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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:22:48 GMT -6
The opportunity, when it came, was almost so startling that Briar couldn’t take advantage of it. Almost.
The day itself began innocuously enough. Briar rose at dawn, made himself a simple breakfast, and went out to see Yeo-reum as the sky began to pale.
The Tat-lung, healed, wandered restlessly around the property. Briar could feel Yeo-reum’s anger growing, coiled up in him with each pacing step like a winding spring. His wounds had sealed over with Briar’s care, using poultices made from the medicinal plants in the gardens, which Yeo-reum had finally submitted to after having gone half delirious from pain. When they did not immediately poison his blood, some of his tension eased, but only temporarily. Sometimes Briar wondered what the Tat-lung knew that he didn’t, but in this they were in accord: Briar didn’t wish to stay here any more than Yeo-reum did.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:22:59 GMT -6
A part of him wished that he could explain to Yeo-reum why he was lingering. He knew that his own insistence on staying here was the source of much of Yeo-reum’s frustrations, at least in the time they’d been here. But another part of him understood that it wouldn’t matter, that even if Yeo-reum knew, the Tat wouldn’t understand. In Yeo-reum’s mind, no debt could be worth this, and the past was useful only insofar as it served to inform their survival in the present.
Often Briar would find Yeo-reum pacing restlessly in the grass; sometimes the Tat was absent altogether, hidden in the woods, for he was not quite well enough yet to fly. But today Yeo-reum sat quietly under the shade of the house, staring off into the distance. Briar tried to follow the line of his gaze, but saw only the distant tree line, with nothing out of the ordinary.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:23:21 GMT -6
Yeo-reum’s head lifted, then turned at the sound of Briar’s approach. He rumbled a low greeting, and Briar raised his hand in reply. Without preamble, Briar moved in to inspect the dressings on Yeo-reum’s still-healing wounds. The great and terrible scabs were slowly giving way to new pink skin, though they were still tender to the touch and only pride kept Yeo-reum still and silent as Briar worked. Briar was as careful as he could while working quickly, and in the span of ten minutes, it was done.
Yeo-reum nosed over his new bandages, then shook himself, and moved off with deliberate force, as if the wounds no longer bothered him.
Rather than going through the house, Briar went around until he reached the garden, and spent the rest of his morning at work tending the beds. Only when the sun was high in the sky and the heat became almost unbearable did he return inside to make lunch for himself.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:23:57 GMT -6
But before he could reach the kitchen, something caught his eye -- and Briar froze in his tracks as he spotted it.
The door to the tower was ever so slightly ajar.
After months of walking past it tightly shut, and an almost uncomfortable awareness of it as a barrier between it and what he sought, the sight of it now seemed to hit him with nearly a physical force. It was too easy, too good to be true. At once Briar did not trust it. It had all the makings of a trap -- or a test; he remembered clearly the warnings Noa had leveled at him when showing him around the house, and in all his time here the door had never been left ajar. Not until today. Not until now.
And yet, it was an opportunity. He was acutely aware of the fact that he had not been able to create one himself before now.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:24:11 GMT -6
He had no talent for picking locks; he had never had the means to learn, and his freedom had been won for him through different avenues. But even if he had, he suspected that there was more to the door than a physical mechanism. In this house, where even the chores were facilitated by magic, the most guarded threshold would surely have some magical ward upon it.
He knew at once that he had to take it, even as his instincts screamed for him to flee. He reminded himself that his own survival didn’t matter. He was here for one purpose, and the only reason he had been so careful thus far was because his goal hadn’t been within reach. But he was certain now, more than ever, that what he sought must lie beyond this door. There was nowhere else to look, and he had already wasted so much time.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:24:31 GMT -6
He allowed himself the space of a single deep breath, steeling his nerves against whatever might await him on the other side. Then, he slipped past the heavy door, his slight frame slender enough to fit through the gap without moving it any further.
Briar didn’t know what to expect. A part of him had anticipated some sort of dramatic change as he passed the threshold, but nothing of the sort transpired. The space beyond the door was a landing in a spiral stairwell -- it was a tower, after all. It was only dimly lit, by sconces filled with an eerie bluish flame, likely some small magic employed by Noa or his kin. The air was dead and cold -- perhaps a little colder than the architecture and lack of air flow could account for, but not startlingly so. Briar’s eyes, adept at seeing under the dark of night, adjusted quickly.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:24:42 GMT -6
There were only two ways to go: down or up. He felt the urge to move, to find cover, but he forced himself to stay on the landing and listen, to see if he could detect any sound, any sign of movement. It was hard to hear over the hammering of his own heart, but he strained his ears for anything, anything... He stayed like that for the span of several moments, and caught nothing more than the sound of his own breathing.
With nothing else to inform his choice, Briar went up.
The boy had been kept high in the tower, he remembered. He had been blown in by the storm, through the window. It had been a small room, and he had no idea what lay beyond; at the time he had been hidden the few times the boy had left the room, and it had seemed more important to remain undiscovered than to find out more about where he was.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:25:20 GMT -6
In the years that followed, he had cursed himself over and over for his shortsightedness, but now that he was here, he knew that finding the room was only a matter of going up. The space was too narrow for anything else, and there were no other ways into the tower.
When he neared the first landing, his pace slowed, and he listened again for any sign of activity. He didn’t hear footsteps, but now he was aware of a faint hum, almost musical in nature; and beneath it, even more faintly, something that might have been bubbling liquid.
Frowning, he inched forward, until he could see into the space above him. It was not a room, exactly -- merely a landing, a platform, along one side of which the stairs continued upward. On the opposite side, there were a series of glowing capsules of some sort, tinting the walls with a purplish cast.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:25:34 GMT -6
At first he didn’t understand, thinking that it was simply another sort of lighting fixture. But then he stepped closer, and saw a hint of movement within one of the pods.
A creature was suspended in the pod. Its eyes were closed as if in slumber, its body curled in on itself. Briar had never seen its like: pale-furred, with long drooping ears, and a smattering of quills growing from its back.
The pod next to it held something else -- and as Briar looked closer, he discovered with growing horror that most of the pods were filled. There were some he recognized: an Enileaf, a Faeron, and --
-- and Harachiu. Three -- no, six? Too many. They all wore the same inert expression. He found himself drawing closer despite the sick feeling building in the pit of his stomach. Without quite meaning to, he placed his hands over the pods, gingerly at first and then with more urgency.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:25:58 GMT -6
There had to be a mechanism -- some way to release them --
He didn’t know what he had touched, but suddenly there was a hissing noise, and one of the pods dissipated under his hand. The contents tumbled to the ground: a tiny blond boy with tattered blue clothes that might once have been robes, and wide dark wings that fanned loosely around him. The freed Harachiu groaned, rising slowly… Then came to himself all at once, and scrambled back from Briar as though burned.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other. Briar didn’t know what kind of face he was making. The boy was wide-eyed, his breathing quickened with shock and -- and anger, Briar realized. Fear too, underneath it, but the tension in him was not unlike the way that Yeo-reum carried himself after he had been freed. Then, slowly, the boy’s expression schooled itself into a closed-off frown.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:26:18 GMT -6
“Who are you?” he said in Common. “You’re not him.”
Briar shook his head. -Who?- he signed, though he doubted the Harachiu would understand. Sure enough, the blond boy stared at his hands and then at him, frown deepening.
“If you’re here to help, then help,” said the blond Harachiu. Rising, he flew to one of the other pods, and Briar followed his example. One after another, the pods collapsed, freeing the Harachiu within. Once the last of them were out, the blond Harachiu knelt beside them, as if trying to ascertain something.
And then, without warning, he shot up and away into the dark. Briar had reached out a hand to -- to what, he didn’t know. He let it fall. If the Harachiu wanted to make his escape, Briar would hardly be the one to stop him. Instead he turned his attention to the others, who were only now beginning to rouse.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:27:40 GMT -6
Most of them were young. A few of them looked to be children still, or barely older. The eldest among them was an Issen with long white hair. Unlike the blond boy, she regarded him calmly -- or at least with the veneer of calm. She must have been confused too; Briar could see that he wasn’t what they had been expecting. The rest watched him warily, but seemed to take their cue from the Issen, and stayed their reactions for the moment.
“Forgive us,” said the Issen, “but we're not familiar with you. Are you here to take us to the master of the house?” When Briar shook his head, she smiled a little, wanly. She looked weary, and the weariness made her appear older than she was, despite the ageless smoothness of her Harachiu features. He wondered how long it had been since she had last seen the sun. “Then thank you,” she said.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:28:04 GMT -6
“No,” said a small sharp voice from behind her, and both of them turned to look at the speaker: a girl with wings marked in vivid red, her hair strung up in limp and uneven pigtails. “He’s lying. He’s working with that man.”
“Hush,” said the dark-haired boy kneeling beside her. Their features were similar -- siblings, perhaps. “They’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care! You’re not going to get what you want,” said the brown-haired girl. She was barely out of adolescence, her wings still small, her dress still in one piece but filthy with -- with blood, he realized. She clocked the direction of his gaze, and her glare took a mulish quality. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know. This is the kind of bastard you work for.”
“Please,” whispered the boy. “He’ll hear us. We have to go. We--”
“Oh, I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:28:33 GMT -6
The sound of a familiar voice froze Briar in place. It was as if the temperature of the air in the space had dropped several degrees, though Briar didn’t know if that was Noa’s doing or simply the chill of his own dread. The Harachiu tensed where they stood. The dark-haired boy moved to stand in front of the younger ones, though Briar could see the faint trembling of his limbs. The Issen laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, though her own head was bowed, and Briar couldn’t make out her expression from where he crouched.
“I wondered what I would find when I came here. Perhaps I should have expected this.” Noa’s voice was quiet, but the deliberately nonchalant quality that usually colored it was gone. Briar, with an instinct born from long years reading the moods of capricious masters, knew this was a bad sign.
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Post by Briar on Jan 25, 2022 22:28:43 GMT -6
He forced himself to turn slowly, reminding himself that it would make no difference. If Noa wanted to kill him, there was little he could do to stop it happening.
Noa stood just before the stairs, staring down at the lot of them as though he had discovered an infestation of rats. Blocking their exit, Briar noted grimly. That he was angry was well apparent, but there was still a certain languidness to his body language. Now he tapped his chin with a finger, elbow propped up by the opposite hand -- an almost coquettish gesture, for a young man. “I did wonder, you know. Why you came here. People don’t come here unless they have a reason. I didn’t expect it to be this.”
It wasn’t -- but Briar couldn’t say so. The reminder of his true purpose stung, and he knew that whatever chance he had of finding what he had come here for was gone.
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