Fated (Chapter Sixty)
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2015 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanadin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mindcrackloveAnd have fun theorizing about what Fate was going to say before she was interrupted. :P
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/F
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Sixty
Kingdom of Kalt’on, Minecraftia. November 7, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
“I’ve decided something.” Zekara announced. “I officially hate the desert.”
“Only now? You’re a bit slow to the bandwagon.” Claire grumbled, kicking at sand.
“Like Claire said, join the club.” Nia muttered. She wasn’t at home anywhere other than the forest, and due to all of her recent traveling, she hadn’t been too happy lately. The plains, the Wilds, the jungle, the desert… none of it felt like home.
But the desert was really the worst. There weren’t trees anywhere, there was very little water, the air was dry, and the temperatures were brutal, especially during the day, hence why they walked at night (plus Marcus would literally die in the sunlight if they didn’t).
Nia hated it. At least the group wasn’t disagreeable, although she wished she had Adrian and Shred with her, and maybe Niel. Their adventure had started off with the four of them, and she found herself longing for their presence. With a chill, she realized that, of the group that originally went to Ahnrak, only Nessy was with her. She noticed the half-dragon walking oddly close to Zekara and Claire and raised an eyebrow slightly, but didn’t bother to remark on it. Instead, she surveyed the rest of the group, eyes eventually landing on the two Skullblades.
Now that was an odd pair.
Blade seemed oddly calm despite being deep in Kalt’onian territory and having lost his sister only a week ago. He was quiet overall but during decisions about what to do he tended to speak up, suggesting plans and picking apart ones presented by others in an attempt to get the best solution. Fate, on the other hand, seemed constantly anxious, even more so than the first time Nia had met her. She hadn’t been the one to lose a sibling, but Blade was acting far more normal than she was.
Nia gently motioned her over and whispered quietly, “What’s wrong? You seem really jittery.”
Fate shrugged a little. “I’m just…worried about Blade.”
“Why? He seems fine, especially for someone who just lost his si-”
“Shhh!” Fate looked over her shoulder at Blade, who was looking at them curiously but couldn’t hear what they were saying. “Don’t mention that around him, he’ll flip out!”
Nia frowned. “What is even going on with him? He seems totally fine until you remind him?”
Fate nodded. “Essentially.” She hesitated, thinking of how to explain. “He’s…weird. He’s okay, until he remembers. Like when he gets into a fight with the Kalt’on soldiers, or when you mention his sister. Then he gets upset again and when Blade gets upset he usually gets really, really pissed faster than you can say ‘oh shit I fucked up’.”
Nia frowned slightly. “He doesn’t sound totally stable.”
“He’s just as stable as I am.” Fate told her, offering a crooked and slightly pained smile.
“Somehow I feel like that’s not reassuring.”
Fate rolled her eyes. “Look, he’ll be okay, just…give him some space. He’s got a lot of turmoil going on, even if he doesn’t realize it.”
A man with many layers of subconscious.
“How do you know better than he does?”
“Because I’ve known him for a really long time.” Fate shrugged a little. “And when he swears, it’s kinda a big deal and you know that whatever made him do that is probably gonna bug him for awhile.”
Nia tilted her head and Fate explained. “I’ve heard him swear only twice and I’ve known him for six years now. One of those times was earlier, in Sunspire, when we were trying to keep him from running off into the desert to kill as many Kalt’onians as he could get his hands on.”
“When was the first time?” Nia was almost too afraid to ask. Judging by the spark of terror in Fate’s eyes and the way she slowly shook her head, Nia felt that her instincts were right. She quickly changed the subject. “Um…anyway, I was wondering… how do you Skullblades get your names? Like, the ones you go by?”
Fate smiled a little at the lighter topic. “Well, when we earn our masks, a seer will tell us what the clan or Vallor’roth has chosen to name us. Sometimes it has to do with what we’ve done in the past- like Blade- but sometimes it has to do with our future, or a mix of both, like me.” Fate shrugged a little. “I was always writing and then Starwatcher proclaimed that I would be a seer once I got older, so, Fatewriter.”
“Wait, you can actually see the future?”
Fate nodded. “Yeah, sometimes. Vallor’roth sometimes speaks through the seers or tells us what will happen, like…with what happened in the jungle. The Kaepravah stuff.”
Nia nodded. “And Blade? How did he get his name?”
A grin spread across Fate’s face. “When he was younger, he got really mad about something and stormed off to go practice with his sword, to try and calm him down or focus or something. He was so mad that he went until the sword broke and he skinned some of his knuckles, what a moron!” She giggled hysterically, making Blade look over at them suspiciously. He had heard his name mentioned and now with Fate laughing he was really starting to get concerned.
“Okay, what is going on?”
“Just telling Nia how you got your name.”
Blade groaned. “Not again…”
“Would you rather me tell them about the time you took off y-”
“No, no.” Blade shoved himself between Fate and Nia. “I think that’s enough stories for now.”
“But I’m a writer! A storyteller, even!”
“Take a break, maybe?”
“Blaaaaaaaaaade!”
“No!”
Nia snorted with laughter, earning curious looks from the rest of the group but she ignored them.
Blade grumbled and grabbed Fate’s arm, gently pulling her away from Nia to discourage his friend telling her the story anyway. Fate mouthed I’ll tell you later and winked before cheerfully following Blade.
A story for another time, perhaps.
Nia rolled her eyes behind her goggles and shook her head, still laughing quietly to herself.
Nak moved up beside her on horseback and looked down at her, frowning slightly.
“What just happened, m’lady?”
“Nothing to be worried about, Nak. And please stop calling me that, I’m not the lady of anything at the moment.”
“Are you sure? That Ragebent Blade seems awfully unstable, a-”
“I said nothing to be worried about, okay?” Nia tried and failed to keep the snap out of her voice.
Nak flinched a bit but fell silent, knowing that she wouldn’t appreciate him continuing to insist that Blade was potentially dangerous.
Nia felt a bit bad, but she was insistent that she could determine who was safe and who wasn’t for herself.
~~~
Blood, running down the walls from where it had been smeared by the fingers of a warrior. A girl in light metal armor laughing, the shadows clinging to her face in the flickering, dim lighting of the candle. A soldier bearing a flag that Trymdas didn’t recognize, guarding the entrance as if this was perfectly normal behavior from the girl.
The blood flickered green for a moment and the scene changed, to a more familiar girl that Trymdas couldn’t recall the name of sitting next to a woman, having a friendly discussion as if she couldn’t see the malice in the woman’s red, hateful eyes.
Look out, Trymdas wanted to scream. She wants you dead.
As he watched, the woman grew claws and leaped forward, slashing at the girl’s throat…
Trymdas jerked awake at the sound of someone ringing a bell very, very loudly.
“Up up up! It’s another shitty morning of walking until we reach the burned place where there’s a ton of shatterbeasts that want us dead!” Baltbee called, ringing the bell more vigorously.
Valkan groaned as he sat up, ignoring how stiff his brother was and his heavy, frightened breathing. “Whoever the hell made him that thing is going to eventually figure out how it feels to have it shoved down their throat.”
Trymdas wisely didn’t mention that Tranpar had made the bell and instead forced himself to sit up, tensed muscles protesting.
He sighed quietly as he got up, starting to pack up his things. He had barely gotten any sleep lately, for fear of nightmares like the one he had just experienced. He supposed he should be grateful for Baltbee awakening him like he did, but he had only gotten a few hours of sleep…
Visions that haunted every darkened moment.
He followed the group as they set out less than fifteen minutes later, fighting to keep his eyes open as he trailed behind and slightly to the left of Valkan like a zombie.
He was paying so little attention that he didn’t realize that he had tripped until the offending log jumped up and started yelling at him.
What is this log’s problem? He wondered tiredly as he slowly got to his feet and turned around. It’s just a log. He blinked his eyes a few times before realizing that he was an actual idiot and that logs don’t yell at people.
“-and it is literally the asscrack of dawn, why are you tramping around trippin’ on poor ol’ sleeping guys?”
Trymdas said something intelligent along the lines of ‘um’ before Samuel stepped in.
“He just woke up and probably wasn’t paying attention.”
Trymdas muttered an apology but this guy just wouldn’t shut up. His gray hair was a mess, half-covering his dark brown eyes as he ranted and raved about being tripped over.
Eventually he paused to take a breath before speaking again. “Hi. I’m Altren.”
Trymdas blinked. “What?”
“My name is Altren. Who are you?”
“Um. Tr-”
“Trymdas, back up.” Valkan interrupted, pulling his brother away from Altren and glaring at the guy. “Get the fuck away from my brother.”
“Well you’re just a bitch, aren’t ya?” Altren grumbled. “Fucking rude. I was hoping the next people to trip over me would at least be half-decent. Guess I’m stuck sitting here for my destiny or whatever the hell.”
Shred slowly approached him. “Destiny?”
Altren shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been drifting around for months, hoping to find a purpose or something.”
Shred dug into one of her pockets and produced the yellow stone. “You might have found it. Hold this.”
Altren raised an eyebrow but took it from her, tilting his head at the lit stone. “I don’t understand.”
“Yep.” Shred rolled her eyes and took it back. “We’re literally tripping over our last group members. Destiny’s getting desperate to meet the thirty-Mindcracker-descendant quota before we kill Specterveil or all drop dead.”
“Um?” Altren looked very confused.
“Walk with us.” Samuel suggested. “We’ll explain along the way.”
As they started to move again, Trymdas muttered, “I think I’m dreaming. Real life isn’t this stupid.”
And, yet, he didn’t awake from the dream, as reality is a nightmare at its core.
-~-
Pak leaned back in his seat, grinning widely from the activation of his orb. Beef and MC shot him jealous looks as they slunk out of the room, past where Zisteau and Pause sat, speaking in quiet tones. Overall, the mood in the Vortex had dropped lately. Between the deaths of the descendants, the apparent power of the Hostiles, and the low moods of the living descendants, things had quieted to almost silence most of the time.
Where there was once rejoicing as orbs activated, now there were only short-lived moments of joy followed by pain or jealousy by those who had lost descendants or whose orbs had yet to activate. Four Mindcrackers had only bronze sand to remind them of what they had lost, and two had dull glass orbs that held their only use in how much paper they could hold down.
Vechs watched a shadow slink across the doorway and recognized it almost immediately. He sighed quietly and debated following Shree, but decided that it would only make things worse. Poor Shree was left out of this entire thing, left to deal with his only friends being distracted and depressed by something he wasn’t involved in and didn’t particularly understand.
Vechs could relate to that. When he first joined the Mindcrackers, he had felt left out and uninformed. Events would go on and he’d try to get involved but his lack of knowledge left him in the dust for awhile. He supposed Shree was feeling similarly, but there was no way for the other to catch up.
Rethinking his previous decision, Vechs got off the couch and followed his friend.
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Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 02:43 am (UTC)G.C. (::)(::)(::)(::)(::)(::)
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Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 04:46 am (UTC)That's the only explanation I'm offering. XD
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Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 07:00 am (UTC)-Anon Cami
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Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 10:25 am (UTC)http://sharkvechs.deviantart.com/art/Sansuel-575889171
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Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 05:13 am (UTC)-Tac
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Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 06:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 04:21 pm (UTC)Samuel and who, anyway?
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Date: Saturday, December 5th, 2015 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Thursday, December 3rd, 2015 01:51 pm (UTC)(::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 03:10 am (UTC)The way it should be.
XD
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Date: Friday, December 4th, 2015 04:24 pm (UTC)