Chapter Text
Shattered glass fell from the mirror before him and clung to his knuckles, digging deep golden gouges in his flesh. An asura tried to squirm away from him, but she was already bound and immobile. This asura, who’s name escaped him, had a bounty on her head but more importantly also had a bounty on her research. He knew where it was, and he knew what he was doing.
The first of the Sylvari had emerged fifteen years ago. Shortly thereafter, the second generation arrived, and the Asura captured and brutalized dozens of the newborns. A’alish was a third born. The captured second born memories, their dying thoughts, had bled into the Dream while he was still growing. When he should have been Dreaming of Ronan or Ventauri with the rest of his siblings, his thoughts turned to fractured visions of pain and agony unlike anything the Sylvari had known before.
“You people are why I’m like this,” he snarled before dropping down to his captive’s level. She glared back at him, refusing to take responsibility for his violence, but he just poked her, rocking her back then letting her fall forward. He’d let her believe what she wanted, but it wasn’t his violence he spoke of. It was the trauma during his creation, the lingering effects of everything that had gone wrong from it. She didn’t need to know that. He wanted her to think he was unstable and single minded and therefore predictable. He wanted her to fear him.
He liked to blame that trauma on why his body was not really his-- when he was still a seedling and still in the Dream, his Dream was fractured and fevered, but before it cracked he had dreamt of himself in a body made of greens and yellows like the sun shining through the canopy. He’d been masculine in the Dream. But at some point, his Dream was not really his any more. It was like watching a mesmer layer several images over one another or like the dreams he had now that he was Awake, and when he took his first steps into the waking world... his body was not his. Where he had dreamt of greens and yellows, there was a harsh grey bark. Someone had run to him and called him by a name that was not his. Called him ‘ sister’ .
He might have punched them. He couldn’t really remember how he reacted. Thirteen years had a way of fading memories and reconstructing new ones, and a large part of him hoped he’d socked that other sylvari in the jaw. But that trauma and all the misery it entailed was what he blamed the Asura for.
The wooden door to the room flung open, and another sylvari glared at A’alish and his captive.
“It’s done. Let’s go.”
With a nod, A’alish tucked the asura under his arm and followed his companion out. He barely knew the other sylvari. Didn’t even have his name despite traveling with him for half a year, but he knew he was second born with a chip on his shoulder. The two of them made a fine pair.
Summer in the Shiverpeaks was a strange place for the Sylvari. It was colder than winters of their tropical homeland, and snow still fell at night in lieu of rain, but there was also green growth and pleasant sunshine. The captive squirmed as they passed by the broken constructs of her work now laying scattered in the mud, but no one spoke. No one goaded her. No one made a sound. Not until they reached the river in the valley below where they would follow it until they reached the main road.
“You know what I like about taking down asura?” The companion mused. “There’s no blood.”
“Oil isn’t easy to clean up.” A’alish paused. He felt their captive tense in his arm. “But it doesn’t stink or stain like blood.”
“ Precisely. ”
“Unless the asura try to fight themselves...” He gave a playful and unwelcome squeeze to the one tucked under his arm.
“Not like charr... But even then, charr don’t really... spray blood.”
“Humans are the worst. Hate dealing with humans.”
“I would say centaurs. More limbs. More arteries. More chances for... Sppplt.”
“Ha! I don’t kill centaurs.”
“Because of the blood?”
“No.”
His companion stared at him for a moment before rolling his eyes. “Because of Ventauri?”
“Because it’s a war. It’s not banditry. Humans and the centaurs claim the same homeland, and that land now runs with blood. I don’t get involved in wars that aren’t my own.”
“There’s good money in war.”
They walked in contemplative silence after that, both knowing better than to speak of the job or their current employer, and neither wanting to open a discussion of morality in an already gruesome job.
The river they followed ran from the False Lake in the southern part of the valley out to the ocean in the west, but their destination took them northward half way up the lake to a simple lodge. Both Sylvari knew that whoever took charge of their captive was not acting alone, but neither cared. There was no money for mercenaries who asked questions.
When this bounty was done, A’alish would dive naked into the river and scrub at himself until his bark was soft and raw. Until he felt clean. His companion must have noticed the small smile on his face, as he quirked a brow and shook his head when their eyes met.
The lodge was a simple building tucked away in the mountain with a norn man in red dumping a bucket of dirty water into the mud. When he saw the two sylvari and their captive, he quickly turned back inside.
“You must smell really bad,” A’alish whispered.
“I smell like roses.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever smelled roses before. Must smell terrible.”
His companion favored him with a glare before stepping forward to knock on the lodge door, but before his knuckles made contact, the same norn man flung it open and gestured for the two of them to back up and let him out.
“Research?” He looked down at the two of them.
“Here.” The companion flashed a collection of asuran data drives. “Payment?”
“Here.” The norn man held out two small bags of coins, handing them over in exchange first for the research and then for the captive. Without any ceremony, he then turned and went back into the lodge with the asura and her research tucked under his arms and closed the door with his foot.
A’alish tossed his small pouch in his hand then tucked it away in his side pouch. “Do you wanna go get drunk?”
“Absolutely.”
The roads of Lornar’s Pass were not lacking in hospitality. The Durmand Priory, a long established place of habitation, was a day’s travel north of them, and at least two lodges were on the way. A’alish and his companion opted to stop at the closest one after A’alish had made good on his day dream and lept naked into the river. There was still ice sticking to his briar-like hair when they sat down and began to drink.
“Here is to not knowing your name and to never seeing you again.” His companion raised a mug and downed half of it.
“And here is to-- oh. Oh wow.”
His companion turned and followed A’alish’s gaze to two human men sitting across from each other, hunched over and looking deeply into each other’s eyes.
“Here’s to that,” he murmured before sipping from his mug.
“What about that?” His companion was not impressed.
“That man. The golden one. I didn’t know humans came in gold.” As he said that, the golden man (who really just had perfectly normal dark skin and short golden-brown hair) looked away from his partner, saw A’alish and his companion watching him, and gave them a lopsided grin and a wink. Sylvari didn’t blush, but their ambient glow did tend to grow brighter in lieu of it.
“Give it up. He’s clearly taken. Oh mother... you’re lighting up the whole table.” His companion smacked A’alish in the face.
“Ow! I just glow brightly. I always have. What does it matter to you?”
“I don’t want people over here using you as a reading light when we’re trying to get smashed.”
“I don’t think you’ll have that problem.”
The evening never seemed to fade into shadow between the fire of the hearth and the pale glow radiating from the two sylvari, but eventually the night fell into a drunken blur that might have included A’alish angrily yelling poetry at the ceiling while standing on a table as his companion went around ‘collecting coins’ from the other patrons. But when he woke the next evening with his head splitting open and his wallet intact, his companion was gone.
He counted through his coins and staggered into the main room of the lodge before collapsing on one of the tables with his head in his arms and weakly waving for the watery beer the norn typically drank throughout the day. He felt the table move, though whoever sat with him attempted to be gentle, and after a moment he heard them say in a disgustingly melodic and fairly nasally masculine voice, “May I join you?”
“No,” he grumbled. He’d have to pick up the pace if he was going to catch the other sylvari, and conversation would only slow him down.
“That’s too bad. Take this.” Again, A’alish felt something slide across the table, shaking it slightly, before a folded bit of paper touched his arm. “It’s a generic antidote. Part of a hangover is poison. Most of it is dehydration. My husband swears by it.”
When A’alish peaked out from under his arm, he was faced with a pale human who was as devoid of color as a marble statue except where the cold brought a bright red flush to his cheeks, nose, and ears. Even his eyes and hair were a pale grey. For a moment, A’alish thought he didn’t know humans came in that color either, then he took the packet and held it back out to the man.
“You first.” A younger A’alish would have taken it without suspicion, but he wasn’t so naive any more.
“My name is Thurston Rowell. I’m a Magister with the Durmand Priory, and I want to talk to you about your obvious career.” He pulled apart the packet, took a pinch of the powder from it, and dropped it on his tongue. “There. See? Not killing me.”
“My career?” A’alish squinted before resting his head back in his arms. “You mean mercenary?” He would wait some time before trusting the powder.
“Yes. My husband spotted you and your friend last night and suggested that you, or people like you, might be the answer to my current predicament.”
“Smaller words please...”
“Take the antidote or wait it off, then come find me. I’ll be working here for the next few days. Ok, son?”
A’alish jerked backwards, nearly falling off the bench, and reeled with the pain in his head from the sudden movement. “Son?” His heart was pounding way too hard. It hurt like the man was grabbing it and squeezing. “Where did--”
“Easy. Be at ease...” But his obnoxious, nasally voice did nothing to calm him. “Rory!” The man turned, and the golden man from the night before stepped over and placed a hand on Thurston’s shoulder.
“You shouted it to the roof top last night. I assure you, you’re not the only one here like that.” He shot a meaningful look to his husband and grinned. “Just maybe the first to scream about it in verse. Terrible, terrible verse.”
“I’m a freak!” A’alish, still quite drunk but now also in pain, hissed and let his head fall on the table. “Sylvari aren’t like this!”
“I thought so too, well, about humans.” Thurston reached out and patted A’alish’s shoulder hesitantly and awkwardly. “There there. We’re all freaks in the long run. And maybe when you’re sober it won’t hurt so bad?”
“No. You already know. Tell me about the job.” The sylvari took a steadying breath and looked him in the eye. “What do you want?”
“Well, the Durmand Priory attracts scholars, but we lack strength to protect our scholars. Much of our work is archeological in nature, but that does not mean it’s safe. Consider the ghosts of Ascalon who inhabit many of the significant digs in the region, or more dangerous the Risen that have begun swarming the coastlines. We need people to watch over our scholars and perhaps help keep them in line. It would be a long term contract, and you would be offered a place in the Priory if you’d like it, or you could remain independent.”
“How much does it pay?” A’alish had only heard about a tenth of what came out of the man’s mouth and decided then to take a pinch of the antidote. Thurston hadn’t died yet, and though it was bitter, it wasn’t any worse than the taste still lingering in his mouth, and maybe it would help. Or maybe it would kill him. Right then, he didn’t think death would be so miserable compared to the hangover.
“That depends on the individual job. Your first job would be local so that we can keep an eye on how you work with the team. I have a team waiting for help before they start their research on strange mechanical artefacts along the eastern side of the pass.”
“I only get paid if they survive, yeah?” He smirked. He was starting to feel better enough to take a crack at humor.
“You certainly won’t be if they’re dead.” Rory murmured before leaning over and kissing Thurston’s cheek. “I have to take care of something. You know that stew goes right through me.”
Thurston shoved his laughing partner’s face away like he might an overly friendly barn animal and waited for the man to leave before looking intently into A’alish’s eyes. Both the man and the sylvari had grey and piercing eyes, but now Thurston wielded his like a weapon.
“Listen carefully to me, son. I see your hatred, and I recognize it. I have felt it in my own heart. It is your body that is wrong. Not your soul. But you are not your body, and you are not wrong. Most of all, you are not alone.”
“Why do you care? The Pale Tree made me like this,” he hissed back. “All of her children were intentional. ”
“Because I have suffered like you do. And do you think she is incapable of error? Do you think she meant to make you miserable, if she really was capable of such micromanagement? Everyone else’s bodies are left to chance. Don’t you think there’s an element of chance in your creation?”
“And what if you’re right? What then? I just live knowing my creation was a mistake?”
“You do what you can to make it right. With or without the Pale Tree.”
A cold clarity fell over A’alish. He felt lighter, and maybe it was the hangover helper, but he felt something fall into place like he’d remembered part of a dream.
“Can the Priory help me?”
“If we can’t, we can find someone who can.”
“Then I’ll take the job.”