Xilanada - Descending Dark Of Past And Future/Part 7

Xilanada sighed at the knock on her office door. She had been hoping she could get these papers graded without interruption. A couple of days had been enough to catch up on her classes, but not on the steady stream of papers that needed grading. They just kept coming!

Denandsor had spoiled her, she decided. That and the several Linguistics Charms she’d picked up in her time there. There had been weeks where her only Essence expenditure had been to read and retain faster. It was a wonderful memory, if not for the loss of those Charms now.

"Come in!" she called, as she read the last paragraph of this paper over again, teased at its quality and at last made a decision. Placing a grade upon it, she set it aside and put on a smile for whoever had come to visit. Since it was probably a student or a friend, it wouldn’t hurt. Who knows? It might be Sen.

Wait a minute, what was that last thought? Was she trying to put on a good appearance for the Dynast? She reminded herself that it could never work.

"I hope I am not disturbing you," Rainblown Joybringer said as he closed the door behind him and turned to face her. Today, he wore a maroon school robe and it suited him. His long hair, normally neatly combed and tied back, hung loose down his shoulders. It was surprisingly long, actually, a little past his waist.

"Not at all, Rainblown. Have a seat." She gestured to a chair and found herself staring at him as he settled himself down. From the first time she’d met him, he had been quite pretty to look at in an abstracted kind of way. But now, sitting here so close, his beauty took on a softer and sharper feel all at once. From a face that looked like it had never known the trace of a beard to the sparkling eyes of no particular color, he was...stunning.

Xilanada was attracted.

The realization disturbed her even as her body thrilled to the feeling. It was disturbing to find any interest in men at all and Sen was...quite enough to think about. Strange as it might be, it offended her sensibilities to find herself staring at this Professor, thinking about him like that. Her sensibilities aside, this was also Rainblown. The distant Professor was about as far from her tastes in his demeanor as anyone usually got and he was gay besides.

"Is something the matter...Xilanada?’ There was just a hint of hesitation before her name. Was she really staring that obviously at him? Xilanada blushed furiously and felt even more embarrassed at how easily her color showed.

"I’m sorry. I just have a lot of papers. I’m sorry, Rainblown. What can I do for you? I think this is the first time you’ve been to my office!"

He glanced around a moment before his eyes returned to her. She couldn’t blame his disinterest in the surroundings. Right now, there was little more than a desk, some chairs, a comfortable couch she’d had carted in from somewhere, and a number of bookshelves. A few months hadn’t been much time to get started on a book collection but at least she’d been able to get a few in there from the required readings for her classes.

"’For the quiet mind, the quiet place. For mastery, seclusion. For truth, rejection.’"

Xilanada smirked a little at the pithy saying. He was always quoting something, it seemed. Or maybe he just made them up. For some reason, today, it was more charming than annoying. He leaned forward and she found herself leaning toward him. By the Sun, what was wrong with her?

"It’s alright," she said at last, when he seemed to have no intention of doing anything but stare back at her. Was he smiling a little? Was he looking at her the same way?

"I realized I have not been very hospitable," he answered after another span of time. "Since your promotion to Professor here. I would like to get to know you better. Would you join me for a private dinner tonight?"

Xilanada blinked rapidly, so surprised was she. Everyone knew Rainblown Joybringer loved men. Was he actually asking her out on a date? And the Sun damn her if she didn’t find her heart quickening at the thought of an evening alone with him. Xilanada steeled her mind, checking the corners of her mental defenses. If this was a Charm, it wouldn’t work.

"That’s very kind of you, Rainblown," she said, smiling courteously. "I’m afraid I already have plans, though." It wasn’t as if he was a Dragon-Blooded. A few Gods had some skill in uncovering the truth but they were a rarity. She didn’t know who Rainblown’s supernatural parent was but it was improbable that he’d inherited that sort of gift, not with a name like his.

"Do you? I expect it’s Sen’s company you’re enjoying then," he nodded sagely. She nodded at the opening, even if it was a little deceitful. So why did he look like she’d just said yes to his offer? And he was still smiling!

"Yes, it is," she said, relieved that he believed the lie. Of course, if people were gossiping about the two of them already...by the Sun, what had she gotten herself into with that man? What had she been thinking, letting him take her as she had? If only the memory didn't make her ache for him even now, despite the distraction of her present company. Whatever her sensibilities, her body knew what it liked and what it wanted.

"He seems to care a great deal for you," Rainblown observed. Xilanada blushed again and it seemed to encourage that tiny smile of his. He ran his fingers across his brow. On a man that pretty, it seemed artful, the kind of motion that a painter should capture.

"Sen is a very nice man," she agreed. "But we’re nothing serious."

"’The vain look and fail to see beyond their expectation. The wise allow the truth to present itself before looking.’" He suddenly smiled fully, showing even white teeth. It just made him look that much more handsome. "Here you are. But I’m still looking."

With those words, the God-Blooded Professor bowed his head and turned to the door, slipping out and closing it before she’d had a chance to even make a reply.

Silence settled heavily upon her room as Xilanada leaned back in her chair and caught her breath. What was that all about? Rainblown was behaving...well, she thought he was coming on to her. She could be wrong, though. If she was, she wouldn't be the first woman to mistake a gay man's behavior.

Xilanada wasn’t wrong about herself, though. She picked up the small hand mirror on her desk and glared at her own beautiful face, still rosy in the cheeks. She went as far as shaking her finger at her image.

"That’s enough of that, you harlot," she said, only half-teasing. Seriously, she needed some self-control. This body and its urges were still unfamiliar in certain respects. Her own lack of comfort with those differences only made this that much more unpleasant.

But she couldn’t lie to herself and say that women were all she looked at now. Not when two men had elicited such a response. Not when the memory of every inch of Sen's body elicited an nagging hunger. As for the two women she’d responded to, the first would likely never happen and the second couldn’t. She frowned in thought as Solitary Coil’s teary face loomed into her mind like a ghostly specter.

Perhaps that painful memory was why she failed to react at first when people came into her office.

Half a dozen students came in as one group. It took her a moment to shake off her thoughts and her encounter with Rainblown. It gave them enough time to close the door.

Eyes and body reacted faster than thought. Even as Xilanada realized the glints of light she saw were from polished steel knives, she had already kicked backwards off her desk, tumbling her out of the chair. She rolled into a low, ready stance as two knives whooshed over her to stick into the whitewashed wall behind her back.

"What is this about!" she shouted. It did no good. Her attackers had the size and build of late teenagers, almost certainly students, but the black suits they wore flowed seamlessly into a cowl that kept their faces from sight. Whether they were her students or not, they split up to advance on her. Two on the right, two on the left and two went over the desk, all advancing in a steady walk. None spoke a word.

Xilanada glanced around helplessly for a weapon before remembering the two thrown blades embedded in the wall. She hadn’t been out of combat for that long, had she? It was as if the battle of the other night, the fight against the Wyld Hunt, had never happened.

Maybe it hadn’t. Not to Xilanada, school-teacher and sage concerning the Old Realm. No mask, no Daiklave, and no Essence either. She was mortal now, by choice. And undoing that choice again so soon, without preparation to reattune herself to her own Anima...it could kill her.

Xilanada pulled the knives from the wall. She might be a pretty blonde Professor with no past to speak of. But she would not go down without a fight. The weight of the daggers felt alien and familiar at the same time. Or maybe it was herself that felt strange. She was much smaller, lighter, maybe faster than she’d been. The blades, though, were still about the weight they had been in her training. She would have to adapt.

The disguised students paused before her as she raised one knife to a fighting stance, reversing the other with a flip. Xilanada was a textbook Master of the Izerreta Style, one of many fighting forms the automaton instructors of Denandsor had drilled her in. Izerreta, a Dawn of the First Age, had favored the sword and so did she but her instruction included two weapons and knife work besides. She was not a master of these weapons. But she was good enough.

"Surprised?" she taunted, when they did not move in at once. "I could kill you all with a single Sorcery, if I chose to. But I do love a good fight now and then. Come on, if you wish to die."

"We have no fear of death," chuckled one of the students. Strangely, he sound like meant it. The others slunk lower, their own knives moving up to guard stance. For all these were presumably students of the Six Poses of Lightning School, at least they knew how to hold their weapons, how to move, how to block her every avenue of escape.

"Then let’s get to it."

Xilanada feinted and the student moved back, giving ground. She slashed at another and he pulled back. It took a quick backstep to keep them from circling her. No, these students weren’t stupid at all. They wanted to lure her into attacking, so they could come upon her from all sides.

So she waited. Time favored her, after all. Even if she had few visitors, every minute longer was one more minute where someone could come by, where these students' absence might be noticed. It also gave her time to slip the academic over-robe off her shoulders, leaving her in a short half-dress she’d chosen to wear today. It would be lighter and less restricting and every edge would help.

They waited a full five minutes without stirring. It was amazing. Most experienced knife fighters wouldn’t have the patience to wait that long. How did a handful of teens get such good training?

At last, they rushed her. Two came, knives flashing wickedly, and she turned them aside. Two more peeled off immediately after, pressing her back toward the wall. The two on the table acrobatically leaped over her immediate assailants and came in from above.

It was a brilliant stratagem. Cut off all room for her to maneuver, risk a couple of slashes and get a quick kill. There was no opportunity to be gentle.

Xilanada jumped backwards and sprang off the wall. She pivoted, bringing a leg up, even as her knives rang against theirs. As they came down, her knee crashed into the right one’s face and knocked him down.

She rolled across the body as three knives swept through where she’d just been. Xilanada came back on her feet, jerked forward as another knife sped in toward her, and moved just inside his effective reach. A quick thrust and she’d belly-knifed him.

Cruel steel gashed her across the shoulder and another stabbed her in the hip. Lacking the time to turn to face her attacker, she instead bent forward and kicked straight back. Her heel struck someone’s nose and crunched it, by the feel.

Without pause, Xilanada pushed off her unseen victim’s face and onto her knife-wielding hands before bringing her feet down on her upturned chair. Kicking off that, she flipped onto the desk as the chair shot behind her to trip another attacker. Feet spread amongst her many papers, blood running down her body, she flourished her knives in the Izerreta Style display and took stock.

Xilanada could tell whom she’d hit in the face. The black school-suits on two of them were bright with blood, even if their heads were still obscured. One was just now trying to get to his feet. Blood welled from his stomach wound, though. He wouldn’t last long.

"There’s no point to this," she said, glaring at all of them. "I’m not easy prey and most of you are going to die if you keep this up. Maybe all of you. What’s this about anyway? Someone not get a passing grade?" Xilanada realized she was grinning in spite of herself. So there was some of Final Starry Night still in her after all.

"No answers," said one of them. "If you kneel now and accept our blades, it will be quick and clean. If not, it will still be quick. We’re not cruel but we won’t let you leave."

Xilanada caught her breath but still felt flushed. She was still bleeding but not too badly. Her head felt flushed, particularly her forehead, and she resisted the urge to rub it. There was no Caste Mark. There wasn’t. Her hands were throbbing from that handstand she’d done. Should have thought about doing it with knives in her hands. At least she’d been light enough to avoid breaking anything.

"I’ll tell you what. You have ten seconds to put down your weapons and walk out of here. After that...I’m going to kill every last one of you."

The proclamation hung in the air with a strange weight, as if an Eclipse had heard and called it to account. They didn’t move. Neither did she, as much as she wanted to just run. Xilanada the Professor should have run. The woman she was now didn’t want to do this. But maybe there was just enough of Final Starry Night, the Destroyer of Grayfalls, left to see this done.