...Continued from Three Walls to Freedom and the Arson Witch
Ash 58th
Cool. Black. Alphonse felt a presence somewhere deep down, her fingers shifting beneath the pile of rubbish where she rested. She knew the feeling, or something like it, but this was different. Her fingers fell into place until it just felt right, as if guided by an invisible will tied to her subconscious. The name came to her, then.
Veravend.
Alphonse didn't understand. Her Patron was Irothar. Why would another approach her at her lowest point? Let alone such an unusual one--it distracted her mind. A welcome distraction as she bided her time in the rotting filth, waiting in silence for hours and hours, alone in her mind with naught but the voices and sensations in her own mind. Something in her mind felt different as she finally rose from the grave into the cover of night, her head spinning; she'd lost a lot of blood.
"...You can do it- ngh- Alphonse!" came a low, rasping growl as a bestial woman stumbled out of the alley she'd been hiding in. The dark night of Lower Nivenhain was even blacker than usual. Earlier that day, the Argent Knighthood had attacked, and one of their hollows had left a serious gash in her belly. She'd cauterized it, but she reckoned it still needed stitches, or a Necromancer. Blurry eyes peered around, all her focus dedicated to keeping on with keeping on. She couldn't stop. If she did, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to get back up.
Shambling like a tall, wounded zombie, she saw skulkers in the night shy away from her. For as long as she'd set up shop here, there were still a lot of people who'd never seen her, and she was even more terrifying in the dead of the night clutching her gut. She'd been spending the day beneath a pile of refuse, and she reeked, but she was alive.
Not for long if I can't get this shit patched up, I reckon.
With her other hand on her scabbard, she threw her arm forward with a step, and then another, until she was well on her way. Her heart sank when she got to the end of the road, and a pair of Argent Knights were standing there chatting with their lanterns, their Hollows skulking about like rabid, feral dogs. Alphonse went still for a split second, but backpedaled slowly into the shadows until she could breathe, laying her back up against the cool brick wall of a tenement.
I'm gonna... hah, feckin' die out here.
You'd think they'd be a bit more grateful for my role here as pest control.
"Sssh," came a faint sound behind her. She didn't want to look. Not now. No-- she looked. Before her was a crouching elf, holding on to the bloody hem of her filthy cloak. "This way."
Alphonse couldn't ask a single question. She nodded, and turned to follow the shadowy elf through the darkness without a word. They moved slowly beneath the awning of a lived-in home and crossed the street when they were far enough down. The elf opened a door to one of the homes, and Alphonse hesitated at the doorway. If this is some trap and they enslave me to be some whore... I swear on Malek's name.
When they got through the door, the home was dark, but someone--a woman with an apron, sparked a lantern as the man rushed to pull the curtains closed. "You're that Ebon Knight, right?" said the woman with a voice of concern. "My partner Aelfast and I saw you; oh, she's been hurt?"
"Darla, would you get her some rags? I've a bottle of port in the basement I brought with me from Silfanore." said the man, who turned to her.
"It's the least we could do, sister."
Refugees. Oh Malek, they're refugees! Alphonse silently praised the gods. All of them. "Thank you," she said with a gasp. Her legs wobbled, and she reached for a chair, nearly tumbling over as she fell in it--or rather had to balance on it. "I don't have much time," she called to the man as he disappeared through a door, descending into darkness with a lantern. It gave her a moment to herself, and she just relaxed.
Veravend... She made the sign, until the woman came up to her with some rags, which she took and pressed to her bleeding injury. "Thanks, miss," she said with a stammer of surprise. Her everything was pulsing, head spinning. "Ugh. That Hollow got me good."
Returning with a glass bottle of something really old, the man sighed fondly over the glass. "I was saving it for a special occasion, but I've always felt like I haven't done enough for the revolution. No need to thank me; thank you for the opportunity to do my part."
"You ash elves've always been there for me," Alphonse grunted back. "I'd do it again and again. This is gonna knock me down for awhile though, brother."
Pop.
Aelfast loomed over her. "Let go," he told her, and she relaxed her grip, peeling away the matted scrap of fabric. "Please keep still," he told her.
"Not my first time!" Alphonse grunted.
That clear liquid poured forth like an acid sunrise dawning upon her mind. It was hot. It sizzled against her body, and pain spiked through her every limb, but she was already too far gone to even feel a scream of pain coming on. "Ahh," she sighed. She made a gesture for the rest, but the man pulled it away: she smiled; "I haven't had much to drink since I got here. Malek knows I need the stuff to get through this life."
"You and I both," said the man, taking a swig of the port and making a face. "Mmh, it hasn't kept well."
Darla hovered nearby, moving in with a sewing kit. "It really is the least we could do."
"D'aww, don't mention it. I don't do this for the fuzzy feelings, miss," said Alphonse before she fell silent at the sight of those biting needles. Shaking her head, she blinked and shut her eyes, trying not to bare her teeth but biting her lips regardless as those needles lanced her flesh and tied it shut. Letting out a deep breath, she opened her eyes, feeling at ease for now. "So, about passage out of here."
"You're leaving?" said Aelfast.
"Yeah, I'm afraid the Knighthood's on my tail now. I'm not here to fight a country, I'm here to clean out their vermin. I'd love to stay and keep hunting those bloodsuckers, but next time they're gonna send twice as many men. I'm already worried about Harlowe, that old fool on Mournhallow who ran the inn that got sieged this morning."
"He's fine. He cursed your name, but he's fine. We'll be sad to see you go, but Darla and I promise that our first son will be raised on the ideals of the Black Remedy" Aelfast assured her. Sliding a thumb and and an index finger over his chin, he hummed. "Getting you out of here, I know a man, but you won't be happy about it."
"I am covered in garbage and dung," she retorted. She wanted to quip to him that he was a coward, but she held her tongue for now.
"Fair," he answered.
Alphonse's voice fell to a murmur, and she waved him off. "I don't even want to know, but arrange for it. I'll be fine."
. . .
"Yeah, uh course it's a corpse wagon." Alphonse's body tingled all over with disgust, their cold limbs brushing up against her own through the cloak she'd bound herself tightly in. Some were piled on top of her, and others crossing her body. Disease was rampant through the district, and body collectors like these were a semi-regular sight.
"Bring out 'yer dead!" shouted the elf at the helm. Business as usual. Every once in a long while, the cart stopped and something stiff and long-dead thudded over her. Loved ones would gather around, seeing off the body or talking over it.
You'll make it through this. You'll forget all about it, Alphonse. Fuck. All.
But as she lay still, she thought again to Veravend, venturing she should try to connect. It was all she could do, laying there in the quiet stillness. Her chest rose sharply beneath the bodies as she gasped, releasing the floodgates and filling her mind with a cacophony of otherworldly voices and presences. Her lips moved, and they whispered through her quietly as the wagon jostled across the cobbled stones. Mired in the presence of her new Patron, she felt emboldened, feeling and studying whatever it was now trying to contact her from wherever it was.
As the wagon came to a halt, she'd stop, then continue anew, the words crisper on her voice. This continued through the day, her familiarity growing until at last the sun fell beyond the horizon, and she was interrupted by a rough hand reaching into the center of rot and tugging on her. She rose, as if in a fit, hugging herself. Her thoughts were consumed by it. This was the apex.
Rolling off the wagon, she stumbled into the woods she found herself in before the bewildered elf, her chanting growing louder. A swirling, black void opened between her palms, and something truly grotesque floated forth. "Sah'viidhost!" Alphonse shouted to the air with her last breath, contracting with it when she felt the Ether it desired! Marveling at the skull covered in a thick cube of gelatinous ooze floating within her hands. She whispered to it, and its many tentacled feelers pulsed over her hands. Strangely, she did not find it repulsive.
Tilting her head, she spoke to it a few times. "Stay," she told it in what she thought was its tongue, but it started to float off, so she guided it with her hand. The proper words slowly came to her as she interacted. She could speak its tongue somewhat now, but more would come in time.
Rising from the tree roots, she held out her finger to it and moved back around the tree.
Oh I bet I looked like a lunatic.
"You really must have had to let it out," mused the man with a mirthful grin, lips on the border of laughter.
"Hah, yeh," sighed Alphonse. Saved by the juvenile mind. "Southeast side of the city, right?"
The man gave a nod. "Ee'yup. There's a stream down that way," he said with a pointing finger. "Never seen even a Hollow. Good fishin' spot. I reckon you'd want to clean yourself up after, y'know."
"Yeah," said Alphonse, her fingers twitching, hovering over the wound she didn't want to touch with her dirty mitts. "I can't thank you enough. I could hug ya, but well," she shrugged, earning herself a laugh from the man.
"Come back soon. I'm pretty familiar with your handiwork, and I'd like to see more of it. You're good for business!" he laughed as he took hold of his pull wagon and started off down the dark trail.
That's a weird character, yeah.
Coming around the tree, Alphonse pointed her finger at the creature, feeling a certain magnetism start to arise. "What do do about you? Huh." She flicked her finger up, and it followed her intention. Her head tilted. "Well I'll be damned. Could I do that this whole time? Well, what can ya do? Anything useful?"
Then it started to bleed a sickly blue fog, and she guffawed as it pooled around her. "That coulda been useful any time during the last two days, ya shit! Damn you for waiting so long to get in touch, Veravend!" Commanding the Nahl to rise to her palm, she smushed the jelly to her dirty, filthy shoulder and started off through the woods away from the city as her everywhere ached. But she couldn't stop. She had to meet up with Vesta.
That stream was far too tantalizing to pass up though, and she certainly, finally, bathed. Nothing was going to scrub her mind clean concerning what had happened, however.
