Janette leapt across the city in massive arcing bounds as she pushed on the rooftops below her. Tonight she had decided to focus on moving quickly while maintaining a thin layer of force around her at the same time. It felt a bit like she was trying to think about two things at once, both imagining herself surrounded by a small protective bubble, but also staying aware of her surroundings well enough to not fall face first into the blurry lines that marked streets and alleyways.
Of course, she had done all this before. A dozen nights she had followed the same route around the city, practicing her form as she fantasized about running from dark figures chasing after her. It could happen one day couldn't it? A proper young lady like herself was just preparing for the inevitable. A day when a master assassin was sent to chase after her, just as capable in the force mage arts as she was. The only way she would survive that night was with the wit of a rogue, and the practice she honed on these lonely nightly outings.
But, that repetition was starting to make things rote by this point. She needed to pick things up a notch and push herself before it was too late to practice. Janette let herself fall through the air, approaching and then passing the nearby rooftops as she plummeted towards the ground. A light push downward sent her skipping across the ground like a throwing stone, bouncing up and down the breadth of the street without ever touching the ground.
The streets were empty, market stalls pulled away into locked storage areas for the night, and most denizens of the city asleep in their homes. Still, as she flew down the streets at a breakneck pace, she passed by several men and women walking through the late hour with thieves' lanterns held up in the darkness. They passed like bobbing eyes in the darkness as she pondered the funny name for the devices. Her tutors had told her that while the thief's lantern was commonly used by the underground, it was just as commonly employed by well standing citizens and even guardsmen. Since it was considered rude to shine a light through the windows of peoples homes in the middle of the night, they had developed the lanterns with focused lenses that forced all the light into a single cone away from the user.
Janette mused about the funny looking tools as she pushed herself sideways, flinging down another street, losing then regaining her momentum within a couple of seconds.
‘Oh shit.’ Janette realized that she had let her bubble fade away while she had been thinking about the occasional light that passed below. With a bit of effort she formed the invisible barrier around herself once again, only absentmindedly paying attention to the street down below. No one said anything as she passed overhead in the night, both parties passing silently as she moved down the street like a bobbing shadow, faster than a horse's gallop.
‘Can they hear my clothes rustling as I-’ She cut herself off mid thought, refocusing on the bubble as it started to wane. The action felt like she was trying to pat her head while rubbing her stomach. A feat that was fairly easy in her opinion, once you set your mind to it.
“And fairly stressful while flinging myself down a street at breakneck speeds” She grumbled to herself. For some reason complaining about the act wasn't nearly as distracting as thinking about other things while she continued bounding away. Left, then right, then push! She forced herself to crest over the top of a building before falling back into the next street over, continuing her journey through the massive wooden corridors.
‘This isn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.’ She thought as she approached a sharp right turn at the end of the road by pushing forward to slow her momentum, then slamming her force to the left to send her flying down the new street. She turned with the push to face her direction of travel, willing the bubble to thicken just a bit more than usual on the right side to help her rotate through the air. When she finally looked down the new street, a massive stone keep was just in front of her.
‘PUSH!’ She slammed downward with all her force, feeling the pressure force her legs up and past her butt as the sudden burst pushed her upward. Her body tumbled backwards, feet over head even as she felt rather than saw the massive stone building pass by her at disturbingly high speeds. Janette willed a slight force into the back of her knees as she extended them once again, sending her through another half flip to return to an upright position once again. The movement sent her slightly forward, and her face came within inches of the blurry gray form that she knew she didn’t want to collide with. A half second later, the form of gray disappeared and she was looking down on the top of the crenulated keep. The momentum of her jump stopped around twenty meters up from the rooftop, and she allowed herself to gently fall to a crouched landing on the smooth stone bricks.
“Phew.” Janette put her hands down onto the ground as she knelt there on the top of the keep, more than happy to just have her hands and feet back on solid ground after nearly crushing herself into the side of the building. A few seconds of relieved curses echoing into the stone below her, she started to hear some strange buffeting sound like a flag in the wind. A set of leather boots appeared beside her, slamming into the ground like someone had just fallen from a ten foot ledge to land next to her hands.
She scrambled back, willing her bubble back into place as she took in her newest visitor in the night. ‘Damn, since when did I let the barrier dissipate earlier?’
“Woah there! Don’t do anything stupid now.” A well built blonde man with short hair and a clean shaven face raised his hands towards her wardingly. His green spaulders layered over some thin chainmail and leather armor marked him as a garrison soldier, which finally allowed Janette to relax. She let her back fall to the ground where she was already sitting and flung her arms out as she stared up into the night. Sure, he might be about to yell at her for being stupid, but at least she wasn’t going to get thrown into a sudden fight with another great house mage.
“Uh. You okay?” He asked.
She just nodded in response, eyes staring up into the stars overhead. She took deep massive breaths of air, still trying to get her lungs back in control while her mind whirled with the recent panic.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
She nodded once again.
“You’re not even going to say anything?” He asked.
She shrugged, “I fucked up and ended up somewhere I shouldn’t have. So are you going to give me my punishment so we can go on our ways?” She raised herself with her elbows behind her as she propped herself up to look at him. He was looking down at her with a thoughtful look on his face. Eventually, he just shrugged and turned away to start walking across the rooftop.
“What? Really?” Janette questioned the man as he walked away from her, watching his back as he strode past the massive glass ceiling that comprised the majority of the keep’s roof, lined with braziers and a thin railing. He walked up to the side of the crenellation opposite her and casually hopped atop the five foot tall stone perch to seat himself.
She stared after him for a time, watching the man simply look out upon the rest of the city with his back turned to her. Didn’t he know she could use this as a chance to flee? Wasn’t he supposed to, you know, do something to make sure she never made the same mistake twice?
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Despite her own best interests, Janette found herself walking over to the man, using her own push to help jump up to the top of the crenellation next to him. She stayed standing, looking down at the man who paid her no heed, then searched out towards the city below them. Hundreds of flickering lights dotted the landscape far below, some moving up and down the empty streets while others emanated from the insides of busy townhomes.
“What are you looking for?” She asked
He didn’t respond to her for a long time. She started to wonder if he had even heard her question before he finally answered.
“I’m looking for a reason.” He said.
“A reason?”
“Yeah.”
She waited for him to elaborate a bit, but nothing more came.
“A reason to…” She tried to coax him into speaking.
He finally looked over at her, brow furrowed as his customary force mage eyes took in her matching pupils as they met eyes.
“What do you care?” He asked.
“Well…” She hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but she was in too deep already. “It just seems strange to me that the mage that they probably have guarding the keep’s roof isn’t actually kicking me off the roof.”
The man shrugged, “What's the point?”
“To protect the Prince of Whispers of course!” She argued.
“And? Why? Because he gave us these powers?” He held up his hand to the air.
“Well sure, but also because he’s the God Prince. Our savior from the other nations.”
“What's he really saving us all from though? The threat of a life without dancing and balls?” He thumbed over his shoulder at the glass rooftop behind them.
Janette thought back to the party she attended just the other night. The colors, and the music, and the dresses, and the Men. How could that be such a bad thing?
“The balls give this city its life though. Without them, we would be just like the barbarians which surround us.” She said.
“That’s just the thing though, how do you even know that the other countries are so uncivilized? Because that’s what the tutors taught you?”
“Y-yes?”
“So what’s the point of the princedom culture being summarized by balls and parties when the majority of the populace can’t partake in them?”
“I. I don’t know.” Janette looked out towards the city. She hadn’t ever really thought about things this hard. Just what was she doing, speaking to a strange soldier like this in the middle of the night. Still…
“So why do you bother staying here? If you hate it so much.” She asked.
“I don’t know.” He said. “I really don’t know.”
His gaze returned to the cityscape as the two sat there for a time. Faint smoke rose from several chimneys throughout the city, and Janette traced the columns of darkness up and into the stars. She stood to leave him before it got too late, but thought of a question before she left.
“What’s your name?” She asked.
“You can call me Cody.” He said. She smiled at him in the darkness, her ragged coverings making her look like a strange shadow perched atop the stone face by his side.
“Well. Have a nice night Cody. Maybe we’ll meet again some day.”
She took a step forward off the stone walltop, plummeting down the face of the keep before throwing a push towards its side that sent her sailing out into the night. The air whipped through her hair as she returned to her father’s manor. So many thoughts and questions rang through her head that she didn’t even think of keeping her barrier active. Just pleasant bounds and jumps through the low atmosphere while she allowed her mind to wander.
—
Cody still sat there at the top of the Whispering Keep hours later as the sun started to rise over the city walls. He watched as the light slowly graced the tops of the nearby rooftops with its morning heat, allowing the hazy glow of a hundred houses to fade into the coming day.
His shift on guard duty had come and past long ago, as a series of more mundane guards had come up to relieve him around an hour before dawn. Still, he sat there, thinking about the city that lay far down below. It was all just superficial things. His mind never latched on to one topic too deeply, afraid of where they might take him if he thought about it too hard. That was, until a man started talking from behind him.
“LT. Hadn’t expected to still find you up here.” Sergeant Henry walked up to lean over the parapet to his left.
“I had guard duty last night, Sergeant.”
“Yeah? So did half the platoon. Won't find them still hanging around their posts after the fact though. “
Cody shrugged. His eyes scanned the streets below, looking for moving shadows in the light. Looking for others like him.
“You haven’t been yourself the last couple days.” Henry said.
“My mind’s just on other things.” Cody replied.
“So take a break then. Everyone needs a couple days off eventually.”
“But the men.”
“They’ll live without you just fine. We work together for a reason, LT. The whole place won't go crumbling down if you take a week off the job.”
Cody’s mouth creased into a frown. He wasn’t sure whether he actually cared about the men at this point, or whether he was just using them as an excuse to get out of taking time to himself.
“I don’t have the commander’s approval.”
“Yes you do.” Another voice called out from behind him.
Cody tensed and jumped to his feet to spin around and give a salute to the man that was walking across the stone blocks. He almost lost his balance on the small pedestal with the move and was forced to throw a small push at the empty air behind him to knock himself back into alignment.
“Good morning, Sir!” He snapped a saluting fist up for the man, which was promptly returned to him. A stocky man with short brown hair nearly shaved to the side of his head with a matching green uniform came to a stop.
“Lieutenant Tane. When your sergeant over here said he was having trouble finding you I started to get worried.”
“My apologies sir.”
The man shook his head, “Go on, get out of here.”
“But sir.”
“Your Sergeant’s right. You look like a mess right now, and that does our men no good in a leader. Take a week to figure things out, and come back when you look a bit less like someone killed your puppy.”
Cody still didn’t feel too happy about the situation, and Captain Salmonson seemed to notice.
“Unless of course you want to share with us what’s got you so messed up?” The man asked.
“N-no sir. One of my friends just died in an accident recently and…I guess I'll take that time off if you don’t mind sir.”
“I don’t. Now go find your head before I have to call you back for an emergency or something.”
Cody made another salute to the man, and after receiving the matching movement from the Captain, he hopped off the Crenellation and jogged over the trap door below. As he made it below ground, likely about to go grab his things before leaving the barracks, the commander addressed Sergeant Henry. He didn’t seem too happy about the decision, but the Captain had a feeling the young officer would end up taking them up on the offer regardless.
“You’ll look after the kid, Sergeant?”
“Of course sir. We all do.”
The commander nodded his head once in thanks, then spun around to return below as he settled into the work day. Hopefully that would be the end of that problem. Hopefully.