--- FLAME IN THE DARKNESS CASTING BRILLIANT LIGHT ---
Flame wasn’t always a violent person, but he’d sold far far more of his soul than he’d preferred, which… made it hard sometimes to not react at the slightest provocation or go off on a rampage of yelling and attacking.
All for what, a practically useless ability? Sure, he wouldn’t be here without it, but Flame in the Darkness, Casting Brilliant Light, would much have preferred that it hadn’t happened. He’d have liked to simply not have sold his soul in the first place. He wouldn’t really have been any happier either way after all.
Filfinde stroked his back comfortingly, her small nose sniffing the cool night air as the darkness wore on. Neither of them needed as much sleep as the rest of the caravan, a consequence of having less of a soul. Without a soul, you didn’t need as many dreams. She didn’t seem nearly as impacted by violent episodes than he did, often her gaze would simply become calculating, her posture hard, her eyes angry but also planning.
It was probably because she was a woman, women were a lot better than men in practically every sense. Squalls. That was probably why all the murderous and famous bloodbinders had been female. The only reason none of them passed on their curse, was that practically all of them that he’d heard of had been unable to have children.
Maybe that’s what some of them had really sacrificed.
“I can talk to Talf if you want, let him know that it’s getting harder?”
Flame felt a sudden fear rise up in his mind. If that idiot knew, then everyone would know by the next sunrise. He’d never get a wink of solitude if everyone was constantly badgering him about his feelings. Besides, He wasn’t supposed to even have feelings. That, he suspected, was most of the problem. “Ack! No! No! It’s better if you don’t tell anyone! Least of all that blithering fool!”
He just had to be better.
Somehow.
Filfinde sighed, shaking her head. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to, Flame could practically feel her opinion from where he sat. Open up! It’s okay, you won’t be burned again.
Flame found himself relaxing into her even as he disagreed.
-
The next morning, Flame woke up in a good mood. When there was a beautiful woman beside you, that was hard to not happen. It helped a lot with getting through the rest of the day. Mornings themselves were a fresh start, a cycle of the world that was free of things like anger, sorrow, and insult.
Flame sat up, peeking out of the tent and examining the wagons. After a thief had stolen one of them a few months ago, he never really trusted their ability to simply stay as they were. Flame counted the three wagons and then the tents twice before he finally relaxed. At least the new kid probably wasn’t planning on robbing them blind. Not that Flame would trust him even if he was farther away than the stars themselves.
The bloodbinder peered around the camp for another long moment before finally standing up. He picked up his sword as he exited the tent, turning in a wide circle to have a look at anything that had been obscured by the tent itself. Roahnosh had set it up wrong again, Flame remembered being extremely annoyed about that last night.
But… well he found that anger far away at the moment.
Flame in the Darkness Casting Brilliant Light sighed and started packing things back into the wagons. They’d be arriving at the city of Starlight before sunset, so there was quite a bit of reorganization that needed to be done, bringing wares and cargo to the front and putting their personal items farther back.
Flame scowled once he found a particular item, and vowed once again that he’d be staying out of sight the whole trip, so there was no reason at all why he would need it, thank you very much. He brought the despicable bucket closer to the front though, just in case Filfinde or someone else wanted it today.
Squalls, he hated that thing.
--- KINTHEK ---
Kinthek sat with the last wagon outside the gates. He’d watched the other two wagons as they’d moved inside, taking most of the caravan with them. But Kinthek himself didn’t plan on visiting Starlight anytime soon. After shattering their thunder crystal quite spectacularly, it was a miracle they hadn’t been burned to the ground and trampled a dozen times over by monsters on Light days.
He hesitantly felt at the lifeforce, feeling the slight pull towards the city now that he was outside of it. Thunder crystals had a tendency to suck in life, but only life that would move toward it. Mostly that meant water, which was why it always floated out in the desert. You couldn’t have your crystal drinking you out of your city.
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He knew in theory that they’d repaired it after the whole debacle, or maybe some poor sap had been forced to sell their soul for a new one. Kinthek figured that was a way to get them, rather than looking out in the desert for natural ones?
Either way, it was strange to know that it was back. Part of him felt an unnatural urge to head into the city and break it again, he wanted to see how long it took the corrupt prince to get booted from his throne the right way this time…
But no. No it wasn’t worth it.
Kinthek sighed and looked up at the stars, trying very hard not too look in the direction of his only companion, Flame. Flame didn’t seem to think much of Kinthek, and this whole time he’d treated him as just another threat to the wagon, even forcing him to sit on the ground next to it within clear view; Kinthek didn’t want to make the mercenary angry, he figured that was a short route toward ending his life early. So he sat there patiently, part of him wanting to just set up a tent and go to bed, but the other part knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep this close to his old home. Just knowing how many of the people he used to care about were still in there.
None of them had even been willing to look at him though, ten years ago. He probably wouldn’t even recognize his old friends if they ran into each other. Kinthek sighed at his depressed trade of thought, finally mustering the willpower to glance over at Flame because that would certainly get him thinking about something else.
Sure enough, the bloodbinder was just… staring at him. Hardly even seemed like he was blinking.
Kinthek gave him an uneasy look as he stared back at him for a long moment, deciding that yes—he wasn’t blinking. That was… decidedly creepy. “Ah… do you have to do that?”
“No.” Flame replied in a quiet voice, a subtle violence lurking below it.
“Could you stop then, maybe?”
Flame regarded him for another long moment and sighed, “No.”
“Ah, that’s a shame.”
Silence once more erupted around them, it was almost like a physical force with how it seemed suddenly to strangle Kinthek. He opened his mouth again and then closed it, feeling the life drain out of his words.
Somehow, there was nothing to say. Kinthek usually had something to say, even with a conversational partner as… eloquent as Flame was. He’d had plenty of practice with Eliax. Somehow though, the silence just kept on going.
That is, until Kinthek nearly jumped out of his own skin as a voice sounded from on top of the wagon.
“Sparking sparks. That’s Kinthek, isn’t it?”
The voice itself was familiar, but the manner of speech threw him off. The tone of voice was different, the word choice, the volume. Flame was already on top of the wagon, attacking the surprise visitor by instinct, but the short girl evaded his strikes with a tired ease, simply smiling as she eventually leapt into the air and stayed there, practically floating.
“ELIAX?” Kinthek shouted.
She grinned at him, “Close, but no.” She turned toward the increasingly violent Flame, “Hey, could you tell your friend here to calm down, I’m not after anything in this Sparking wagon. What, does he think that just because he didn’t see me get up here that I’m a threat?” as if to prove herself false, the Eliax-like girl reached in her bag and tossed a long dagger out to the ground as if in a show of peace, this was ruined by the fact that it was long enough to be a sword and certainly too big to fit in the bag.
Flame himself was growling at this point, his eyes shining with barely contained rage, “Who in the squalls are you?” He shouted it with clenched teeth, crouching down low on the top of the wagon.
“Fora, Unanimously thought of as the most annoying new addition to the City of Starlight for the past two months. They’ve been trying to get rid of me.” She smirked, “Imagine their surprise after I got eaten by that big earth thing! Only to come back in one piece!”
Eaten by an… Aremolot perhaps? If that was so then it must have been Light day. Which was the same day Eliax had decided to take him to the dream world.
…The day after which he’d seen the corpse of someone who had looked quite a lot like Eliax. Even so, assuming that this was the real her, Kinthek could hardly reconcile the grinning girl above him with the calm and collected one that he’d come to know. “You’re so different from her.” Kinthek found himself observing, his mouth growing a bit dry at that. Was Eliax nothing more than a clone with a different personality then?
Fora’s face soured slightly, but she didn’t respond, instead looking down at Flame, “I didn’t know there were any dragons here, that’s pretty neat. You don’t look quite right though, where’s the… talons and wings?”
Flame shouted his rage again, this time leaping off the wagon and smacking into Fora. She seemed surprised at the sheer height of his jump, and her form blinked out of existence. It appeared again a second later, this time higher in the air as Flame hit the ground and just shouted up at her again, “I’m not a dragon.”
Fora sighed, “Sparks, I’m sorry you’re so pissed off, I just wanted to freak out Kinthek, alright? I’ve been dying to meet him ever since—”
Flame jumped at her again, this time missing.
“Sparks, that’s pretty impressive. Could you stop by chance? I haven’t even really done anything… ah… I’m just an innocent little girl, ya know?” Flame stilled, blinking up at her as if finally realizing something. Squall, how had that gotten to him? Nothing about Fora said ‘innocence.’
Flame turned his glare to Kinthek, for whatever reason. “You almost let me attack a woman?!” His anger seemed to bleed away even as Kinthek watched.
Fora peered down at them for a moment longer before sighing, “And now I’m bored.” she adopted a slightly blank expression for a moment, “Eliax says that you need to sparking contact her. I think she reaaaaalllllyyyy misssseeessss yoooouuuuuuuu~” Fora smirked again as Kinthek started sputtering, and stood up in… the air. “Just fiddle with the sparking communication stone she gave you, it’s not that hard to figure out!”
And then she was gone.
Flame’s eyes turned toward him, “Who in the squalling stars was that?!”
Kinthek sighed, his mind turning from Eliax to trying to figure out the best way to explain something like this. Stars above, what had he gotten himself into…