--- TAASEN ---
Taasen smiled up at the sky as flakes of pure whiteness fell from it, each one unique and beautiful against the tapestry of the surrounding world. He caught a flake on his hand, watching as it slowly melted and observing the delicate pattern of six-fold symmetry.
Art is the soul of the world, especially in Divaria, the land of ice and snow, a place where anything can happen if you work hard enough. Taasen was one of those people who had worked hard enough. At this point, impossible things even happened on accident.
As such, Taasen leaped sharply to the side as someone lunged at him. He hadn’t seen or heard the strike, but that didn’t matter.
Spinning out of the way to face the attacker. His sword was in his hand after less than a heartbeat and Taasen certainly didn’t remember actually pulling it out. He wasn’t sure if it had cracked reality or if he’d just unsheathed it unconsciously.
Who cares, I have an enemy. I have to have gotten Selneth’s attention by now. Taasen might just end up hunting down Selneth if it turned out this was just another opportunist. There was a surprising amount of opportunists around lately, he was getting rather tired of them to be honest.
He grinned at the attacker, who’d regained himself after the failed ambush. He was smaller than Taasen had expected, with a slight build and a certain fumbling quality to his stance. He wore a mask, which didn’t bode well for him having been sent by Selneth.
He held his knives out defensively, one in each hand. They were big enough to possibly count as swords under some classifications, but to Taasen they were pitiful.
He shifted his own legs into a stance that granted greater stability, watching the attacker’s stance and bearing with a critical eye, waiting for… there it is.
Taasen leaped forward, moving with inhuman speed and grace. He slashed at his enemy’s unprotected legs, feeling it bite into the thigh with surprising resistance as the blade achieved a shallow gash. The man managed to slightly deflect the blade with one of his knives, otherwise he might have lost the limb. Taasen backed up, narrowing his eyes.
“Are you with Selneth?”
The attacker hissed slightly as he tried to shift his weight to his injured leg. Taasen struck by instinct, hitting the other leg this time in a way that felt like it went deeper than the first—there was still too much resistance—but Taasen was gifted a slash across one of his own arms for his trouble.
“Did you assume that I might be carrying this lovely weapon as a decoration?” Really, it was a beautiful tool; when he sliced just right he could cut through bone, wood, sometimes even metal. So why was there too much resistance? He frowned at the attacker, examining his form again, perhaps it was a thin armor?
The attacker backed up slightly as if he was contemplating running away.
“Oh, frostbite, you are not leaving!” Taasen held up his sword in a more threatening stance, “I have been patiently waiting for someone to attack me for the last seven passings of the sun!” And he’d been out here for about four months before that, having been attacked several times in those four months. All of them having been frostbitten OPPORTUNISTS.
The attacker watched Taasen for a moment before he seemed to give up, dropping his knives into the snow. He removed his mask while making several clicking sounds that just made Taasen’s heart drop. Construct. Taasen felt his mood severely sour, that’s why it was a bit too hard for flesh, it wasn’t even flesh!
He glared at the wooden face in front of him, one eye was just straight-up nonexistent as if the carver seemed to have thought the knot in the wood there made a striking contrast to the human-like appearance. The other eye blinked slowly at him. Taasen continued glaring, examining the face before deciding that it was clearly meant to be female.
Frostbite…
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
He sighed and suddenly his sword was sheathed—definitely a crack in reality that time—Taasen massaged his temples. “I assume your creator either perished or left you on your own once you became inconvenient?”
The construct nodded.
“Do you have a purpose?”
The construct shook her head. Her mouth opened and made more of those clicking sounds. He frowned for a moment as his construct was a bit rusty, but he got the meaning easily enough, “No, my father died and took my purpose with him.”
“Did you attack me with a goal other than obtaining my possessions?”
The construct shook her head. Well, that was inconvenient. That meant Selneth definitely hadn’t sent her. “I’m after maps. Travelers have maps.”
“And the most effective way to obtain maps is to attack travelers?”
She looked down, seeming a bit chastised. “If that isn’t how humans do it, I can stop—”
“No, humans do it that way as well. We happen to be very good at hypocrisy.”
The construct seemed surprised at this response. “You… don’t care if I attack travelers?”
“All of them are liars. I would slay them myself.” Taasen turned and examined the path, wondering where he should try next for that assassin that Selneth would certainly have sent by now.
The construct took a step after him when he made to leave, apparently she’d been feigning injury from those attacks earlier, the little deceiver… “Where are we going?”
“I. Am waiting for an assassin. You. Are going on your way.”
“No I’m not,” She put her hands on her hips, but it was an awkward movement, as if she wasn’t really sure why that’s what she should do. “I’ve decided that you’re going to be my new human.”
He turned away from her, “That sounds lovely, but I apologize seeing as I’m not currently looking for any companions. Besides, you attacked me.” He strode through the snow, annoyed but a little intrigued when he heard footsteps behind him crunching through ice. Strangely, she didn’t listen to him. He’d never met a construct that wasn’t absolutely obedient at all times. Some would argue, but all of them would do what you asked in the end.
“I’m sure that you’ll regret not having some kind of backup, even if I am pathetic at fighting.”
Taasen examined a strange-looking log for a moment. She hadn’t been what he would describe as ‘pathetic’ though, he felt the need to correct her. “Where did you learn to fight?”
“You know, here and there…”
And she was lying again. “I don’t tolerate deceit. If you so desire, you may simply not answer as opposed to misleading me. I have a certain… let’s call it a grudge against liars, I tend to make them my enemies, and believe me when I say you do not want to be my enemy.”
He glanced back at her, and she seemed a bit shaken. “I…I’m sorry, I think I did that by instinct.” The clicks of her speech were soft.
Taasen nodded, “I suppose you can come with me, but only if there is no deceit between us. Intentional or otherwise.”
The construct nodded.
“Oh, what do you call yourself? I am Taasen.”
“I…I’m Erane.”
He nodded easily and continued onward. “If we don’t get ambushed, I’ll simply have to provoke Selneth again, or track him down, that little frostbitten shifter…”
Erane walked silently behind him as he plodded through the snow, eventually, she took her gloves off and tucked them away somewhere, she probably couldn’t feel the cold, lucky little construct. Most Divarians have a lesser sense of temperature than other kinds of humans, being in a land with almost perpetual winter, but despite popular belief, they did still feel cold. At least, most of them. Kind of. I would have simply keeled over dead in these temperatures.
Taasen wondered vaguely if musicians—being the most fragile kind of artist—would freeze first if left in an endless field of ice. The painter would certainly live the longest, followed closely by the dancer… it was an interesting question. Again, Taasen would fit right in with philosophers if they lived long enough to learn his twisted ways.
A sudden thought came upon Taasen and he glanced back at Erane, “Are you an artist?”
She blinked. “I’m a construct if you didn’t notice?”
“And I was made by the children of Kalteii, but that does about the opposite in preventing me from creating art. Also, what did I say about deceit?”
Erane glanced away, “It’s a recent development…”
“I see. Do you have a handle on it?”
She kept on staring out at the falling snow, “As much as can be expected.”
He smiled, looking out at the snow as well, “Art is everything, it always struck me as odd that constructs couldn’t make it. But you seem to be different, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t always different. I was just like the rest, I could barely talk, I could barely choose.”
“What changed?”
Erane stopped walking, and Taasen did as well, figuring the assassin could find him anywhere if it was a decent one. “You want my story?”
“Of course, I’m certain it’s more interesting than mine.”
Erane seemed resigned, “It started when my father died.”