Witch Hunt

I journey back through The Reds alone.

Before the others disappeared, their spirits presumably shunted back into their bodies in The Other Side, we agreed to meet at our destination after a quick separated detour. After all, the majority of our equipment was left behind at our homes following our mutual kidnappings. It was a plan I was more than eager to accede to: for some time away from the three of them, if nothing else.

And so once more I enter my home to blessed silence, only this time the weight of my eventual duty hangs over me, not unlike the specter they impersonated. I wonder if the detective is truly already deceased, in that mansion he's been sequestered to. If so, disrespect of the dead is clearly a favorite amongst their hobbies. At least, if I'm anything to go by.

There are preparations to be made. My satchel, left discarded and still full of alchemy equipment, waits patiently anew for my unwilling endeavor. I move to restock it with what I can of my herbs... but I am truly running dry, even of the basics. Not that the fae would care, but I've already more than paid my dues, monetarily most especially.

I've tried to keep a tight control over the margins of my shop, always knowing exactly what I put in and exactly what I get out. Sometimes I imagine myself less a storeowner and more a machine that turns money into potion into money again. In and out, import and export, just enough to keep the lights on, and a little extra for a rainy day.

This has been more than just a rainy day. I haven't yet had time to fully process: will I weather this storm? Ah, I shake my head; the question is irrelevant. It's do or die; I don't have a choice. I'll make it work, even if I have to sell the clothes off my back. The machine does not stop running, and the shop does not go out of business. This, above all else.

It strikes me that the fae found me here, at my place of work. Unserious as they seemed, I can't discount the danger they pose. They may very well seek compensation in other ways, if I don't perform to their satisfaction... cut into my business, interfere with the margins, unbalance the whole system. Better I jump through their hoops then let them leash me for profit.

I throw on the coat and cap from before. The edge of the hat digs at the base of the tail I have my hair in, but letting it down would draw yet more attention. Growing it out drew me enough through my adolescence. It's always been the attention I couldn't stand.

As disorienting as invisibility can be, I do often wish I was, at least to others. That I didn't have to be seen. Better yet, that I didn't have to interact at all. Just stay in my hovel, employ someone else to run the front end of the shop. It's no wonder my paren- The Bromleys used a similar method, though they typically tag-teamed those duties, switching between brewer and dealer as their whims arose.

Laying against the edge of the shop counter, I spot the estoc Alabastra had "gifted" me. I don't even know how to use a sword... Yet, it may scare off an attacker easily intimidated.

Or, it may invite only trouble, justifying lethal force against me for being armed. And even if I was forced to use it...

Murderer.

My hand pulls away from the hilt. I had best not.

Relocking my door, I make for the temple, unsure if I hope I'm first or not.

* * *

Of course I'm not.

Standing outside the Palace of the Sun, I see the trio milling about, back in their bodies and no worse for wear. They've yet to walk inside. Were they waiting for me? Alabastra and Faylie continue to yammer away to each other, but Tegan looks more distant, standing off to the side. She glances up nervously at the temple. Strange. I'd have expected the paladin to be the most at-home in a house of worship.

As I approach, Alabastra begins to greet me, over-familiar. I hold up my hand in a stop motion. "Save it."

The temple seems to be at a lull visitors-wise, thankfully. A few pedestrians look like they're about to walk inside, then stop at the strange trio-plus-one standing at the entrance, and turn off to continue about their days without their customary blessings.

Unbothered by my bluntness, the rogue says, "Well, let's do this thing." She enters the building, whistling a jaunty and nonchalant tune. I follow behind.

The other two do not.

"Hey, it's okay", Faylie says. Alabastra and I turn back to see the faun rubbing Tegan's arm. "We're right here."

The knight's lower lip quivers in suspense, and she seems almost arrested by some invisible force, a barrier of psychic blockade preventing her from crossing.

"Dusty...", Alabastra says, heartbreak in her voice. Probably more deceit. She pushes past me, back to the knight's side. "Shit. You wanna wait out here again?" Again? Ah, right. They'd mentioned, some ways back, that they'd come here before, to talk to Kansis about the... incident.

But then, what's the knight's handicap? She looks like she's going to shake out of her armor, acting as if she's being fed into a meat grinder. I'm not exactly comfortable with temples either, yet I'm not making that anyone else's problem.

"Come on", I say, "You're wasting time."

"Oscar!", Alabastra bites, upper teeth bared in wrath. She turns back to Tegan. "Ignore him. Just focus on me. It's okay." Her hand rubs against the knight's neck.

I lean against the open door, gut souring, tapping my foot. The two girlfriends comfort their third for reasons I can't possibly ascertain, until the knight finally pulls her wits together. She swallows a hard lump in her throat, and says, shakily, "Sorry. I'm good, just, uh. I'm good."

Alabastra's thumb brushes Tegan's cheek. "The goodest." The knight blushes, still looking distant, but placing a gauntleted hand overtop the blonde's.

Convenient, how quickly she's forgotten how 'pissed' she was at the rogue. Hypocrite. I roll my eyes, groaning as I walk into the building.

The interior is once more awash in brilliant light, a low population of the faithful and their flock. No sign of Kansis, from what I can tell. Behind me I hear the three shuffling in tandem, a six-legged monster of sound. We divert to the temple's dorms, arriving at our target room.

I'm about to knock, then stop, hand held in the air. "Perhaps...", I say, turning to the rogue. She's eyeing me with a cold gaze; she's not still pretending to be upset about that little tiff at the door, right? If it isn't false, then all she's really angry at is that I snapped at one of her little playthings. Regardless, I continue, "Perhaps... you should knock. If she's awake, she'll... well. I can't predict how she'll react."

The blonde crosses her arms. "Fine", she says.

I press myself flat against the wall, an unseen nightmare at the outside crook of the hallway view. Faylie still holds tight onto Tegan, who only stares ahead, numb and nearly unblinking. She's malfunctioned. With effort, I stop myself from scoffing. After all, it's not like she could possibly have worse memories of this place than I do. She isn't even a born Marblan. Drywater's just some dismal little town the other side of the country.

The rogue raps her knuckles against the door to 'shave-and-a-haircut'. A moment of silence passes, then the door swings open. A familiar voice says, "Ah! Miss Camin, ta what do I owe th' pleasure?"

"Kansis!", she greets the Father, "Mind if we talk out here?" Her head jerks to the side to indicate the hallway.

The dwarf ambles from the room, closing the door behind him. As he looks over the four of us, his brows hitch in surprise at my sight. "Oscar?! What are you doin' here?"

"I...", I begin, not sure where I'm going.

"He's with us", Alabastra butts in. I shoot her a glare. Still making choices for me.

The Father smiles wide, like that's somehow good news to him. "Huh. I had no idea ya knew these three!" I wonder how well the thieves know Kansis. They've never seemed the worshipping type. Quite the opposite, in fact. I pull into myself, not a fan of the attention.

"We wanted to see how the girl's doin'", the rogue continues. "Ask some questions too, if she's up and about. And since we were in the neighborhood, we brought the one who saved her."

Feeling the circus of eyes on me, blazing like stage lights, I turn, looking into a far off bottom corner of the hallway. "What she said", I intone. I'm not so confident I will be talking to the girl at all. In fact, perhaps it's better if I did in fact just turned invisible for the next... however long this will take. I'm sure I could brew at least one disappearing elixir from the supplies I have left. No, no. Better to not waste materials.

Kansis's palm pats my shoulder; it is the warm and stone-solid grip of a hand hewn from once-unfeeling rock, made into something kinder, like a sword melted into promise bands. I look down at his bulbous nose and rosy cheeks, stretched above his benevolent smile.

Sometimes I wonder, if I am burdened to be a man, what kind of man I should be like. And so, why not one like Kansis, gentle and affirming, an unshakable rock to tie oneself to? It still wouldn't be pleasant, of course, but at least I'd be of service. I've always admired that about the Father... yet somehow, I can't imagine it for myself. There's nothing solid at my core to moor another vessel to. All I have is herbs, too much time in a library, and guilt. Those aren't the building blocks of a man of faith and healing, the bricks with which to construct a righteous self. I could pretend, fabricate... but that certainly wouldn't make me like Kansis, who radiates genuine substance like the star he worships. I cannot lie, and still be the kind of man Kansis is. But then, the other kinds of men that leaves me with sound far less appealing still.

The Father says, "Well, it's good to see you're makin' friends, Oscar. Ya could do worse than my favorite problem solvers..." Ugh. Out of respect for the clergyman, I bite back my objections. Problem solvers, then. Perhaps he's one of their usual bounty-givers, paying them for various monster hunts, sewer trawls, the like.

Wait... did he pay to have me hunted...?!

Actually, I'd prefer not to think about that. He continues, "Ya came at a good time. She's just about wakin'... she'll be up n' about, soon."

"She's doin' well, then?", asks the rogue.

The dwarf nods. "Much better, aye." He turns to me. "That care ya showed her really did save her life, Oscar. And then some. I was about ta write ya up a letter about it myself, in fact."

Alabastra says, "Mind if we chat with her privately, Father? Could be we talk about some... sensitive matters. Don't wanna bring any bad business your way."

Kansis's face grows sterner, then he nods again, slower this time, deliberate. "If ya insist, Alabastra. I trust ya. All four of ya, in fact-"

"We're like, the trustworthinessest", says Faylie, with two thumbs up, arm still hooked with Tegan's.

The cleric looks less convinced than he had been the moment prior, but says, "Right. Then, I'll leave ya to it. Come talk to me again before ya leave, aye?" With that, he turns, departing into the main hall of the temple.

Leaning on the closed door, Alabastra says, "We'll go in first and... explain the situation, Oscar. Don't wanna give her a shock." As sensible an idea as that is, I don't feel up to dignifying her with a response. Instead I shoo her toward the door, and stare back into the hallway. I trick myself into believing the tile pattern is fascinating enough a distraction, until eventually she gets the hint, and without another word, the three enter the chamber.

Alone in the hallway, I hear the muffled voices beyond the door, hushed prayers and whispered weeping from deeper into the temple, chimes and bells, footfalls echoing off the halls of the sun god. The Dawnlord has never struck me as a particularly comforting god, despite the disposition of his followers. Perhaps it's only my bias against daylight, or perhaps it was reading about his past reputation as a god of war and conquest. The Gods share so little of what their opinions on their own domains are. Only offering vague hints through the powers they grant, the esoteric signs they speak through. Those ideals change with the tides of time, consolidated or forgotten or revived or scorned. Eventually sunlight, and later still light in general, grew synonymous with all that was good and right with the world. The ephemeral nature of the divine turned a worship of holy and righteous fire, burning the wicked out from the veins of the lands, to one of peace and healing and love and truth.

Though according to Kansis, outside this temple, the pendulum swings back the other direction. There's little taste in the public palette for peace, for the gentle balm of dawn's glow. Now more than ever, the people ache for the old God's wrath, and he's far from the only one in the pantheon who's followers seem to feel that divide.

The door beside me opens. Faylie's head peaks around the corner, fully horizontal, antlers like loose nails stuck out of the wall. "C'mon!", she chirps.

I approach the threshold of the dorm, and stop. Clouds of sour guilt cook inside of me, an athanor set on calcinating my sins. Crimson hot like fire, the imagined judgement of nonreal flame beats me back from the entrance. My shoulders pull into the blades of my back, and I press the watch hard into my sternum with a heartbeat-booming arm.

Faylie looks to me. "M-, um. Oscar?"

I am not at home. My hands are stained red and she's covered in blood and I am not at home.

My hands shake and I need to- to vomit, to save her life and get home and wait for someone to strike me down and-  I open my eyes. The faun is staring at me again, in the... the temple.

No, that... those feelings were before. It's in the past, it isn't now. Get a damned grip. These inflicted recallings of best-forgotten moments leave me stricken with indignity and shame, but I can't let them run roughshod over my life. I've beaten back the violent yearnings in my skull and the rampant bloodhunger in my gut a thousand times; I will not be beat by something so small as a memory.

I grit my teeth and walk into the room. The other two kneel around the dorm bed, Alabastra holding her hand across the blanket. Under said comforter, sitting up half against the wall, I see Grace Forsyth, the young woman who's life I nearly ended, who I only narrowly saved. Golden blonde hair in a short bob, dressed now in a comfortable if simple tunic, with bright blue eyes that would better befit shining in wonder than the look of horror at my entrance. On instinct, she backs up, pulling the sheet further over herself. I wince.

"Hey, hey, it's alright", says the rogue, "It's just like we said... He's not gonna hurt ya."

She raises a brow. I do not move another step. Grace says, in a youthful but wound-shaken voice, "You're... you're really not?"

I shake my head. "No. No harm will come to you." I grab an arm, feeling suddenly like my words were insufficient. Damn my ineloquent tongue. What is the protocol for meeting someone for the first time that you previously stabbed and then healed? I hazard a guess. "I... want to... apologize."

"... Sure?", she says.

Was that the wrong approach? It hardly matters, I've already started. There's no way out but through. "I, well. I regret... what happened. The previous week. It... it shouldn't have occurred, not to you, or anybody." My eyes dart to the floor. Exquisite tiling, really. How did they accomplish that coloring... "That is all."

Grace considers me, tilting her head. "Yeah. Okay..." She sounds listless and spacey. I don't have enough experience to know if that's just her natural demeanor or the blood loss. Or perhaps some amount of potion or drug in her system. "But... why? Why did you do it?"

Perhaps it's best to save her from the more brutal truth. That whatever dwelled within my heart thought her only value was sustenance. Little better than a rabbit in a fox's jaws. "I'm not... entirely sure. I was... not in control. A monster took hold of me."

"And this monster - it's actually gone? It's not coming back?"

My insides compress. I deliver a precise, "Never. It's gone."

The young woman nods, then looks confused. "Then... I'm not sure I get it. If you weren't in control... why do you feel so responsible?" She looks to the thieves, then back to me. "I mean... didn't you also save me? It seems like it wasn't your fault..."

I open my mouth to start, then slam it closed again. That was... not the response I expected. Where do I begin to answer that question? Why do I feel responsible? I scramble for reasons... my own failures, my selfish insistence on continuing to breathe despite the space and life I inevitably take, the very real blood on my hands, stained evermore no matter how hard I scrub it out. That was the throughline, wasn't it? It was still my fault, regardless of control. Though I'm unsure how to put any of that into words, nor do I believe she even should know the bloody details. Instead I stand still, struck silent as my thoughts circle the wagons.

Alabastra says, "Huh. You're quick on the uptick... Grace, wasn't it?"

"That's me...", she says, "And, um... well, I never caught your names?"

The half-elf chuckles. "Oh, right. There's me, jumpin' the gun again. That's Tegan, Faylie..." She looks to me, considering for a moment. "Oscar. And I'm Alabastra."

Grace gasps, leaning forward with wide and unbelieving eyes, as if the name was a stage actress's. "Alabastra... Camin?! The same Alabastra Camin that stopped the 5th Street cyclops rampage last year?"

Oh gods. I squeeze my eyes closed. Alabastra says, "... Oh. You're familiar?"

"And the same Alabastra that took Ronson Marselan to the cleaners?"

"... Allegedly." She looks between the other two, smiling wide. Faylie excitedly joins her partner's side, and even Tegan seems to have been shook from her stupor enough to look shocked. "Well, girls. Seems like we've got ourselves a fan." The indignities never cease.

The girl, who I'm suddenly less happy to see doing so well, says, "You're who I was looking for!" Grace pulls the blanket off herself, scooching forward on the bed to get closer to the edge. "I needed an adventurer type that wasn't afraid to tussle with Partisans, and you came highly recommended. They told me I'd find you in The Reds if I looked hard enough. I never thought you'd find me first! I'd like to hire you for a job!" Suddenly she seems full of energy.

Already I have a headache, increasingly annoyed at the turn of events that of all the people in the city I could have wrought this fate on, it had to be someone connected to the thief, even tangentially. The overwhelming series of misfortunes is too much.

"A job?!", I say. This was my idea, but that does not mean I have to enjoy the turn it has taken. "No, absolutely not."

Alabastra stands, facing me. "We haven't even heard her out. She came all this way just to talk to us, and besides, we need her help. We're not just gonna short-change her."

"This is a-"

"Yea, yea - a waste of time. We get the picture." She waves her hand dismissively in my face, then turns back to Grace. "Don't mind us. He's not a monster. He's just bein' a pill."

I turn to leave, throwing the door wide. "This is the last thing I need." Foolish selfish timewasting bastards. I'm of no mind to hear it. I need to be anywhere but here. "Find me when you've tired of your own sanctimonious garbage", I say over my shoulder.

"Osca-", the rogue begins, but I've already slammed the door shut behind me.

* * *

Behind the Palace of the Sun, rolling green hills unfurl into a wide park, marked by shading live oak trees with gnarled branches stretched and coated with moss, gardens of multicolored carnations trimmed carefully along concrete paths cut through the greenery, and penned in from the urban jungle beyond with spiked iron fencing. A beautiful, peaceful pasture, turned dour and morose by the litany of gravestones laid out in rows upon rows, up and down the grounds.

I don't make a habit of trips to the cemetery as often as I should. For a long while, my method for handling unpleasant memories and guilt was to push them aside, deprive their fires of oxygen until they starved and sputtered out. So as ashamed as I have been for it, best practice to maintain that war of attrition was to avoid reminders, to sidestep the glaring signs of my misgivings to avoid falling into a spiral.

But if I'm to be inundated with memory regardless of my actions, I may as well do what I should have done all along.

A handful of mourners and pedestrians and clerics rove over the cemetery, totaling a dozen or so, scattershot over the park to the effect of near-emptiness. I hear a bird trill in the trees above me as I walk, whistling songs over-cheerful for their nesting spot of choice. Perhaps someone should inform them of their discourtesy.

I almost regret not bringing flowers, as I take in the rainbow assortment of daisies and tulips and carnations dressing the sites of the departed, left behind to eventually blow away in the wind. I wish I could appreciate the gesture, the fleeting of something beautiful like the drifting of lives, burned in quick and demanding flashes. But most of all it seems to me a waste; half of these would serve just as well distilled down, especially the extravagant bouquets, crafted by botanists of an artistic eye rather than one of use. Still I cannot deny the fundamental sentiment of the practice. A compromise, perhaps... a single trimmed bushel of white lilies; a simple and elegant sort of beautiful. I've always felt... almost a kinship with lilies. Nothing wrong with a classic.

The winding pathway eventually cuts the opposite direction from my destination, and I make my way over grass, autumn leaves from the nearby shedding trees crunching underfoot. The freshly trimmed grounds cast the premises in an earthy smell, nevertheless evocative of the rotting nature of the soil, how it claims all it sees interred. The cyclicity of life brings little comfort when tragedy comes not from death, but death made sudden. The unlucky, cheated by the reaper and mother nature, brought low from the chaos they conjure. The random firing and colliding of beings onto other beings, sometimes shattered by the force of the encounter. Sometimes even, sundered both in kind.

Finally, I come to a stop. Two headstones stick from the ground, twinned eyes of rebuke to gaze and shame their killer-cause.

Delia Bromley
Alchemist, Loving wife and mother
866 - 912

Pravid Bromley
Alchemist, Devoted husband
870 - 912

I remember there being some amount of discussion of what to put on the headstones. Eventually, the argument was resolved when the bickering of the halfling families ran past the deadline, and the coroners defaulted to the simplest epitaphs they offered.

No one has been here in some time, I can tell. None besides the groundskeeper, keeping the weeds from burgeoning and breaking the stones. I would not be surprised if my last visit was their last visit as well. I shoot my hands into my pockets, feeling the eyes of judgement upon me.

"The- ah." My throat seizes up as soon as I begin. I swallow the lump at my vocal chords, and try again. "The shop is... well. There was an incident, with a... hm. It doesn't matter."

"...", the graves say back.

A lattice network of guilt knits itself in my chest. "I'm seeing to the repairs now. Well- not now. As soon as I am able again." The gravestones, alike in slate-gray granite, sharp and square at the edges, and so unlike their eponymous substitutes. Mother was warm, soft, a safety blanket in a cold night. And Father was more like wood than stone: malleable, creative, resolute but able to bend, even if sometimes toward the worst. "Margins are... thin, but I will, of course, manage."

In the distance, I see an adolescent couple leave a bundle of flowers upon a weathered tomb. An old woman, praying before a grave so fresh the dirt has yet to settle. A young girl, wrapping her arms around a headstone as her father watches on. I must seem to any onlookers no different than these other mourners.

But this is not grief. I have no right to call it as such. This is only duty. An onus to remember, to ensure that they are not forgotten. It is the least I can do. If I could not be their legacy in life, as the child they were so eager to bring into their family, then at least this way, I'll have repaid them. Still a poor balance of the scales, but what else am I to do? Perhaps this was always how it was meant to be; death, ever stagnant.

I clutch at the watch. The cold metal at my sternum rebounds my near-still heartbeat back into my chest, the drum-beat dirge of ages in its impossible gears. This, then is what it was telling me. If I cannot live, I can at least stagnate in such a way that they, too, subsist forever. The undead carrying the dead, dragging the past forward. Almost as if nothing ever changes. I can carry their candle long into the dark night of forever.

'They'll always be with ya, Oscar...', says Father Kansis in a memory.

No. I turn. Kansis looks up at me in the present, smiling in consolation. I could have sworn he'd said that before, too... hadn't he? I clutch my forehead. "You're... surprisingly sneaky, Father."

He chuckles to himself, a knowing smile creasing his face. "I thought ya'd be here." He joins me at my side, looking down at the markers obtruding from the dirt. "Ya know, your mother loved this place, gravestones n' all. She'd stop by nearly ev'ry weekend. Did I ever tell ya that?"

I feel like he must have. It sounds familiar, somehow. Yet, I can't quite put my finger on it. "It does sound like her...", I say, noncommittally.

Due to the relatively short time she'd actually been in my life all things considered, we'd not had the chance to speak as much as I'd have liked. But I do recall her more macabre sensibilities. How she could look death and atrocity in the face, grit her teeth, and laugh. How obsessed she became with her own disease, the mechanics of its symptoms and effects, even as it wreaked havoc over her biology. She continued to make morbid insights right up until she couldn't any longer. The journal of her self-research would later be published by epidemiologists studying the Runeplague, especially her own advances in limiting contagion.

She was an excellent alchemist, after all. Though, I can only hope my own nature never skewed her results; my condition can be an unpredictable beast, at times.

Kansis continues, "Too often, at this temple, we're forced to bury those we know so tragically little about. Those without homes or families, or those too young to have gotten to know." His eyes scan the ground for meaning. "But, in the case of Delia, it brings me some small comfort to know she'd be happy ta have been put ta rest here. And with him beside her." He motions to the other grave.

The two loved each other so devotedly; he could not stand to see her hurt. I never blamed him... if anything, Father... Pravid was wiser than most. He saw in me a storm, and was the only one I've ever known who ran from it. Hurricane Oscar. It just isn't fair that their love wasn't enough. "I hope you're right."

"Well, I can't pretend to be certain. But it's all I can do ta carry her memory. Ta honor her."

Blood rushes to my ears... Does he... But he makes no further indication of knowing more than he lets on. A coincidence, surely. I shake my head. "That is what I've been trying to do."

The clergyman says nothing for a moment, gathering his thoughts. When he finally does speak again, there is a purpose in his voice that had been absent before. "I've seen a great many things in my time. Champions fighting on the frontlines of th' Plague Wars, th' grand mausoleums of my home, the chateau-isles of the Enderin Archipelago." He looks up at me. "But never once have I seen someone who was undeserving of happiness. I know it doesn't come easy fer ya. But if ya really wish ta honor her, Oscar... th' best way ta do that is to live well."

I feel as trapped underground as the myriad corpses under my feet. He wouldn't feel that way if he knew. Truly knew. It would be a greater wrong to live well while they're gone, not an homage. My eyes dart, and I turn to walk away. "I'll consider your advice, Father Kansis."

He sighs. "At least lemme walk back wichya. Give a foolish old man some company."

"... Alright."

We walk side-by-side, back toward the temple. I attempt to think on what Kansis said... but every time I try and internalize his words, it is as if they bounce off an impenetrable wall over my heart. It is a nice sentiment... but misused and wasted, on one such as I. Yet I doubt he will stop trying... I hope I am not forced to make Kansis see what the rest saw; the truth about the person they'd so steadfastly clung to the hope of helping. Perhaps it's yet another layer of my curse, to draw in those wishing to perform charity, or at least the illusion of it, so that I am forced to push them away, over and over. A cruel complicity.

Kansis interrupts my thoughts as we walk, "Perhaps ya can answer a question for me, Oscar."

"I... suppose I can help?"

"What... exactly is th' nature of those three girls' relationship?"

I stop in my tracks, sputtering like a broken generator. "I- Ugh." This is the absolute last thing I expected, or wanted, to talk about, with anyone, ever. "Actually, I stand corrected, Father. I can't help." Briskly, I walk ahead, refusing eye contact.

* * *

As we reach the back entrance of the temple, we're greeted by four individuals exiting before we can enter. The three thieves, together with the girl. She's back on her feet, and changed into the attire I'd found her in that night, along with a packed bag. I can only hope they got her to agree to take us into the heights without a pointless errand. Perhaps payment of some other kind... though, if she's truly from Firvus, I doubt she wants for much.

Father Kansis tilts his head. "Grace, what're ya doing out of bed? Ya should be gettin' your rest."

The girl smiles. "I'm actually feeling much better, Father. In fact, I think... I think it's time I go home."

The cleric breathes deep through his nose, with the bloated overbite wrought of bittersweet news. "Ah. I... see", he says, "Well, it's been a delight to have ya here, Ms. Forsyth. I'm sure whatever... business you have with these four, they'll see ta you well."

Grace steps forward, and envelops the dwarf in a warm hug. "Thank you", she whispers into his ear, only barely audible to the rest of us. The clergyman sniffles. He always was mawkishly sentimental when it came to goodbyes. Still, I stop myself from groaning.

Alabastra says, "We'll take care of her. Maybe even show her 'round the Reds... doubt she got the tour."

I glare at the rogue. That had better be a joke...

Kansis says, "Whatever your reasons for departing home, Ms. Forsyth, you can return here, should ya need, in warmth." He looks to the rest of us. "And that goes for all of ya. You're welcome anytime in th' Palace of the Sun. Walk in the Dawnlord's light." He dusts his hands along his robes, and departs inside the temple.

We wait a beat. "Alright, gang. We're gonna have to hoof it all the way the other side of town, so, best we not kill anymore daylight." Alabastra turns, walking us around the side of the temple, through a trellis-laden arch meeting back with the road.

As disinterestedly as possible, I say, "You've agreed to take us, then?" I don't look to the girl, but hopefully she at least has enough wits to know I'm speaking to her. Then again, she did come to The Reds, at night, looking for Alabastra Camin of all people. Perhaps I'm giving her too much credit.

"Well", Grace says, "You can't exactly take my job if you can't get onto the hilltop, now can you?" I groan, ignoring the chorus of stares. The girl trips briefly over her own shoes, stumbling to keep herself upright. She must still be adjusting to walking after her week waylaid. By the time the others have helped her right herself, I'm already ahead. I know where we're going, regardless.

We begin our march down the road, busy streets laden with a frantic energy, an anxious susurrus hanging over the pedestrian crowds. Like the whole city's seen a ghost. As someone who has in fact seen several today, I'm of a mind to believe them all overly-aghast.

"Are the people here always so... nervous?", Grace asks.

Faylie's clip-clopping stomps into a more rhythmic drum beat as she starts to skip. "Ohh, y'know how it is. The newspaper's got everyone all riled up about 'monster attacks' and 'gunfights' n' stuff. Nothing to really worry about." Despite the faun's attempts to paint them with an unserious brush, those do seem worthwhile things to be scared of in her specific instance... considering she was actively involved in most of it. Still, while the rest of the populace are prone to panic at the sight of their own shadow, the situation is hardly so serious as to warrant this level of dread... surely.

The rogue adds, "I still think they should call it the Marble City Re-Acta. Because they're... ah, you get it!" I hear Alabastra brush Tegan's armor with a clank.

Tegan says, "That really wasn't very funny the first time you said it, Allie. Or the second." She seems to be back to her old self once more. Whatever the Palace of the Sun stirred within her, clearly it wasn't so dire. "Or third."

"But it's gettin' funnier, right?"

"Why would it get funnier?!"

Grace adds, "Actually... I don't get it."

Alabastra chuckles, likely still pleased with herself. "You're not exactly the target audience, Silver Spoon."

It is bizarre, to hear them all yammer on with a fourth person to rib at. Part of me feels obligated to warn her of the hot stove she's inches from laying her hand on, but I doubt it would be taken to heart, regardless. Better that the naive are burned once, so that they might learn.

For her part, the young woman only says, "Silver Spoon? Is that like, a nickname?"

"Just my little habit. Ain't always so good with names. Helps if I... make it make more sense. Reorganize the ol' mind shelves." Alabastra's jovial, bouncing cadence, which once seemed so natural to me, now only comes across like performance. She belongs on a stage. Preferably a dismal one, where audiences could pelt her with tomatoes. "If ya don't like it, either you don't gotta put up with it long, or it's liable to change. First one never sticks once I get to know folk better."

"Oh... alright! Well, what are the other's nicknames, then?"

I hear shuffling, the sounds of Alabastra pulling her girlfriends in for a group hug. I roll my eyes as she says, "Well, Faylie started out as 'Antlers', but these days she's Firefly, or Glowbug, or such derivatives. She's small, but fierce, n' lights up my life like a night in summer."

"Allie", Faylie whines, playfully.

She continues, "Tegan used to be 'Clanks', on account of all that racket, but now she's Stardust. My fundamental building block, brilliant, liable to explode like a supernova, and so very beautiful." She's so saccharine I might gag.

"Allie." The knight's tone is far more curt, but panicked, tampering her own stammering embarrassment. She can go ahead and drop her act, already... it broke in that temple, after all. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if this whole thing was just some pity ploy they rehearsed.

Grace says, "Wow... You're... open, aren't you?" I twitch, and my hands dig so deep into my coat pockets I might wear a hole through them. "And Oscar's?"

My footfalls halt, the others skittering to a stop behind me. Although I dare not look back, I know they're all staring. Alabastra clears her throat. "We're... Between nicknames right now." Clumsily put. I've half a mind to inform Grace exactly what that means, but that would only prolong the issue.

Mostly, I just want this to end. To not half to talk about or listen to this drivel, feel their eyes on me, be acknowledged in any way. I'd give anything for everyone to stop talking about me. Anything.

The socialite says, "Oh? And why is-"

CAW, sounds a cry from above.

I'll admit, I walked into that one.

Paella the raven makes its first bothersome appearance of the day, swooping onto Alabastra's shoulder, as the rogue says, "Well, there's my favorite feathered delinquent! Where ya been, Pae?" As she speaks, she digs into her pocket, pulling a collection of peanuts from a brown paper bag I hadn't realized she had in there, cracks the shells, and holds the nuts out in her hand. The bird pecks at the selection, ruffling its feathers.

"Would you get rid of that damned vermin?", I seethe.

Alabastra's face drops into scorn. "Did you forget? Paella saved-" She stops mid-sentence, looking like she's stopping herself from spitting the words. "Y'know what? Nevermind." She looks down at the bird, scratching its neck feathers.

I tap my foot, waiting for the endless distractions to finally end. The bird lets out a croaking sound, tapping its claw into the half-elf's shoulder.

"It's great to see ya too, girlie", The rogue says, "But we gotta split again. We're headin' into the heights, which means no following. They don't take kindly to tough street birds like you. Understand?"

The bird 'CAW's in response. Then it flits its beady black eyes on me, and flies in my direction. Instinctively I wave my arms out to bat it away if it gets close. It takes a sharp left before colliding with me, and flaps its wings hard into the sky above. As it goes, I slowly relax, readjusting my jacket, and turning back on my heel. Still plenty of ground to make.

"Weird bird...", Grace says.

"Oh, you have no idea", says Tegan.

As quick as I can, despite their continued chatter, I march without stop, every footfall one step closer to finally being rid of them for good.