#bc life

 Getting Sagani, Grieving Mother, and Kana on board with her plan was no problem.  Sagani made a point of telling Junisce that she would aid her quest as long as needed—a search partner for a search partner—and Grieving Mother was instantly sold on the prospect of protecting further unborn children from harm.  Kana, too, was excited to go, having another opportunity to see the handiwork of Engwith up close.

Hiravias fought her on it a little, but he and Junisce eventually bantered into a mutual understanding, as was normal.

Tracking down Edér was, for once, harder, to the point where Junisce was honestly considering just asking Steward to tell her where he went. She was eventually spared this when she spotted a puff of white smoke curling around one of the adra pillars near the chapel.  She ducked around the back of the building and found Edér sprawled out in the shade with a pipe in one hand.

He murmured, “Watcher,” almost as soon as she rounded the corner, and Junisce wondered if it was a lucky guess or if she really hadn’t improved her stealth at all since coming to the Dyrwood.

“I was looking for you,” she said.

“Figured,” answered Edér, though the soft word lacked any real irritation.  Junisce sat down just as Edér sat up and they both drew up against the back wall of the building.  “So, what’s up?”

“I’m going back to Cilant Lîs,” Junisce said, “to destroy the machine that Thaos activated there.”

Edér put his pipe to his mouth.  “Any reason in particular you’re goin’ backwards instead of forwards?” he asked through a puff of smoke.

A sigh fought to escape Junisce’s throat, and she clamped it down.  But no answers were so forthcoming, and it took genuine focus to formulate one.

Carefully, Junisce said, “You know how when people fail on something big, they feel like they’ve got to build back up to it somehow before they try again? Start small again in case their foundation was the problem?”  

Edér hummed his acknowledgement.

“My foundation might as well be a pile of gravel.  It’s fucked up,” Junisce confessed simply.  “Going to Twin Elms is a big step forward, but after the hearings…”

“You gotta learn how to stand again first,” Edér finished for her.  His head tilted back.  “Right.  Yeah, okay, I got it.  When are we leavin’?”

Junisce stood and brushed off the grass sticking to her robes like ooze mucus. “Soon as we can,” she said, and turned to go get her pack.

“Hey—”

Edér’s voice cut off suddenly like he had been about to say something and then second guessed himself.  But Junisce waited anyway, half-turning back to face him.

“You haven’t…heard anything from Aloth, have you?”

Frost began to form on Junisce’s bones from the rate at which her expression and blood froze.  “No,” she said stiffly.  “Why would I?”

Edér looked down.  “Just wonderin’,” he said.

Junisce crossed her arms stiffly and shrugged.  “I heard him out and we both knew this wasn’t going to work. Hiding being Awakened was one thing, but that—”

“He’s a kid, Jun,” Edér said, and it felt a lot like he had sucker punched her.

“That doesn’t change the fact that he grabbed the first hand to offer what he wanted and didn’t even try to switch sides ‘till it felt like he was losing,” she said.  “Just like every other self-righteous noble I’ve met.”  Her words didn’t seem to reach Edér at all, as he just reclined with the same look of nostalgia and pity.  She felt her chest smolder.  “I thought you were anti-fanatical, murdering mobs.”

“And I thought you knew what it felt like to have everything ripped out from under you,” Edér hummed back, his voice growing soft like it had after they had found the Readceran standard, and somehow Junisce knew what he was going to say before he said it.  “To do right by the world best you can only to find out maybe you were on the wrong side from the start.”

The flame in Junisce’s chest cooled rapidly, leaving only a heavy lump behind. “I will not beg your indulgence again,” Aloth had said.  At the time, she had thought it simply meant he had run out of secrets, but looking back… it was easier to see the way Aloth had stood, tense and rigid, and the way his voice had shaken despite his diplomatically bland expression.  He’d been so quiet.

Junisce proved him right, in the end.  Pushed him away, out of contact with her and the rest of the party who might possibly have been the only friends Aloth had anymore.  Her heart sank and Junisce had to look away from Edér.

“I don’t even know where he went,” she said softly.  “Even if we forget about the fact that he was working for Thaos, he could be anywhere by now.”

“Yeah.”  Edér sounded unimpressed.

“So, will you come to Cilant Lîs?” Junisce asked, brushing grass from her armor.

Edér sighed.  “Yeah. Gilded Vale sure as hell doesn’t need another Ygrid.”

With a heavy nod and heavier steps, Junisce headed back towards Brighthollow.

 The Black Hound was much the same as they had left it, as to be expected from the only inn in a small town, except that the local grumbling had shifted from politics to animancy and religion.  It made Junisce seriously consider grabbing Hiravias and Sagani and camping in the Valewood for the night, but there was food readily available at the inn where it was not guaranteed to be in the forest, so she kept a seat in the tavern.

“Edér, Miss Junisce!”  Junisce looked up to see Pasca sweeping by their table and carrying an extra tray with ale that they definitely hadn’t ordered yet.  Pasca stopped and began passing them out.  “And you brought more friends—oh, no, this is on the house,” she chimed pleasantly when Junisce started to protest.  “You both are friends of this place, and I don’t mind sharing a drink with my friends.  I’m sorry I didn’t see you come in.  Should’ve known to expect you.”

Edér smiled, clinking his tin tankard against Hiravias’s as he said, “Aw, don’t worry about it.  Guys, this is Pasca—she’s the one runnin’ this place.”

Around the table, her companions gave their greetings and the conversation flowed freely as Pasca started to explain to Kana the story of the inn’s name. Another table called her shortly, and Edér picked up where she left off without missing a beat.

They had almost finished their food before Pasca made it back to their table and Junisce had a chance to pull her aside.  “What did you mean you ‘should have known to expect us?’” she asked the innkeeper quietly, hoping the conversation would get lost in the ambiance.

Pasca tilted her head in surprise.  “That strange elf came through just a couple of days ago,” she said lightly, as though thrown completely by the question.  “Said he was heading north.  I figured he’d had enough of being an Aedyran in the Dyrwood, but he said he wasn’t planning on leaving and left it at that.  He seemed pretty close with you and Edér when you left, I guess I just assumed…”  Pasca’s cheeks were slightly flushed now as she realized the assumption might have been wrong.

Junisce shook her head and muttered, “No, don’t worry about it,” and Pasca began to walk away as her mind started racing in at least three other directions.

Aloth had been here?  Never once had he expressed anything but disdain for Gilded Vale, so if he wasn’t planning to leave via the north road…

“He’s going to Cilant Lîs,” she breathed.  The realization descended like a storm cloud.  Aloth was going to the ruins, to the place where all this had started. Junisce knew there would be no clues for him to follow back to the Leaden Key—there was only ash and corpses left behind—but she supposed it was the only lead he had.  He had left before she’d explained Thaos was going to Twin Elms.

“Jun?” asked Sagani, and Junisce remembered she’d spoken out loud.

Kana leaned forwards.  “Who is going to Cilant Lîs?”

Shadows creased Junisce’s face as she pulled her drink closer and then set it down again with measured control.  “Aloth,” she said tiredly.

“How d’you figure that?” asked Edér at the same time Hiravias demanded, “He’s doing what now?”

Junisce shrugged.  “Pasca said he came through and went north but wasn’t leaving.  So either he’s going to take up as a hermit in the Valewood or he’s doing something in the ruins,” she said.

“Bastard,” hissed Hiravias.  “Probably looking to restart whatever machines are down there.”

“We don’t know that,” Edér said quickly, leaning forward.  “Maybe he’s got the same idea as us.”

A chime interrupted Junisce’s cart of thought, which was nestled smoothly on the same road as Hiravias’s.  “Your spirit is kindling such anger that you are blind to possibility,” said Grieving Mother.

“I get that what happened feels a hell of a lot like betrayal,” Sagani said carefully, putting her hands out as though separating feuding children, “and there’s no way our team was going to function without trust.  But what Aloth said that night sounded sincere enough to me. I’m not convinced he’s doing anything Thaos wants right now.”

“He was always so secretive,” Kana mused, looking down sadly.  “Even if we asked, there is no guarantee we would find out the truth.”  Junisce remembered the Leaden Key had made attempts on his life, too.

Aloth had been a part of the reason so many people were suffering, and yet sadness still tinged the thought of him.  Disappointment.  Betrayal. Pity.  Confusion.  Anger. The idea that their friendship, Junisce’s first friendship after so much loss, was a construct of convenience burned at her from the inside out.  

You knew I was coming, she remembered accusing.

I couldn’t have!   The voice rang clear in her memories, but Junisce found herself unable to remember anything about the tone other than that it was quick, a reflexive response. Probably honest.  I didn’t realize how far they’d gone.  She remembered seeing terror drown his face as he spoke, as he pleaded with her for a chance to try and fix things.

In the moment, it looked like the fear of being found out, of being caught in another empty promise.  Junisce bit her lip.  In hindsight…

If, after hearing me, you wish me to leave, you need only say the word.  Guilt. It was also guilt.  He expected her to turn him away and she had.  He left, not once looking back.  It should have been that simple.

But Grieving Mother did have a point.  Now, with distance from the emotions that choked that night like the smoke over Defiance Bay, Junisce couldn’t stop seeing the other possibilities. Maybe Aloth put his own worst outcome on the table so he could at least know it was coming.  Maybe he didn’t look back, not because it was easy to walk away, but because it was hard.  Maybe he wasn’t afraid of telling the truth, but afraid of being rejected for it.

Maybe Aloth had offered her trust—real trust—for the first time, and she had thrown it back in his face.

Junisce stood up sharply and her chair hit the wall at her back with an unceremonious thud.  She kept her eyes leveled on her friends.  “We’ll leave early tomorrow,” she said, and briskly made for the stairs. She had to be sure, or the uncertainty would tear her conscience, and possibly her party, apart.

 If only it were silent, Aloth imagined that Cilant Lîs would be a rather lovely place, particularly this large courtyard with the open sky as its canopy and a balance of trees and crumbling stone for walls.  There was copper detailing in the stones under his boots that glittered in the midday sun and leaves decorating the surroundings like flower petals.

Yes, if not for the fact that there were two bodies on the upper level, a familiar layer of ash on some of the stone, and the constant whirring of machinery in the air, it would be quite peaceful.  There was also the fact that Iselmyr hadn’t stopped shouting since they left Defiance Bay, but her voice was somehow quieter, as though she was screaming from a cellar and Aloth was on a balcony several floors away.  

So, Aloth felt disquieted, as though his world had been knocked back onto an old axis only to find it no longer fit.  He thought he had been prepared to hear, once again, that he had disappointed someone, that he wasn’t needed or wanted, but the truth was that returning to how things had been was killing him.  Having found people to eat with, to fight with, to joke with, to simply be with, it wasn’t a trivial matter to be alone again (and Iselmyr with her helpful commentary did not count).

The Watcher had done what any reasonable person would have done after his confession, he told himself.  It was his own poorly informed choices, his own inability to speak the truth that caused things to happen the way they did.  He almost wished that he could blame it on her, or on any of them, because then at least he would have a right to feel angry.  

As it was, he felt only regret, hot with shame and acidic in his blood.

Aloth stepped forward, looking up at the massive, grating construct of copper and adra and stone that loomed over the makeshift amphitheater.  He reached forward, bracing his weight against the pedestal that operated the thing.  The runes needed to command the machine were at his fingertips, but Aloth found himself unable to look away from the bursts of light sparking out of gaps in the relic.

Thaos had stood here.  He had stood in this place and commanded the machine to draw up the soul energy to kill a half dozen people and trap hundreds more with barely a flick of the wrist.

Like a tidal wave, nausea crashed over Aloth, and he dropped his chin so that it almost touched his chest, squeezing his eyes shut against the sensation.

He could do nothing.  A handful of months ago, he might not even have wanted to, but now, though he had the desire and the power to fight… only the Watcher could find Thaos.  The intricacies of her powers weren’t entirely clear to Aloth, but he understood enough to realize that anyone except a Watcher would have been pounding their head against the walls of various dead ends a hundred times over by now.  He, himself, was only a wizard.  He could draw on the essence of Eora and command the elements, conjure fire and lightning and ice and twist the very way kith perceived reality, but…

But he couldn’t even begin to stand up against a single man.

In the Dyrwood, he was useless and a traitor; in Aedyr, he was unwanted and a disappointment.  It was unlikely any other place in the world would be any kinder to someone like him. And even if somewhere might have been, Aloth had no idea where to go.

I’m finished with you, said Junisce—said the Watcher in his mind.

Aloth looked up.

You and everyone else.

The thought, the whisper of a child abandoned and adrift, had just barely broken the surface of his thoughts when someone called his name.

“Aloth!”

His head snapped to the side and he started to crouch, arm outstretched to retrieve his grimoire from the ground, before he recognized the voice and stopped, petrified.  Pushing past a mostly crumbled section of stone was a familiar, tall, blond man, rushing towards him with wide eyes.  There were other figures behind him, too, that had begun to increase their pace after hearing the shout.

Aloth gripped the stone pedestal tighter to keep from falling.  “What—what are you doing here?” he exclaimed, starting to take a step back.

Edér, predictably, was faster, looming into Aloth’s space and clamping a hand down over his bicep.  “Better question is, the hell are you doing here, all by yourself?” he asked, and it was then that Aloth noticed Edér’s eyes were dilated, swallowed by adrenaline and some other emotion that was on the cusp of Aloth’s awareness.

“Nay, ‘e asked ye first!” spat Iselmyr, ripping herself from Edér’s grip and stepping around him deftly to avoid being cornered against the machine.  Aloth noted with horror that she had moved them farther away from his grimoire, which still rested on the ground.

A frustrated groan sounded from the direction Edér had come, and Iselmyr glanced over to see Hiravias pulling his spear to the ready, green eyes narrowed like darts of venom. “I knew it!  I fucking told you, Watcher,” he growled.  Beside him, Sagani’s free hand inched towards her quiver.

“Now, hold on—” Kana started to say, hurrying forward.

Aloth could feel magic beginning to surge towards his own hands and knew Iselmyr was trying for Ghost Blades, the one spell he could cast without his grimoire. If they got lucky, the attack might slow everyone enough for him to escape.  Even so, he struggled to suppress Iselmyr’s impulses.  It had never gone particularly well before, but Aloth wasn’t going to fight them.  He didn’t want to.

Much to his shock, it seemed the Watcher had the same idea because she waved a hand to the side.  Her movement was small and casual, but it snapped Hiravias’s attention to her and Sagani’s fingers remained poised near her hip.  The peasant woman near the Watcher took a step closer, but Aloth noted that neither she, nor Kana, nor Junisce herself had moved to grab a weapon.

“Iselmyr,” said the Watcher calmly, “I need to talk to him.”

The Watcher’s attention was solely on him (and Iselmyr), but her face was unreadable.  This was nothing new, of course—Aloth knew she preferred a poker face when it was possible, but now he understood the way people tended to shift and fidget under her gaze.

“Meybe ye ken talk some sense inta th’ lad,” Iselmyr grumbled, letting herself fall back.

As Aloth came back to himself, blinking away the sensation of losing himself as though shaking off a headrush, the Watcher moved up until she had covered almost half the distance between them.  Then, she reached up with both hands and slipped her hood away from her face such that her eyes were in plain view, framed only by soft waves of brown hair. Her arms crossed and came to rest on her chest as she glanced at their surroundings briefly.  Finally, she asked, deadpan, “Enjoying the sights?”

Aloth gripped both hands in front of himself to hide their tremors.  “If there was nothing I could do stop Thaos,” he said, “I thought I could at least try to take something from him.”  He flicked his eyes meaningfully in the direction of the machine.

Several of the others started to say something, but the Watcher was louder and firmer as she said, “And?”  The others fell silent again.

“I don’t know, I--” Aloth caught himself as his voice slid upwards in pitch. His fingers tangled together as he tried to steady himself.  “I don’t know,” he repeated.

 Junisce watched Aloth for another moment.  Perhaps it was Edér standing beside him that made it appear so, or perhaps it was just that his voice was threadbare and his posture seemed ready to fold in on itself, but he somehow seemed impossibly small standing before her.

She turned to look at the machine as his words tumbled through her mind, eyes falling shut as she focused on the machine.

Despite the hum in the clearing, she felt very little from the thing. Unlike Clîaban Rilag, where her senses had nearly been overrun by the storm of essence in the machine, there was barely a spitting of rain around this one.  Almost a 180 from how she had felt when this all began.

“There’s not much power left,” she said thoughtfully.  “Certainly not enough to overload it like the one in the city. And I don’t think turning it off would stop Thaos from coming back to turn it right back on.”  Aloth blinked, and Junisce read surprise on his face before it quickly faded into something else.  

Hiravias spoke up behind her.  “So, all it’s doing right now is sucking people’s souls out of ‘em,” he said, flames of anger licking up from the words.

Kana muttered something to the affirmative, but Junisce was more distracted Aloth’s expression of abject disappointment.  He continued to stare at the machine, but there was no drive in his face, no determination.  There was barely any hint of life.

Edér had been right, she realized.  His blue eyes were fixed on Aloth, not her, as the conversation flowed, and his expression was overflowing with the saddest kind of compassion Junisce had ever seen.  Because just like him—just like her—Aloth had lost everything.  She understood suddenly that Aloth had been discovering the Leaden Key alongside her; he had only been able to see the cult for what it was when he was on the outside and it could no longer able to hide behind its masks and vague ideals.  And with the truth out in the open, he had let go of it all as though burned, released the only structure he had in life, and reached out to Junisce instead.

“Then it would appear we both came here for nothing,” he was saying, shaking his head and moving to pick up his grimoire.  “I’m…” He looked to Junisce, only to flinch away as soon as their eyes met. “I meant what I said about Thaos, on the bridge.  Please… make sure he’s stopped.”

Aloth had asked her to catch him, and Junisce stepped to the side with her hands behind her back.

But he couldn’t fall forever.  Eventually he would hit the ground.  As Junisce bit her lip and looked into his face again, seeing the guilt and despair and insecurity eating away at everything he was, it hit her that he wasn’t going to survive the impact.

“Aloth—”  The sound of his own name seemed to startle both of them equally.  He stared at her with a watery shimmer in his eyes.  She took a step forward, then another, and tried not to focus on the way Aloth leaned back, drawing his grimoire tight to his chest as he got to his feet again.

She stopped a few feet away and ran a hand through her hair.  Her fingers caught in a few tangles and she sighed heavily before managing to speak.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

Aloth blinked.  “What?”

“For what I said on the bridge,” Junisce continued, and as she spoke, the tension in her party seemed to ebb.  A chime sounded from somewhere behind her, and if Junisce didn’t know better, she would think it sounded quite pleased. She caught a relieved smile making its way onto Edér’s face.  “I was angry and confused, and I took it out on you because, honestly,” she laughed despite herself, “you do have the worst timing.”

“Watcher, no, you did—”

Junisce shook her head sharply as he tried to protest.  “Jun,” she corrected.  Aloth stiffened, eyebrows rising.  “Or at least Junisce, okay?  You’re the first friend I made in the Dyrwood, and even though I know we’re different and never going to agree on everything, it doesn’t change the fact that I would have been on my own—again—if not for you.  I feel like we probably should’ve been on a first-name basis a while ago.” She breathed in slowly, trying to steady herself.  “You didn’t care when we met that I’m a Watcher.  And I shouldn’t care you were Leaden Key.  If you say you’re not with them now…”

“I’m not,” he said quickly, cheeks flushing.  “I can promise you that.”

“…then I believe you.”  Junisce shrugged and dropped her arms.  She caught a glimpse of her other companions at the edge of her vision.  To her surprise, she saw that Hiravias had put away his spear.  Itumaak was sitting calmly at Sagani’s heels.  Kana was grinning broadly, and Grieving Mother’s hands were still, relaxed at her sides.

Aloth took a slow breath, and, though his grimoire remained in front of him like a shield, he nodded.  “Okay,” he said.

His voice wasn’t solid yet, but they could work on it.  Junisce turned around to address the group.  “Are we good here?”

Kana hurriedly scribbled some notes as Sagani nodded, ruffling Itumaak’s fur as he stood up.  Hiravias rocked onto the balls of his feet.  “The sooner we leave, the better, if you ask me,” he said.  Grieving Mother and Edér just smiled.

It took a few seconds for Junisce to realize Aloth hadn’t moved to follow her away from the ruin.  She half-turned to look at him, and nearly stumbled.  With his shoulders and chin up as though holding his breath, and his grimoire so gripped so tightly that his already pale skin was nearly white, Aloth resembled a statue.  His focus was not on her, but on the trees around them, as though he couldn’t bear to look at the party.

Her brow furrowed just as a voice slipped into her mind.  His mind is in turmoil, said Grieving Mother.  He does not think himself worth what you are offering, no matter how much he wants it.

Junisce almost rolled her eyes as she started to walk back towards him and reached out a hand to cover one of his own.  It was shaking under her touch.  “Come on,” she said, tugging at his wrist.  “Unless you’re planning to wait here for someone to recharge the machine.”

From the other side, Edér slung an arm around his shoulders and Aloth flinched, though whether it was because he was surprised or because Edér underestimated his own strength was unclear.  “Jun here finally started fixing up the library back at the keep,” he said.  “Thought you’d be excited ‘bout that.”

Aloth shook his head.  “I-I can’t possibly—”

“Aloth,” said Junisce, looking him straight in the eyes and hoping he’d really hear her this time.  “We’re not even close to being done with this mess. And I’d, uh… if we’re going to take down Thaos, I could use your help.”  We’re not finished yet.

Breath visibly shuddered through Aloth as he finally exhaled.  The task seemed so arduous, the way his lungs or throat seemed to catch at every opportunity, like a mechanism shuddering as it shakes off a layer of rust to start again.  But, in the end, when Aloth’s breathing was normal again, he swallowed and looked up at Junisce with such relief and gratitude that she nearly staggered from the weight of it.  “I would be honored to help you,” he said before adding, “Junisce.”  His arms slowly relaxed, maneuvering around Edér so that he could replace his grimoire for travel.  

Junisce smiled ducked back into the trees to chase the others, leaving space at her side for the boys to catch up.  When they did, a smile finally crept over her face.  “So,” she asked, tilting her head towards Aloth, “ever been to Twin Elms?”