Blue-Finger.

I hadn’t heard of the name, probably because I spent my time with those in the upper classes so far, with almost none of them having significant ties to Vahla. It sounds more like information that you’d only get your hands on if you spent a significant period of time there, or knew someone who had.

But as soon as the name, or moniker, had been spoken—little ideas started to pop into my head. A brother and sister, a betrayal, partners in crime, Shed, Blue-Finger. I wonder if it was just something that my mind was capable of doing now, or if I’d always have made the rather obscure connection.

Lauka and Tohn had slowly taken to the ideas that I laid out in front of them, even so much that they had let their attentions slip from the children that crept out of their room to eavesdrop once again. I caught them out, of course, looking at them as they peaked around the corner and into the doorway of the kitchen and dining area. They retracted themselves when they made contact with my glance, but I had time to play with them, gleefully balancing on the edge of pretending that I hadn’t noticed them, and small moments of knowing that always seemed to shock them, not matter how many times I acted them out.

I said the confidential words in the moments that they weren’t paying enough attention, and leaving the analogies and broader strokes to when they listened intently, trying to understand what it was that I was saying.

They didn’t understand, of course, they lacked too much context to really put the pieces together, but they also weren’t stupid. They did a fine enough job of putting two and two together and creating somewhere close to four.

The conspiracy that they couldn’t quite understand excited them to no end, even letting that excitement grab a hold of their hearts and squeezing as they let their minds wonder what it could be, and what change it could bring.

The two women were, secretly, just as enthralled. As soon as someone realises that I am a train that won’t stop, even if you don’t get on, opinions change from conservative to progressiveness. I theorised that it was more to do with the fact that I offered a stability that you didn’t usually see within an ‘uprising’.

The successful uprisings in the past of Earth were always headed by someone, someone charismatic and motivated towards their own goals, pursuing them with a crazed fervour. Now, I might not quite be that exact character, but I was close. I’m clearly charismatic and saying that I wasn’t wouldn’t even be ‘humble’ at this point, it would be almost delusional.

I wasn’t crazed, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it seemed that way, so it counted. The people in the little circle of rebellion leaders that I was slowly putting together had been horrified about Alena’s existence, and even after I explained it to them as best as I could through an esoteric round of delving into their minds and emotions, they were still wary.

Tenra specifically can barely stand to be in the same room as Alena, his emotions filled with a darkness that I’m not happy seeing in someone. Even now, I could feel the barest hint of Yeram’s presence when he had tracked me through the streets of Crossroads, his emotions quietly interspersed with a clinical wonder of whether he should just kill Alena.

Of course, all hell would break loose, and I’d make sure that he burned in its fires, but he restrained himself due to a future hope he held. Self-serving? What did you expect from an ex-assassin; that he’d be a jolly man with a heart of gold?

Either which way, Lauka and Tohn were in,—even if they didn’t know their exact roles to play just yet. Though, they likely had an idea with how long I’d spent on talking about the power structure of Shed’s gang, and even a little on Haedar Kout’s gang.

I had left Lauka’s quaint home, making sure to conclude the little game with the children by means of a look directly into their eyes as they curled themselves into a ball in the corner, desperately hoping that neither I, nor the two women, would notice their presence.

I left Lauka’s home with the small satisfaction of their shocked expressions in my memory, though I had only given them a wink before I’d disappeared from the home altogether, moving on to my next task of the day which was…

Actually, no. It was still light outside, and that was a particularly poor time for a conversation the likes of which I wanted to have. I had time, and so I was going to use it for something I had neglected for the most part, time having flown by while I immersed myself in my assumed role of the insurrection leader and inspirer.

Training.

It was almost strange to go out to the open fields that I’d done some training in for a few days before I’d become preoccupied for a few weeks, and it was even odder that I encountered someone when I arrived there. I looked out over the fields at the tall, dark-skinned woman wearing training clothes and swinging a large sword, a claymore.

I observed the woman’s movements with an interested eye, finding much of what Rethi had learned from Mayer in her steps, and even a few that vaguely simulated the Sharah. Though it was as if a pinch of a spice had been added to a traditional dish, hard to distinguish what was different about it in comparison to just any old movement.

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I summoned my hammer beside me, allowing myself to lean up against the massive shaft with my full body weight, not eve coming close to the weight I’d need to actually budge the thing.

From then it took almost ten minutes for her to spontaneously turn in my directions while swinging her sword in a practice form that Mayer had drilled into Rethi mercilessly while I tinkered with the Sharah at the sidelines.

“Maximilian!” She yelped, before stopping and correcting herself hesitantly, “Er, Master Maximilian?”

“Both are me.” I shrugged with a grin, before stopping in much the same way as she had, “Is there another Maximilian around the place that I need to be worrying about?” She looked about ready to answer me truthfully, before catching onto my teasing and scowling at me.

“Well, I’m sorry that I have no idea how to address you!” She yelled defiantly, “We talked once! And somehow you wrapped up my entire life into training and then the realisation that my personal aide is a Shadow Walker!” There was a note of actual anger in her voice as she brandished her claymore subconsciously, probably a response from training with Rethi. The boy will certainly do it to you.

“Need I remind you,” I said casually, “that you are just as capable of walking away as anyone else is in this little mess that I’m pulling together? In fact, I’m surprised that no one has yet. I was sure it’d be Venn.”

“I thought…” she began with a growl, before sighing, “I don’t know! I thought you’d at least show up during training.” I rose an eyebrow as I pushed off from my hammer, standing myself upright and walking towards her almost teasingly.

“Didn’t Yeram ever tell you to not trust the mysterious boys?” I goaded with a grin, and she scowled.

“Mysterious? I can see right through you, Maximilian Avenforth!” She scoffed with a loud tone, it was almost like an announcement, though one that wilted almost the instant that she’d finished her sentence. “No, I can’t. I don’t know why I even said that.”

I gave the girl an appraising look, one that she seemed to feel was one of harsh judgement. I’m not quite sure why she was exacerbating my each and every action to such an extent, and I was all too happy to make it my goal to find out.

“Not so sure of yourself as you once were, Valeri Ephars. What changed?” I asked as I did a mock march around her, throwing my leg out with each step as I eyed her.

“A lot?” She answered truthfully, though it was almost as if the was under oath in a court, “Training has… shown me how weak I am.”

“As it should. It sure did for me.” She gave me an odd look, and I scoffed, “You think I was always this infallibly amazing? Once upon a time I was worse than you! Two left feet and barely a muscle on me.”

She rolled her eyes at me, easing ever so slightly with my false pompousness. Valeri’s slight comfort didn’t last too long as she looked behind me and noticed the massive hammer I’d been leaning on only moments before.

“What is that?” She asked dumbfoundedly craning around my body to get a look at it, her thin eyebrows raised sharply and her seemingly perfectly smooth skin crinkled with her surprise.

“Oh that?” I turned nonchalantly, “That’s my weapon. A little hammer.”

“Little? In what world?” She said as she sidestepped past me and moved closer to examine it closer, even as she felt like she was encroaching on dangerous ground. Apparently intrigue beats out self-preservation with Valeri, something that I guess I could have realised from the moment that she’d allowed herself to be whisked out into the night by a random boy for no more reason than he’d asked.

“None of them, I can assure you.” I laughed pleasantly as I walked back on over to the hammer, watching as she tried to examine the large, boxy head of it, and the bright energy that pulsed in its runes. Her interest twigged slightly with my vague comment but was too enthralled by the weapon to question me.

“Can you even use it? It’d weigh–” Her teeth clacked loudly as she forced her own jaw shut, swallowing against a shock of nervousness, “I mean, uh…”

She didn’t follow up with a continuation to her self-perceived blunder, but I made it known that I was aware of it. Frankly, it was a little ridiculous the way that she was acting. I grinned toothily at her as she sweated with the anxiousness.

“Do you want to try it?”

“What?” She said dumbfounded. I nodded to the hammer that she was standing in front of.

“Lift it, and I let you ask any question you want. I’ll answer truthfully and to the best of my abilities.” I set a challenge with a grin, a wager that I’d have loved to be making over a bar, with a flagon of ale in hand. An instinctual response almost. Valeri gulped, eyeing me suspiciously.

“And if I can’t?” I gave her an offended look, hand to my chest.

“You truly believe that I would set a game that you couldn’t win? How uncouth!” I couldn’t help but grin at the awkward look she donned, but I waved away any response she might’ve been concocting.

“I will be the one to ask a question, in that case. Nothing too horrendous, I swear.”

Valeri looked between me and the hammer, letting her eyes dance with the intrigue, the curiosity that I knew was going it kill the cat. She reached out a hand to grab the hammer’s soft, leather-like handle, but stopped when I clicked my tongue warningly.

“You touch the handle, you agree to the wager.” I said, tone snarky. She clenched her jaw, but I felt the evil grin on my face widen to Cheshire levels, watching as her hand inched closer to the grip, even as her face seemed to be warping with the instinctive knowledge that it was a trap.

Then her first finger touched it, then a second and a third. Then, as she realised that the mere touch had sealed her fate, she wrapped her hand around it fully, then her other hand as well. It was as long as she didn’t try to inject her own ether, or any other energy for that matter, that I could allow her to touch it. At least for a while before my Soul Weapon cracked the shits and decided that she was disallowed from doing so.

I watched as she readjusted her grip minutely, and then prepared herself for a mighty pull, but it was then that she saw my face, grin almost sliced into my expression at that point. Her eyes widened as she pulled as hard as she could…

And it didn’t budge at all.

I watched her pull on it over and over, grinning all the while, before I looked up at the sky and laughed loudly.

“Well,” I announced, “I think I’m going to go do something else! You can… have fun with that. Might take you a while.” I laughed manically as I walked away, waving over my shoulder at the woman.

“Oh, and no shifting ether into it please! I’ll have to punch you really hard if you do that.”

I ignored her response, my mind recalibrating from that amazing mood that had put me in, into something a little more sombre. I had an appointment to keep, and the other participant didn’t quite have it pencilled into her schedule.