GoldenCat/ShadesOfEventide02
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Seven Moons of Spire
The 20th of Resplendent Air.
Spire...
The link between Whiteshield, a country mostly grounded, and Windia, a country in the clouds.
And boy, did it show.
Each and every building on it was at least four stories high. Each and every building on it, even the newer ones, trying to build vertically rather than horizontally, making a place with bridges far up, roads above, and a thousandfold places for the nests for the Windian's distant cousins, the myriad of birds. And of course, many ways for their predators, the myriad of cats, walk.
Moon knew it. Some pretty big directional gods lived here. Helped the city remain quiet, in prayer.
Of course, by now, a good third of it was razed, in ruins. A second third had been razed, but among the broken buildings rose bigger buildings of ivory and ice that had not been touched yet, shining ominous as they connected to the others in all-too-familiar, but all-too-alien angles. The remaining thirds scorched by fire, essence, and claws - a destruction that aimed solely at lives. Right now, there were few more civilians alive in Spire than there were people in the army that liberated it.
On the birds, it seemed like the rate of survival was higher....
As all around Moon, after heavy rain, they chirped.
Seventh Moon: Place hadn't been very lively the first time Moon had visited it. Still wasn't very lively now. As he paced the streets alone, taking the time to escape the tree-house of the gods and explore the city it loomed over, he tried to picture how the Spire might have been before all this happened. Looking around at empty shops and homes, shattered windows and broken doors, he built for himself a picture of the city pieced together by the broken fragments of it left laying within it's walls.
It was pretty, in that sort of high, airy way that most of the towns in Winlandia he'd seen were. Wasn't like back home, all squat and slumping and spread out comfortably until things start piling up on each other. Spire was tall, buildings put up layer upon layer, like the people here had been trying desperately to match the tower in the middle of the town. Or surpass it. Moon looked up at the cloudy sky above and wondered if that was what they'd been aiming for instead. A place in the clouds, like Alex had set up for his gang in the tower.
Whatever they'd been trying for, it didn't seem like the people of Spire were going to be getting there any time soon. If they even stuck around to try again.
He'd walked through the more intact portions first, but even seeing the ruined parts from a distance made him realize how lucky the Boil had gotten off. It may have been pretty well wreaked, but it had been all fucked up to begin with. The Spire, with it's high homes and perches wasn't going to be building itself back up very quickly. So far it seemed like the birds were the only ones who'd made it through unscratched, their chirping the only real sound coming out of the neighborhood he stalked through. At least they sounded happy. Why wouldn't they be? More space than ever for them.
Things continued like they had, the birds might just inherited the whole damn city.
Narrator: Moon hears so many sounds...
The chirpings of the birds
The droplets of water still falling from the rain, eternally, all around
The movement of the Cats above...
... and something else.
Moon feels so many scents...
That of coal where essence burnt.
Of blood, all around. Dried to the eye, inescapable to the scent.
The cats, all around.
The water of the rain forming on the gutters.
Gardens on balconies far up which lay intact.
... and something else.
He feels the scent of humans, blood, and sweat.
He hears a cry from someone who cannot cry for help anymore.
Someone, caught in the middle of rubble not two buildings away... more than one person. A woman and a child... the child is crying... the woman is trying to console it with a broken voice...
Seventh Moon: Shit.
So much for a quiet stroll, huh? Moon wasn't sure what was more shocking, the sudden awareness of the woman and the child or the fact that they were down there at all. How many days had it been?
He didn't stop to really think about that. Running hard in looping strides, the Lunar dove onto the rubble. His senses cut out everything but the child, a predators urge hunting for the weakest before the strongest, but in this case one was as good as the other. Now that he was searching for her, she was easy to find... Scent.
The scent of it's blood...
It's sweat...
It's tears.
Sound.
The sound of it's cries...
It's breath...
It's heartbeat.
They guided him over the shattered buildings and across the piled stones. Standing above where, he reached down and gave the rubble a firm tap with his fist to get their attention. "Alive inside?"
Narrator: "Y... yes! Help us! Help us, please! Please! Oh, thank the Lady of Tears, thank all of heaven... help us!" It is the woman's voice. The child is mostly... incoehrent, The wall... in fact, most of the buildings upper two floors... seems ot have collapsed, as they were on the way out. It is a little ways away in rubble to get to them...
Seventh Moon: "Aite, hang tight and try not ta move!" Moon shouted through the rubble. Leaning away, he surveyed the stones for a few moments. He didn't know shit about engineering or how the hell he could dig them out without collapsing the whole mess in on them, but he could at least understand the basics. Like not to start from the bottom.
Right, fuck it.
Thinking about it was only going to make things worse. He'd do this the only way he knew how.
Moon threw off his coat, tossing it aside onto the street. Tightening his hands into fists, Moon leaned back in towards the rubble and began to strike.
One. Two. One. Two.
He built up a steady rhythm, one fist coming after the other, taking haymaker swings at the rock. His body reacted on it's own, with scarcely a thought from him. When the first few swings netted only a scattering of pebbles and dust, Essence rippled through his arms. Muscle twisting and coiling, meaty strands growing impossibly thicker, inhumanly large.
When the rock began to rip apart the skin on his hands, bone poured through the joints of knuckles, jagged peeks of marble white condensing like plates of steel over the weaker flesh as his fists swung in, raking stone out of the pile and sending it flying into the streets, waves of broken plaster and rock arching into the sky, rattling down like heavy rain.
One
"Just."
Two.
"Hang."
One.
"On!"
Two.
Narrator: The rock breaks loose, and Moon throws it away, opening a path for them... he sees the woman with green hair, the mother of the little boy, she is very hurt... she urges him to get out, which he does, slowly, all scrapped, his head with a large wound.... walking to him... and she... she sees unable to move from there... "Take my child to a doctor... please... please, save my Darius..."
Seventh Moon: How the fuck had they survived this long? Mother and son both looked on the verge of death. Looked like they should have been dead already days ago. How long had they even been down there?
"I'll take the kid soon as I get ya outta there!" Moon snapped back, hoisting up the boy and laying him safely out of the path of debris. Peering back into the hole, he gave the woman a stern, almost reproachful look. "'nough fuckin' corpses 'round here lady, don't go thinkin' I'm gonna add another ta the pile."
Head down, he dug like a dog now, literally. Squatting above the open hole, he scooped up piles of rubble in his hands and heaved them back between his legs. Working to widen the opening, to make it large enough to pull the woman free.
Narrator: "My leg is caught here, it is not... you will not be able to... no, stop!" She cries... and pehaps it is her cry, weakened as it is, or the fact that he does manage to pull the rocks out and get her leg free... but then the rocks begin to fall. As they do, however, a metal stick goes through them, holding them still a bit.... Moon can make out some old person on the other side holding it with some difficulty... he feels the man's sweat and the pain, he won't have long to take her out of there.. and much as the rocks cannot kill him, he would not be able to move without making them kill the woman...
Seventh Moon: He'd thank whoever that was later. Or at least the woman would. She had better, because fuck all if she wasn't gonna be alive to!
The Full Moon mark on his brow flickered like a candle a moment, then gleamed to life. Silver light radiated down the open shaft, a spotlight circle enveloping the woman bellow. And a shiver ran through the stone. He shook, vibrating softly and swiftly until the lines of his body and face dissolved into blur. Pebbles broke free from the rubble bellow him, rattling as they bounced down the slope of the pile. Their trip from top to bottom took only seconds.
But to the hot yellow eyes of the punk, it was years. It was like they were barely moving at all. Moon had forgot this sensation, the sight of a world that didn't seem able to keep up with you.
But even slow as it was, he could see the dust clouds trickling out from between the rocks in the side of the opening. See the small stones as they broke free one by one. He might have been fast now, but he wasn't so fast he could stand around being impressed with himself while she was still in that hole.
He'd be impressed with himself a few seconds later, when he was out.
Hands already on the ground, Moon swung himself around and dropped into the hole. Barely inches above her head, his legs kicked out, steel-shod boots crushing footholds into the side of the cave. Weakening it further. He reached down, enveloping her in his arms, hauling her body up and hugging it tightly to his own.
Something passed his face the dust cloud had caught up, the first wave of pebbles tumbling past his eyes.
Shit.
The rock began to give. The tunnel began to fall. Tons of stone crumbling inward with a roar like a river, sealing together with a clap that sent shivers through the buildings near by. A dust cloud belched out of the opening where the woman and her child had been, spitting high into the air and falling fast. Then suddenly spearing upwards again as a dark shape broke from it's center and careened through the air, a comet-tail of dust and debris following behind it. It struck the street, bouncing once, then skidding over the paving stones until it thumped into the wall of the next building over with a deep throated grunt.
Moon peered up slowly, looking out over the head of the green haired woman to the pile of rubble he'd just escaped from, the wounded boy still stretched out near by, and then finally at the old man who'd come out of nowhere and probably done more to save the woman's life than he had. He stared blankly at the old man a moment, then asked the question that throbbed in his mind.
"We ain't fuckin' dead, right?"
Narrator: It takes a good few moments for the woman, in shock, to even regain her voice.
The old man, holding the boy in his arms, is the first one to say, "No. Nobody is."
To their side, dust took the street as the building collapsed... but Moon's senses felt nothing. It was empty now... and they were alive with him.
The woman looks up at him, her face washing the panic off a little... "T.. thank.. you..."
Seventh Moon: The caste mark was still glowing on his brow when he grinned at the old man, his hand on the woman's back twisting up to stick up a thumb triumphantly.
"No problem darlin'." He said, patting her rump playfully. Moon's face was serious though, his eyes sympathetic. "It's shit ta grow up without someone lookin' after ya, y'know? Fuck all if I was gonna be the one ta tell the kid he's on his own."
Speaking of him...
As Moon untangled himself from the green haired woman and got them both back to their feet, he looked up at the old man again. "How's the kid lookin' old timer?"
Narrator: "He's... hanging. Passed out. Shock, I guess... can you take them to the Wingeds? Two blocks that way, and I'm sure you can do it faster than I can... I'll catch up with you there!" He nods, handling him the child... the man had harsh, strong features, a grizzled beard, completely silver-gray hair... and Moon could not shake out the fact he seemed familiar....
Seventh Moon: Moon stared at the old man's face intently as he took the boy, trying to place where he'd seen the grizzled features before. He sniffed the air, breathing in the other man's scent as well, a far more certain link to memory than face would ever be.
It would come to him later though, curious as he was about the stranger out of nowhere. "Probably right." He agreed, stooping down and tugging the woman onto his back, guiding her arms to wrap around his neck and hold on tight. Better to leave both arms free for the boy, who he cradled against his chest. Leaving the old man with a nod of thanks, he slid his foot back against the road...
"See ya there, man..."
And tore out faster than working girl who smelled jade, cutting down the road with only waves of dust rippling in his wake to show he'd been there at all.
Narrator: And it is swiftly that Moon arrives at the relief center, one of the old buildings that is throughly understaffed for its task of taking care of the wounded now, barely four days after the whole ordeal. All doctors, winged and non, stand there, together with three White Lily Eyes, wood elemental healrs summoned by one of the Dragon-Blooded healers... Ryshassa was also on the building. Somewhere.
Fiona: But just as Moon got there, Fiona was walking around, promptly seeing him, calling one of the White Lilies... "Moon! They need help? Bring them here!" She says, calling him inside, into one of the free beds in a large room full of the wounded... "Quick, White Lily, bring me some alcohol, bandages!"
"Where did you find them?"
Seventh Moon: "Found 'um under my bed 'n half a mile underground," he answered, giving Fiona a faint grin as he hauled the two refugees in. Wouldn't say it, but Moon was happy to see her instead of Kanti. Fuck knows the kid tried, but Kanti just wasn't a comforting presence. Least wise not like Fiona was.
As he set the boy down on the bed under Kanti's directions, then helped the mother to sit on the edge of the mattress as well, Moon took a look around the room. "Sheeyit..." he said softly, keeping his voice private and low. "Ya really got a full fuckin' house here, dontcha darlin'?"
Fiona: "Lily! Pour the alcohol here! She has a fracture! You have to put it in place just give me a moment..."
She cleaned their wounds with the alcohol, together with one of the petal-women, And then begun to glow. She touched her caste mark, sparkling, touching with the dust of butterflies around her, forming a liquid... which she annointed their wounds with. Soon, they begun to smile, their eyes addled with bliss. The woman did not even feel as her leg was placed back in place with a sickening crack.
"Least those aren't claw wounds...'
"You don't say... more and more, taken from the dead's dungeons and torture chambers, taken from the rubble from the things that rose out, taken from the battlefield, from the beasts running around the city lately... we are full!"
She turns to him, getting on the tip of her toes, and kissing the large man on his cheek.
"And you, always saving someone!"
Seventh Moon: Moon smiled, putting a hand on her hand and ruffling her hair fondly. It had been a long while since he did that last. She almost seemed too old for that sort of gesture anymore, despite it only having been days since he'd seen her last. He stepped out of the way of the busy staff, finding an empty chair to sit in and watch Fiona work on his two strays.
"Shit like this makes me worry 'bout home, y'know? See this stuff, hear 'bout the monsters 'n shit ya talk about, makes me hope we didn't pull outta there too early." They only had Iria to look out for them back there for now. He really should try to find a few more to go back and keep an eye on the place. Worst was hopefully over there for now, but it wasn't going to take the worst to hurt the Boil anymore.
"Cities for shit," he agreed with nod. "How you holdin' up darlin'?"
Fiona: As he ruffled her hair, she closed her eyes... happy.
An innocent, warm caress...
As he let go, she moved to the almost mechanic task of touching them, letting the butterflies found their essence spots, to speed their healing with the annointments of her soul.... The butterflies shone, translucent in golden light and clear viridian marks... burning bodies like the sunset. Their wings flapped. She sighed.
"Me? I... am holding up. Confused. I feel a bit like an outcast on this group, I feel like I am outside of everything... I would like to be more honest with Alex, but I feel a bit of a wall between us... and... I am trying to find out how to be more useful, to tell the truth."
"The General was trouncing them, Moon. Earth was shaking... and I did my part by giving them my dreams, my essence... but it was not enough. I have to do more..."
"I have to be a heroine. At least I know that are different kinds now..."
"You taught so many a hero does not need to be a monk or a knight..."
Seventh Moon: Pursing his lips, he scratched the back of his head thoughtfully, looking deep into those strange glowing butterflies as he chewed on what she said. He'd really only wondered how she was feeling, if she was getting enough rest, not over working herself; that sort of thing. A confessional wasn't exactly what he'd been expecting, but he wasn't going to shit on her feelings by saying so.
And he's not above smiling at the compliment she paid him.
"Sheeyit darlin'," he said, looking up at her again when he finally spoke. "Seems ta me ya always been that, y'know? I saw ya stand in front'a fuckin' wall of crazy dead things and not piss yaself. People say if it weren't for you, prince would'a never made it outta Whiteshield. And shit, even if it was just half as bad as people been sayin', just bein' in on the fight against the General is somethin' that they ought'a be passin' out more medals for."
"Wanna be a hero darlin'?" he asked, tilting his head to the side in a curious fashion, then straightening it as he shrugged. "Just keep on doin' whatcha doin'. Worked good so far."
Fiona: "I've been rambling, right?" She asks shaking her own head and stiffling a laugh at herself.
"Sorry, just... when you take care of those people, after it is not immediate danger, you have nothing else to do but to think of your life. So, I just had to tell someone. Now, go, go, before I make a fool of myself, alright?" She blows him a kiss. "Thanks for the concern. And... I'll think about the compliments."
They had made her happy, at least...
Very, very happy.
Seventh Moon: He mimed catching the kiss and slapping it over his lips, offering her a smile as he rose from his seat. Her dismissal had been pretty plain, but he didn't take it hard. The two he'd brought it were getting taken care of and he was only going to get in the way around here anyway. They had enough work without having to worry about tripping over his feet.
"Don't work too hard, darlin'," he said, waving back as he headed out the door and back onto the street. He thought about waving good-bye to his strays, but they looked too high to appreciate the gesture. Did make him wonder how hard it would be to bottle whatever the hell Fiona had given them. Shit would sell high back home, thats for sure...
Passing bemusing dreams of becoming a drug-lord side by side with Fiona, Moon stuffed his hands into his coat pockets and glanced around the make-shift encampment that had been set up around the clinic. He sniffed at the air, trying to catch a whiff of the old man. Or at least something interesting. Wasn't much inclined to head back to the treehouse just yet.
Narrator: He walks out... and feels the scent of murder. Well, not murder itself. Spirits of it.
Bloody Hands, so damn common on the Boil.
And yet... oddly enough, they hadn't been in the Boil lately.... during all that massacre. And there's a plenty of them here...
And the scent of the old man. Not too far, only a block from here Moon had left the man.... moving, Moon's hearing catching no odd noises nearby... but the mewlings of cats.
Seventh Moon: Red Palms...
Moon's nose crinkled at that scent and he spat to get the taste out of his mouth. He'd never liked Bloody Hands, even though they'd never really done wrong by him. Fuckers were like carrion birds though, circling around hoping you'd die. He'd have been worried to catch their scent here, but it didn't really surprise him with all the killing that had gone on. Still, never could tell with them. He'd try to remember to let the others know that the annoying shits were skulking about...
For now though, he flipped up the collar of his coat and stalked down the street, following the scent on the wind to the old man.
????: The old man, dressed in usual lower-class fur jacket for the winter, still with the long staff of steel on hands, looks around the houses... checking each and every one... and feeling someone around. He turns around, slowly, his wrinkled features tense... until he sees that it's Moon, and relaxes. "'ho there, boy. Lady and her boy are safe?"
Moon remembers now. He had seen him before... when he seemed so small. So frail. So broken. So pitiful.
In front of the Palace of Timeless Winters' waterways, when their water ran red...
Seventh Moon: Him.
It makes Moon stop dead the moment the face finally finds purchase in his mind. His lips part faintly. His hand begins to rise to point. Point at what though?
"Sheeyit! The very fuckin' IDEA of you! "
Half way up, his hand stops, then casually pats at his coat for some sign of a cigarette he knows isn't there. "Safe as anyone 'round here. Safer than most, least. They're with a friend a mine. She'll look after 'um."
Moon had almost talked this man into sneaking people out of Spire once. Almost talked them into trying to make the crossing over into Winlandia. In the end, nothing came of it. Seemed like it was safer to stay and Selina told him it had been a bad idea.
Standing face to face with the old man once more, he looked around at the ruins of the city, then met the old timers gaze. His eyes asked silently a question that was too important to say outloud...
Well?
????: It was a long silent standstill. Looking into each other's eyes. This man seemed like... someone else entirely. He was grizzled and weathered, yes, but he was also strong, tall, things that, Moon realises, were there before, if he wasn't so... deep into self-pity, so hunched back, for them to be noticed. His gaze is calm, very calm. It is a long stalemate where the only sound is the sound of the after-rain droplets falling from the buildings.
And then, finally, he laughs.
"Heeeh.... I ... should have known. You probably don't even remember me, eh?" He shakes his head. "It's for the better, I guess. But you know... you saved my life once. And never noticed it."
"You're big on that, ain't you?" He says, picking something from a pocket... tobacco. "All those times dreaming of seeing you again, thinking of what you'd do, and... well, it was nothing like this. Want some smoke?"
Seventh Moon: "Don't remember savin' ya life old timer," Moon confessed, not sharing the old man's laugh but holding out his hand for the offered smoke, trying not to seem too eager for it. "Just tryin' ta make ya get the fuck outta this place..."
Still don't know if that was fuckin' good advice...
????: The man walked up to a window of a nearby building, opening the sack of tobacco, picking a little bit of silk to roll it in... "Yeah... I am sure you don't. That day, when you told me to leave.. to gather people to do something. Every day since that day, son... I've been thinkin' of how you were right. I should have. I should have done something. You made my conscience eat away at me, you bastard." He says with a smile. "Thanks for the insomnia. But when all this finally happened... I decided I had to. Took everyone around me, tried to get them to leave with life to some safe section of the city in the middle of the chaos... because of you."
"And I feel thirty years younger ever since." He rolls it, one for each, passing him his cigarette... "What you told me... changed me. You never stuck around to see it, but you saved my life anyway."
Seventh Moon: He was silent again. Nothing clever to say, no curses to make, nothing to snarl out. He just... listened and tried to picture it. Tried to understand it. The man in front of him was the same man, but he wasn't. Same face, same scent, sure. But Moon could remember well enough to see the eyes of the old man he'd growled at in Spire before everything exploded. He wasn't looking into the same eyes anymore.
I caused this...?
It shouldn't have been that surprising. He'd need how some of the others could change people so easily. Make allies out of enemies, make slaves out of them. Twist people up beyond even being people anymore.
Moon didn't have that sort of power though. At least, he never thought he did.
How did I do this...?
He wasn't sure he was comfortable, having the power to change someone. Everyone else he'd seen use it never seemed to do anything worthwhile with it. Just fuck-up the people around them. Make monsters out of them. Or toys. Or whatever else...
Moon took the cigarette silently, rolling it between his fingers, looking at the old man...
... this ain't the same. Not by far...
... and smiled.
"Guess that makes us 'bout even now then..." he said, holding up the cigarette, then tucking it behind his ear. "Was 'bout ready ta die if I didn't get somethin' ta smoke again soon."
He reached over, his broad hand closing around the old man's hand, a hand stronger than it looked, and squeezed tight. "Thanks man, for savin' me over at the pile..." For just... being. He grinned again. "Hope ya conscience is finally lettin' ya get ta sleep. Think maybe ya earned it by now."
Sure as hell his own would. In the middle of all this madness, it felt good to finally have something to look at and know you'd done right.
????: "It gets a little better every day, son." He nods, "I will be seeing how it goes tonight."
He had been a soldier, once.
Is that what he saw of his old self on Moon?
Of the Royal General that stood before the General with his Divine weapons?
Weapons broken, a man broken by the General's very stare?
Moon met a great man broken.
He was not broken anymore.
"Oh, and... name's Mikhal. Mikhal Snowblade, son. And you? Besides 'hero with dog-ears? Cute ones, by the way. Just be wary." He points at the roofs, at the buildings... "This is a place of cats, m'boy."
Seventh Moon: "Moon. Seventh Moon."
He liked this man. Mikhal. He'd remember his name to the Prince. Kid could use more people like him around.
"Ain't too worried." he chuckled dryly, eyeing the rooftops above. He smacked his lips quietly, gaze narrowing at the flash furry predators stalking above. "Cats are fuckin' good eatin."
Narrator: The drops fall, and it begins to rain...
... in only one spot in front of Moon.
It moves up... coalescing in the shape of a woman.
One made of water itself, a spirit of rain, forever falling in herself.
Water and Air elemental. Elemental of Rain. Pretty low on the food chain, really, despite the show.
Moon knew that much. North knew rain. He knew half a dozen snow elemental types alone.
She appeared, kneeling to... Mikhal. "Greetings, Mikhal, sword of Amaranthyne, Divine General. We thought you had ended yourself... good to see that is not the case. I humbly come to request your friend's assistance in the name of the Lady of All Tears." Hard to know what she is talking about - the lady of all tears', directional goddess of rain, had a downright gargatuan temple on Spire.
"Nah. That's not me anymore, Shayla. But good to see you got the elemental gift. Looking good." He says as he turns around, patting Moon in front of his shoulder. "Well, boy, divinity's calling. Try and see that you screw this up less than I did."
It's your time now... He thought. With a smile. Moon had the heart for those times.
And so, staff on his shoulder, he begun to walk away, whistling...
...as the knelt elemental looked at Moon with anticipation.
"Shall we?"
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