Chapter Text
“What if I write about my experiences on the Boiling Isles?” Luz asks the nest of palismen. She’s been laying here trying to figure out what the hell she wants to… well, want, for at least an hour now.
She sighs. This is useless, if she was going to stumble her way into saying her deepest desire out loud, it would have happened by now.
“What if… I open a magic pet shop, but it’s password protected.” Luz says, turning over to face the cardinal. God, these things are adorable. “The password is, “you’re a little angel.”
The cardinal tweets, preening when the nest shakes. Luz jolts with the force of it, startled. Where she’d previously been lethargic and nearly asleep, she’s now jittery and extremely annoyed.
She crawls over to the nest’s door and opens it, “Hey, we’re a little busy… in here?” Oh. Oh, they are in the sky. They’re very far away from the grudgby field.
Luz gasps and looks up, wondering what could have possibly done this. Her eyes trail up over the nest’s rough and natural exterior to a smooth, claw-shaped wench, and the Emperor’s Coven blimp it’s attached to.
Well that’s… not good.
Luz turns back towards the palisman, holding the door ajar, “I think we’re being kidnapped!”
The palismen all whimper, holding each other close in this dark moment. The picture pulls on her heart strings. These are creatures who have already lost their carvers. Creatures who were abandoned, who were collected by the Bat Queen in her woods of the lost. They’ve known fear, and they know it now.
Luz smiles confidently. This is what she does, now. She has magic and power and she can help them. So she will.
She says: “Don’t worry, I’ll figure this out,” and plucks a leaf from the inside of the nest. She draws a plant glyph on it and climbs out of the nest, activating her glyph. A vine wraps around the wench and falls down to her, providing a sturdy rope with which to climb the nest. She grabs the vine tight, making sure to close the door on her way out to ensure that none of the palismen will fall. Luz climbs the vine slowly, but steadily. Her weak nerd arms aren’t so weak anymore, not after so much time on the Boiling Isles.
Luz gasps for breath when the top of the nest curves inwards, letting her rest from her climb. She throws her arm around the wench for security and makes the mistake of looking down.
She knows that you’re not supposed to look down in situations like this one, but she can’t resist the urge. Besides, she’s never been good at doing what she’s supposed to do, as much as that bites her in the ass. It’s certainly biting her in the ass now. When she looks down to see cloud streaks and buildings smaller than her finger, she nearly throws up. But there’s no time to doubt herself. The palismen need her, and whatever chump is piloting this blimp needs to get their butt kicked.
She draws another plant glyph and climbs the rest of the way to the deck. The airship isn’t small, by any means, but it isn’t big either. It’s maybe the size of a van, though that’s hard to call given the open floor plan. The ship itself certainly looks well maintained. No chipped paint, no visible splinters in the wood. Definitely Emperor’s Coven, she learned to recognize that much after the selkiedomus incident.
The pilot is covered in a hooded white cloak from head to booted toe, but the pristine color and stupid gold shoulder pauldron make his identity clear. Luz gasps.
It’s the Golden Guard. That nefarious pawn of the state, what dastardly deed could he possibly have planned that involves some innocent palisman? That slimeball, he’s even whistling menacingly!
“Ugh, him again,” she says to herself, drawing a fire glyph on another leaf.
She takes a deep breath when she finishes, preparing herself. After only one false start, she launches herself across the ship. “Hi-yah!” she shouts, slapping the fire glyph on the Golden Guard’s back.
His gold mask turns toward her casually, “Huh?”
They stand there awkwardly for about a second before the glyph kicks in. The Golden Guard rockets around the ship. He hits the balloon (and Luz is hit by a jolt of fear that it’s going to pop) then the deck, and then he blasts off again like Team Rocket out the front of the ship and into the night sky, screaming all the while. The sound fades, and soon enough, she can’t even see him anymore. It’s just a watercolor night sky with more stars than she ever sees at home.
“…He’ll be fine.” She tells herself, pushing down concern and guilt. She shouldn’t even worry about that, he’s the head of the Emperor’s Coven and right hand to the emperor. She needs to worry about herself, not him.
Luz puts a hand under her chin and analyzes the controls. It looks closer to something like the Millennium Falcon or the Bebop than a car, which she might have been able to figure out? Oh, who is she kidding, she hasn’t taken drivers ed yet, she wouldn’t be able to drive this thing if it did control like a car.
But… but that’s okay. She doesn’t need to drive it, she just needs to get it on the ground. Think Luz, think! “Okay, now how do I land this thing? Huh.”
“Oh, you just pull that cord above your head.”
Oh. Well that seems simple enough. She was expecting something a lot more complicated, “Oh, thank y—”
Wait.
“Hi,” the Golden Guard says, lounging on the controls. He drags out the greeting, encompassing overly familiar villain energy to a T.
With a wave of his staff, red magic envelops her and slams her against the back of the ship. The magic loses its amorphous form to become ropes wrapping around her torso.
“Hey!” She says. Luz kicks and squirms, trying to find a way out.
“Good to see you too, human,” he says, dusting off his shoulder pauldron.
Ugh. What an asshat. “Why are you stealing palismen, Golden Guard?”
“Frankly…” he says, teleporting closer to loom menacingly over her, “You should be more concerned about yourself. For the crime of rocketing me off my own ship, you’ll be locked in the dingiest cell of the Conformatorium for the rest of your sad little life.”
Luz scoffs, “Whatever, I’ve already broken out there, like, twice.
“Then we’ll just zap you to dust and throw you into the sea. That better?”
She grumbles.
“Good,” he says, walking back to the ship’s console. Well, at least he’s less likely to crash the ship than she is. Both his hands are on the wheel, his eyes are presumably on the sky (though it’s so hard to tell with that mask in the way,) and his staff is up against the dash. He seems like he did great in drivers ed, or whatever the Boiling Isles equivalent is for driving airships. Though, she supposes that if they’re all Emperor’s Coven ships, then it’s probably closer to a pilot’s license or even whatever Air Force people have to do to fly fighter jets but—
No! Stay focused Luz! This isn’t just another scout she can run circles around; this is the Golden Guard. This is some proper rival/boss fight territory here. Like Blue from Pokémon. He’s a real opponent. Their battle will be legendary.
She struggles more to get out of her bonds. They’re tight enough that she can’t shimmy them up over her shoulders, and she doesn’t think she can pull them down either. They’re magic, so she doesn’t think that cutting them is an option either. Not that she has anything to cut them with, she doesn’t have glyphs right now.
“Hm?” she says, looking down. Her shoes are scoffing the floor, leaving visible marks. Oh! She could draw a glyph with that! She starts with the outside circle.
“Say,” she asks the Golden Guard, trying to decide what she should make this glyph do, “how did you get back on the ship so fast?”
He takes one hand off the wheel and gestures towards his conveniently unsecured staff, “Staff.”
“Cool,” she responds, smirking. Oh, she’s having fun with this. Luz stomps on the finished ice glyph. A short trail of spikes emerges from the ship’s floor, ending with the large one which knocks the staff—
Directly into the Golden Guard’s hand. He catches it one-handed, steering the ship with the other.
“Clever,” he says, not even deigning to look at her as he does, “but not nearly clever enough. It’ll take more than that to thwart my mission.”
Luz pouts, looking for another way to get control of the situation. She can’t pop the balloon, the palismen will probably get crushed when they land. Plus, she has no idea how fast they’re going or where they are, but if the wind and the tangles it’s creating in her hair are any indication, it’s pretty fast. They’re getting further from Hexside every second, so she has to work fast.
She gets to work drawing a plant glyph so she can grab the staff from his hand and yank it towards her. She takes a breath and looks at the staff, then down at her glyph. With no more hesitation, she steps on the glyph, focusing with all her might on creating a vine whip to steal his staff with.
With just a spare gesture, the Golden Guard cuts down her vine before it can even touch the staff.
“Ooh, that was even worse than last time, human. Are you running out of tricks so soon?”
“You wish!” she snarks back, getting to work on two glyphs. A light and fire combo to distract him, and another plant glyph to snatch the staff. She might not be running out of tricks, but she is running out of floor space.
He just chuckles in response.
She keeps her glyph drawing as silent as possible, thankful that the Golden Guard is a responsible pilot and doesn’t take his eyes off the sky to see what his prisoner is doing.
Suddenly, the radio (or whatever funky version of radio exists here) crackles to life. Luz can just barely make out the words as she pauses drawing to eavesdrop.
“This is Cervix Control to Ivory Six One Eight Zeta; this airship has been reported as hijacked. Please land on platform one three and wait for further instruction.”
“What? That’s impossible,” the Golden Guard says.
“I can assure you; it isn’t. Now if you would please—”
“What, land? So you can waste more of my time? Don’t you know who I am?”
“Sir—”
“I am the Golden Guard and your superior, scout. I’m on a very important mission for the emperor and there can be no delay, especially not for something as ridiculous as a false report?”
“According to protocol—”
“I’m aware of the protocol.” he snaps, “I am on a mission for the emperor and expedience is of the utmost importance, scout. Any other time, I would be happy to comply, but this is more important than protocol.”
There’s silence on the line for a long time.
“I’m sure the emperor will understand if—”
“Are you sure? Have you even met him, scout? Or is a position in Cervix’s air traffic control all you can achieve?”
“Are you refusing to comply with our request to land?”
“Yes, you dimwitted knave, now—” the line audibly clicks dead, “—let me speak to your superior…” he trails off upon realizing that no one’s listening.
Oof. She should have figured the Golden Guard was a Karen.
The Golden Guard in question spits and sputters something about ‘unexperienced scouts’ and ‘no respect for the emperor.’
“…Are we landing?” she asks.
“No, human, I’m not giving you that kind of a chance to escape. Besides, I have a mission. It takes more than incompetent scouts or errant humans to thwart my mission.” he spits, determined.
Luz looks out to the sky and spots two rapidly growing airships in the distance, “How about competent scouts flying airships?”
“What!?” the Golden Guard says, genuinely distressed. She knows that it’s not her doing, but she can’t help being satisfied by it.
Franticly, he presses buttons, flicks levers, and turns dials on the ship’s console. At least, she assumes that’s what he’s doing. She can’t really see from back here.
“Hey, if you’re going to—” he waves his staff and more ropes materialize around her. The ropes wrap around the ship’s balloon supports and lift her off the floor. Darn. Now she can’t even draw glyphs. Luz yelps. “What the hell—” more ropes find their way between her teeth before she can finish the sentence.
Well, at least she’s read this fic before, she thinks.
Haha. This is great. This is just so great, it’s awesome even! It’s so awesome that she’s even making jokes about it! She is tied up, unable to move on an airship piloted by someone who’s threated to kill her twice, surrounded by airships piloted by people who want to kill her.
Any other thoughts she could have are replaced by internal screaming at this point. The Golden Guard is flying like a maniac, speeding up and turning sharply. She shuts her eyes tightly, trying to limit the possibility of throwing up. The downside of this is, of course, that she has no idea what’s going on. Maybe it’s better that way, though. It’s not like she can do anything. Because she can’t do anything. She’s helpless.
That fact sits in her gut like molten lead. It fits in great with her desire to throw up.
The only indication of what direction they’re going in comes from her stomach and boy does her stomach have a lot of opinions on the matter. Eventually, though, it seems to settle on one opinion: down.
That’s probably the worst direction it could have picked. Warily, Luz opens her eyes. They are going down. Fast. The balloon seems to have been torn in the fight. The Golden Guard looks more frazzled than she’s ever seen him, which isn’t saying a lot, but it is saying something.
She’s never been to Cervix before, she realizes, as the ship falls and she thinks about how it might be the last thing she ever sees. Bonesborough has a very fantasy-medieval thing going on, but Cervix looks more like a proper city. It’s like a cross between Bonesborough and New York. There are tall ivory towers that look like they should have lonely princesses inside of them and skyscrapers that look like castles but taller, ramparts and everything.
The towers get closer fast, so close that they disappear beneath the ship. The Golden Guard steers the ship straight toward the tallest, widest building at the center of the city. There are no ramparts on its flat roof, and Luz is sure that if they were going at a reasonable speed, they’d land perfectly fine.
Unfortunately, they are not going at a normal speed, they’re not slowing down, and the Golden Guard is not pulling the cord to land. They’re going to crash into the roof.
They’re going to die.
And there’s nothing Luz can do about it.
It surprises her how quickly she accepts her impending doom. She didn’t want it to go like this, of course, but she didn’t want anything particular in the first place.
You know that moment right before you die is such a gift because you get to choose what goes through your head. You get to choose what your last song will be. Luz thinks of someone she loves very much, smiling at her, holding a DVD case.
Then everything goes dark.