"Lucas!" Her voice yelled amidst the sounds of screeching metal on metal and gunfire. "Lucas, help me!"
Lucas tried to stand, but his legs refused to work. His heart raced in his chest, and he watched as the train car began to tear itself apart. He felt helpless, shell-shocked.
"Please! Lucas!"
"Lethe!" Lucas screamed back. The smoke in his throat tore and scratched and the sound of his voice was shredded by the sounds of the wind and the train itself as it hurtled down the tracks. He bled from wounds all over his body, and with each passing moment the world seemed to get hazier and hazier. He struggled to keep his eyes open as he watched Lethe struggle against shadowy men whose arms held hers back. She thrashed violently against them to no avail.
"Let me go!" Lethe yelled - her voice rose above everything else. Lucas tasted blood in his mouth as he tried to force himself to stand again but felt the flat of a boot press against his spine. He tried to pull away from the phantom hands, but they tore at his clothes and his skin like the wind ripping through the shattered compartment.
The train car split in two with a shuddering screech. Pulled to his feet, he screamed, but no sounds came. The half of the train with Lethe and her captors moved ever faster away, and a ring of terrible daylight began to separate her from Lucas.
Forever.
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Spring 644
"Hey, boy, you asleep again?" The gruff man's voice roused Lucas from his dream. "Just like you Riamal Haven kids to be lazy as all blazes. Didn't sleep enough last night?"
"Not really," Lucas sat up slowly, shaking his head. He slumped miserably against the passenger door of the truck. The bed of the truck had been cold - the man had slept in the cab, leaving Lucas alone with nothing but the night sky to keep him warm. After being shaken awake before the sun had even come up, they'd left Teliander with at least a thousand miles left to drive. The midday sun shone high over the grasslands along the freeway.
"Y'know," he continued, coughing as he took a drag on a cigarette, "in my day, we didn't have the luxury of being able to just go an' do whatever the blazes we wanted to go an' do, you hear me, boy? Cybele only knows where that dumbass got the cash to pay me for this. And what's with the noises, huh? Y'gettin' attacked by beasties or somethin'?"
Still groggy, Lucas looked around quietly. A deer ran alongside the road. The man blew another thick cloud of smoke into the cab with a cough. "Whatever, kid. That guy didn't pay me to talk to ya, anyway," the man said with a curt shake of his head.
The dream Lucas woke from had been a recurring nightmare. It'd been a terrible memory; one he'd been actively trying to repress for months now - since Lethe was captured. He felt a flicker of pain from where his broken ribs had only freshly healed. He was so powerless then. So weak. And begrudgingly, he knew he was still weak. But this journey would be a chance to change that.
Lucas continued to stare off into the nothingness alongside the highway as the gruff man smoked and coughed. It was a long way to Burns' Mill, a tiny farm community in the western part of Velus, in the rainshadow of the high peaks of the Alaerian range. It was a dream offer for Lucas - Jeremy, the truck's driver, had dangled a golden offer of work at a ranch his friend owned out there. It wasn't going to be easy work by any means, but it would offer Lucas a chance at a life outside of the slums of Riamal Haven. It would be food, shelter, money - a chance at living.
Jeremy had arrived at the communal home in which Lucas lived with Lethe, other runaways, and orphans two weeks prior, selling vegetables and fruit out of the back of his truck. Lucas had overheard him speaking with Rocky, the owner of the communal home, about needing farmhands for the planting season. Lucas' name had come up, and after some negotiation on price, Lucas packed his meager duffel bag of belongings and waited for the day of departure.
Rocky had told Lucas how it broke his heart to see him go, but he knew that deep down it was the right thing to do. Rocky had saved his life years prior, and now, he was saving it again. Lucas sighed as he looked at the rearview mirror. Riamal Haven was long and away now.
Jeremy had dropped the kindly facade once the truck left town. Lucas felt uncomfortable around the man, who reeked of booze and cigarettes. His yellowed fingers clutched the steering wheel as he flicked ash off the cigarette out the window of the truck.
"Good goddess, I need a vacation. You ever been on a vacation before?" Jeremy said, stubbing out his cigarette into a too-full ashtray. "Those mountains over there. The Aquilas, or whatever-have-you. That big one right there, Mt. Sylva. My ex-wife's got a house up on the other side of there."
Lucas nodded quietly.
"Figures a kid from the slums ain't never been on a vacation before. Probably never been anywhere other than the streets," he said with a harsh guffaw. Lucas furrowed his eyebrows. "Gonna have to scrub down the bed of the truck when you're gone. Ain't wantin' no bedbugs or whatever. That guy's a moron keepin' you kids in a place like that."
"He's not a moron," Lucas blurted, and the man turned slowly towards him, taking his eyes off the road.
"Did I ask your opinion? The only reason I'm doin' any of this is because he paid me good. He's a moron, but he's got money. So shut it."
An oncoming vehicle honked, and Jeremy jerked the vehicle back into the lane, cursing up a storm as Lucas shrank back against the door of the truck.
"Talk to me like that again, boy, and you'll ride in the bed for the rest of the trip. Hear me?"
"Yes sir," Lucas sighed as Jeremy honked at someone in front him. Life in the slums of Riamal Haven had taught him to quickly defer to authority to avoid trouble - the police had let him slide more than once. No matter how many times he bowed his head and let something happen, though, he hated every minute of doing so.
That's why Lethe's gone.
"Goddamn kids," Jeremy scowled. "I got one somewhere out there. Don't care about 'er. Never met 'er. Mother was some whore, up somewhere in the north. Best pussy in the North, they called her. I didn't care. She was a liar though. Got knocked up, said it was mine. You believe that?" He shook his head with disdain. "Your mother a whore, boy? That why you were livin' like that?" He laughed at his own joke. "Don't answer me. I don't care and I don't wanna know."
Lucas hadn't always lived in the slums, or in a four by six foot plywood-walled bunk bed room in a converted warehouse. And one thing was for certain - his mother was very much not a whore.
The last half-decade had been a whirlwind of misery and survival for Lucas. His parents had been slaughtered in a hail of gunfire at his family home in Mormont. It'd been green and beautiful in the springs there, and the winters were always full of snow and hot chocolate by the hearth with his parents. Lucas felt wistful as he remembered the rushing brooks and gently rolling hills. The tall pines towered along the family's property line had sheltered him the night of the murders. He could hear disembodied voices calling his name from the house - voices he did not know, would never know - calling him like hyenas hungry for another kill.
Days passed and he'd found himself aboard a train to Valdena, the capital of Noctavia. He'd been scrounging food from a trash can at the station in Mormont when a stranger gave him money for a train ticket and a hot meal. The man was tall and kind, but his face had faded from Lucas' memory. When the man offered to provide Lucas a place to stay, Lucas had run away - he was terrified of everyone.
He was nine years old then. His first night in Valdena, a police officer whisked him off to Riamal Haven, a part of the city known for being home to "undesirables" as the rich folks of Valdena called them. Lucas spent weeks diving into the dumpsters of restaurants and shoplifting clothing and other supplies to survive before Rocky chanced upon him one fateful evening.
He'd come to the communal home frail and terrified. That's when he met Lethe, two years his senior. She was tall for her age, lanky. She had eyes that feared nothing.
She was so afraid then.
"Got another crossing comin' up here, kid," Jeremy said, lighting another cigarette. "I fuckin' hate goin' into Velus, all red tape and no brains. Don't say nothin' to them, y'hear me?"
Borders on the continent of Terrah were lightly guarded by each country's military, with the exception of the Noctavian Empire, where a near-constant war with Elegir to the east had kept tensions high for anyone trying to leave. At the border crossing with Alaeris the previous day, Lucas had posed as Jeremy's son to be let across. He barely knew the man, and it gave him a sick feeling in his gut to think of having to pretend that way once more.
Alaeris, a mountainous region to the south, had proclaimed neutrality and was, like Beldara to its west and Velus to its east, by and large peaceful. Irusis, the island chain where Lucas supposed the "best pussy in the North" lived, was predominantly concerned with its own affairs and stayed out of the continent's strife.
Lucas hadn't been many places, but he'd seen them in pictures. One of his few joys living in Rocky's care were the books he'd been able to read. The one that'd stood out most was Terracius Cartographia, a Noctavian Empire-sanctioned series of atlases that covered the entirety of the globe. He'd learned so much from those books, and getting to see even this desolate stretch of highway was new and exciting to him.
If only it weren't in these circumstances, Lucas grimaced, turning back towards the window. He heard Jeremy grunt again.
"Shoulda charged that fat piece of shit some extra money for your bullshit attitude, kid. I got enough stress in my life, and the pay's barely worth it to be dealin' with some slum brat." Jeremy breathed a cloud of smoke into the car and Lucas tried not to cough.
It was late in the month of Conia now, just weeks from the summer solstice. The trees on the roadside were blooming with fresh leaves, and Lucas listened to the calls of chickadees and whippoorwills in the distance. Such sounds reminded him of home. It all seemed too far away these days.
"Look alive, slum boy," Jeremy said as the truck pulled into the line for the border crossing. "An' remember, you don't say shit. You're my son and you're mute, y'hear me?"
Lucas grunted and nodded. Jeremy flashed a yellowed smile as he took another drag on the cigarette. "Good. Cooperative."
At the gate, the border guard looked over the truck and Jeremy with scrutiny. Her eyes pierced Lucas as if they knew too much.
"Name and destination," the woman said robotically, her voice crackling over the loudspeaker. Jeremy pulled some papers out of the center console and placed them into the box at the window, and the woman reviewed them.
"Jeremy Willis. I sell vegetables. This kid's my son. We're goin' to Burns' Mill."
The woman looked to him and to Lucas, then back to him again.
"Are you sure about that, sir? Burns' Mill is..."
Jeremy grunted. "Look, I ain't questionin' you about what yer kids look like. His mother was from the Minervas, alright? Pale as a Cybele-damned ghost."
The woman sighed as she typed something into the keyboard. Jeremy shot Lucas a look that rattled his bones.
"Mmhm. Alright. Go on through," she said, clearly unenthused by the encounter. Jeremy nodded at the woman, but she ignored him. Lucas wondered what she could've meant about Burns' Mill, but he felt too anxious to ask.
"Welcome to Velus, kid," Jeremy laughed as they drove away from the gate. "Goddess, I hate it here."
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Hours passed in silence as the mountains of Alaeris faded into the distance, replaced by the treetops lining the highways of northern Velus. Since the crossing, Lucas had been in and out of sleep. This time, however, Jeremy had largely left him alone, preferring the company of whatever awful radio program he'd been listening to. The spells of sleep were dreamless, mercifully. No more images of Lethe being held and yanked and punched at. No more thoughts of screaming and rings of burning light.
Lucas sat up and stretched. From the signs on the roadside and what Lucas knew about the area, Burns' Mill would be coming up soon. The sun was slowly beginning to dip below the horizon and the peach-orange moon Deneb had already started to make its presence known, casting a warm glow over the Velusian countryside. Jeremy hacked loudly, breaking the peace.
"So when we get there," he coughed, "I ain't stickin' around, alright? We're gonna get you to where you're goin' and I'm outta here. Thinkin' about a cold beer right now and gettin' the crick outta my back."
Lucas nodded, but Jeremy ignored him.
"Kids are bad fuckin' luck," he continued as the truck jolted hard and swayed as it hit a pothole, rupturing one of the front tires.
"Goddess damnit, kid, distractin' me, look what ya made me do! This shit's on you! You're bad luck, y'know that?"
Lucas flinched as Jeremy slammed his hands on the steering wheel before maneuvering the truck onto the shoulder.
"Hurry up! Get outta the truck, idiot! We're losin' light and you're sittin' there like you're high on drugs or something? Move!" Jeremy growled as he threw the truck door open and trudged towards the trailer. The sun was almost gone now, and the quarter of Deneb showing made everything feel eerie. Lucas could hear Jeremy cursing and felt his stomach clench.
"Ugh, you ain't gonna be able to help with this one. Completely useless, kid. I gotta call for help on this, the fuckin' axle's toast," Jeremy said, spitting on the ground as Lucas walked around the front of the truck. "Well! You fucked up coming with me, kid! Looks like you ain't gettin' where you're goin' after all."
Jeremy pulled a SGNL device from his pocket and dialed a number as he walked down towards the back of the trailer. Lucas felt the chill of the breeze on his exposed arms and all of the hair stood on end. Alone? Stuck here? What does he mean? Lucas thought, feeling sick indeed. He followed Jeremy around the back of the truck, where the shadows cast his face in a terrifying light.
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"What the fuck? Hold on, man, I gotta take care of somethin'," Jeremy said, closing the SGNL, and Lucas took a step back.
"I'm sorry," Lucas said, continuing to back away. He could see the hatred in Jeremy's eyes and he felt like he was going to throw up.
"You keep fuckin' up, kid," Jeremy said, advancing. "You go sit in front of this truck right now and you wait there, do you hear me?"
Lucas nodded, feeling the hair on his neck stand on end. He did as he was told - as he was used to doing - in Riamal Haven, if you didn't listen to what someone told you to do, you were wont to get stabbed or shot, so compliance was necessary. But here? Lucas thought, his eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the headlights.
I could run but I'd die alone out here. We're miles from anything.
Lucas shivered as Deneb rose higher in the night sky. All around were a panoply of stars, the vastness of space around Terracius so beautiful it was almost overwhelming. He wasn't used to this kind of darkness, but it reminded him of his childhood as so many joyful things tended to do. While Jeremy worked, cursing all the while, Lucas traced constellations as he remembered his mother's voice telling him which one was which. He'd almost lost himself in the memory when a loud clang interrupted the quiet.
"Boy! Get back here! Now!"
Lucas gulped as the wind continued to kick up. The jacket he'd brought wasn't quite enough to contend with the wind on the plains, and the wind had a cutting edge to it this evening. He took slow footsteps as the clenching in his stomach turned into a full-on wringing, and he could hear Jeremy cursing even more angrily now.
"Well, kid, looks like you're gonna pay for this," Jeremy said, sitting on the tailgate of the trailer as Lucas emerged into the low light. He stood up and loomed towards Lucas, face in shadow again. "Give me the rest of your cash. I know you've got some in that bag of yours."
"What?" Lucas said, stepping back. The bag. Lucas' bag was stashed under the glove compartment in the cab, and Lucas went wide-eyed as he bolted towards the cab of the truck. Jeremy followed in swift pursuit, his speed surprising for what Lucas had previously assumed was someone that could have been his grandfather. Lucas' hand found the handle of the cab door and pulled it but could not get in before Jeremy caught up. Jeremy grabbed Lucas under the arm and wrenched him to the ground, throwing him with force. Lucas sputtered as he hit the pavement.
"Don't you even fucking think about it," Jeremy said, turning over his shoulder as he rifled through Lucas' bag. He pulled out the pouch with Lucas' cash in it, and Lucas felt his heart race. He had to do something, even if it was stupid.
He picked up a rock from the pavement and threw it towards Jeremy, but it missed and ricocheted off the cab frame. At once, Jeremy dropped the bag and rounded quickly towards Lucas, who scooted backwards towards the guardrail. Then, Lucas saw it. He saw the gleam of silver in Jeremy's hand, and he scrambled backwards until he couldn't move - his mouth was dry, his heart raced. He felt totally, utterly frozen with fear.
Just like the day on the train. Just like when you failed Lethe. This is where you die, isn't it?
"I'm sorry, I just wanted to..." Lucas started, but Jeremy simply stood there. He took a step forward. Lucas looked towards Jeremy's eyes but no longer saw light.
"You think you can throw a fucking rock at me, kid? You think I tolerate that kinda bullshit? Huh?"
Before Lucas could react, Jeremy kicked him in the side. Lucas could hear his ribs crack as he crumpled into the fetal position, trying to protect his head.
"You think I haven't killed someone before, boy? Hm? You think I'm scared to kill you!?" Jeremy shouted as Lucas wept. The shout echoed out into the cruel emptiness of the night. The weeping was about all Lucas could do; he had to just accept that it was his time now. How long he'd survived just for all of it to end in the cold dark on the side of the highway.
Another kick and Lucas felt the world begin to slip around him. The pavement was cold. The world was bitter and brutal, and he felt any hope he'd had of making a new life out of this opportunity growing dimmer.
What would Rocky think? Lucas thought as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, two lights were coming towards them from the south.
Jeremy spat on Lucas as he stomped back towards the trailer.
"Looks like my help's here. You better find somewhere to hide."
Lucas couldn't move as pain wracked his body. He knew at least one of his ribs was broken by how much drawing in breath hurt, and the shock of the attack had left him virtually paralyzed.
"I said move," Jeremy said, the light from the truck gleaming off his knife. Lucas gathered everything he had left to pull himself further off the shoulder into the blackness of the brush. He laid there, staring up at those too-beautiful stars. Every single breath hurt.
In the near distance he heard Jeremy laughing with the man who had come to help him replace the axle. There were sounds of drills and tools and more laughter as all of the sound seemed to be blanketed in the gauzy sounds of gusting winds. Lucas felt cold. Miserably, terribly cold.
Clouds covered Deneb and slowly swelled across the sky. Lucas struggled to breathe, exhausted and hungry. He could hear the faintest wisps of Jeremy's wicked laughter as both vehicles disappeared into the night in seemingly fast motion - everything felt out of sync, a horrifying disconnected feeling. Lucas knew he was running out of time. He looked back towards the moon and saw no light.
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Joel Leonart had the window of his truck down as the cool night air filtered on through. A favorite song played on the stereo, its lulling beat almost hypnotic as bass resonated through the night. Joel knew he had to stay awake. It had been a long drive from Teliander, where he'd spent the night at a friend's while traveling home from work. He hadn't lived in Cygnus very long, and he lamented at just how miserable the commute was from the small farming town.
Damnable Empire, he thought, drumming his fingers in time on the wheel. An associate of his had requested his presence in the coastal town of Teliander, a small but beautiful place that served as the only divider between the Noctavian Empire and Elegir, the sprawling country on Terrah's east coast.
He had been driving since the morning but knew there was no way to get back to Cygnus before he passed out from exhaustion. There were a few small highway-side town along the way, and the SGNL device mounted on his dashboard displayed a barebones map. It was so desolate out here - most of Velus centered around its capital, Cape Hale, and its surrounding port towns, but the Empire had sent him to Cygnus.
Cygnus! Joel thought, irritated. Nothing there but farmers and wide open spaces where nothing'll grow.
He didn't hate it, but it was nothing like his old home in Stormhill Ridge. However, his wife, Espee, did hate the move. She had been struggling to adjust for the three months that they'd lived there. There were too many creature comforts and conveniences in the mountain suburb and adjusting to the slow pace of life in the country had been maddening for her. She missed her friends, she missed her book club, she missed her job at the bookstore.
Joel's daughter Ceres also hated the move, perhaps even moreso than Espee. He'd had no idea how viscerally twelve year old Ceres would've reacted to the news until she burst into tears upon receiving it. She'd locked herself in her room for three days when he'd told her the house she grew up in was being sold and refused to come out even for meals - which Espee ended up having to crack open the door and wedge in carefully.
They were probably still stewing about being trapped in the podunk nowhere that was Cygnus. They'd made few acquaintances, let alone friends. At least the schools were reasonable, Joel thought. Cygnus was a town of 500 people situated in central Velus, once known for its mining exports. But that - all of that was centuries ago. The land had been stripped of its mineral goods as the decades passed and the ground was barely arable for farming.
So why the blazes did they send me there?
The song changed and Joel hummed along as a woman's voice sailed over cascading strings and guitars. The call of sleep continued its alluring song though, and no matter what Joel did, he knew he'd have to get off the road soon, even if it meant falling asleep in his truck. There was a blanket in the bed of the truck, but he knew he needed to wash it before he could use it again.
He still smelled her on his shirt, which was a problem. He'd asked her not to wear her perfume, but she did all the same - the same intoxicating smell that had driven him, blackout drunk, into kissing her for the first time. How it had escalated from there.
Out of sight, out of mind, Joel thought somberly, the memory of her warmth distracting him from the road. He knew he wouldn't need to go to Teliander any time soon, but part of him carried the faintest wish of wanting to make that interminable drive again.
Joel's thoughts detached themselves from that warmth and returned to the crispness of the breeze - the road down past the remains of where Burns' Mill had been before it ironically burned to the ground in a wildfire the previous month was a long stretch with no stops. He'd need to stop in Shera to find a room for the night, but the chances of any motel still having vacancy this late in the night were slim to nil. Joel sighed. The clock clicked over to 0100, and his eyes began to droop as the mile marker signs passed.
A blue flash shocked him from the clutches of sleep.
"What in blazes was that?" Joel said to himself out loud, looking around for the source of the flash. He felt an overwhelming need to stop the truck and did so, pulling off onto the shoulder. He grabbed a flashlight from the glovebox and turned it on as he slipped on a jacket before stepping out onto the road. There were no other cars around for miles, and he felt stupid standing there as the wind beat against him.
He turned back towards the west where he thought he saw the light but saw nothing. He shone his beam into the darkness.
"Hello? Is someone there?" Joel yelled, eyes scanning in all directions. "If there's someone out here, say something!"
He turned around again, stepping away from the truck. He'd just replaced the batteries in the flashlight, so there were no concerns about running out of power. The only thing out here that could cause trouble were the coyotes, but they usually stayed away from the highway.
Where did that come from? Joel thought as the moments passed. He stepped out towards the guardrail on the opposite side of the road and shone the beam down the gentle embankment.
Nothing there.
I can't have imagined that, Joel frowned, walking back towards his truck. There's just no way. I'm not that tired that I'm hallucinating light, am I?
The beam caught something reflective in the distance. It wasn't moving - Joel approached slowly, quietly. If it was something that could hurt him, he wouldn't want to scare it. He approached the guardrail and shone the flashlight into the brush - where it caught light on... fabric?
"Cybele help me," Joel said, noticing the boy's body in the brush. "Oh no, oh no," he said, climbing over the rail and approaching. He watched silently for a moment, mind racing with the horror of the moment. He couldn't be older than Ceres. What was he doing out here? Who killed this boy? Who left him here like this?
Joel knelt down and put the light towards the boy. He reached for his wrist to check for a pulse and the boy - the dead boy - was alive. The heartbeats were slow, but he was alive.
Joel shook the boy's shoulders, hoping to rouse him. He noticed the blood trickle that ran down the side of the boy's cheek and prayed to the Goddess that he wasn't too late to help him.
The boy opened his blue eyes. He coughed, crunching upon himself in obvious pain.
"Stay there," Joel said, taking off his jacket and covering the boy. "I'm going to get us help, okay? Just stay there. You're going to be alright. I promise you."
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Another scary dream, Caroline Fontaine thought as she sat on the window ledge of her apartment's living room, looking out at the long grass blowing in the ocean breeze. It was the third night in a row that she'd woken up abruptly from what she thought was a deep sleep, but she didn't know what to make of it. In the dreams, she'd seen terrible, faceless things - everything cast in a ghastly cerulean hue. She'd grown to hate the color over the last few months.
It was the same color as her sister's room - the sister who died when Caroline was 9 - the terror of that day remained too prevalent, apparently. Caroline sipped her cup of chamomile tea as the wind changed direction and blew the smell of the sea into her room. That, too, reminded her of home, but in much happier ways.
She had been at Freyja Chapel in western Elegir for more than twelve years now. Her official ceremony to become the Vestal of the Chapel had been earlier that afternoon, and it was something she had been dreaming of since the first day she came to the beautiful stone halls all those years ago.
The High Vestal looked so proud, she thought, trying to cast out the bad dream and replace it with thoughts of High Vestal Vivienne's smile or Turonn's laughter. They were the closest thing she had to family over a thousand miles from home like this, and while Larnell on Alaeris's western shore was truly home, the two of them had done wonders to make this place home, too.
Serving the Church had been a calling for her since the day Phoebe died. She had wanted to be a doctor back then, she remembered. She'd had a lab coat and a stethoscope and fake tools and ran tests on her parents. Not on Phoebe though. She was always too frail, too small. Born "wrong", her Aunt Tina had lamented, but Caroline knew now that was never the truth. There was nothing wrong with Phoebe, Caroline thought, her mind returning to that dark space again. Nothing at all.
Clouds covered Deneb as she drank the last of the tea, closing the window and shutting out the breeze that had been cutting through her nightclothes. The living room was spartan - a couch, a plant, a Technivision mounted on the wall when she had any sort of leisure time. She was not much for wanting to entertain guests, and the room made that apparent. From time to time, the High Vestal would come over and they would talk about any matter of things. Turonn as a man however was not allowed in her chambers - only women could enter a Vestal's chambers.
Caroline took solace in the comfort of her bedroom - while most expensive pleasures were frowned upon by the Cybelian Church, the High Vestal had turned a kind, blind eye towards Caroline's accumulation of pillows and blankets. A bookshelf stuffed to the gills stood proud against the side wall of the room, and a large bay window made up most of the back of it. The bed, comfortable and plush, was her favorite place. When she did not have to teach the Attendants, her wards, she was free to study and relax at her own pace.
But becoming a full Vestal came with its own set of new responsibilities, the High Vestal had cautioned her. Eventually, she would need to make the pilgrimage to Sha'ul in the south to the Cybelian Conclave - a journey spanning nearly five thousand miles over land. She was not permitted to board an airship, as stated in the holy scriptures - such usage of Technica was gravely frowned upon by the Grand Luminatrix.
A bloody backwards woman, Caroline thought, daring not to speak the words aloud. Caroline had grown up around Technica - she didn't mind using it but didn't keep up with the seemingly constant strides forward made with it. She'd barely worked out how to use the remote of her Technivision when a new model came out - and using a computer station was well out of her 'need to know'.
Her SGNL device sat on the nightstand next to the bed - she didn't like using it much either, mostly for anxiety of having to speak to people she couldn't see. It felt weird. Her mother and father would call from time to time. Uncle Gavin had died in the last year, and it seemed like her mother was making more of an effort to reach out to her in the wake of the death.
Caroline flopped back onto the bed, her strawberry-blonde hair flowing out every which way in a corona around her head. She had trimmed it recently but would be letting it grow out as per her new directives - she wondered what it would feel like once it grew past her buttocks. Her mother had joked that while she was a relatively slender woman that she'd inherited the "curse of curves" - and the leering eyes of people in town had caused her much consternation.
Turonn, however, saw to it that there was no further action than that. He stood a full foot taller than Caroline, and she considered him to be her shield, as did the rest of the Chapel. He'd come to the Church before she had, seeking salvation much in the same way. His dark skin revealed him as a man of the Irusis Isles, the frigid lands of the northern sea. He was probably Caroline's father's age, his hair flecked with only spots of grey. However, Caroline knew that she was safe in his gentle yet powerful presence. She always had been.
The morning would bring new challenges, but she didn't seem to mind at all. The faceless horrors of the dream were fading from her mind's eye as she turned out the light next to the bed and stared out the window. Deneb was shining again, its peach-orange light so gentle and calming. It reminded Caroline of home.
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A nurse tapped Joel on the shoulder, and he stirred from shallow sleep. He'd managed to get an ambulance out to the scene and followed it back to the clinic in Shera, forty miles down the road - adrenaline had flooded him then but it was more than gone now. He couldn't just leave that boy alone, though - he needed to make sure that he was alright.
What do I even tell Espee? Joel thought as the nurse led him into the room with the boy, who was now resting in the hospital bed. He had an intravenous line into his hand and looked so incredibly frail - like he hadn't eaten well his whole life.
"You were lucky you found him when you did," the nurse said, raising an eyebrow. "Another hour, he might've died. He had a lot of internal bleeding. No idea what could've happened to him, but it seems like it was on purpose."
"Who would do that to a boy?" Joel asked, and the nurse sighed. "What could he possibly have done?"
"I'm not sure I want to know," the nurse said, shaking her head unhappily. "We've heard of things like this happening before in this area, though. This is the first one who wasn't just outright dead."
"Were you able to find out anything about him?"
"We'll have to wait until he wakes up to ask," the nurse said, sighing again. "But for now, until we find some family of his to get in here, you're all he's got." She frowned and shook her head. "Wait, that came out wrong."
"No, you're right," Joel said, looking the boy over. So absolutely frail. "He's not my son, but I want to make sure that he survives. Maybe I am all he's got right now." The nurse touched Joel's arm and nodded.
"I'll leave you with him, then. Come get me if you need anything, alright?"
Joel smiled and took a seat in the chair next to the boy. He sat back and looked up at the ceiling. What will I tell Espee? What will she say? Am I even considering this right now? He's got to have family out there. He just has to.
The first rays of morning light eked in around the blinds, and the blooms of sunlight warmed the cold fluorescence of the hospital room as the boy slept.