As the knight requested, Soliene, Reonda, and Nyal got out of the street. They found a nearby alley, sat down, and Soliene told them to wait for her return. Neither knew what the Numaran was planning to do, though at the same time only one was actually thinking about it. Reonda hadn’t said a word since the knight broke Soliene and her up, all Nyal could see was stoicism.
Teolus, however, knew exactly what was going on. He had seen the results when Reonda was pushed too far and knew she was trying desperately to hang on to whatever calm she still had. In an attempt to comfort her, he rested his head against her neck. It didn’t help a lot, but he knew that even the slightest action would help right now. Especially since he had a decent idea what was going on in her head.
“You should have killed her. Make an example to keep your precious little birds in line. That is what you want, right?”
Reonda felt her jaw tighten as the voice, the same voice that led to her scaring Nyal. It was wreathing and screeched in her head, wishing to be let out. She knew what it wanted, what it craved, but she refused to give it what it desires. Especially when she knew there were far too many people, all innocent, that would be caught in its path of destruction.
At times, she could bring herself to just ignore it; ignorance was bliss after all. This was not one of those, however, for the longer that Soliene had unknowingly pushed her it had gotten more hold. She had to focus to keep the monster inside of her now, ignoring no longer an option. It hurt facing it, and though she wouldn’t show it the battle for control scared her. She did, though, for it was the only way to keep Makaus safe.
The only way to keep Nyal safe.
“Why do you keep me in? Why won’t you let me solve this? Why won’t you let me bleed this world red like we rightfully should?” The voice asked her with the fury of a barbarian. “Forget your station. Forget your humanity. Forget balance. Lash out like you did not even a year ago. Lash out and kill!”
“I do not crave what you think I do,” Reonda mumbled. Her words were so quiet and so incoherent the only ones who heard or understood her was the voice. “Just leave me, Il’jan’i.”
“All these years later, and you still do not understand?!” Il’jan’i exclaimed. The words were so loud in Reonda’s mind they sounded like they were from right behind her. It was nothing compared to the four words that came next, which were so loud Il’jan’i might as well have been shouting into her ear. “I! Can’t! Leave! You!”
“I said leave me,” Reonda mumbled yet again, tunnel-visioned on a spot on the ground. “Besides, she is right. My parents are half Acamus’ propaganda machine, and they have killed many Harpen and Numaran. You can’t blame her for her thoughts?”
“So you choose stupidity? Fine, but don’t blame me when she steals your precious little bird from you,” Il’jan’i said.
Reonda’s body tensed at the words, but Il’jan’i was farther from her mind to witness it. For the first time in several minutes, the Acamian felt she could relax. She slumped back, Teolus and Nyal both immediately noticing the lack of stress now in her body. Teolus tilted his head a bit to look in her face better, Nyal leaning forward to do the same. Reonda looked at both of them, letting out a long exhale as she did.
“Reonda okay?” Nyal asked.
“Yeah,” the Acamian responded. She gave a thumbs up, Nyal letting out a breath as she did.
“Glad Reonda still in control,” Teolus cawed, rubbing his head against her cheek. “I like Reonda more than… that thing.”
“That makes two of us,” Reonda said, patting the hawk's head. Her other hand reached into the food pouch and took out a piece of pickled meat. She held it out to Teolus, who ate it without hesitation. “I just hope that, one day, she’ll be gone.”
“I can’t leave you.”
The joyful expression on her face changed to stoicism as she heard those few words. She looked out across from her, as if there was more than just a building across from her. With her focus on said building, she didn’t notice that the turn of her head had caused Soliene to jump. Nyal looked behind the Acamian, noticing Soliene had returned and waved to them. The Numaran waved back with her left arm, one half of a broken breadstick held in it. The other half was in the opposite hand.
“Quek tetiria. Geriq geriq?” Soliene asked the harpen, getting a nod. She tossed one half of the breadstick to Nyal, who caught it with her talons, and walked over to Reonda. The Acamian looked at her, and while there was a moment of hesitation from the Numaran, she held out the other end to them. “Consider this my apologies for earlier.”
Reonda looked at it, a part of her knowing she hadn’t eaten much that day. Yet as she looked at the breadstick, she couldn’t bring herself to take it. After all she had gone through that day, any appetite she had in her had left and paved the way for a horrid feeling in her stomach. It was like a midway point between feeling sick and feeling full, though she knew that neither of those were true. After five tense seconds, she looked at Teolus and noticed them looking at the breadstick with interest.
“I’m not hungry,” Reonda told Soliene. “But if you could break it up a little bit more for my hawk here…”
“Oh, of course,” Soliene replied.
She immediately broke the half a breadstick into two more segments, giving one to Reonda. The Acamian placed it in her lap, Teolus, flying onto it and proceeding to peck at it. The Numaran held onto the final segment, pulled her mask down, and took a bite. While Nyal only noticed the clearly sharper teeth of a carnivore, Reonda noticed a bit more. Soliene’s fur seems exceptionally short, to the point where there were places she could see the skin through it. Skin that was as white as the fur that was supposed to cover it everywhere but around her eyes. The skin and fur there was pitch black.
“Since we didn’t exactly get off on good terms earlier, let's start over,” Soliene said, not noticing that Reonda’s pupils didn’t actually meet her eyes. That quickly changed as soon as the Numaran had spoken. “Soliene VerBansk. Been here in Makaus for over two months now. Half-human, half Numaran.”
That last statement immediately made it clear why her fur was so short, and Reonda decided it was best to not broach the subject.
“Reonda Perciple, Oracle Vessel of Balance. This is my hawk Teolus,” Reonda said, giving Teolus a pat on the head as she said the words. “To my left is Nyal Mols Mors. A pe-” Teolus snapped his neck up to her, and Reonda looked away in embarrassment. “Harpen. She is a Harpen I met out here and an oracle vessel as well.”
“You know, it really isn’t that hard to not say offensive shite,” Soliene told Reonda, the latter getting hit with a wave of guilt as she said the words. “Still, two vessels in the same place. The hell are the chances of that?”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I don’t like her. She’s rude,” Teolus stated as he flew back up onto Reonda’s shoulder. The breadstick wasn’t gone, but as he had already eaten a bit beforehand he couldn’t bring himself to finish it. “Reonda is trying her best to unlearn that which she has known all her life.”
“She isn’t wrong, Teolus,” Reonda told the hawk. Soliene raised an eyebrow at the response, unable to help but feel like she was being ignored. The Acamian looked at her, noticing the confusion on her face. “Some of the magic I have. Teolus here is bound to me and a decent bit smarter because of it.”
“Like those familiars from the tales of the past cycles?” Soliene asked, getting a nod from Reonda as her answer. “Huh, interesting. Though now I ask the real question: what is the daughter of Acamus’ Minister of Military Affairs doing in Reine?”
In hindsight, Reonda knew she should have seen the question coming. She had been lucky enough that Nyal not only couldn’t ask her the same, but that the Harpen didn’t know her family’s history. Soliene, on the other hand, was all too familiar with who her mother and father were, what they had done, and the eire the other countries had for them. Part of her wanted to ignore it, but she knew that if she didn’t it might bring Il’jan’i back out. She could not let that happen, especially with Nyal next to her.
“Hiding. Though Perciple is my last name, those two no longer see me as their daughter,” Reonda spoke, her stomach twisting at the mere attempt to mention her parents. “They asked me to use the Historia to show the truth of what Ekra Eshan was. They wanted me to use what I saw to make propaganda to further rally the people against the Harpen. To show that they truly were the home stealing monsters that I had been raised to believe,” Her hands curled into fists. “What I saw was a land more wonderful, more forward thinking, and more accepting than my own. I had been told Harpen had enslaved us and treated us as trophies or machines, but I saw nothing of the sort.”
Reonda turned to Nyal, a mixture of pain and happiness on her face. Before the Acamus was the spitting image of what she truly saw that day. Not some winged monster, but a people who had long since abandoned the course that had sent those refugees to Acamus. The same refugees that had turned Acamus into the horrible place it now was. A part of her still yearned to take back the land that had once belonged to humanity, but she kept it down. For five centuries, Ekra Eshan had been the Harpen people’s home. She couldn’t bring herself to take it back, especially when they were not the people she had once thought they were.
“I was confused at the time. I was scared, angry, a bit upset, but on top of it all guilty,” Reonda continued, turning back to Soliene. The smile faded, bringing her limbs close to her chest as she recounted that day “I told my parents what I saw and… they treated me as they always did when I disappointed them. I was beaten, berated, threatened to be executed unless I told them what I truly saw. Then my father…”
Her words disappeared, one hand reaching down to her gut. She decided it was best not to finish that sentence.
“At that point I realized the mistake I had made,” She replied, acting as if the previous sentence had never been started. “So I freed the Harpen prisoners that were being held for execution, and told them to fly. I continued to do this, and in time met and bound myself to Teolus,” She looked to the hawk, who was staring at her. She smiled as she mentioned him. “I knew I would have to keep him a secret but I was good at hiding and lying at that point. I made a friend here named Rosey too, who I would send letters to in secret. In time my parents found out what I had done, and with no other choice I fled home.”
Soliene’s mouth was hanging open as she heard what was coming from her mouth. A part of her wanted to call lies just because of who her family was but there was truth in her words. Word had gotten out that someone a few months back had been freeing Harpen that Acamus had captured. At the time it was believed to have been a Reine spy, but King Sullivan never addressed it. If Reonda was being truthful, it all made sense. To think that one daughter of two of the most hated people on Rag’na’rog would defy them so clearly.
“Apologies for asking something so personal, Reonda,” Soliene said, hanging her head.
“It’s fine, you had all the right to wonder. I would do the same in your position,” Reonda replied. She looked to Nyal, who was just finishing up her half of the breadstick, and remembered the real reason they were there in Makaus. “Hey Soliene, I noticed you are bilingual.”
“Yep. My parents are too,” The Numaran told her. She caught on to what Reonda was going to ask real quick. “You want a translator, I take it?”
“Probably a bit selfish of me to ask after what happened, but yes,” Reonda replied, nodding as she spoke. She looked back to Soliene. “As you would probably expect, I know nothing of Harparic. All I’ve gained about the events surrounding the murder of Nyal’s parents is that they were trying to kill her.”
“Considering what little I know about Oracles, they should consider themselves lucky,” Soliene said, noticing that the mere hint of what would have happened to Nyal’s attempted-murderer made the Acamian pale. That showed her that there was truth in the religious texts Originist’s wrote. “Just promise to not tell the guards of my ancestry, and you got yourself a deal.”
“Wasn’t planning on ratting you out, don’t worry,” Reonda said, getting to her feet. She held a hand out, which Soliene grasped and shook firmly.
----------------------------------------
The aria that was performed before him and the crowd he was in was nothing short of beautiful. Klaus knew well the story of Opera’s founding, how it had been a traditional performance of the Harpen far before they had taken over Ekra Eshan. Like many things tied to them, the performance of such pieces were banned in Acamus, though there wasn’t much in terms of artistic culture in his home to begin with. No, most of Acamus’ culture was a military one, as well as one founded on the lies that their feathered kin were lower intelligent beings and the like. Lies that the Historia had allowed him to see through.
While it was not a professional performance, as there were no musicians present to add to the incredible singing before him, he cared not. A performance was a performance, and it did not matter whether it was in a playhouse or a wooden platform on the outskirts of the faire grounds. Before him stood the other reason for his journey to Reine, and it was to see one of the best stars in opera work their magic: Juliia Radzia Farlon. She was an incredible Harpen, and a symbol of freedom not just in artistic expression but in self expression. Her incredible voice, which was extraordinarily feminine, showed that her red feathers matter little to who she truly was.
To experience her talent first hand allowed his worries and troubles to melt away for a time. He closed his eyes, focusing solely on the power and grace of her current aria. Though the words were in Harparic, the somberful yet driving nature of each word drew him in. It was like the siren’s spell on a sailor, pulling him in more and more. He was only thankful that in this case he would not die from this, that sudden thought sending a shiver through him.
“Our free time grows short. That moment in the future has nearly arrived.”
The voice in his head only further added to that fear. He brought a hand over his chest, teeth clenched at the horrible reminder of how little time he had. His head felt as if it was ringing, and in his terror he became unable to listen to the performance on display before him. He silently cursed the voice before turning to his bag and bringing forth his Historia. Opening and placing a finger on the page he had landed on, he waited for the book to wake up. Once he did, he took a brief sigh, asked within his head why he was still doing this, and spoke.
“Does the future with the Deathwisher still remain barred?” He asked for the book. The response came quickly.
Yes. That future is still too close to an oracle or a vessel, Sir Velstrum.
With a sigh, he put the book away and turned his attention back to the performance before him. The future was fickle, and there was no hope that it would go the way he would want it to. He knew he would have to keep his distance from Nyal this time, for she might not know it was him no doubt those around her would. He couldn’t risk it, especially when he wanted her and her alone to be the only casualty in this. The good news is he had somehow managed to grab the blade during that failed attempt a few days prior, so he still had the means to bring about the immortality he was told about.
While he knew Juliia wouldn’t be able to see him, he bowed in forgiveness for leaving early. Turning around, he made his way out of the crowd he was in, excusing everyone for his rudeness as he did. He only hoped that he was correct that it was young Nyal that was present before the knight and not someone else. If it was not her, instead being the oracle vessel of Balance, or perhaps a rare public appearance from one of the Oracles himself, he would feel fooled. That would already make things awkward for him, and lead his mind to question even further what he was doing.
“Please be Nyal. Please be Nyal and no one else,” He muttered as he finally got himself free of the crowd and made his way towards the walls leading up to the castle. “Once again, apologies to her parents for the pain I’m about to bring upon them.”