“Still at the Forum..” Cassia looked down and pointed her fingers together. Ryke had to resist the urge to laugh when she suddenly turned so meek. “But I promise! They’re fine, you just disappeared to them.”
“So, let me get this straight.” He sat down next to her with a small chuckle. “You kidnapped someone in front of their friends. I instantly disappeared. They don’t know how or why. What do you think they’ll do?”
Cassia lifted her head up with a desperate smile on her face, grasping at straws. “They’d calmly go home and wait for you?”
“No! They’d flip the fuck out and panic!” Ryke knocked her lightly on her head and then roughly rubbed it, her green hair flying about in a viridian storm. “Take me back, now!”
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Lycus and Ofrir watched Ryke debate endlessly with the shopkeep. Ofrir himself could only wryly smile but Lycus knew better, moving on to look around the Forum himself. Ryke would always be stubborn about three things. Knowledge, Blacksmithing, and becoming a Centurion. The first two were passion while the third was his sense of ‘freedom and adventure’ that he never quite understood. He knew well enough to leave Ryke alone until he got his answer or got tired.
“How much is this?” He leaned down and picked up an amulet, a symbol of a tarnished iron serpent coiling up. Faint traces of a soft white could still be seen.
”Ten aes. 18 if you buy something else.” The slouching old man behind the stall grinned as he leaned forward in an attempt to get closer. Lycus saw his eyes abruptly widen at something behind him and then turned to see.
His eyes widened all the same, quickly paying for the amulet and then running back to Ofrir, the scholarly boy running around through the crowd asking if anyone’s seen Ryke. He too saw him abruptly disappear. The commotion startled many and Ofrir even began to grow threatening, grabbing some folks and getting in their faces.
The crowd began to stir, similarly looking for this young boy who suddenly disappeared. None wanted the youth to be lost nor to see his friends miss him, so they all eagerly began to look. Even the slouching old man joined in on the fun, seemingly uncaring as to the actual stakes.
“He just disappeared?”
“Apparently, but I think it was really a ghost that got him.”
“Ghosts? Wouldn’t it be a demon?”
“A demon would just eat him.”
“Even in public?”
“Definitely.”
People of the desert held close to their virtues but some men and women remained uninterested in the search, gossiping instead about what could have done it. Lycus blanched, quickly tugging on Ofrir’s sleeve to lead him out of the crowd. “We should get the Lanista..”
“For what?” The two slammed into Ryke’s chest face first and sent the duo stumbling back. Ryke could only laugh at the panicked look in their eyes. The entire crowd was wrapped up in a maelstrom of excitement and fear, the old man fanning the flames by describing just how Ryke 'disappeared’; causing even the passing Centurions to organise the scene with little success.
“You’re fine?” Lycus looked up at him with a start, feeling his heartbeat out of his chest. “You didn’t get grabbed by a ghost?”
“Ghost?”
“The people were saying only Ghosts could take someone..” Lycus suddenly felt the heavy hand of a raging Cassia on his cheek that left a bright red hand print. Stunned, the boy touched his cheek gingerly with his hand and looked at Ryke with wide eyes. Cassia herself looked at Ryke too, fury coursing through her eyes. “A ghost? Me? The audacity!”
Golden eyes looking across the people he surrounded himself with, Ryke sighed and finally looked at Cassia. Surging tides appeared within his irises. “Don’t hit my friends.”
“But he called me-”
“Don’t. Hit. My. Friends.”
Cassia puffed her cheeks out while he emphasised every word, looking back at Lycus to see him still gently massaging his cheek in pain. She looked back to Ryke with a forlorn expression. “I’m sorry..”
“Good.” He sighed, ruffling her hair. The two boys opposite him widened their eyes as they watched him play with air, then stared at him with a look of pity. Ofrir even put his hand to his face. “He’s gone crazy.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“You just saw him get slapped by nothing.”
“Did I?”
Ofrir looked at Lycus and the bright red mark, then back to Ryke who had his hand resting on air. “Is this a special talent? Did your imaginary friend come to life? I knew you were under a lot of pressure Ryke but..” Ofrir stopped. He suddenly felt danger.
“Cassia, slap him. Yes I know what I said.”
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The floating girl grinned, reeled her hand all the way back and slapped the scholar so hard his teeth began to ache. The two now sported an equally sized hand print on opposite cheeks, a stunned look on each of their faces.
“Thank you.” Ryke spoke and Cassia beamed. The girl enjoyed mischief a little too much. “If you’re not a ghost, what are you then?”
“A girl!”
“.. Right.”
It didn’t take long for Ryke to understand all he knew and Cassia didn’t appear to mind. Lycus and Ofrir took the knowledge rather well, considering they still had the pulsing red handprints on their face to prove it. When they asked why only Ryke could see her, he shrugged in response. “I don’t know either. Gaeldir says I have an eye talent, but he didn’t say much else.”
“So we can never see her?” Ofrir tossed a rock into the fountain, then leaned over the edge to see where the water came from. “We aren’t safe from the little menace..”
Cassia grinned as she was about to push the boy into the fountain, only to stop with a pout when Ryke glared at her. “No one else in the Bastion can see you?”
“No one.”
“What about the Praetorian?”
“Uhh, I think he’s aware of my presence, I guess?”
“But can’t see you?”
“Or hear me!”
“Right.”
Ryke groaned and the girl just smiled sheepishly. Lycus still looked catatonic ever since the slap, mumbling something quietly while Ofrir simply tried to hide the mark. He had no idea what to do with them all. Breathing in, he decided to focus on her. “How come you kidnapped me again?”
The pitiful scene of Cassia looking down and twiddling her thumbs reappeared. She kept looking up at him but would look back down at the ground every time. It made Ryke wonder how her neck didn’t hurt. He palmed her head with a hand and tilted her head up. “Speak speak, please.”
“Yes, uhm. I grabbed you-
“Kidnapped”
“Kidnapped you because you’re the only one who can see me and I felt lonely!”
She sped through the end of the sentence so fast that Ryke thanked the mother his hearing was already refined, unsure as to how much he’d have understood otherwise. She seemed so demanding at first, but now he understood where his sense of pity came from when he first laid eyes on her. He sighed. “I can’t do much about that.”
“Why not? I’m sure you have time!” She tugged on his sleeves. “You can even bring your other friends along, I don’t mind!”
“We really do have a lot..”
“Once a week. Please! You were looking at antiques and runic materials, right? I can help you find the good ones! Once a week!”
Smiling wryly, he could only think about it. Meditation every morning, a couple hours of training with the duo, lessons with Gaeldir and Sigmar..Ryke wanted to put in some forging time too, which was a large half of the time spent. That didn’t leave him much time to spend with Cassia. But once a week could be done. He looked down at the other two. “You two okay with meeting Cassia once a week?”
“Aye.”
“Sure! Quick question.” Lycus looked up, still touching his face. “How do we talk to her? So far the most communication we’ve had nearly crushed my jaw.”
“I.. translate?”
“Do you mean relay?”
“Yes.”
“That might work. Ofrir?”
“What if she slaps us again?”
Ryke grinned in response, sending a shudder down the boy’s spine. He had a feeling that the golden eyed boy and invisible girl would leave a mark on his psyche. “Fine, fine, I won’t worry abou the slaps. Little menace.”
Cassia stuck her tongue out at him and then turned back to Ryke with glowing lights in her eyes. She tugged on his sleeve again, staring up at him like a kid who lost their toy. “So? So?”
“.. Once a week. And you’ll take us to all the interesting parts of town, yeah?” Ryke extorted, though he didn’t really mind either way. He already basically said yes but he thought it would be fun for the group to visit all the exciting places in town. It definitely didn’t matter that she’d also take them to all the hidden gems that the people of the Bastion couldn’t identify.
Oddly reminiscent of a chicken, the girl nodded her head up and down furiously before lunging forward and wrapping her arms around the boy. Burying her head in his chest, she hugged him tight and lifted him nearly a full foot off the floor. Ryke quickly began slapping her back in an effort to get her to let go, feeling his bones creak and his lungs squeezed empty of air.
Finally being put down Ryke desperately gasped for air, not forgetting the way Lycus laughed at him or Ofrir simply grinned. The two saw his stomach suddenly squeeze before he was picked up and took some small solace in his pain that Ryke would definitely pay them back for. He couldn’t bear to direct his aggression towards Cassia when he saw the guilty look on her face.
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“Where’d they go?” Sigmar asked, his spear bound in leather and tightly strapped to his back. The room in front of him was filled with an incredible amount of fire affinity herbs, every breath he took filled his body with vigor unlike ever before, yet he focused more on the man opposite him. “The three kids. Where?”
Silex sighed. His stone armour shifted across his body at his command, The joints moved seamlessly and the rock was smooth like glass, not a single noise made even as he walked across the room. His eyes couldn’t meet Sigmars. “We don’t know.”
“You don’t.”
“We don’t have the people to monitor a bunch of candidates.”
“Fairrin Syvera’s son, Gaeldir Amata’s apprentice and my disciple. Bearer of a Violet Water affinity and creator of his own shaped vitality scripture. Synergized with a Taura. You couldn’t monitor spare people for him?”
The Stone Lotus Praetorian slid into his seat, shaking the room with his weight. Every breath filled the room with more pressure. He already knew all of that but hearing it again still made his chest feel stifled. “It’s not that we don’t have the men, Sigmar. The question is which.”