Nan mentioned nothing of the day before, neither did the mouse-eared lian she passed on the way back to Tomekeep Garuda. If one never talked about it, it never happened, that was the rule.
Walking upstairs was like stumbling upon a cult ritual, what with Gawain and seven other amalgamated magical creatures. The robes Sier and Izusa wore didn’t help, either. For the authentic “foreboding place” ambiance, legions of tomes pressed a muted array of spell threads against the edges of her perception; possibilities beyond the laws of reality begging to be released.
Much, much more ominous though, was the large sigil Izusa worked away at. Hundreds upon hundreds of cogs chittered and whirred, teeming with enough whym to bathe the room in golden light.
The drowsy spell she administered when Nan was freaking out felt like a warm blanket, the MIWAS was ticklish. Whatever thing Izusa was trying to birth, eyebrows knitted in a level of concentration and seriousness she’d yet to see from her, felt like it was going to bite her head off and wash it down with something cinnamon flavored.
But Izusa would never do such a thing. Not to her or anyone else, right?
Right?
A blue jay with the tail of a scorpion hailed her, “So, you’re the one Gawain tried to keep for himself.” Her voice was smooth, pitched at a low alto.
Reluctantly, Nan joined the circle. Taking an eye off the spell in progress wasn’t in the cards, but she listened as best as possible while the scorpion-bird made herself known as Lilika. She introduced the others in turn with no small amount of flourish. Names that Nan would no doubt forget given a moment’s time.
Nan took on a faux-carefree tone. “I like you company and all, but why are you here, Izusa?”
“Me?” The clicking stalled. Izusa donned her usual smile, pointing at her nose. With the light of her whym, the effect was like holding a flashlight under her chin. “Gawain said you were having trouble forming a direct bond, so I cooked up a little hex for you.”
“That’s mine?”
Izusa nodded enthusiastically.
A single chuff escaped Nan’s throat, not at all in humor.
So that was it? They were going to re-kill her for a little trouble? Of course, they could just reclaim someone else with more natural control of their whym. People were expendable. People from what could be millions of alternate realities with no real connection to their own more so.
“Where are you going, dearie?” Lilika tilted her head. Her reaction was faster than the time it took for Nan to realize she stood up.
“Isn’t this a little extreme? I don’t know a lot about your culture or anything but we don’t just throw people away where I come from.”
“I’m not going to attack you. Why would you even consider that?” Izusa asked.
“The spell, it feels threatening.” As concerned as she was, Nan would not resort to the first words that came to her mind. Not scary, nor creepy, nor spooky were appropriate for someone her age.
One herald or another, she wasn’t looking, muttered something about not being able to “feel” anything. The girl must be crazy. But Nan wasn’t crazy. A design of malicious intent loomed, it was just as pronounced, just as clear as Gawain’s or Yara’s. She could be destroyed again, it would be simple, like dousing a candle light sputtering on the last of its wick.
Izusa looked to Nan, her murderous sigil, then back to Nan, expression aghast. “You have it wrong. This isn’t a mind influencing hex, not a flesh wasting one or the likes. You’ll be fine.”
Gawain spoke up, “I asked that Lady Izusa spin an illusion. Whether the threat is of substance matters not. When a being with potential harbors a strong will to live in the face of death, they draw my kind like a beacon in the dark.”
Nan squeezed her fingers, as if consulting the prickling sensation it wrought. “Your word. Please.” Nan said. “I just… I’m not comfortable.”
Izusa made a motion, as if to protest, only to freeze halfway. Orange ears drooped. Why did she have to do that? It made Nan feel like a bad person.
“You have it.” Izusa said. “A thousand times if that’s what you want.” A quartet of cogs spun gently over open palms. Nan didn’t know one could maintain two sigils at once, but that wasn’t important.
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“I’m your friend, at least, I want to be your friend. I’ll never willingly put you in peril. This I swear, by life and soul.” The smaller sigil winked out of existence, setting the other in motion once more. “It’s like Gawain said, this is an illusion. Intricate, expensive, and a little imposing, but it won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you.” Izusa said.
“Sorr-”
“Don’t you dare. I understand where you’re coming from. You have little reason to trust us blindly. If you’re not comfortable, neither am I,” Izusa said.
In the end, she decided to go through with it. Much to the delight of the heralds and Sier. For an uncomfortably quiet moment, her gaze passed over the faces of Gawain, Lilika, a mostly-cat, and a mostly-dog.
Nan, squeezed her armrests, “Are you going to do the thing?”
“Do what thing?” Izusa asked. She wavered a bit on one toe, reaching to place a book on the shelf just above her head.
What indeed.
Nan gripped the book return cart. It didn’t feel all that important, but there was something she couldn’t remember. Homework? A phone call? Nothing came to bear.”
“Nevermind.” Nan shook her head.
“Okay.” With a dull thud, the book finally found its natural place. “Where’s the next batch headed?”
Nan glanced over the row of blank covered, though neatly bound, volumes. The Dewey Decimal numbers along their spines gave guidance where their titles wouldn’t.
“998.3, 998.4, and 982.1,” Nan said.
“History, hm? It’s that way.”
And so, the day continued rather uneventfully. Of course, uneventful wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially with part time work as sleepy as library maintenance. Izusa walked beside the cart with just enough distance between her and it to avoid an unfortunate accident with the tail clipped to her pants. Izusa never left home without her cosplay gear, but she was nice enough to ease Nan’s transition to the Garuda School of Performing Arts.
A performing arts school was an atypical choice for a future game warden… but the scholarship was a full ride. That’s why she was there, surely. Nothing was better than free.
They rounded a corner, where a praying mantis, more than three times her size lurked.
“Whua?”
Nan stared up, lost in five malevolent eyes, darker than night, deeper than wells.
To Hunt. To Destroy. To Kill. Meridian Whym flared to life at the sight of a promising quarry.
In a fit of panic, Izusa wrenched the cart from Nan’s hands. She put the entirety of her waist into launching it at the fiend. Faster than Nan could hope to track, the mantis batted it away. The horrid clang of ruined metal joined a hail of books and torn pages on the ground.
“Nan! Get aw-”
With a single step, the mantis ran Izusa through. It lifted her. The only sound was that of blood dribbling crimson against the hardwood floor and Izusa’s pained groans.
Cold, cruel eyes considered its work and found it to be good. Izusa cried, bracing against the mantis’ dull foreleg. She kicked at empty air, but wasn’t released until the fiend deemed it appropriate to flick her like trash stuck to a hook.
A sickening crunch, just a doll, coming to a halt on her side where a pool of her own blood wept. Izusa let out a whimper marred by destroyed lungs. She curled up, hands trying desperately to dam a wound half the size of her torso.
It was a picture Nan knew all too well, and she couldn’t do a thing about it. That was her friend’s everything. Her blood, pieces of displaced bone, of torn flesh and clothing, laid out in scraps like so much paper sharing the same fate.
And Nan couldn’t do a thing about it.
The mantis fiend stepped over Izusa’s trembling form, unmindful, uncaring. An affinity sustained. The fiend needed neither food nor rest, just lives. Already, new whym poured into the mantis, strengthening it, nourishing it.
That wasn’t fair. Izusa didn’t do anything wrong. She wanted Izusa to live. She wanted to live. So what if her stakes weren’t as grand as this or that paragon of society? So what if all she wanted was a simple, relatively quiet life? Nan didn’t deserve this lot. Nan Refused this lot.
Nan saw water.
Not on the ground, lapping at her ankles, but the ceiling. Pillars, eight in number rose to meet a pool that decided it wanted to be a roof, and dared physics to get in the way. Her reflection stared down at her, all at once dismayed, confused and disoriented. Yet there was another.
“M-me?” Squealed the cat; a tabby with a collection of quills spreading from his hindquarters to his oversized, duster-like tail.
An allowance. Strength requested, strength offered. Nan knelt, arms spread, bidding the cat forward. A splash sent ripples against the water’s surface. Sounding as if her knees struck it rather than the stone floor.
“Can you help my friend?” Nan asked.
Cautiously, the cat approached. Eyes of a brilliant blue, eyes that felt like a part of her, like they could be a part of her at least, regarded her with a degree of hesitance. “I saw her before I reached your partition.” He cast his gaze downwards. “I’m sorry, but I’m not a healer.”
It felt like it would rain.
“But I can save you! And you can save me!” The cat sunk its front claws into the thigh of Nan’s slacks, poking, but not quite cutting her skin. “Is it okay? To bond with a mere speck such as myself?”
She failed Izusa, she failed her family, she failed herself. Yet here, she could make amends, and it would take but a word.
“Yes.”
A hole rent the water asunder, crackling like solid rock. A gleaming light, then a splash saw a spear to the ground. No, it’s blade was wide, and bore forward swept wings at its base, it was a partisan. Where shaft met point, a bed of needles rested like a swath of fur.
Faster, faster, and faster still, Nan’s heart thrummed against her chest. She took no heed of the happenings overhead, nor the scent of peppermint filling the air, not until she saw the blade gleam purple. Her sigil was set into the roof, her full sigil, an inferno orbited by concentric rings of smaller flames, it burned even in water. Immutable, like her existence. A single spark in a sea of souls, but was hers.
As Nan grasped the weapon, her existence filled to burst, fed by the recognition of a being without.
Behind, the cat brimmed with what could only be described as elation. “I’m Diwa! and as long as you harbor me, my power is yours!”
Nan, Scourge of Veils pulled free the symbol of her bond.