The next day, the last day before the Ash Makers came, was spent in quiet training. The whole day the four of them were in that abandoned storage room on the ninth floor. They were watched over by the Trio of Crow Clerics, who barely spoke a word in many hours. Jonah, wearing his new armor, littered stone targets in melted and shining holes. Diana went over her weapons and trained her magic in her armor, making small storms of wind within her hands to float objects. Rosetta, who was clearly pouting since Warren didn’t want to try linking minds again, spent her day transmuting various objects for Jonah and watching Warren. The Paladin was doing something that he should have been doing far more of, refreshing his sword stances. He started every day with a bit of exercise, which frustrated Rosie because his mornings equalled 8 am. That was rather late for him, as he usually started his day at 5. Alpha was a nightmare realm of no setting sun and the time difference was off as well. He would be glad to be gone from here in a few days. After the army or Psyin clergy came, the princess wanted to return to her kingdom. Where exactly, she wasn't sure. Somewhere safe was the only desire.
That night they dined with the twins and Chiru again. The Ash Maker took every chance she had to display her displeasure at being trapped with the children and the room full of Mages. It was only through Niae’s movement of the many guards that convinced Chiru to stay with them. The Arch Priestess told her that dining alone could be very dangerous. Only one wall and door separated the two rooms, but Niae said the giant window could be a threat to the lone woman. Susan of course took this chance to complain about how awful her time with the Order had been again. She even added that, if they had escaped in the fog, then everything that happened in the sewers would’ve been avoided. Warren laughed at the little spitfire and her arguments with the Wanshi. It was a shame when Jonah started playing another movie to get them all quieted down. When that projector came on, the twin’s eyes grew large and they gathered around to watch. Warren couldn’t help but notice that Rosetta was still pouting at him instead of watching the film.
As the day drew to a close, Warren left the princess, Jonah, Roesetta and Hwen, all drinking tea, to check on the latest downstairs. Eutace and Chiru, who reminded him of two roosters in the same henhouse, had been checking the Courier every few hours. Glimvet took the four of them outside to check it around midnight. In the shadowy veil of the Feast Leader’s magic, Chiru sighed in relief. The Ash Makers had cleared the depths of the Fae Forest outside Alpha. All they were waiting for now was the Night Elf village outside the city limits to calm for the day time. Glimvet found it funny that they were so scared of his kinsmen.
The lobby was now full of sigils and traps laid especially for the undead. The once blank stone walls covered in elvish lined circles and runes, most etched with an inky blackness. Others were of a milky white, laid by Niae, these ones were far less violent and meant to purify. Glimvet twisted his hand on the obsidian marking that locked the door. Muttering a prayer, he found a blank bit of wall and laid his hand on it. From the circle flew a smoky and spectral Raven that landed on his finger. The ancient man whispered something to it, making the bird squawk and flap its wings. Flying away from him, it phased through the wall.
“There, my fellow Night elves will know that some foolish human hunters found their way into their section of the forest,” the elf said with a chuckle and a cough. Clutching his staff tightly, he walked back to his seat, each step noted by a tap of the wood.
“Won’t they be looking for them?” Chiru asked, appalled.
“Hm? Oh, no, no child, there is nothing my kin fear more than humans. They will not leave their homes tonight. Your friends can sleep safely knowing that no Night elf will seek them. Two hundred years ago they would have sought them out, now they fear rifles more than anything. Your friends should still be cautious, many things still lurk within the Fae Forest. They have survived this long, one more night should not harm them. I wish they could give us their location, but the landmarks in the woods are not easy to see, even to a Krax’s keen eye.” He sat down behind the front desk, slouching as if he was already trancing. With his mask on it was impossible to tell.
Chiru jolted when the Crow’s mask turned to her. “Rest easy, tomorrow you rejoin your friends. After a bit of questioning, I suppose you will leave for good, join your cause and fight your war,” the old man said, a strange smile in his voice. “When the battles start again, when the fields are littered with the dead, I hope that you are not among them. It is always a shame to see the young die.”
Chiru regained her composure, standing up straight. “I won’t die on some field, I will see my goal complete,” she insisted.
The old Crow nodded. “I have seen more dead eyes than I have seen living. More expired dreams than fulfilled. I am too old to participate in this war, yet my god has called me again. What we think will happen and what will happen are usually different things.” He took a deep breath. “Whatever you can do, you must do. Knowing what is possible for you to accomplish is something countless have died trying to discover. The crows come for all of us, so, child, listen, live without regrets and without delusion.” His glass eyes shined from out of his hood.
The Ash Maker's boots echoed through the quiet lobby as she stomped close to the Crow. “The Immortal Emperors will die, Blodwyn will see them destroyed and my country will be remade,” Chiru stated firmly.
“From the ashes, yes,” Glimvet agreed. "I am well aware."
“Yes, that is the Order’s goal, that is their promise,” Chiru said, holding her chin up high.
The Cleric snickered. “Think that is worth sending as intel, Warren?” Eutace asked smugly, elbowing his fellow.
The Paladin sighed. “Seein’ as how Blodwyn promised to turn the whole damn world to ash in the last war, I suppose not,” he said with a shrug.
“Exactly, exactly,” the Psyin Cleric said proudly.
Eutace escorted Chiru back to her room by the elevator. Warren walked up the ten flights of stairs alone in his full armor. He was used to so much more exercise than what he got here in Alpha. He didn’t have the body of a runner, but he enjoyed walking and horseback riding. On his days off he would go bow hunting or fly fishing. The gray stone walls were a prison and he would be glad to leave them behind. Where he would be trapped next, he wasn’t sure, but he hoped he could at least see the sunrise and set. Whether that was over a city or in a forest, he didn’t care.
Diana’s goal was defined in a way, her means nebulous. The princess wouldn’t be truly happy until Blodwyn was dead and the war was over. All of them, including her, knew that she could never take on Blodwyn alone and the new Order of Ash was far more scary than before. So long as he lived, Warren would be there to help.
As much as he liked to relax, there was always that red fire burning in him. His military training had contained it, thrown steel bars around it and made a cage for it. In his youth the blood thirst had gotten him black eyes and split lips, hard knuckles and spit out teeth. His mother, dreading it, tried to snuff the fire. She was the third wife of the Wolf and Warren was her first son and third child. She didn’t want her handsome young man to end up like those others, whose eighteenth birthday present was an enlistment form. She’d gotten him to be a police officer in a big but rather safe city. The fire would never stop burning and it was so much better than the army. At his father’s urging, when the Ash Makers started quietly up again, he joined the army at a decent rank. Sadly his mother was in an urn by then.
What the next day would bring, he wasn’t sure, though the red fire burned a bit brighter. Like Diana, who felt she had something to prove, a fight didn’t sound so bad. The odds were greatly against them and everyone but Diana could easily die. He wouldn’t put it past Angelina to have her killed and stage it as something else. They all knew how much the Pirate and the Witch hated the headstrong princess. The stories shared over the breakfast table didn’t sound like someone that would keep holding back forever.
Despite the idea of a fight appealing to him, Warren wouldn't hesitate to call back up from the local temple. He wasn't a kid anymore, he knew when to pick his fights. He knew which ones he could win. This fight, if there was one at all, was too much for them to handle.
When Warren got to his bedroom door, he paused and cracked it, tuning his heightened senses through it. He smirked as he heard Rosetta turn over in bed, her heartbeat rising. Even with the fan buzzing their room, there was no way that she couldn’t hear his clanking armor and the front door. In the beam of light she was curled up, back facing him, her small body taking up so little of the giant bed.
The former Court Mage was a strange bedfellow. If he got to her when she was still wide awake, then she tried to have sex with him. This included pushing her bottom or breasts into him, scratching or caressing his back. Sometimes she would throw her leg over his and claw his calf with her toes. She also took great whiffs of him or sighed her hot breath across his skin. They had yet to have sex or even kiss.
The nightmares were something else and they came at all times of the night. She had stopped taking her sleeping pills because they kept her asleep and trapped in what she called a "montage of horror." They weren’t the sit up and scream type, they were the trapped and gasping kind. The first time he woke to the sound of wheezing he switched on the lights to see her eyes open, a horrible rasping coming from her mouth. When he woke her all her muscles snapped from their stiffness. The little woman started smacking her head, then crying as he gently stopped her. There were also those moments when trying to settle back down, when she left the hold of his arms, she sat up panting and whispering pleas to her god. “Please, please, please, stop it, make it go away, please!” she would beg. There were several times when he held her and he felt her heart thudding with palpitations.
No matter what, he held her. Calming her down, stroking her head and bringing her back to sleep. Sometimes she'd talk and he'd listen to her. Other times she'd try those pleas for sex and he'd turn her down. The last couple days her quiet requests for sex had stopped, and the last night he had come to bed too late for her to try anything. She knew why he wouldn’t, but she wasn’t happy with it.
As he got into bed in his underwear now, she rolled into her space beside him. Her small hand lay flat against his chest, the crown of her head rubbing against his chin. Like Diana, according to Jonah, Rosetta didn't sleep with a pillow most of the time. Instead she slept on her arm or her hands or sometimes on her stomach. It was some Druid habit, a more natural means of sleeping that had spread around the castle since the Archdruid queen had taken residency. He wondered if maybe it was popular because it allowed one to sleep as close to another person as possible. Warren had been in the army and police, he could sleep anywhere and in any position.
Nearly drifting off to sleep, Warren was awoken by a feeble whine. Rosetta was squirming around in his arms, whimpering and panting. Calmly he shushed her, stroking her arm.
"It's alright, it's alright, don't fret. Yer safe and everything is okay…" he said in a quiet voice. He'd been repeating much the same mantra for days now.
"No, no it's not!" she cried, far more awake sounding than usual.
Sighing, he sat up and turned on the light. "Alright then, let's talk it out," he said, patting the pillows next to him.
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She sat up, wearing only her shirt and underwear. Her lips were pursed and there was a furrow to her brow and a glare in her white eyes. A lock of hair had found its way from her loose braid and was dangling beside her face. "It's yer bloody fault!" she snapped.
"Well, that's a new one, go on then. How is it my fault?" he asked.
"Yah won't hurt mah so we can pair," she said harshly.
"Ya really want it that bad, dontcha?" he said with a sigh.
"Aye, I want a lot of bloody things, and yah aren't givin' 'em to mah," she said, thudding her fist into the bed.
"Ya don’t need sex and ya don’t need pain, Rosie, ya need time to process yer trauma," he said, rubbing his temple. "I'm only doing this because it seemed like it would help ya, and it has. Look how much better yer doin' now, flyin' all over the damn place. Yer not eatin' that sugary shit anymore. Not that we could get as much here in Alpha."
"I'd be doin' even better if yah hurt mah at least. Not that I would complain about a wee bit of kissin' or fuckin'. I know yah think I'm addicted and it's just a ruddy copin' mechanism, but if we're doin' it together it wouldn't be that bad. Oral is hardly sex, we could be doin’ that…"
Warren wiped at his face. "Rosie, I'm not havin' sex with ya because I don't like having sex with women that don't like me," he admitted.
She looked at him in utter confusion. "What kind of fuckin' man---" She straightened out her face at his glare. "Of course, I bloody like yah, I want to have sex with yah."
"What do I like to do for fun?" he asked simply.
She went silent in thought. "Cook, yah like cookin', yah make good meals! I've been eating 'em!"
"What else?"
She went into another moment of thought. "Um, fighting…?"
"Ya don't fuckin' know me, Rosie, ya like the idea of me. Ya like having a man in yer bed and ya like attention. Yer stuck in the most miserable point of yer formerly cushy life and ya need someone. It's a been nearly two fuckin' weeks, Rosie, since I've known ya. I ain't ever slept in bed with a woman in less than a week, like I have with you. I don't go to whores, I don't meet at a bar, fuck that night, and then leave. I like to get to know someone before I have sex with them." He exhaled a long breath. “I haven’t got that from you, I thought I might, but I haven't yet at least.”
Rosetta swallowed a lump. "Fine, fine, but yah could at least hurt mah. Yah get mad, yer mad now. I paid attention, I know something more, not something yah do for fun, but something deeper than that. Yah said yah like fightin', that yah get the urge all the time. Yah could be taking it out on mah, with the link. Yah could be hurtin' mah! Yer already strong with mah sometimes, or yah were, all yah gotta do is press a little harder, I can handle it!"
The red fire in Warren blazed in its cage. He whipped his arm across the head of the bed, denting the pillows and sending the air out of them in a fast gust. "Ya don't deserve it…"
Rosetta flinched at the sudden outburst, but crawled forward. Up on her knees she placed her hands on his shoulder and the banded tattoos on it.
"But I want it. Just a bit more firmness, in a mental link out. That can be it, that's it, that's all. A snap like mah rubber band does. Yah loved being rude and firm with mah. You're so close, yah must make love to the girls like a bloody tiger. We can link, I'll get the crown and yah can get yours, we'll link up and tomorrow we'll be flawless." She tugged at his arm, trying to manipulate it up for herself. Her magic was strong, but her body was rather weak, especially compared to him.
"Rosie, we don't need to link for tomorrow and I don't wanna hurt ya," he said.
"Just in case, we should do it. Warren, Horse, I swear, yah were visited by the Bound god, yah must have been. Yah have all the traits of a fine Dom. We can start small. That's how we'll get to know each other, it's a great way."
“Really? Ya want me to hurt ya?” he asked. "This bad, hm?"
“Aye, really, anythin’ I can handle. Why don’t we start with a hold of some kind--”
He moved his arm swiftly and she yelped in shock. Then her body went limp as his hand held her throat. It was like a kitten picked up by the scruff and she had a blissful smile on her face. Her little hands caressed his forearm. He applied almost no pressure, but he could feel her heart beating against his fingers, a thrilled drumline. The fire burned brighter inside him, as if it was well fed. A life was held in his hand, and the blood thirst beat in his temples.
"I know yah, see, more maybe than yah know yourself…" Rosetta said calmly, still petting his arm. "Mah signal is 'strawberry', always has been. They're just mah favorite fruit. What's yours? While we're gettin' to know each other… Fruit, not your signal, unless yah want to tell mah both. Maybe yah don’t have the second yet, we could figure it out together."
Warren removed his hand from her, folding his arms.
She sighed and picked at her chewed nails. "It's fine, it's fine, we can work slowly, much slower. We'll get to know each other better. Keep it private, professional, like yah always wanted. I know, I talk about mahself a lot. It's probably why yah haven't been interested in mah past the first few days. Yah've been so good to mah and I haven't listened to you as much. We're goin' into a dangerous situation and I'd like to help yah as much as I can. It's too late to link, I know. It's been a long day, um, and we've found out some things. Don't be mad, let's mush, like we have been. I like it, really I do, it's more than enough, more than I deserve." She nodded, smiling with her dimples. "Yah have been so good to mah, better than I could hope for. I'd still be on that fuckin' couch, miserable and snoring. Diana and yah got mah up, but yah did the lion's share. Please don't be mad, Warren, should anything happen tomorrow, I don't want to have regrets, right? Regret that we spent our last night mad at each other, we won't work well tomorrow."
"Ain't nothin is gonna happen tomorrow and if it does, we have back up," he said firmly. He didn't like that both her and the old elf were talking about matters with finality, like some dread sword hung over their heads. Even the trained soldier and policeman wasn't immune to anxiety.
"Aye, but I just feel like it might. I must have felt like this the night Luann…" She swallowed and this time it seemed to be rocks going down her throat. "I can't fail again."
"Ya won't, there's nothin' to fail," he said with a snort.
"Aye…" She nodded. "Let's get to sleep? We need to rest, they'll be here… when exactly?"
"About ten o'clock it seems," he told her.
"Alright then, gud." She settled down on the bed. "I'm sorry about pestering yah, being so selfish and all. Before I fall asleep, I wanna hear more about yah. I like your voice, it's not all physical, I swear, it's so deep and commanding. Please, what do yah like to do for fun?"
Turning off the lights he settled down beside her. She set her back to his chest, head on his forearm, running her hand up into his. In all the attempts to have sex or seek comfort, she had never done something so simple as hold his hand. He laced his fingers with hers. It was far more comfortable for him to hold her hand instead of her neck. He didn't care if the fire was just a flicker. He'd like to forget that feeling of her neck in his hold, but he knew his mind and body couldn't.
"I like to fish…" he admitted.
"I used to fish outside the castle, well, just set up a rod and read a book," she went on, excitement in her voice. "Maybe when this is all over and Diana goes home, or wherever, we could go fishing together."
"I wouldn't mind it," he said with a shrug.
"What else? What else?"
The last morning that most of the Twinklings hotel occupants would ever spend in Alpha came. It was a cold and cloudy one that fogged the windows of the ten story hotel. Compared to all the other mornings in the last month and a half, it felt most like the start of a day. Time flowed monotonously in the bright permanently pinkish city. Its roads and sidewalks of glittering useless wealth knew few people in the last two hundred years. The gem eyes of all the murals, staring at accomplishments thousands of years done, had seen little recently, like their creators. Today, they would see much.
Not a single Grand elf walked the streets today, none within several miles of the walled city. The silver and gold skinned flora shifted in the chill wind, as if rejoicing the absence of their captors. It wasn't strange for the elderly and dying elves to sleep for days at a time. They saw the very flow of existence in a different way than any other mortal. Ten thousand years affected a body like no other, and no crafted mortal lived nearly as long as them. They ate heavy and dense meals once every few days like a snake. So sleeping in wasn't too strange.
The Grand elves had also grown complacent and soft in their rest. Two hundred years was just long enough to convince themselves the war was over, and that they were safe. They had yet to process that a new war had begun. Over two months, it might as well have started a few hours ago. They didn't panic, the last war had taken years and they were unaware of any advancements made by the Order since then. Hardly any Grand elves used the telephone or the radio still, relying on magic like they had for thousands of years before. All this ignorance and slowness of thought, led to what would be considered the real start of the war for the Grands still in Alpha. Though Blodwyn had nothing to do with this act.
No, it was the Heroes that drugged the Grands of Alpha's food. It was their fault that on what would be considered a momentous day, all five hundred and some Grand elves slept on. The Grand elves were not the only arrogant ones, the only people who were blinded by their stubbornness of thought.
The temple of Psyin in Alpha, like most of the temples in the city, was run and maintained almost exclusively by those who were not Grand elves. Save a few Grands, who were in the two thousands, the rest were very old. While they were powerful, they were also mostly retired. In the Corpine temple, there was only one Grand elf. A Mother Superior so ancient and warped from bearing five hundred children she could no longer walk. This is why Niae, the eldest of three Arch Priestesses, ran the temple without protest. The Psyin temple was much the same, though their Mastermind Cleric could still walk he was nearly eleven thousand years old. So the once ten foot tall and now severely hunched elf left his duties up to Cre'ven, his six hundred year old subordinate. The same Cre’ven that had turned his back on the princess and her cause a few days before.
The whole of the Psyin temple, whose interior walls were made of bookshelves, had been debating the matter of the Ash Makers in their fine city. While Cre'ven was technically in charge, he was not the oldest, merely the only one willing to shoulder the burden. So in a cramped boardroom, which bore a few rare windows, aged elves argued and debated what to do. The barely wrinkled faces and folded arms would gather for hours out of their day, going over every little fact that they had been given. They cross-referenced it with the past and their knowledge and prejudices. The marble table that they met over was covered in books and mugs and plates. They ate and drank, stabbing both histories and scriptures with their index fingers.
All the Psyin Clerics, from High to low, from old and wise, to bitter and stubborn, talked and shouted. They sent people out to all the places Ash Makers had been sighted, examining and gathering evidence. Not one in the whole temple were young enough to have missed the war. Whether fighting in it or witnessing from a civilian level, they knew what horrors it brought, what the Ash Makers were capable of. They were a space of supposed thinkers, but they had shut themselves off to the rest of the world. They were elves of all kinds, but little diversity of thought existed. The only reason they weren't waging an attack on the princess's wards, was because they had yet to have a majority on any idea.
The clergy also doubted the Heroes’ involvement in all of this. All of them knew the Heroes' accomplishments, had either met them or seen them in the past two centuries. A few had met them in the war itself or in the victory tour. It was safe to say there was a lot of bias in the temple, something their patron god taught against vehemently. So while they were on high alert for Ash Makers invading their temple and their city, they let their hundreds of woven wards take care of any spies.
Blinded by their debating, none of the Psyin clergy noticed when the plainblood elf boy who brought them all their drinks and food started to linger at the doorway to their boardroom. Not one checked when one of their wards, one meant to scan for the presence of shapeshifters, was damaged, rendering it useless. They all were terrified of Ash Makers, none expected a mole had been planted so easily within their ranks. When the phone call came from Warren Whittaker, telling them they were in desperate need of help, the Clerics discussed it openly. It was their job to respond to trouble in their city. That night as the call was returned to Whittaker, the Psyin temple's plainblood elf vanished. The real server would never return, he'd been dead for nearly a week now.
Since Fia the Witch watched the Psyin Clerics leave, she knew the princess and her party would beg for their help again. She had also seen the Crow Clerics leave and thought about planting her slave shapeshifter in their temple. She couldn't though, as a Crow was gifted heightened bodily senses like that of the Corpine faithful. The Psyin temple was too blinded, too stuck in their own minds.
On that windy and cold morning, all the pieces were in place. The powerful Grand elves slept, the Psyin temple awaited a call that would never come, and the Witch sat like a viper waiting for the perfect moment to strike. How the day would end was only for fate to decide.