Xilanada - Descending Dark Of Past And Future/Part 11

There were days when being a shapechanger was most rewarding. Today was not one of those days. Today was about as far on the other end of the spectrum as one could get from it being one of those days. At the moment, it was only the body of Rainblown Joybringer and the need to maintain her guise that kept Solitary Coil from snapping and slaughtering every man, woman and child in the whole fucking school.

In the past several weeks, Coil had been forced to do things she never thought she would have to do. Faking continual serenity had been a strain by itself. The only kind she personally felt came when she read a book she’d never seen before, or found an ancient ruin as yet unopened. This School had neither of those things.

Then, of course, there was Piiro. Rainblown had been a Professor here, with all that came with that including relationships. Coil shuddered just remembering what she’d had to do, what she’d had to pretend to enjoy. Not that Piiro was a bad lover for a dijellta, an outsider. No, it was having to love him as a man that twisted her stomach.

But Sen...Sen! That...that...walking corpse of a Fire-Aspect had his life measured out in days, she swore it. Why hadn’t she killed him while Xilanada slept? Or taken his life and form instead of Rainblown’s? This would be much easier if she already had an open path to her Solar mate.

To make matters worse, she was hungry for more than the pathetic fare at this School.

Once again, Coil wondered why she was here, why she was pursuing a Solar who didn’t want her. She didn’t need Xilanada to be happy, after all. She had been quite content studying the ruins of I’cellious before Final Starry Night had found her. There was still another three or four years worth of archeological research left waiting for her. So why wasn’t she doing it?

If there was one thing Solitary Coil was not, it was introspective. No ready answer came to her mind so Coil dismissed the quandary as quickly as it had occurred to her. She was here, doing what she was doing, and right now it was more important to stay in control. Much as she resented it, she knew indulging in some bloodshed or satisfying her appetite on a student or two would only horrify Xilanada further.

Someone was watching her!

The sensation crept over the backs of her arms, raising goosebumps across her skin. Not that there was actually any hair on her present body’s arms. How could a man have even less hair than she had? It wasn’t right.

Without pausing, Solitary Coil concentrated and sorted out what she could from the feeling someone’s focused attention made when it pressed against her. It was from a single source, one directly over her. The fact that the attention remained perfectly above her head even as she moved explained where it was coming from. Someone was scrying her.

A quick Charm sharpened her sense of smell impossibly beyond that of mortality, stretching its range until it passed into Elsewhere and the spirit realm of the Gods. Coil breathed slowly and at great length, studying the minutia of the magic while seeming to everyone else to be sighing deeply. Her weeks here served her well. By the flavor of the Sorcerer's magic, she knew who was looking at her.

Even before she’d made that determination, the source of attention shifted somewhere else. A security sweep of some kind then? Not likely, since this was the first she’d felt of it in the weeks she'd been here.

There was only one thing to do.

Solitary Coil set off across the school, picking up the physical scent of her watcher at last and followed it through one set of corridors after another. She paused when she reached the doors of the Founder’s Wing.

Yes, wards here and there and everywhere. Wards to watch those who entered, wards to repel the uninvited, wards to stun and alarm and even slay if great enough force was brought against them. For a Thaumaturge, it was the masterwork of a lifetime. For a Terrestrial Sorcerer, it was simply potent.

Against a Celestial Circle Sorcerer, it was futile.

Solitary Coil hesitated, the words to Sapphire Countermagic on her lips. None of these protections could withstand her magic and they wouldn’t even sound an alarm, so total would be their destruction. Nonetheless, they would be gone and someone would notice their absence. There was enough suspicion in this school as it was. While a part of her wanted to do it, to draw yet more attention on Xilanada, another part held her in check. Without quite understanding how or why, Solitary Coil knew the stratagem could work but would not give her the result she wanted. It would only push her mate still further away...and into the arms of her Dragon-Blooded would-be lover.

She snarled at the thought and was immediately relieved no one saw her do it. Control, she had to have self control. She still had to get through these doors without being detected. No easy task for a human.

But she hadn't been human in centuries.

While there were wards aplenty for keeping out people, there was only a simple enchantment to turn vermin away. And so Solitary Coil shed the body of Rainblown Joybringer and donned the ways and means of the sha’iash, a predatory rat-like creature of the deep, deep South. Even if the wards recorded who passed them, the builders would not know what she was.

The door was tight and there were no cracks. Solitary Coil was not in the mood to exhaustively search for a way into the Founder’s wing, though. Instead, she pressed against the bottom of the door and began sliding under it. Every bone in her body disjointed and shifted like sap from a rubber tree and even then it was a tight fit. It was not comfortable but it was done.

On the other side, Solitary Coil continued on her way. The wing was luxurious, even by the decadent conventions of the dijellta and all civilized folk. She silently sneered at their ostentation even as she revealed in their impotence.

The path was long for a creature of this size but she sprinted without tiring, following the scent ahead of her down one corridor and up another until she came to a clearly ill-used portion of the wing. Such a waste, so much space for all of three people and their servants. Such were the lizard-bloods and their ways.

Another door, even more strongly warded than the first and just as easily circumvented.

Then, Coil found herself in a spacious work room built for Sorcery. Not just Terrestrial Sorcery either, she remarked to herself as she took in the strange architectural configurations. The Essence of this room was meant to be harnessed and not in a way she had ever seen before.

The thought filled her with quiet elation. For all she was a creature of instinct, she was first and foremost a woman who longed for the glories of the First Age. Was this some remnant, some replica perhaps? It must be rare if she’d never seen it.

Tall bookshelves lined the walls and even turned the room proper into an impromptu library. Evenly spaced between the shelves were desks and tables and between the books were interesting reagents and arcane materials. Solitary Coil passed among them, looking upon each with some interest but always moving forward.

She was close. The scent told her he was in this room. But what was he doing here?

A furtive conversation from the shadows beyond several rows of books finally reached her Charm-enhanced ears. Was it worth the risk to move in closer for a view? Perhaps. Yes. She peeked around a corner and found Piiro, her quarry, at last.

He was talking among the bookshelves with...Tepet Ajalat Malias. It could be no other man, though she’d never met the founder of the School. He was old to look at, yet strong still. His scent lay over the whole wing, marking him as one long familiar with this place. His skin was the color of hot coals and even his eyes leaked smoke.

The massively well-designed white jade summoning circle in the middle of the room almost pulled her attention away from the two men entirely. It was remarkably made, inlaid with a dozen exceedingly rare materials and costly in the extreme, beyond the fact that it was probably the single largest whole jade artifact she'd ever seen. It was also different than any she'd ever seen designed, though it bore disturbing similarities to some of the Celestial Circle Demon Summoning designs she'd studied.

"Enough, Piiro. Put it aside. She is handled. Let her be handled and be done with it. You and that bowl. You worry needlessly. Do you think me incautious, of all people?" Tepet Malias wore the trappings of the civilized man but in his voice, in his stance, a very dignified arrogance reminded her of certain older Lunar she knew.

"I do, my Lord," Piiro said formally. Wait, what was he wearing? The blue school-suit that matched his hair had been clearly traded for something a great deal more macabre. Strange steel-like silk wove across his body in a mesh, something like clothing and something more like mail. It looked like...it looked like Soulsteel. A rare metal and not one she would have expected to find on him.

Piiro’s supple, athletic body was entirely well-defined thanks to that mesh but he modestly wore a voluminous black long-coat. He disdained to wear it but in his hands was a broad-brimmed hat, buckled in silver and spun from more soulsteel thread. On his belt, sheathed, was a soulsteel knife of even darker hue than the rest of his garb.

"Young pup," chuckled Malias. "You think to teach me?"

"I think I am bound to follow your will in this, as in all matters pertaining to this School, my Lord." Piiro’s voice was perfectly polite but it had never sounded colder. "I do think you're being incautious. The Hardened Killers did not survive after all."

"As we knew they would not!" Malias snapped, amusement shifting to rage as fast as coals flamed in the wind. "She survived. That confirms our suspicions. I’ve taken care of it, Piiro. Leave it be and worry on your role in things. There is not much time and I will have nothing go wrong."

"The preparations are made, my Lord," Piiro said, bowing his head slightly. "Those not in the ranks have already been marked out. You needn’t worry. You'll have what you want."

"Now, it’s just a matter of time," Malias growled. "Until tomorrow, until the stars are right, until Heaven is distracted, until Glee is used, until I get my reward. I suppose you already have yours."

Piiro answered only by bowing a little lower.

"Very well," Malias said, calmer now. "Be on the watch for Sen. I was hoping that he would get a clear head on his own but it seems he isn’t. See how he reacts tonight when he finds out. If you think he’ll be a problem..."

The Dragon-Blooded sighed and looked deeply worried. Piiro straightened and nodded once.

"I will adjust him as discreetly as possible. And as little as possible."

"I won’t allow him to be a problem," Malias growled, as if he had something to prove. Maybe he did. Solitary Coil wondered at the scene before her as she sat, listening.

"He won’t be, my Lord. My techniques, distasteful as they are to you, will get the needed result. With much less harm than you might fear. You’ll hardly know the difference, I guarantee it."

"You just make sure your students do what they're supposed to. And make sure Glee is in my hands tomorrow night!" Malias said nothing more. Instead, the old man walked out of the room with the fast, clipped stride of a man with somewhere to be. Solitary Coil marked his passing just as she marked Piiro’s motionlessness.

"I know someone else is here," Piiro said slowly, when they were alone. "Whoever you are, it was a mistake entering this room for I will not permit you to leave alive, not without knowing your identity and your purpose."

Solitary Coil skittered back behind the shelf. Rainblown Joybringer’s lover hadn’t even been looking at her but she had no reason to doubt his words. She rarely said a thing if she did not mean every word of it herself.

With a stretch, she shed the sha’iash and became Rainblown Joybringer once more. Piiro was much more than he seemed, but so was she. Time to see what Rainblown’s lover would do upon seeing his bedmate.

"’Can the acorn know the tree it becomes?’" she said, stepping out from behind the bookshelf into Piiro’s plain view. The blue-haired man’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her hard. Once more in Rainblown’s neat school-suit, she ran her fingers through her hair and gave Piiro a slight smile.

"Why did you come here, Rainblown?" Piiro’s voice was still cold, his face taut, but no mortal could control every reaction of their body. She could smell the uncertainty from his every exhalation, taste the worry like a bitter sweet-meat.

"You invited me."

"I did no such thing," he said, shaking his head.

"Didn’t you?" she asked, arching an eyebrow, keeping Rainblown’s indifferent face as it always was. "You looked for me or do you deny it?"

"I deny nothing, only wonder why you would violate the Founder’s Wing without the Tepet’s consent. And how you did so."

"There would seem to be more of wonderment about you than about me," Solitary Coil riposted. "I know I have never seen you in such trappings before. Tell me, who do you serve?"

"Oblivion."

Solitary Coil cocked her head to the side, considering the one-word answer. She’d known of death cults and read certain rare treatises of philosophy on the nature of Oblivion and the grave from the First Age. But this was the first time she’d ever met anyone who professed to actually serve the concept of Creation’s end.

So this was a Deathknight.

"As you like," she answered, grateful for once that Rainblown Joybringer’s attitudes allowed for a greater lack of curiosity than she was usually allowed. "’Among the trees disputes gather. The clearing is prepared, the grass waiting.’" Piiro gave her a blank look. "What happens now?" she clarified for him.

"I debate the merits of killing you," Piiro answered at once. His voice was sure but she could smell the deep conflict of his heart. His determination was unquestioned, though, and she knew for a fact that he was not lying. His scent bespoke inner struggle but not falsehood.

Solitary Coil took a short span of time to look him over while she thought on what to do. Piiro’s nature might be unknown but she had a good hunch. She knew much more about the First Age than she did the present political landscape of the world but even she had heard of the enigmatic Abyssals. Said to be twisted engines of destruction, reports spoke of great hideousness and beauty and of the many terrible things their hands did. They were said to be unstoppable.

She was a capable fighter, as all her kind were, and excellently skilled in the Snake Style of Celestial Martial Arts. But she did not know her strength against such a mysterious quantity as a Deathknight. Coil preferred bloodshed to diplomacy but this called for more talk. She had a stake in remaining Rainblown, after all, and she did not want to lose her chance to seduce her Solar mate back into her arms.

Perhaps the test of Ka-Koshu would serve here. She repressed a grimace at the memory of the powerful Lunar who had such influence over her tribe. That was a long time ago and she had won her independence. Just as she had then, so might she now.

"Then strike," she said.

"You test me?" Piiro asked, his voice harsh. Anger, yes, but frustration and sadness and heartbreak too. Rainblown must have been truly kind to him, for this Deathknight to feel so much for his lover.

"I invite you to test me," she offered in return. She opened the buttons on her school-suit, exposing Rainblown’s smoothly muscled and completely hairless chest. She smelled desire from Piiro and smiled at her control of the situation.

"Whatever you may think you know, Rainblown, you cannot survive a fight with me." Piiro was concerned, even as he boasted.

"Take your choice of weapon, that knife at your belt, if you wish. See if you can kill me in a single stroke. As a servant of Oblivion, I assume you know where to strike."

"What game are you playing at?" Piiro demanded.

"No game, my sweet Piiro." Solitary Coil tried her best sultry look out on the Abyssal, trusting that it would not be too out of character for Rainblown. "You don’t know if you can trust me, if I am strong enough to help you or if I would cowardly betray you. You can't trust someone who hasn't bled for you. Let my blood tell. Test my will and see if that satisfies your worry. Test my heart and see if there is trustworthiness there."

Piiro strode forward, the black coat rustling about him the same way Final Starry Night’s robes had once moved. The surprising memory shot painfully through her. Whatever these Abyssal were, Rainblown’s Piiro was a mighty man. She could smell it, feel her body react to it.

Solitary Coil held his eyes as he drew the knife. She didn’t look away when he rammed it home. The pain was extraordinary but so had been her lessons at Ka-Koshu’s hands. Piiro’s knife found her heart, yet it beat still through her force of will alone. With Rainblown’s face, she just smiled at him as her blood spilled from her body over his hands. Beneath the hot, salty smell of it, she could detect his lust. The blood was turning him on. One thing they had in common then.

Her hands closed over his, Piiro’s fingers still wrapped around the blade buried in her chest. She tightened her grip on his hand and slowly pulled the blade forth, fighting the pain and weakness such a wound invited. She had withstood Ka-Koshu’s test, she would withstand this. Piiro let his knife-arm fall to the side and she took advantage of it to step closer to him, pressing herself against him, her lips finding his.

The blood-smell in the air inflamed her as she’d never been impassioned in his arms. And her sometimes-indifferent lover's fingers raked her back, something new and altogether delightful. She bit his lip and grinned at his fine taste.

He loved her violently and it was more glorious than she could have imagined, even if it was as a man loving a man. When he was done, she settled into his arms, weak from blood loss and satisfied as Night had never satisfied her. What kind of men were these Abyssals? If only her mate had studied as Piiro clearly had!

Then, in the depths of contentment that only utter sexual exhaustion could bring, Piiro told her his cause, his belief and all his plans for this School. His words rang with a truth and authority she had never heard before and his arguments seemed impossible to deny for she had always known them as her own. Solitary Coil, Lunar and Sorcerer, listened and learned and the woman inside the shell of the man grew ever more excited at the death that was coming.