Remus took one glance at the plummeting height beneath him, and stumbled back instinctually.
Elmore’s insistent shouts as he rushed for the key to unlock the cell door reverberated warningly behind, as Tal himself took a weary look at what must have been a fifty metre, sheer drop. The prison had been partially carved, partially built into the side of a natural hill that had been renovated aeons ago, when First Rite had first established their central prison. It was the last bit of earth that still had its natural shape in the city, not flattened by the moulding hands of workers to make way for clustered rows of buildings. Remus had once thought the peak was a picturesque highlight of the otherwise industrial Ruling District.
Now, one foot away from guaranteed death, he didn’t quite feel the same need to praise its natural beauty.
“There’s no way my retired sack of a body is going to survive that.” Tal cursed, and Remus was thankful for the words, however morbid they were, fixating on them instead of the eerie drop awaiting him.
Hurried footsteps resounded behind, followed by frantic shouts.
“Tough chance I’ll walk off scot free from this either.”
“It's either you, or none of us.” The old man placed a hand onto Remus’ shoulder. “Make your choice, or Elmore will for you.”
Bracing his body and hunching forwards, Remus edged closer and . . . nothing.
This was all going terribly, astronomically wrong. What was the good in fighting tooth and claw for Engorged, just for gravity’s impeding hand to pluck him off the road to success at the last moment? He could imagine Damosh on his throne, watching through a cauldron of mystified goo the Sight Sect had prepared, a sweet wine in his hands, and laughing relentlessly. A childish vision to be sure, but it agonised him nonetheless. He shook his head, the sound of guards alarmingly close now, and knew with foul certainty he could do nothing to bring Tal with him. Taking the drop solo wasn't a merry prospect either.
“Last chance.” The Death-Marked rasped into his ear. “Things aren’t going to go as you always wish them to, but that doesn’t mean you throw in the towel at the last minute. Now go, before I push you off this damn cliff myself!”
Something clicked in Remus’ head. He wasn’t sure how much damage an Engorged body could take, but it wasn’t so far-fetched that a mad leap like this would be survivable, especially if he clasped onto something on the way down.
Turning his head to face Tal one more time, a thousand things of what to say mingled in his head. He settled on one. “Thank you.”
Remus jumped.
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Violet wandered the streets of Leisure, her hood up, and biting down silently into an apple under the shade of the tree that had bore it. She stared pensively at the passing flocks of people streaming around her. Disguised in plain sight, she wished for nothing more, save perhaps for a way out of the city not absolutely flooded with guards, than for the passing populace not to notice her. And yet, she couldn’t disguise the steady feeling of resentment twisting its grip across her chafed heart. How jealous she was of them, having to deal with regular, everyday problems, free from the troubles of running away from a family that didn’t even feel like her own. How nauseatingly envious.
Absent-mindedly, she dropped the core of her finished apple aside, and turned a street corner. Only for her immediately to turn back.
They weren’t plastered over every surface of course — saying such would be an insane overstatement. Though then again, it didn’t feel that way.
The posters seemed to follow Violet everywhere she went like some overhanging wraith, hellbent on reminding her of the worst day of her life. There was her face, illustrated with alarming realism, fit with the two hazel braids that fell thinly to the side, a pair of blazing irises of concentrated hellfire, and not to mention a bucket-load of other minute details; all coming together to paint her with frightening vividness. The artist had remarkable talent, which, to Violet at least, was wholly wasted on making it mightily difficult for her to get around without being recognised.
Even harder was leaving First Rite. Since her daring escape, Nova had obviously convinced the other sect leaders to double-down on their surveillance near all exits.
I’ll just wait out the storm, she told herself. To retain her sanity it was all she could do. Then, when everyone’s mellowed out from the initial shock of the incident, I’ll slip away. No one will ever remember I was here.
Calmed for now — as for now was the most she could ask for, considering her current circumstances — Violet was just able to sneak into a discreet back alley when something caught her attention. She was on the verge of Ruling District, which was odd for her. She typically avoided the place like it was the equivalent of giving herself into the nearest city guard. This time, however, she felt a very dangerous urge to advance in deeper, for something most definitely was afoot. There was adamant noise about, and going in as far as she would dare, Violet followed the gazes of loitering civilians, their mouths widely agape.
Up above, dangling from the side of a rocky hill, was the hardly distinguishable dot of a boy just barely clinging on.
Someone, it dawned on Violet, was somehow having a worse day than her.
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Being whipped half to death by raging winds didn’t turn out to be much fun at all. After bumping and subsequently grazing the entirety of his back along a sloping shard of rock, Remus had, in a manevere that must have consumed the remainder of his life’s supply of luck, barely hung on.
The obtrusion extended a quarter of the way down the rockface, slanting downwards at an angle that assisted gravity much more than Remus’ flimsy strength. Given the fact that he’d just exerted himself by shattering through stone with his bare hands, it would suffice to say that the limbs had more than done their day’s due of heavy work; beginning to signal to Remus’ brain that they had the right to a well deserved break.
You’ll get a rest when we’re not on the verge of death! So, uh, maybe in a year or so?
Stony shrapnel the equivalent of pebbles ricocheted down with concerning frequency. Remus, scrambling as best he could to lean inside a three inch depression within the wall, was beginning to think that the protrusion hadn’t sustained any sort of significant weight since erosion had birthed it into existence. Like the last wheeze to leave a dying man’s lips, there was a fatal crack, and Remus’ only immediate course of action was to launch himself into the wall before him.
His hands failed to grip onto anything.
Slipping down a few feet, he screamed, the fingertips of his scuttering hands receiving no licence from the wall. They bled from the fiction, and the only thing to prevent Remus’ untimely demise was his outstretched legs, clinging onto almost a sort of natural pillar formed in the cliff-face. For a few moments, he merely shivered in the light drizzle that was beginning to rampantly pick up, as if even the greying clouds up above had a bone to pick with him. Slowly and steadily, like the gradual rise in tempo of a song about to break the fingers of whatever poor violinist was playing it, his body sank lower and lower.
Remus looked down, which, in retrospect, likely wasn't the greatest of ideas. He gagged on cold air at the disorienting sight of the fall still to go. For some perverse reason, the darkest, most unhinged avenues of his mind couldn’t help but envision his deceased body splattered below. Looking up ahead, whilst by itself a blood-curdling sight also, it didn't seem to cause his stomach to squirm quite so badly. He was a decent distance down, and, despite how it continued to tug his fingers into letting the rest of his weight surrender, the rain did him some favours. Namely, in that it must have obscured him from the jail guards above. Their silhouettes peered down, and flattened palms over their eyes, they struggled to tell if the maniac who had just barged out of his cell was dead yet.
Can they see me? Remus pondered. He was aware that in many Ranks of power, the senses improved noticeably, with hawk-like vision the norm in certain sects like that of the Sight goddess, and a few specialised members of the Bird Sect. With his adrenaline threatening to rupture his heart in twain, Remus struggled to determine if he himself had received much benefit, though some giddy part of him was sure that the distance had never been so detailed.
The men conversed, With Elmore’s distinct green form patting his two assistants firmly on the back. He was dismissing them, as if to say that the outcome of this incident wasn’t any major concern. It didn’t matter if they could see Remus or not. He was going to die from this fall, and, if he did, who was to blame but himself?
Their slipping shadows left his tunnel of sight, as gravity’s momentum, combined with the slippery layer gradually building upon his fickle handholds, abandoned Remus on the verge of flailing through empty air.
In a cry, he threw himself aside at the last second. Twice, these wild leaps had been his only hope of survival, and his thumping heart rate wasn’t becoming any fonder of the stunts.
Remus’ hand gripped onto a rock that twisted out of its hold at his touch; his head collided with the rocky wall in an explosive pain that threatened to blow out the snuff of consciousness lingering in him. He momentarily managed to stop the descent by spreading his mass on a similar ledge to the previous, only this one evidently wasn’t quite so feeble.
After all that, his body finally seemed to cease its endless campaign for alertness, and Remus, in a motion so slow it seemed to go against the laws of gravity, fell unceremoniously.
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Violet, alongside a whole throng of onlookers, observed all this with rapt attention. Some gasped, others put their hands to their mouths, and a few couldn’t stand to look, turning the other way. Past her, guards swept through the crowds, too preoccupied to notice her, and rushed to the scene. It was like the entirety of Ruling’s guards were so bored out of their drudgery-drilled minds that they’d used this one moment of excitement as an excuse to abandon their posts, under the innocuous guise of ‘inspection’.
Then, it dawned on Violet. This was her moment to slip through.
Amid all the chaos of such a freak accident, who would notice one lone, cloaked girl strolling out? She’d reach the highlands past First Rite, arrive in Hybrid in a Passing or two if her travels were quick, and make her steady path to the Ravaged Lands. Where, to finally get to the bottom of whatever her family was hiding, she’d track down Akuji’s whereabouts, someplace in the Anarchy-Syndicate-ruled Hell’s Floor.
Without a second thought, Violet stepped towards a gateway situated at the outer bounds of the District, a pleased smile plastered on her lips.
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Crash-landing backfirst into a nettled bush wasn’t an especially fun endeavour either, Remus also discovered that day.
He’d only fainted for but a moment, and that alone was a kick to the system of the kind that is never forgotten. Jolting up in a hasty movement, Remus cried out as his body demanded rest.
Rest you will get when we’re not on the verge of death! He internally chided, for the second time that day.
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Nevertheless, it took all he had not to slump over and let himself bleed out. Remus’ surroundings were not exactly foreign; a clump of bushes adding a dash of thorny greenery to the entrance of a winding staircase, carved into the inside of the hillside, and leading into the prison house. With a prickling sense of shame, he recalled being dragged along those stairs only a few days ago. Punchdrunk as he was, Remus still had sufficient cognitive function to speed away as quickly as his savaged legs would allow.
He trudged with a limp, but nevertheless wavered past. You didn’t pull a stunt like dropping from the highest point in all of First Rite without eliciting an entire band of guards on your case. Guards who it would only take one of to deliver more destruction upon his body than this measly fall had tenfold. His hopes of escaping unnoticed were non-existent — you couldn’t exactly stroll into town a bleeding pulp without garnering at least a few inquisitorial stares — but fleeing all together wasn’t a complete longshot. Working out how he would survive once he left First Rite was a question for another time; for now, his only concern was to get out of its borders as discreetly as possible.
Which would be a lot less difficult if drops of his golden blood didn’t keep trailing his every step. To rub salt into the wound, they weren’t even of a potency to earn him any profits. And profits he would need, if getting to Hybrid would ever be anything more than a pleasant pipe dream.
Remus was dashing as best he could through the underbelly of Ruling District, a set of alleys reserved for the dark businesses of underground society. The vapour of his breath became visible in the repulsive air of the place, and he hadn’t sprinted more than a street’s length when he ran into a group of errant men and women, huddled around a fire blazing upon a cluster of trash. Their clothes’ threads dangled at their torn hems, and their skin obviously hadn’t received ample washing in quite some time, judging from the grime-stained marks streaking across their cheeks. One figure at the front hefted a metal pole his way.
“I’m not here to harm you,” Remus huffed, his body demanding a temporary respite as he sagged across the wall, “I’m just passing through.”
His vision darkened. The screeches of a search party were becoming louder and louder, and it was only now occurring to Remus that he hadn’t eaten a crumb in nearly two days. He’d been relying on the burst of energy his advancement to Engorged had sent fizzling through him, and that initial eruption of vigour was quickly fading, revealing the creeping, total fatigue behind it.
The dishevelled man before him stepped forward. “We know. You’re in no state to fight us even if you wanted to. Gods, you look like you’ve just fallen out of the sky!”
Remus laughed reflexively, much to his chest’s disagreement. “Sounds about right.”
A guard sprinted past the passage, and any comedic persuasion disappeared. “Look, I really should get going.” Remus muttered, leaning against the wall in an attempt to push himself up.
“Not like that, you aren’t.”
Remus gave him a puzzled look. “Really, I mean it. I don’t have time.”
Hands grasped him. Remus struggled with all the might of an Engorged, but the man didn’t seem to notice. Having only shattered past that threshold, Remus couldn’t help but forget that, in the grand scheme of things, the achievement wasn’t of much merit.
“I’m sorry about this.” The man said, contrary to his actions. “But you walked into this yourself.”
Searching fingers foraged through his pockets, but Remus knew they would find nothing. The man seemed to slowly realise this, his lips settling into a dissatisfied frown, as the other residents of the street scowled impatiently. “You’re really down on your luck, aren’t you?”
The guards of Remus’ prison had stripped him of every single Inkling the second he’d landed himself in legal jeopardy. The coins themselves would still be housed inside of some vault somewhere, left to collect dust in a numbered row that would be one of hundreds. The thought brought a stab of sorrow to Remus’ heart, for he knew that — if he suited a realist’s perspective — he’d likely never lay eyes on the humble fortune ever again.
“What sort of honest burglar starts a conversation with their victims?” Remus spat, pure adrenaline substituting for nourishment, as he slowly managed to push the man away. Only for an overwhelming gale of air pressure to dig his back into the wall yet again. As if punishing his mind for merely thinking that he had stood a chance there, if but for a split second.
A Mark on the man’s neck glimmered subtly. Paying as much attention as he could when his body was only holding on by the impulses of fight or flight mode, Remus tried to inspect it. Through rapidly blinking eyelids, there lay Septimus’ blindfolded face, attached to a hovering body situated in the centre, mounds of earth orbiting around him.
“You’re from the Gravity Sect?” Remus yelped incredulously. “You’re clan is one of the most thriving in First Rite, how could they produce street urchins like-”
Another manipulation of gravitational force, and Remus was forced to shut his wandering mouth.
“I didn’t . . .” The man choked on his words. “ . . . want to go to the front lines . . . so they — my family, they . . .”
The Foot-Soldier abruptly shut his mouth. “Why am I telling you this?”
His eyes portrayed honest confusion, and Remus felt as the pressure lessened from his body. Slumping to his knees, he took a hasty breath. For some perplexing reason, he wanted to say something reassuring to the man. Something comforting that would momentarily heal him of his turmoil. I understand sounded cheap even when considered in his own head, and it isn’t your fault, you shouldn’t be forced into war couldn't withstand the slightest of criticisms.
Mandatory military service, excluding the difficulty in ascending ranks, was a primary reason why many ended their journeys at Emblazed. The gods themselves, aware of the lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of being chucked into hordes of Unbounded, had incorporated the system of Visions to see if their followers desired to pay the cost of power. So when Remus looked into the man’s pupils, with the concrete knowledge that they had accepted his patron deity’s offer of power, and yet was now too afraid to face the consequences, he couldn’t bring himself to be overly sympathetic. Especially as mugging civilians wasn’t the most efficient method to garner good will in Remus’ book.
“What’s the hold up?” A voice from behind piped up. “Does he have cash or not?”
“No . . . “ Remus saw the man turn his back to him. “He doesn’t.”
Remus scrambled away, towards Ruling District’s gateway, primed to get away from Damosh’s territory, even if it killed him.
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Violet didn’t bother to contain her gait to a paced rhythm; she was virtually sprinting towards the drawbridge, that ran over a rushing man-made moat — curving around only the outermost corners of Ruling, lest it overflood the other Districts.
The sweet taste of freedom was near, and Violet was practically frothing at the mouth by the thought of it ; at finally being released from the shackles of having to constantly keep her guard up. Being required to burn through her ration supplies before she could take one step away from First Rite didn’t bode well with Violet, and she was particularly keen to ensure that not another morsel of the bland, though lasting stuff, went to waste.
But here she was, and being able to do just that was only a short leap or two away. She sped past the ranks of disgruntled civilians, a few yards’ distance from an endless plain of green just out of reach, when-
A bloody, staggering child collided into her.
The two bundled on the floor, and Violet was only seconds away from rehearsing a very extensive dictionary of ruthless insults, when she recognised the figure before her.
“Just what do you think you’re-” She blinked. “You’re that inmate that leaped off the hill!”
Now that he was right before her, Violet made a few crucial realisations. Most obvious of these was that the panting person on the brink of collapse in front of her was not a child. They had only appeared so from a distance. Whilst not the largest of men — and the term only loosely fitted by the smallest strand of connection — he had a certain roughness to his edges that surpassed the confines of childhood. They were sparse in the muscle department, especially for this world, but not completely lacking, and their cut-heavy head was fitted with a contained outgrowth of ginger hair so dark, it passed for brown if you squinted.
“Apologies,” Remus murmured instantly. “I don’t seem to be quite so steady on my feet today.”
“I don’t expect you to be, after, what, you fell a little under two hundred feet?”
Remus grunted, getting himself up. “I only had to take the last quarter, I sort of clambered down the rest.”
It was excruciatingly apparent that Violet was about to object to this point when the girl suddenly glanced worriedly behind her shoulder.
“Damn it!” Remus gritted his teeth. “Sorry, the guards are after me, I have to-”
“Don’t get so big-headed, those lot are obviously after me.”
Remus glowered. “Why would they be after you?”
The strangers around them were starting to wonder what all this commotion could possibly be about, so Violet, taking the initiative, promptly threw Remus into the nearest alley. Remus was starting to develop quite the distaste for the places. Nothing ever seemed to go his way when one of them was involved.
The two sat in silence for minutes on end, hiding behind a rubbish deposit, and hoping beyond hope that the swarm of turquoise eyeballs up ahead didn’t see through the mush of city junk.
“How can they be after you?” Remus repeated, the question plaguing his mind. “No offence, but I sort of just broke out of prison and nearly broke my neck on the way down.”
Violet gave him a look like his brain had been replaced with pastry-filling. “Have you been living under a rock? They haven’t been exactly discreet with the posters.”
“What posters?”
She pointed without looking to a piece of parchment spread across the wall adjacent to them. Remus was met with an exact replica of the girl hunched up next to him.
“Ohhh . . .” He muttered. “Oh!”
“Now he clocks,” Violet exhaled. “Now, I really should get going. I only took you here because I wouldn’t feel right leaving a dying man to choke on his own blood before he’s thrown back into a cell for the rest of his life.”
“I’m not dying!” Remus said adamantly. “I’m simply facing difficulties with the task of remaining conscious.”
“Like that makes a grand difference. Now scram. Us together is guaranteed to attract attention.”
It might have been too late now, but Violet was still hoping to slide out of the city before the guards got bored and returned to their positions. Remus remained as he was, simply looking at her unreadably, as if he didn’t speak the mortal tongue.
“What are you waiting for? If you’re swift about it, you could make an escape.”
“I know,” Remus began, seeming to have finally mustered the courage to ask something. ”But it's clear to me you’re deserting First Rite also, for the time being, anyway. I don’t want to intrude on your reasoning for leaving, but if you’re passing by Hybrid, might you consider taking me along with you?”
“I might be passing through Hybrid, true.” Violet replied slowly. “But no. I’ll have enough trouble feeding myself as it is, another mouth won’t assist me in that regard in the slightest. Plus, we’ve only just met, and you’re a tad too eager for my liking.”
Internally, Remus was screaming. It had only now occurred to him, after spending entire Durations locked inside his clan's library, committing theft, breaking out of prison, and then topping it all off by falling off the highest peak in all of First Rite, that he had no idea, absolutely none in the slightest, of how he expected to make it to Hybrid alone. Violet’s generosity would be his only saving grace, or it would be sweeping floors in some no-name town in the highlands outside of Hybrid for the rest of his life. If he ever made it that far, that was.
“I’m begging here. It doesn’t have to be the full way, just the first couple days.”
Violet crossed her arms stubbornly. “What’s in it for me?”
Five words, and Remus was left to search every nook and cranny of his mind to forge a worthwhile proposal. “Money. I’m a little down on my luck right now-”
“Meaning?”
“Oh, alright, the guards still have my Inklings, but when I do get out of this mess, I’ll be indebted to you.”
She didn’t appear convinced. “I could offer you a mountain of diamonds, doesn’t mean I'll ever get them.”
Remus was about to refute this as best he could when a swarm of eyes grew dangerously close to their whereabouts.
“There’s no time. What Rank are you?”
“En-” Remus bit his tongue. “Peak Emblazed.”
Violet narrowed her eyes like she wanted to double-check the validity of that, but bundled Remus over a shoulder instead, like a farmer would a fresh harvest. Remus had as much as a two second time frame before he found himself being casted away, the vivid image of a drawbridge, and the lands beyond, steadily creeping into view.
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Overhead, Andreas sat perched upon the ridge of a house, grinning head in his hands. He watched silently as Remus was carried away from his birthplace, a dangerous burst of pride swelling up in his chest.
“You're the boss Grandad,” Damion muttered idly, eyes locked onto the fading image of his vigilante brother, “But is this really for the best? You actually think we should let him go, after absorbing the recoil from that fall?”
The Warlord stood up, the last pulsing glimmers of a lazy afternoon sun washing across his bulk of a body. “Yes. I am very sure.”
Damion turned, being very careful to keep his mouth shut. “I’ll trust your insight.” A pained wince emerged upon his face. “As best I can, anyway.”
Andreas exhaled slowly, observing his grandchild as if living vicariously through him.
“There comes a time where all birds must leave their nests. He reminds me of a younger me, our Remus, one black-out drunk on their own ambition — not a sprinkle of wisdom in either of us.”
There was a gush of air to Damion’s side, and looking to where his grandad was but a moment ago, the carpenter saw nothing but dislodged roof tiles. With an expectant roll of the eyes, he looked up, Andreas’s beaming face overlooking the confining walls of First Rite.
“Fly, my boy.” He roared to the heavens. “Fly!”