Icarus Awakens

The silent watcher had seen it all and heard most of it before the conversation moved internally. Things had proceeded as it had expected, up until the music. That music. It was impossible and impossibly aggravating. The silent watcher could not hold from making itself known any longer.

“What, are you a fucking Bard now too?” Tlara asked indignantly, shifting her wings back into arms as she landed next to the prone pair.

“Tlara!” For once in his life Daniel seemed glad to see her. “Please, he’s almost gone but with your healing there’s a chance.”

She made one appraising, scornful look at the ringcat’s side and was amazed there was any life left in it. That hardly changed things. “Me, heal that thing? Fuck no.”

“You can save him!”

“It’s not worth my time. Just tame another fucking ringcat, they’re a copper a dozen. Come on, the others are waiting.” She turned, and Daniel finally stood.

Anger? Grief? Tlara didn’t know exactly what was on his face, but it was overwhelming. “Do you have any empathy?” Daniel clenched a fist. “Do you feel anything at all, or are you as dead inside as you think Hunter is?”

“The fuck did you say?” Anger flushed through Tlara as she glared back, just stopping herself from using an ability.

Daniel was unbending in the face of her fury. “You’ve hated me from day one when I did nothing to you. You tried to kill me, you fled like a coward, and now you’re telling me you won’t save my friend because you don’t feel like it?” The fist at his side changed subconsciously. “I’m not level one anymore and I’m done taking your shit. You’re going to heal Hunter or I’m going to make you do it.”

Tlara paused. Daniel wasn’t the meek Spiritualist that had initially joined the team, and now that he’d said it, she had a feeling he’d actually leveled. It was just as impossibly real as the music still playing in the background. That didn’t change her greater fighting experience and overall attributes, but the crux was she hadn’t had a chance to summon another beast after the previous one had died. Shocked, the avianoid realized she was actually in danger. “The fuck do you think is going to happen? Even if you could, you can’t catch me and come back before that fucking thing dies. And when the others hear what you did, they’ll-”

“Stop talking, start healing.” Daniel raised both transformed fists and Tlara prepared to run. Neither would have a chance to act.

Vines snaked around one of the boulders and wrapped around Tlara. “Heal,” Kob commanded as they finally closed on the noise they’d heard too. The main mass was half its original size, but they retained enough strength to squeeze Tlara to the point that she squawked. “Now,” they added.

That changed things for Tlara. Kob was wrapping around her chest and preventing her from breathing, almost to the point of breaking ribs. Against them, she had no chance. She was terrified of what would happen to her if the ringcat died. Tlara would have protested, spoken of laws and rules but there were none here, just the will of the strongest.

She could still murderously glare as she walked slowly to the ringcat. It was practically dead and she could finish it faster than anyone else could react. Daniel would certainly try to kill her for that, but would Kob? She was worth more than this thing. She was valuable enough to not be thrown away for some slight. But this was Kob, the only lifeline in the Thormundz. Even if they didn’t kill her here, defying the gestalt would be as good as killing herself in the long run.

Again, she marveled that the ringcat still clung to life. Its side had been blasted open to the point of directly damaging internal organs. She would have said as much if Kob was letting her breathe, and that she couldn’t be blamed if this thing died despite her best efforts. To make that claim, she would have to try first.

The bare skin of the ringcat felt odd to the touch, not that she touched many living things. Of all the people in the Thormundz, she was one of the few who hadn’t known any of the lost that closely. To Tlara, that was a strength, it kept her head clear, but if she had been able to make friends as fast as Daniel then maybe Kob wouldn’t be crushing her right now.

And the music. It was coming from the object Daniel claimed was his Focus. What she had decided was an enchanted hand mirror was somehow replicating the sound of several instruments at once in a melody unlike anything she’d heard. No, not several instruments, dozens at least! Even if this was a power that stored sound and even if this imbecile had been there to hear this music, where and when had this been recorded?

The pressure relented when the slow trickle of mana passed through her hands and into the dying ringcat. Enough for her to pull in air, but Kob wasn’t completely relenting. Daniel, after seeing what she had been forced to do, was on the ground again soothing his broken tool.

“I won’t forget this,” she rasped.

Concern predominated Daniel’s face now. Not provoked by her threat, but by uncertainty for his pet’s recovery. “I won’t either.” She picked apart the response for any hint of threat in kind or sarcasm, only to find honesty and gratitude. The man looked at the vines around her chest and he frowned. “If you weren’t just so…” he searched for a word. Tlara let him. She wasn’t in a position to do anything else. “I don’t know. Why did it have to come to this? Why couldn’t you just help?”

“It’s just a fucking monster. It’s not even the one you had in the village. Why do you care so much about it?” She glowered, not putting too much venom in her words. There was a fear that the gestalt would retaliate if she got too brazen, but the vines remained as taut as they were and no more. Wait, why does Kob care about this idiot’s pet? Crest, are they a Spiritualist too?

Daniel shook his head sadly as he continued to cradle Hunter’s head. “He is the one I had before. He’s been with me pretty much the whole time I’ve-” He stopped talking suddenly.

What? What was that? Tlara’s sensed a secret, that Daniel was about to inadvertently reveal something he didn’t want her to know. “Since you’ve been what? A Spiritualist?”

“No, I’m not a Spiritualist.” He gave her an odd look like he was sizing her up. “Did Spiritualists kill your family or something?”

“Don’t fucking pretend to understand me,” she shot back. Daniel was clearly stabbing in the dark. “You people are fucking insane. Monsters don’t have souls,” she said firmly, an old wound reopening. “They don’t have spirits, they don’t think, they just fucking kill and destroy unless you have the power to bend them to your will, and then they are nothing but fucking tools! I was trying to teach you that but you know what, why don’t you test out your theory and go hug that dragon in the pass? You’ll fucking see exactly how much of a spirit that has.”

...

Tlara’s tirade washed over Daniel. He was completely numb to it. All he cared about was Hunter, the conversation was just to distract him from the black hole of worry that remained within him. Tlara was at least halting the dimming of Hunter’s aura. Her mana would have limits as much as anyone’s, though, and if she reached her’s before something changed it would still be the end.

But finally, finally, Tlara couldn’t evade his questions anymore. That hadn’t stopped her from being impossible. She’d even worked in another suggestion for him to off himself. When she stopped her rant, he reconsidered his assumption. Spiritualists killing her parents would have been too cliché of a motivation. Maybe it had been just monsters and she hated anyone who offered the slightest bit of defense towards them. Had he defended every monster though? Of course not, she just didn’t seem to get the fact that Hunter was special. The ringcat was just as much of a glitch in the system as he was with his dual advancement and hidden powers. Even before he’d started talking, Daniel had sensed something about the ringcat. Having met others of his kind, it was blindingly obvious Hunter was intrinsically different. Daniel finally found something to say. He didn’t expect it to be this though. “You’re right.”

“What?” Tlara almost squawked again in surprise.

“I never said every monster was like Hunter. I said Hunter was special. Like I keep telling you, I’m not a Spiritualist. Otherwise, yeah, you’re right, monsters are pretty terrible and I don’t blame you for stuffing some in those pouches of yours.” He shrugged. “It’s what your class does.”

Tlara gave him another glare. It felt like her eyes were magnifying lenses that could peer into his soul. He bared it, knowing that his honesty would say as much as his words. The stupefied look that came over her probably meant she’d found that out. “You.” She almost took a hand off of Hunter to point at him before her mind caught up. “Even if that’s true you’re still fucking insane.”

“Lograve believes me. Is he insane too?” Again, outright honesty proved to be Tlara’s undoing. Maybe her insight is high, he wondered as she spluttered. Or whatever the equivalent thing is here.

“You’re lying,” she denied.

“I could prove it to you too if you had his Telepathy.” Daniel mournfully stroked Hunter’s head. “And if he was talking right now.” She didn’t respond to that. Maybe she thinks I’m crazy. “Is it so hard to believe I have an ability that could give Hunter, uh.” He paused as Kob’s main body was suddenly next to him, the vines constricting Tlara still dangling through cracks in the heavily damaged stone armor.

“Grafted.” Kob was, well, it was hard to tell what was going through the gestalt’s mind but their voice carried a sense of wonder.

“No. There is absolutely no fucking way.” Tlara seemed to be taking their meaning and was horrified at the implication, whatever it was.

“What are you talking about?”

Both looked at him with familiar expressions, it coming through even on the gestalt’s false face. Like whatever they were talking about was basic knowledge you would have had to be living in a cave not to know about it. Tlara turned back to Kob and vehemently denied a ‘grafting’ had taken place. Daniel took the opportunity to try and find what they were arguing about in the encyclopedia. Sure enough, ‘The Grafting’ was an entry in the Lore tab. If you could call it that.

The Grafting (Concept, Historical Event, ???)

A notable event in world history. ???

Whatever the unidentification hid, these two seemed to know. Tlara was saying something about it being responsible for everything wrong in the world. That was her default opinion on things she didn’t like though, and Daniel made a mental note to ask Lograve about it. He looked back at the two and realized he couldn’t see Hunter’s ribs anymore. The healing was slow, but it was working! If Tlara was able to stabilize Hunter, even while still missing a good portion of flesh, Regeneration would get him the rest of the way.

Daniel pushed his way into the ringcat’s senses. It was the only way to know for sure, and Hunter wasn’t there to stop him. Terrible, blinding pain was all he felt, enough that he could only hang on for a few seconds. In the first moment he thought Tlara was torturing Hunter as the pain was greatest where her hands were, until it occurred to him that this is what nerves would make of Hunter’s body when they were repaired. The pain was the healing, so mortal the wound that the body would rather die than experience it. Yet, the bound Tlara was forcing it to. And arguing, the voices muffled through Hunter’s troubled sensorium. She wasn’t letting Hunter die, if only because of what Kob would do to her if he did. Slowly, Hunter was moving away from mortal peril. A few minutes, maybe less, was all that was needed.

“How much longer can you do this?” Daniel asked when he was back in his body, slightly shaken by the degree of pain that had shunted him back. He’d interrupted the mostly one-sided conversation, but he had to know.

Tlara tightened her beak as if to withhold the answer, but relented. “A few hours. Fuck, but we can’t stay out here that long. Wyverns are going to be attracted to this thing’s body and even you can’t fight them right now!” she said pointedly to Kob.

“We only need three minutes, so long as someone can carry him.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” The estimate was more precise than Daniel had expected, but it had come to him the moment before he’d said it. Quick Mind, maybe? “But that will just keep him from dying. I don’t know how long it’ll take for Hunter to fully heal. Days?”

“Return. Recover.” Kob nodded, and Tlara agreed with that at least.

The absence of the other two team members dawned on him at last. “Wait, where’s Sigron and Khare?”

“Sigron’s a fucking mess but he’ll make it to the city. After what you did to his shoulder I’m not sure what will happen. As for Khare?” she looked at Kob, and a small mass of vines climbed to the surface. When it collected on the ground, it didn’t even come up to Daniel’s hip.

The mass flattened, and the end of a crossbow stuck out. Daniel pulled out his undamaged weapon in disbelief. “Thanks Khare. Are you going to be ok?”

“Recover,” Kob said for their kin, and reabsorbed the smaller vines.

That meant they’d only lost one party member today. Even though she wouldn’t care, he wanted to say the words. “I’m sorry about your spark beetle, Tlara. Not because you lost a friend but because I know what that means for your powers.”

“I was going to replace that fucking thing anyways,” Tlara needlessly parried the condolence. “I’ll be level three after today.”

“You advanced? But you ran.”

“The Octyrrum rewards bravery and prudence evenhandedly.” Tlara sounded exactly like Lograve there. It was probably a common saying. “We never should have been on that fucking rock to begin with. If you had left when I did then maybe your ringcat wouldn’t be near dead. We were only there because you wanted to know if you could punch above your level.” She glared at the gestalt, and realization bloomed on her face. “Wait, you’re making me do this because you feel guilty?”

Kob didn’t have an answer for her immediately. They seemed to take their own measure before rumbling, “Five.”

“You’re not serious.” The stone head nodded and Tlara’s eyes grew wide. “You’re just going to make your level disparity worse!"

“Necessary.”

“Fuck that!”

Daniel picked up on the subtext. “That’s what we’re doing. Murdon and Lograve are training everyone to be strong enough to fight the dragon at the pass. You figured out what they want you to do there, didn’t you?”

“Endure,” Kob said with a nod.

“There is no fighting that thing,” Tlara protested. “We’d be fighting it on a fucking lake, without cover, and with hundreds of people to guard. Even if we abandoned everyone useless and just fought through, the only people who’d survive would be those who ran while the rest died fighting it.”

“Lograve is smart. He and Murdon have to have some kind of plan,” Daniel countered.

“He nearly died the first time and I still don’t know how he made it out of there. It’s fucking pointless!”

“Then what are you doing? Why not try to make it over the mountains yourself?” Daniel looked around. “Maybe there’s a path to the other side here?”

“I’d get picked apart before I crossed the peaks. If you go giving yourself enough level disparity that you can be knocked over with a stiff breeze then nothing matters!” she shot to Kob.

“That’s enough,” Daniel tried to defuse the situation.

“The fuck!?”

“That’s enough healing,” Daniel clarified. Hunter was stirring, and he’d briefly shared the ringcat’s senses again to confirm it. The pain was immense, but the injury on Hunter’s side had been stitched together enough that it wouldn’t fall apart immediately. His Quick Mind estimate still had some time left, but Hunter had reached the bare minimum needed for survival. He looked Tlara in the eyes and held the gaze. “We’ve had our differences, but even if you were forced to do this that doesn’t change the fact that you did it. We don’t have to be enemies.”

Tlara responded with just two words. “Bite me.”