A train built by giants left little for comfort and luxury - one room to be specific, a free space for the artist and seamstress to realize a vision unhampered by thievery and snowstorms. The front of the train was a silver cage with imitation wood for floors and paintings for ceilings, detailing the mass exile from the Southern Reach: all story beats the same, all characters names being ones I remembered from grandmother. Seats of blue fabric circled the controls positioned in the middle of the room with a grand window at the front, reinforced by a steel T pattern. The rest of the train behind this unit was just a series of black slabs with blue stones that illuminated the edges - storage carts and nothing more.
Some leftover meals from the last voyage sat before the window. Alu didn’t question what the meat was from but I immediately identified it as direwolf - an unappetizing meat no matter how much you try to mask it in other flavors. The bitterness of the dark meat punched through the exotic fruits no one would ever find up north without this train. The aching in my muscles however made me somehow feel all the more hungry and uncaring of the dead beast’s revolting flesh. I’m sure I don’t taste much better. It was a meal I disliked so much as a child that I would fantasize of going out with a spear and fetching myself a “real meal”. Alas northern life makes it so wasting a meal for any reason was as heinous as stabbing a sibling.
“It’s strange.” I said, standing by the window, looking at the vast amount of track circling mountains ahead. “Part of me still believes we’re going back to the Guild, telling the barmaids of our adventures.”
“We really do have nothing left after this.” He simply responded, looking down to his hands before raising his head and forcing a smirk. “A new chapter in life is coming in the strangest of ways.”
I held my tongue for a moment, observing the stations we passed - equipped with hunting gear and mechanical arrangements for goods. “Closing one book and opening another for yourself it seems.” The words between us were rehearsed assurances at best.
“And when we get to your family, you’ll be doing the same.” I simply nodded at him, silently panicking at how in the several worlds I was going to explain this to Mother and more. Perhaps reading my thoughts and the details of the serpent visions will make all of them believe me wholly. “Don’t you have to bring something of value back to them after your pilgrimage?”
“Well these are extraordinary circumstances, my companion.” A little playfulness to greet him before I held him from the side. “Even so, you’ll be my special cargo! Unlimited flint and a new chef in the dining hall!” The stillness in his face remained, even as he tried to push back into the embrace. I placed my hand over his injured fingers and felt my tethers push through the skin, straightening the middle and pointer before snapping them back in order. Alu cried over much lesser injuries but hardly grimaced at this action, not even averting or closing his eyes in response. I felt his hand run up my back and settle in an odd place below my neck, having to outstretch his arm entirely to rest there, doubt coming over the comfort of it.
“Don’t hide from me, Alu. In any way.” His hand closed into a fist and began to shake before unfurling and his fingernails pressed against my skin, still vibrating with an increasing intensity. I stood and saw his hand stay in the air, his eyes watering and entire body shaking. “After what happened back there, it’s ok to be shaken up - what you did is even something I could never imagine doing to the family that hated me.” He said nothing, seeming to look through me instead of at, his eyes gazing below my face and above my chest. “Was it Garreus? Did he tell you things about your parents?” No movement, no voice, nothing at all. I grew angry and pulled him to me with his cloak. “Don’t you dare hide from me now, I will not allow it!” He wrapped his arms around me and buried his head into my chest, his hands still grasping for something upwards, but a frustrated wail came. I waited for his response and I had to pull him away as he first muffled into my robe.
“I gave you a mark upon your back…” The pool of darkness that bled into a fire, an addition I was already aware of when my tethers would wrap and swim beneath my skin. Silently fretting the first night we slept in the nude together, there was never a reason to believe this was a malicious act. “Garreus told me of branding,” He looked at me for a moment before turning away in fear, I forced his gaze to meet mine. “All those people we killed, so many of them were mindless slaves, unable to think for themselves - subservient to those Successors and forced to bear their children, just like my mother, even as a Successor herself…” A child unwanted, a guilt he feels for existing. “And I fear that I may have done the same to you without knowing, that I damned you to me after that first night in love.” I gave him a slap to the face, knocking him off his feet and crashing into the red seats.
“Lulu…” I sat beside him and kissed his burning cheek. “Would an indoctrinated soul do that to her master?”
“But what if it's what I want?” He said slowly. “To convince myself, to rid myself of guilt.”
“You may be able to burn the world and everyone in it, but you’d sooner disappear than demand worship. You are not like them, you are not Garreus at all.” I pulled him close to me once more and he melted into me. “What you did for me back there was beyond brave, and know that I love you of my own choice. I truly hoped you wouldn’t have had to choose between family and myself, but I am happy to make the rest of this journey with you.”
He squeezed me as tightly as he could. “They might have been family in their own way, but I did not choose them. Regardless of how you and I met, I choose you every time I wake up.” After a few kisses and tighter embraces, he told me of the clash between him and Garreus, how he knew that I was in danger regardless. I replayed the battle I had with them to his mind and he cheered me on as he watched. He admitted to doubting his attack on Garreus and the lightning grappling, but our times on the boat and the lessons of many nights made him feel in tune with the world around him. Sparks danced among the hairs on his skin, even singing a few but the power flew around him as he flew through the gray above.
“When he spoke, so high and mighty of himself, so obsessed with the power he cursed in the same breath…I felt the thoughts of my own mother come through, and it somehow told me all I needed to know. Like her soul was talking to me across time and flesh.” Resting a hand on his own chin, he certainly doubted himself at the possibility. Perhaps in Dia’s world, they had their own tetherless way to tell their thoughts. If he wasn’t so busy telling us their ascendancy story, I might have asked Garreus what else existed besides them - if he even acknowledged them.
“Well you were born here, Alu, your mother would have been here once. My own village still hears the voices of our fallen when the wind lies still.” He ruffled his own hair in frustration. “Don’t remember her face still?” He nodded his head, wondering aloud if her feelings will give way to a voice if he digs deep enough. “Well if you want to try, we can. But is that a path you want to go down? Relive all that pain it might bring?”
“It’s not about closure, it’s about answers. Their departure might help us if this plan doesn’t work.”
I held his hands in mine. “I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way to help you.”
“You always do, and more.”
----------------------------------------
The heart of the North was farther than anywhere my family ever was, the treks across the dips, cliff faces and curved paths appear trivial and mundane in light of the steel behemoth that scaled mountains and bridged gaps in a matter of seconds at best and minutes at worst. The large light above the windows revealed the tracks, but the constant storm made that sight short and blurry. The beating of the snow upon the metal hull could be compared to the sound of the sky falling upon us. Sleeping was nigh on impossible for Alu but that didn’t stop the attempt at least 7 times. Any rhythm to be found would be interrupted by the banging of a white sky boulder that would send a Warden train flying back over the border and all the way to Sarengound.
“A spire has to be erupting somewhere nearby. Time is running shorter and shorter.” Alu fed my own thoughts to me, rubbing his eyes for the fifth time and moving up beside me - staring at the obscured path as well. Stretching and moaning dramatically, he had a familiar look - the daydreaming look, specifically about hot food. Putting that chef jest in the air made him start thinking of the act - when neither of us had cooked extensively for weeks. Buying, stealing and scavenging was the reliable tactic. The simple idea of sitting at home and cooking for ourselves with no immediate reason to run made me smile before I mentally slapped myself - the homesickness had been apparent a month ago and even before then, but now it felt so strange and alien: somehow knowing home was dead or soon would be.
“It’s a shame we can’t stick around, darling.” I sat down with him following and resting his head upon my lap. “This would have been the perfect time to introduce you - the festival of the Witch’s Reach would have been perfect.”
“Scare your grandmother with what I can do?” He chuckled.
“More like fascinate.” I grazed his cheek, feeling his unkempt red hair tickle my fingers. “Men and women from all over ride the slopes outside our home circle, shaping grand wonders with their tethers, their reach as we used to call it. Then we would combine our efforts to create a tower of our own, signaling to the sky our power in honor of our bearers and their own trying to unite every distant group as we made the perilous final steps of our exodus.”
“I’d change the very land around your home if I made a tower of flame.” He answered, turning his head and smiling up at me - seemingly enthusiastic but blighted by slumber’s lecherous grasp.
“Adapting is what we do best, any disaster we fight, any change we ride and live by.” Another turn around a mountain and the slant of the snowfall finally gave a view of my hamlet before the Heart. The rock settled upon was carved and formed by the giants on a scale that made me giddy with excitement. Railways surrounded the circular colony with a stop on the far end and a line of homes and buildings parallel. A trio of witch’s towers marked the center, illuminated by tether boxes at the top of each point, projecting enough light to show the steep drop surrounding, the bottom obscured by the falling snow - a wall of ice with an incomprehensible white abyss.
Another crash came, Alu stood and made his way to the car door without a word, placing a finger upon his lips to be quiet. The thick glass composing the door blurred a towering figure on the metal carts trailing our own. A blur comparable to the one standing appeared, moving closer and closer before Alu cursed and created a tether shield - a hunk of heavy iron colliding with our cabin, warping the metal and shaping out screams from the steel. The ceiling above Alu’s head even lowered and pulled at the bolts behind my feet. Throwing my hand forward, I forced the foreign mass out of the hull and failed to hear the clang I expected upon meeting the outside floor. Alu called out before his side was torn open by that same mass spinning and cutting through the metal effortlessly. The winds screamed through the head-sized slash through the metal wall before four sets of armored hands slipped through the cut and pulled the entire side open - revealing the set of armor holding an oversized shield with two arms on its right side. On the left, its extra hands tried grabbing Alu wholly but he backed away before spitting lava at the extended limbs.
Standing as tall as myself, the set of armor was held up by tether magic with the exception of a petrified corpse obscured by a chestplate’s design that curled and split like an untended collection of vines. The eyes were stitched open to stare with a hunger and delight that clashed with the voice that made itself known as Alu stood beside with his fists ready. “Under the Guidance, you may make yourself exempt from execution if you submit yourself to me - Warden Mikael.” From a glance, I convinced myself the corpse in armor had no mouth - but it simply hid under cloth with blue markings that wrapped itself around the bottom half of his head. The uncovered flesh of his chest moved in a fashion that suggested a swollen heart with no ribs or structure to keep it in place. The arms and legs of the construct were held by tethers since the flesh itself could not offer those limbs. “If you choose to fight, I can only promise my masters your heads to keep.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“How did you know we’d make this happen before we even did anything?” I shouted, scanning the room for whatever I could use to throw his body from the tracks.
“You’re a mere babe on crossing the borders, my masters were the first to bring the art here.”
“Loose lips, huh?” Alu added. “You must be fairly confident in our cooperation.” He flared his fingers, letting a few cracks and pops sound off from the bones - he was scanning the room for any trap being set.
“I, and the one I serve is absolute.” It simply replied, spreading his arms wider like lopsided wings. “And you may prove useful to them once you’re familiar with their power, their reach and ability to preserve this great world. We may one day bridge the gap.” There was nothing I could use in the room to push him aside. Panicking, I hoped Alu would have an idea but he just stood silent. Before I could converse on a plan with him, tendrils erupted from the empty hands seeking us both. The pain of recent encounters ruptured through my forearms and hands while Alu stepped against the wall and launched at the suit of armor, summoning a fiery breath and briefly melting the empty head of steel before being shocked by the rushing tendrils. Biting my lip, I rushed to the suit, using small bits of tether to push away the opposing feelers and slammed my head into the wiry chest plate, managing to make it stumble before collecting my lines and pulling the metal monster out with me into the cold.
----------------------------------------
How a shock can hurt so badly and yet fail to kill me, I’ll never know. My vision blurred for a moment as the clangs of heavy metals colliding brought me back to stability, a stab of urgency in my mind as it recalled the situation. The fog of the snowstorm made Morrigan and the Warden look like a shifting mass that couldn’t decide which direction to face. As I closed the gap, I considered all two plans I could reasonably craft in this panic - to just burn it until it dies, or get Morrigan away and sever the train and just hope nature does the rest.
As Morrigan dodged a swing from the Warden’s shield, an extra set of tendrils spawned from his backside and managed to catch her after she wrangled the first set. Slipping and falling, my face met the cold steel. My vision remained but the thought of blood filling my mouth tugged at the clarity from below. As the Warden turned and readied a metallic boot against her spine, I shot a reckless spray of flame which melted a few inches off the foot but grazed Morrigan’s clothes as she remained paralyzed by the sparks. The Warden simply changed to his fists and I had no choice but to fire a tether and wrap it around Morrigan’s waist. The strength I needed failed to transfer through my extension, so I vomited lava onto the link that separated my section from theirs, melting the tracks beneath. A curse rang from its mouth and as it fell, the tendrils separated and Morrigan breathed deep, tears falling from her eyes and freezing to her skin. The weight of my companion hit like a house falling from a storm, sending me forward and losing balance as my free hand burrowed and melted into the steel cart. My body swung and my redone grip left me dangling off the cart, the metal bars and columns ready to dash off my legs if I lowered. I hated to admit the weight of my lover was much more than I could bear, but the warped metal drawing crimson from my wrist was nearly enough to make me start screaming at her to do something as her body glided through the icy winds, held above with my pathetic tether. I tried curling my fingers, any kind of motion to reel her in but my inexperience and lack of strength made itself painfully known - my head cage protested with a pain similar to a hangover. I felt a vibration throughout my entire body, unable to tell how close we were to our destination or how we would even stop. It took a moment too long to realize that the rumbling came from far below as the mound we were passing over exploded with the force of a Colossus fist.
The front car separates from the track, banking to the right and warping the links behind - my forearm cut even more by the sharp edges of my hand hold. As we were suspended, I saw the hole made in the tracks pass below us but no Warden abomination in sight. Looking upwards, my sight confirmed my fear as said monster pulled me from the edge. The sound of sparks distracted us both as bolts of pure gold came from the bottom of the flying train, and with a sudden pull, we slammed back into the tracks. A lightness in my tethering hand prompted a scream as I looked back and saw Morrigan disappear, and even this was cut short by the cold hand of death that covered my entire head. Thrown back onto the remains of the train, the Warden smiled behind that wretched cloth mask, the symbols glowing and reforming with every movement of his arms. A rage of my own consumed my mind again - gritted teeth, drying eyes and a soreness plaguing my body became meaningless as I took my tethered hand and burned the wounds on my bleeding arm.
“You fight against a nothingness you could never dream of beating. It is endless, it is inevitable, a dragon blessed such as yourself knows your worth and how we can stop this.” It spoke but with a guarded posture - hands still ready on its shield and tendrils uncoiling from all sides.
“So what? You label my kind as butchers for years when you needed us all along?” I yelled through my grinding teeth. “What kind of fucking fool does that?”
“It was safer to not let lies undermine the Guidance, should they not like what they see.” Tendrils came forth but a wall of flame turned them to ash. “We were not sure then who the real enemy was.”
“And yet you crossed borders as well and decided you’re not worthy of blame.” I threw a flame at the shield and a small net of tethers it produced deflected some of the fire but proved all I needed for killing it. No matter how tall, magma and fire would make it fall.
“We saved this world from what it could have become, the tether boxes, the Guidance Knights killed the abominations your Dragon-Blessed had become. We had some of our own, but never let it get that far.” Another set of tendrils came before I reduced them to ash. It pushed forwards with empty hands stretched out, still hoping to take me alive. I breathed fire until my throat ached from the silent scream. It melted quickly but pushed and pulled itself back together with the mass of tethers hidden underneath - the metal vines covering the corpse melted and reformed a dozen times as the invisible shield gave way before my efforts. Still pushing, I joined my hands together and joined three sources of flame together. The legs liquified but kept some semblance of a bone in a different arrangement every second.
Stand still.
The voice made me pause in rage but not in focus. To the right of my view, a giant blur rushed at the Warden. It took notice and swapped shield hands, hearing her scream from a distance. The impact however was the plan, slamming her shoulder into the malformed slab and dispensing her tethers. The collision slowed her pace just enough to roll over the Warden and pull with the same might that blew up the mound, stretching its arms to the sky before being ripped off entirely as she roped her way underneath the tracks, swinging away through the white fog.
The pain in my throat and wrists were more than I could stand, the melting, misshapen mess of what was once a man in armor somehow still stood. Spider-web cracks across every remaining limb, with tethers trying to scrounge metal from every part considered in excess to supplement the lost arms. The corpse was obscured by the vines that now congealed and writhed like a living mass of gray, black and dark red.
One more step was allowed before Morrigan came back from the other side with the shield beneath her feet, flying through the air on a steel slide before slicing the Warden in half, its darkened and dried blood falling from the upper half. The invisible lines still tried to pull these two halves together but Morrigan jumped from her slide and summoned ice from her hands to impale both halves as their separation grew greater, before sending them as far apart as possible. No scream came from the abomination, and I would’ve failed to hear it anyways as I rushed over to my companion as she collapsed and struggled to breathe consistently through the coughs and hacks of sobbing plaguing her throat. With a strain that made me want to cry as well, I dragged her back into what was left of the cabin, with the roof at least protecting us from the snowfall.
“I’ve never been in more pain in my entire life.” Still coughing and wheezing, I could feel something writhe underneath her skin before cowering at my touch. She looked up to me before having to throw up her hand to stop her cough. Apologizing meekly, she breathed heavily and started to try to mend herself back together but I stopped her hand. The giant could probably stand doing the minor wounds for herself but the shifting muscles and bending bones were too much. Master of destruction such as myself could see that her body was in enough pain to decry even trying to heal itself, it only wanted rest. “Please…let me try.”
“No, our safety is in sight.” She whined and pressed herself into my chest with an effort undeserved. “Stay here, I need to see what we need to do to stop.” But my answer came before I could stand, the brakes engaged on the train and after a minute of squealing metal passed, the doors opened to a confused pair of giants before they brought out spears and pointed them towards me. “Please, my companion needs help! Her name is Morrigan Kasteros and we just escaped an attack from the Wardens!” One of the men relented while the other stepped closer, tip of the spear towards my face.
“Don’t you fucking dare, chaff.” Morrigan spat in a tongue I couldn’t understand, defiantly trying to push herself off me. “The human speaks the truth and he is my beloved. I demand council, a grave tide is upon us!” The second guard stood down before calling out to others who came rushing over with vials of strange liquids. The leader of this group of younglings stood in shock before rushing over and falling forward to her knees.
“Mother…” She spoke in my tongue this time, sitting on the edge of the warped doorway and reaching out for my hand from behind. Without a word, Morrigan’s mother picked up her body and carted her away to a tent reinforced by colored steel. Even if I resisted following, Morrigan’s mother beckoned me over in my tongue, making sure I kept up and finding me a place to sit as she laid her daughter onto a bed and ordered around a few apprentices. Morrigan looked at me with a mournful smile, overrun with the warmth of home, interrupted by the acknowledgement of difference and realizing how short this tranquility would be.
“We’ll find a way back to this somehow.” I spoke to her thought cage as her mother flipped her over and ripped open the robes covering her body. A green dust coated her glowing skin, smoking and steaming in sync with her anguish tinged yells. After the second ingredient was laid on her - a black liquid that I’d assume malicious in any other part of the world - she was able to bite her lips and suppress her cries. “I know this isn’t the same place you exactly knew, but there is a wonder I’m feeling with it already.”
She turned her head towards me. “I know, and I look forward to showing you everything.” A smile came and warbled with the application of more medicines. “Then maybe we can have drinks and a good sleep for more than one day.”
I stood up and appeared to the left of Morrigan’s mother who looked at me with much more ease than I was expecting. I set my fingers on Morrigan’s and was about to introduce myself fully before her mother interrupted with her own greeting. “You’re much cuter than what I thought my daughter would bring back.” The glowing red on Morrigan’s face was enough to make me chuckle. “And from what she’s been able to tell me, you’re the reason she’s back here in our home. So thank you, Alu Elfren.”
“I know you would do this anyway for Morrigan, but thank you as well. It was all sorts of agony to get here.” Another giant came in, this one was much older but came with the same urgency upon looking at the bed, ignoring me completely.
“I truly believe that, Alu, because my own blood knows better than to exceed themselves in anything other than the pursuit of knowledge.” She sat Morrigan upright while applying the medicine to anywhere else that looked out of place. If another Warden came, I’d imagine her own heart cage would turn backwards and jut out like teeth. Grandmother Eilaun turned to me and attempted my tongue before her own daughter nudged her aside and spoke the same question. “So what made you two return to us in such a haste?” Morrigan took a deep breath and spoke in her own tongue to include her grandmother but told me silently what she was saying - we need a council, the end that has been predicted and we have the memories to prove it.
Her guardians didn’t pale, curse or even speak. Nodding their heads, Eilaun ordered us to follow them back to their abode. “Make yourselves something new to wear and pack everything you need, we’ll assemble the council no matter the cost.”
We followed her orders, and while Morrigan’s melancholy returned, I embraced her from behind. “We’ll be back, and then we’ll be catching and picking each other back up for fun instead of survival.”
She stood still and rubbed her fingers over mine, locking the embrace. “I know, and I think we’ve both had enough life threatening days for now.”
I squeezed her tight. “A little too much excitement for even the best adventurers.”