Jump? Every now and then people leapt from the lifts, but it wasn’t something Tif had ever considered doing. Her ris gave her incredible healing, it was true, but falling that far? Tif angled her head back and to the side to look over the rim. They were at the height of the lift’s cord, at least sixty feet up. More likely than not she’d break on the roofs or cobbles below, adding her blood to the pretty shop signs, and wouldn’t get back up.
Her eyes slid forward, toward the upcoming lift stop. Maybe she could jump when they were angling down and so closer to the ground? If it was too low though Udaru could probably follow her with his ability to hop from one place to the next. He might even be able to do it from this high up--she had no idea. Had the fairy thought this through? Tif didn’t want to upset someone who worked for Vak-Lav, but she also didn’t see the point in agreeing to a bad plan.
“I don’t think that will work,” Tif finally said, nervous how the fairy might react.
The creature giggled of all things. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”
“Why did you tell me to do it then?” Tif’s whisper was heated, which caught the ears of a nearby keshe couple who turned, giving her a strange look. Tif straightened and tried to smile at them normally. She didn’t care what they thought, but if their attention made Udaru or Rof notice the conversation she was having...
“If you can’t have a little fun,” the fairy chirped on, “what’s the point in life, am I right?
Tif’s jaw clicked. Fun, yes, that’s exactly what they were having. “So you’re just here to annoy me?” she muttered the words in her best impression of Udaru, moving her mouth as little as possible.
“Nope. First, I’m here to see about the goods.” Tif felt the fairy pull the collar of her shirt back, likely to confirm the seals running down her spine. While she waited, the keshe couple grew bored of watching her and returned to their conversation in earnest, which let Tif breathe a smidge easier. “They seem to all be here, so that’s a check. Next, I’m here to deliver a message.”
“...which is?” Tif said, annoyed when the fairy didn’t continue.
“Don’t do anything.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hmm, not sure how else to say it. Nothing. That’s what you should do.”
“You needed to tell me that?”
“‘Course we did. Someone stupid as you, trying to be a Gold knight a day after getting Blood tattoos might try to run away, and Vak-Lav doesn’t want that.”
“I’m not going to run,” Tif promised, ignoring the second insult the little creature had given her.
“Glad to hear it, because we have your parents. You slip up, they die. And not the nice way, you get me?”
Hearing someone who had just been giggling talk so casually about not only killing her ma and fa but torturing them first filled Tif with cold dread. “The man before you already told me that,” she managed to say.
“And a good thing, too,” the high voice said. “Next time you run into Byr, you should buy him a drink.”
Tif wasn’t able to follow the twisted logic. “For threatening me?”
“For saving you,” the fairy said with a laugh that hit the back of her neck, making Tif shiver. “He hadn’t caught you in time, sure as spring you’d have given the crest to the knights, which is the worst thing you coulda done. Your parents’d be dumped by now and I’d already have cut your throat.”
Tif swallowed---that had been her plan. Fairy’s were said to be quick as the wind, and the Life ris had cut her cheek easily. Without her Blood to heal, she might have died without knowing how.
“Is Vak-Lav coming for me when we get off the lift?” she asked. All this talk made Tif want to see and touch her parents again as soon as possible.
“Pfft, no. You go missing in Lercel, the underground is the first door the knight’s kick in,” the high voice said. “You vanish in Sah’Sah...” They didn’t say anything more after that, letting the implication hang.
Tif barely believed it; the city where aquaros were from and Tears Aspects were worshiped was a week away, if not more. “I’m staying with them that long?”
“You’re not doing anything, remember? Now shush it until we talk again.”
“Please, how are my parents? Is Awt watching them?”
Tif felt queasy pushing her luck after being told to be quiet, but she had to ask. The fairy, however, didn’t respond, and after a time of hearing just the wind whistling past her ears, Tif slowly turned around. There was no one there. Tif wanted to believe that she’d imagined the whole exchange, but the dried blood on her fingertips was proof of the fairy’s visit.
The lift descended to a stop, one of the ones Tif used to run by when traveling from her spot in front of Meh-Vin’s to home. It felt like forever ago that she had last been on the street taking money from marks over a simple game of das. She missed it desperately and then got mad at herself for feeling that way.
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She needed to talk with Pep, that’s what, but when she opened her hand--
“Oh no, Pep, I’m sorry.”
Pep’s left side was smudged, the eye and mouth rubbed near to gone, probably from Tif sweating while talking to that murderous fairy.
“First fire we have on the way to Sah’Sah, I’ll freshen you up, I swear.”
Tif knew Pep forgave her--Pep always did--but it made her feel better to say it aloud all the same.
“Alright then, how we playing this?”
So, the underground was confident that the knights would go to Sah’Sah first and had a plan to steal Tif away when they arrived. She’d obviously help the plan succeed when it happened, but until then there wasn’t much she could do, at least not on that score. As for her parents…she tightened her Pep hand into a fist. They’d be okay, they had to be. Vak-Lav was crafty and must know that the best way of getting the Blood ris back from Tif was keeping her happy--or at least not vengeful. The underground might starve her parents some out of pettiness, but to her ma and fa that would be no different than a lean week. And as for treatment worse than that…if Tif let herself think too far in that direction, she’d barely be able to put one foot in front of the next, and that wouldn’t do anyone--her parents especially--any good.
The truth was that Tif had been rushing in blind ever since the lotto draw, which was a surefire way to end up somewhere you don’t want to be her fa always said.
“Well, we’re done with that.” Tif opened her Pep hand back up, letting them both see the opportunities around them.
She hadn’t lost her Blood ris yet and wouldn’t anytime soon. Her companions were knights who were about to train a new recruit--training she could maybe be a part of. If not, she could watch and learn, and keep practicing on her own. If they weren’t hobbling her in Lercel, she doubted they would in the wilds where she’d have no place to run and hide. And she was going to get to see those wilds, finally, walk in them, live in them, and prove that she could do what she’d always told Pep she would. This wasn’t how Tif had expected her life as a knight to start, but you didn’t complain when you won a round of das with different tiles than you planned. You thanked the Aspects for favoring you and hoped they did so again.
Her mind made up, Tif rolled her shoulders back and marched over to where the division leader and Rof stood. She was partway to them when she caught movement in the sky. At first Tif thought it was more fairies come to take her away, and she tensed. But instead of traveling in a straight path like a creature that flew would would, whatever it was she had seen disappeared. Barely a moment later they reappeared closer, then vanished again, and the next time she spotted them they were almost on top of the lift, as high above the great wood and metal bucket as the lift traveled above the street. There were two of them she could see now, but the distance and angle made it tough to determine exactly who or what they were. They winked out of existence again, just like...
Tif turned to Udaru and saw two person-shaped shimmers flicker into existence beside the aquaros. The hazy distortion was similar to a Gold ris shroud, but no one was there. Then a man and a female keshe appeared beside the reptilian creature, the division leader barely reacting as they both thumped down on the lift.
“You were flying!” Tif said excitedly, covering the remaining distance between them quickly.
The human man, wearing the tabard of the southern patrol division, turned to regard her. He smiled in an affable way, showing some age lines in the far corners of his eyes, making him probably twice her age. He took her in and then Rof, as well.
“Two new recruits?” he said to the aquaros. “That’s a good haul, Commander!”
“Do we have tears enough for that?” the keshe woman said. She was rail thin but looked to have a wiry strength.
“Just the one,” Udaru answered, croaking the three words out. “Rof,” the aquaros said, pointing to the new arrivals with a taloned hand, “This is Yuu-Fen and Bes-Ahl, your senior knights. If I am ever not present, you will follow their commands.”
Rof nodded without much reaction, and when Udaru didn’t immediately continue, Tif knew an opportunity when she saw one.
“I’m Tif,” she said. The man, Yuu, was closer, so she lifted a hand toward him.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “I’d give it a shake, but well…”--he eyed the Blood ris on her fingers pointedly--“you know.”
Tif nodded and dropped her arm. She’d need to get some gloves.
“And why are you here?” he was kind enough to ask.
“On a detour,” she said with a smile.
“Okay,” Yuu-Fen said with a chuckle, “I’ll play. Detour from what?”
“I’m on my way to becoming a knight. The Archon got me during the third challenge, but when we play das again, I’ll be ready.”
“You...challenged the Archon,” he said.
“To a game of das?” the keshe finished.
Their incredulous tone made Tif feel like she needed to explain herself a bit. “I’m a pretty good das player.”
“With that much Gold, she can know what you want before you do,” the thin keshe said.
Tif laughed, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. “It did seem that way, but she actually played by moving the pieces, and with this”--she held up her red arms--”I didn’t have much of a chance against that. But now I get to travel with you all. I hear Sah’Sah is surrounded by so much water you can’t see the end of it.” Having lived her whole life on a mountain, she couldn’t imagine what that would be like. “Is it true?”
Yuu frowned and then held up a finger for her to wait while turning to others. “Remind me, it’s been a while since we’ve had to escort someone with a ris debt. Don’t they normally spend the first few days crying?”
“Already did a bit of that,” Tif said, getting an appraising look from all of them, even dark-eyed Rof. “Needed to, it’s true. But that’s done now, and I’m hoping you three can train me.”
“Train you in Blood ris?” the female keshe scoffed.
“I want to be a knight of Gold,” Tif hurried on before anyone else could object. “And it won’t be a waste. I may be losing my ris now, but I’ll get more later.” They didn’t look convinced, so she added, “I know Death is getting more dangerous. I don’t need to be a burden on the journey. I can help.”
“Well...that’s a new one,” the human said to the other two knights.
“Commander?” the keshe asked.
Udaru’s head cocked toward Tif, watching her closely with one side-set eye. The aquaros’s mouth cracked open slightly, words hissing between teeth.
“We shall see.”
Tif smiled in relief. It was a start.