Summer Moon: 2
She slid the clipboard back across the counter. The clerk picked it up, eyes scanning across it, and then looked up at her. His eyes scanned her in the same way. Her skin tightened. She kept her face expressionless, but she could feel the prickling, feel the blood climbing into her face and heating her eyes. She was used to the judgements and condemnations. It came from a different direction now, and there was a different flavor to it, but in the end, it was all the same.
The clerk took the clipboard and walked to his boss. After a quick, muttered conversation, the clerk went off to help someone else. Her sharp ears caught the muttering. She pretended she hadn’t. It didn’t do any good.
The man with the fancy badge came over and began talking to her. At her, really. She knew the drill, nodded in all the right places. Yes, she understood she was on probation and serving the city as a sort of community service, yes she understood the enormous faith the city was putting in her, yes she understood that her rights could be revoked at the slightest hint of misbehavior. Magnanimous City of Paragon, how easily you could bleed into those you hate. She kept the thought trapped behind cold blue eyes. She nodded and nodded.
Finally, the man held out the key. She held out her wrist, the one with the electronic tether clamped to it. He touched the key to the flashing red underside of the metal cuff. It didn’t unlock, of course. It was only verifiying for the PPD and her parole that yes, she had been there, registered as agreed, and behaved herself. She took her new ID security badge without a word and pinned it on. More labels, more symbols, and how lucky we are to be on the right side of the Zig bars, aren’t we?
Lucky.
She turned to go. She hated the confinement of the building, even this large, airy and impressive dome. She’d spent too long under the tyranny of concrete and steel.
It was a fairly normal day in the City Hall building. Heroes zipping here and there, other heroes desperately trying to shove a flyer in their face for the latest Cape party or up-and-coming Supergroup, a few disgruntled city workers yelling at a suit about the Clockwork making off with their best tools *again*, and couldn’t they afford some better security at the construction site?
“Well, I guess not, when you look at this crowd of Paragon’s new ‘best and brightest’. Good lord,” he groaned out loud as he waved his hand at the far side of the dome.
He may have had a point.
The new hero registrar desk was crammed, as usual, from the mundane to the asinine, the weird and just kind of… stupid, with costumes that looked in general as though the hero-to-be had gone on a shopping spree through a fabric store blindfolded and then stitched what he found together with his feet. All in all, not terribly promising.
It so happened that the two up-and-comers that looked (by comparison, at least) the most reasonable would also be possibly the most promising.
He filled out his forms awkwardly in a gloved hand, trying - and likely failing, though it probably didn’t matter anyway given the situation - to peek at both the woman and the forms she was filling out beside him around the edge of his helmet.
He slid his own clip board across the desk to the clerk, noting as he did that she had also checked off the obviously recently edited in box, questioning past intimate contact with Kheldians (and the additional note that it would be self explanatory to those who had). It was an important note. He knew what a Kheldian was, he knew what he was… at least in that sense. The rest was an issue for later
He realized he was leaning across the desk, lost inside his thoughts, only when the clerk across from him cleared his throat loudly. He jumped a bit, then looked down, fumbling to pick up the ID card with the relatively clumsy gauntlets. He settled with pushing it over to the edge, holding it awkwardly, then tucking it into the opposite glove for safekeeping; the woman had already turned and started walking out.
Finally registered, he felt a sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach. Coming here, doing this, it was almost automatic; he’d dreamt of the chance to do it for years, spent his idle moments thinking of how it would be… Now here he was, an official Hero of the city, and suddenly on his own in a way he hadn’t ever felt.
“Um, excuse me, miss,” he said, raising his voice a bit as he sped up to attempt falling into step with her, “Ah…” Ah what? Greetings? No, too formal. Good day to you? Too fake. How’s it shakin’? Just… no. He suddenly wondered why he was running up to this stranger in the first place, and what he was going to say next… a bit bewildered with his own actions, he managed to finish.
“Hi.”
She paused, one hand on the door to push it open, the tantalizing bit of breeze pushing through the crack she’d made and calling her outside into the sunshine. She suppressed a sigh and turned to the man in the outlandishly bright armor. Why capes - masks - heroes - shit, she was still thinking of them all with such contempt, she really had to stop that - thought they could dress like that and still surprise anyone, she did not know.
“I’m really not looking for a group, a team, a guild, a uniform, a date or a party,” she said in a carefully controlled and strangely rough voice. “I’m also on probation and probably exactly the type of person they warned you about in hero school, however the authorities have me under control so there’s no need to keep an eye on me. All right?” She wasn’t cruel, but she was firm. Whatever this guy wanted, she just didn’t have any.
He arched an eyebrow. Though part of him likely would have given her the response she wanted, timidly apologizing and letting her walk off as he stood there flustered, that was no longer all he was. He was intrigued now, and given pause, but not shut down.
“Actually… I wondered if you would share your name. And maybe a minute or three out on the plaza to share it? You seem to be on your way out anyway… and the idea of being under an open sky is rather appealing. Or, much moreso for part of me, as of recently.”
She did sigh this time. She pushed the door further open and leaned in its direction. “I do want to be outside, so that’s where I’m going. You can go too if you want, it’s a free country.” Her rough voice rumbled sarcastically on those words; she hadn’t meant to, but couldn’t help it. “As for my name, I-“ she paused, indeed, the force of her thoughts nearly stumbled her as she stepped out the door, but she caught herself smoothly. Names. So important. Things she was, things she wasn’t, things she wouldn’t ever be again, things she had yet to be. Eons of time and space stretching out ahead and behind, and such a small mote in the here and now, so old and young at once.
“Summer Moon,” she said shortly, the name they’d agreed on, the joining-name, the name she’d decided to do her ‘hero’ work under.
He nodded slowly, following her through the door and into the plaza. “I suppose… freedom’s a virtue. Something you work to hold on to, not just have. Circumstance limits your freedom all the time.” He paused, then seemed to blush beneath the edges of his facemask. “Sorry. Not trying to rub anything in… I have a generally unhealthy habit of pondering things out loud.”
“You have a good name. The sort you can dance to… Ah, the idea, I mean. It calls up music.” He shrugged a little, looking up at the sky through white eyes, dimly lit though his powers remain dormant.
“It’s… been some time since I’ve spoken to another like us. What about your other names? The Human and the Kheldian?”
She gave him a short glare, a look that was both fierce and in its own way, timid. A faint purple glow dazzled the look. “That is my name,” she said, stepping off of the concrete and up onto one of the many large rocks embedded in the grass of the park. “I hope you don’t think we’re alike, you and I, just because you’ve got a Kheldian in you. We’re not alike.” It was fiercely insistent, despite the steady constancy of low volume.
“I don’t simply have one in me,” he said, his own light voice becoming deeper, more serious; “Parts of myself still sleep, and have slept for a time, but they are slowly stirring. And I know what I am. So what injustice have those *like* me done to earn your distaste, in these past few centuries? Because I have slept. And I should perhaps have the courtesy of knowing what misdeeds I will be held to that would make a fellow Peace…” he trailed off, the glow triggering a memory eons buried. He leaned closer to her.
“What… gods, what time is this? Where…” he stumbled back. The glow in his eyes dimmed further. His voice was shaken, no longer thrumming with a soft boom behind it, but not fearful. “What are you?” he seemed honestly surprised.
This time it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know about Warshades? I suppose that’s what they’re calling me.” Then her face tightened, her eyes narrowed, and something predatory crept into her expression… not a predator hunting, but a nocturnal animal who didn’t want a light shone on it. “You mean the warshade, right? I am - I was - a Nictus. I’m not anymore. I mean, I’ve given that up. Stopped. That. That’s what you mean, right?”
He nodded slowly, taking in her words at the same time he confirmed them. “That… is what I mean, yes. Yeah. I mean… I don’t know any of this. I didn’t think it was possible for a willing merger, if…” he arched an eyebrow, “if that’s what you mean by stopped, Summer Moon?”
“I don’t eat Peacebringers and I didn’t force this merger, I mean. And why am I talking to you anyway?” She was growling again, eyes unwilling to drop his but backing away slightly at the same time, keeping open space at her back and high ground on the rock. “And I don’t dislike you in particular, or Peacebringers, or any of that. I’m just not like you. Not like any part of you. You can take that to the bank.”
“That badge says otherwise.” He did not deny her the high ground, only not so much of it, floating up with little sunbursts of Kheldian light flowing from his eyes. “Just because I don’t know about Warshades doesn’t mean I don’t know about heroes. I grew up here. They can’t press you into service from the Zig just because your eyes glow. Choosing to give up what you have, and choosing to fight, for whatever reasons… Some parts are alike, I’m sorry to say.”
“Doing the same thing for different reasons doesn’t make us alike,” she said. “I don’t know a thing about you, and you don’t know anything about me. Trying to draw any kind of conclusions because I’m wearing a badge and so are you is nonsense.”
“It doesn’t? Two soldiers going off to battle are still soldiers, together, even if one fights for his family’s safety and one fights for his own honor. And I know your name. Mine is Dawnsong. Which means we each now have a reasonable sense at worst of each other’s name, type of being, and current… occupation. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.”
He drifted back down to the earth, crossing his arms over his chest carefully. “There’s an obviously large gap in my knowledge between the time I slumbered, the time I was born, and the time I was awakened and the two parts rejoined. I would like to know more about you, and these Warshades, if there are others like you.”
She stiffened when he talked about soldiers, about armies and marching off to war. No, no, she wouldn’t have anything to do with that metaphor, not ever again, It’d been used to teach her too many things she couldn’t bear to open her memory and look at in the clear light of day. She shook her head. “I don’t know much. I don’t have any contact with the others yet. I’m supposed to go check in with one called Starshadow later today. All these check-ins.” She gave a rough, joyless chuckle. “But I’m sure there aren’t any like me there, either. So you’re really wasting your time if you’re looking to learn anything from me.”
“Maybe,” he said, his voice returning more and more toward the tone he held when he first spoke to her, “But, well, I met you. I’m supposed to check in with someone too, the head of the Peacebringers… Sunstorm. Besides, even if you don’t know much about the Warshades… there is plenty you could teach. And perhaps that I could teach you.” If she looked, she could likely see the edges of a light smile peeking from around the permanent metal, toothy, bestial grin that covered his face and muffled his voice.
“It’s also pretty obvious you don’t want that thing on your wrist, and I can’t blame you. I have no reason to think you would lie to me even without it… And when I report what a great help you’ve been to my own new crimefighting career here, it might just speed the way to getting everyone above you out of your hair.
“And besides, maybe it’s destiny? Two beings walking totally separate paths - your words, not my own - happening to start a new leg of their journey at the same instant? What could it hurt to follow that thread until it runs out? You did say you have no particular dislike for me.”
She looked at him with a slightly curled lip. “I said I didn’t dislike you particularly, which is different. And if you think I need to be beholden to you - or anyone - to put in a good word for me, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t need to pay anyone off to walk with me on this path, thank you very much.” Something in the smile she could see - more sense - on his face tempted her, but too many alarm bells were ringing. She suddenly wanted to cry, and couldn’t say why. Maybe it was just that she was so alone, and there wasn’t any way around it. Because there really wasn’t anyone like her, and she’d walked away - run away - from everything she’d ever known and believed in to do the ‘right thing.’ What an ephemeral phrase.
“If you dislike everyone the same and me no more than others, then it’s more or less the same. I’m not asking for anything in exchange but to speak with me, and perhaps do some more walking. Neither of which seem to have caused much trouble thus far.” He bowed a little, then took a step back.
“What’s the worst that could happen? You might dislike me a bit less than most, and I’ll be a bit harder than others to hurry along with a sore look?”
“You already are,” she muttered. “Look, you really don’t want to hang around with me, okay? I grew up in the Fifth Column. I betrayed them and worked for the Council, along with the Nictus I eventually joined with. Then I turned on them and now I’m here. I’m not friendship material. And I’m also not interestingly evil, so there’s no need to follow me around to see what the next terrible thing I’ll do is. I’m done with all that. There’s nothing to see here.” She turned away, head slightly lowered, a wolf heading into the shadows. If he followed her, he followed her… but he wouldn’t. Surely, no hero, and no Peacebringer, would want to have anything to do with someone with her history. And he didn’t even know the worst of it, nor would he.
He drifted along a bit behind her. “There was a saying, in my past life, that a man should keep his philosophies current with the times. And in these current times, we are both of the class charged now with protecting our land, and it is permissible for these Warshades to fight alongside us.
“I’m a drunkard, and a demon, and a warrior, and a spirit, and a protector, and an ex-MAGI mundane grunt who had to try on an imported suit of samurai armor in the store room for kicks and now can’t get it off, and most of those things potentially died and reincarnated, depending on who you ask. So now we both have the short form, I think.
“Life often doesn’t let us choose our freedom. But when it does, it can be a hard-earned, difficult choice. That bracelet holds you back, but it’s clear enough that you want to be free to make your own choices. A wanderer. I’m this as well, and I respect the desire.
“And above all else… You’re a person. No more or less important than anyone else. And I feel like I should go with you, at least for now. Ah, if you’ll let me.”
He could respect her desire to wander, but not her desire for solitude, for some damn peace and quiet. He was going to keep drifting along behind her, chattering away, no matter what she did. “Whatever,” she growled softly. And if he could glimpse any part of her face at that moment, there might have been a ghost of a smile hovering around her lips. Or that might have just been the shadows of the leaves across her face, a wishful thought. “If you want.”
Even if she couldn’t see his face, she could likely feel his grin. “Great! Um,” he coughed, “Thank you for the opportunity, Summer Moon.”
The clerk took the clipboard and walked to his boss. After a quick, muttered conversation, the clerk went off to help someone else. Her sharp ears caught the muttering. She pretended she hadn’t. It didn’t do any good.
The man with the fancy badge came over and began talking to her. At her, really. She knew the drill, nodded in all the right places. Yes, she understood she was on probation and serving the city as a sort of community service, yes she understood the enormous faith the city was putting in her, yes she understood that her rights could be revoked at the slightest hint of misbehavior. Magnanimous City of Paragon, how easily you could bleed into those you hate. She kept the thought trapped behind cold blue eyes. She nodded and nodded.
Finally, the man held out the key. She held out her wrist, the one with the electronic tether clamped to it. He touched the key to the flashing red underside of the metal cuff. It didn’t unlock, of course. It was only verifiying for the PPD and her parole that yes, she had been there, registered as agreed, and behaved herself. She took her new ID security badge without a word and pinned it on. More labels, more symbols, and how lucky we are to be on the right side of the Zig bars, aren’t we?
Lucky.
She turned to go. She hated the confinement of the building, even this large, airy and impressive dome. She’d spent too long under the tyranny of concrete and steel.
It was a fairly normal day in the City Hall building. Heroes zipping here and there, other heroes desperately trying to shove a flyer in their face for the latest Cape party or up-and-coming Supergroup, a few disgruntled city workers yelling at a suit about the Clockwork making off with their best tools *again*, and couldn’t they afford some better security at the construction site?
“Well, I guess not, when you look at this crowd of Paragon’s new ‘best and brightest’. Good lord,” he groaned out loud as he waved his hand at the far side of the dome.
He may have had a point.
The new hero registrar desk was crammed, as usual, from the mundane to the asinine, the weird and just kind of… stupid, with costumes that looked in general as though the hero-to-be had gone on a shopping spree through a fabric store blindfolded and then stitched what he found together with his feet. All in all, not terribly promising.
It so happened that the two up-and-comers that looked (by comparison, at least) the most reasonable would also be possibly the most promising.
He filled out his forms awkwardly in a gloved hand, trying - and likely failing, though it probably didn’t matter anyway given the situation - to peek at both the woman and the forms she was filling out beside him around the edge of his helmet.
He slid his own clip board across the desk to the clerk, noting as he did that she had also checked off the obviously recently edited in box, questioning past intimate contact with Kheldians (and the additional note that it would be self explanatory to those who had). It was an important note. He knew what a Kheldian was, he knew what he was… at least in that sense. The rest was an issue for later
He realized he was leaning across the desk, lost inside his thoughts, only when the clerk across from him cleared his throat loudly. He jumped a bit, then looked down, fumbling to pick up the ID card with the relatively clumsy gauntlets. He settled with pushing it over to the edge, holding it awkwardly, then tucking it into the opposite glove for safekeeping; the woman had already turned and started walking out.
Finally registered, he felt a sudden sinking in the pit of his stomach. Coming here, doing this, it was almost automatic; he’d dreamt of the chance to do it for years, spent his idle moments thinking of how it would be… Now here he was, an official Hero of the city, and suddenly on his own in a way he hadn’t ever felt.
“Um, excuse me, miss,” he said, raising his voice a bit as he sped up to attempt falling into step with her, “Ah…” Ah what? Greetings? No, too formal. Good day to you? Too fake. How’s it shakin’? Just… no. He suddenly wondered why he was running up to this stranger in the first place, and what he was going to say next… a bit bewildered with his own actions, he managed to finish.
“Hi.”
She paused, one hand on the door to push it open, the tantalizing bit of breeze pushing through the crack she’d made and calling her outside into the sunshine. She suppressed a sigh and turned to the man in the outlandishly bright armor. Why capes - masks - heroes - shit, she was still thinking of them all with such contempt, she really had to stop that - thought they could dress like that and still surprise anyone, she did not know.
“I’m really not looking for a group, a team, a guild, a uniform, a date or a party,” she said in a carefully controlled and strangely rough voice. “I’m also on probation and probably exactly the type of person they warned you about in hero school, however the authorities have me under control so there’s no need to keep an eye on me. All right?” She wasn’t cruel, but she was firm. Whatever this guy wanted, she just didn’t have any.
He arched an eyebrow. Though part of him likely would have given her the response she wanted, timidly apologizing and letting her walk off as he stood there flustered, that was no longer all he was. He was intrigued now, and given pause, but not shut down.
“Actually… I wondered if you would share your name. And maybe a minute or three out on the plaza to share it? You seem to be on your way out anyway… and the idea of being under an open sky is rather appealing. Or, much moreso for part of me, as of recently.”
She did sigh this time. She pushed the door further open and leaned in its direction. “I do want to be outside, so that’s where I’m going. You can go too if you want, it’s a free country.” Her rough voice rumbled sarcastically on those words; she hadn’t meant to, but couldn’t help it. “As for my name, I-“ she paused, indeed, the force of her thoughts nearly stumbled her as she stepped out the door, but she caught herself smoothly. Names. So important. Things she was, things she wasn’t, things she wouldn’t ever be again, things she had yet to be. Eons of time and space stretching out ahead and behind, and such a small mote in the here and now, so old and young at once.
“Summer Moon,” she said shortly, the name they’d agreed on, the joining-name, the name she’d decided to do her ‘hero’ work under.
He nodded slowly, following her through the door and into the plaza. “I suppose… freedom’s a virtue. Something you work to hold on to, not just have. Circumstance limits your freedom all the time.” He paused, then seemed to blush beneath the edges of his facemask. “Sorry. Not trying to rub anything in… I have a generally unhealthy habit of pondering things out loud.”
“You have a good name. The sort you can dance to… Ah, the idea, I mean. It calls up music.” He shrugged a little, looking up at the sky through white eyes, dimly lit though his powers remain dormant.
“It’s… been some time since I’ve spoken to another like us. What about your other names? The Human and the Kheldian?”
She gave him a short glare, a look that was both fierce and in its own way, timid. A faint purple glow dazzled the look. “That is my name,” she said, stepping off of the concrete and up onto one of the many large rocks embedded in the grass of the park. “I hope you don’t think we’re alike, you and I, just because you’ve got a Kheldian in you. We’re not alike.” It was fiercely insistent, despite the steady constancy of low volume.
“I don’t simply have one in me,” he said, his own light voice becoming deeper, more serious; “Parts of myself still sleep, and have slept for a time, but they are slowly stirring. And I know what I am. So what injustice have those *like* me done to earn your distaste, in these past few centuries? Because I have slept. And I should perhaps have the courtesy of knowing what misdeeds I will be held to that would make a fellow Peace…” he trailed off, the glow triggering a memory eons buried. He leaned closer to her.
“What… gods, what time is this? Where…” he stumbled back. The glow in his eyes dimmed further. His voice was shaken, no longer thrumming with a soft boom behind it, but not fearful. “What are you?” he seemed honestly surprised.
This time it was her turn to raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know about Warshades? I suppose that’s what they’re calling me.” Then her face tightened, her eyes narrowed, and something predatory crept into her expression… not a predator hunting, but a nocturnal animal who didn’t want a light shone on it. “You mean the warshade, right? I am - I was - a Nictus. I’m not anymore. I mean, I’ve given that up. Stopped. That. That’s what you mean, right?”
He nodded slowly, taking in her words at the same time he confirmed them. “That… is what I mean, yes. Yeah. I mean… I don’t know any of this. I didn’t think it was possible for a willing merger, if…” he arched an eyebrow, “if that’s what you mean by stopped, Summer Moon?”
“I don’t eat Peacebringers and I didn’t force this merger, I mean. And why am I talking to you anyway?” She was growling again, eyes unwilling to drop his but backing away slightly at the same time, keeping open space at her back and high ground on the rock. “And I don’t dislike you in particular, or Peacebringers, or any of that. I’m just not like you. Not like any part of you. You can take that to the bank.”
“That badge says otherwise.” He did not deny her the high ground, only not so much of it, floating up with little sunbursts of Kheldian light flowing from his eyes. “Just because I don’t know about Warshades doesn’t mean I don’t know about heroes. I grew up here. They can’t press you into service from the Zig just because your eyes glow. Choosing to give up what you have, and choosing to fight, for whatever reasons… Some parts are alike, I’m sorry to say.”
“Doing the same thing for different reasons doesn’t make us alike,” she said. “I don’t know a thing about you, and you don’t know anything about me. Trying to draw any kind of conclusions because I’m wearing a badge and so are you is nonsense.”
“It doesn’t? Two soldiers going off to battle are still soldiers, together, even if one fights for his family’s safety and one fights for his own honor. And I know your name. Mine is Dawnsong. Which means we each now have a reasonable sense at worst of each other’s name, type of being, and current… occupation. It’s not much, but it’s not nothing.”
He drifted back down to the earth, crossing his arms over his chest carefully. “There’s an obviously large gap in my knowledge between the time I slumbered, the time I was born, and the time I was awakened and the two parts rejoined. I would like to know more about you, and these Warshades, if there are others like you.”
She stiffened when he talked about soldiers, about armies and marching off to war. No, no, she wouldn’t have anything to do with that metaphor, not ever again, It’d been used to teach her too many things she couldn’t bear to open her memory and look at in the clear light of day. She shook her head. “I don’t know much. I don’t have any contact with the others yet. I’m supposed to go check in with one called Starshadow later today. All these check-ins.” She gave a rough, joyless chuckle. “But I’m sure there aren’t any like me there, either. So you’re really wasting your time if you’re looking to learn anything from me.”
“Maybe,” he said, his voice returning more and more toward the tone he held when he first spoke to her, “But, well, I met you. I’m supposed to check in with someone too, the head of the Peacebringers… Sunstorm. Besides, even if you don’t know much about the Warshades… there is plenty you could teach. And perhaps that I could teach you.” If she looked, she could likely see the edges of a light smile peeking from around the permanent metal, toothy, bestial grin that covered his face and muffled his voice.
“It’s also pretty obvious you don’t want that thing on your wrist, and I can’t blame you. I have no reason to think you would lie to me even without it… And when I report what a great help you’ve been to my own new crimefighting career here, it might just speed the way to getting everyone above you out of your hair.
“And besides, maybe it’s destiny? Two beings walking totally separate paths - your words, not my own - happening to start a new leg of their journey at the same instant? What could it hurt to follow that thread until it runs out? You did say you have no particular dislike for me.”
She looked at him with a slightly curled lip. “I said I didn’t dislike you particularly, which is different. And if you think I need to be beholden to you - or anyone - to put in a good word for me, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t need to pay anyone off to walk with me on this path, thank you very much.” Something in the smile she could see - more sense - on his face tempted her, but too many alarm bells were ringing. She suddenly wanted to cry, and couldn’t say why. Maybe it was just that she was so alone, and there wasn’t any way around it. Because there really wasn’t anyone like her, and she’d walked away - run away - from everything she’d ever known and believed in to do the ‘right thing.’ What an ephemeral phrase.
“If you dislike everyone the same and me no more than others, then it’s more or less the same. I’m not asking for anything in exchange but to speak with me, and perhaps do some more walking. Neither of which seem to have caused much trouble thus far.” He bowed a little, then took a step back.
“What’s the worst that could happen? You might dislike me a bit less than most, and I’ll be a bit harder than others to hurry along with a sore look?”
“You already are,” she muttered. “Look, you really don’t want to hang around with me, okay? I grew up in the Fifth Column. I betrayed them and worked for the Council, along with the Nictus I eventually joined with. Then I turned on them and now I’m here. I’m not friendship material. And I’m also not interestingly evil, so there’s no need to follow me around to see what the next terrible thing I’ll do is. I’m done with all that. There’s nothing to see here.” She turned away, head slightly lowered, a wolf heading into the shadows. If he followed her, he followed her… but he wouldn’t. Surely, no hero, and no Peacebringer, would want to have anything to do with someone with her history. And he didn’t even know the worst of it, nor would he.
He drifted along a bit behind her. “There was a saying, in my past life, that a man should keep his philosophies current with the times. And in these current times, we are both of the class charged now with protecting our land, and it is permissible for these Warshades to fight alongside us.
“I’m a drunkard, and a demon, and a warrior, and a spirit, and a protector, and an ex-MAGI mundane grunt who had to try on an imported suit of samurai armor in the store room for kicks and now can’t get it off, and most of those things potentially died and reincarnated, depending on who you ask. So now we both have the short form, I think.
“Life often doesn’t let us choose our freedom. But when it does, it can be a hard-earned, difficult choice. That bracelet holds you back, but it’s clear enough that you want to be free to make your own choices. A wanderer. I’m this as well, and I respect the desire.
“And above all else… You’re a person. No more or less important than anyone else. And I feel like I should go with you, at least for now. Ah, if you’ll let me.”
He could respect her desire to wander, but not her desire for solitude, for some damn peace and quiet. He was going to keep drifting along behind her, chattering away, no matter what she did. “Whatever,” she growled softly. And if he could glimpse any part of her face at that moment, there might have been a ghost of a smile hovering around her lips. Or that might have just been the shadows of the leaves across her face, a wishful thought. “If you want.”
Even if she couldn’t see his face, she could likely feel his grin. “Great! Um,” he coughed, “Thank you for the opportunity, Summer Moon.”