As Moran approached the Chief’s tent, he found Aurora standing outside with her arms crossed, wearing an annoyed expression that might just as well be her default face.
The antlers of her halfshape still protruded from her short blonde hair, a detail that caught his attention immediately.
He gave her a quick nod, gesturing subtly with his chin toward them.
Her eyes widened briefly as she caught his intention, and with a faint grimace, she shifted back into her Nonshape.
“Tsk,” she clicked her tongue,a sound that, after half a week of working together, Moran had come to recognize as her version of an invitation, or more accurately, a demand to ask what was bothering her.
“Jamala again?” he guessed. The kid was always trouble, or rather in trouble.
“Yeah,” she growled, launching into a torrent of words.
“That boy is impossible. The moment any girl bats an eye at him, he’s throwing himself into danger like an idiot in an attempt to impress her. Today, he jumped off the platform they’re using to haul supplies up the treehouse site and broke both his legs.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead and let out a sigh, the sound more angry than exasperated.
“And no matter how many times I tell him to stop, he just does it again. His parents don’t do a damn thing to help.”
Moran raised an eyebrow.
“Have you ever tried not healing him?”
Aurora snapped her gaze toward him.
“What kind of stupid idea is that? You want me to let him stay crippled for the rest of his life?”
Moran shook his head calmly.
“No, I meant just don’t heal him for a day or two. Let him stew in the consequences. Most of your cases happen because these kids know you’ll come running to fix everything the moment they mess up.”
He explained his observations from the past week.
“They’ve got no reason not to try a stupid stunt if they know Aunt Aurora is going to swoop in and make it all better. Let him feel the consequences for a bit. It might make him think twice next time.”
Aurora’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him, her voice a sharp bark.
“I am not an aunt,” she shot, though there was something else in her tone that Moran couldn’t quite place.
He shrugged casually.
“Just a figure of speech.”
“But you might have a point,” Aurora admitted after a moment of thought, resting her chin on her hand in thought.
“Honestly, I’ve already tried everything else at this point.And now that you suggested it...,”
She shot him a toothy grin that might as well belong to a wolf readying itself to tear apart a boar, "I can shift the blame on you if the partens come asking."
Moran looked befuddled. Was that an attempt at a joke? From Aurora of all people. Aparently wonders did happen.
"If it makes you happy," he then agreed to her scheme with a shurg.
Before the two could exchange another word, the shredded curtain behind them was pulled aside, and old man Bithlehem poked his head out.
His eyes were as clouded with alcohol as ever, and the familiar slur in his voice betrayed his usual state.
“C’mon, you two, we ain’t got all day. –hic– Get in here already,” he grumbled before retreating back inside.
Aurora rolled her eyes, and Moran sighed before the two followed him through the door.
Inside, eight chairs were arranged in a semicircle with Vestiya’s familiar wooden throne adding as the ninth in the middle.
Only two of them were occupied, with Bithlehem’s drunken form slouching into the third seat as they entered.
One of the other occupants was Groll, his hands resting on his knees, with one steadily jerking up and down.
The last was a heartless woman who looked barely alive.
Her pale, sunken features and muddy, unfocused eyes gave her the appearance of someone teetering on the edge of death.
As Moran and Aurora entered, the woman leaned forward slightly, her skeletal frame emphasized by the motion.
She crossed her fingers and arms in front of her, her gaze widening unnervingly as she studied the newcomers.
"Elders," Moran greeted them with a respectful nod.
Aurora, however, greeting each of those present individually. "Vestiya, Groll, Sareda," she said, her tone even but polite.
Unlike Moran's words, each acknowledged her in turn with a nod, though Groll added a brief wave of his hand before their collective attention shifted back to the man standing in front of them.
“I take it you’ve settled into the village well enough?” Vestiya remarked, her tone carrying its usual commanding air.
The once-weary chief now sat tall and composed on her wooden throne, her iron deficiency aparently entirely a thing of the past.
Her presence exuded authority, her posture reminiscent of a predator overseeing it's domain.
Moran inclined his head.
“Yes, Kai has been showing me around. Though, I have to say, your method of cleaning yourselves is... cold.”
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At this, the gaunt woman called Sareda let out a raspy snort, her frail frame quivering slightly as she spoke with a shaky, weathered voice.
“You’re quite the complainer, aren’t you, young man? Back in the day, before my Garan diverted the river through the village, we had to trek all the way across the wilderness to wash ourselves.”
She chuckled, a dry sound that reminded of stomping on long since fallen leaves.
“And let me tell you, more often than not, you’d come back dirtier than when you set out in the morning.”
Ending with a shake of her head she added. "And bestblood once it dries clings to fabric like flies on shit. Once it's set, there’s no getting it out, no matter how hard you scrub."
A fact that Moran had vertified every single morning since he had gained his freedom. His compfy clothes had gained a permanent brown pattern.
“Besides these minor inconveniences,” Vestiya interjected sharply, her voice slicing through the air like a blade, “I trust you’ve found nothing else lacking? Clothing, food, purpose?”
A hint of impatience seemed to drive her words, though her tone remained measured.
Minor inconvenience? Moran thought to himself. I wouldn’t exactly call freezing to death or catching an illness insignificant.
Yet he responded with a gratefull sounding. "Have all been provided."
There was no point in irritating the woman who was, in all likelihood, the only reason he had been accepted into the village at all.
“Weren’t we here to present our findings?” Aurora broke in, her tone blunt as usual. She nudged the conversation back on track—or rather, grabbed it by the hair and dragged it there.
“Right,” Moran admitted, pulling his notebook from his bag.
“Begin, then,” Vestiya said with a dismissive wave of her hand, leaning back into her throne.
Moran unfastened the small loops of thread he had bound his notebook with.
With a few flicks of his fingers, he detached the necessary sheets, walking around the room and sliding each person one page onto their laps.
Each one had a different drawing on it but they were all sketches of Galaida's body.
Vestiya's eyes barely burshed over the paper, while Sareda leaned down to inspect it closely while gnawing at her fingers.
Groll frowned at the page as it reached him, grabbing it with two fingers and brought it up to his eyes.
He tilted his head as though that might help him understand the mess of shapes and scribbles he saw.
While Moran settled back into this place in front of the three-person-crowd, Aurora leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, letting him take the lead.
"All right," Moran began, shuffeling through the pages to find his notes.
" First the helmet. It seems capable of generating a current... something similar to controlled lightning. I don’t fully understand how it works yet, but it’s key to the drone’s operation.”
The elders remained quiet, but from the less then whelmed expression on Vestiya's face he took that he rather not highlight things he didn't understand any further. <<<----BEsser
“The muscles are... augmented,” he continued.
“They’re woven with fine metal strings that channel the current. This allows for precise and coordinated movement. On top of that, some of the muscles and bones are fused with metal, likely to enhance their durability, thus allowing their sporadic movement."
Moran himself had never seen the creatures in action, but he had talked to Groll who had done his best to describe the drones uncanny kind of motion.
"It’s... advanced, to say the least.”
He waited a moment to let his audiance ask questions but instead they all just stared at him and his sketches, so he continued.
“The bodies are treated with some sort of preservative. Similar to formaldehyde....uh, a substance used to prevent decay...but far more effective. Whoever made this has an extraordinary understanding of how bodies work... and what they are composed of. In short, their desing is something I have yet to fully comprehent. All I know is that I would love to meet the person who could create such a complex system. I bet...”
He trailed off, not noticing the cold stares he was earning form his crowd.
“So to summorize you’ve learned nothing of value.” Cut him off, her voice laced with a dangerous tone.
Moran winced but kept his composure. “That’s not..."
"What my 'partner' neglected to mention...,"Aurora interrupted, pushing herself off the wall to stand near him. Instantly the attention of the elders snapped to her.
"Is that these creatures aren't the product of any rite, sorcery or ability, but a contraption made consists of a corpse and some metal."
To Moran's suprise the healer had cut in to help him, so he just stood there and nodded.
He had no idea why that was such a big deal, but if she sold their results as something worthwhile and in turn made him look good, he was all for it.
"This suggests," Aurora continued, her tone sharpening just enough to pull attention taut, "that we might have been wrong about the Alchemist. He may not be a necromancer after all."
That statement hit the room like a dropped stone.
Groll’s jaw slackened, Sareda froze mid-gnaw on her fingernail, her eyes almost oogling out of their socets, and Vestiya’s.... left eyebrow inched upward.
"What, then?" the chief asked, her voice almost neutral. Maybe a bit too neutral
Aurora gestured briefly toward Moran before continuing.
"Considering that he was able to comprehend at least parts of how the Alchemist...," her eyes darkened, her voice dropping venomously, "...desecrates the bodies of our people and factoring in that none of the drones show even the faintest trace of aura. Instead, they run on electricity, as Zaspa also confirmed."
She paused, letting the weight of her words hang before delivering the blow.
"I suspect instead of a necromancer he is just like Moran. Just a foreigner who knows a few things."
Moran wasn't sure whether he should feel reliefed or insulted, thus he opted for the latter.
The never of this woman to instult him to his face!
The silence that followed her statement was heavy like Hungry Ocean water.
Moran shuffled awkwardly.
The elders eyes darted between their healer, him and his sketches back and forth, like the were looking for something to confirm Aurora's hypothesis.
Only Vestiya's eyes lingered on the blonde woman.
"If that is true...," The chief began and Aurora continued her thought.
"If that’s true, it changes everything. Knowledge may be dangerous, but not as dangerous as what Rubera could do. Moran and the Alchemist might be smart or knowledgable, though my partner has given me ample opportunity to doubt that during the last four days... however people that are only smart are easy to kill."
She nodded towards Moran, a thin smile forming on her lips. "If you want I could demonstrate."
He took a theatralic step back to add to what he hoped to be a joke.
Vestiya jerked her head form left to right back to her left. Finally she licked her lips and parted them to speak.
"This... is nothing but speculation thus far?" The chief asked the other woman.
Aurora raised an eyebrow.
"It’s a hypothesis, drawn from a very reliable source."
Her gaze locked with Vestiya's.
"Think about it. If the Alchemist were truly on the level of the Great Fisher or Rubera, would he be hiding in the shadows, chipping away at us bit by bit? No, he would hunt us like beasts. He’d march in here and take whatever or whoever he wanted."
The room was silent, save for the faint creak of Vestiya adjusting her weight on her wooden throne.
"And another thing," Aurora added, her voice taking on a casual edge, as though stating an afterthought.
"Besides, this monster was very quiet since the whole thing with the girl happened," The old woman cut in, squeezing her opinion into the conversation between Vestiya and Aurora.
"Maybe her attack has dealt more damage then we gave it credit for. Perhaps he is actually afraid of us and not the other way around."
They way she spoke sounded almost proud.
Vestiya’s eyes narrowed, though it was unclear if it was in skepticism or thought.
"Let’s not get our hopes up just yet," she replied, her tone still less then whelmed.
She shifted her gaze from Moran and Aurora, letting it settle on the quiet figure seated to her right.
"What do you think, Groll?"
The towering man let out a low chuckle, his broad shoulders shifting slightly.
He bent down carefully, setting Moran’s sketch on the ground as though it was the most precious thing.
Then he leaned back, crossing one leg over the other and folding his arms across his chest.
"Thinking’s never been my strong suit," he admitted, his voice rumbling like a storm. He spoke slowly, taking time to think of every word before lining them up into a sentance.
"But if you ask me, this feels like something the entire council should brood over, not just a half of it."
Moran frowned slightly at the phrasing. He counted three and if his math war right that was a third not a half.
But as his gaze flicked toward the seated elders, he understood.
He glanced at Aurora out of the corner of his eye.
Four could indeed be considered half of nine.
Moran listened to the four elders speak, offering his insight whenever it was requested, which wasn't as often than he would have liked.
Still he learned a lot during the meeting.
About how the village worked and how the people that ran it thought.