Between feathers and scales

Shopkeeper's Clothes

Ellys everyday attire - outfitted with a simple pouch for small tools or shiny trinkets, her beloved cardigan against that one draft in the corner of her workshop, and her favorite hair ornament, made for her by her sister.

Winter Expedition

An outfit especially requested by Albedo for Elly, so she could join him on more Expeditions on Dragonspine. It still features her trusty pouch, but now she's warm and cozy while working alongside the head alchemist!

Mole placements:

The others are talking, but the words are all vague to Teya. Real and prominent is only the shot of adrenaline and regret exploding through her stomach. It’s a strange thing, knowing someone’s fate. Strange and terrible.

The other crewmembers filter out, leaving Marsh and Kelsier to talk, or more accurately, argue. Teya stays. Listens. She’s struck by Marsh’s intensity, his unforgiving honesty. “Sometimes I wish you hadn’t been the one to survive the Pits,” he tells Kelsier, and Teya winces. Damn, dude. You’re just going to say that?

He listens, though, decides to consider the plan. Kelsier smiles like this is just what he expected, like he knows Marsh will come through. Teya’s willing to bet he’s right – has to. Without Marsh, all of this will fall apart.

As Marsh leaves, Teya lingers in the hallway, watching him go. If he does agree to the plan, there won’t be anything she can do to help him. Just like with the rest of the crew, she’ll have to keep her interference to a minimum, simply trusting that the story will play out the way it needs to.

The plan, insane as it might be, has to work. There is no other option.

––

The second time she sees Marsh, he’s proven Kelsier right. They’re at another planning meeting, and Marsh is there, sitting quietly amongst the rest of the crew. His role is cemented; he will infiltrate the Steel Ministry, posing as one of their bureaucrat-priests. The goal is for him to root out the secrets behind their operations, and most importantly, how to defeat the Inquisitors.  

Teya can’t keep from glancing at Marsh again and again. She’s overheard enough by now to piece together his story: he’s the former leader of the skaa rebellion, a man who’d worked tirelessly his entire life to help the people enslaved by the nobility, to try and bring down the oppressive Ministry government. The capture of his brother, and his brother’s wife, had pushed him to give up the fight about a year ago, but he’s come back for this mission, this one last attempt at overthrowing the Ministry.

His expression is just as severe as it had been the first time she’d seen him, his eyes piercing, mouth flat; it seems that intensity of his never wavers. His eyes are a dark, stormy grey. Vin and Spook are whispering together, and Teya overhears them mention an old nickname of Marsh’s. Ironeyes.  

Teya presses a hand to her brow, gritting her teeth. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, she thinks.

The meeting officially starts, and Teya does her best to pay attention. Her gaze keeps drifting, though, from Kelsier, to Marsh, to Vin. So much riding on so few. Her stomach begins to churn, and she crosses her arms over her middle, leaning against the windowsill. The view outside doesn’t do much to make her feel better: the ash-covered streets, the dark red sky, the skaa below trudging by, defeated, hopeless.

You can’t save them, her mind whispers.

Teya closes her eyes. I know.

––

Knowing something doesn’t always make you believe it. Teya continues to hold out a mad sliver of hope that maybe, maybe she can do something for Marsh.

It’s foolish, and it’s proven to her with the requisite harshness. When Kelsier and Vin rush brazenly into Kredik Shaw in search of the Lord Ruler’s secrets, Teya follows. To the surprise of Kelsier and Vin – but not to Teya – the Inquisitors are waiting. The Lord Ruler’s enforcers, guards, and most devoted priests. Clad in black robes, they’re towering and leanly muscular, with shaved heads and intricate tattoos ringing their eyes – or, what used to be eyes. Heavy steel spikes have replaced them, pounded straight through their skulls, sharp tips jutting out the back.

They attack, fast and deadly with their Allomancy, chasing after both Kelsier and Vin. Teya does her best to keep up – if something goes too drastically wrong, she needs to be there to help – but it’s hard to keep track of Vin as she disappears into the mists. As Teya teleports across the palace in pursuit, she lands much nearer to an Inquisitor than she’d intended.

It turns and looks directly at her.

Teya’s stomach turns to stone and drops straight through the ground. It’s only by sheer force of will she doesn’t teleport away immediately, instead dashing around the corner beforehand, hoping the Inquisitor will think she’s Vin, or just some other Allomancer who’d followed her and Kelsier in. That shouldn’t have happened – no one can see her, barring a complex set of circumstances that even then only make her briefly visible. If these things always can...

Vin and Kelsier – and Teya – manage to make it through the night, if narrowly. Afterwards, Teya goes back to test whether the Inquisitors truly can see her – which, yes, may seem inadvisable, but she has to be certain, can’t afford to gamble on this. She waits until an Inquisitor emerges from their Canton building, hurries in front of it, and pretends to trip. Bracing herself, she looks up, and her heart seizes.

The Inquisitor’s looking right at her, a twisted grin spreading across its face. Teya scrambles to her feet and hurries away, doing her upmost not to break into a sprint. The Inquisitor doesn’t follow, but the sensation of its gaze on her is so foreign and strange it feels like an intrusion, a hand creeping up her back, clawing at her skin. The instant she rounds the corner, she teleports away, back to the safety of Felise, on the outskirts of the city.

There, she slumps against an aspen tree, trying to steady her breathing. It doesn’t make any sense. Why can they see her? What’s so different about their metal eyes? “Am I magnetic or something?” she demands of the empty air.

Realistically, this doesn’t change anything. She’ll just have to be more careful, make sure to avoid Inquisitors as much as she can lest she draw their interest. But it does mean she can’t investigate the palace herself, and she can’t save any of the skaa from raids or executions. And it dowses that mad hope she’d had that maybe…maybe she could…

Her fists clench, and she whirls around, giving the tree a sharp kick. Breathing deeply, she forces her rage down behind gritted teeth. He’ll be fine without you, she tells herself sternly. All you would do is make things worse.  

––

Teya only sees Marsh a few more times after that, usually briefly, when he stops by Clubs’ shop to check in with the crew. On one particularly memorable occasion she nearly runs headlong into him outside the shop, rounding the corner only to find the wall of his chest filling her vision. She teleports away just in time, landing on the rooftop; looking down, she sees him frown, glancing around, and her breath catches. He gives his head a small shake, then continues on his way. Teya exhales with relief. If a twinge of disappointment also slips in, she ignores it.

For the most part, she manages to keep Marsh off her mind, sometimes even forgetting him entirely; there are a thousand other things for her to worry about, after all. It’s for the best. There’s nothing she can do for him anyway. Nothing she should do. No matter how much she wants to.

He’s better off on his own, she tells herself firmly, whenever her thoughts stray rebelliously to him. He doesn’t need you.

––

Teya’s not there when Marsh leaves for the Ministry. She’d been out looking for supplies to deliver to the skaa tenements, and by the time she arrives back at Renoux’s manor, the canal boats are already disappearing into the distance, carrying him away. Her gut churns as she stares after them, knowing from this point on, he’ll have no one but himself to rely on.

He lingers in her thoughts more insistently after that, her worry for him growing, settling over her like the mists. She doesn’t dare so much as check up on him – she can’t risk the Inquisitors spotting her, can’t risk doing anything to bring extra attention to him.

It’s a relief when he arrives at the meeting he’d managed to arrange with Kelsier and Vin. Teya sits in the window of the crumbling room above them, keeping watch for danger as Marsh passes along the information he’s gathered so far. The infiltration is going well, from what she hears; he’s already been promoted, has already uncovered vital knowledge about the Ministry’s inner workings. The thing he says that sticks with her, though, that she’ll think about for years afterwards, has nothing to do with any of that.

“I didn’t have much of a life before this anyway,” Marsh tells Vin flatly, dismissing her concern over what he’ll do after the infiltration – assuming he survives – like his own life is a matter of no consequence. Later, Teya will wonder just what that life had been like, how harsh and unforgiving it must’ve been to wear him down so completely. Later, she’ll have her answers. For now, she can’t focus on it. She continues to keep watch, and when he leaves, she doesn’t see him as anything more than a silhouette, disappearing into the night.

The next meeting never happens. When Teya follows Vin and Kelsier into the abandoned building, all they find is a room soaked in blood, a flayed corpse on the floor. Fear and revulsion sickens Teya as she stares at the carnage. Kelsier falls to his knees, stunned by the sight, by his grief; it’s only at Vin’s urging that he leaves the gruesome scene. Teya follows, trailing the two as they return to the crew, as they all flee to their bolt-lair, where the Ministry – hopefully – can’t find them.

All night, Teya paces on the lair’s roof, gaze trained in the direction of Kredik Shaw as the mists dance around her. Please, she thinks, over and over again. Please just let it have gone right. Let it have worked. It has to have worked, please…

She won’t know if she’s right for a long while yet. The only thing she can do is wait, and hope.

––

The next time Teya sees Marsh, he’s been changed.

He’s wearing voluminous black robes, his head shaved, his face tattooed. And heavy steel spikes have been driven through his eyes.

Teya’s never been more relieved to see something so horrible. It means he’s alive. It means all of this can still work. The Inquisitors thought they were adding another loyal member to their numbers. What they didn’t know was that by taking Marsh, they guaranteed their own downfall.

Marsh kills the other Inquisitors before they know what’s happening, saves Vin from death at the hands of the final one. It leaves Vin free to do the impossible: kill the Lord Ruler and free the Final Empire. Over a thousand years of tyranny brought to an end in a single night.  

This should be a victory. It is a victory. But it’s also only the beginning. The worst is still yet to come.   

––

Teya’s stopped keeping count of how many times she’s seen Marsh by now.

She still tries to avoid him, or at least stay out of his line of sight. But in another twist of dark irony, he’s been put in charge of the Steel Ministry, which means he’s always coming and going from Keep Venture, the seat of the newborn government – and a place Teya frequents by necessity. Marsh’s role of keeping the Ministry in line is vital to the fragile peace Elend Venture’s trying to enforce; the obligators would certainly take over and grind the skaa right back under their heels otherwise. Without Marsh, all Elend’s trying to build would come crashing down.

Not that Marsh is treated as such. To say the other crewmembers are uncomfortable around him would be a laughable understatement. Teya can’t exactly blame them; they’ve all lived in terror of Inquisitors their entire lives, and no one would be able to dissolve that fear overnight. It still grates on her nerves that they don’t so much as try to remain friendly with him, like they’ve disregarded his sacrifice completely, like they’ve forgotten it’s still him underneath the spikes.

At least there’s Sazed, wonderful Sazed, who of the entire crew is the only one who makes an effort to be a real friend to Marsh. Their talks of history, science, and culture sometimes extend long into the night, and whenever she gets a chance, Teya sits outside the window and listens in. It’s almost peaceful, with the soft lilt of their voices, the ash floating down from the sky, the mists swirling around her. She can ignore the way her lungs burn in protest against the contaminated air, the icy pit of dread within her that’s looming larger and larger with every passing day.

From this point on, her knowledge of the events to come is far murkier; she remembers the vague outline of some important moments, but not how they happen, or why. Not knowing what to expect makes it impossible to prepare, and she’s left in a strange limbo, stuck waiting for something to happen, knowing she’ll be all but powerless when it does. The tension’s growing in Luthadel as Elend struggles to keep order, reports pouring in all the while of the chaos unfolding beyond the city. And then there’s Marsh, whom Teya realizes is appearing less and less at the keep. Perhaps it’s simply because Sazed has by now departed the city, but she’s not convinced. Something just seems…off.  

One night, she slips into the Cognitive Realm, that murky world of thought that makes up another layer of this universe. This is where the main source of her unease lies, or at least where it’s most obviously felt. Something’s lurking underneath Kredik Shaw, something that radiates power in waves that grow stronger with each passing day. Teya doesn’t know precisely what it is, only that it’ll be important, and she comes here often to monitor it.

A familiar presence tugs at the edge of her consciousness, and movement flickers in the corner of her vision. People in the physical world are visible here as softly glowing souls, and this one’s easily recognizable to Teya, especially with the spikes adding extra spots of brightness.

It’s Marsh. Out in the streets of Luthadel, in the middle of the night…why?

The pulses from that well of power wash over them both, and Teya…feels something within them. Something that seems to be pressing towards Marsh. On instinct, she reaches out, with her hand, with her mind, easing into that wave, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever’s riding it, and finds –

something –

With a strangled gasp, she tears herself away, transporting back to an abandoned building in the Physical Realm. She staggers into the crumbling wall, panting, terror still alive and roaring through her veins.

That thing – that thing. She’d barely brushed it, caught sight of only a tiny fraction of it, but it was more than enough to give her an impression of just what it is.

A force so powerful it weighs down the universe with a pull beyond gravity. An entity that craves destruction, chaos, carnage, that wants to tear apart every molecule in existence and grind it all down into dust, until nothing remains but eternal stillness and silence. A god. A Shard. Ruin.

And it has Marsh.

She’d felt it. Those spikes don’t just pierce his flesh – they’ve ripped holes in his very soul, and this thing has snaked its way into them. It’s caught Marsh’s mind in its inexorable grasp and bent his will to its own, causing him to crave the same violence, the same destruction it so desires. For just an instant, she’d seen Marsh in the Physical realm. He’d been soaked in blood, a torn body lying on the ground before him.

All that terror crystalizes into fury, and Teya grabs a dusty plate from the cabinet nearby and throws it across the room with a scream that tears her aching throat. After everything he’s done, all he’s given, this is his fate? Forced to become the very thing he’s been working his whole life to destroy? Forced to kill the very people he’s been trying his whole life to save?

It isn’t fair. And yet Teya knows there’s nothing to be done. The path they walk is narrow and sharp as a blade, and this is but one step upon it. If any of them are going to survive this, if the world is to be saved, that delicate balance cannot be upset. She cannot, must not do anything.

“I know,” she whispers to herself. “I know.”

It’s not as though it matters, in any case. Regardless of whether or not she should, she can’t fight that thing, not as powerful as it is. Nothing can.

––

Almost nothing.

Marsh disappears, Ruin taking total control of his mind and body, creating of him its most dangerous servant. Other Inquisitors are still out there, beyond Luthadel, and Marsh joins them as they carve a bloody path of death and destruction across the empire. Teya catches glimpses of him from afar on occasion, when she escapes to the Cognitive Realm to give her struggling lungs a break from the constant inhalation of ash.

Sometimes, though its control over Marsh never wavers, Ruin’s focus has shifted elsewhere, leaving Marsh silent and immobile under the falling ash. Though she can’t risk getting too close, Teya can never keep herself from reaching out in those moments, ever so carefully brushing the threads of her consciousness up against Marsh’s own.

Every time, she feels the weight of Ruin, vast and immovable and raging. But she also feels Marsh. A small, determined part of him, holding itself apart from Ruin by sheer will, desperately working to break free. Keep fighting, he tells himself. Remember who you are. This isn’t over yet.

It should be impossible for him to resist Ruin even slightly. Teya finds, with a sharp, fierce pride, that she isn’t surprised he’s trying anyway.

She longs to lend her own strength to him, to offer even the smallest bit of support or meager comfort. But with Ruin so strong a presence around Marsh, she can’t risk it. If Ruin finds her, if it knows what she knows, it will mean the end of everything.

There isn’t much strength left for her to give, in any case. The ashfalls are constant, heavy enough by this point to create drifts several feet high, and her body is all but beyond its capacity to handle it. Her eyes are constantly burning, and no matter how shallow she makes them, every breath sends a knife plunging between her ribs. She barely sleeps, eats only a little more. Never has she felt more like a living ghost, which, she thinks drearily, is an impressive feat. There’s little she can do for the people who are clinging to survival as the world falls apart around them. Still, she tries.

Her only option is to trust that their course is still true, that they’re headed towards the right ending, the only one where they’re saved. Trust in the people that can get them there – Vin, Elend, Sazed. Marsh.

––

It comes down to this: a rainy night in Luthadel, one girl against thirteen Inquisitors.

Teya hovers at the border of reality, blurring the lines between realms, watching in relative safety as Vin takes on every remaining Inquisitor at once. Ruin’s concentrating its power here, the pressure so intense it feels to Teya like a black hole bending space-time. Marsh is there, but Ruin holds him aside, making him watch the fight much like Teya herself. He’s shirtless, bizarrely, revealing the myriad of spikes pounded into his chest. For all the world he seems in the moment like more of an ornament, a cruel trophy, than a weapon. A taunt by Ruin: Look at what I did to him. See how easily I can kill you even without him.

The Inquisitors are an overwhelming force, one that even Vin with all her skill and power stands no chance against. They bring her down, and this is where Ruin forces Marsh’s hands, compelling him to break her bones one by one, intent on killing her slowly, savoring the violence, reveling in its victory.  

Until something else slams into it.

There are, in truth, two Shards on this world. Preservation is Ruin’s opposite, and it’s been fighting against Ruin for centuries. Though it’s been weakened over the long conflict, its power is still formidable, and it’s being unleashed now, in a massive attack Ruin’s forced to counter.

In that moment, Ruin’s grip on Marsh loosens. Just barely. Just enough.

All Marsh does is reach up and pull out Vin’s earring. That one little movement takes all of his will, all of his strength. It’s enough to save the world.

Because, unbeknownst to Vin, that earring was tainted by Ruin – and it was the only thing stopping her from taking up the power of Preservation. Now that power explodes through her, healing her, lending her extraordinary strength. She takes down the Inquisitors like it’s nothing, throwing them like ragdolls, until Marsh is the only one left. He hasn’t been spared the violence; he’s been thrown to the ground in the chaos, his body broken. Teya’s still watching it all unfold, and she sees Vin approach him, sees her hesitate.

Don’t, Teya thinks. But Vin tears out one of Marsh’s eye spikes. Teya flinches as he yells in agony, panic searing her nerves. If Vin pulls out the other spike, he’ll die. She reaches for it, and Teya drops into the Physical Realm, ready to scream uselessly for Vin to wait –

Vin’s fingers meet the spike just as her body puffs into mist, the power – too much to be contained by a human body – transforming her into pure energy.

Marsh is left there, battered, broken, bleeding. Teya’s forced to ignore her every impulse – to go to him, to try and help – as Ruin returns, bearing down on Marsh in all its fury, reinstating its iron grip on his mind. He’s not dead yet, and Ruin isn’t about to abandon its only remaining Inquisitor. Reluctantly, Teya teleports away, her only comfort knowing that the end is coming, that it’ll all be over soon.

Please, let it be over soon.

––

When the end does reach them, it’s with a fury.

A battle rages through the night at the Pits of Hathsin, Ruin sending his armies of koloss against Elend’s soldiers. Some koloss make it through their line and into the caverns below, where survivors are sheltering. It’s here that Teya makes her own stand, protecting as many people as she can, certain she’ll escape Ruin’s notice in the chaos.

There’s a shallow, overlooked crevice a short way beyond the main entrances to the caves, and Teya teleports her way there every few minutes to keep an eye on the situation outside. This is how she sees Marsh arrive, dragged in by Ruin for one last fight. She watches as he battles Elend, all of Ruin’s rage channeled through him. Watches as he strikes off Elend’s head.

Teya feels as much as sees what happens next. The attack Vin launches at Ruin make reality itself tremble, every last drop of Preservation’s power thrown against its opposite. Neither of them can withstand the onslaught, and both Vin and Ruin – what’s left of the mind that held it – are torn apart.

The world is left teetering on the brink. The sun’s crested the horizon, and the heat of it is already terrible, far beyond what it should be. The position of the planet itself shifted at some point amidst the long struggle between Preservation and Ruin, putting them far too close to the sun. The ash and mist have been wiped from the sky, and without their protection, everything on the surface will burn.  

Teya searches the area frantically; in the chaos, she’s lost track of Marsh. After what seems an eternity, she spots him, stumbling away in the opposite direction of her.

In that instant, she knows, feels the truth solidify, the threads of time weaving together to create one inevitable outcome. Somewhere along the way, they strayed from the path, or maybe this iteration of the story simply plays out differently than the one she knows. The difference is meaningless. All that matters is this: there are no cave entrances in the direction Marsh is going, and the sun’s minutes away from setting the very ground aflame. There is no chance, no way for him to save himself. He will die.  

Unless something changes.

“NO!”

Teya’s scream is cut off as she teleports to his side, ignoring the heat. She grabs his arm, and he jerks to a halt. Blood drips from the gaping hole in his head where the spike was torn out, and he’s clearly dazed from both the pain and from Ruin being ripped so abruptly from his mind. “What…?”

“Marsh, come on! This way!” Teya yells, tugging at his arm. “Move! Move! Come on, we have to go, now!”

He’s obviously confused, but he follows her lead anyway, staggering behind her as she yanks him towards her cave. It’s shallow but it should be just deep enough to shelter them both. Together, they race for it, Teya guiding Marsh, helping him as he stumbles. The sun’s rising higher and higher, the heat like a furnace searing Teya’s face, and she forces herself to move faster, pull Marsh along harder. She will not let him die, not like this, not when they’re so close!   

They reach the welcoming dark of the cave without a second to spare. Teya shoves Marsh in first, throwing herself in behind him, crying out as she feels her skin blister under the sunlight. The pain barely registers; all that matters is they’re here. They made it. He’s alive.

Teya whirls around the moment she’s inside, scrambling back up as close to the opening as she dares. “Please!” she cries, heedless of her torn throat. “Sazed, come on!”

The world’s set alight, everything burning under that terrible sun, but it can still be saved, it has to be –

Color explodes across the sky, and Teya screams in triumph. The power of both Ruin and Preservation have remained intact, and now they have a mind to guide them again. Sazed’s taken up both of the Shards, uniting them as one, and with all that power, he’s restoring the world, reshaping it. The rock heaves beneath their feet, the land dancing madly as it’s remade.

This, then, is the first time Marsh sees Teya. Silhouetted against a radiant, renewing sky, laughing through her tears.