“Stupid friggin camping… stupid firewood…” Allana grumbled to herself as she carefully walked through the scraggly forest that lined the side of the deadlands road. She could see why no one had wanted to live here long term–the trees were crooked and skinny, the underbrush dense and, far too often, thorny. Tenebres had even warned her of a few types of bushes that could make her itch if she so much as touched them.
What sort of monstrous magic would cause something like that? Why would plants be so hateful?
However, there was only so long she could grumble to herself about the indignities of camping before it became repetitive. Gathering firewood was tedious, but it did little to occupy her thoughts, and Allana soon found her mind wandering back to her conversation with Alleghy the day before, and the gift prompt that had caused her to question the healer.
Unfortunately, the older wraith had known little about gift transmutation, having never experienced it for himself. He knew enough to explain that it was a form of gift only certain archetypes could offer, and only to certain gifted who had ensouled item gifts. Why it was limited to those archetypes, and then only to some gifted with the relic gifts, was unknown, even to the learned man. But he had been able to confirm what she had already suspected by the prompt’s wording.
Somehow, for some reason, the Rogue had offered to replace her gift of stealth with the gift of the trickster. Alleghy had proven just as uninformed as to the nature of the latter as Allana was. Adherents of the Rogue tended to be secretive by nature, and few of his blessings were well-known. While Alleghy was familiar with the gift of the assassin and the gift of the illusionist, he had never heard of the trickster.
Which left Allana with a difficult choice, one she had not yet had the courage to make.
Allana, the Violet Edge
Level: Initiate
Gifts:
[Gift of Poison]: +5 to coordination and resilience
[Gift of Stealth]: +3 to coordination and focus
Attributes:
Strength: 5
Resilience: 11 (6 + 5)
Stamina: 5
Coordination: 12 (7 + 5)
Speed: 7
Will: 8
Knowledge: 5
Focus: 8 (5 +3)
Awareness: 7
Charm: 6
Quintessence Pool: 15
[Gift of Poison]
Initiate Level
Experience: -
Receive and level a third gift to progress to Adept
[Toxic Manifestation] - Active, Conjuration - Create a variety of magical poisons, targeting any single attribute. Three potencies of poison can be created, with lesser, moderate, and major quintessence costs respectively.
[Poison Immunity] - Passive, Triggered, Healing - Quintessence is consumed automatically to negate poisons affecting you. Cost is relative to potency and volume of the poison. Mundane or tier one potency poisons are negated at no cost.
[Master of Poison] - Boon - Major boost to coordination and resilience.
[Gift of Stealth]
Level: Apprentice
Experience: N/A
Absorb an Initiate Stealth ensouled item to advance.
Abilities:
[Obscuring Veil] - Active, Illusion - Manifest an illusion that partially masks you from conventional senses. Veil is most effective in darkness or other obscuring conditions. Minor focus cost recurs as long as the veil is active.
[Sneak Attack] - Active, Attack - Make a special attack with potency increased by two tiers. Can only be used on targets unaware of your location. Lesser stamina cost.
[Ensouled Item Conjuration] - Active, Conjuration - Conjure the ensouled item bound to this gift. No cost. Current conjurations: iron dagger, brass dagger.
[Unseen Form] - Boon - Lesser boost to coordination and focus.
Augments:
[Poisoned Conjuration] - Poison, Stealth - Passive, Conjuration - Ensouled items may be conjured already coated in the poison from toxic manifestation. Poisons conjured this way have their quintessence cost reduced by one stage.
On one hand, she could keep her gift of stealth. It had served her well over the years, and she had discovered even more uses for it in her fights with Vernen and Telik, who had forced her to be aggressive with what had originally seemed like a utility gift. Even leaving aside its Veils, Allana was in many ways dependent on the other abilities the gift offered. Trick Attack was her only choice for circumventing potency-based defenses, and no small part of her fighting style was based around the pair of daggers she could conjure at will. She had taken a couple replacement weapons from Geoffrey’s war room, just in case, but the loss of her conjured blades would be significant.
On the other hand, Allana hated her gift of stealth. It was a gift Telik had bought for her, and he had clearly intended it as a way to control her. Ensouled item gifts required ever more advanced–and high level–items to level up, and Allana had no idea where Telik had procured her Novice and Apprentice daggers from. That meant that even though her gift of poison had advanced to Initiate, she was stuck, unable to advance farther until she found an artisan with the right inclinations and power to make an appropriate Initiate ensouled item. And that would cost no small amount of gold, money Allana simply did not have.
Alleghy knew as well as she did that Geoffrey had some wealth hidden away from his more lucrative contracts, but the assassin had taken that treasure’s location to the grave with him. As tension rapidly built on the streets of Emeston, Tenebres had pushed for them to leave without taking the time to search it out, a measure which Alleghy wholeheartedly supported.
Of course he did, Allana groused, he’s probably going to try to take it for himself. Some part of the girl recognized that she was just in a bad mood, and that she had no reason to think so poorly of the healer who had done nothing but help them, but Allana was also willing to admit she had a few trust issues. Tenebres and Geoffrey hadn’t managed to strip away all the hard-earned lessons of the streets in just a few months.
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“I hate summer,” Allana announced to Tenebres as she approached their little camp, dropping her armload of sticks at the side of Tenebres’s fledgling campfire.
“Thanks for sharing.”
“Why is it so sticky?”
“It was just as bad in Emeston, Lana.”
“Yeah but there I could go inside, find somewhere with a coolcrystal. Or there was at least a breeze from the bay!”
“Oh yeah, a breeze that reeked of rotting fish and dirty water. It was soooo great.”
Allana narrowed her eyes at the boy. “Stop being reasonable. I wanna complain.”
“And that’s just wonderful, but it doesn’t mean I want to hear it.” As he spoke, Tenebres carefully fed one stick after another into the slowly growing flames. Apparently, it hit some sort of tipping point, as the boy nodded to himself and slid his strikerod back into his pocket. He had been pleased to find the simple bit of artifice amongst Geoffrey’s supplies. Allana still didn’t get how it worked, but it had let him get their fire going pretty quickly, so she couldn’t complain.
About that, at least.
“Can we eat now?”
Tenebres sighed heavily. “I just checked the snares a couple minutes ago. No catches yet.”
“Well let’s check them again then!” Allana said, exasperated. Having to rely so much on anyone, even Tenebres, was new to her. Their relationship was built, in no small way, on how much the boy had needed her to navigate the dangers of Emeston. Now, out here in the woods, they were much more in the skinny little wraith’s element, and her lack of knowledge was driving her insane.
“The more we check them, the more likely it is that we’ll scare off anything that would wander into them.”
“Okay, then lets–”
“The rations are for when we can’t catch dinner,” Tenebres told her. “If the sun sets without us getting a rabbit, then we’ll eat some trail bread.”
“I hate camping.”
“You’ve said.”
“Yeah, well–”
“Lana.”
“What?”
“Take your pants off.”
Allana blinked. “Seriously?”
“You clearly need to relax. Unless you have a better idea to pass the time?”
Allana pursed her lips thoughtfully, before admitting, “No.”
#
In the night, Allana lay in the deep shadows of the low hanging pine bough Tenebres had arranged their blankets under. The stars no doubt twinkled overhead, but they were blocked out by a ceiling of wood and pine needles. More pine needles carpeted the ground underneath their blankets, providing further cushioning, and the scent of fresh sap filled Allana’s nose with every breath.
They had not ended up having any meat for dinner. One of their snares was destroyed by what could only have been a magical animal, and while the other had worked, the rabbit it had caught had been torn apart by the bramble-spawn that lived in a nearby bush. They had killed the living weed, but there was no recovering the rabbit’s meat. A piece of coarse trail bread and half a small wheel of cheese had ended up being their entire dinner, and despite Tenebres’s best efforts, Allana was still in a bad mood by the time they settled in for bed.
Only now, she couldn’t sleep!
While there were parts of Emeston, like the waterfront, that never truly rested, Allana’s apartment had been in a sufficiently residential area that there had been few interruptions to the quiet serenity of the night. Only the bravest or stupidest residents of Lowrun walked the streets at night, and the few who did so tended to move quickly and quietly. Only rarely had there been enough noise to wake the girl from sleep.
The same could not be said of the forest they were camped in. An endless cacophony of buzzing insects, at every pitch Allana could imagine, filled the night air, and every time she felt relaxed enough to begin falling asleep, an unexpected rustling would have her jumping in place, conjuring her daggers and ready to defend herself. Occasionally, in this distance, there were even more ominous noises, the faint echoes of howls and snarls that spoke of far more dangerous animals.
How was anyone supposed to sleep like this? How did Tenebres manage it?
Hours passed. It had to be past midnight, and still Allana lay in place, desperately urging herself to sleep, trying to calm the reflexes and nerves that had kept her alive in Emeston. Silent tears of helpless frustration spilled down her cheeks as Tenebres slept soundly next to her.
For a moment, she was somewhere else. Laying on a hard wooden pallet, in the dark alone, her parents gone, surrounded by still, slumbering strangers.
It was one of her earliest memories, stirred by her own anxious impotence. It was her first night in the orphanage Telik had taken her to. It had taken her months to be able to sleep soundly in that crowded bunkroom.
That was an essential memory to who she was, even if she hadn’t thought of it in years. Her fear, her loneliness, her frustration, the sourceless disquiet of knowing that you’re the only one left awake, that there was no one left to see your tears as sleep continues to elude you.
Those feelings had become armor and weapons to her, just as real as her conjured daggers. She became strong in her solitude, disdaining the exposure of companionship. She became intimidating in her anger, in her willingness to hit first and hit harder than anyone else. She became secretive in her fear, not wanting anyone to know that she still nursed the quiet weaknesses of that little girl who couldn’t get to sleep in an unfamiliar place.
Allana felt Tenebres stir, and the light weight of a slender arm thrown across her torso, and thought for a moment that her tears had awoken him. But no. His breathing was still slow, steady. He was still asleep. He was just… unconsciously cuddling closer to her. A warm, soft presence, holding her without thought. Her friend. Her companion. Her lover.
Allana blew out a breath, feeling her body relax into Tenebres’s touch. And for the first time in her life, someone comforted that lonely, angry, scared little girl that still lived deep in her mind. Allana had come a long way since she had met Tenebres, but that resentful child inside of her always whispered that it was an act. No matter what he said, what he did, that hateful voice refused to accept his feelings as genuine.
It took that small, seemingly meaningless gesture, to break through to her. An effort to comfort her that was purely instinctive, unconscious, without him even waking up.
For the first time, that abandoned orphan felt warm and safe.
A bush, not far from them, rustled, just a little, as some nocturnal critter darted by.
Allana didn’t flinch, didn’t jump. She just smiled, and she wiggled a little closer to Tenebres, and she fell asleep.
#
“Good morning.”
Tenebres’s soft purr pulled Allana out of a sleep that had already begun to fracture under the light of the morning sun peeking through the branches of their little camp. She had expected to be grumpy as their journey forced her to abandon her typical routine of sleeping until midday, but the lingering warmth of her feelings the night before kept her relaxed.
Thoughtlessly, she turned and placed a soft kiss on Tenebres’s thin lips, inhaling his familiar scent–oiled leather, old blood, odd spices. The boy’s eyes popped open with surprise–then he melted against her, a plush shape of androgynous affection curled into her side. “What was that for?” he asked dreamily after she pulled away.
Allana shrugged a little, a smile dancing over her face as she looked at the pretty little wraith. “Just felt like it.”
Tenebres snorted delicately. “Sleep well?”
“You wouldn’t believe how well.”
“Apparently. I half-expected to wake up to you swearing at the sun.”
“Well, I guess I’m just full of surprises.”
After a few more moments of languid stretches and brief kisses, the two climbed out of their makeshift shelter. Tenebres promptly got to work packing the supplies they had made use of back into their packs, while Allana just sort of floundered about, trying to help him without getting underfoot.
Unlike the day before, her awkwardness didn’t frustrate her. Yes, she was out of her element. Yes, she had embarrassed herself multiple times the day before. No, she hadn’t thought this journey through in her haste to run away from her past.
But she wasn’t alone. She had Tenebres, her first and closest friend. She knew she could trust him, and that they’d be okay as long as they were together.
And so, when an all-too-familiar prompt drew Allana’s attention once again, she was ready for it. And she knew her answer.
