Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It has been two weeks since the game night. Elatha found herself subletting the apartment from Trysin, and while it was an awkward adjustment at first ultimately Elatha preferred the arrangement to living alone. Trysin for what it's worth is an ideal roommate by Elatha's understanding. She was polite, quiet, and clean. Often Elatha would feel self conscious about  herself simply because of how damn courteous Trysin was.

The first week had been a series of  monotonous trips around Dresden in order to set Elatha up to live and work in the smaller city. Filing for licenses, documentation paperwork, acquiring a bank account,  medical diagnostics and vaccinations. The general monotonous life maintenance one would expect had she been a normal citizen of a normal city. It's just that Dresden wasn't a normal city, especially not for her. 

Dresden’s populace was far from the normal fair Elatha had grown accustomed to in Tolouse, and different from anywhere she’d ever heard outside the Morcorran. There were things here, things Elatha had only ever heard of in folklore and pub stories. Things that wore the skin of normal folk  and were hidden from those not gifted with the sight like Elatha. They were the boogeymen, the things far away but always lurking, that parents would condition children to behave in fear of. Here in Dresden though they weren’t far away concepts they were real, they were alive. And this one was selling her bread.

“You sure you only want the one?” a large bipedal reptile spoke to her, its scales deep brown with spots of mottled green and deep orange eyes. “We are having a sale today on the flax bread. ” he gestured to the wicker basket of loaves beside him with a gloved claw. 

“No thanks, sir. Just the one.” Elatha nodded, and he began wrapping a seedy loaf in paper. He rang her up courteously, and gave her a smile as she left with her breakfast , at least she thought it was meant to be a smile.

There would be no point in getting anymore, Elatha thought to herself. Trysin hardly eats anything, anymore would go stale before Elatha could finish it and wasting food never felt right to her. Too many hungry nights make you reticent to waste food, even if it was stale.

This was the mundanity Elatha had slipped into during her two weeks in her new life. She would wake early before Trysin and get some exercise, then she would grab breakfast for the two before heading back to the apartment to meet up with Trysin and make their way to work.   Supposedly she was the new security guard for the department compound that doubled as Dresden's public library. Despite officially ‘working for Nox’ she hadn’t really been given any work to do. She hadn’t spoken with Nox since that night, she spent most days just hanging around the Library with her coworkers trying to get a feel for them. 

Supposedly a glut of free time was pretty common amongst the compound, and many of her coworkers have taken on hobbies or jobs to fill out the time between their actual work. Trysin maintains the department's collections of books as a public library for the city. Lynne takes on fabrication commissions, and Barry acts as a town laborer or handyman. Spike and Ryc seem to disappear from sight whenever there isn’t a need for them. Much to Elatha’s relief.

Today was looking to be similar to the previous days as Trysin had made no change in her morning routine that Elatha could pick up on. She had entered the house and in the time she was gone the aldrean had awoken, dressed and prepared coffee for the morning.  Elatha placed the bag with the bread on the counter and made her way towards her converted room to get dressed herself. Before the bag could touch the counter it was encased in Trysin’s magic. The bread was sliced and plates were telekinetically pulled from the cabinets. When Elatha had returned from her room the  table was prepared with jams and butter and the bread lightly toasted. Trysin hadn’t moved from her seat

“Are you ready for the day?” she muttered not looking up from whatever thick tome she had been reading since before Elatha had entered. 

“Uh, I guess so.” Elatha grunted sitting down, strange for Trysin to so much as speak “Is it something special?”

“Ah yes I suppose it is. It is the beginning of the month” she shut the thick tome levitating it to some hidden bookshelf in her bedroom. “It will be shopping day and I imagine your help will be requested.”

While the morning was no different from Elatha’s weekly routine till now. Now she could clearly see it was going to be unusual. The entire staff was awake and ready at the compound before Elatha and Trysin had arrived. Inside they were meandering around the front desk.

“So shopping day?” Elatha questioned.

“Yes it appears so.” the Aldrean replied in her typical dry manner.

There he was the strange Mul she met almost a month ago. Casually chatting with Spike in one of the dead languages only they knew. The craven nodded towards the door. Nox understood and turned with a fanciful clap. “Alright it's the beginning of the month so you regulars know what that means. Shopping trip. Elatha since you're the newbie you're volunteered to be my assistant for the day. ”

 “Okay I'm assuming I don't have much say in the matter sir.” she spoke without looking at him instead staring off at some place above his head. Some natural reflex when speaking to authority.

 “Right on.” he turned to the assembly “Okay let me get the lists, anybody need me to pick something up while we’re out and about today?”

”I have already given you the updated list with all of the latest additions by our coworkers” Trysin corrected.

“ Yeah but last call, any additions?” Nox added while dramatically hanging in the doorway waving the lists.

“ I wouldn't mind some indium and ammonium carbonate if you can find it?” Lynne yelled 

Nox just gave a thumbs up and left the building. 

Outside Nox started walking to the main road with Elatha in tow. He turned to head to the Southside of town. There wasn’t much that way. “Uh the market square is the other way sir.” she pointed to the other street.

“Sir?” He looked at her confused. “ Right soldier. You don't have to do that.” he looked away heading down the street “ anyhow we're going to a specialist market.” 

“ Are we leaving town?” 

“ Technically” he shrugged.

They walked in silence for a few minutes as Nox in his waddling gait made slow progress down the city street. He occasionally nodded to various townsfolk but it was far from the constant barrage of how do you dos that accompanied Barry. As they left the larger cluster of the town and made it to a clear way the foot traffic completely died down

“Who sent me here?” Elatha finally asked the Mul now that they were alone, she was certain that the Mul had answers.

“What?” he held up on the road.

“You said you’d look into it. You have suspects right? ”

He exhaled from his nose loudly before speaking “ Yes I've looked into it. I've got a few leads” He wasn’t looking at her again.

“ Who?” Elatha caught up to stand before the Mul.

“ I can't tell you” he moved past her dismissively. 

“Why not?” she asked her volume increasing with the frustrating runaround that this Mul had decided to put her through. 

“ Look, the kinds of things that can break time are powerful and strange. Some of them can know even when someone thinks their name. Knowing just puts you in danger.” He turned off the main road. He was moving south towards the small park on the outskirts. Elatha occasionally passed it by in her morning exercises.

“ Trysin could shield my mind right?”  She knew vaguely of the Aldrean’s mental abilities.

“ You catch on quick. Yes and no” he stopped at a small footbridge that crossed a tiny creek. a location for the town youths to graffiti and smoke.  “ She can protect your mind but whatever sent you here would know that. Chances are it's got a bug in you already.”

“Great, so I'm a walking wire.”  She leaned against one of the bridge supports while Nox had stopped to inspect some aspect of the bridge.“Can you remove it?”

“Probably but if it's a bug dug in enough to hide from Trysin pulling it out'll likely kill you.”  He began scribbling on the bridge in chalk. He was drawing a series of sigils. 

“ Fun” she slumped down against the bridge archway and counted steps of the  nearby foot path.

“ Hey, that's not what today is about. Try to enjoy some shopping.” he started walking across the bridge. Elatha followed disappointed by the news.

When the pair crossed the bridge on the last step through the old oak archway. The world went dark and the sky disappeared. Before them was a large river covered in wooden crossings that merged and split in uncountable directions. On either side of the river were wooden stalls and shops where all manner of things were being sold. The shops didn't stop at the riverbank either, small boat Merchants paddled across the water yelling about deals and bargains. The denizens of this place appeared as shadowy silhouettes of themselves that Elatha could vaguely make out the features beneath.

“Welcome to the River where anything can be traded.” Nox flourished to make a scene of the new location.

Elatha looked down at the river water. What looked like reflections were instead another side of the river. More stores mirrored through the water. In the water she saw koi fish of real silver and gold. They swam up to her beckoning for food. Absent-mindedly she reached to touch the fish before Nox snatched her hand .

“ I wouldn’t touch the koi, believe me you can't afford it. ” His gaze was dead serious.

“ yes sir” she was stunned at the scale of the place. The river stretched beyond the horizon. In fact it continued beyond that stretching upward into the sky and looping back to merge with the river on the other side. The sky around the river was nothing but a thick cloudy mist. One massive mobius strip, an infinite river in a mist of its own making. 

“ Okay so here's a copy of our list.” The Mul snapped Elatha away from the sight. “If you see anything on it we got to pick it up here, we have all week.”

“ week you said we'd be back in a day.” she  managed though her awestruck state.

“ a day our time sure but I already traded for the week here, don't worry I paid your fare as well.”

“Fare? What fare?” Elatha never saw a toll to enter this place, hell she never saw how she entered this place. 

“ a week of course” he smiled.

The River was a place in Ios just on the border of Aos. It had just enough real and unreal to make anything work while not being fully beholden to either’s rules. Here anything was for trade and anything could be traded. Nox had Traded two weeks of his life for the two weeks they would have here.  Merchants here could trade memories for knowledge, time for space and vice versa the only place where the real and unreal could be traded. 

Nox led Elatha to a series of the larger shops along the riverway stopping to say hello to some of the merchants he seemed amicable with. Elatha glanced over the list hoping to focus in on something normal. It was full of items that made no sense, some things she couldn’t imagine buying. Things like three quiet sounds. And some very mundane items like a kilo of butter from but from the third age. And some vague but seemingly reasonable games a toddler would enjoy. 

The first store he stopped in was a good ways past where the two had entered taking a few hours walk to get to. The inside was more normal than Elatha would have expected. It reminded her of antique stores. Rows of shelves filled with dusty odd junk, labeled with yellowing handwritten price tags . Wicker baskets filled with smaller items with a paper card stating a flat price for anything within. The prices were strange, written in a language Elatha couldn’t read yet somehow she could understand. They were things like a good joke, your first laugh, a bad memory. All things Elatha wouldn’t expect to have much value. 

Nox jumped straight inside scanning the shelves for some part of his list. Elatha for her own sake instead stayed by the front casually poking around one of the wicker baskets. It was mostly small gemstones and dull objects. After a few minutes of digging, not entirely sure what exactly she was looking at she found something that caught her eye.

“ What's this?” Elatha held up a small blue sphere maybe as big around as her fingertip that seemed to glow. It caught her eyes in a unique way, its swirly spotted surface seemed to move.

“That's a star,” Nox appeared behind her, taking a quick glance at the sphere. “Pretty big one too, 150 SU I think.”

“Looks like a sphere to me” Elatha rolled the ball around in her hand. It was comfortably warm.

“Not the shape, one of the celestial bodies That were all destroyed way back when. This probably ain't one of those though. Likely made by some bored demigod.”  he started poking around the basket she had pulled the ‘star’ from sifting through the trinkets and debris.

“Okay but what is it?” Elatha's lack of education showing again.

“About 300 nonillion kilos of gas undergoing fusion” he sniffed it a bit, inciting a reflexatory flinch from Elatha. “ a good bit’s gone to helium already. It's probably dyed blue, I'd leave it” he continued to riffle through baskets of parts and pieces.

“What, this?“ she held the blue orb incredulously in her hand."But it's so small”.

“That's because it is, in the grand scheme of things. Used to be trillions of The buggers back in the day.” Nox had been poking into a pile of small stones before He pulled out a long tooth “ jackpot! a dragon tooth” he bolted to the main counter with his prize.

Nox began to haggle with the owner for the price of his tooth, leaving Elatha for a moment to observe the star. This little speck of light was more mass than the entire world, maybe even a million times. It was an astronomical scale, literally. A number larger than she could really reckon. And here it was sold in the bargain bin like polished rocks at a novelty store. What world had she gotten  herself into.

 While she was lost in thought a pair of shadowy forms passed behind her. Her supernatural senses spiked and warned her to their watching eyes even if they didn’t have eyes. They were casing her, she could tell.  She had made no effort to hide how awestruck the river had made her, she would be a pretty obvious newbie, someone that should be easy to take advantage of.  The shorter of the two had more limbs that branched off of its body, similar to the ethereal tendrils that flowed from Trysin one of which she could clearly see was moving its way towards her. She maneuvered in a manner to put her back to the culprits making herself all that easier of a target. She knew the score if everything here is for trade then surely people are as well.

They moved in to try and  snatch her up but Elatha dodged between them. She swung with her knife, the taller one found it lodged in his neck. She quickly drew her revolver and aimed to fire at the shorter of the two but Nox’s hand reached out and moved it out of the way as she fired, the bullet took the tip of his thumb off in the blast. He was glaring at Elatha. She didn't even see him move back from the counter . 

“sonova ” Nox yelled, gripping his hand “no killing” he reached into his pocket and withdrew a strip of bandages that he rapidly wrapped around his thumb. The taller of the two wrenched the knife from its throat. It then stood to its full height brandishing the knife in an attempt to intimidate. The smaller one tried to slink away.

“What's going on here?” He glared at the two creatures. Stopping the smaller one in its tracks and withering any attempt to appear strong. 

“Sorry” the thing turned trying to form a mouth that could smile. It succeeded in creating an unsettling crescent filled with rectangular white teeth.

“ No sorry!” Nox snapped. Maybe it was this place being so close to Ios, being unreal, but Elatha could easily see the anger boil off his form in the aether. “ You don't attack my men. I want names, species, and age now.” The two confessed before him. Nox took the time to note each of their details into one of his notebooks. He was giving them a full spiel about the affair

Elatha walked away from the exchange, she had no interest in the bureaucratic punishments Nox was going to inflict upon them. She found a nearby bridge over the river in line of sight of the shop. She leaned over the river to relax, her hands were trembling. It was the first time she’d tried to fight since she had been brought to this time. She was fully ready to kill those things.  Those were traffickers, the kind of heartless monsters that reduce people into a product. The lowest of scum, something the world could only be better without. And she wasn’t allowed to kill them, the anger wouldn’t subside. She needed to calm down. There were the koi fish, she started counting the koi fish.    

While she had counted the few she could see she thumbed her old revolver. The heavy metal and cheap grip relaxed her. She noticed the barrel had a thin crack running down the side. Probably from the scuffle, the back pressure from firing too close to a solid object must have been too much for the old gun. She could see Nox approaching, obviously embarrassed about the day's affairs. He leaned against the railing of the bridge for a moment, Elatha could see the bandaged thumb of his hand.

“Sorry about you thumb” she grumbled 

“ Don't worry about it, It’ll grow back. ”  She knew that. The healing of Mul’s was something astounding. Fingers, teeth, and bones would grow back in a matter of days. She’s killed enough of them to know what it takes to put one down. 

“Why aren’t we allowed to kill?” she asked, holstering her damaged revolver. Nox watched warily as she did. 

“You know it's not a normal thing to be allowed to kill at work ,right?”  he chuckled, shaking his head like the question was absurd.

“This isn’t normal work.” she countered knowing the nature of the work.

“ You know that but you don’t know why I don't allow killing?” He looked incredulous. “ Don't you guys gossip?” he asked surprised.

“I’m sorry” she spoke with the others occasionally but Elatha, having never had much of a sense for small talk, often reduced conversations into brief exchanges of information. Clearly there was an expectation of socializing with her coworkers that she had failed to uphold.

“ Alright when we get back I'm making coworker gossip mandatory.” he whipped his hand into the air one finger extended for exaggeration. ”An hour a week!” he yelled  

“Why?” she never really got behind gossip back with her squad in Tolouse. They would obviously share rumors about things they heard. But when it came to talking about each other she made sure to say it in their presence. 

“Rapid dissemination of information, it's easy if you guys talk so I don't have to. Also it avoids awkward conversations brought about by interpersonal tensions.” he waved off her confusion 

“Like what?”  

“For example, Trysin would like you to buy softer bread. She feels like she's wearing down her molars with the birdseed you call bread”

“Really, why didn’t she say?” The Cricalan now feeling self conscious. Did she miss polite signs?

“She didn't want to be rude” that made some sense, Elatha thought. Trysin didn't seem like the kind of person to seek confrontation.“ Why do you buy that bread anyway?”

“ It reminds me of horsebread.” he raised an accusatory  eyebrow “I like horsebread.” Elatha defended.

“Ah makes sense” he smiled, managing to look Elatha in the eye.

“And the no killing….” Elatha started to ask but was shocked when Nox’s eyes widened as he looked at something behind her.

“RUN!!” he screamed before she could turn around to see what he was looking at she was pulled along by the scrawny Mul. struggling to find her stride, Elatha managed to keep up with the sprinting Mul. Even though she couldn't see the pursuers she could feel them. There was a cold wind on her neck, the sound of silent wings. It was getting closer whatever it was touching her coiling around her outstretched wings like a snake. Ready to pull the cord tight and capture her. 

At the last moment the two dove into a storefront tearing through a display as they sought cover. The products of the store smashed to the ground releasing a cacophony of sounds that were frozen in time. Ancient animal calls and forbidden chants of bygone ages roared into the air one last time. 

 When Elatha got her bearings and the cacophony died she looked up to see her attackers.  She could now see the creature and was astonished. They stopped outside the store hovering just on the edge of the storefront. They were ribbons of inky blackness twisting and swirling in on themselves. It was geometric in its pattern like the drawings of a spirograph, but all the drawings at once shifting through forms.  

“What are those things?” Elatha panted, getting to her feet.

“Temporal debt collectors, they're not allowed inside stores” Nox answered following her lead knocking over the merchandise releasing other ancient noises as he dragged himself up to his feet. “the idiot never paid your toll.” he chuckled.

“What?” still lost in all the chaos.

“Whoever sent you here they never paid your toll, that's 70 years of potential energy unaccounted for.” He left the store to inspect their swirling form. Pacing around its shape inspecting its response. The creature made no motion toward him as he did so. “Why?” He asked more to himself than to Elatha.

“ Can we ditch them, Sir?” she asked returning to her default state

“No, they're servants of it .” There was palpable venom in his voice “Inevitable concepts. They should have showed up as soon as you arrived but Dresden is protected. lucky”  she certainly didn’t feel it.

“ So what do we do, Sir?”

“ pay them off” he conceded. “We need something worth 70 years of your life.” 

“ like what?”

“ I don't know, it's hard to price out the value of any life.” He paced around for a few moments scratching his head. “ I've got it we'll just give it 70 years of your life.” he practically jumped with enthusiasm as he found such a simple solution.

“Cricalans don't live into their 90s.” most Cricalans start to die of old age in their late 50s early  60s. Elatha once heard of one making it to 80 but it wasn't a pleasant existence.  she wasn’t too keen on the idea of dying like that. She always imagined dying in a more definitive manner than old age.

“Obviously not, shopkeep!” He bolted to the shop owner a thin creature with ears hanging to its shoulders and a mustache you could sweep with.“ we need bloodstone, know where we can get some?”

“ Not much of that left these days” his ancient voice creaked as he pondered, thinking of ancient deals and bygone trades. The shopkeep pulled out an ancient ledger and scanned through entries.  The shopkeep stopped on one yellowed page of ledger written in browning ink “Syrene's shop might still have some hanging around.”

“ Great” Nox croaked. Losing the enthusiasm he had. 

“ You sound excited,” Elatha observed. Nox straightened himself up and returned to his enthused state. He walked up to the edge of the storefront. “what's the plan?”

“ long story, for now though we need to figure out how to get there.” he stared out to where the thing was still hovering

“ Well they can't get in, you could go and I'll just hang out here. ” she suggested.

“Right after you attacked the traffickers. nah they'll come after you the moment that I’m not here.” 

“ Well, we can sprint from store to store.”

“ We'd need something to distract it. Some bait.” He thought about it “ I hate to ask this but I might need a few of your weeks?”

“ What?” she wondered how she could even understand selling time that she hadn't had yet, or worse how strange it would feel.

“ It's the only thing they'll chase.” he begged

“Fine” 

“Shopkeep can you make change?” he looked to the old shopkeeper who had been watching their back and forth. 

Elatha watched as the shopkeep held out a wrinkled old hand to her forehead. He drew from her a small beacon of light. She immediately felt exhausted not physically but a deep soulful tiredness. The feeling after months of bad food, long nights, and little sleep. It was strange how quick it affected her. 

“ Huh? Bright!” Nox whispered. The shopkeep started to break the beacon apart. Sundering it into smaller pieces, handing them to Nox who split them into three piles. He gave one to Elatha ,kept one for himself, and offered the smallest to the shopkeep as payment for the service. “ I'll head out with a few days to draw them away. You make it as far as you can. If they get close, drop a few days they might stop to eat.”

“Right” Elatha struggled to catch up to the idea of using days of her life as currency.

They readied themselves against the storefront ready to test their strategy. Nox bolted first and the swirling mass gave chase like they had hoped. After he made some distance and the mass started to close in, Elatha followed suit making way straight down the main road aiming for a shop across the street. Immediately the Thing turned her way and chased her down instead faster than it had pursued Nox it closed the gap in little to no time at all. It didn’t matter however the lead Nox had made was enough for Elatha to cross the threshold of the shop. It then turned to chase after Nox again who had already started making his way to a neighboring shop. 

From across the road the two of them pantomimed a rough conversation. They were excited how they were able to escape the Thing, which now hovered in midpoint between the two. Nox made a sign to ask if Elatha was ready to go again. Elatha gave a thumbs up ready to make the next move. Nox pointed to a store front down the road  designating their next target. It was twice the  distance than they had made before but it would be a better test of the distance they could manage before being caught. 

They started their plan with Nox heading the opposite direction. Elatha made her move and sprinted across the road. It was more than the distance this time that proved difficult; this stretch was more heavily populated by denizens. Weaving between the odd forms and unusual shapes drastically slowed her progress. It wasn’t helped by the supernatural exhaustion selling days of her life had inflicted upon her. She could feel the Thing gaining  on her now. Much closer than it had gotten before she felt her adrenaline pushing her towards those last meters.  Laying on the floor she wondered how many more of these would she need to manage. 

They repeated  again on a shorter angle getting a feel for the limitations of this method. At the third shop Nox held out a hand stopping Elatha from making the next jump “ hold on.” 

“ What now?” she said, expecting some new supernatural problem. 

“It's a grocers,” The shop they had run into had rows of produce on display. The store seemed to extend far deeper than the exterior of the building would allow. Row upon rows of aisles filled with foods.  “We can get a few items off the list here. And maybe some snacks.” he pulled out his paper list and started to scan the signs that hung over the various aisles. 

“Really can’t it wait till I'm not being chased?”   

“You want to run on an empty stomach?” It had been several hours since the morning and the exertion would wear on them over the day.

“All right ” she conceded to his wisdom, now achingly aware of her own hunger.

 They were able to find some of the ingredients that Nox had been wanting including the ancient butter and ammonium carbonate. While he continued to peruse the aisles for odd ingredients he sent her to what had been determined to be a Deli section of the grocer to acquire snacks. The area was equally as strange as the entire place had been. It was a wall of refrigerated shelves covered in small pre-prepared meals all labeled in languages that Elatha couldn’t read. Unlike the previous store none of it made itself understandable to her.

“ Find anything good?” Nox caught back up to her carrying a basket of loot.

“ I honestly have no clue.” she pointed to a plastic container filled with green squares. “ What are these?”

“ onigiri” he said casually as though that explained everything.

“ gesundheit”  

“They're before your time. It's a ball of rice around a filling, wrapped in seaweed." He pulled one off the shelf and inspected the label "These are salmon I think. ”

“ People eat seaweed?” Elatha had never been to the ocean before but from what she heard from friends the idea of eating the pungent plant seemed unappetizing. 

“Tons of cultures just not where you’re from. I wonder if they have…” he grabbed another one of the containers reading the label. After he replaced it, he saw Elatha's grimace.   “Not your style? Come on There's some sandwiches up the aisle.”

They settled on some sandwiches and water. When Nox paid he handed over what looked like vials of dust. They sat down to enjoy the sandwiches by the front of the store. The sight of the Thing hovering just outside fixed in space exactly beside Elatha. It was silent and emanated a cold dread.

“So horsebread?” Nox teased breaking the silence.

“Look, I know it's not good, it's just what I grew up with. its…um.. ” she struggled to think of the word.

“Nostalgic” Elatha nodded in agreement  “I get it everyone's got food like that. Mine’s well…it was called kasha... regionally....I guess it was a kind of porridge. ” he struggled to explain. 

“Porridge?” this time Elatha got the accusatory eyebrow.

“Hey don’t you start, Ms horsebread.” he held up the butt end of his sandwich threateningly as a turkey sub could manage.

The two enjoyed their lunch. The food and water helped to ease Elatha’s exhaustion so she was able to think a little better again. She wondered how often stuff like this would happen now that she had thrown her lot in with Nox and his team. Even now the two times she had been with the man he had put her in positions of danger against the things most people never even meet. Then she remembered what she was going to ask before the thing appeared. 

“ So why no killing?” Elatha managed between mouthfuls of her own lunch. 

“ Someone made me promise not to.” he said, finishing up the last of his sandwich.

“That’s it?” she said following suit. 

“Yep, that's all there is. It's not anything moral or practical, I've killed before. I just can’t break the promise. ” he gathered the trash of their lunch and stored it in some pocket of his endless coat. “Any other questions?” He deflected.

“How far to this other shop?”  She stretched a bit. willing the exhaustion out of her extremities.

“Far,10 clicks upstream. We likely won’t be able to get there today.” 

“So what’s the plan?” Elatha wasn’t too keen on the idea of making that whole trek in one day. 10 kilometers isn't too bad on a straight run.  With their circuitous route and constant chasing she didn't know how long they could go.

“There’s a hostel about 6 clicks upstream. We spend the night there and I'll try to make some calls. Ready? ”Nox followed her lead and stretched to his toes, creating the most horrid cracking sound from his spine.

“Yes Sir” Elatha stood up, eyeing the next route they needed to make. 

They made it to the hostel. Along the way Nox and her picked up supplies for the night from various stores. Nox carried all them in a small duffle bag he traded for at one of the earlier stops. Seemingly his endless coat had run out of pockets. The idea being that he could afford to lose some speed more than Elatha. The run had exhausted the two of them. Elatha because of her payment from earlier in the day and the rapid sprints. Nox was tired from having to act as bait at every step of the trip. Twice during the trip Elatha had to drop a day from her stash to prevent the Thing from catching her. 

The hostel was a simple row of bunks built over a laundromat, I guess even the unreal entities needed clean clothes.  The building seemingly was empty aside from Nox and Elatha, instead payment was offered at small wooden boxes installed next to the services.  The two chose a bunk further back from the entrance.

Nox went to use a small phone that was set up in the corner of the bunk room. When he finally got there he calmly dialed some number and waited. He hung up and dialed another number. Then he dialed the same number, again. He dialed the same number again, and again and again. One last attempt held the phone to his ear, then threw the receiver which stretched to the length of its cord before spinning back to the phone. He finally fumbled to hang the receiver up before returning to the bunk. 

“She didn’t pick up, ”  he explained angrily before hopping on his bed. Elatha didn’t respond, instead trying to relax on the lower bunk. Happy to let her feet rest. Something about her silence seemed to beckon an answer from the Mul. “Syrene, I was hoping to have her meet us here with the bloodstone and avoid the last trek.”

“How’s this bloodstone supposed to help us?” Elatha played along, getting the feel for Nox's desire to explain.

“It's coagulated god blood. It grants extended life to Diannune. So we give them 70 years and the bloodstone keeps you from aging.”

“Okay, " she was still unclear on how all of this would help but that was Nox's problem not hers "So how bad is the last trek?” she redirected to a problem she could understand.

“Not bad till the bridge."   He paused. Elatha just waited patiently for him to continue knowing his pattern a bit better now. "The bridge is a straight 1 kilometer shot with no cover.” He eventually continued feeding into Elatha's expectation. 

Elatha imagined the speed she had seen in the Thing over the day. And imagined a long clean stretch. “That’s not going to work” she couldn’t see any way for her to cross that much distance even with Nox running interference. 

“It has to” he muttered “We’ll make it work.” the two tried to sleep.

That evening or at least what felt like evening as the sky around the River remained an ever present mist regardless of time of day. Elatha slept soundly in her lower bunk until she heard the ever so slight movement of a bunk being entered. Looking over she saw that some other denizen of the place was moving into a neighboring bunk. It was perfectly mundane, but her mind in its groggy awareness noticed something else. Nox was gone, slunk away at some point during the night.  She stayed up for a while hoping to catch his return. Eventually sleep won over.

The next morning was much of the same as the day before. Slightly eased by their good night's sleep and experience they made quick work until the bridge. There they were at the last shop before the great bridge Nox had informed her of. It appeared more like a mountain of wooden slats gently curving away from the river before presumably returning down on the other side. It was a massive wooden construction that defied the concepts of structural engineering.  Instead in this unreal realm the appearance of strength was all that was necessary to make it so.  Easily 5 times the distance of their longest stretch there was no chance. Elatha knew that they would not be able to make it across the bridge without being caught by the Thing.

“Wait here I’ve got an idea.” Nox handed Elatha the bag he had filled with her days. And walked out of sight from Elatha’s position. 

He returned a few minutes later followed by a lanky thing. It had two arms and legs but was thinner and taller than should be natural for any creature. Its limbs and spine curved and swayed under the weight of its own length giving the creature the appearance of long grass as it walked. Its skin was deep brown and mottled with occasional red or white spots.   

“Elatha this is Allen.” he gestured to tall form “He is going to be aiding us today.” he looked to the tall thin that nodded happily about the assertion. 

“How so? ”

“Allen here is a licensed vendor. With his own shop.” The creature pulled from behind it a canoe made of bark and wood. He sat down on the structure and gestured for Elatha to sit with him. 

“I get it.” Elatha hopped from within the store to the canoe, keeping an eye on the thing to make sure it didn’t make a move. It seemed to work and the creature found itself unable to reach Elatha. Nox wove a harness out of ropes and attached it to the front of the canoe. Attaching it to himself he started to pull the canoe behind him like a makeshift sled. The thing followed along hovering just overhead the entire way. 

“Thanks for this.” Elatha told the lanky creature, who only smiled a thin smile and waved a flimsy limb. 

It was slow going. Nox wasn’t the strongest Mul Elatha knew but even then this was going to take all day. In the time it would take to cross the bridge Had they sprinted, they had only managed to make it past the entrance. 

“I assume there's a reason we aren’t taking the river, sir?” Elatha looked down at the water of the river flowing beside them. 

“Yeah, It'd take too long.” Nox grunted.

“Cause this is a blazing pace.” she sassed. 

“It's not 70 years.” he sassed back. 

“Fair” Elatha admitted

Elatha tried to make conversation with Allen. Though they seemed unable to speak in any way she understood. The strange attraction of the shop made sled had attracted a few customers. Allen made business while customers casually kept up with Nox’s plodding pace.  Elatha, with nothing else to pass the time, watched the strange denizens on the bridge with them.   They had eventually made it to the top of the bridge’s arc after an hour or so. Nox took a moment to relax while at the apex. Elatha looked down at the street on the other side. It would be a pretty straight shot down from here.

“Well the hard part’s over at least” Elatha commented looking at the steep incline of the massive bridge. Then an idea stuck.

“Yeah, it's all downhill from here.” Nox sat on the canoe edge as he caught his breath. 

“yes, that should make this last part pretty easy” Elatha kicked off bridge support and let gravity take the lead. Nox fell back into the canoe-sled. The sled rapidly gained speed riding down the far side of the bridge

“Why’d you do that?” Nox yelled as the rickety canoe bounced across the bridge slats in its accelerated dive.

“ It's faster isn't it?” she responded, seeing them rapidly cross meters in seconds. 

“You don't get it. Allen’s a Mi Mi” he yelled. 

Elatha looked back at the lanky figure, in the increasing wind of their rapid descent his body began to whip about in the air. He tried to hold onto the canoe with his  thin fingers but as their speed increased so did the strength of the wind. Before Elatha could get a grasp of his arms he flew off fluttering into the wind like a flag in a storm. 

“That’s not good” they both thought and said. Without Allen the shopkeep the sled was now just a normal canoe, and the two were exposed. The Thing understood this and began closing in on them even with the sled's speed. 

“Give me the time” Nox yelled to Elatha, who took a second to realize he meant the days she had left. “cut my harness I'm going to get a distraction together”.  Elatha catching on quickly removed her bayonet and cut through the rope harness attaching Nox to the canoe. He was in the meantime mixing the little beacons of days Elatha had given him with a few bags of other unknown things from with in his coat.

“Blood” he yelled, pouring the bright beacons of her days into a bag filled with hundreds of dull black beacons. They were similar to her own but only emanating a dull unlight, like a black light’s barely visible color.

“What?” she said confused by the request.

“I need. your blood. in the bag.” he yelled “NOW!”  She complied as best she could, taking her bayonet and cutting her palm open over the bag. The bumpy ride of the sled makes this a much more difficult endeavor than you would think. As soon as a drop touched the bags contents it glowed brightly 

“Okay, Syrene's is the second shop on the right. I'll meet you there.” Nox leapt out of the canoe, the Thing was upon him before he hit the ground. Its spinning swirling ribbons holding him and suspending him in the air. The endless and infinite ribbons pulled and twisted away at his form clawing for every aspect of his essence. Elatha watched as the figure wrenched away at the bag draining each beacon of light one by one within seconds it would be through the entire supply. 

Elatha, catching up with what was going on, looked towards the rapidly approaching road. She couldn’t look back. She scanned the road looking for what would have been Syrene’s. Identifying the shop she readied herself to make the final leap the moment the sled slowed progress.  She could already feel the creature approaching her again, she had gotten so used to the feeling of pursuit she knew when it locked on. There was only about a hundred meters between her and the shop. She leapt off the sled and entered a full sprint focusing only on the store, not on whatever chaos the sled inflected on the denizens below. No  her mind was only on speed, it had to be otherwise that thing might catch her. run , flee speed.

.flee

. flee flee.

. survive

.

.

Elatha heavily breathed, taking in the moment. It was done. She had finally managed to make it to Syrene’s shop. It was just as strange as Elatha would have imagined it was a single corridor leading to a small glass case. In the case were little motes of light and small gemstones. They were memories or thoughts or something unreal like that Elatha figured. Behind the counter was a… well she thought it was an elf, but it was a very different elf from any she had seen before. Her skin was deep purple, almost black not the tans she had seen in the Navarac elves of Parthelon. Her ears were sharper and longer as well . Her hair was white as Lynne's longer and beautifully braided with metal adornments woven into the white locks. She stared at Elatha with deep red eyes and Elatha immediately felt as though she was under Trysin's all knowing gaze.

“Welcome darling” she looked directly at Elatha, there was an unreal pressure behind her gaze. In this already unreal place it felt like she was being squeezed lightly on all sides. She briefly glanced over to Nox who had caught up. “ It seems you have some dead weight. Would you like me to handle it?”

“Ha ha” Nox tried to sarcastically laugh, instead it was a sickening wheeze from the final stretch of the run. “ I..I nee.. Need” he started coughing again, hacking for a bit before drinking water from a bottle he had bought at the grocer.

“You can relax with the theatrics old man.“ The elf was not happy to have him sweating on her clean floor.

“Bloodstone, we need bloodstone ” he commented

“Oh Edward, why ever would you think I have something like that?” She leaned forward on her counter smirking at the old Mul.

“No games Syrene, not today” The pressure in the room increased. When Nox didn't flinch. She gave a slight pout, disappointed the Mul wasn’t playing along.  “ What’ll it cost?”

“You can’t afford it.” She stood back standing to her full height. She removed the dull red stone from within her dress's pockets , it was about the size of an apple. “god’s don’t bleed much these days, this is the last bit in all the River.” She held the apple sized stone on her fingertips in a tantalizing manner.

“Please Syrene, I'm begging you here.” Nox got to the counter, supporting his weight on the glass.  “it's not for me”

“Oh I’ve heard about your little parade.” she turned to look at Elatha “He never paid your toll, how selfish. ”

“It wasn’t him” Elatha corrected.

“Oh dearie it's always him or his fault." She turned to look down at the shorter Mul. "He just hasn't figured out how yet.”  she grinned with a slight tilt of the head. 

“Enough Syrene, what do you want?” Nox cut her off done with whatever games she was trying to initiate.

“You can’t afford it." she met his gaze as unwavering as Nox. "It was meant for Them.” 

“They would never have taken it." he countered. Elatha could sense a supernatural tension forming behind Syrene. "I can offer a better memento than some old stone.”

“What might that be?” her long ear twitched in curiosity. 

“You can have mine.” he tapped his head.

“I want them all” she leaned in the pressure returning with a voracious appetite.

“Fine” Nox said meeting her gaze. 

“How desperate” she smirked at the older Mul “Very well” she tossed the stone to Nox and a deep black shard shot from his head into her hand. “Thank you for doing business Edward. Now get out.” the door to the shop opened behind them as she left the front desk with her newfound reward.

“What did you trade?” Elatha asked as he approached the shop exit.

“All my memories of her… our old friends. We outlived them…. I think. ” his eyes were glazing over as he prepared the stone. 

“ I'm sorry.” She felt it was right to say, but this was all beyond her experience.

“ Don't be. Living people are worth more than dead memories.” he finished his work the stone was now attached to a small chain necklace. He placed it over her neck. “ you should be sorry for that bridge stunt.”

“ Sorry sir”  Elatha defaulted to soldier mode, well knowing she had screwed up.  

“Tell that to Allen.” he looked over to the edge of the storefront.

“ So do I just walk out?” she looked at the dull red rock in her hand.

“ Yep. This stone is pretty large so it'll more have enough juice. Just relax and let it happen. Try not to fight it.”

 She took a deep breath and stepped out to the Thing. It instantly latched onto her the infinite tendrils of its form reaching into her body mind and soul. She tried to relax through it but it was too unnatural. The body had to resist it had to tense and the resistance made it hurt. The creature greedily dug through her soul wrenching every second of debt. As her age accumulated, her pains increased. Her knees ached, her mind faded, her hair thinned. The stone shrunk as it paid her toll and she could feel her body heal but the Thing drank faster than the stone could match.

When it ended and her body fell to the ground an ancient crippled wreck she could only feel an empty calm facing the end. The stone wouldn’t let her. It healed her mind, replaced her bones. It dragged her body back to her with as much pain that age inflicted. Time had no meaning in that brief exchange a 140 years brutally changed hands and her mind could only try shut it out. She blacked out.

When she awoke Nox was sitting beside her holding the stone still hanging on its chain withered to the size of peanut. The Thing was nowhere in sight. The stone had returned her to where she was before the creature had attacked her leaving her healthy of body. 

“Hreeeeeeehhhhgg” Elatha wheezed a death rattle fitting of a 70 year corpse. Whatever had happened to her body it left her exhausted.

“Damn, you near burnt out the bloodstone. It has only got a decade or so left. ” He examined the bobble now much smaller in size. Bouncing it in his hand for a second. He tossed it to Elatha “You keep it, not enough left for projects.”

“Thanks” her body was still too exhausted to stand.

“Sorry about everything going so weird on your first time.” Nox sat down beside her on the bridge to wait on her. The denizens of this other world walking around them. “It's not normally lik….. Well no it is.” he corrected himself.

“Kind of expect it at this point” she tried to stand her quaking muscles only managed a sitting position before she decided to take a break. “How bad was this to the other’s?” she looked at the old Mul

“Trysin’s was the worst,” he laughed, shaking his head. “She tried to read Syrene and got obliterated .Spent two weeks unconscious. Barry ate food meant for Angels and got food poisoning for 3 days." The idea of a Mul suffering food poisoning is unusual in its own right with their ironclad stomachs.“Lynne bout near sold her soul for some parts. I had to chase down parts for a year to get all of her soul back. So I give it a 6 out of 10. You okay? ” 

“It's fine.” She tried to stand again but her knees were still too weak.

“You sure?” He was scanning her again, she could feel. Probably trying to read her response. “It's okay to be mad about this stuff. Remember I'm your employer, if stuff isn’t okay I need to know. Otherwise I can't help ”

“Well I’m a bit annoyed about my gun.” she spoke honestly for a moment.

“That's all. Hey I know a stellar gunsmith here will see if we can get you a new barrel, we'll pick up some special ammo too, company’s treat.” She realized never told him about the barrel, and it was only visible by her own touch. When did he notice, she thought. 

“What happened to no killing?” she countered off put by his observation.

“That applies to you too. Can’t let you die because you can't protect yourself, besides most of what we end up fighting wouldn’t even feel a caliber that small.”  He stood beside her and held out a hand to help her up, she took it leaning on his smaller form for support. “come on.”  

It was nice to be able to walk through the River again. It has a somewhat serene atmosphere when you aren’t fleeing in terror. The gun shop Nox wanted to visit was a decent walk away from Syrene’s and the two were in no hurry to get there. 

The shop in question was a little gun store with a hanging wooden sign labeled ‘reighny days; guns and ammo’. Inside it had mostly what Elatha expected: rows of guns on display, little cardboard boxes filled with bullets, and racks of various accessories on the far wall. What she didn't expect was the large person stocking boxes in the center of the room. It looked like a Mul by stature but it had short pointed ears, and dull grey skin. It had short red hair and its mouth was covered in a white cloth mask. It had aggressively bright orange eyes with black sclera.

“Hope?” Nox asked.

“Oh howdy there Mr. Nox” It spoke with a soft bright feminine voice dripping with accent.

“What are you doing here?”  he gave her a quick hug, that she returned in spine-breaking fashion.

“Oh well, Tennek took their vacation and October asked me to fill-in.” she spoke in the high pitch voice. 

“Makes sense. Well this is my new employee Elatha." Nox pushed Elatha forward to the larger imposing figure. "We need to set her up”

“ Oh we can do that.” She looked to Elatha nodding slightly “ Pleasure to meet you Ms Elatha. I'm Hope. Now what can we fix you up with today?”

“ Nice to meet you. Um well” Elatha took off her holster and handed it to Hope.“ I could use a replacement barrel for my revolver.”

She looked over the holster “ a Bangor model 9. I think I remember seein’ one out back. Sit tight here for a moment.”

The tall figure wandered off to some room hidden behind the main counter. Nox and Elatha took the time to peruse the shop while they waited. Elatha was looking at a cleaning kit while Nox meandered behind her.

“I’ve got to say I’m impressed how well you roll with the weird, most people have a breakdown or two.”  He had a pleasant saccharine tone in his voice.

“Well..” She was interrupted by the feeling of a cold barrel pressed against her neck.

“What are you?” The saccharine gone, replaced by his calm intensity. She could feel the stare burning into the back of her head.

“Is this no killing?” she tried to turn enough to look but the increased pressure on her neck froze her in place. She couldn’t see the gun. The thought of fighting him was running through her mind. She knew she was faster and could probably disarm him but then what. Once that bridge was crossed there was no going back.  She was unarmed with no idea how to escape the River. No, for now talk. 

“For all I know this won’t” he pressed it deeper into her neck the metal painfully pushing against her spine  “No mortal’s time is that bright, why are your days worth so much?”

“I don’t know” She decided on the truth, it's been useful so far against the Mul.

“You better give me your best guest right now.”  He practically growled at her. 

“I can see things, it's The Sight.” 

“Bad answer.” he cut her off. “Cricalans are born of spirit not mind, they can’t have The Sight.” 

“It's true Sir” she remained calm. That's right, appeal to his authority,  seem loyal, make him hesitate.

“Prove it. How many shadows does Barry have?”

“Three.” she said matter of factly, then to add to her argument she continued. “Also Lynne’s a freak, Mary's a monster, and Spike is older than dirt.”

“You really do.” She felt the barrel move, taking her chance Elatha spun around knocking the gun from his hands and placing the Mul in an armbar. What rattled to the floor wasn’t even a gun, it was a metal pipe. Nox didn't even fight, he was laughing “That’s why it never paid, 70 years, a Cricalan with the sight, they couldn’t afford it.”

“You can let me go now” he managed though the remnants of his laughing.

“Can I, or are you going to pull some bullshit again?” Elatha yelled, tightening the armbar and lifting the Mul to his toes. He was lighter than she had thought.

“Oh there'll be nonsense, but no more today.”  he grinned, turning his head back too far for normal to give her a playful look.

“What is your problem?” she tightened the bar, snapping his elbow. 

“Sorry sorry. Look, you've dealt with spies before right?” his turned face was still looking her directly in the eye, unflinching under the pain.

“No, I killed spies” she never had much trouble spotting spies back in the day. There was always something off about them that the sight keyed in on. 

“Damn well, imagine shapeshifting, timetraveling, mindreading spies. Imagine now that they hate you and have been trying to get into your organization for 900 years. Then you show up in an impossible accident, with an impossible name, and an impossible soul. What would you think? ”

“That it was a set up” she relaxed her grip a bit.

“I really am sorry.” He wrenched himself free and turned to look at her. “You just didn’t seem real so I had to make sure.”

He moved over to collect the metal tool he had used to intimidate her. He was laughing about the affair like he hadn't just threatened to kill her. He was talking about something, a casual explanation. She didn't listen.

“This, Sir.” The solemn tone ended the Mul's rambling. 

“Huh?” he looked back she thinks genuinely confused. 

“You said if Stuff isn’t okay to talk to you about it. This, all of this wasn’t okay.” Elatha raised herself to her full height and looked down on the smaller Mul. She stared him directly in the eye unblinking. “If you ever have a problem or a suspicion you tell me. You don’t trap me, or ambush me, or go behind my back. You meet me face to face, look me in the eye and confront me.” This was her line in the sand. More so than any of the supernatural nonsense this was unacceptable. 

“Egghh that's a hard bargain but fine” he held out his bandaged hand to shake. Elatha took it giving him the strongest grip she could muster to ensure the Mul knew what she meant. The two noticed Hope standing in the corner watching the affair and all parties blushed a bit in embarrassment.

“Pardon. I didn't want to interrupt, but I finished fixin’ up your pistol.” She held out a small box.

“ Thank you, Hope.” Nox moved over to her. “Can you fetch some T4 A.M.O. rounds in 9.2x 26.1 mm for her too?”

“ will do.” she disappeared again behind the wall. Leaving the two alone.

“The Sight” he asked “ Why didn't you tell me?” 

“ I figured Trysin did.” which was the honest truth. Trysin knew about the sight, Elatha couldn't imagine why the Aldrean hadn't told her superior yet. 

“This is why we need mandatory gossip” Nox yelled in the shop before laughing at the entirety of the day's events. 

The two spent the next few days relaxing after the whole affair. Taking their time to leisurely collect the last few items off of the list seeing no reason to rush now that the area was safe enough. Elatha was able to pick up a few personal items as well.

When they had finished up everything on the last day Nox had managed to convince her to try the onigiri. She hated it, the filling was fine she just didn’t like the seaweed to her it tasted how fishbowls smelled. That day they made their way to a specific bridge on the River. Apparently it was the only way home on this day, elath jkust would have liked it if it didn't mean a 20 Kilometer hike to the other side of the River. On the last bridge after Nox had finished inscribing the return sigils he stopped to talk to Elatha. 

“ Hey before I forget these are for you." He held out a case of ammunition to Elatha. "They are a special type of ammunition only to be used in no hope situations.” she could immediately tell by the awful aura they emanated in the  Aether.  They were each little empty spots in space that devoured their surroundings. 

“ yes sir” she took the case in her hands feeling her feathers shudder at merely touching the container containing them. 

“ Let me make it clear. These aren't for a guy has a gun type scenarios. These are for a hundred meter dragon just killed the rest of the team type problems, okay?” His glare as table and intimidating as ever.

“yes sir”  she commented out of reflex. internally she hoped to never need such a cursed object in her life. 

“ good we all ready to head back home?

“yes sir” she managed but his beckoning glare forced her to answer. “ Well can you answer one thing for me then?” she said a curiosity that lingered since their first day here. 

“Sure I owe you that much after all the trouble today.”

“What is this list for anyway?” she gestured to the odd collection of items they had come here to collect. 

“Oh birthdays mostly.” Elatha raised an inquisatory eyebrow.  “seriously! I got so many friends and family I take the first of every month to get everyone a proper birthday gift.”

“You sold a week of your life to buy birthday presents.” the eyebrow still unyielding in its incredulous gaze. 

“Yessiree. Which reminds me when is your birthday?” he pulled out a leather notebook as thick as his hand. “and don’t give me that Cricalans don't do birthdays crap”

“To be honest I don't really know, Cricalans” she stopped. his stare could cut down Ceriss herself. She thought about it a moment “fine how about Gem 8th ”

“Four months, alright well you’re off shopping duty till then, can’t have you knowing your birthday present. Deal ” Nox held out his still bandaged hand. 

 “Deal” they shook hands an went home the day's work finally done.