#titanspine

It didn’t matter, really. The future, the past? All that Lance could see with prophetic – though a better term may be inconvenient – visions? Inconvenient as it may be, when Lance was struck over the head in an alleyway, a bit of prophecy sounded like a pretty damn good idea.

As he fell to the ground, there was a flash. Another person might’ve seen a flash of red, like the blood trickling down his neck and shoulders. Lance saw a flash of purple-blue. A buzzing whirred in the back of his head as a vision distracted him. A sign. The next move.

Concrete scarred the arms that caught him.

A crash above. Falling, falling. Silver.

He picked himself up fast enough to dodge the metal pipe. It smashed into the ground, sending chunks of chalky urban debris into the air. Any slower and it would’ve hit him square on the head.

Lance recovered quickly. Being accustomed to the streets tended to pay off in situations like this, so he avoided the next incoming swing. The pipe ricocheted off a support beam.

He shot back. Metal clattered to the ground. An alley wall was torn apart from the impact. The industrial design splintered and cracked.

He was spared from a bloody end. Or rather, that bloody end. Lance was acutely aware that each success was only a lucky accident. And one misstep…

He tried to catch a stabilising breath. That was hard, given the thug with the pipe wasn’t done yet.

Bones crunch together. Impact. Silver.

Tiny moments of what could happen, moments bathed in blood, clouded Lance’s vision. It would be generous to call it helpful.

The ringing snap of metal against brick flooded the alleyway. Another crashing of that pipe gave Lance a moment to catch a glimpse of his attacker. A towering, muscular woman who wielded her weapon with a focused, lethal poise.

But Lance was faster. Even disturbed by flashing visions, he slipped past each blow. The prophecies were no help. Nothing more than a hostile whisper behind his ear.

Silver. Silver. Silver!

There was nothing silver in sight. The repetition was a knocking in his head. Between missed blows, Lance scanned the area for any trace of silver. But, as he expected, there was nothing.

The useless foresight was enough to send his blood boiling. If those damned visions would stop for just one second so he could focus on not dying–

Then there was light. Something new to witness. An open field. Not a swift glimpse of inevitable doom, but instead something… bright. Brighter than the three suns. It didn’t burn, though. The sunlight was gentle, welcoming, even. An unfamiliar sense of calm overflowed within him, strong enough that he didn’t question why he was safe. He just was. There was no danger. Only the loving winter sun of Hai’lya above, and solid ground below.

Peace. Respite.

Not quite.

Lance hit the pavement. Solidly this time, with no forethought to brace himself. A violent tide of blood spilled across the ground. The nausea sunk in as he grasped the side of his head. Bones ground together. Caved in.

He tried, earnestly tried, to stand again. But one hit was enough to give the thug an irreversible advantage.

Lance steadied his hand, trying to conjure a spell as quickly as possible. That was rebuked by the pipe. It connected with a crack.

Then another.

Then another.

RED. SILVER. RED. RED.

The visions were no longer annoying suggestions. They were entirely true. Nobody noticed when Lance cried out in pain, least of all the one causing said pain. Or maybe nobody cared.

He wasn’t spared from the sensation. No, he was conscious for every agonising moment.

Blow after blow.

The woman’s face was hard to isolate between flashes of copper and crimson. Her face was sharp, her attacks sharper. And she wore a sort of uniform, or at least an insignia. But each time Lance tried to get a better look, he had to shoulder another unrelenting bout of pain.

Bleary eyesight, ringing in his ears, and a sense of imminent doom in his gut, Lance wasn’t sure how long he waited to die.

There was nobody to help. Same as always.

As much as Lance wanted to survive, he figured he would inevitably overstay his welcome. It’s a tricky game, teetering between the fault lines of life and death.

The visions properly ceased when she crashed the pipe across his torso. A shattering. Blood and bile rose to the top of his throat, and he knew he had no hope. It poured out of him with an acidic force.

Just as he expected a final blow, the woman paused. A quiet, strained groan escaped him as she grabbed him. Her bloodied hand left another gory stain on his white hair.

“Pathetic,” she cursed, eyeing the boy’s sanguinary form. Her eyes tried to meet his, but Lance couldn’t hold his head up.

With a swift tug, she yanked his hair out of his face and studied him. She held the almost-carcass with a focused, lethal, grip. Lance’s organs pushed against one another, bloodied and bruised.

She clicked her tongue. “Good. I was almost worried I’d got the wrong person.”

Under her grasp, Lance whimpered, using the last bit of his energy to try and squirm away.

The woman gave a slight laugh, amused at his suffering. Her eyes shined with a metallic glitter.

“Are you afraid?” She asked, her voice dropping to a whispery hiss.

Lance tried to reply. Every bone in his broken body wanted to tell her where she could go. He wanted nothing more than to tell her she wouldn’t go unpunished. But instead of any of that, a bloody cough lurched out of him. It splattered against the pavement, but she didn’t care.

“I bet you are…” she said, “you better be. Don’t worry, I think I’m done with you now.”

The sound of copper scraping against concrete. Though Lance couldn’t see it, that feeling of dread was impossible to ignore.

“I’ll make this quick.”

ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ

Before she could deal any final blow, a voice called from behind the two.

“Freeze.”

Not a shout. An order.

The command reverberated off the alley’s walls. The woman’s head shot up, Lance’s eyeline following suit.

A uniform. A gold trim. A tall, broad, stature.

Red.

Or… that might’ve been the blood.

Both the woman and Lance knew who that person was just by their voice. The cadence, the tone, the slight acidity behind the words told the world they believed themselves above the street trash in the alley. Lance’s body rattled, letting out a half-sigh, half-groan.

As the light adjusted, the new person took a step into the alley. Closer to her. Closer to him. Lance did his best to both hide and heal himself. He shuffled closer to the furthest wall and whispered. As best he could with his chest crying in agony. Each breath was torture. Words of wellness tried to peel off his tongue. A vain, distracted attempt to fix himself before a worse threat made itself known. It was not swift; laboured, bloody breaths hindered any magic.

The other person, a cop – ugh, great – said something else that escaped Lance’s ear. The crisp cleanliness of their uniform was insult enough. The perfect blue was out of place in the worst of Lunaris’ streets. By that time, the woman had turned to face them. As she did, the pipe rolled out of her hand, falling to the ground with an unceremonious crash.

That sound. Copper on concrete. Blue light snuffed Lance’s vision.

Silver. Gone. Pain festers. Wounded. Nothing.

Lance couldn’t take the time to understand what he saw. His healing adage dissipated into nothing. Hollow words, words that did not stop the blood. It snapped as bones do. He almost choked on the spell that stopped short in his throat.

The woman and the cop didn’t seem to notice him anymore. Lance peered down to be met with his form drenched in blood. It seeped into the jagged pavement. Dense enough to clog a river. Vast enough to raise an ocean to brush the moons.

He pressed his eyes shut as hard as possible. Maybe if he didn’t see it, he wasn’t bloodied. He wasn’t suffering. He wouldn’t die.

Stupid.

“Hai’lya, heal me…” he choked. But that was not magic – that was a listless prayer. He did not get to say more, to finish any spell. There was a splinter in his lungs. Imagined or otherwise, the blood that splattered from his mouth to the ground was definitely real. And that was not the end of it. He tried to suppress a coughing fit, but each time he held his breath, that little splinter embedded itself further in his lungs.

Nausea set in. Lance’s head emptied, encased by a dull white light. An indescribable vagueness fell over him. Light and dark blurred together. If it wasn’t for that quiet thud against a back wall, Lance wouldn’t have noticed his head lull.

His throat housed a river of crimson. There was no hope for a spell to be uttered. Not anymore. Wordlessly, Lance said goodbye to the sun and the moons.

“How’re you feeling?”

Lance pulled his eyes open, only then realising they fell closed.

The cop blinked. “Huh. You really are the spitting image of… forget it.”

They extended a hand to him, and the gaudy gold of their uniform glittered in the uneasy sunlight. Each over-the-top detail, badges, and the like, indicated status. A big-time cop, apparently. Somebody important.

When he didn’t take their hand – due in equal parts to the agonising pain and his… distaste for the police – the cop tried again.

“I’ll help you out,” they said.

“Fuck the cops.”

They let out an awkward sigh. “Okay.”

They looked down at Lance again. For someone presumably high-ranking, the insult didn’t get under their skin. They regarded him like they knew him.

But they didn’t. That’s crazy.

The cop raised their hands to show they weren’t armed.

“Well, my magic isn’t flawless. I need to be focused, and here,” they shook their head, “it just won’t work.”

Lance went to say something else, but he was interrupted by another violent cough.

“If you just let me—”

“Get back,” he said. The pain was insurmountable, but at least it was… dulling. Something was fading.

Lance was often on the wrong side of the law. Nothing major. But, due to the company he surrounded himself with, and the Titanspine approaching, there was nothing Lance wanted less than to be abducted by a cop.

But there were less and less options for him. What could he do? He couldn’t escape that cop, and the way they looked at him as if he was an old memory of theirs – well, it was weird! And Lance lacked the wit required to make sense of it.

Then sight failed. Sight, that fickle thing. The present, past, and future, all interconnected as a web. That kind of sight was the hardest to come by. The truest and most difficult to control.

Lance couldn’t be sure if he was blinded or his eyes were simply closing, but there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. Not anymore.

And still, there was no silver.

ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ ─── ⲥⲁⲥⲟⲉⲧⲏⲉ𝛓 𝛓ⲥꞅⲓⲃⲉⲛⲇⲓ