Vigor Mortis

Day arrives too soon, light oozing in through the windows and frustrating my body enough to force it awake. I lie motionlessly in bed for quite some time after, however, not paying attention to my soul sense or meditating or cycling mana or thinking or planning or anything at all. I just stay still, holding Rosco and wishing that I was still unconscious.

I haven't done this sort of thing in a long time. Back when I was starving, back when I was alone on the street with nothing to look forward to, some days were like this. Days when I lacked the energy to even beg for food, mustering only enough attention to pray for the ground to open and drop me to my demise. It was Lyn who ultimately chased those days away, who gave me something to live for and eventually kept me alive long enough for my true self to awaken, a moment which has dictated the entirety of my life since.

I suppose I should get up and go see her, now that I'm back. No doubt she's worried sick.

Half an hour later, I manage to rise to my feet and start strapping on my armor. No one pilfered it in the night to get it cleaned. That was probably something Norah used to do. I don't personally care if my armor is covered in blood or not. If anything, having viscera all over me is probably a good deterrent against getting mugged, in the rare cases the armor and weapon alone aren't enough. You have to be ten kinds of stupid or desperate to draw a knife on someone already splattered with death and expect anything to work out for you. Of course, all of the blood on my armor is either from that giant flying vrothizo, from my own team, or— mostly— from me. Everything else I just killed with a soul pull or avoided. There's still a huge hole in the armor, on the back of the left knee, where Lark bit me. I wonder how she's doing. Probably terrible. But what do I know? I’ve had three conversations with her and two of them ended with fights to the death.

I spend another five minutes staring at Norah's bed before grabbing my spear and exiting my room. I feel Penelope in the medical ward and… wow. Sky is still here. Has he just been waiting this whole time? I thought he said he was busy. Actually, it's more likely that he left and just came back before I actually started moving. I suppose I should go talk to him.

Instead of doing that, I head to the medical ward. Penelope seems exhausted, and I should drag her with me to get some breakfast so she doesn't forget to eat. If there's one aspect of my stupid meat sack that I don't have to worry about forgetting, it's eating. The need to consume food is drilled so thoroughly into me after a decade and a half of starvation that I don't need to feel hunger to know when it is time to eat. Which is to say, it's always time to eat.

"Good morning, Vita," Penelope sighs, and I remember to glance up and actually take in how she looks. I would describe her as 'haggard,' insofar as anyone who puts as much effort into their appearance as Penelope can be. Her normally done-up hair is slowly coming apart, ever so slightly frazzled. She moves with exhausted purpose, pushing herself hard. She's not looking at me as she says hello, busy casting spells on a man with a missing leg.

In other words, I find her doing all the things that I've been told not to do. I let myself smile a little at that.

"Breakfast time, Penelope," I tell her.

She pauses for a moment, turning to face me with a soul radiating bemusement.

"Since when do you fetch other people for breakfast?" she asks. "Doesn't it cut into your valuable eating time?"

"You told me to pay more attention to the physical," I say. "That includes you."

A very small, slight blush stains her cheeks, accompanied by a surge of attraction in her soul. My immediate emotional response to this is revulsion. I shouldn't have asked, I should have just… no, that's me falling into a bad habit again. Why do I feel like this?

I certainly don't find Penelope physically attractive, but if anything that's a point in her favor. Finally hitting puberty has been more an annoyance than anything, and though I have to say I find the physical changes least pleasant the physical inclinations are a close second. My eyes like to linger on men now, soaking in sights that fill me with new sorts of feelings. They are innocuous enough on their own, even weirdly pleasant, but then my brain skips further in daydreams or night dreams and the resulting fantasies fill me with indescribable revulsion. It's an infuriating paradox, wherein my body wants to do things it also desperately does not want at all. The idea of physical intimacy makes me shiver with dread.

So is that why I find these feelings from Penelope so offensive? I don't think so. This feels separate, and I don't know why. If anything, this takes my already-loyal best friend and makes her even more reliably on my side. It's like…

It's like the way that Revenants feel about me. Except I can't order her around or know that she'll forgive anything. She is still her own person, so rather than reducing the degree to which I need to worry about her it does the opposite. It's an obligation, not a boon. Something I have to manage, something that alters our relationship in a way that I don't know how to and don't want to handle. She wants things now that I very vividly do not want, and I have no idea how my arrogant noble friend might handle rejection. But surely she's insightful enough to recognize that I might feel this way? I don't know. Penelope is very, very important to me. I might even love her. But I do so like I love Lyn, not like how Lyn loves Rowan. I respect Penelope, I owe Penelope, and if anyone hurts Penelope I will deliver unto their soul the most malicious torture I can conceive before ripping it asunder. But I don't really want to date Penelope.

Or at least, I don’t think so. That’s how it feels, but in truth I have no idea why that is a distinction that matters to me, or even what that distinction means.

"Well," Penelope manages after a brief pause. "I have been working all night, so I suppose it would be acceptable to take a break to eat."

"I'll take over, then."

Claretta has been lying in one of the patient beds, but at her words she grabs a cane off the floor and carefully, shakily stands up. Penelope scowls at her.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," she chides.

"Tried," Claretta grunts. "Didn't work out. Go eat."

Penelope opens her mouth to protest before glancing at me, another flash of desire changing her mind. I don’t like that either. Penelope is supposed to be the logical one, the smart one, the one I can always rely on to have done the thinking on anything she says or does. Perhaps I'm being overdramatic, though. She's still Penelope, of course she's still smart. We head to the cafeteria together, Penelope clearing her throat to speak as I shovel stew into the biggest bowl I can get my hands on.

"So… how are you holding up?" she asks.

"Fine?" I answer. "I haven't had any problems since you healed me."

"Not physically, Vita," she clarifies. "We lost a lot of people on that mission. How are you holding up?"

I frown, wrapping Norah's soul in a tentacle and rotating it idly in my grasp.

"People die," I remind her simply.

Penelope raises an eyebrow, somehow managing to look dainty and proper as she hastily inhales breakfast.

"That's an interesting coping phrase you've got there," she comments between bites.

I glower at her but don't respond, using the stew as an excuse to keep my mouth shut. Coping phrase? It's just true.

"Well, take heart I suppose," Penelope mutters after another couple bites. "You did everything you had to. We made the best choices we could. I believe that. So I think it's a good sign that we both feel like shit anyway."

I exert the effort to glance at her. She glances back, giving me a shrug and a halfhearted smirk.

"Woo," I say flatly. "Not psychopaths."

"Not psychopaths," she sighs, lifting her cup of water in a toast.

I tap my cup to hers and we drink, trying to wash down the guilt with water. It is predictably ineffective. I suppose I can afford to buy beer now, but it seems like a waste. I'm not sure how getting drunk would affect me, if even at all. I'm tempted to ask, just to see if Penelope wants to try out an experiment or two on the matter. It might be a fun distraction.

"Want to meet a mob boss with me?" I ask instead.

"Sure," she shrugs again. "May as well."

I eat two more bowls of stew in the time it takes for Penelope to finish her one, and we depart together. Penelope is apparently quite shaken by yesterday's events, as she doesn't even change out of the messy armor that she's been wearing since we left on the mission in the first place. I don't think I've ever seen her so lacking in composure.

We exit the guild and I immediately track each soul that turns to pay attention to me. Sky has flown away during the time it took for Penelope and I to eat, but he hasn’t left the guild unwatched. As one man turns down an alley with the intention of reporting my departure, I burst forward, crossing the crowded street in a moment and appearing in front of the now-startled member of the Drakens.

"Where's Sky?" I ask him, keeping most of my attention on the streets and alleyways. The sudden movement has attracted a lot of attention, but nearly all of it is irrelevant so I ignore it.

"I-I'm supposed to go get him so he can come to you," the man stammers, his vomit-chartreuse soul quivering.

"Fine by me. Is there somewhere in particular he wanted to meet?"

After a brief conversation, he scurries off and Penelope rushes over to heal the tendons I apparently just pulled.

"At least you didn't crack your bones again," she grumbles. "I'm going to add bone density adjustments to the modifications I’ve been making on you. Which is of course not to say that you don't need to learn how to use your strength properly. I'm not always going to be by your side, Vita, I have things to do."

"Yeah, sorry," I mumble. "I tried to be careful but I mostly just moved on instinct there."

"The strength of your soul is far outstripping the strength of your body," Penelope chides. "You can't be using anywhere close to your full strength like this. Your body should naturally grow to try and compensate, and I'll help it along for you, but it's a slow process."

"How slow?"

She shakes her head.

"Most people could never dream of growing their soul as quickly as you do, so I haven't the faintest idea. Even if we had records of other people with similar growth rates, considering how quickly your eyes changed and are still changing, it's likely you run on entirely different rules anyway."

"Oh yeah, what's up with my eyes?" I ask. "Are they still changing?"

"Yes, every day," Penelope confirms. "More today than usual. Your iris is growing outward into your sclera, while your pupil continues to elongate. It will likely be a problem for you in the near future."

"Wait, what?" I ask, not understanding what any of that meant. "Am I going to go blind or something?"

"No, the problem will be exclusively social. Your eyes should work fine, they just won't look human anymore," Penelope says. "You’ll likely have clearer night vision due to increased maximum pupil size, perhaps you’ll experience some alterations to how you interpret color, etcetera. The problem is that it's just going to be very obvious in the near future, and since our cover story is that I'm doing it to you, it will be a pain to keep up that pretense when I don't actually have any idea how to make someone's eyes look like that."

"Well, let me know if you want to operate on mine or something," I offer, shrugging.

She nods, managing a genuine smile.

"I'll likely take you up on that," she agrees.

After healing me, Penelope and I make our way to the spot we were told to wait for Sky. A small barely-courtyard-like area nestled out of sight between buildings, the kind of place where legal activity just doesn't tend to occur. We are alone when we first arrive, but it takes little time before Sky simply appears above us, blinking into my senses as he is presumably teleported by Capita. I look up physically, leading Penelope to follow my gaze and spot him.

"Huh," she tuts. "That's quite the powerful young woman, if she can fly already. Is that one of the criminals?"

"Penelope, that's Sky," I tell her. "He's a man."

She raises an eyebrow at me.

"…Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," I tell her as he floats down to speak with us. "He just looks like a woman."

"Ah yes," Sky sneers, hands in his pockets as he glowers down from above. "My favorite conversation. And you're having it with a noblewoman, one of my favorite sorts of people. You really do like to make a game out of pissing me off, don't you Vita?"

"No, not really," I say honestly.

"I assure you, it just comes naturally to her," Penelope confirms.

"Shut the fuck up, Vesuvius," Sky snaps. "You were very much not invited."

"No," I correct, "I definitely invited her. Believe it or not, you’re just not a man I trust very much, Sky."

He smirks at that, floating over to one of the buildings and sitting down on the lip of the roof, legs crossed and dangling.

"And then you say shit like that," he says, narrowing his eyes with a considering glare. "I’ve never met a ruder, more insufferable cunt than you and I still find it difficult to hate you. You’re just so rare. I begrudgingly have to admit I see why even after you nearly killed her, she still vouches for you."

Penelope frowns, feeling as though she's solved some sort of puzzle and doesn't like the solution. I, meanwhile, am just confused and have no idea what this guy is talking about.

"After I nearly killed who?" I ask. "Capita? She kicked my ass and then mindfucked herself. I wouldn't trust her interpretation of events if I were you."

"Well, thankfully for her, you're not me," Sky counters, flashing a roguish grin. "But enough pleasantries, let's get down to business, shall we? You've been rudely declining my invitations for quite some time, but we're both from the streets. A certain amount of rudeness must necessarily be excused in a world where power rules all."

"If this is the part where you try to convince her to join your organization again, I'm afraid she's already mine," Penelope butts in coldly.

"Impatient fucking noble!" Sky addresses her happily, in the same sort of tone one might greet a long-lost friend. "Of course we’re not doing that, I have a matter of honor to correct first. Our main order of business is an apology."

He snaps his fingers, and a split second later a man appears in the air next to him. Bound, gagged, and heavily bruised, he immediately falls to ground level. Neither Penelope nor I move to catch him, and he impacts the ground with a dull thud, whimpering in pain.

"This is the man we assigned to watch your family, and decided it was an acceptable task to fuck up at," Sky explains, an undercurrent of fury in every word. "He's yours to do with as you please."

I spend a moment rooting through the man's soul for telltale guilt, and find enough nestled behind pain and fear that I'm willing to believe this is indeed the person he’s claimed to be.

"That's a start," I concede. "But it doesn't bring Angelien back. Nor does it negate the starvation we suffered or the abuse Lyn endured. You paid us in protection and threats, not food or money, so every shred of justification you had for our pain is dust."

Sky shrugs, his face hard, but… not entirely unsympathetic.

"If I had enough food and money for everyone, I wouldn't very well need to do this, would I? We have nothing in our part of town, Vita. There is nothing to go around."

"Bullshit," I growl. "The inside of your fucking casino had the kind of opulence that would impress Penelope here."

"And it is all being used," Sky insists. "I assure you, I'm not sitting on mountains of decadence. The casino leeches money from the undeserving. I built it to be a parasite, a poison. If I want to take money from the rich, I have to look rich. They would never deign to be seen anywhere lesser."

"Yet here I am," Penelope counters, indicating our less-than-opulent surroundings. "There is certainly a degree of shallowness prevalent within the nobility, I will grant you that. But you're not doing anything to fix it, are you? You're just trying to exploit more than you can be exploited, and that is not a game you will be able to win."

Sky glances at me.

"Vita, if you don't shut your damn pet noble's mouth I'm afraid I might lose my temper."

"That's an awfully casual threat from a man so careful to stay out of my kill range," I answer, smiling mockingly back at him.

He glares down his nose at me, lifting himself up from his sitting position and slowly starting to float down. I thought he was going to stand on the roof, but where his feet would have otherwise made contact, the stone building is instead ripped apart. He continues to descend not in front of the building but through it, shards of stone tearing up in a thin oval around him, caught as if in a cyclone. Jagged pebbles whirl around him fast enough to be nothing but a blur, more and more joining the chaotic vortex as he continues to carve the building wall in half. By the time he gets to the ground, his body is surrounded by a shield of debris moving at such a high speed it's barely visible... but there's no doubt in my mind that if I stuck a hand in there I'd pull out a ragged stump.

Then he points a hand towards me. I see the faintest flicker of movement, a crack of sound, and then blood starts dripping from what was once my earlobe.

"The powerful get to be rude," Sky says evenly, "because no one can stop them. It's a habit people like you form. Do not mistake my tolerance for it as a lack of capacity to end it."

I nod slowly, blood dripping down on my shoulder. That was... fast. Faster than Remus by quite a margin. Even as I am now, I can't dodge something like that. I suppose I let myself forget that he rules a big part of the city’s criminal underworld for a reason.

Penelope calmly steps over to me and starts healing my ear, looking thoroughly bored with the entire situation. Sky immediately aims at her face, intending to make his point lethally clear.

“Let her bleed,” he orders.

Penelope flashes a smile that stops him short, ignoring the command.

"Go ahead and shoot," she says. "But you'd best make sure you kill me instantly and burn the corpse. You have an impressive defense there, but it won't stop me from rotting your insides until your lungs spill out your anus."

"You're known to us, plague mage," Sky growls. "You can't kill me without killing half the city."

"Debatable," Penelope argues. "Believe it or not, I have remarkably little experience with killing people. I won't know until I try. But if I'm going to end up dead anyway, well, what do I care for the consequences?"

Slowly he lowers his arm, his storm of debris still whirling.

“Why are you even here?” Sky spits. “What’s your game, noble?”

“I am here because Vita asked, and I quote, ‘want to meet a mob boss with me?’” Penelope answers. "And she is my… friend, I suppose, so I said yes. As for my game… I am posturing, obviously. Just like both of you have been doing, except you’re both horrible at it so I’m taking over now.”

“You don’t get to—”

"You want Vita on your team, don't you?" Penelope asks. "Then quit faffing about and make your pitch. You want to kill the King, right? Your Capita spilled the beans on that already, by the way. In riddle, admittedly, but it was not very difficult to figure out. Well, sell us on it. Go on!"

"If you're so sure of this," Sky asks slowly, "why don't I have the Army or the Templars on my doorstep?"

"A bit naive of you to assume that either the nobles or the Templars would mind if the King suffered an unfortunate accident," Penelope answers smoothly. "I wouldn't be surprised if a dozen nobles know of your plan, or are even covertly funding it. Your hatred of our government is not poorly founded, your response is just poorly considered.”

"You know nothing of what I intend," Sky dismisses.

"Then make. Your. Pitch," Penelope insists. "I have better things to do today than entertain a terrorist."

Penelope smiles serenely as Sky stares her down.

"Don't bother," I say, walking forward. "I really don't care."

I step past Sky and grab the battered, bruised man that took the bribe so my sister could die by the collar of his shirt.

"It doesn't matter if you'll turn this city into a fucking utopia," I tell him. "I'm not going to join you."

Sky scowls.

"The suffering in your life, the wretched pain of starvation and disease and neglect… that is also worthy of revenge, isn’t it? I failed to protect your family. I admit to that. But where I failed for a single, horrible moment, the fat pigs that ran this city into the ground for no reason beyond their own greed failed your family for your entire life. They have a responsibility in the same way I did."

I frown. That's… annoyingly true. Sure, they didn't get anyone in my family killed, but I know a lot of dead children in general that could have very well been a brother or sister in the same way Angelien was.

"That's admittedly convincing," I concede. "But I see no reason to view you as the solution. I'm not going to just drop everything and join up with people that have only made my life worse."

I lift the bribe taker off his feet, which of course requires me to hold him above my head. I'm not sure what I'll do with him. I probably should use him to experiment with animancy, and see what other sorts of shards I can make. I just don't like the idea of giving his life any sort of worth.

"An understandable position," Sky answers me. "So I have a proposition for you. Don't join us, but don't stop us either. We'll quit bothering you, you quit bothering us. No more murdering my men, no more getting in our way, and I leave you and your family alone."

I frown, considering that.

"You still have to pay for Angelien," I answer. "But I can agree to wait while you kill people both of us don't like. You go do your plan, take over the city or whatever, and we can resume our beef afterwards. How long will it take you?"

Sky thinks for only a short moment.

“Three months,” he answers. “Let’s establish a three-month truce.”

“Deal,” I say, shaking the bastard in my hands. “Your peace offering here is worth three months at the least. You got a bag for this guy?”

The talk doesn’t last much longer after that. Sky seems a bit grumpy with the outcome, but I get the feeling the whole conversation is just a favor to his crazy, riddle-spewing girlfriend more than anything. He’d personally be happy blasting a hole through my head. Which is, of course, why I take the truce. I need time to get stronger still, so I can kill him without taking too large of a risk.

He’s eloquent. He talks a good game, acting all honorable and whatnot. But he made my family work for him and beat them when they failed. He used cognimancy on them to ensure their loyalty. He is, no matter what he says, an evil fucking monster.

So I think I’ll strike at the two-month mark to catch him by surprise. Hopefully I can fuck up his plans, too.