#ridil

           Kheve swung the box up, hefting it onto the overhanging shelf. Sighing, he wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around the storehouse. The light drifted lazily from the window, a deep red as the day slowly dragged into night. He let himself smile, having made it through another day of work.

           It wasn’t that he disliked his job. He liked being a runner, sprinting through the streets of Ghirupar to make sure parts or inventions made it to where they needed to be. It needed to be done and it was hardly ever boring but…he missed the thrill of war. He’d been on Kaladesh for nearly three years now. And he hadn’t had any combat in that time. Sure he got into fistfights and such with thugs but no battle. He hadn’t been able to pull out his blades for anything more than maintenance in all this time. But…Kaladesh was peaceful, so different from Arangar.

           Though, the safety was a plus. He hadn’t had another incident like what had brought him here either. He shook his head as he locked up the warehouse and headed back to his apartment.

 *Roughly three years agp (AKA, where the last story left off) *

           “Where…am I?”

           “Where…? I guess those injuries took more of a toll on ya than I thought! Yur in Ghirupar, boy.” Kheve’s eyes finally adjusted and were greeted by the sight of a short, rotund man with way too much metal decorating his body. Kheve blinked at him and the man looked confused. “City of Wonders? Aether above, boy, ya really took a number.”

           “Right…” Kheve’s throat was dry so he grabbed the glass of water that set next to the bed he was resting on and downed it. His mind cleared a little and he put the question of where he was on the backburner. “Did…did you save my life?”

           “Sure did. Not that ya made it easy. You look like ya wrestled with a dragon.” The midget snorted, leaning on the hammer he was holding. “Which reminds me, keep yur movements to a minimum. Those bandages won’t hold if ya go dragon wrestlin’ again, hehe.”

           “Right, I’ll…do that.” Kheve grunted as he righted himself, taking care not worsen his wounds this time. “Well, thank you for your assistance then. I do appreciate the help.”

           “You’re welcome, o’ course. Though, I can’t take all the credit. Sana was the one who found ya in the gutter bleeding out yur internal organs.”

           “Sana?”

           “Yuuuuup. Human girl who fancies herself an aeronaught inventor. Hangs around here and tells everyone I’m her mentor.” The man huffed, shaking his head. Scratching his head with a piece of scrap metal, he continued. “She’ll probably be by later, act’lly.”

           “You don’t sound like you like her much.” Kheve said tentatively, a bit thrown off by the surrealism of the situation.  Not sure where he was and now talking to some elderly dwarf (at least he assumed that he was a dwarf, he matched the descriptions he’d heard well enough) about, well, Sana, he guessed. And Kheve was still just confused on why he wasn’t dead.

           “Nah, I guess she’s alright. She’s a pretty good girl, hardworker just a handful.” The dwarf grumbled. “It’s actually kinda nice to have some youthful excitement around.”

           “Right…” Kheve nodded, realizing he was being gazed at expectantly. He sighed, wincing from the pain in his chest at that. “Look, I appreciate the help but I’m still really lost. I have no idea where ‘Ghirupar’ is and I by all means should be dead. I mean what happened to the Smoke? The war?”

           “Smoke?” The dwarf’s eyes crinkled. “Is that some new drug? Because if yur just some junky, I need ya to walk on out of here. And there’s certainly no wars around on Kaladesh right now?”

           “Kaladesh?” Kheve stared, sure the man was making things up at this point. Maybe he was a mage? Was this some elaborate illusion? But it felt so real. “And how do you mean? How do you  not know the Smoke? It’s been killing us for..for forever! I don’t know what keep this is but how can you not know the biggest threat on Arangar? Who are you?”

           “I’m just a simple artificer, Ridil, if yuv heard of me but by your words, I don’t think that’s real likely…” Ridil squinted hard, clearly thinking. “I don’t know anything about this…Smoke or Arangar or other nonsense. I think whatever happened to ya took a lot out of ya, boy. How ‘bout ya lay back down and get some rest? I’ll wake ya if Sana stops by so you can thank her.”

           Kheve could only knod and lay back, stomach twisting in black knots. Arangar nonsense? Where….where was he? Could he…could he not be on Arangar? Is this Kaladesh…not Arangar?

           It was a weird thought, one that should feel wrong, that he should push against. But instead, it seemed to click and make sense. Like he wasn’t still on his home but somewhere else.

           “Kaladesh.” He breathed and faded into sleep.

 --

*Present *

Kheve’s ears perked up as walked back to his apartment, taking in the abundant sounds of Kaladesh. Even after all this time away from Arangar, he still just wasn’t used to the plethora of sounds. He just took it in, enjoying the extreme range of sounds. Crashing of machinery, hums of machines, voices…one voice in particular bubbled out, catching his ears.

“Look, look, I told you goons, my thopters are not. For. Sale.” An angry female voice snapped, clearly not amused whatever its owner was going through. “So how about you screw off and go give your servos wings, you dung-“

“Sweetheart, you don’t get it. We ain’t buyin’ what you ain’t sellin’.” A gravelly voice chuckled.

“That…did that even make sense?” Replied the confused tones of one Sana Asir, confirmed visually for Kheve as he rounded the corner.

“It did. Look, I’m telling you to give us the thopters. Or we make sure the whirler prodigy of Sana Ahir are never heard again.” The not so eloquent threat came courtesy of tattooed thug, standing crossarmed in front of her, backed by to similar brutes that differed in race but not demeanor. The leader gave Kheve a clear ‘keep walking’ glare as he walked over.

Which just prompted a sigh from him. Sana just couldn’t keep herself out of trouble, huh? The Arangarian subtly took in the thugs builds and stances as he walked over. “You guys looking for trouble? Because that didn’t sound all that nice.”

“Beat it, buddy. We’re doing business here.” Leader made the motion of someone brushing away a fly. Sana just rolled her eyes.

“Right, right, thievery is a legitimate business. You dunces are the reason why the Consulate restricts the Aether. Thanks for the help, Kheve, but I can handle this.” The girl snorted, moving to brush past the goons.

“We haven’t finished yet-“ The goon’s hand reached out to stop her but was quickly stopped by Kheve’s firm grasp.

“One chance to walk.” The man said, with a rather disconcerting smile.

“Kheve, let him go. If you make another incident-“

She was cut off by the swears from Kheve. The man’s free hand yanked a long knife from his side and lunged at his captor. Who just grinned, fluidly responding by stepping in and flipping the man over his shoulder and slamming to the ground. Two loud cracks resounded through the road, one from the impact on said road and a second one from an angry Kheve’s punch colliding with the man’s head.

Shaking his hand from the force, the arangarian righted himself again as the man slumped, out cold.

“Aether above, here we go again,” Sana snapped at Kheve as the two goons each drew long blades as well. The warrior mage didn’t respond, instead taking a stance in preparation for the now inevitable fight. And he savored it on some level, missing the rush of adrenaline.

He didn’t have to wait long, either as the second thug charged with a flurry of quick of slashes. The planeswalker ducked back, having to dance around her to avoid getting cut. Kheve didn’t keep that up for long though, realizing her form was sloppy and uncoordinated. There was no strategy to her attacks, no direction, allowing Kheve to easily wrench the blade from her grasp before borrowing it into her shoulder. She screamed and fell to her knees as Kheve pulled to the blade back out again, satisfied that she wouldn’t be a problem again.

Twirling the shortsword around to get a feel of the blade he turned to the last foe, fully into the heat of battle. He could hear Sana scolding him but zoned it out as he focused on his opponent. The last remaining opponent shuffled nervously, rather apprehensive to attack after seeing his companions dispatched. Before he could act, Kheve snapped forward with lightning crackling around him. His free hand connected with his stomach. If the force wasn’t enough to remove him from combat the volts of electricity were.

He stepped back, dropping the shortsword by the coughing goon. And then promptly froze. Sana was shooting daggers at him as she finished throwing a bandage on the thug that he had stabbed. He coughed, rubbing his head.

“You happy with yourself?” She snapped.

“No?”

“Seriously, what the heck is wrong with you?” She threw up her hands. “First off, I can handle myself. Those guys weren’t going to pull anything here in public! Second, you just freaking stabbed and blasted them in public. Aether above, you are dense. This is going to be another Consulate visit where you’re going to have to lie out your butt to avoid getting arrested. Again.”

“I have the feeling there’s a third complaint too.” Kheve sighed.

“Outside of the gratuitous violence. Stabbing a guy, geez.” She sighed, rubbing her temples. Several moments ticked by in silence.

“Sorry, I just thought I should help out and they had it coming…” Kheve said.

“They did have it coming,” Sana agreed, looking at the thugs were in various states of consciousness or pain. “But, thanks. Now, we should probably get back to Ridil’s. He said he needed to talk to you about something.”

 --

*Flashback *

“Boy, boy, wake up. Hullo?” Ridil’s voice eased out Kheve out of sleep, blinking rapidly, memories of what had transpired flooding back.

“Sorry, I’m up,” He said quickly, sitting up. He actually felt surprisingly refreshed and the aching from his wounds had significantly declined.

“Yeah, yeah. Sana’s here and I think that ya owe her a thank you.” The elderly dwarf said, as he only gave him a sidelong glance before tweaking some artifact that was on his workbench in front of him.

Kheve nodded, swinging his feet onto the floor and shambling to his feet. As he did, another figured waltzed into the workplace.

“Wow, I would say that you look awful but you don’t seem to be actively dying anymore so I consider that a plus.” She said in a chipper voice, tucking a wild wave of hair behind her ear. “I’m Sana, by the way. I’m sure Ridil’s already complained about me. “

“You’re the one who saved me, right?”

“Well, saved is a rather strong word. I just found you in that gutter and helped get you back here.” She shrugged, fiddling with a piece of filigree on her arm. She looked like that she was trying to hold back a question, though that didn’t last long and she blurted out. “What the heck happened to you? What’s with your clothes and armor? Where’d you get those tattoos? Why were you carrying those weird swords?”

Kheve blinked at the flurry of questions. “First, thank you for saving my life. I owe you a debt that I don’t know if I can repay. As for my tattoos and weapons, they are common in my homeland of Purita.”            “Purita?” Sana inquired, not looking familiar.

“In Arangar?”

“Never heard of it. Is that near Lathnu?”

“Maybe, I honestly don’t know how I got here…” Kheve said slowly, that pit in his stomach making its return. A second person never of hearing common places only cemented his theory that he wasn’t on his home anymore. “As for my injuries, I was in a fight that didn’t go my way.”

Before Sana could continue to question, Ridil cut them off. “Sana, ya need to finish those Thopter plans if ya want them to be ready for the tourney next week. ‘Sides, Kheve here looks like he’s about ready to fall over again and needs to get back to resting’.”

“Oh, gotcha. Well, nice meeting you, Kheve. I’ll stop by after I finish with the thopters because I’m really curious about what the heck you did to get beat up like that,” She said, popping away to through one of the other doors, out of sight.

 --

*Present Day *

The duo walked into the warehouse, throwing up the doors and entering. The main workspace was clear, the dwarf artificer distinctly absent.

“Oi, Ridil, where are you? I got Kheve with me, like you asked. Where you hiding out?” Sana shouted, looking around the building.

“In tha office, be right there.” Ridil shouted back as the door to the office opened and he walked out, followed closely by a woman. “Ah, Kheve, my new friend here says that she knows ya. This true?”

Kheve froze, staring at the woman. Standing there, looking identical to that day back on the battlefield, stood a certain woman. She gave him a smile as she smoothed her pristine white robes. He stared, world spinning around him.