We’ve all cried once, haven’t we?
As children when we got hurt.
As teens while thinking of a love abandoned.
As adults remembering things we could never get back.
As people of all ages when we remembered dear ones lost to time or disease or worse.
We all cry. It is only human to cry. Don’t ever listen to people who say that crying is useless, that it is a waste of water, that it isn’t ‘manly’ or ‘appropriate’, that it makes you look ugly or some such nonsense. Because it is just that: nonsense. Tears are what us humans do when we do not have the words or the means to express great sorrow, when the world turns gray and black and white and we miss the colors it once had.
Crying is natural. Crying means you’re still alive somewhat, that you’ll have a chance to keep going, that things will surely get better.
I guess, when all is said and done, that crying is hope. It’s a means for us to shout at the world our deepest hopes and desires, the truest ones that we sometimes hide even from ourselves.
So what is Isse’s hope right now, as she cries in her cocoon, as her soul half fights off hordes of creatures of Blood to keep her sane? What could an arachne’s, the last arachne’s, greatest hope be?
Could it be peace? Could it be a life without a need to hide? A world where she could be accepted for what she is without risking being killed on sight? What does, no, what can, an arachne hope for?
For a short while Isse had hoped to just die, for lightning to strike her down and end her existence. Those thoughts had slowly started to fade as the day progressed and her tears turned to sobs and hiccups that hurt her throat before turning to silent whimpering.
Not long after that she heard Siidi’s silent but comforting presence in the back of her mind, a sensation not unlike something caressing her spider half gently reaching her senses. To Isse’s mind she smelled of blood and gore, her presence tasting of silence.
For a moment she wondered how she could tell that silence had a taste, but after a second she just shook her head and went back to wallowing in her pain, self-loathing and… everything else that she couldn’t give a name to.
She just sat there, curled in on herself, her legs slowly massaging her spider half in a rhythmic motion.
A song playing in the back of her mind. The arachne’s last song.
A song that was soon echoed by a familiar vibration coming from her bag of holding. In the mild darkness of her cocoon she shuffled a hand down to her hip, rummaging around inside her artifact until she took hold of her violin: the Wintry Violin. A Relic from ages past that had once resided in Winter’s Last Stand, in the hands of an ice statue that hadn’t melted even after the passage of centuries. It had been taken, with great sacrifice, from that place, and then abandoned in the vaults of the Ribia family under their estate in Tedam, because they couldn’t figure out how to use the precious artifact. Well, for that matter, Isse hadn’t yet found that out too: she was relatively good when playing it, sometimes it played songs for her – like right now – and two times it had given her Skills. Still, she couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed: for something that was described as being part of the most powerful magical artifacts left in the world, it didn’t seem that great.
Then again, her attunement to the Relic was only at 14% if what the System said was to be believed. Maybe if she managed to get it high enough, or even to 100%, she’d become powerful enough to destroy the people who’d hurt her and the ones she loved.
The violin was out the bag and the vibrations turned into a song.
The same song she’d been singing to herself to calm down. The same song Siidi had sung to her the first time she’d lost everything.
And there, in that song that spoke of the certainty that two lovers would meet again wherever they went, she found the answer to her tears, the hope she so needed: that nobody would ever take something away from her again. NEVER!
She promised this to herself.
It was a simple statement. Airm, it was a very simple desire, even. And yet she filled it with all the determination she could muster, all the strength and knowledge she’d gained through Grandmother’s Trials and lessons, all the patience and attention to detail she’d obtained with Albert and Master’s help and, finally, all the love she’d been given first by Anda and her fellow sisters, then by Morra and Tobias, she took all of this and put it into those words, giving them a power of their own.
A word given.
A promise made.
Witnessed by the System, and then by the Fae.
And while those words didn’t fix any of what had happened, they helped her a little bit, dragging her away from a bloody abyss from which she would’ve found it near impossible to climb back up.
The promise saved her with Siidi’s great help. And while the ancient arachne had already been rewarded for her help, Siidi received a reminder of her choice
[Oath of Restitution Taken!]
The System thought for a while if such an oath required the assignment of a Skill but, in the end, It decided not to. There was nothing in Its endless databases that seemed to fit the situation. It wasn’t new, and it certainly wasn’t a rare occurrence. In the millenia since It had started Its job It had understood that living beings were often much, much, much more complex than words could explain. This was one such situation and, truly, the only Skills that would’ve fit the young arachne in that moment would’ve been given only to people of Level 80 or higher.
As It went back to Observing though, another presence appeared, something ancient and powerful. The presence was invisible to most eyes except Its own and, for a moment, as she appeared beside Issekina, she looked up and through the layers of reality, right at It.
She smiled and there was a promise in the gesture. No, not a promise. Many. So many. Hundreds of thousands, millions, billions. Every promise and every oath ever taken or given by any being in the Web was hidden behind that smile. There was also, among them all, a single promise put at the forefront of them all: one she had decided to make to It. The System saw the words and understood them… but It didn’t comprehend the meaning nor the reason behind them.
Then the being looked down at Isse and, gently, caressed her hair, her hand going through the arachne and yet still, somehow, letting her feel, if her sudden flinching was anything to go by.
She whispered something softly, words she would only hear in her deepest dreams, the ones filled with nothing but darkness, and with the words came a gift.
[Blessing of Unbreakable Will Received!]
The System hadn’t had the need to use that particular function of Itself in millenia now. It didn’t know why and the queries It kept sending to Its creators were always unanswered, but in the end it didn’t matter: It just gave Skills, blessings were a type of Skill that could be gifted by the gods, outside of Its purview.
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So It did Its job and then went back to simply observing.
As for Isse?
She didn’t hear the message from the blessing because, for reasons known only to the gods, when the System had been made that function had been removed.
What she did know was that, when next she woke, she felt… better.
Not fixed, not by far, but slightly better than she had before.
Enough to get out of her cocoon and walk around.
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Isse decided to explore the airship. Yesterday, when she’d gone up on the bridge, she hadn’t really looked around, her mind still partially lost in a fog of pain and misery. Now though she felt a spark of marvel blooming in her chest as she looked at the beautiful and monstrous insides of this thing that really shouldn’t exist. Everywhere she looked she could see, peeking out of the wooden walls, big, surprisingly white, bones. And by big she meant they were thicker than her human half was wide.
Either Moon had killed a lot of animals and fused their bones together to create this monstrosity or she truly understood why the arachne had never tried to conquer the jungles of Eva, because whatever creature’s skeleton had been used to make this must’ve been… she didn’t even have something to compare it to in her mind, and trying to use a banana wouldn’t have been funny.
Also, what kind of monster needs four ‘pillars’ in what she guessed was its ribcage?
As she wandered about all this she heard something strange: cooing. Sweet, nearly childlike in nature, although as she focused on it, coming closer to the source, she noticed the shrillness of it, like an adult altering their voice to sound cuter.
What’s Moon doing? she wondered.
And then: Can Shryia drive this thing?
Seeing how she didn’t feel her stomach trying to crawl out of her mouth she guessed that the [Druid] could indeed fly the ship, so she inched closer to the small wooden door from which the sounds were coming, opening it to peek inside.
There was a small set of stairs leading down to the very last level of the ship if the literal spine she could glimpse beneath was anything to go by. The sounds were coming from beneath so, slowly and carefully, she stepped down, her spider half compressing very uncomfortably and making her feel like a bloated cat – still capable of passing through any opening she wanted, but now with some difficulty.
Her feet didn’t make any sound and the rustling of her gown made from Shifting Silk – Arunielle’s last present to her before the attack that destroyed the forest she and her sisters had lived in – was covered by the gently whistling winds outside.
She stepped down, half on the floor and half on the wall, her figure appearing nearly frightening in the dim light of the glowing moss that covered not only the ceiling but also the walls and floor. The place looked both disarmingly beautiful and disquieting, as if she’d stepped inside a ghost’s memories, fragmented and whole in its desperate attempts to cling to what it had once been.
And there, sitting against one of the bones of the ship’s ribcage, was… Shriya.
Holding the crow from yesterday (or was it two days ago now?).
And somehow managing to look extremely embarrassed, guilty and utterly surprised all in a single expression.
Then she frowned, taking back control of her face, as she opened her mouth to say something witty.
“Sorry to interrupt, I just heard something down here and thought it was Moon.”
“Why?” she asked, looking extremely defensive.
“Because I didn’t think you could make such cute noises,” answered the arachne matter-of-factly. In any other scenario she would’ve teased the Airm out of the woman but right now it felt more like a simple statement.
“Truth be told,” she continued, “I saw you more like the kind of person who’d use that little crow as fertilizer for your plants than a cuddle pillow.”
Shriya raised the index finger of her right hand –the left one still caressing the head and body of the crow – looking extremely miffed by the statement.
“Ok, first, if there’s anyone on this ship who’s more likely to turn this crow into fertilizer it’s Moon. Second, I am a [Druid], I wouldn’t kill an animal without there being a reason for it.”
“Moon? She wouldn’t touch a feather on that crow with ill intent.”
Shriya actually burst out laughing at that.
After a few seconds of hiccupping and snorting she finally calmed down enough to say: “You’re not wrong that she wouldn’t hurt this crow, but oh the things I saw her do in the pursuit of her desires and justice. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a good person, great actually, but there’s a reason why she’s an [Occult Engineer]. Just look at our cold box!”
She pointed somewhere deeper into the ship, near the prow: Isse turned to look, but for all her enhanced senses and the glowing moss she still couldn’t quite see what Shriya was pointing at. Turning back with confusion written all over her face the woman sighed and got up from her spot, beginning to walk deeper in.
As she did Isse asked: “Why did you emphasize that much the ‘occult’ part of her Class?”
The [Druid] made a so-so motion with her hand as she answered: “Generally speaking occultism isn’t much liked all over the world: apparently the churches consider it a form of witchcraft, and while hunting and killing [Witches] has long since been banned, their folk are still disliked. Nobody cares in the jungles: if it keeps you alive and makes you happy with minimal hurting of other people then it’s all peachy. But that’s the thing, it’s only in the jungles, and even then mostly because people are focused more on surviving.”
“Why would anyone want to live in such a place?” asked the arachne. A fair question, one many arachne before her had asked.
“Because it’s their home. Did you like it when you were forced to leave yours?”
Isse closed her mouth, painful memories resurfacing and causing her chest to contract.
“I guessed as much.
“Anyways, Moon really puts the Occultist in [Occult Engineer].”
That was when they reached the strange shape Shriya had pointed at her in the beginning.
And Isse had to stop and marvel at the absolute horror in front of her: for, right there, sitting on the wood, was what looked (and probably was) a fleshy pool of meat filled with strange looking water. It was slowly pulsing, as if alive, even though the water inside, which, by the way, had a strange tint to it (she couldn’t tell if it was because of the hold’s semi-darkness or the motherfucking flesh underneath), didn’t seem to even ripple.
“You see, for all that the jungles of Eva are the place that receives the least amount of sunlight in the world, they’re also hot enough to make it practically impossible for us to get ice, which means ice boxes are extremely rare. So, mindful of that, Moon found an alternative to it. This is her… how did she call it again? Ah, yes, the ‘Flesh Livener’! Trademarked.
“What it does is, well, you put meat in the water and, for lack of a better word, this thing makes it think it’s still alive, keeping it fresh by virtue of still being living meat. She also said it’s good for the skin but I never had the bravery to test that.
“So, when I say that Moon would do anything to achieve her desires I do mean everything. The girl was sick of jerky and wanted fresh meat wherever she went, so she made a thing that keeps meat alive and fresh.”
Isse stared at the impossible contraption, then looked down (she hadn’t noticed how much taller than the [Druid] she was) at Shriya and… didn’t say anything, because there were no real words to describe any of what was happening.
“Yes, she’s strange. That’s why I like her.”
She paused, as if only then realizing what she’d just said.
“I will plant strangling vines in your flesh and make them grow if you dare say that to Moon.”
Isse nodded: “Noted.”
Then, after a moment of hesitation, she asked: “Can I pet the crow.”
“Only if I can pet him with you.”
Moon found them thirty minutes later, huddled around the cute little crow and petting him, to his great satisfaction, while making cooing noises and looking extremely happy about it.
She smiled and, silently, stepped back up on the bridge, unnoticed by both.
As she put her hands back on the wheel of the airship she told herself: “I knew Shriya would help her. They’re so alike.”
Her happiness though was cut short as, in the distance, she saw another airship emerging from a cloud. It bore the flag of the City of Temples, Alanna, and, as she watched, a man with two flags appeared on the prow, beginning to move them in familiar patterns, slowly spelling a message.
HDA FOXHOLE HERE. REQUESTING BOARDING FOR CONTROL. UNCOOPERATIVENESS WILL RESULT IN DAMAGE.
Moon’s smile became waxy as she spoke: “[Crew Wide Message] We’ve got company, get ready to rumble. Isse, don’t come out of the hold!”
The two ships began moving closer.