Two members of the Halflights approached, though hindered by the crowd pressing in around them, all so many shoppers and bored pedestrians who clamored for the heroes’ attention.
The First, the leader of the Halflights, raised his hand to speak. Kate considered plugging her ears, but she had no idea if it would work, or if the rumors of the First’s gift had been overblown.
“Calm, good folks! Calm~” the First spoke loudly, clearly, and with a resonance in his voice that bordered on the ethereal and unnatural. His words overflowed with an intangible power that spilled over the crowd.
People stopped clamoring so loudly, the crowd stopped pushing against themselves to gain the Halflights’ attention. It was amazing that a boy approximately Kate’s age could gain and warrant such attention, let alone influence, among people of all ages including adults.
“There will be many chances in the future to receive one of our tokens,” the First continued speaking, now with a projected and mundane voice, though people still listened all the same. “Good folk, return to your business and provide us space; allow me a polite conversation with a talented young squire.”
As he spoke, but only at first, Kate had found herself nodding along… until he called her a squire. Her nostrils flared in irritation. She had been born with a higher title and had never in fact been a squire.
The false hero had insulted her by calling her a squire. She had never scrubbed armor nor had she been indentured to a knight.
The anger from that insult allowed her to rally against the man’s gift, his unnatural charm, the compulsion laden in his voice.
Almost succumbing to it left her feeling scummy. The First, above all the Halflights, disgusted her the most. Unfortunately, his public use of the gift was perfectly legal; she had checked. But he broke no laws so long as he never compelled a citizen to perform an illegal act. And even if he did, proving such would be impossible.
She glanced around her for support. None of the knights were watching, all going about their own training in the yard, on the other side of the wrought iron fence. The plebeians had left, or were watching from a distance, and those nearest had been thoroughly ensorcelled. Her only possible ally was Gregory, and his face had slackened and his face had softened. Kate snapped her fingers in front of his face until his gaze sharpened.
The First’s gift was truly insidious.
He went by an alias: Velvetcall.
Other than his terribleness, everything about him was ridiculous and Kate hated him. And for good reason, she thought.
He wore a gaudy and embroidered mask that covered his face like some kind of criminal. He wore a hood to shadow his forehead and conceal his hair. And it was not just that he and the Halflights felt the need to hide their true identities. He also dressed in clothes more fit for a party than for anything productive. She doubted his hands had a single callous.
In fact, everything on him from the toe up decried combat.
Supple leather cloth formed his boots as opposed to a hardened and protective material. Colorful and tight pants covered his legs, providing not one iota of protection–although that might not be entirely true: Kate thought that the bright purple pants might have been able to distract an enemy in a fight, but she doubted he had the training to make that work. Even his jacket, the part covering the most vulnerable part of a person, the easiest garment to add padding or armor to, even his godslicking jacket would be wearable at a dinner party.
And the absolutely most offensive part was the weapon hanging from his belt. Not a bastard sword, nor a short sword, and not even a dagger. No, his weapon of choice was an artificed shock club. A shock club!
Literally everything about him, Kate could find something to hate. Just looking at him left her blood boiling and gripping the hilt of her bastard sword.
Unfortunately, she could not strike him down. Well, technically she could. But she would probably be either assassinated or executed within a day, regardless of her own position.
Even more unfortunately, he and his companion were hailing her and nearly upon her.
“Ugh,” she groaned. She might still escape, but then Gregory would be left to deal with the twit. Still though, Velvetcall seemed more focused on her than Gregory. A timely retreat might be wise. Though a portion of her, an alien and strange part of her, felt too calm.
“Salutations and greetings, citizen.” Velvetcall gave a short bow towards Kate, while his companion provided a curtsy. Notably, he used a singular tense and he directed his gesture towards Kate. “Perhaps you have heard of myself and my companion already–”
“-I have,” Kate admitted.
He almost faltered for a second before pressing forward with confidence. “My name is Velvetcall, and with me is my Companion Guesswork, and I am the First of the order of protectors and heroes called the Halflight Vigilants, sponsored by Princess Marissa herself…”
It took a while for the man to finish, but Kate supposed if one has a capital-g Gift for speaking, that one would do a fair share of it. After the first time interrupting, she turned her attention to his companion, Guesswork, who was far more interesting, at least to look at.
She wore tight leggings and laced long boots; her tunic hugged her chest and waist; and her jacket only covered part of her torso. Her hair had been colored lilac, to both match Velvetcall’s getup and Princess Marissa’s hair–though it was on good authority that the Princess’s hair was naturally that color, as opposed to Guesswork the imitator.
Unfortunately, as with the other heroes, Guesswork covered her face with a mask and hood, so that only her eyes were visible. And those eyes, brilliant green orbs that they were, were quite inquisitive. It almost felt that they reacted to Kate’s inspection as Kate’s eyes lingered.
“...Might I request your name, squire?” Velvetcall asked.
His prompt broke Kate from her reverie. She shook her head a bit, as though to loosen the alien calm and eject it from her core. She recognized that his soothing tone and voice affected her, but while under its effects she found it difficult to fight off. But with that prompt, she had her chance.
“Yeah, but no,” she answered.
She turned towards the fencing, intending to jump it. Just as she lowered to a crouch, coiling her legs like tightly wound springs–
“Wait!” Velvetcall said.
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That wave of foreign spirit latched on to her own.
She knew it was foreign.
She understood that.
But it made it no easier to resist its integration. Suddenly, she felt compelled to just listen and to hear the guy out. If she had a glyph for protection, then she might have had an easier time escaping. Instead, she paused and turned back towards him, some anger leaking through her face, breaking through the artificial calm.
“-just tell me why you won’t share your name,” he said.
Despite his patronizing tone of voice, his request seemed reasonable. Afterall, he only wanted to know her motivations for not telling him her name, and giving him her name would have been a trivial request to begin with.
A part of her wanted to grit her teeth, wanted to run, to insult the boy, to strike him down dead. But that was normal.
But he had made a request, and under the effects of his gift, she felt compelled to answer. So answer, she did.
“Largely because I was offended,” Kate explained. She had wanted to explain further about why: like how he dressed like a foppish criminal, and how his particular gift should be outlawed and punishable by death. But saying the first thing that popped into her head was just not right. It would not be her.
Guesswork snorted in an almost laughter and spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Unusual for you, Vel, insulting a lady. And here I thought you were a gentleman.”
“I’m of the bourgeois, actually,” Velvetcall corrected. “But similar upbringings I suppose.” He turned back to Kate, “I must apologize then, even though I am unsure how I erred. But please, tell me your name.” Velvetcall prompted once more, his voice so resonant that Kate almost lost herself in it.
Once more, Kate felt compelled to answer, despite the innermost portion of her boiling and frothing.
“Lady Katherine Gaurdson,” Kate answered. “But I prefer Sir Kate.”
“Bucking expectations,” Guesswork commented.
“Certainly more martial,” Velvetcall said. “Well then, Sir Kate, I could not help but notice your exquisite swordplay earlier so I sought for a moment of your time to… talk.”
Kate had a nascent question, but it never truly formed enough to ask. But if he had seen Kate earlier and had been impressed, then it had to have been towards the end of Kate’s spar with Boke. But if that was true, then how could he have seen Kate from all the way on the other side of Muster Square, especially with the crowds between them?
But a more important issue erupted from the back of Kate’s mind. “Swordwork,” she corrected. “Not play.”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, surprised and askance, taking a step backwards.
Gregory barked a laugh, before clapping a hand over his mouth as both of the heroes looked his way.
“Oh, do tell,” Velvetcall said, glaring at Gregory.
Gregory, blushing furiously with the attention on him, stammered: “she hates the term swordplay because it implies she’s just playing around.”
“Ah,” Velvetcall uttered.
Guesswork nudged Velvetcall and whispered in his ear.
Nobody knew exactly what her gift was, but she was always backing up Velvetcall wherever he went, so it must have been complimentary to his gift–his disgusting gift. The frothing turmoil in Kate was beginning to win out. This boy had dared trying to soothe her?
“Right,” Velvetcall nodded. He then laid on his resonance once again. It was difficult to focus on anything else. “We’re getting off track,” he said. “Sir Kate, you have incredible skill. The Halflight Vigilants are recruiting, and those that join are given an Imperial Glyph.”
An Imperial Glyph was the highest sacred art a person could receive, short of a curse from the gods themselves. The glyph would always provide a branch of unique talents matching the marked person. However, as with all good things, it came with incredible costs. Such as freedom. And though they did not mention it, the Halflights were forever at the princess’s beck and call.
If she was shortsighted, it might sound like a reasonable deal. Afterall, she serviced the Crown already, and the princess could one day inherit. But Princess Marissa was uncrowned yet, and Kate had no desire to participate in any court politics… or, more importantly, Kate had no desire to walk around the city handing out foolish tokens while looking like a fop.
Guesswork butted in at this point in Kate’s internal debate.
“Joining us isn’t that bad,” Guesswork said. “And it beats some of the other things people do for major glyphs. Just consider us before going to someone like the Skingineer, yeah?”
Velvetcall turned to Guesswork and shushed her, “I’m doing the pitch,” he said under a low voice, though still loud enough for Kate to hear.
“She’s not going to join,” Guesswork said adamantly. “This way, she’ll at least consider in the future.”
“Ah. Well, if she’s not going to join willingly then maybe–” Velvetcall started, with his voice beginning to grow in volume until the rest of the world seemed to be fading away, everything focused on the resonance in his voice.
Geusswork butted in once more. “Nope! Her mom’s the captain of the High Guard, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. Please stop.”
Velvetcall sputtered to a stop, the resonance fading like an echo in the distance. After a pause, he took a waspish tone. “If you insist,” he said.
But Guesswork had yet to finish: “besides, Her Highness really doesn’t want that baggage,” she said.
“I said fine!” Velvetcall snapped, the spell near entirely broken, though Kate still felt the unnatural calm pressing down upon her like a heavy blanket, smothering her.
He turned back to Kate with another bow as he handed her a wooden coin.
“In case you reconsider,” he said, standing upright once more. “You know how to find us.”
As they turned and left, Kate turned the wooden coin over in her hands. She had heard about them, their tokens, which were somewhere between a collectible and a favor to be heard by the princess. Inspecting the coin, on one side was Velvetcall’s name and on the other was a likeness of the princess. The art had been well done.
Kate tossed it to Gregory, and of course, he fumbled the catch.
“That was something,” Gregory said, shaking his head as he looked over the token himself. “Can you imagine getting an Imperial Gift? Like, what would you even get?” he asked in a wistful tone.
“Yeah…” Kate trailed off, awash with a strange stew of emotions.
But a growing emotion in the medley was one of relief, one that she had just narrowly dodged an execution. And as that feeling came, she had to wonder why. And as she wondered why, and as she went back over the conversation, and as she remembered Velvetcall’s particular gift, she took that metaphorical stew and threw it in a fire.
The heavy blanket of calmness had thoroughly been burnt off as all parts of her rejoined in the fiery froth of her blood.
She stood there, in the square, shaking and trembling in an uncharacteristic display of weakness as everything swept through her. Gregory tried asking her what was wrong, but Kate took no notice of him, completely lost in herself, and the violation she had felt.
The conniption lasted minutes. But finally, it faded enough for anger to win out, and she began to curse and swear. Loudly. “That godslicking cunt!” she screamed.
Gregory dropped the token and jumped.
“Wha–Kate?” he asked. “You kinda looked lost there for a bit. Figured you were thinking about–”
“Shut up.”
“Huh?” he asked, a hurt look on his face.
Kate schooled herself, took a deep breath, and released. It was not Gregory’s fault. He might not have even felt it, that vile intrusiveness of that terrible voice. But still, he could have tried harder to stop it. But again, not his fault.
“It’s…” she started, but trailed off. If nobody else took issue with being soothed, then how could she explain.
“You can tell me,” he said.
“It’s nothing,” Kate said, shaking her head, focusing her ire where she could. She began storming off towards the Garrison Tower overlooking the square, where her mother was. Despite the delay, she still had a request to make.
“Wait, where’re you going?!” he called after her, hurrying to follow her.
“I still need to talk with my mom,” she called back.
And after that, Kate would begin planning on how to murder that godslicking son of a whore without getting murdered herself in turn.