Chapter Text
One of Justice’s earliest -clearest- memories was of crying.
Not his of course, but the sound was still incredibly jarring.
It was that sound of a child wailing that brought him forth, and the need to protect that solidified his form into what he became. He had memories from before that moment but they were fuzzy… Disjointed images. Something about being in an enormous towering library that spiraled far far up into the sky. It had looked so peaceful and then suddenly the building violently ripped apart for no apparent reason. Bits and pieces of walls and floors disappeared in an instant as though they had never existed. And then screams. Falling. Everyone was falling. He was falling. He remembered falling from such a dizzying height. Which was strange since spirits aren’t subject to gravity, and it was even stranger because in the memory the fact that he was falling had absolutely terrified him.
The ground rose up to meet him and then the memory of falling ended with a sudden wet sounding crack.
And then nothing.
And then the next thing he was aware of was the sound of a little girl crying in the dark. She needed someone to protect her. It was his duty to stand guard between- between… Hadn’t he been doing something else before he heard the little girl? His lights swirled in panicked confusion.
Something was missing.
Then he heard the noise again.
Crying.
There was a child crying. She needed someone to protect her.
He rose up, a faint spatter of silver sparks fell from his frame before fading away and disappearing with a certain finality. He was unsteady and deeply disoriented at first, so much so that he never saw those last sparks. The need to protect pushed him forward. He pulled in swirls of energy from the fade, solidifying him into a steady vaguely humanoid shape made of light. The little girl had been backed into a corner where she was curled up on the ground shaking. One wall was made of very finely cut stone one moment but would flicker and transform into polished wood and then gold and then back to stone. The other wall was made of bones and rot and decay.
And in front of the girl stood two demons.
“This one is mine. She is practically singing her fear. Delicious.” Crooned the fear demon, the spider legs on his back creaked with excitement.
The desire demon next to him sneered at her companion, “You claimed the last two. She wants. She wants so many things; home, safety, but she wants to be found by her mother especially. That’s my territory.” The fear demon snarled and the argument between the two began to escalate. The girl shook and tried to curl up on herself even more.
The newly awoken spirit continued to solidify as he approached till standing before them he was a figure clad in armor. Sword and shield in hand. “Demons! Leave this child alone!” He bellowed out. His voice echoed strangely in the fade. Had it always sounded like that?
The two demons paused in their argument and looked over at him.
The child hiccuped and continued to cry.
The fear demon swirled in place, curiosity and anger creeped off of him in greasy tendrils. The desire demon arched a delicate eyebrow and looked him up and down, quiet waves of mild curiosity drifted from her.
The desire demon broke the awkward silence, “It’s rude to enter someone else’s territory without their permission, darling, and I certainly didn’t invite you in.” Her tail gave a small swish and she turned again to look back at the child. Clearly dismissing him.
“That’s what I’VE been saying!” snapped the fear demon turning back to glare at the desire demon. Or seemed to since he didn’t actually have eyes.
She looked at him sharply. “She fell on the border between our territories so you’re still wrong.” The new spirit noticed then that it wasn’t just the wall that was split in two. A line -jagged but there- ran between the two demons and under his own feet and then off some ways into the distance. The room on the side that had the shifting changing wall was filled to the brim with gold and jewels one moment and then some other luxury the next. A chandelier made of crystal hung from the ceiling before vanishing, then a tapestry, then golden jewel encrusted lamp, and on and on in a dizzying display of opulent wealth as though the room couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be.
And on the other side there was death.
Or more accurately dead bodies.
The room with excessive luxuries might be constantly changing but the fear demon’s domain was stagnant and dark. There was also an unbelievably bad smell coming from that side. Corpses and bits and pieces of rotting body parts in various stages of decay. He thought that in one shadowy corner there was a pile of bodies that looked like they had been piled together into some kind of nest, and shuddered at the sight.
The fear demon fumed and growled before gritting out between his teeth. “Leave, stranger. This mortal is taken. Or will be at any rate once she leaves.”
“Oh as if. You know this one is mine.”
The new spirit wavered in place. That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting from them. Granted he knew his thoughts were still very fuzzy but he did at least remember that he couldn’t let demons have a child. That much was clear at least. He reached for the leather pouch filled with salt he always-
He paused.
Salt was something from the physical world and didn’t technically exist inside the fade. His lights flickered and settled into an agitated swirl. Why would he-?
He angrily flashed and shook his head to dislodge the thought; the demons were obviously playing some kind of trick. The new spirit growled out, “You will stop this at once! Do not make me ask again, demons!”
The desire demon very slowly turned back to him with an exaggerated pout, sharp contradictory spikes of angry light sparked from her frame. “I do so hate being interrupted. And I hate getting my claws dirty, but what’s a girl to do?” She smiled sweetly and then lunged at him, claws drawn, screaming, and all her lights jagged and sharp.
He just barely scrambled out of the way in time, blocked the first swipe of her claws with his shield, and kicked her back before swinging his sword down. She rolled with the kick and was already moving again lightning fast. The blade sliced harmlessly through the empty spot where she had just been moments before. She would lunge and he would spin out of reach. He would swing his sword in for a strike and she would already be moving out of the way. They each out maneuvered or parried blows, swirling faster and faster.
The new spirit viciously berated himself in his mind and called himself every profanity he could think of. He was a fool to rush in like this. If he fell during this fight the demons would eat the girl with none the wiser. He should have-
“-Instincts! Trust your instincts! Never focus on what should’ve happened during a fight, it’ll get you killed.” He watched General Lavellan talk to a group of young warriors and felt a bittersweet swell of nostalgia. He’d heard that humans couldn’t tell the age of their own kind unless they were withered; elves were more sensible. You told the age of a person by their eyes. And General Lavellan was ancient, but he had been caught outside the quarantine. He wasn’t contagious anymore, they had figured out how to stop it from spreading to others at least, but the damage was done.
Streaks of silver had already begun to show in his red hair.
No one knew how to cure the withering sickness once someone became infected, and the humans feigned ignorance of the plague they had brought. The General knew his time was limited, and spent every waking moment teaching with an almost frantic energy. “You won’t have the luxury of time to fret about on the field with a blade at your throat or arrows threatening your backside.” Passing on all of his knowledge had become a race against the clock, and the clock was wining.
He took a deep shaky breath, straightened his spine, and knocked on the open door startling his old teacher. “Sir? I apologize for the interruption, but we’ve had word that-”
Claws caught on the edges of his armor and drew an angry confused shout from him. The sudden searing pain successfully ripped him out of the strange vision. He rolled out of the way before the desire demon could dig her claws in deeper. Bluish white mist oozed from the cut.
What was that?
She let a small tinkling laugh adding small pops to the jagged angry light emanating from her. The desire demon sighed happily and licked the glowing white icor off her claws before she smirked and said, “You should have ran little spirit. Silly little puff thinks he can fight, it’s almost charming really.”
He rose to his feet with a snarl at the jibe, and caught her on the next strike with his blade. A jagged ink black cut opened up wide and deep in her arm.
She lept back oozing black mist from her wound and for a moment her mouth just gaped open, too shocked to speak. The shock on her face quickly shifted to cold fury, her tail lashed back and forth as her lights sharpened into razor points, and her voice became shrill, “How dare you, HOW DARE YOU! This is my territory, MINE. What right have you to come in here and interrupt my meal?!” She lept at him again, lights flashing sharp with pain and fury, and shrieking loud enough that the new spirit almost thought she might split the fade with her noise.
Pain seemed to have made her sloppy though. He saw his opening and drove the blade all the way through the demon’s chest, her scream became a quiet choked off noise. She dropped to her knees. And then as though her form had been made of sand and muck she slowly collapsed in on herself, and began to evaporate. Her tail was the last to go, it gave one final twitch before liquefying and the last trace of her light went out. Black sludge like energy dripped from his blade and puddled at his feet, and then even that evaporated.
Silence.
The glittering shifting changing room was no longer tethered to The Fade and began to slowly disappear. She was dead. He should feel proud that he had killed a demon, but mostly he just felt sick. It didn’t have to end like this. She could have just walked away. Demon or not he would have let her walk away.
A slow clap drew him out of his thoughts and suddenly reminded him that there had been two demons, not one.
“Well done.” Laughed the fear demon. He patted the shaking child on the head making the girl flinch, before turning back to him again. “I’ve had the misfortune of being neighbors with her for well over five thousand years now. I’ve always hated her.” He smiled. His tone took on a cheerful almost dreamy quality, “You’ve done me quite the favor.” The way his lights writhed and slashed said otherwise.
The new spirit warily adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword and for a brief moment considered just charging him and getting the fight over with already. The little girl caught his gaze and another idea occurred to him. He looked back at the fear demon who had begun to float towards him. The new spirit tried to look relaxed and sound bored, “The girl is small. A child. She would barely even qualify as a meal.” The glint coming from the shiny shell across the demon’s eyes reflected the light strangely, and for half a second he thought he saw an almost familiar face reflected. He continued, “Let her go and you can take me instead.” A lie, but depending on the creature’s greed-
“No.” Said the fear demon mildly, still smiling, and still drifting closer at a steady pace. The sharp spikes in his lights had smoothed somewhat, but there was still an odd edge to it. He spoke with a pleasant conversational tone, “You know… I don’t think my late neighbor had any real intention of killing you -not until your blow actually struck, of course.” The room of bones and rot slowly but surely began to expand until it encompassed everything around them. The new spirit flinched when he felt himself sinking into the muck up to his ankles and tried not to think about exactly what kind of liquid had begun to seep into his boots. The demon continued to float just above it and sneered, “I’ve seen her play with her food far too often only for her to just let it go again once something else caught her fickle attention.” Something about the demon’s voice was different.
Unnerving.
The fear demon stopped just in front of the new spirit and loomed over him. He looked him over as though considering livestock and mused quietly, “I could eat you, of course. Doubling the size of my dinner is a charming idea, and it is so very boring waiting for the unwary to take a wrong turn and get nicely trapped in one of my cozy webs. But you’re not very frightened right now. I’m really not sure how much effort it will take to scare you enough to make you palatable.”
“You sounded different before, More guttural and sharp.-” The new spirit pointed out, stalling. He tamped down his revulsion before he could accidentally broadcast it and then caught the little girl’s eye again. After a pause she seemed to catch on that he was stalling the demon and started scooting to the side, and deeper into the shadows. The spirit looked back at the fear demon and deliberately pushed out a false feeling of boredom, “I hope you weren’t trying to impress me with showy false politeness and a different voice.”
The demon’s polite smile broke into a wide sharp tooth grin, his teeth were practically the size of daggers, needle sharp and stretching an already monstrous face into something even more unsettling. A small ripple of fear went through the new spirit before he could block it.
Predatory hunger suddenly rolled off of the demon in a wave. “Ah yes I see! You’re not a fan of my teeth, eh? Well you know what they say, you can’t go wrong with the classics. Stick to the basics of a good scare I say. And who said a demon can’t be polite? You can’t really blame me for trying a different approach.” He sniffed the air and his grin became just a little sharper. “Especially not when it invokes the desired response. Even if only slightly. This shows… potential.”
The fear demon slowly began to morph, changing shape till he was looking at a twisted version of what could almost pass for a human man in armor. A general’s uniform, supplied something in the back of his mind. But in a twisted nightmarish sort of a way. He frowned, the face seemed familiar, he brushed the thought aside. He waved his shield hand at the demon, “What’s this form supposed to be?”
“I-” the fear demon stopped and looked down at him with the new eyes he’d just created, clearly confused. “What do you mean this ‘form,’ don’t you recognize this human?” The demon spread his arms wide as if to help display his new look to a better advantage.
The new spirit perused his lips behind his helmet and said, “No. I think we’re done here.” and lunged forward with his sword, the demon almost simultaneously dodged out of the way.
The little girl had backed up completely out of sight and hopefully had heard his conversation with the demon. If he couldn’t stop the demon then she needed to be brave, that was about the only thing that might give her a chance to escape the demon if the new spirit fell trying to stop him. Hopefully he’d kill the demon. He’d just been born, he didn’t want to be eaten. But at the very least, armed with the information he’d drawn out for her, she’d have a fighting chance to calm her nerves hopefully making her unappealing to the demon.
One moment the fear demon was swiping out with a clawed hand, the next he had a two handed broadsword that he swung in a huge arch aiming for the new spirit’s head. He just barely ducked in time, sparks came off his helmet where the blade grazed him.
“Do you mind standing still? I’d so much rather eat you in pieces.” The demon asked cheerfully as he swung his sword again with a manic smile on his face. The new spirit brought up his own blade just in time and grimaced when the two blades screeched against each other in a small shower of sparks.
The new spirit kicked the demon back and bashed his shield against the demon’s face before the creature darted out of the way once more. “No I don’t think so.” He called out after it.
“I’m sure we could approach this reasonably.” The demon replied from somewhere in the shadows. The new spirit spun around and realized he didn’t know where the demon had gone. “I could eat you slowly for a time. Perhaps with just a finger to start? I’m sure you wouldn’t miss it.”
The new spirit took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focused everything in him on his other senses. There. He spun out of the way just in time as the demon attacked again and brought up his own sword catching the demon’s blade and deflecting it. “Afraid not. I’m rather partial to my fingers.” He was perfectly aware that he could regrow any lost limbs -even his head theoretically- but it would take time. And each piece of himself removed would make him weaker, and easier to kill. Not to mention any parts cut off from himself that the demon absorbed would only make the creature stronger.
For a moment his mind stuttered on the thought. It seemed… odd that he already knew much of how this worked.
He swung out at the demon but he had already twirled out of the way and back into the shadows. The new spirit cursed under his breath. He knew this tactic. The demon was trying to wear him down. Make him an easier target. He kept turning with the little hints of sound he heard trying to track the demon’s movements. What he really needed was more light-
As soon as he thought the word a ball of fire flickered into existence floating above his head and lit up a much larger area around him.
Oh right. The Fade.
The larger circle of light around him brought with it a clear view of the fear demon and his kingdom of corpses.
The demon was crouched down and looked like he had been getting ready to pounce. He had abandoned the ‘human’ shape and was back in his original form with a deep frown on the part of his face not covered by shell. He snorted and growled out, “Spoilsport.” And then he lept. The demon slammed into his chest and knocked him flat on his back into the rot with a soft squelch.
The new spirit twisted with the momentum from the throw and rolled on top. His shield was stuck in the rot but he had managed to keep a hold of his sword and swung down. The demon grabbed the blade barehanded and managed to stop it just shy of his throat, he grimaced in pain, and tendrils of black mist oozed from his palms where the blade was biting into flesh. All the new spirit needed to do was put his weight into it and he’d take the demon’s head, and then he could go for the heart. No demon would win this day, not if he had anything to say about it. The light glinted off his sword, just like-
-“Where do you think you’re going?” his mother said with a laugh, her eyes twinkling. She knelt down in front of him so they were eye to eye, and he shyly gave back the sword he’d taken from the stand by the front door. He knew he wasn’t supposed to touch father’s sword, but it was shiny and-
PAIN.
The new spirit startled back into the moment confused and disoriented. He was laying on his back in the muck and rot. Something that felt suspiciously like bones was poking into his side. Pain radiated outwards from his head and back in an unpleasant throb from being thrown.
The fear demon stood over him sneering and holding the huge broadsword from before in one hand. “Rude. Well at least without your mouth you won’t be able to sass me while I eat you.” He swung the blade up into the air and the new spirit just barely rolled out of the way in time. The blade sunk into the rot with a sickening “Thwack!” just where the spirit’s head had been moments before.
The demon tried to yank the sword back out but it stuck. The new spirit didn’t pause this time and drove the sword up into the demon’s chest.
For a creature without eyes the fear demon had an almost comical look of shock on his face.
“You…” the rest of the demon’s words became a gurgle and then he fell sideways into the rot and began to disintegrate.
The new spirit propped himself up on his elbows and watched as the room of corpses slowly disappeared as the fear demon liquified. Thankfully the liquids that had seeped into his armor through the cracks evaporated as well leaving him as clean as he’d been at the start, albeit carrying a few new wounds.
And a few yards away sat the little girl.
It was quiet in the fade. Without either of the demons present the landscape returned to it’s neutral state of anything and everything. Mostly it just looked like a lot of green fog.
The new spirit stood up with a small sigh leaving his sword and shield behind. There was no reason to pick them up; they weren’t anymore physical than he was and would come or go as he willed them, so long as he remembered to do so. He walked over to the little girl and sat down in front of her. Her face was somber and tearstained but she seemed to have stopped crying.
There was a long awkward pause as the spirit tried to figure out what he should say. Children shouldn’t see fights like that, and they certainly shouldn’t see demons. Should he start with an apology?
“Thank you for stopping them.”
He jumped at that and realized he had just been staring blankly at the ground lost in his thoughts and felt a guilty twinge. “It’s my duty to protect people.” He wasn’t sure why that sentence came out of his mouth on it’s own like that, but it felt- -“We who stand guard before the council of Arlath-” He swished his energy and shook the odd vision away. The demons were dead, why was he still getting fragmented images?
She nodded thoughtfully. “Oh. Thank you.” She paused and then looked up at him, “I think… I… I’m dead. I am, aren’t I?”
The new spirit tilted his head, there was no silver cord connecting her to the physical world. Tattered silver sparks drifted from her, but only faintly and seemed to be slowing down to a stop. She must have died very recently. Something about that thought twinged in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place why. “I believe so. I am sorry.”
She went quiet again before asking him, “Where do I go? Can I go home?”
He shook his head and stood offering her a hand up, “I don’t know, but if you’d like I can help you ask around until we find out. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a wisdom spirit to ask.”
“Okay.” She wiped a hand at her eyes and took his hand with a wobbly looking smile. He helped her stand and she dusted her skirts down. Her ears flicked as she tilted her head to look at him, “I’m Lanril. What’s your name?”
He blinked. “I…” Name…? He must have one of those. “I… I am…” Sword and light and blood. Blood blood blood. So much blood. So many are dead. No. Don’t think about that. Don’t let them hear your voice shake, they need you to be strong. You can mourn after the battle. “Hold fast, hold fast! Don’t let the bastards through! We will serve justice this day to these murderers! May Mythal watch over us as we-!” He shuddered and the fragment stopped there. What was that? The little girl was still looking up at him expectantly. She wanted something to call him by. “You may call me…” One of the words from the fragment stuck out and then clicked. “I am Justice.” He finally said. That sounded… that was good. Yes. He looked at the last curling trails of energy that had once been a pair of demons.
Just a smear in the fade now.
Yes.
His name was Justice.