Chapter 10: A Brother’s Care
She was worthless.
Well and truly worthless.
There were untold trillions of the Mother’s Children, fighting in countless quadrants in the realm of heaven, keeping the dark one’s tortured servants from spreading his misery across the stars. Yet not one of them could come even close to being as utterly useless as she was.
She had them dead to rights.
She’d fixed herself, foregone wielding a blocky Blessed Blaster and optimized herself for speedy target acquisition. She’d ambushed them from the high ground, taken out their ranged assailant at the very beginning of the altercation. Everything was set up for her to avenge her fallen brother and repent for letting him die in such a manner.
But then her worthlessness reared its ugly head and ruined everything.
She’d failed to gun down the others before they could take cover. She’d failed to take into account a sneak attack from behind. She’d failed to regain her advantageous position at any point afterwards. And had failed herself, her Queen and her Kin to such a magnificent degree that she’d wound up in a pool of her own blood partially wedged under the broken pieces of the crashed Brighthome.
Large fingers built to mimic those of the Queens were now pinning her to the Blackstone Floor, forcing her to watch her targets evade her kin and disappear into the belly of the Tower.
But despite her brothers and sisters failing to butcher the Noirites before them, she could only blame herself for leaving the challenge to them in the first place. It should’ve been her, had to be her. But what could she expect?
She was malformed, after all.
As more vitae spilled from her wounds and her vision grew hazy, she could only pray that whatever she was repurposed for would use her vitae in a more positive manner. Perhaps when the Makers retrieved her drained statue of a corpse, they’d use it to make a Pawn with far greater potential. Perhaps she’d be used to craft deadly weapons to protect the joys of heaven, or a great Palace befitting the Queen’s children.
That was the only hope which calmed her as she bled.
It dulled her cries, softened the aches, and made her relax more as those black doors slammed shut and her kin moved quick to secure the room.
“Search for our fellows!” one called out before pointing up towards the pile of rubble leading up to the hive “And someone please get the ram unloaded before they get too much distance on us!”
Her brothers and sisters moved like a proper machine, with some checking the room while others ascended into the hive. Several more turned back towards the crashed Brighthome.
It was one of them who noticed her first. He quickly pointed her out to the others before sliding his blaster onto his back and racing over. Several more joined him in moving aside the broken pieces of the vessel which had her pinned to the floor, though she couldn’t quite understand why.
She was surely done for, after all. She could barely even move a single finger as they pulled her from the wreckage. Several were speaking to her while another checked the gaping wound she sported, but their words were already too muffled for her to recognize.
They had a mission to do, enemies to stop, things that mattered far more than moving trash like her about.
Why bother?
Her blurry vision worsened until the pale forms of her kin mixed together into a bright gray slurry around her. With her senses all but gone, she was blessed with silence and allowed a moment to enjoy her end.
But that moment briefly ceased when feeling returned to her limbs.
Her eye went wide as her vision began clearing, the crumbled cave and destroyed Noirite Tower had been replaced with bright white clouds.
They were above her, filling the sky with a golden sheen that had her gasping in recognition.
She was on her back amidst more of those clouds, on a large disk of solid Pearlglass that she pushed against to raise herself. Surrounding the disk was an ocean of more clouds which folded in and over each other, stretching up and around it as pure bright lights poked through, illuminating what could only be the inside of a Blanken Vessel.
“Ah, seems we weren’t too late then, sister!”
She spun quickly, finding she was not alone on the disk. In the very center of it a pile of Pearlglass shards were constantly shifting in place. The shards folded over each other multiple times, radiating with the same golden hue as the clouds around them.
And in the center of that pile was another of her kin, dancing in the constantly shifting shards. No armor or helmet, with trails of Pearlglass shards crisscrossing along the joints of his bare shell, his movements were as fluid as the shifting pile he stood upon.
“With how much of the Mother’s Vitae you’d shed, I was convinced you would perish before we could offer aid, dear sister.”
The Dancer’s voice was impassioned, briefly flashing a massive grin in her direction before resuming his wild routine. It was obvious who she was talking to even if she’d never actually seen him face to face before.
Brother Holst.
She quickly looked down to her sides, only to see similar trails of Pearlglass shards bleeding away from her patched wounds and returning to the pile he danced upon.
Only when the pile was whole again did he stop, the trails covering his body falling away as he raised his arms out towards her.
“Ah, where’s the joy?” Holst asked, his smile dampening for just a moment as he tilted his head towards her “What is this? Hesitation?”
“Apologies Brother, Genthol always said to make sure you were finished before speaking.” She was quick to answer, drawing a frown from Holst as he stood back.
“Genthol, eh?” Holst's smile was overtaken briefly by a frown before he looked away “It seems he’s conspired to provoke me, even in death.”
She winced at that. Her mind had been freed from thoughts of his death up until that very moment. She curled up, pulling her legs closer as she prayed for the Mother to grant him some semblance of peace.
But she knew that wouldn’t be enough to temper her anguish.
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At some point, Holst had looked down upon her with a hum of interest, crouching down and shifting closer as his eye examined her with intensity.
“Your name, sister… mind sharing?”
“I never took one.” She stated “I am… unworthy.”
“Aha!” Holst clapped his hands together and shot back onto his feet, dancing away with a snicker of pride.
“I knew it!” he raised a finger to the sky and twirled it around “You’re that supposedly malformed newborn that our late brother could never cease speaking of! Ah, and he always said I never listened, I hope he’s looking down upon us from the mother’s embrace.”
She stayed silent as Holst laughed to himself, his amusement doing nothing to drive away her woes.
“But I have to say, looking upon you now.” He leaned towards her to examine her again “I’m certain he embellished claims of your malformations, No Name, your shell looks fine!”
“Not there!”
Raising a hand up to her head, she squeezed her eye shut before tapping a finger against the side of her temple. Her fingers clicked against the side of her head several times. After getting no response for several seconds, she opened her eye to find Holst staring at her.
She tapped again to no avail. He just tilted his head in confusion.
“But your dome seems to be the correct shape as well.” He said, prompting her to whimper.
“Its inside, I don’t… I can’t think right.” She declared, reaching up to squeeze her head between her hand and her blaster arm “I can’t feel the warmth of the mother’s love.”
“Nonsense, every child of the Queen can feel her,” Holst waved her off before walking away “Just as every one of the King’s poor servants can feel his horrid presence coursing through their forms. We are made of her blood. You can feel her.”
“I can’t!” she replied
“Yes, you can.”
“I cannot brother!” her final declaration seemed to break through to him, as he finally looked back to her with another confused frown “I-I am lost, banished from her love. Genthol knew, but… he forgave my weakness.”
“Tch, did he now?” Holst turned back to face her fully before tapping his foot against the floor several times “Well, he always did fancy teaching the… less gifted of Newborns.”
“And now… he’s gone.” She murmured, hearing Holst sigh as she buried her face in her palm “Gone… because I couldn’t-!”
“Enough!”
She looked up to see Holst standing over her, holding out a hand before smiling and kneeling down again until they were at eye level.
“There’s no need for woe, sister, he’s with the mother now. Sooner or later his body and blood will be remade into a new sibling to fight alongside us, it is the way of the Sovereign’s War.”
She pressed her lips tightly together, fighting back the urge to scream. Any other child of the Queen would be nothing less than ecstatic at such words, any normal Pawn would’ve just nodded and matched his smile with one of their own.
Without the warmth of the Mother’s love, she did not have the luxury of that certainty.
Holst took note of her strained expression, reaching out to grab hold of her shoulder.
“If that fails to lift your spirits, perhaps honoring his lesson will fare better?” he suggested, “Tell me, No Name, what do you think he wished you to learn beyond anything else?”
It was a question she hadn’t been expecting, and struggled to answer. Genthol had taught her plenty since she’d been reassigned to his convent, everything from battle stance to battleground evaluation. There wasn’t one singular lesson that stood out above the others, there couldn’t be when all of them had a place in a Pawn’s toolkit.
Once again, Holst gave a tilt of his head as he watched her chew on his question. Only for him to lean close and whisper.
“Family.” A single word that she was positive Genthol had never focused on during training.
“Neither of you may have realized it, but his mentorship has revealed our greatest power as kin!” Holst stood and raised his hands out to the side “We are Family!”
“Of course, but… brother never-!”
“Brothers and sisters!” Holst’s voice came to her through Thought speak “How fares our efforts?”
“Door will give any second, my friend!” another voice answered “Soon the dark ones will have nowhere else to flee!”
“We’ve pulled several from the cave-in.” came a different voice “We’ll have the numbers to push in, but Brother Lutro’s still not quite a fan of our little stunt.”
“Holst, you can’t keep ignoring my words!” Lutro spat “Our number of Brighthomes are limited at the moment, and they’re currently one of our greatest assets against the Noirite Scourge here. You can’t just crash them whenever you feel like it!”
“Hear that, No Name?” Holst beamed down at her with a smile on his face “The voices of your kin? Those who share your burden.”
“Holst?” Lutro tried again
“Learning to work with them, to let them raise you to tiers beyond that which you know.” Holst reached down to grab at her blast arm “That is a lesson which I’m sure he’d love you to carry on.”
Even with weaknesses such as her’s, the cooperation of her peers would negate them. It was a simple idea, really, one she wasn’t certain if she could trust at face value. If anything, her presence would drag down those around her. It was one of the reasons she had tried hunting down Genthol’s killers on her own, there were less chances of her getting others killed.
“Did you do this yourself?”
She blinked and looked to find Holst examining her blaster arm intently, tracing where her arm ended and the weapon started.
“My failure to properly wield a Blaster led to his demise.” She stated “I fixed myself.”
“Not the simplest thing to do on the battlefield, sister.” Holst smirked at her before patting the barrel “Should’ve had you working with the Makers if you were this good.”
A compliment she didn’t feel was deserved, but she held her tongue as Holst stood and clapped his hands together.
“I’ll be sure to inform Lady Khullic once we’ve rescued her.” He mentioned, pausing as she shot up to her feet at that name.
“The Knight?!?” she drew closer “She’s here?”
“It is where she was last seen,” Holst nodded “she was dueling the Tower’s defenders as it fell!”
He stepped away for a moment before twirling past the pile of Pearlglass. It twisted with his movements, trailing back up his legs and winding around his torso as he resumed dancing. As he moved, more trails of Pearlglass shards spread forth across the floor before disappearing into the clouds.
“Many claim hard alteration of the body could hamper a Pawn’s options, No Name!” Holst spoke as he swung his arms in tandem with his twirls “But Lady Khullic is quite the fan of passion. To commit yourself so completely to it, I know that she’ll just love you!”
More compliments that brought a satisfying burn to her core despite her reservations. Letting her gaze fall to the floor, she couldn’t help the smile which fought its way into her expression.
It faded once a hand popped into her vision, and she looked up to see that Holst had danced his way over to her.
“Come now, No Name,” He said, extending a hand towards her “your kin need your aid!”
She stared down at the offered hand for only a moment, raising her hand slowly before clasping Holst’s.
“There we go,” he cooed as he led her back to the edge of the Pearlglass floor “assist in digging out our trapped kin, then. Endear yourself to them so that you may better aid each other in conflict.”
The bright clouds near the edge of the Pearlglass disk swirled together, spilling onto the Pearlglass before her before spreading open to reveal a hole that wasn’t there before, leading towards what she recognized of the floor of the Noirite Cargo Hold.
“And you, brother?” she asked, briefly turning back as Holst danced back to the center of the disk.
“I must work to restore this vessel.” He admitted with a grin “As funny as his worrying is, Brother Lutro is correct, it would be foolish to let it fall apart now that we’ve got it past the Blacklight Ring.”
There was no argument there. He had crashed close to the Tower’s refinery. If they worked quickly, the Tower could be removed as a threat entirely by the day’s end if not sooner.
With new hope blooming in her core, No Name turned back to the opening that Holst had formed before diving in.