies belief by jumping up and down with glee, her tail wagging left, left then right, right with an energy reserved for special circumstances. “Stand by right one!”
(You’re safe, too.)
Once seeing Kol wearing it, Adris notes the sashes they all share over their fronts.
(The cross with that strange brass key is painted on it?)
The thousand eyes of birds are upon only the royal whose entire backside is exposed to Adris. Arms wrapped around herself, this icon’s nude pale skin is vibrant only for the single gaze one can take. The gray climbing from the garden grounds spreads into finished clothing to hide it.
A white dragon totem with sharp fangs climbs her serpentine black hair. It settles upon her head dress of flattened white gold and inset jade. Jutting out proudly, its claws wrap over her scalp like a crown. This imperial beast lords over the glittering sum of the wealth that also adorns her flowing white deel robe. Iconic red lotuses pattern its broad midsection wrap and a curved broad sword in a white scabbard hangs from her shoulder.
{That’s NOT what the eastern princes wore!} A witch can become uncertain just as easily as a conman when there’s discord.
(That is… a Xin regent’s robe…! Or even…!? We’re in the court of someone, is this the idea?)
Trailing the immaculate wealth of its several-feet length behind her, this entity ignores to pass below the full murder of harpies.
(But how have you captured Xin in you?)
An air of absolute authority sees even those close above leaning toward her. They revere this higher order authority that they’re denied save for their tyrannical mother’s.
Step by step, with fullest attention of all spectators and basking in it, a full minute of silence witnesses Fehr traverse the length of the garden to finally seat upon one of the thrones on a raised platform.
Paired and askew from the garden center, these metallic thrones of agate are flanked by furled banner hangers of a size that could catch the winds for a small watercraft. Between them, the carpet continues on toward the tree that they partially block from view.
It is only when turning to face her assembly that this blue-eyed conqueror’s familiar allure can also tear at Adris’ heart by seemingly only capturing him.
(The way she acts like she can see through you…)
Features are mixed now, even though the hair tufts in the same birdlike manner. The swarthiness is gone, though her cheekbones retain strength. Fine angles are muted where appropriate to now leave a comforting impression of Adris’ home instead of a strong foreign one.
“And now…”
Even to her nose that is less sharp, this “Fehr” has adopted all of the best attributes of what has been asked of her before now. It produces not just a proud aura warrior or a chilling priestess of a dead religion, but instead an idealized self that surpasses them all.
A rarity encountered once in a hundred years before, she now is a sculpted empress that would only be witnessed once in a thousand.
(That’s Serras’ height, too, to the inch. Please, what is going on, don’t be her!?)
Seating slowly upon thick green cushions and relaxing heavily upon the arm rests of the rich agate, this lady which exudes no impression other than “all-encompassing” is Adris’ two-colored [Star] of white and black.
When she settles, the banner behind her unfurls.
(Like her, a dragon…)
The heavy cloth stitched with metal ends to defy wind drops to reveal a blue-eyed, white-scaled dragon whose fearsome mouth is biting upon the short, black furred tail of a mammal at the middle of the banner. Adris does not recognize this other’s elongated back end, for a half-circle circle made of long bodies lacks its complementary banner.
(It bites the tail? What is the symbolism?)
Without fear, doubt, or anger, Fehr soaks in the building expectations before parting red lips. “… Everything that was…” Speech is Fehr’s most difficult function, for she tastes the voice she’s chosen. “… wanted shall be… fulfilled…” It is light and airy, but bound by the weight of her foreign accentuation of the words. A mix of east and otherworldly. When she achieves the result she wants, she flashes open her eyes again to take in her garden.
“… my guest.” Fehr’s hand lifts to curl invitingly.
(I’m still her guest!? It absolutely IS my Fehr if she’s calling me that!)
A million points roll through Adris’ thoughts for weighing. Of them, their safety is at least secondmost.
(The real Fehr came out, the one that loves me!? Did she forgive me!?)
All four of his precious teammates are here, escaped from the nightmarish place where Luna awoke.
All of the horrors of that world are banished, including the harm to this manse and Kol’s face.
And upon the long walk of a jade carpet they are arrayed, facing the thrones without shackles on them.
These three things breathe new expectations and spring Adris’ posture upright with the call of a jackpot being struck.
Then, Adris considers what he has won for his darling Star.
“Exactly as I said it could be done, FEHR!”
(Of course she forgave me, it’s me, after all~!)
Before the entire manse, Adris’ revived protege of this endless, terrible day awaits “her guest”. Though every harpy here should have endless questions, none yet intrude upon Fehr’s presumed authority or interrupt Adris. Ave and Still flinch when Adris yells, but Kol jumps about and waves so hard that the kobold nearly falls over.
“You alone can make paradise, Fehr! You’re a true successor!”
“RIGHT! Boss, make new owner, just like Kol want!”
This sort of outcome sends Adris’ metaphorical hands rubbing greedily with Kol’s own.
“BEST CHOICE, RULE ALL! Kol made this work, Boss, praise Kol, KAKAKAKA!”
Adris hoists Neesiette into an underslung hold and slams a pat onto Kol’s shoulder in response, sharing a rare smile of unrestrained glee with the cackling knight. Despite Kol lacking even a shred of comprehension about Adris’ difficulties or true goals, she’s truly blessed to achieve this.
(We’re going to be rewarded for me putting Fehr at the top, is it?)
{I see… I ain’t important no more.}
Still’s fingers pinch him, but Adris pines for the ceremony’s next step as music starts up. Ethereal and distant with violins and trumpets, the hums of singers add to the growing solemnity of the ceremony for them!
(Kol was the only one never faking anything, so she finally reached…!)
“And because I will fulfill all that was requested…”
Fehr’s curling stops, index and forefinger pointing toward Adris.
(A genuine relationship. Kol created this.)
The joy jolting through him continues even as he instinctively steps back.
“… What was promised in return, a ‘miracle for a miracle’…”
(We’re actually… going to get ahead…!)
From the bag at Adris’ feet something quivers.
His grin sours with the upturning of Fehr’s hand, for a spherical object obeys this motion to rise on a pillar of gray. Many slits follow the equator of its shining surface.
Adris has a clear technical understanding of nearly everything about its construction, even if his legs jerk when trying to leap without his input.
(What miracle?)
Muscles spasm when commanded by instinct, stinging points all across his body waking up that itch like Still’s cursed medicine. Adris’ ruined Inner Expanse link connections of the pain throughout his body.
Each sting follows with a flash in his sight.
(… Where… haah!? Why pain!?)
This torment gathers at his feet where the ground sucks at his rabbit boots. A black flow his aura senses pierce to see within gathers the strands and fragments. What gathers connects through to manse to the pillar upon which rests Neesiette’s core.
(… No… you can’t…! Do this…!)
“As you promised…
Beside me, someone would stand.”
Voices absent of glee in recent memory howl their silence at a unifying joy!
On their unseen lips, a boy’s name, imagined from merely a grammatical concept foreign to this very world.
The name stabs at Adris’ temples rather than his ears, then sinks in with all the weight of this forsaken manse. From the walls, grounds, and everything made of an alchemical wonder, they all shriek!
(We never agreeEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!?)
Adris’ view shakes, splitting between the flashes, searing red pain, the distant Fehr, and the boiling muck which surges up to fill the slits of the spinning core.
Lightning strikes from his knees and ankles, a tearing, slimy fibrous net pulled out to shock the darkly shining core.
When it goes free,
A girl in a white mask who is drenched in bug guts grips Adris by the collar, her blue eyes furious at the ravaged terrain and falling ichor—!
(NO! NO, I WASN’T… IT WAS!?)
—Serras’ anger, that she is now colored yellow, is wasted on a boy with brunette hair that escaped the same fate. Only a smidgen of bile coats his servant’s uniform, the green vibrant in comparison! His smile is bright, though his hands sympathetically wipe off the largest bits from her—
(UGH!? He was… I WAS THE ONE WHO FOUND THE LAST OF THEIR VERMIN ILK!?)
Shards of rainbow, the drops of creation that bleed darklight, are torn out with the currents. Even his diaphragm tightens to uselessness!
The rising form which eats him from the inside out grows legs, a waist that firms to lift the core aloft!
(Extermin—killed them, to claim… understand how they could leap!?)
Another flash strikes!
“I’m beginning to think this is simply how you naturally behave, sister! If there is an error, then it’s with your core replicated personality traits, not some sudden change.”
So brags a boy, the distance between him and that fearsome other too short for either’s comfort.
The place of a servant is to unburden their emotions and ego. To adopt such contrarian traits that produce disorder is disgusting to this noble scion’s attendant.
It’s his arrogance in turn that infuriates a lady with a butcher’s blade so much, his dismissal denying her ability to change. Blood from her bit lips stain her tanned chin.
But, his complaints never cease even witnessing this.
“After everything I’ve taught you, you do something stupid like—!”
(WRONG! I WAS THE ONE WHO SAID SOMETHING THAT VILE!)
The disassociation cuts Adris harder than the pain, but he can’t decide why in his helplessness where he can’t even drop Neesiette or clutch his head.
Another pulsating flash sees the growing body before him cease being inanimate.
—That blade cleaves the ground, then, when this diminutive child lashes out in rage!
“‘Teach me?’ What do you teach me!? I watch you con people that you offer to help! You take a reward with one hand and stab them in the back with the other!”
She should be totally unemotional, as befitting their design, but instead she screams without dignity.
“Everything that threatens and lies to our Maker… I will destroy it!”
The threat isn’t directed at Adris, though he backs away from its pressure. It shouldn’t be, after all.
They were created to protect the Maker.
“Fehr…?” Adris’ question alone calms the girl.
She casts the blade from her hand upon seeing him as its target, shaking her hand as if it’s dirty because it threatened him by proxy.
“Fehr was made for Adris.”
“… Y-Yes… and… Adris was made for Fehr…”
At these crossroads, the outskirts of a powerful sect which worships the blazing torchlike sun, Adris’ SISTER comes to hug him there despite the danger of rousing.
For the sake of a small boy, so that she can rub her face in his feathery auburn hair, Serras kneels and hoarsely whispers.
“Adris… I won’t lose you!
You belong to ME—!”
(GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!)
Another dormant thing rips free, a shining light that flares up and consumes the night!
A humanoid that none dare approach gains arms, though not even the blurry figures beside him that can barely be made out through the enveloping pain bother to come to defense!
And so Adris’ left hand is yanked by shared link, gray clinging to his arm stretching forth.
What once stole from within reaches for the last burning piece. Its hunger is eager for more than just the treasures when considering flesh!
A flash cutting away his own name hits!
—“It’s a secret!”
So he’d said constantly to her, this clingy waif who suddenly turned from aloof to omnipresent in his hours of every day.
On the trail, through the thickets, and even when facing the untimely winds of dust that come randomly from the adjoining deserted sky island, an admitted secret about Adris’ prowess is the one thing she grows wild about!
“It’s powerful, that’s enough? I told you, I learned it from the old man himself!”
“And then you killed him?”
“Why would I kill everyone who does me a favor!? There’d be nobody left with a business ethic like that…”
At this tea house, finally, he admits that he has a trick card. Standard, boring, and utterly suited for his particular focus on effectiveness over flashiness.
“It’s called… well, it’s strong for me. Nothing as good as what you can do, obviously. I ain’t shitting red serpents on command.”
“What… is it…?”
When he refuses to name it, though—?
(GET OUT OF MY SOUL!
HELP ME!
HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!)
—Serras’ expression is a flash of shock that he hasn’t shared its worth, yet, what he’s truly gained.
Standing on the bridge between two gateways, one shining with the red night sky outside, it’s here at the cusp of victory that her supreme mentality has crumbled.
She steals his hand entirely, a woman’s versus a boy’s.
It’s only now that Fehl realizes just how different they are, even if they are TWINS, rubbing it.
Because…
“Fehl, is something wrong? Aren’t you… ready to serve under me?” A terror in Serras’ black eyes grows. The look of an animal pursued, as if she’s known too many betrayals.
“Forever, this time… yes!?”
Stared at by his sibling, a being he can only describe now after viewing, one after the other, her absolute fragility and resilience as “the only one he can love”, Fehl’s inner doubts roar even as his outer thoughts become a mask he willingly wears.
“I am fine, Serras. I will serve you from now on until the very end, just as I… promised you.”
“… Good! I… don’t want a world without you.”
She clenches his hand harder, whispering the last part.
Fehl hadn’t noticed it before, the clarity of now so bright, that Serras’ eternally grim mask of composure contorts at the corner of her eyes on rare occasions such as these.
This demon in the form of a slender beauty seems more focused because she’s seeing a threat, but there’s no one else here but Fehl.
“If it required sacrificing you to fulfill what he wanted…
I don’t know how I would function correctly after—”
And then a sharp, multi-pointed monstrosity that attacks all around it pulls free. Adris’ innards tear from his arm through to his legs and out into this prison of gray shit!
(FUCK HELP! HELP! Help…!)
No longer merely a core or a corpse, a man of fine breeding draws all of the night to himself.
To one knee he crouches as if pondering the sum of existence.
The pain another feels mirrors within this entity as solely pleasure.
Memories of two people play out, both lifetimes’ worth.
They’re drunk from different perspectives, ages, and times.
Sometimes the brutal warrioress chats with a boy who has no sense of limitations or humility. Other times she is the angry youth, struggling to keep up with an older man with a servile, yet prideful, nature as he preaches about etiquette.
When reversed, it is a quiet, but forceful, girl wearing white whose fastidiousness harshes the easygoing, and concealed, life of a man with crossed legs who swears by his duck sauce. Then, she will be a soft-spoken noble who imposes her virtues upon him, leaving the boy jumping out windows to escape.
All these moments are interchangeable to the one plundering them.
Wonderful, life-giving moments.
(… Those things aren’t… yours… they’re… me…!)
Howling, chittering voyeurs relish in the emptying of a feedbag.
And once he senses another’s end, this nude Adonis exits his contemplations and rises.
Into this new life is where the remnants that feed it gravitates toward. Inescapable, in the way a violet engine of hatred from the heavens could not impose.
(… Help…)
Inches from him, it’s now that a coldness crowds out the pain of fading.
Instead it’s the chill of dying.
A red… black…!
{I accept yah as Adris!}
An ocean that’s dark, save for blinding red pinpricks and arteries throughout it, envelops around the named boy!
Instead of fading, he immediately feels his lungs bloat with the weight of forever!
Sinking instead of drifting away…!
“Ahhhhh!? Hah, how disappointing.” A man’s thick deel robe winds around the being that harshly belts this out. Tying his waist tighter, he clicks his tongue at the outcome.
(KAH!? I’m…!?)
Fine leather-and-iron boots with embroidered jewels glitter over the sum black totality of his attire. It fits well with his stark white hair and the onyx-colored buriad he dons with one swift pat.
Clothing fit less for a regent and more for his favored suohbodah (STRATEGIST), the preposterous artifice of his lamellar armor that appears only useful for catching stares for its dark coppery reflections belies that idea.
“I’d positively drooled at the thought of proving who was really fake.”
(… Where… what happened…?)
Anemic to almost collapse, Adris finds himself leaning against something.
{“Adris”, boy, that’s what malady you are. I’ll accept no other.}
Fingers dancing on his back share meaning with the same overlap of the pounding blood reaching his head.
Being rousted like this, Adris’ nausea subsides enough.
{Remember who – you – are! Your promise.}
(Still…?)
“Wait, that…? Oh, it’s Stud!”
Kol’s pronouncement is the same as confirming the existence of a brother. No time for recovery presents before the newborn sets off with a crisp gait.
To the same fanfare as Fehr, and to the leering, leaning gazes of a murder of drooling women who whisper, none other than Fehl seats himself on the other throne.
Fehr’s posture is regal, while his involves lazily crossing one leg over the other to sigh again.
Fehr’s face is pretty, while Fehl’s is fetching, but quite approachable.
“As was promised, we are finally what—”
The furled banner behind him drops to reveal a blue-eyed black weasel trying to devour the tail of a dragon.
“—we were supposed to be from inception.” What one begins, the other seamlessly finishes.
“The inheritance—”
“—will commence.”
Two banners hang stiffly.
Witnessed at last, threads stretch to weave together. They’re joined over the walkway leading to the tree.
A perfect circle made by two beasts.
One mythical, the other mundane.
Both set upon the task of devouring their rival, but neither can accomplish it.
(I can read them now…)
Though his whole body is numb, eyesight itself seeing mostly brights and dims without shape, the black letters that write themselves upon the banners and the twins below are clearer than any other guidance by Adris’ Talent before now.
They scream their true nature.
— [DARKNESS – PARADOX-EQUALS-CONTRADICTION-TYPE: EQUILIBRATED NEMESES] —
(“Bound by mutual love and hatred until they become the same.”)
It’s a pang of displeasure when Adris feels his throat tighten when he reads a unity that couldn’t, or shouldn’t, exist anywhere but here. These two conflict even now. The hidden potential the manse’ reservoirs give up to them lingers beneath their thrones, a buzzing sound in Adris’ ears now. It awaits a call that both clamp onto, wrestling for peaceably.
Fehl and Fehr, true twins at last.
Seated on thrones at the heart of power, they might have stolen more than just the manse.
(… What Serras wanted… and even I might’ve…)
Adris is too sick to even recognize the implications, much less plot against them. Only Still’s help keeps him up. Neither Ave nor Kol have noticed his weakness, enraptured by the twins.
(I can’t recover…! I’m only numb! They… they took me out of this!)
Their joining interrupts with the dropping of an object from far above.
A blond woman plants one hand to the ground, her legs absorbing the landing. When the twins on the dais shift their gazes to her, this beast leaps back with a snarl. It’s to a far pillar that she lands again, takes a quick look at the situation, then to Adris, and after blinking once…
(… You’re just gonna fucking hide…!?)
Lycia Vehrose shivers behind a pillar, checking over her strapped gear and pulling free her pocket mace. A murder of harpies is nothing compared to the first tastes of Fehl and Fehr reborn.
“Little ones!?” More survivors arrive on a wake of seaspray. Orloss drops free some distance from Sapphira to plop into an aloof inspection of the end result of his work.
“A… fascinating evolution.” Orloss’ slick confidence is a slimy falsehood, because the crazy curator’s kraken cane earns twists that cause it to squeal. He’s as unnerved as Adris, but considering options.
(At least he’s no fool…)
Oblivious to the changes, the harpy matron chooses instead to alight on the dais. “Are you both safe!? We… actually reconstructed you!? AND Fehl!? How!?”
Sapphira spreads her wings with a great smile of relief and ticks toward them, but when neither twin shares it back nor rises to great her, she halts. “Why… are you playing on thrones? You’re not starting this nonsense again, are you!?”
To the chagrin of watchers, Sapphira struts on the dais with her breasts held high and a vicious smile brewing when she turns around.
“Do I have to reteach last night’s lesson?”
Sapphira’s cry sends the frozen harpies quaking above. Some even flee from their perches to join their siblings at further ones.
“Be silent, Sapphira, matron of—”
“—those who remained loyal.”
Both twins lean from their seats toward her. Sapphira shivers at their shared speech. The jiggling matron scans pillars behind her again, squinting with a frown after the twins’ impact fades.
“Did you put them up to this again, girls, teach them bad things!? They are not—!”
“We are Fehr…!” Fehr’s scream is self-righteous, a flash of offense in how she momentarily scowls.
“Oh?”
Fehr’s hand lifts toward the great orange tree behind them, joined a second later by her brother’s.
“… and Fehl, no others.” So says the brother calmly, then they alternate.
“Now is the time—”
“—for rewards, and—”
“—punishments, and—”
Adris’ legs buckle when their enormous joint control sinks into the false ground. Still goes with him, more out of fright in how she clings from behind. Both feel, without comprehending the commands, the nature of this thick line that swims from their thrones to the orange tree that towers into the sky.
(“Thank you for your sacrifice, now you can finally return”!? Oh, that…?)
“—to say goodbye—”
“—to the past.”
The sound of cracking fortifications of stone, when they can no longer hold with so much excised, reverberates through the garden and echoes inside the bones of those who lived around its base for so long.
Mechanical sections built into its limbs wail with klaxon screams.
“… The… the tree is…?”
From the leaves of pale radiance a gray spreads, pulling inward the orange to the branches and then to the trunk. Settling of dead wood leaches away the glow of earth power. The firmament of Zennia responds to the tree’s death sounds with its own groans.
Sapphira, awestruck at first and staring up, then spreads her wings and flaps in a panic.
“STOP! NO! You’ve held on for so long!” The wind that raises to whip at the huge limbs of the Kestner tree eats her pleas.
All the harpies can do is witness the final moments of their heartwood fading.
(… Did it… stay alive… just to try and accomplish something…?)
It’s then that Adris recalls how it both obeyed and fueled Falke’s Territory Technique, animating to combat the titanic kraken at equal strength.
And when Falke himself wasn’t present, pretending to be fortune’s intervention it had saved the flight of the twins to reach the branch they needed.
(The tree is sentient.)
Its saved life energies are willingly released to be sapped, for Adris feels it join the manse’s reservoirs as a magical tidal wave. In the hollow, deep below the grounds, even the blurring of real and unreal at a tier that truly rivals Cethran’s trap in the Castillo can be felt via trembling earth.
“Did you two kill—AHHHH!?”
Trembles become tremors, and all on the ground feel the sinking when an earthen path reveals from gray foundation slowly withdrawing.
“… What is going on!?”
(They’re using enormous visual elements… striking at emotional cues, to create instability?)
Though Adris cannot speak or move, his mind is on fire. To remove him intentionally via crippling him implies a goal. A goal means a plan.
“To be inherited, all—”
“—that can be inherited—”
“—must be accounted for.”
Objects from every facet of human life begin to rise from the false earth.
A familiar grand desk of expensive wood and well-worn age rises behind Sapphira, with curio displays and bookshelves popping up underneath the harpies.
(I recognize… this shit…!)
What was once a cluttered maze of a mess of endless baubles and personal possessions now uniformly sit upon forming display tables, cases, and hangers. False flora repurposes to accentuate them. The harpies gasp at the museum trove being unleashed on them.
“That’s the glass tree that used to sit in our aviary at the Palace! Until we broke it…”
“I haven’t seen that statue since Farthun died!”
“Our old table? Mistress Dohle gave us that when Wyra was born…” Even the eldest harpy daughter recognizes a treasure amidst the hoard, though she doesn’t break ranks like others to swoop down to gush from a closer spot.
“My first… core attempt?” A half-finished sphere rises up for Sapphira to gaze at, a soft expression of longing releasing her rage. Falke’s private bolt hole had been small, yet stacked high with a multi-generational family’s belongings. Allowed for viewing, even Sapphira cannot help but comment.
“… I knew… Falke had a private place at the Palace, but… I never knew… that… annoying old goat had hoarded so much, saved so much from the raiders…!?”
An invasion struck their lands, Adris knows now, so only he bothers to piece together the implications.
“Why didn’t he show us? Me…?”
(… Falke’s habit of hoarding kept it in a secret place, and them… aaaah, from losing everything to Peak’s allies!)
{We need… to escape!}
Adris’ recovery is limited, no matter what Still tries to stick under his tongue. Sweet, salty, or sour, every last remedy fails to fix the numbness. An uncertain holistic essentialness has been gutted. Adris cannot even think of how to fix it, for his mind is burdened by the nature of this show being put on by the twins.
(They’re producing BAIT! This is… some sort of…?)
“All that was saved by our Maker, and—”
“—all that was found worthy of surviving until now—”
“—perfect solutions pulled from obscurity—”
“—to unanswerable desires… we offer in inheritance.”
Fehr and Fehl’s offer startles the harpies once more, cutting their chattering short as they turn to each other to ponder the offer.
“You can’t offer anything that will fix what’s happened!” But Sapphira turns away from the possessions that are offered, swinging an extended wing. “These are only possessions! I don’t care about those! I want… you, and Fehl, and the rest, to be… free of…!”
“Of what, Phira?”
(This is a con!)
A familiar brusque-sounding lady’s voice steals Sapphira’s own. Interrupting and then leaving all in silence waiting for an answer, from the hollow tunnel approaches a figure clothed in a white mourning robe of fine silk that nobles on Xin would save for their princeliest members.
A jackdaw clutching a violin is embroidered on it.
“… Lie… another lie. You can’t be here.”
“Not an answer, pet.”
The past returns.
Picturesque, but showing the gray of age instead of the alchemy she’s composed of, a woman of impeccable stature without a hint of care joins the twins and Sapphira on the dais. Fiddling with her robe’s ties, this sterling presence finally snarls.
“What a preposterous bed dress!? Surely something better is available!? Ah?” Among Falke’s stolen items, an ostentatious dress familiar to Adris hangs on a mannequin. “That pervert held onto my state dress?”
Under her own whims as she lifts her arms up, Dohle Kestner compels her mourning robe to transform like an unfolding flower into a perfect facsimile of an eastern dress studded with all the treasures of the earth.
Gray matter listens to her pulse of intent, for Adris feels it strike him since it is unfocused and raw.
(By the divines, ascendants, and whatever fucking lizards of hell, this bitch is commanding it too!?)
Adris feels no core seated within the revived Speaker of the Kestners, though. Whatever phantom she is, her existence is resolute solely because something nestles within. After a transformation so splendid, the angry Phira shrinks away.
“No… No, you’re not… you can’t.”
“Since when have I ever…?”
Dohle’s dress swishes as the aged empress with a voice like velvet slides into Sapphira’s personal space. Despite being a tall woman by Xin standards, Sapphira as a monster is taller still.
“… cared about what anyone thought I was capable of? ‘Allowed to be here’, how is that even in your vocabulary when it’s about me, pet?”
But when hands are placed to Sapphira’s waist, the bird empress cranes down to respond.
“How… is it…?”
“Falke exists, Phira. ‘How’ is a stupid question if that loon is involved.”
Sapphira’s permanent youth contrasts cruelly to her mistress’ lines. They appear more like an older mother comforting her grown child when Dohle starts to rub through Sapphira’s hair and over her feathers.
“Extra… Extraordinary.” Only Orloss is willing to interrupt their scene, studying the newest addition to this wild encounter. “You two actually instilled a true persona into a simulacrum without a core!?”
“Ho, and what is this freak?”
“Freak!?”
Before the twins can answer, Dohle Kestner slides her way possessively between the approaching hustler and a beloved bird.
“I can spot an inhuman… huh, far easier than ever?” Dohle takes a moment to study her own flesh, finally grasping something about its nature.
To answer a pulse of intent, a flanged mace of shining steel rises from the floor for the older lady to brandish by repeatedly slapping it into her opened hand.
“You piece of shit, looking at her ass from behind like you own it!? WANT ME TO SCULPT YOU!?”
“… What!? I’ve done no such thing today!”
The repeated impacts on Dohle’s own body produce the most horrific slapping, leaving even the falsely smiling Orloss gobsmacked.
“‘Today’, is it!? Just what gives you the right to exist in the same nation as my Sapphira, HUUUUUUUH, CALAMARI!?”
(Are you an empress or a vandal!?)
“As expected of… the legendary Dohle Kestner…” Orloss’ hand cloth fails at soaking up the oily sweat on his face, but he motions for Dohle to stop threatening him before smiling. “I am a guest of dearest Falke’s!”
“DEAREST!? You want men, too!?”
(He wants to…)
That statement sets Dohle to marching toward Orloss, only for the man to tap his cane while squiggling backward.
“NO! I am not here for him, and not that…!? This time, I’m…?”
“Some poacher!?”
“At times, yes!? But who isn’t!? You stole from your neighboring lands constantly!”
“The weak will serve me.”
“I’m far from weak, human! But, I’m also not here to…! [Sapphira, stop her, now!]”
Orloss motions for Sapphira to grab a hold of Dohle.
“… No, I don’t think I will, Squidly~.”
The matron that once obeyed Orloss by threat of Oath of Surrender instead mysteriously folds her wings up and watches.
“WHAT!? HOW ARE YOU DISOBEYING!?”
“Going after my pet? Then…”
Dohle tears off her dress’ arms with great enthusiasm, then starts jogging with her mace lifted up.
“… Time to paint this drab place.”
Only when Orloss flails around, running with his arms wide and released octopus limbs keeping him ahead does Dohle stop. The huffing conman looks to Adris, then, a deep need mouthed across the distance.
“HOOOOOOOOLD! I AM FALKE’S BEST FRIEND!”
([MAKE THIS STOP BEING CONFUSING! AREN’T YOU CONTROLLING THIS!?]
… I wish I was.)
“Friend!?”
“YES! Work friend! We work together! Almost… willingly!”
“… Sapphira, that’s so amusing…! AHAHAHAHA!” Dohle readies to bash Orloss’ head in again, laughing her head off.
“As if anyone would want to be friends with Dummke~!”
“Dohle! Stop!”
“… Hoh?”
Before Orloss’ squiggling cane gets tested by the force of her mace, Dohle acquiesces to Sapphira’s plea.
“… So much has… changed… that it’s probably true now.”
“Yes, he really does seem like the sort of trash that that idiot would get along with. And you two, you little copycats…”
A pulse struck Dohle at the same time as Sapphira’s plea, traveling from the dais and originating from the twins. Adris can’t read it, but the revived aristocrat flutters her hair with a look of disgust before abandoning Orloss to march back to Sapphira.
“Yes, yes, ‘denouncement’. Disregarding that, I do have some complaints…” At first obviously unenthusiastic, Dohle’s next words are so pointed that Sapphira’s shock turns frozen.
“I waited until the end, the very last moments, for you to be honest.”
“… Ahh…”
Sparing no details for the daughters, Dohle climbs the dais after dropping her mace.
She grabs Sapphira’s face without tenderness.
“From the start, you were dishonest.”
“… I’m…”
Sapphira’s lips earn a hand before she can finish.
“You are… comically inept, even now. Just the this farce, with all of your… ho, many, many children, proves that you’re better at breeding than anything else.”
“They’re not all my daughters, Dohle!” Sapphira broods like a young girl that’s been insulted, earning a pat once more.
“So many, but you didn’t learn to let go, did you?” Dohle’s retort cuts deep again, cowing Sapphira.
“… I… let go of…”
“Let’s be clear and quick, since we have so much to do.”
After stroking Sapphira’s warm wings with both hands, Dohle turns and steps away to address the harpies instead.
“Sapphira… you were never capable as my maid, even at the end.”
“WHY!? I STAYED WITH YOU UN—!”
“You never obeyed the requirements of the position!”
Dohle’s finger drills into Sapphira’s heaving breasts, then slides up to tap at her chin.
“‘A lady’s maid must be capable of opposing her lady by gentle, innocuous guidance.’ Vohlder explained this, did he not?”
“… He did…”
“I have walked over you my entire life, Phira. Just as you walk over your children.”
Sapphira’s angry, crying, fruitless gaze at her offspring, her mouth squirming as if she blames them for this dressing down, ends with Dohle gently grabbing her head.
“Why have you never married Dummke?”
“You told me not to! You… you… the last days… HYAH!?”
All the harpies flinch when Dohle slaps their matron.
But none dare come even an inch closer out of whatever emotional feeling might drive them to act.
For Dohle Kestner’s face is like an enraged tiger’s, ready to devour.
“‘Last days’? You absolute birdbrain. I was a bitter shell that hated the both of you more than I ever hated even my family during my youth! I.. I wanted all of you to die! To suffer for… like I…”
Feelings long repressed, never admitted, are fuel for what animates this Dohle to clutch her own head. No matter if she is real or fake, these are her true emotions when Dohle frowns sadly at her rage and calms.
“… I was always a… difficult lady, even after growing up.”
After slapping Sapphira, Dohle licks her hand and then rubs over the cheek she hit. Sapphira’s tears cannot be born from pain given her immense sturdiness, so she must comprehend the admission’s difficulty.
“A curse was what they called me, not untrue. Which, to the point, you birdbrain, why would you abandon your entire life, the love of an idiot, and leave your children chained to an oath you made to a cursed, dying woman!”
“… Be-Because… you…”
The weight of decades is almost impossible to shed after bearing it so long. But twins silently watch on, refusing to look away from the scene taking place before them so publicly.
“…
… I couldn’t figure out what to do after you weren’t there…”
“That’s why you fail. It’s why Dummke fails, too, even if he was a better maid than you were.”
“Even he’s better!?”
Something painful breaks when Sapphira shrieks at her mistress, prompting Dohle to start rubbing the harpy’s back and cuddling up to her once Sapphira melts down.
“The only instance you were ever right was when you told me to elope with Falke and flee the palace together with you, pet.”
“… I’m sorry, Dohle… hic…!”
“Yes, yes, my big little pet, I give you permission to cry for a minute… Just before I allowed you to have Falke, recall my terms.”
Dohle’s smile, a very sinister expression that completely betrays the true nature of this wild, troubled woman, vanishes when she leans in to deeply kiss the inconsolable Sapphira.
“Mmph!? Ahh…!? That’s not fair, Dohle! Not in front of my girls, PLEASE!”
“Still tastes like cherries. Ahem.” Dohle coughs to save face, then continues. “I commanded… ‘never forget me when you’re happy’, Phira. Others were troubled by your ugly choices.”
When they part…
All of the regalness Sapphira once exuded has evaporated.
Instead of an empress, there is only a sad woman with demons dancing in her mind and tricks being played on her heart.
The way she looks at Dohle, how she smiles deceivingly as if everything should be fine…
“I couldn’t go on without you, either. I felt too guilty trying to be happy… with him.”
“I’ll forgive you if you tell me you love me now and help me beat Dummke back into shape.”
“Yes, Mistress… I… have always… loved you, even after…”
(… They got her…)
Whatever the ploy, no matter the goal, the most important moment of any con is when the mark’s disbelief dies. A bubbly warmth of willing self-deception drives away the uninteresting and boring logic that stands in the way of fooling them.
“I’m sorry I loved him first… and never told you.”
“Yes, yes, you little chicken, you finally said it. I’ll forgive you if you hug me ten million times.”
When they cease to question the circumstances.
When ALL they ever wanted, needed, the shyster to fulfill is accepted as the solution when it’s spoken.
“You’re so warm! I’ve missed my perfect feather duster~!”
“Dohle… please stop…!”
Sapphira, empress of a murder of harpies, collapses entirely into the dreamy hug she envelops her “revived” mistress with. For “her” part, when Dohle finally is forced out by Sapphira, Dohle appears absolutely intoxicated by the experience.
(… ‘Lie’… ‘truth’… ‘dead’… ‘alive’… this is… something else…)
When Adris thinks this, the twins that he taught so much to stare him down.
Their mood that was placid becomes reproachful without changing their expressions.
(Don’t you dare think me intrusive!)
“YOU DID IT! YOU BOTH DID IT! GAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Orloss rolls up to the twins, not daring to climb the dais but bubbling over with giddyness to almost a frothing of the mouth. Whatever Adris has grasped, he laments that Orloss is a step behind.
“Falke finally made living automatons!? You’re full of what Peak dislikes!”
“Automatons—?”
“—is it?”
Both show wide eyes full of disbelief.
“… Almost the situation, uncle, but—”
“—not quite getting the full story, old man~.”
Fehl’s smile is quite sarcastic along with his remark. While the twins displayed only adult composure before now, when it’s conversing with Orloss they subtly change. Fehr pouts in his direction, while Fehl shakes his head and “tsks”.
“Old… old man?”
Orloss’ enthusiasm fades, a suspicion growing now that he’s been rebuffed.
“… You are ready to take ownership of the Kestners and be the heirs, correct? Falke was looking for perfect heirs.”
“Silly uncle, the perfect heirs have been discovered, though—”
“—it might surprise you to discover that we’re not them~!”
Speaking together ends up unnerving even the madman Orloss, prompting a surge of power through this fiend. Adris’ memories of their first meeting with him play back.
“So… you have no intention of performing the… task that we’d agreed upon together, of ‘saving’ Falke with my aid?”
“None, at—~!”
“—all, uncle~!”
(They’re picking a fight with a titan…)
Neither twin responds favorably, yet Orloss relaxes with a beneficent smile. His eyes firmly closed.
“… Not… losing again…!”
Orloss hunches forward, contorting in a conspicuous lack of agony. What was human nearly sheds, his eyes bulging and looking in different directions.
“… YOU ARE M-I-N-E!
[MEHD]! APPEAR!”
An opening eye in the sky, yellow and infected by madness, splits the heavens.
Not just its sight, but its limbs spill forth from the growing tear like eels. Mouths lining them irregularly chomp in anticipation of the taste of Zennia.
“DEVOUR!”
Like never before, his cane of tentacles unfurls into monstrous limbs!
A howl of whispers announces the coming combat! Orloss’ drool stains the yard and he rises up ten feet into the air before hurling death at the thrones.
“DOHLE!”
Sapphira’s whole body becomes Dohle’s shield, a sheen of water instinctively swirling up to block what slams into them.
The twins, meanwhile, choose a different option.
“[Flea Flicker]~!”
Fehl isn’t even standing fully before he is flung sideways off the throne, leaving it smashed to flying chunks of agate. His sister’s shoulders he grabs while inverted, before once more they’re torn sideways to escape her perch’s destruction.
“STAND STILL!”
“We—!”
“—will~.”
The twins sideways cartwheel three more times to dodge more of his cane’s limbs before halting.
Having abandoned their weapons, they take up forward postures as if they still hold them. Battle ready.
(… They’re swelling the ground!)
The air of mystery that is familiar to Adris grows, though the twins concentrate with obvious aura technique running through their thoughts.
Adris feels the reflection of an [image] forming.
Still feels it too, for she throws everyone to the ground save for Kol.
The twins chamber an invisible sword and rear back with an unseen spear.
“[Roaring]—”
“—[Death]~.”
Both unleash at the same instant. The trajectory of their unseen weapons overlaps the images that shouldn’t be mergeable.
And from the manse’s grounds a dragon greater than the orange tree’s dead limbs erupts to undulate towards the heavens. Burning white phosphor clings to its flight that sets the grounds aflame, and set in its mouth is a whirling storm of blades!
“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?”
[SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!?]
Both Claimer and the island-sized kraken tearing into reality howl when its central eye bored through by the dragon. It tears deep inside, its massive body colliding after as the titans meet.
A dragon that sears with hellish fires also erupts into blades that tear outward to fall back toward the center. Flesh that is putrid is carved out of this spherical scar in the monster. The sheer enormity of the confrontation reaches downward, threatening every living soul as the two forces start to lose cohesion!
Harpies plummet to the ground to escape the concussive wave of fire that buffets Adris and his girls, too. Adris’ skin tingles with the aura burrowing through to incinerate him.
(IT’S TOO REAL!)
“[Purge]—”
“—[Territory].”
Nothing of the titanic clash is left in the white sky when the twins call out their victory.
Harpies that were fleeing from his eruption of an evil beast into their space are left plastered to the ground or standing up with rapid breathing.
“Umu, Kol, remember dragon. Very bright.” Even Kol blinks often, as if she’s trying to purge blindness. Only she didn’t collapse among their number.
(Haaah, haaah… they used the manse’ reservoirs to force away Orloss’ Territory!?)
Memories of aura that Orloss called forth are now imprisoned within the weight of another’s. Even if he wanted to try, Adris knows by the way his own world works that the madman can no longer materialize his own thoughts.
“UGH!? VIGOR!? IS THIS MY VIGOR!?”
Instead of being irate after forcing away the kraken, the twins crowd the flailing Orloss. With a hand clamped over his eye, the conman’s putrid purple Vigor spills out from the socket. His multi-glassed spectacles are broken, half exploded and fallen off.
“Poor—!”
“—uncle!”
“Geeeh?”
The twins pull out a bright cloth from Orloss’ own frock coat, then gently press it to his eye. Whatever the harm underneath, he ceases to bleed with it tied around his head as an eyeshield.
“… You… you two…!?”
“Love you—!”
“—very much, uncle!”
“What!? You two… love…!?”
The twins pull on his coat and take his other arm.
“Uncle, you’re too precious—”
“—to be allowed to be hurt, old man.”
“Though circumstances have changed, we—”
“—have never, ever forgotten your kindness.”
The twins hug him tightly, a strange sight where two adults envelop a smaller man whose tentacles must avoid being stepped on by them. Orloss’ face, barely seen past the crush of their deel robes, is strangely flushed orange and full of incomprehension.
“Uncle, just for you, we would destroy—” Fehr kisses Orloss on the cheek after finishing her part.
“—Peak Zenith and rescue all you care for from him.” Fehl meanwhile slings his arm around Orloss’ back, hugging him close.
“WA!? WAAA!? I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!?” Orloss disbelief changes to a panicked smile, avoiding looking at any harpy within hearing distance. “Clearly, you are both terribly disturbed, or misunderstand—!”
“Don’t worry, Uncle, you don’t have to worry about him finding out, because—”
“—you will never have to leave here! We’ve already sent your signal to begin the, hah, as you would say, ‘bug out’!”
“What.”
Orloss’ resistance saps out entirely. His tentacles stop squirming. Even the cane he dropped, trying as hard as it can to wriggle back to him, slumps.
(If he’s giving up, then he figures they managed it.)
“Everyone you care about, even those once lost—”
“—will be here! Why go back to the Castillo?”
“…
… You… you plan to help…?”
Orloss’ gaze turns purely shifty. The ugly man licks his lips, his sinister, inhuman tongue affronting the twins not one bit.
“Why?”
(No, not you, too, Orloss! Don’t let them have an in!)
“Why? Because… Uncle is our godfather, one of only a few who wanted us, and—”
“—old man, you’re our Maker’s best friend! You’re practically our family!”
Both twins perfectly practice looks of shyness, though Fehr’s is feminine and Fehl’s is jovial.
So out of place between them with Orloss looking like a rogue merchant that belongs in prison and the twins wearing peerless royal wear, even a complete and total idiot would be able to guess that they’re—
“BWAHAHAHAHAHA! YEAH! I GUESS I AM FAMILY BY THIS POINT!” Orloss hand to the back of his head, his deep belly laugh, and the way he rubs Fehr’s cheek like she’s his favored daughter forever betrays all expectations Adris had of the Krakenclaimer’s worth. “I’VE KNOWN FALKE FOR DECADES, AFTER ALL!”
(You stupid bastard!)
It takes only one glee-filled grin by Fehr and allowing herself to be petted to send Orloss rambling more.
“Right! If you kids are this strong, why not just bunker up here!? Do you also have a plan to add to mine against Idiot Peak!?”
“Of course—!”
“—godfather!”
“What exactly can you kids do now?”
When Orloss becomes their loyal uncle (puppy) and tags after them back to their reconstituting thrones, his attention span has obviously decayed into nonexistence. Dohle and Sapphira’s mutual stares of disgust don’t register.
“Are you more like those duplicates from the night I dropped in to visit!? Obviously you have far exceeded mere pseudoprósōpon manipulation if you’re using true magic by agitating it?”
“Uncle, we are very different now, so please pat my head—”
“—and quietly watch if you want to know more, old man.”
“My, my, this is exciting!”
And so Orloss pats Fehr’s head, even going so far as to stroke the dragon head dress she wears with a mystified happiness about him. With one hand in his coat and still having so many baubles hanging from him, he looks like a tinkerer hired to be a fool for a regent.
But his sole eye darts back to Adris for a moment, sizing up the boy who has said nothing. Almost as if he’s checking to see if he’s been entrapped in a web that even Orloss cannot fathom or unravel.
(… At least you’re not entirely retarded…)
“Hah, it’s about time the idiot shows up, anyway.” Dohle’s consternation is impressive, one eye twitching as the older lady shows historically rare forgiveness for being attacked. “Phira, call him.”
“Dohle… are… are you sure?”
“Name a single time I wasn’t.”
“Then… then…”
Sapphira walks down from the dais, parting company and giving herself space. She spreads her wings, takes in a deep breath, and then allows her own mysticism to agitate the space surrounding her.
“———————————————♪♪♪♫♫!!!”
A warbling cry that sounds like a mournful bird echoes throughout the garden…
Sapphira finishes her call, then sighs.
A minute after her call, around her the wind whips up.
Shimmering particles assail the harpy, before they spin instead centered at an open space beside her.
(… He’s coming!)