#liedo

Somehow, the Seraphs had convinced their pet bull to take a wheelchair into the ship. Or rather, they managed to at least get Sukoi to drag the wheelchair with her ‘just in case’ she needed it.

Eclissy wouldn’t have pushed it for Sukoi, who was severely injured, even if she had been expressly asked to but that was for the best. She was already weighed down with heavy texts and a tablet she pretended to know how to use.

“Already forgot about me?” Lie thought aloud, muffling it with the hand he held over his mouth whenever he became intent. Leaning against the side of the ship, which was more of a creaky ship with an engine slapped on, he waited.

Not a second later, the ninth person of the night approached him.

“You shouldn’t be loitering. The ship leaves by the end of the hour.” A woman came by, covering her neck brace with the high collar of her coat.

Uncovering his face, Lie sized up the lady and decided she’d like him best if he pretended to care about how he looked, just for her.

“Oh!” Lie stood straight, patting the wrinkles out of the damp stolen jacket. His hair had changed to blond, silky with bangs brushed out of his forehead. “Don’t mind me. I’m waiting till the last possible second to jump on.”

“What’s the matter?” She asked, replacing a sharp ‘Why?’ with softer words.

Lie rubbed his neck, giving her a full view.

“I am deathly afraid of vomit,” He lied with a broad smile. “And I’ll be spewing it on the boat ride. Sorry to say but I’m nice, I wouldn’t want to bother you with my company.”

“Me?”

“Everyone on board, I mean,” Lie said, his last sentence intentional. “Actually, I’m supposed to meet Sukoi before the end of the trip. Moving around is gonna be a nightmare but, it’ll be fine. I’ll grin and take it, like most things.” He showed off a pained grin, waiting for the sucker to bite.

The Seraph watched his queasy act, searching their mind for options.

“Do you know which room the wheel is in?” They asked. “The waves are choppy today but you’ll hardly feel it there. I’ll even call Sukoi up for you.”

“You serious?” Lie made his eyes match his smile. “Are you a real angel or what?”

“That sounds lame.”

“But you’re laughing,” Lie clapped his hand on to her shoulder. “Well, my day’s been made. Thank you kindly and see your pretty face on board.” He cast her one last smile before heading up the gangplank. The Seraph was touching her shoulder. Huh, it must have been tingling.  

But boy, that was easy. Lie got every other passenger to meet in one place with wide windows and a narrow door. Still, the last person wasn’t even smart enough to offer medicine and he’d make her regret it soon enough.

“If you want to set a picture of Darkon on fire, open a window first.” Eclissy blurted all of a sudden, forgetting that there was a howling storm.

Maybe it was how the hanging lightbulb in Sukoi’s tiny room kept swaying away from Eclissy’s first aid notes. Maybe it was the way Sukoi was laying on the bottom bunk, facing the wall with the position stretching her stitches.

Both weren’t going to stop if Eclissy asked nicely but starting a fight could.

Sukoi wasn’t up for it.

She wasn’t sprinting or jumping or doing anything at all but her heart was beating a mile a second. It made her deaf to Eclissy’s goading. All of that thinking about being stabbed, falling into the churning ocean, and the attack on the Fortress kept it rushing. Three hours of that wound Sukoi up tighter and tighter, knuckles going sore from how long her fists had been clenched. They were about to pop out of her skin.

“Sukoi?” Eclissy tried again, tired of the view of Sukoi’s back. “Sukoi, this is the real world speaking. We need you to get it together!”

The stowaway witch was beginning to wonder if one of the bullets from before had shot through one of Sukoi’s ears and out the other. As for herself, Eclissy was felt like she was the opposite. Pressure was building inside her head, giving her the worst splitting headache. Yelling a little and breaking the silence had helped a bit so Eclissy took it up a notch.

“Time to wake the baby!” Eclissy shouted, putting effort into kicking the bed frame with her heel. It didn’t budge the bunk bed but it sounded annoying. “You had three hours to get over yourself! You thinking smart yet?”

Eclissy found herself getting dragged up to her knees by her collar, seeing what Sukoi was really like when she was actually furious.

“So, what’s wrong with me?” Eclissy asked, fully aware of how Sukoi much and her gritted teeth wanted to slam her head repeatedly into a wall. “You can talk just fine to a stranger and a robot but when I tell you to stop ruining your bandages, you decide to chat up a wall?”

“I am not in the mood for this.” Sukoi stated through her teeth, burned worse when Eclissy had brought up the one moment that she had let the incident slip from her mind.

“So that means we’re ready to step back and actually look at how stupid this is?” Eclissy was seriously not making her case look good.

“Get out,” Sukoi practically threw Eclissy back on the ground. “You need to get out.” And she better before Sukoi wasn’t able to stop herself from breaking Eclissy’s eggshell skull.

Instead, Eclissy fell back with her hand pressed against her chest.

“Traitor!” The witch gasped, making a show out of reaching for Sukoi.

“Alright,” Sukoi stood, cracking her shoulders. “You’re going to die. I’m going to kill you,”

“Yeah, it looks stupid right?” Eclissy fully understood that she may have been putting her life in danger but what’s new? Besides, she spent those three hours of nothing thinking over this mess and she wasn’t letting it go to waste.

“Now if I was the traitor, and that’s way more likely that Darkon being one, boy would I make a show about stabbing you from the front! Then, I give you more than enough time to fight back because I absolutely need you to know that it was me! I’m the traitor!”

Thanks to Sukoi’s injuries, Eclissy noticed her going for the ankles and latched on to the bunk bed before Sukoi could drag her outside.

“I, the traitor, shove you over a cliff—ACK--!” Eclissy strained against Sukoi’s monstrous strength. “—knowing full well that you’re a—FUCKING—demon! I don’t check to make sure that you’re actually dead! I blow my cover for no—SHIT—reason because I just need you dead that bad!”

“You don’t know anything!” Sukoi was ripping at her own hair as hard as she was trying to rip Eclissy away from the bed.

Though her fingers were going to be bruised black from this, Eclissy didn’t shut up.

“And you do?”

“Yes!” The answer leapt from Sukoi’s mouth, leaving a gap in her reasoning with nothing to support it. That blank spot flashed white in her vision, making her see spots.

The tension on Eclissy hands loosened until her ankles hit the floor. She heard Sukoi step back into a corner, pressing her palm against one of her aching eyes. The demon stared into space, watching the room tilt as she slowly mouthed words she couldn’t hear.

“…Sukoi?” Eclissy didn’t let go of the bed frame, staring at Sukoi with concern. “Um, did you mean that it happened to you before?”

The demon’s chin fell and rose once, giving an answer she couldn’t explain. Her gaze darted from one spot to another, searching.

“S-sorry.” Eclissy’s voice lowered to a mutter that Sukoi wasn’t able to register either way.

She was going back, all the way to the day she was born. It was ages before she became a Seraph. Cities and Kingdoms had been built and destroyed in that time. Sukoi had enough stories to tell for lifetimes but not a single one had a betrayal she hadn’t seen coming.

The demon had been that careful.

But farther back, beyond the black curtain that had once rose to mark the beginning of her life, something was scratching from the other side.

The sound seemed like soft scraping inside her ear at first, travelling deeper until Sukoi realized that they were faint words, whispered too fast to understand. Those noises muffled the rain pelting the window, pushing Sukoi down until she felt like she was drifting underwater.  

“It’s just that um,” Eclissy attempted to speak again, tentatively getting back up to her feet. “That sword could hurt you bad, sure, but Darkon knew you well enough to know that you could survive. He was with the Seraphs for so long too. If Darkon really wanted to kill you and nothing else, he would have made absolute sure that you were, hmm,” She paused, struggling to sound as sympathetic as she felt. “Not that he would have any reason to in the first place. Really, Darkon doesn’t seem like he would. I mean, Darkon is—“

The voice on the other side of the curtain spoke out of Sukoi’s mouth.

“We don’t need to know why,” It said, startling the witch. Sukoi was right there, staring at an empty spot on the floor, but Eclissy couldn’t recognize her friend. “All that matters is what he did. He did this to me and he can’t get away with it,” Sukoi’s eyes began to close. “I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes.”

“A-are…” Eclissy started to stammer, half crouching behind the corner of the bed. She had heard some of this from Sukoi before, brushing it off too quick. Eclissy thought Sukoi had just been too angry to think straight but no one should sound this desperate. “Are you okay?”

“Whatever it takes, I promise,” Sukoi said in a hush, the taste of rot coming to rest on her tongue. “I’ll do it. I have to do it.”

Eclissy bit her lip, forcing herself from the corner to step towards Sukoi.

“What do you have to do?”

At the question, Sukoi’s eye snapped open and they locked on to Eclissy, as if the demon had noticed her for the first time. Then, a crooked shape gradually spread across her face; a thing that Eclissy didn’t want to call a smile.

“ATT—“A sharp snap echoing down the halls of the ship made Eclissy cringe and focused Sukoi’s eyes. The demon jumped, blinking around at the room like she had been dropped in without warning.

An irregular pattern of crackling and static pulsed throughout the ship, punctuated with broken words neither Eclissy nor Sukoi could make out.

“What is this?” Eclissy wondered if it was a kind of magic.

“Someone’s trying to make an announcement,” Sukoi replied, shaking the bleariness off. “That’s weird. It sounds like the microphone’s broken. Wasn’t it new?” When the demon stopped seeing triple, she glanced back at Eclissy. The witch stiffened, well on guard despite Sukoi’s demeanor taking a dramatic turn for the better.

“Oh,” Sukoi lifted her shoulders, ashamed at the behavior that she could remember. “Hey, I didn’t mean to get that angry. You were still being the worst--” Eclissy didn’t snap at her like Sukoi hoped she would, remaining stock still. “—but I’ll apologize too. So, I’m sorry.” Sukoi said, genuine. 

Eclissy crashed into her chest all of a sudden, clinging to the demon for dear life.

That was unexpected and Sukoi took it as there being an emergency that made Eclissy act wildly out of her character.

“Grab the wall!” Eclissy shouted.

S’Wheat Dreams; a cereal meant to be eaten just before bed. It takes the edge off of any grumblings for the midnight munchies and Sukoi was stuffing them in like she was planning to hibernate. Crumbs rained like hail on her opened wounds.

Eclissy accidentally pressed the bits deeper into Sukoi’s cuts with antiseptic drenched gauze, not knowing whether it was actually supposed to help or not. The wound sparked at Eclissy’s touch and she cried out, clutching her burnt fingers.

Where were the actual doctors? The mechanics? IT people? Even a veterinarian? Anyone?

In all likely hood, they were being stretched deathly thin across the heavy number of injured paladins but Eclissy needed someone to blame.

“Sukoi, you aren’t that hungry.” Eclissy glowered at Sukoi but the blood saturated stretcher and blankets weighed heavier on her. It had been hours and going through half of a first aid book had closed none of the wounds. She might have even left new ones if she had been gutsy and tried her hand at sutures.

Worse, the demon didn’t care one bit. All she was focused on were the cereal and a vaguely clown head shaped stain on the wall. The empty boxes were piled taller than Eclissy and she kicked the tower over out of frustration. It toppled over top of her.

“Screw it. I’ve had enough of this stink,” She whacked the boxes away, stomping out of the cafeteria to avoid the coppery taste in the air. “I’m not coming back.” Eclissy muttered, meaning to come back when she stopped wanting to tear her hair out.

As Eclissy ducked out of the cafeteria, some Seraphs left and others brushed past her to get in like they had been doing all day. She didn’t notice that one of the people dodging out of her way was the bounty hunter, slinging his gun over his shoulder to scan the room for Sukoi.

He checked the bullet hole ridden wall first, gaze following the browning lines Sukoi’s stretcher left when Eclissy dragged it closer to the food stores.

“The maps I downloaded tell me this is the “dining hall” but everyone calls it a cafeteria. Calling it a dining hall gives it a different feel. I’m glad no one takes things too seriously around here.” J6 said, walking up to Sukoi’s bedside. She didn’t respond, not even when J6 leaned on her stretcher. “Want some?” He raised a paper cup of coffee and received a good helping of silence. “They keep trying to give this to me. I’m not sure if they notice my missing mouth or not.” More silence followed. “Eh, since you’re so enthusiastic—“J6 poured the coffee into her bag of cereal but the lukewarm brew didn’t register.

The stain on the wall was keeping her attention.

Back when they barely knew anything about each other besides a name and a rank, Sukoi had once sat by Darkon when he was doing paper work. They didn’t speak once but Sukoi noticed that Darkon’s writing had divulged into meaningless scribbles on the corner of one of the pages.

Sliding her arm under Darkon’s, Sukoi added a line through the scribble with a swipe of her pen. Darkon, who had an image in mind, scrunched his face and tried to fix what Sukoi messed up. The demon fought back, turning a perfect symmetrical design into a butt.

Giving up, Darkon decided to make it worse, making Sukoi snort. They doodled and drew all over that corner until the ink leaked through the page. The storage team was left arguing over whether or not their commanding officer had drawn a dick and tried to scratch it out when really, Darkon and Sukoi had drawn a scary clown that freaked them out too much to look at.

“Why did you give him tears?” Sukoi asked.

“Why did you give him four lips?” Darkon asked back.

That was one of the first times Sukoi felt like calling Darkon a friend; when they, a 200 year old demon and a grown adult, were snickering over stupid things like little kids.

It was funny how it worked out that way. Funnier still was how the memory was threatening to leave a smile on Sukoi’s face. The betrayal was ever present, throbbing in the long gash extending from her sternum down to her navel, but it didn’t erase how happy she felt back then.

Sukoi chewed harder on the cereal and when that failed to distract her, Sukoi drew forward fast, snapping the remaining stitches keeping her cuts together.

This was pathetic.

“Do you know where Primechus went?” Sukoi looked over her shoulder at the robotic bounty hunter.

“I was hired as a bodyguard, not a babysitter,” J6 stood back and crossed his arms. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking with his green slitted LED eyes. “Babies aren’t full grown bodies. Boom, that’s your laughing cue,” He pointed at Sukoi but her mouth and brow remained in a straight line, nonplussed. “What? You think the team baby was scheming too?”

The demon turned her gaze away for a moment, Primechus’ even gaze framed in her mind’s eye.

Primechus was so fresh out of the Legion that it seemed too obvious to not question his loyalties. Sukoi always scoffed at it. Or, she used to.

“Who knows?” Sukoi wrung her hands, the bags under her eyes hanging heavy.  

“You will, sooner or later.” J6 dropped a folded set of new clothes on Sukoi’s lap. Tugging the jacket free, Sukoi pinched the thick fabric between her stinging fingers. It was made for freezing rain and blustery winds.

“Sending me away?”

“All of the paladins in the infirmary are getting shipped oversea and farther,” J6 nodded, stepping back when Sukoi slid off of the stretcher. “They’ll have guards but there’s enough staying to hold the fort. But, Pippy said they shot at you first.” J6 pointed his thumb over his shoulder, referring to the absent stowaway.

“Let me guess,” Sukoi shirked her hospital gown and began tugging on the clean set of clothes. Thankfully, stains on black looked less messy than blotches on sickly teal. “Spreading the injured thin makes picking them off a hassle but really, Darkon was after me.” It sounded harsh the way Sukoi said it but she understood.

And, the extra space gave her leeway.

The bounty hunter could have asked why Sukoi was so intent on claiming it was her long time partner right away but he didn’t need to conduct any complicated analytics to know that she wouldn’t react well.

“There’s a boat heading out in an hour,” J6 cracked his neck, stretching the curling wires inside. “Bring one person on your merry adventure.”

“Why? I can handle myself.” Sukoi checked the lacerations on her forearm. The snacks were kicking in, closing the cuts and leaving ugly scars. Protein and time would have been better but self-preservation took a back seat to – She was going to use ‘retaliation’ instead of the other R word for now.

J6 could see that.

“Orders from up top,” He replied, curt. “You have to trust him, right?”

The demon ran her hand over her belt, stopping at her absent sword. Frankly, the head could mind his own business but unfortunately, it had already become a Seraph matter the moment Sukoi was attacked. She couldn’t treat this as personal but fuck did it feel personal.

Grunting all exasperated, Sukoi mulled over it, trying to pick which of the Seraphs was easy to stuff in her bag, and was crashed into from behind.

“What the--?” Sukoi stumbled, just about swinging her elbow into the offender. She would have hit air.

The sniper whistled at her from his swiped wheelchair.

“Wow, firm,” The sniper said, rubbing the front of his fogged up helmet. Sukoi thought the kid at least needed a bop in the nose but throwing down with a person in a wheelchair didn’t sit well with her. “Didn’t know these could go fast either.” Which was good; he had no problem outrunning the Seraph that had tried to worm across the ground after him.

“Anyways,” J6 continued as the sniper backed away in his chair, circling around them in reverse. “You’re going to have to get moving if you want to catch that boat. We want you to get moving quick. But cheer up, the new coffee guy’s taking the same ride,” J6 and Sukoi glanced over at the Seraph crouching by the cracked coffee brewer. “They tell me he’s decent.”

“Oh. Great,” Sukoi rolled her shoulders back, hearing them pop. Or maybe that was the sound of the guy in the wheelchair backing over J6’s foot, leaning his full weight into denting the bounty hunter’s boots. “Hey,” Sukoi gripped the back of his chair. “You have something you wanna say something or what?”

The sniper tilted his head back, regarding Sukoi’s hardened expression.

“Nah, just enjoying the view,” The legionnaire drew back father, examining the scar on Sukoi’s eye through the swell of her chest. “I didn’t think I’d get so close to you and the action figure.”

“Achoo!” J6 sneezed and one of his guns went off, blowing a wheel off of the legionnaire’s chair. There was a silencer on the firearm but the pop made the legionnaire’s ears ring as he was shocked to his feet.

“What if I needed that?” The legionnaire brushed himself off, bumping his shoulder into Sukoi before knocking against J6. He didn’t show it but the sniper got bruises from them.

“You didn’t.” J6 said.

“But you will if you don’t back off.” Sukoi grounded out, far from the mood to tolerate this jerk’s behavior.

“Ooh I’d hate to do that,” The Legionnaire rested his elbow on Sukoi’s shoulder, risking his arm getting snapped in half. Pushing his helmet up with his thumb, he grinned at the demon’s slowly widening eyes. “What? Something on my face?”

A hard denial of expectations drew Sukoi’s tongue into the back of her throat for a moment but just that moment.

Despite his spotless complexion begging to be touched, royal red eyes that could make the bowls of hell welcoming, and a rough scar running from the curve of his chin, over his lip, and ending just under his nose, Sukoi flicked his arm off of her shoulder.

What a fucking prick.

“Yeah, there’s a bunch of ugly on your face.” Sukoi shot at him, boxing him out of the two person group. Her gaze was still stuck to him.

“Ahah,” The Legionnaire nodded, pressing his thumb against his bottom lip. His reflection caught on the gold metal on Sukoi’s jacket and it creased his brow. Violet? He was expecting red or blond. That being said, he hadn’t lost. “When we hop on the boat together, you’ll need to get a closer look. You know, just to make sure you’re right.”

“We’re heading to the same ride?” Sukoi asked, suspicious but slowly accepting that she didn’t mind so much.

“Seems like it,” The legionnaire shrugged, turning his hands over as he did. His reflection looked good; the Seraphs may have been girl and boy scouts decked in black but he liked their style. “I’m a bit new around here and so far, I’ve been having a rough time,” He held his hand over the bandaged hole J6 had shot in his chest. “You’ll help lead me to the boat, right? Promise I’ll only bother you sometimes.” The sniper crossed his fingers right in front of J6 and Sukoi’s faces.

Sukoi clicked her tongue, annoyed but not really. This guy was irritating at first but now he was getting objectively funny.

“And who are you?” J6 looked him up and down, not able to match his face to any of the registered Seraphs in the data mart.

“Lie,” The legionnaire held out one hand and hooked the other’s thumb on his belt. His tighter-than-they-ought-ta-be pants lowered a little and everyone noticed. “Pretty ladies first.”

Sukoi took his hand and he tipped his chin down at her, satisfied. He could have yanked on her arm, pulling her close, but Lie could tell by her solid grip that it’d be like bullying a brick wall.

“Glad you think so too.”

Sukoi barked out a laugh then.

“I should punch you.” The demon meant it but again, not really. She had even laughed when she felt like she shouldn’t be but it felt good to not stew on the loathing that had taken root in her stomach.

“I’ll do it.” J6 mentioned and Lie’s hand halted, still gripping Sukoi’s. The tone didn’t sound joking and Lie released Sukoi’s hand, running his fingers over hers.

Ah, that sucked. Lie still wanted to keep petting the big bull.

“It’s okay, you’ll get your turn.” Lie turned his gaze to the bounty hunter, unabashedly checking his package.

Mr. Action Figure had something going on in there! Was he the reason for the purple? Judging by the flicker of his helmet lights, it was a definite maybe. Robots were always iffy when it came to electric sheep.  

“Why aren’t you a registered paladin?” J6 pressed, uncharacteristically serious all of a sudden.

“Told you I was new around here,” Lie wasn’t technically lying. “My name is Lie. Check it again but if it’s not there, what can I do?” He leaned close to J6, destroying all semblance of personal space. “What can you do…for me?” The sniper let the pause in the middle hang, dropping a smile just for J6. God, he could taste the bitterness in the air. “There’s less than an hour to get it done. Better get enough of me while there’s still time.” Lie winked.

“No thanks,” J6 declined, needing to manually disable his internal fans. “Clock’s ticking and I’m more of a babysitter than a secretary,” He looked back to Sukoi, meaning to return to his post by the big man’s side. “Good luck with that and the babysitting if you feel like it,” The bounty hunter told her. “See you back in the base when the dust settles.”

Finding that she had regained enough spirits to do a leisurely salute, Sukoi watched J6 head out of the dining hall to his contractor. It left her with the handsome Lie.

“Say, I’ll definitely meet you out front but I’ll need to pick up a new gun,” Lie leaned his head to the side. “Lost it in the mess so—“ He clapped his hands, rubbing them together. “—What do I have to do to get something new and maybe blue. See, blue’s my color.”

The demon didn’t blink once at what Lie said.

“You’d have to step over some piles of paper work with what happened, especially because you’re a new recruit. Buuuut the whole place is mad scrambling,” Sukoi said, wondering about her own weapon. “I don’t think you could get anything in a few days let alone less than an hour.”

“Should I mug one of the scouts with one?”

“You said you wouldn’t be a bother,” Sukoi said and Lie crossed his fingers for her again. “Okay okay, do you have anything to write on?”

Like rolled up one of his sleeves prompting Sukoi to roll her eyes. At least he worked out.

Reaching past his arm for the pen in his pocket, Sukoi nonchalantly wrote a little note ending with her signature for the people in the armory on Lie’s wrist.

“Wait, it’s that easy?” Lie, having infiltrated the Seraphs on good looks alone, fully believed it.

“For me? Sure it is but you better smile extra wide if you want something blue,” Sukoi pocketed the pen. “You better hurry. I won’t wait for you.” She warned but Lie backed away, unfazed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.” Flashing one more grin Sukoi was sure to see again, Lie took off, taking the throbbing chest wound in stride

Immediately, Sukoi’s mood fell back to rock bottom. Her arms, legs, everything felt simultaneously heavy and itchy to hit something. The distraction had been nice and that made the loathing dig deeper into her throat.

What was she doing?

“I won’t wait.” Sukoi crossed her arms, eyes growing parched and dry. She stood for a moment, going over her plan for the boat ride, and stalked out of the room with good timing. The imp Sukoi was about to babysit was returning with two arms full of medical books. For Eclissy, that meant two books. Maybe three.

“Wait what?” Eclissy gasped, turned a hundred and eighty degrees and dragged down the hall by her stolen coat’s collar.

“I need to catch a boat and I trust you the least.” Sukoi explained, pairing two things completely unrelated without context.

“Well, screw you first off. Second off, we should wait for Ryunn.” Eclissy mentioned the one last person Sukoi didn’t want to see at all.

Liedo belched harder than he needed to and a few chunks of the meal he just had crawled up his throat. He turned and spat, leaving his ‘friend’ barely enough time to dodge.

“I’m still hungry.” The most attractive face in Battleon’s main square fell on his back, lounging like a slob. As people flowed in and out of town, his tousled hair brightened from chestnut to strawberry blond. “I’ll even eat ass.”

“Screw off,” Liedo’s captive audience scowled darkly, checking his shoulder for any hint of slime. “That was my lunch you ate.”

“You’re undead, Nachi. You can’t even eat ass.”

“It’s the feeling that counts…” Nach frowned as a breeze blew his mask’s cheek into his jaw, making the rest of his features sag. Pieces of sautéed beef were staining his clothes from the inside, weakly clinging to his clean pearly bones. “And my name isn’t Nachi. It’s Nach.”

“No it’s not.”

“I know but, come on. Please?”

“Whatever,” Liedo yawned, picking gooey bits out of his tear ducts, and flicked them wherever he pleased. A group of teenagers loitering by the fountain mistook his gesture as a flirtatious finger gun and huddled against each other, swooning and squabbling like tropical birds. “It’s tough being hot. They’re right in front of the giant porta potty too.” He continued to groan, twisting his lips at Yulgar’s Inn. One of his admirers clamped their thighs together.

“Ey, Nara.” Raising his leg, Liedo dug his heel into Naranbataar’s shin to get his attention but the youth was lost…

He was lost in a sea of darkness, back hunched over as he sat on the edge of the town’s fountain. Peering into the darkness of his memories, Naranbaatar watched what was left of the flickering sunlight that dotted his life slowly fade to gray. Emptiness grew in the boy’s heart, blossoming into a void that swallowed everything that had once been a part of his shameful identity. Joining…No, becoming the Legion was killing him and yet, he was being reborn into—

“Can you chill?” Nach was grimacing at Naranbaatar so hard that the curve of his eye sockets were literally bending from how cringe worthy that entire spiel had been. “Just because I let you wear a spare cloak doesn’t mean you’re actually part of the Legion.”

“Oh,” Nara shrunk back into the black cloak that was too big for his boney frame. His white tuffs of hair were peeking out of the hood like a shy cloud. “Was I talking out loud again?”

“Yes.”

“Well…can’t you just—“

“No! You are never allowed in the Legion!” Nach shouted back and Nara arched away from the outburst, shielding his face from the flying spit. “If I ever see you within a hundred miles of Dage or the underworld, I will personally backslap your nuts into the fucking sun.”

“But why?” Nara asked. “I’ll work on my monologue skills, I promise!”

“It’s not that,” Nach groaned, trying to fix his masks’ nose back into place. “The monologue stuff isn’t the worst that I’ve heard but again…”

At that point, both Nach and Nara couldn’t ignore Liedo’s rising voice or the dents he was leaving in Nara’s leg.

“Naraaaa. Naaaaaaaaaraaaaaaa,” Liedo complained, thumping his boot against Naranbaatar. “My pal. My buddy since forever!“

“I want forever to stop.” Nara regarded the adult sized child laying on his back, kicking both of his feet up in a lazy tantrum.

A wad of paper was thrown Nara’s way, bouncing off of his cheek. He would have knocked the trash away if he hadn’t caught a whiff of its scent.

Breathing heavily, his pulse rising in a sharp crescendo, Nara unfurled the parchment, held it against his nostrils, and sniffed hard.

“One of the Generals came to take a look at the new recruits.” Liedo said. He was flapping his shirt up and down to get some cooler air in, distracting the Legionnaire who was about to tell them to get back to work. They should have been marching across the yard to drag them back but something about the ridges of Liedo’s abs was particularly mesmerizing. They decided to take a minute or ninety to try to figure out why.

“Did Dage touch it?” Nara sighed dreamily, rubbing the letter against his cheek until its words were clearly stamped on his face.

“Yeah, I stole it,” Liedo nodded as Nach buried his spongy mask face into his hands. “I hope it was important.” The blademaster turned sniper squinted at one of the words on Nara’s wet chin. ‘Urgent’ it said. “Nice.” He said, popping a piece of chocolate into his mouth.

“Where did that come from?” Nach asked, peering out from between his skeletal fingers.

Liedo swallowed, just having to raise his chin to show off his working throat as he did, and jabbed a thumb at an old lady with a hair bun by the Inn. She was waving and blushing with what little useful blood she had left in her wrinkled old body. 

Despite her age, she had been fast.

“Put your helmet back on.” Nach told him to do this but forced the modified black helm on to the Legion dickhead anyway. The moment the lip of the helmet touched the crook of Liedo’s chin, it stuck fast to his skin and its crevices began to glow blue.

“Look, it’s not gonna do anything,” Liedo scratched his chest, making the fearsome carvings on the helmet infinitely less intimidating. If anything, the admirers slowly closing in were even more interested. He tilted his head away from Nach. “Nara, you enjoying yourself?”

Nara’s eyes were rolling back into his skull. His companions couldn’t tell if he was seeing his brain or Nirvana.

“What do you want me to do?” Nara asked, folding the paper until it was the size of a pinky nail. Nach only stared when Naranbataar popped the letter into the back of his throat like it was a pill. Despite being a high-ranking Legionnaire himself, this was some other poor sucker’s problem.

“First, get that thing off of you.” Liedo shook his head at the cloak. It was really old and wouldn’t work for the purposes of getting him a free meal. Taking a quick look at the people loitering in town’s center, Liedo stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders with his back still flat against the ground. “And do this.”

Naranbaatar had already shirked his cloak and folded it into a perfect square, smoothing away the creases he left in it. 

Mirroring Liedo’s posture, he asked “Like this?”

“Great, now go over there and think of how you’d ask Ryunn on a date.” Liedo continued.

“Huh?”

“And when they ask you what’s wrong, say that you’re a little hungry. Remember, only a little. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Of course, Nara was peeved at what Liedo had told him to think about but it was already in his head. As he walked towards the inn, beginning to pace slowly on the grass, his brow creased and his mouth set in a flustered and droopy frown. The pink glow his face was giving off could have been seen with blind eyes and Liedo and Nach started to countdown. Liedo began from seven and Nach went from four.

“Aw, what’s wrong?” A taller lady, likely a cleric, approached him and was closely followed by flocks of concerned faces.

“Good call, Nachi.” Liedo congratulated his higher-up.

“I never want you to compliment me.” Nach hissed back.

“Why the sad face, kiddo?” Another adventurer had come by, bending her knees to be on the same level as Naranbataar.

“Oh no! Don’t be sad!” More fell in to circle Nara.

“Poor thing!

“It’s ok! You can tell us what’s wrong.”

His blushing wasn’t just from trying to come up with lame one-liners to impress Ryunn anymore. With the spotlight on him getting brighter and brighter, it was getting harder for him to breathe. Especially with all of the very pretty and very nice girls crowding him.

“Um,” Nara crossed his arms, mumbling what Liedo told him. “I’m a little hungry.”

Surprised gasps of “Really? That’s it?” chorused through the group jostling Nara.

“Is it because you don’t have any money?”

“That’s okay! We’ll take care of it.”

“Uh! Are you sure?” Nara couldn’t help but stammer and it was so natural that it made Nach’s fake lip curl in disgust.

“I hate him” Nach mouthed before noticing that men were coming to help him. Behind Nach, Liedo whistled, impressed. He intentionally blew air on Nach’s collar bone with that and the undead elbowed him in the sternum.

“He’s bringing the boys to the yard.” Liedo managed, clutching his chest.

“Now worries!” A couple of the girls replied to Nara with no hesitation.

“Money’s no big deal. Everyone needs to eat.” One of the men began digging through his gold pouch.

“I have some bread. You take it! I’m not hungry.” A girl handed him a piece and he shot her a grateful smile in return. She practically bit it out of the air.

“Are you thirsty, dude? Have some juice.” A guardian handed him a small bottle and didn’t notice Nara’s wide beam shrink a little. He was feeling on top of the world, too high up to notice Nara’s distaste.

“Gya!” Nara cried out when a mage pinched his cheek.

”What was that for?” Her friend chided her, good natured.

“He’s so cute, you just have to squeeze him!” The mage giggled and only giggled harder when Nara looked away bashfully. Hiding his little smile stabbed his charm deeper.

“Come on, quit bullying him.” A warrior snaked his muscle bound arm in to bat away the hands going too close to Nara’s face and the youth smacked it away, snapping the warrior’s hand back far enough to go over his shoulder.

“Next time—“ Nara warned, expression blank but so dead focused. “--the fingers are coming off.”

A silence washed over the crowd. It was finally quiet enough for Liedo to hear his growling stomach but he gave up on filling it. Too bad. Battleon had been teeming with goodies that day too.

“Look at what you did!” The cleric hugged Naranbaatar tightly, glaring at the offending warrior. Everyone else did the same.

“Wait, that’s not—“ The warrior began but his own friend cut him off.

“You were edging on creepy there, dude.” The rogue leered at him.

“Leave him alone.”

“Jealous much?”

“Go away!”

The warrior was pushed rather quickly out of the circle, left to his confusion and misplaced guilt on the edge of the circle.

Nach shook his head at the slow disaster in motion. The kid had hardly moved his arm but had he angled his hand just a tiny bit different, the warrior’s wrist would have shattered. He wasn’t stupid strong like Liedo but precision was just as good as strength.

“It’s okay, Nachi,” Liedo gave him a back pat with the force of a rabid swipe. His four front teeth flew out of his mouth and plopped on to the grass. “You got me.”