Chapter Text
“Should be around here.”
The alleys of Vyseheim's industrial district are quiet, at this early hour of the morning. Mostima had insisted on getting up this early, but she doesn't look tired at all. Unlike Fiammetta, who feels a little like death walking, mostly because Mostima managed to get her drinking last night, damn her.
She just grunts in response. Mostima shoots her an amused look from under her hood. “Got a headache, Crimson Plague?”
“Do not call me that.”
“Why not? I like it. Probably my favorite since Suffering.”
Fiammetta rubs at her temples with one hand. “If I didn't have a headache already, I'd have one now. You found your drop-off location yet?”
“Yeah,” Mostima glances around the empty street, sharp eyes taking in the sights. “You know the drill. I'll be back.”
“You'd better be,” Fiammetta mutters, and then walks to the side of the street to slump against a wall. She pulls the loose cap she's wearing down over her eyes, crosses her arms, and tries to think back to last night. There's a vague memory of when they first went to the bar, supposedly so Mostima could be on the look-out for something related to the client. Then there was some sort of bet, or challenge. And then the next thing Fiammetta remembers is swearing profusely at Mostima with one hand over the other's shoulders as she was supported back to their lodging house.
Whatever it was for, Mostima certainly deserved it.
Fiammetta is nursing both her hangover and a little bit of indulgent self-pity when she realizes that she isn't alone, and it's not Mostima, whose presence she would recognize easier than anyone's. She hears them first. Soft sounds of instruments, violins and clarinets, tickling at her ears. In Leithanien, if you hear this outside of a music hall, it means danger.
She keeps her head down, subtly shifting her stance, right arm dropping down to her side. The music gets louder, closer. Her fingers brush the top of her weapon. Tilting her head slightly, she can see them out of the corner of her eye: a group of identically robed people, faces masked, Arts-weaving instruments in hand. Walking over to her, which isn’t promising.
Abruptly, Fiammetta looks up.
“Can I help you?” she asks neutrally.
“Where is the artifact?” says one of the casters, voice rough and muffled by the mask.
“No idea what you're talking about,” Fiammetta replies, her fingers closing around the handle of her weapon.
“We know your companion had it on her.”
“She isn't here.”
“Then where is she?” The discordant music grows louder.
Fiammetta swiftly hefts her weapon up and points it at them. “Get lost.”
“Take her down!” roars their apparent leader. “The other will come back for her!”
They converge on her, their Arts-music growing ever louder. Fiammetta pulls her trigger. She feels the heat of the fiery projectile against her own face before it explodes out of her weapon and towards the casters. Swiftly, she dodges to the side, making to get herself out from where she was trapped between the group and the wall. One of the casters quickly makes a shield from her Arts, protecting them from Fiammetta's projectile.
It smells like smoke, and the music still plays.
She backs up and assesses the situation: not great, but doable. The major problem being that their Arts are unpredictable and Fiammetta has none of her own — but then she catches a glimpse, behind them, of a dark hood hiding a familiar figure, and her shoulders relax.
To reassess: with two, it's a cinch.
Their eyes meet. A brief glance. Then they move in tandem born of years of experience. Mostima raises her staves to the sky and calls on her Arts, the crackle of her power tangible in the air, interrupting the music as the casters pivot, their robes whirling as they split their attention between the two threats. Fiammetta shoots another fireball right into their crowd as she continues to back up, causing them to scatter. With a fluid strike of her staff in the air, Mostima's Arts push the group further away — close to a skeleton of wooden rafters.
The music is pierced by a shout. One of the casters yells something in Leithanien, and then all of them are casting in unison.
Fiammetta shoots again, but she can do nothing but watch from the other side of the group as the massive Arts attack closes in on Mostima.
Seeing the wave of energy approach her, Mostima quickly switches tactics and raises her weapons in a defensive stance, generating her own shield.
The attack crashes against Mostima's hastily constructed defenses with a crashing roar. A light so blinding Fiammetta has to shield her eyes illuminates the street in the early morning. But she knows what to do. Hoping Mostima held her own, she raises her weapon to aim for the rafters and blasts them.
The force of impact causes the rafters to shake and break apart, falling down on their attackers below. Fiammetta jumps back, barely dodging the debris herself.
The music has finally stopped.
Not bothering to check whether their assailants were knocked out or dead, Fiammetta immediately rounds the pile of wood, running to where she finds Mostima swaying on her feet. Her staves are on the ground, smoking with the power they summoned.
“You good?” she asks, in the moment forgetting to hide her worry.
“Ugh,” Mostima groans, and nearly tips over. Fiammetta catches her easily, and tugs an arm over her shoulder, supporting her in a neat reversal of their position last night. Mostima leans down to pick up her weapons and throw them on her back. “Just a little woozy. I don't know what they hit me with, but it interacted really weirdly with my own Arts.”
“That doesn't sound good.”
“You can never tell with this stuff, but in all odds I just need to sleep it off.”
“Let's go, before any of these guys get back up again,” Fiammetta says, and, still assisting Mostima with walking, starts to head away from the scene of the attack. “By the way, any clue why they attacked us?”
“Nope.”
“Really? None at all?”
“I mean, this stuff is par for the course for Penguin Logistics.”
Fiammetta sighs. “They said something about an artifact.”
“Must have been the package,” Mostima says dismissively. “Gave it to the client already, not my business.”
“Alright, fair enough.” Fiammetta glances behind them, at the pile of rubble that used to be the rafters. “Think we should report that?”
“Probably.”
They hobble over to the nearest Gendarmerie station, a few blocks away. One of them stands on guard outside the building, so Fiammetta just approaches him, shifting Mostima's arm around her shoulder.
“Excuse me,” she says. “I, um. My companion and I got attacked by some people in robes and masks a couple streets down.”
The officer straightens to attention, looking at her. “Attacked? Where, exactly?”
“Round that corner and a few blocks straight down,” Fiammetta says, gesturing with her free hand. “There was some, uh, collateral damage.”
“Are you alright?” the officer asks. Fiammetta is at first silent, assuming he means Mostima, who is leaning against her slightly, still panting. But then she realizes he's looking directly at her.
“Yeah, I'm fine.”
He's looking at her strangely. “And your companion?”
“...She'll be fine, too.” Fiammetta shifts awkwardly, Mostima practically lying upright on her shoulder.
“I just need some—” Mostima begins, but the Gendarmerie officer cuts her off.
“Go inside and fill out a report,” he says. “Make sure to leave your contact info in case we have more questions. I'll go check out the area you've mentioned.” He eyes Fiammetta's flamethrower cautiously. “And this ‘collateral damage.’”
“Sorry about that,” she mutters, and then shuffles around him to go indoors.
Once they're inside, Fiammetta gently lowers Mostima onto a chair in the waiting room. “That was weird. And rude.”
Mostima just shrugs. “It's whatever.”
“I'll go fill out the forms. Don't go anywhere.” She says it out of habit, and then feels a little guilty, because Mostima looks too exhausted to go anywhere. But she gets a tired smile for her efforts.
“I'll be right here,” Mostima says, and yawns.
By the time Fiammetta comes back, Mostima seems to have regained a bit of energy back, and doesn't need to lean on her to walk. They still take it slow on their way back to the lodging house.
“You really ought to consider a different side job,” Fiammetta grumbles. “I swear this happens every other week. What kind of stuff are you even transporting?”
“And you ought to know better than to ask me that by now,” Mostima huffs, but a small smile graces her face. “Besides, I've got my bodyguard here with me. Obviously I'll be fine.”
“I'm not your bodyguard!”
“Sorry, sorry. I meant my babysitter.”
Fiammetta grunts in annoyance and speeds up her gait, leaving Mostima chuckling behind her. It's a little petty, but it's not like Mostima would actually care. In any case, it's only a few minutes before she starts to feel guilty and lets Mostima catch up to her stride again.
When they get to the house they've rented a room in, Fiammetta holds the door open for her. “Go take a nap,” she tells Mostima. “I'll extend our stay for a night. The bureaucracy took long enough that we're not getting out of here tonight, anyway.”
Mostima nods gratefully and makes for the stairs. Fiammetta walks up to the front desk.
“Hi, I'd like for us to stay another night, if that's possible. My companion is a little unwell.”
The inn owner, an elderly Elafian woman, looks up from her ledgers and schedules, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Your companion? Aren't you in a single?”
“No, a double. 2B,” Fiammetta replies.
“I don't…” The innkeeper looks down dubiously. “Oh, it does say here, you’re in the double. Strange, I could have sworn you were alone. My memory must be failing me in my old age… Anyway, it's open for another night. That's fine.”
Fiammetta quickly settles the bill, and then takes the stairs to their room. When she steps inside, she sees Mostima standing in the middle of the room, staring down at her hands.
“Mostima?” she asks, approaching her. “Weren't you going to lie down?”
Mostima startles, the strange look on her face disappearing as she turns to look at Fiammetta. “...Yeah, I was. Did you get us the room?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Fiammetta replies, and takes off her holstered weapon and bag to place them on her bed. “You want me to go get us some dinner or something?”
“Aw, you're taking care of me so well.”
“Or I could let you starve.”
Mostima shakes her head, smiling. “Don't worry about it, anyway. I'm not hungry.” She wraps a hand around the other wrist, rubbing it slowly. “Just… need that nap, I guess.”
She walks slowly over to the bed. Fiammetta watches her suspiciously for a moment, before she sits down at the room's small desk, and pulls out paper and pen. Time to write up the day for her overseers.
For a while, there's only the sound of her pen scratching on the page.
Then: “Fiammetta.”
She startles. Mostima only uses her name when it’s serious. She turns around in the chair immediately, in time to see Mostima sit up slowly, looking… looking worryingly blank, her normal neutral smile gone from her face.
“What's wrong?” Fiammetta says immediately.
“I think… something's happened to me,” Mostima replies, speaking slowly, carefully.
Fiammetta immediately stands and walks over to her. “Tell me.”
“Sit down and put out your hands.”
She frowns, but obeys, taking a seat on her thin bed, facing Mostima. Their knees almost knock against one another. She places out her hands, palm-up, and Mostima carefully places her own on top of them.
“Just watch. I'm not sure, maybe I'm seeing things.”
“Watch your hands?” Fiammetta frowns, but looks down at Mostima's pale, small hands. They sit in silence for some time, both with their heads bent down. Fiammetta is about to ask what she's looking for when she finally sees it —
For the briefest of moments, Mostima disappears.
Like a blink out of existence, there's a second where Fiammetta is staring down at her own palms. But not even that exactly — it's almost as if Mostima glitches, going briefly distorted, like an image on a screen, before disappearing and then glitching back to being present.
“Shit!” Fiammetta immediately grips Mostima's hands tightly in her own, as if she'd disappear again that very second. “What was that?!”
“I don't know,” Mostima replies, her voice slow and measured. “I noticed it when you were downstairs. It's been happening every half an hour or so.”
Fiammetta opens her mouth and then closes it again. She's still squeezing Mostima's hands. “What — could you feel it?”
“Sort of… It feels like — everything just goes dark for a second, not like I can't see, but like I can't feel, or breathe, or hear all at the same time. Hey, Fia, you're gonna break my bones here.”
She forces herself to let go of Mostima's hands. “What do we do? Go to a medic?”
“I don't have any better ideas.”
Mostima hates doctors. That's enough to show how nervous she is. Fiammetta nods. “We should have a little time. Let’s go quickly, and maybe we can see someone before they close for the night.”
“We're here for my companion, she needs to be checked out,” Fiammetta says at the hospital front desk, urgency in her voice.
Mostima stands behind her, used to Fiammetta doing all the talking while she lurks in the background or takes care of her own business. She has her hands in her pockets and her hood up, hiding her face. On the way there Fiammetta saw her blink out of existence twice.
The Feline receptionist nods, not affected at all by Fiammetta's request. “Is your companion here?”
Fiammetta gestures behind her without looking. “This one.”
The receptionist glances over her shoulder, and then back at her. “She go to the toilet or something?”
“What?” Fiammetta turns around. Mostima is right there, frowning. “No? She's right here?”
When she looks back, she can see that the Feline is more alert than she was before. “Ma'am, there's no one there,” she says. “I can, however, get you in to see someone now.”
“What are you talking about?!” Irritated and impatient, Fiammetta grabs Mostima's arm and waves it about. “Hello? Girl in the blue hood? Right here?”
“She can't see me,” says Mostima quietly.
“What?”
They both look at the receptionist, who is staring at Fiammetta with a good deal of concern.
“She can't see me,” Mostima repeats, louder. She clears her throat. “Or hear me.”
Fiammetta is stricken. She looks between Mostima and the receptionist, unsure what to do until Mostima tugs at her wrist. “Let’s go,” she says, “This is useless.”
“Shall I… show you to the doctor?” says the receptionist uncertainly.
“No.” Fiammetta presses her lips together, unsure what else to say. “No, I… I'm good, thanks. I'll just go.”
They walk out of the building in silence. As soon as they exit, Fiammetta tugs Mostima into a dark corner, where they can't be seen. Well. Where she can't be seen.
“Mostima, this is bad,” she hisses. “It's like you weren't there to her! We need to find out what's going on. Why couldn't she see you, and who else does it affect?”
Mostima exhales slowly, but her face is pale. “Alright. Let's see who else passes by. I'll try to get their attention.”
The next hour or so passes like a horror show. Fiammetta stays where she is, leaning against the wall in the shadows, watching as Mostima walks up to random passersby and tries to get their attention. It'd be funny if it weren't quite so alarming.
“Excuse me.”
“Sorry, can you…”
“Pardon…”
“Hey!”
Mostima, unflappable as she normally is, seems to be getting frustrated. As one man passes by, she reaches out and grabs his elbow.
He reacts immediately, spinning around to try and deck her. Luckily, Mostima has quick reflexes and dodges his arm. “Shit, what's wrong with you?! Popping out of nowhere like that and grabbing a guy this late at night.”
“You can see me?” asks Mostima, shocked. Fiammetta straightens where she's standing, a spark of hope alighting within her.
“You think you're clever? It's not that dark,” says the man. “Jeez, I don't care what you want, I have places to be.” He turns to leave.
“Hey, wait!” Mostima calls out, but he doesn’t respond. She jogs to catch up to him, and reaches out to tug at his shoulder.
His reaction is exactly the same. Again, Mostima ducks to avoid his swing.
“Hey, what's wrong with you?!” he says. “At least say something before you touch a guy, sheesh!”
Even from a couple of yards away, Fiammetta can see Mostima swallow. “Sorry,” she says. “Never mind.”
“I have places to be,” the man says again, and walks off.
Immediately, Fiammetta leaves her place by the wall and goes up to Mostima. “He saw you for a second.”
“But he seemed to forget me again a moment later,” Mostima murmurs. “Like I never was there in the first place…”
Fiammetta begins to pace, concentrating on the ground beneath her as she thinks. “It must be connected. It's like the world doesn't want you to exist. Not only are you just plain disappearing, but you also don't stick in people's vision or in their memories.”
She makes a frustrated noise. “We need more information. Should we try and find those casters who attacked us?”
“I guess it couldn't hurt, but I don't think they'll know anything. Their attack didn't seem to be anything special, I think it was my Arts that fucked it up. Or the Lock and Key, when I defended myself with them.” Mostima rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms, clearly exhausted. “And anyway. We know one really important thing.”
“Which is?”
Mostima drops her hands and looks Fiammetta straight in the eyes. Even then, she blinks out of place for a moment, disappearing and reappearing in quick succession. “You. You see me.”
Fiammetta just stares back. “Yeah, I mean… of course I do.” But as she thinks about it, she realizes how strange it is. “Well, maybe that's because… I already know you? Everyone else here is a stranger. Or… because I was there when it happened?”
“Whatever it is,” Mostima says quietly, “I'm… glad.”
Fiammetta looks away, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. “Yeah, well. Like I could forget you. I mean, it's my job and all.”
That makes Mostima laugh.
“I know,” she says. “Come on. Let's go to bed. If we're lucky, this will wear off by the morning. And if we're not, we'll go back to the Gendarmerie and see if they caught our attackers.”
“Alright.” Fiammetta sighs. She wants them to be lucky. But they rarely ever are.
In the morning, Mostima is still — flickering, for lack of a better word. It hasn't changed, or increased in frequency, though they timed it just in case. They pack up their things, and make their way to the Gendarmerie station, where the officers have indeed locked up a few of the casters from the day before.
“Can I just talk to them?” Fiammetta asks, Mostima standing behind her, unnoticed. “They used some weird Arts on my companion, and she's… suffering from some serious side effects. I want to know what they did.”
They agree to let her, with supervision, and that's how Fiammetta enters the holding area, Mostima slipping in quietly behind her. There's a person in a jail cell, wearing the same robes as the casters from yesterday, but she's unmasked. Her face is that of an average person, a Caprinae’s horns curling from the back of her head.
She scowls when she sees them. Fiammetta glares right back at her.
“What did you do to her?” she demands without preamble.
“I don't know what you’re talking about,” the Caprinae says haughtily, crossing her arms. “And if I did, I wouldn't tell you!”
Unfortunately, that sets the tone for the rest of the meeting. Fiammetta curses and yells and the prisoner sneers and turns her nose up. She gets no information out of her at all.
Finally, Mostima sighs and places a hand on Fiammetta's shoulder. “Repeat after me, okay?”
“What?” Fiammetta hisses quietly, keeping her eyes fixed on the prisoner.
“Repeat after me: I guess your Leithanien Arts couldn't have done it, anyway.”
“I… guess your Leithanien Arts couldn't have done it, anyway,” Fiammetta repeats reluctantly, and turns away from the prisoner.
Immediately, she looks up. “What?”
“Your musical Arts probably weren't strong enough,” Mostima says.
Fiammetta repeats the words, feeling a little awkward and stilted, but it seems to work. The Caprinae jumps up, and she practically has steam coming out of her ears.
“Hardly! That wasn’t close to the best we could do! If your friend hadn't shielded herself, she'd be a pile of dust right now! We underestimated her own power in protecting one person, that's all!”
“So that's all it was meant to do?” Fiammetta zeroes in on the comment. “Blast her apart? Not… disappear her, or anything like that?”
“What are you yapping about?” The prisoner sits back down, seeming to realize she'd been played, but not caring anymore. “It was a combined effort of our Arts to be used in battle to destroy our enemies. Not unlike your stupid rocket launcher, but without the metal bits. Whatever happened to your friend was her own mistake. We weren't doing anything unnatural.”
Fiammetta exhales slowly. That answers her question, but gets them nowhere. She thanks the security officer (pointedly not the prisoner) and leaves, Mostima at her side.
They're quiet once they leave the building. Finally, Fiammetta turns to her.
“We need to go back to Laterano,” she says.
Mostima nods. “Agreed. We'd better see if other people I know… remember me, like you.”
“His Holiness couldn't be affected by whatever this is,” continues Fiammetta with all the faith she can muster. “He'll see you. You and what you carry are too important to Laterano. It'll be a high priority to figure this out.”
She isn't sure if she's trying to comfort Mostima or herself.
Mostima settles into her new situation with an unfathomable ease.
“We don't have to buy me a seat,” she says, when they get to the transport convoy that will take them south to Laterano.
“Yes we do,” Fiammetta hisses at her quietly, trying her best not to look completely unhinged as she talks to a person no one else can see.
“No we don't. Why waste the money?”
“Where are you going to sit if we don't get you a spot?”
“On your lap, of course.”
Fiammetta resists the childish urge to step on Mostima's foot, and buys them two tickets.
It feels like every time she turns around, Mostima is somewhere else, taking advantage of her newfound imperceptibility to peer over people's shoulders, examine their belongings, or listen in on and laugh at their conversations. If she weren't blinking in and out of existence every thirty or so minutes, one would almost think she had just figured out how to do this to herself, and had done it on purpose.
Fiammetta doesn't get how calm she is about the whole thing. She'd seemed freaked out earlier, at least as freaked out as Mostima can get, but now she's back to her perfectly calm self, with that small, unreadable smile ever present on her face. Clearly, Fiammetta has to do the worrying for the both of them — and she already feels like she's doing that, and more.
What if they can't figure this out? What if even His Holiness can't see Mostima? What if it doesn't go away, or worse, what if it gets even more serious? What if —
“You're spiraling,” Mostima says, popping out of nowhere. She hands Fiammetta a cake pop. “Have a sweet and calm down.”
She takes it automatically, but then looks at it suspiciously. “Don't tell me you stole this.”
“I left some cash on the counter, don't worry.”
“Mostima, I fucking swear…”
“It's so weird,” Mostima says, ignoring her masterfully, “people just bump into me, and then they look all confused for a second, and then they just keep walking like nothing happened. I'm getting good at dodging them, though.”
“Just stay close to me.”
“Alright, Crimson Plague.”
“Mostima!”
The convoy is a Lateran one, which they were lucky to find. It means it was pretty easy to get their seats — if they'd been from anywhere else, or any other race, they might've had an issue. Then again, if they'd been from anywhere else, they probably wouldn't be going to Laterano right now in the first place.
They're also lucky that Laterano and Leithanien are pretty close to one another, regardless of where the nomadic cities happen to be at the time, and as a result there are fairly frequent convoys that only take one night to reach their destination.
Fiammetta and Mostima have two seats in the one passenger vehicle in the convoy. Sankta and their guns can be seen around every corner, patrolling and preparing for departure. Fiammetta lets Mostima take the window seat and takes the aisle herself. Just in case someone thinks the seat is empty and tries to sit on Mostima, she can stop them.
“So thoughtful,” teases Mostima when she says so.
“Shut up.”
A passenger walking by gives Fiammetta an odd look. Flushing a little, she turns away, glaring at Mostima to make herself feel better.
“Guess I can just say whatever and you can't stop me, huh?” says Mostima, crossing her legs as she gets comfortable.
“Are you trying to antagonize me when I'm literally the only person you can talk to right now?” snaps Fiammetta. But she instantly regrets it. She knows Mostima can't be having an easy time of it right now, and joking about like she does has always been a defense mechanism. “Fuck. …Sorry.”
But Mostima doesn't look upset or offended. “Don’t worry about it. I know you won’t leave me. It’s your job, after all.”
Fiammetta huffs, with nothing else to say.
But Mostima can, indeed, say whatever she wants and Fiammetta is unable to stop her. And she takes advantage of it. When the staff comes over to check their tickets, Mostima murmurs a joke about their hair into her ear. Distracted, Fiammetta has to stammer out an excuse for why her friend couldn’t make it to the convoy in time. Even worse, a couple hours into their journey a man comes over and starts flirting, asking if he can sit next to her. In one ear Fiammetta has some guy talking nonsense; in the other, Mostima teases her and asks if she should take a walk and give them some time alone. The only bright side is that sheer annoyance stops her from worrying over Mostima’s situation as much as she could be.
But not even Mostima can be entertained by this forever, and by the evening they’ve fallen into a relatively amicable silence. Mostima stares out the window while Fiammetta leans back in her seat, thinking of who they’ll go see first when they get back to Laterano in the morning.
After a while, Mostima speaks. “Should we do bets on whether or not His Holiness can see me?”
Fiammetta feels a pit in her stomach at the thought. “No. I don’t want to bet on that.”
“Hm.” Mostima doesn’t fight her on it. “What’s the plan, then?”
“That’s the only plan. Check in with His Holiness. Everything hinges on… what he says.”
“He’ll probably give me another assignment,” Mostima groans.
Fiammetta doesn’t say that another Legata job sounds like the best possible outcome here.
“It’s about time you did something for Laterano again,” she says instead, after a brief pause. “You might as well be useful for once.”
“Wow, that’s mean.” Mostima leans back in her own chair, turning her head to look at Fiammetta. She looks back at her. Lying next to each other like that, their faces are too close for comfort, but Fiammetta doesn’t feel like moving. “And what about you? Are you serving Laterano well enough by following me around?”
“Sure am,” Fiammetta says without hesitation. Mostima laughs, and then tilts her head just slightly, so that her forehead lands on Fiammetta’s shoulder. She shifts to allow the contact. Moments like this are rare between them. On most days Fiammetta doesn’t even refer to her as a friend, preferring to call Mostima her traveling companion, or her charge. But every once in a while… it’s nice. This is nice.
Fiammetta shifts slightly, so her cheek presses against Mostima’s hair, and closes her eyes.