The shallows of the creek gurgled past her shoulders as Rye cooled herself from the long-summer heat, head resting on something impossibly soft. A slice of a peach snuck into her mouth as she languished in the care of hands she could not see. She sighed, bathing in the sunlight, not a single responsibility in sight. Luxury.
The whole kerfuffle with Avitus was really getting to her nerves. He wouldn’t stop bothering her until she got her brothers involved, and now THEY were the ones teasing her over her most recent break-up.
And then there was that merchant from the east. Olive skin, pretty face, smelled like a rosebath. He clearly took care of himself and while that was an advantage he held over most of her paramours, they didn’t cut someone’s ear off in a duel because of some stupid insult.
She left it at flirting until he got the message. It wasn’t at all serious, they were just passing beaus.
Maybe she should go back to Hannah. Some flowers and a surprise visit would surely mend old wounds?
No. Not after the incident with her cousin. ‘It was just one time’ wasn’t a good excuse. Calling her brother a ‘half’ certainly didn’t help reconcile them either, no matter how true it was. That one was definitely on her.
Some days, Rye felt as if the gods had cursed her to find love and for it to slip through her fingers the following day. This long-summer had been the best so far, and that was saying something. There had been so many paramours, but all promises of eternity and heart-wrenching prose melted away when they headed back to their homes and houses after the harvest was over.
Something tickled the small of her neck and the tension lifted. Sam was up to her shenanigans again. Lovely, trusted Sam.
She cracked an eye open and came face to face with a woman with a lion’s head.
“You should not be here.” Her voice boomed. Rye screamed, struggled against tentacular arms like mountains pressing her down. “I see you. Traitor. Thief. Hussy.”
She tore a piece off her and pinched in between claws, Elia saw magic – her magic.
“Thief! Thief! Thief!” the voice boomed. “This is hers, hers, hers!”
“No, I-I earned that!”
The lioness did not let off, her voice joined by the phantoms of countless others. Her parents, her brothers and sisters, even Elia turned to glare in violent disapproval as the woman snatched the magic mote and swallowed it in one single gulp.
She leaned in close, so close that one face flowed over into another. “Spoiled brat. You didn’t earn a thing in your life.”
----------------------------------------
Rye awoke with a start.
It was just a dream. Only half a memory. A nightmare. She was in control.
Elia must have gone to sleep herself at some point, though how she managed to get a single wink of shut-eye inside this filthy castle while no less than five feet away from the bekki who had killed her multiple times Rye could not fathom.
And where was her helmet? Why was she only wearing one boot?
“Elia. Elia!”
A jolt rang through her head, a sharp prick to her thoughts.
Wuh?
“Elia! Why do I have a migraine?”
Oh? Oh, th-that’s, it’s… Her companion devolved into a fit of giggles. …wait, wait one sec, do I know you?
This must be another one of her elaborate pranks. Rye was not amused. “Unless someone else has decided to join us in our unholy matrimony in here, it is still just you and me. Elia and Rye.”
Ohhh, right… I, I think I… might have gone a bit overboard. I had a drink, with… Lim! Right, the cat lady. We made peace. Did ya’ know she has a collection of, uh, spirits? Heh, spirits. Ugh. I, I think I’m… soul drunk.
Elia picked up the closest bottle. Among a myriad of other empty bottles, it was reasonable to assume Elia had gone for the most expensive one. That it was made of clear glass only shocked her slightly less than the glazed inscription. The bottle alone must have cost a fortune. As for the insides?
“Elia, this isn’t drinking alcohol, this is alchemical grade… it has triple digit promille. This is embalming alcohol! I knew it, the bekki tried to poison you, I’m sure.” One look at the bekki woman mewling in her sleep broke that confidence like the glass she was holding. She was fighting against some invisible foe in her sleep while gnawing on a chair leg. The chair was winning. “… or she misread the label. Or, likelier, she cannot read at all. Where did she even get this from?”
Shiiit, I feel like I’m reacting quite… alright. ‘Cause I’m awesoooome!
“Right.” She plodded over to the bowl of respite. While a few sips helped against her own migraine, the effect on Elia proved resilient as she broke out into hysterical laughter. “Am I to assume she won’t kill us now?”
Yyyeee. She fren now. Fuzzy fren.
She looked again at the comatose woman. Perhaps she could have worded that more clearly. Elia understood her intentions, no doubt. “I’m impressed. Well done. And why?”
While Elia’s muttering petered off into a half coherent rant on why cats were better than dogs, Rye was entirely transfixed by the smudge of ink she spied on her wrist. It did not disappear no matter how much she scrubbed it. Two lines ran around her left wrist, and for a moment she thought them intertwining snakes before realizing they were made of symbols she could just barely make out, nearly read on her undead skin.
“Elia. What is this?”
Oh fffuuuck… So, remember when I said Lim has a little brother?
There had been something of that effect in the bow’s inscription. “Only if this explains why you put a tattoo on my body.”
It will, it will. Sssooo… the two of them were traveling to Loften, buuut when they arrived at the castle, Rhuna happened. She told them a similar spiel as she did us, except Lim-lim was just a bit better at… resisting. Or Rhuna was going easy on us. Huh. Shit. A-anywayyys, Lim’s cursed now. She’s gotta fight anyone who arrives at this castle, ‘cause they nabbed her brother as a hostage and put him at the very top.
“That… that’s horrible!” But at least Elia was finding moments of clarity. If only she’d stop giggling, Rye would feel a lot more confident. “Please tell me you promised her to help. Ooh, is that why she’s so friendly, you fixed her bow and vowed to save her damseled brother?”
H-hell yeah I did! I swore an oath and shit. Aaand then that stuff began glowing on my wrist and the rest I can’t remember.
“YOU WHAT!?” Rye frantically rubbed at the symbols, but she knew it was useless. “No, no, no, why, why me, whyyy? This is why I told you to stop swearing, this is why, because sometimes, someone is listening! Tell me the exact wording Elia. Please tell me you remember it”
Uhhh…
That was not the answer she was hoping for. A muffled scream cut the air as Rye tried to drown herself in the water that was not water.
H-heeey brain bud, it’s not that baaad, right? It’s like a pinky promise, but… bigger. A thumb promise. At least index level.
That was both incredibly accurate and failed to describe the weight of taking an oath. Rye un-drowned herself, if only to tell this illiterate fool why she was so insistent on neither swearing nor cursing. “You swore an oath and a god heard it. If we don’t fulfill it now, we’ll both be struck by divine retribution.”
Sooo… a lightning strike?
Rye managed a nervous chuckle. “No, gods don’t do lightning much. Too dangerous.” From what she could read of the coiling script implied more of a curse than an immediate smiting. The word ‘maiming’ appeared a concerning three times. “I think our hand will fall off if we fail, in a way that no healing water can fix. The gods are thorough like that.”
Ooone way to check. Boop.
Elia touched her face and surprisingly enough, her [Psychometry] threw up an entirely unfamiliar set of lines.
Oath to Lim
Under the discerning eyes of Valti, you have sworn an oath to save Pim the fourth, kin-brother of Lim the outcast from his imprisonment within the halls of Captain Hall.
Should you stray from your oath, the bindings on your left hand will constrict until your arm is severed.
She wanted to scream, to cry, to crawl in a hole and die. The breath of Menses was convenient, even if it quantified terror in a much too visible manner. “Awww, beans. I can’t fulfill an oath, I’m not a knight. I can’t even wield a sword.”
I can. And I meaaan… at least it’s only our left hand.
“I’m left-handed.”
Oooh. I’m… not. Huh. How the hell does that work?
Elia didn’t seem to be taking this very seriously.
Don’t, don’t worry, I’ll handle this… just, let me take over.
“Holy – no, absolutely no. In your state, Elia?” She wouldn’t trust her not to cut herself with a butterknife. “No, as long as you’re… spirit drunk, I’m staying at the helm.”
Heyyy, I dealt with worse… I think. See, I’m still combat ca-pa-ble.
Rye watched in disappointment as her arm grabbed for her sword and instead found the leg of a chair.
It’s heavier than I remembered. You’re not holding onto it anywhere, are you? You are, you little… prankster, you.
This was shaping up to be the worst day of her past week, and she was nearly swallowed by a moor ogre three days ago. “Did Lim say anything else?”
His name is Pim. Her brother, thaaat is. He loooves strawberries and he once owned a cat named zippo, which is preeetty funny considering he’s a cat boy. Would be like us having a monkey pet.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“I…” Why monkeys of all things? “Ok, that’s unfair because now I care about him. You can be really subtle if you try, you know that?”
I… thanks? Uuugh, look, you can just swap with me, and I’ll fix this whooole mess I got us in.
“No. No, I don’t think I will.”
A bit of the shock had subsided and, in its place, a warm feeling nestled next to the terror in her chest. A feeling of surprise, but pleasant. Pride. They were finally getting to the part of an adventure she loved reading about the most: The un-damseling. If knights were holding young kids hostage on top of willfully slaughtering whoever passed the gate, then they weren’t worthy of the honor of being called one. The lot of them were corrupt, traitorous, dishonorable vagabonds. She thoroughly wished a hero would happen to them, in a violent way she preferred to hear only in an anecdote. Sadly, it wasn’t every day that a hero of myth and legend came by to solve her problems. Pim would have to make do with herself.
Still, the thought of Elia accepting such a noble mission sent her heart into a flurry. “I’m sorry Elia, I was wrong about you.”
Woaaah. Did you finally look past my veneer of humor only to discover my core of pure greaaatness?
Her tone grew serious. “No. What you did was still plenty stupid, even if magic alcohol played a part. On the bright side, an oath always has to be achievable, meaning that Pim is still alive. However, the wording plays the biggest part and since even your [Psychometry] turned out vague, we must be careful as anything could agitate the oaths cursemark. We’ll have to stay on the safe side and not leave this castle until we’ve finished it.”
Great! I was planning on doing that aaanyways. See? All’s well that starts with me.
“…or you put a time limit on it and after a few days we lose a hand.” Rye shrugged, as ineffectually as she could given the circumstances. It got Elia to shut up with a silence that hopefully spelled guilt.
She did not expect to be dealing with the influence of a god so directly. That was best done through supplicant offerings and through at least one priest familiar with the rites of ritual, preferably without breaking into their capital.
Oh gods, they were totally trespassing into the domain of Loften. What if they got arrested? These knights might not follow any code of conduct, but they still achieved one thing: They kept people on the other side of the border. Maybe the gods were too busy to dislodge the unruly detachment. Or maybe there were bigger problems than a few morally and physically corrupt knights.
Rye shuddered. She preferred not to worry herself into a spiral, not yet. Instead, she focused on the little things she could achieve. The tower and nearby quarters were ripe for the picking and for once, she didn’t feel bad for relieving its denizens of some choice items.
First, a blanket so Lim wouldn’t catch a cold. Sure, there was a panacea within arm’s reach, but no one deserved to sleep in the cold.
Next was some wyckwax, of which she found three balls. It was accompanied by linen cloth for binding wounds she knew Elia would take, a few arrow shafts that could be used as splints, a pair of steel and flint for making fires, a candle, and a handful of other knick–knacks.
Daaamn, you’re really planning far ahead, aren’t you?
“Oh please, with your enthusiasm and our newly ensouled strength we’ll be out of here within the day. I’m planning for what happens tomorrow.”
See? Liiiterally unfathomable distances of time.
After that she found a backpack, a small one, one that could be tightened to her form and wouldn’t wobble while running or fighting for her life. She stored her items inside and found a map of the city as well, though she only recognized it by the few landmarks of the arena and grand temple of Aurana.
She stopped to listen for anybody walking down the hall and – assured of her safety – made for a quick tip-toeing ascent up the winding stairs.
Sooo… why are you so awkward around Lim? ‘Cause I’m getting the idea that it’s not just because she killed us…
It took some time for the answer to come, but she was satisfied with the amount of candidness still left after deliberate curation. “She’s different. And being different is dangerous.”
Oh?
“The bekki kingdoms at the northern and eastern border are client kingdoms to our empire, but in times of weakness they tend to become a bit… uppity. Opportunistic.”
Ooh. War.
Rye nodded, nearly missing a step. “War. Now, most people know that normal humans still make up a fair portion of their lands, but they’ve got fur where we do not, we see color where they see gray, and they have kings and queens where we have the senate and decibate ruling side by side. It’s not wrong to be bekki, even better in some walks of life. But it’s better to be normal. Safer.”
She didn’t expect Elia to answer, not after she had already reached Lim’s lookout and begun cleaning up the bottles.
Fuuuck me. This is like my history class aaall over again. Man, I thought I’d escaped racism when I migrated involuntarily to this, this place – what do you call the world, everything including your empire?
Was this a trick question? “The… world?”
Yeaaah, that checks out.
Rye squinted as she inspected a particularly embellished glass, with a neck like a gobbler or a trumpet. ‘Dramatic delight deluxe – streivi brewery’, vintage illegible. Smelled like clams. No mystery where that came from. Though Drama was half an empire away, she always wanted to visit once. It was a wonderful place, filled with all delights one might desire, or so she heard. The baths were nice too, but sadly, travel was a privilege of the very rich, not the somewhat up-and-coming wealthy.
She toned back into the end of a rant, ready to agree and shake her head like never before.
… but shiiit man, I asked for a fantasy about belching dwarves and tsundere elves, and all I got were depressingly realistic geopolitics and the hardest battle god could ever give.
“Sorry, what’s an elf?”
… Uugh, I haaate this place. I hate it so, so much.
“I’ve never heard of dwarves either. There are Bekki, Drekki, Orri, Morri and the stone-folk of Amun Rei. Those are the five larger otherfolk. Every once in a while, the forest pops out something no man or mortal has seen before or the gods find a way to improve on our designs.” For Elia to not have encountered any of them, she must have grown up far, far away. “By the way, you never told me where you hail from.”
… I’m so cool, some might say I’m out of this world.
What an odd phrasing. Unhelpful, too. “As in, you’re from across the Ferrish Sea? Or even further west? Sam’s from the west, but you don’t speak one lick like her. North maybe? I hear some people from the cold north have red hair, so do two of the greatest gods Worga and her daughter Wroti.”
Elia gave a long and grumbling sigh.
I am liiiterally not from this world. You know, your planet is round but it's just sooo large that you don’t notice it while standing on level ground. And those… stars up there? Every single one of them is a sun with planets around it, or a galaxy with miiillions of suns all separated by incomprehensible distances filled with nothing but cold and vacuum. And I’m prooobably not even from any one of them in your entire universe ‘cause we didn’t have magic, didn’t have human-animal hybrids and for sure didn’t have telepathic talking tomatoes!
“I…” Elia sounded just like the raving lunatics begging in the streets, what with their pointy hats, little spy glasses, and formulae etched into the rock. What was she supposed to say to that?
As it turned out, saying nothing was a viable path to end this discussion. Rye finished picking up the bottles and stacked them neatly in a corner, sorted from tall to wide and by how expensive the glass looked. She wiped the sweat off her brow, took in the now much more tidy room and immediately felt the weight of two catlike eyes judging her from the side.
She turned and there Lim was, peeking at her work from right across her shoulder.
“H-hello?” Rye said as the eyes peered at her face, then her wrist, then back again. “Can I help you somehow?”
“Kept word. Is good friend. Lim not shoot friends. Meow.”
“Oh. That’s good? Yes, very, very good.” She put on a strained smile, doing her best to convince herself that Lim was not going to pounce and slit her throat. “Sooo, do we just… go and save Pim now?”
The bekki yawned. Gosh, she had sharp teeth.
“Later. Naptime. Headache meow. Then save Pim. Because Pim Lim Kin, me-ow.” the woman said, as if creating sentences by haphazardly stacking words on top of each other was the new rage.
“Pim Lim Kin… Yes?” Rye asked.
“Yes meow. Go meow. Will watch from far. Help, if need meow.”
And with that, she was promptly escorted out of the room.
“M-may I ask why you are pushing me?”
Lim looked at the neatly arrayed bottles over her shoulder, the newly clean room somehow an affront to her aesthetic taste. She pointed a single clawed finger at Rye’s face.
“Stinky.”
“E-excuse me?”
“Stinky.” Lim scrunched her nose. “Not ready. Not meow.”
“N-not now? B-but I am, see? I have soap, a file, some candles, medical supplies and–”
The tower door rudely slammed shut behind her. As she paced back and forth within the echoing halls of the castle, Rye internalized an all too important fact.
“–and I don’t know where to go, I can barely swing a sword and the only person who can help me is drunk off her rocks!” She sagged to the floor. “I’m not ready.”
Heyy, chiiill. Loosen your leeegs, walk arouuund, find some loot, git gud. We are unstoppable, togethaaa…
“I… I guess we are.” Rye sighed and walked up the stairs. Maybe a bit of a vantage point would help them get through the maze-like array of courtyards, hallways and inner walls. “But what if I get stuck?”
Oh, dangerous. Softlocks are nooo joke, nope, no siree. I was stuck once in a super mario world two ROM–hack, only to realize I dropped the missing piece of the puzzle down a pit threeee hours before.
“That sounds terrible.” Rye said in the hopes her contribution would both be correct and considered sufficient for polite society.
Elia was not polite society. Rye reached the top of the tower, got a good view of the path ahead, found a ladder fastened to its side and decided to take it down only to land at the same bowl with the dead knight they had started at. Wonderful. All the way, she was subject to page after page of the senseless ramblings of a woman who clearly had more than earned a stern talking to when she could actually remember and digest a lesson in restraint.
*Gong*
The irony of her, conqueror of a hundred romances, preaching restraint did not go unnoticed. “H-hey Elia. Did you remember any… weird dreams you had while sleeping?”
Elia stopped her incredibly detailed rant only to say a single word. “Hussy.”
And then she continued talking, Rye sinking further into bottomless shame.
… and that’s the story of the BLJ, the backwards long jump, a tech that revolutionized super mario 64 speedrunning and brought the cleartime from hours down to minutes. That and the discovery of parallel worlds, but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. I was actually quite into making Rom Hacks for super mario world 2, because of all the whack shit you can do with a feather cape. Hey, do you want to swap now?
“Hmm, well, I am kind of enjoying listening to your… ‘video game’ excursions.” A wave of indescribable joy washed over her mind, threatening to drown her by mere proximity. “Also, it’s nice to walk around, stretch my legs. I was thinking I’d do a little bit of adventuring, a little bit of sneaking. Also, you’re still quite drunk.”
Elia giggled. She was not doing a good job of convincing her otherwise.
Oh joy, oh joy! I get to watch you bumble around for a change? Hmmm, but we have a looot of souls, and shards. Can you promise me that you won’t lose them?
Soul count: x12901
Shard count: [Common] x13, [Uncommon] x15
“I…” Elia deflated in a way that made her feel like “You’re right. I’ll just wait here until you come to your senses.”
Whaaat? Nooo. Rye, you don’t see it yet, but I, oh yes, I have recognized your potential.
“You have?”
Of course. You hate violence, but you love helping people. You killed a fish ogre, but that’s just the prooologue. Difficult times lay behind, but more are on the horizon. Like waaay out there, you’re gonna be a kickass hero, smiting demons and all the sinners who said ‘damn’ that one time, I guess. You’re special Rye, because you have a moral compass that still points north.
What an uplifting way to say she knew right from wrong. “Well, I don’t know… I don’t want to lose all the souls. They must reach Loften and I’d be a failure of an undead if I did lose them.”
Ah. That’s what we have insurance for.
Her right hand moved on its own and sure enough, a ring was clasped within it. The favor ring. The same one the Viln woman – Avice was her name – had given them after… after she killed a person for the first time. She had to put down a dog once. Rudy, pus-ridden and bitten by a fester flea. The look in both their eyes haunted her but just like with the dog, it had been a necessary evil.
It didn’t stop her from feeling terrible, not then, not now.
Heeyyy, Ryyye. Buddy, girl, don’t be saaad. Instead, take those industrious hands and put them to work.
Elia put a sword in her hand. Which was to say she drew it with her own, then simply slunk away.
Here, a guaranteed cure for chronic pacifism is an act of heroism. Or an act of criiime. The deeevil is in the detail, but lucky youuu for being shortsighted.
Elia didn’t seem to care either way. She was not being very subtle. She had the weirdest ways of trying to help her.
“You’re right. I can do this. For Pim. I feel stronger than before.”
And you’ve got good armor too. You’re praaactically safe as long as you don’t pick a fight with a boss monster or knight.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am safe.”
Aaand don’t forget your magic. Shit, you never used it once while I was in control. Show them who’s boss.
“Me! I am boss!” Whatever that meant. “And I’m not the old Rye. I am a new Rye. Better Rye. I am…”
Her singed cape fluttered dramatically in a gust sent by the very gods themselves to make her look absolutely snazzy.
“Captain Rye!”
Elia giggled again. Malice had taken leave for the day.
Captain Rye! Ooone step below knight, one step above whatever… comes before captain. Hip, huzzah, hooray!