fic - the faithful and the brave : 36 [novella]
Title: The Faithful and the Brave
Part: 36
The Faithful and the Brave
Part 36
The screen to the alcove opened. Sally stood frowning as Heero pushed himself out of the bed and came unsteadily to his feet. She kept her arms crossed in disapproval. If he thought he needed to be out of bed against his healer's recommendations, he was going to prove himself by doing so unaided.
His friends were not quite so strict. Quatre put his teacup down hastily and hustled over to take his arm. "Heero," he chided. "You should get some more rest."
"Sally will be brewing me a potion. Were I to sleep, she would only be waking me soon enough."
"You still feel... unsteady." On the inside. On the outside, they'd cleaned his wounds and bandaged him up. He seemed lighter than usual, and Quatre had to look at him with his other sight to reassure himself that the impression of sickness and frailty was a conjuration of his worried imagination. It was only that Heero was unencumbered by his typical leather and armor. The thin patient's robe was impossible to associate with good health and strength.
Heero patted the hand on his elbow reassuringly. The support was unnecessary, but appreciated nonetheless. "It will pass."
"A pity I've not your power."
"How so?"
"Then I could gift you my energy, as you have so often, so generously done for me."
"It's a good thing you haven't this power." Heero settled into a chair with a soft sigh. "Then perhaps it would be you in this mess instead."
Sally was in the process of collecting a variety of ingredients from her shelves for Heero's potion, but she was listening still. "Yes, you boys were just about to tell me all about this mess you're in, weren't you?"
Wufei responded quickly to Heero's questioning look. "I believe you are mistaken."
"Is that so?" She hummed absently to herself as she sniffed at a pot of herbs. "Then why don't we go back to discussing ancient mythology? That's a harmless topic, yes?"
He grimaced and cast a glance at Quatre.
Quatre considered it for a few seconds before shrugging. "Does the 'Necrohol' mean anything to you?"
"Necrohol," she repeated slowly. She paused thoughtfully in her potion-making. "It sounds pre-Cataclysmic in origin. Its etymology suggests a location of some sort. I couldn't say much more than that, though. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing really." Aside from the fact that it had gates, and they couldn't even say if they were literal or figurative gates. "We just heard it in passing. You wouldn't happen to have any reference materials, would you?"
"For chemistry? Plenty. For more obscure research topics? Not more than just a book or two at the moment. I know some people around the mountain that might have more to offer. The Cataclysm is a topic of fascination for many geomancers."
"Hm, we might want to ask around."
"So this Necrohol is a place of some significance, eh?"
"Stop fishing for information," Wufei grumbled.
"Just making conversation," she shot back calmly. "You're about to go out there and fish for information yourself. I suspect you'll have a difficult time with it if you're so unwilling to offer even the slightest hint of what you're up to. People enjoy discussing their topics of interest. They don't enjoy being interrogated."
"That's our problem, not yours."
"Hmpf, do me a favor and don't mention you're friends of mine, then, since you're so intent on keeping me out of things."
"We don't know all of the people involved," Quatre explained delicately. "We don't know who or what they are attempting to summon. We do know that it is dark, and that they are willing to kill many people for it."
She accepted the offering thoughtfully. He hadn't really said anything they hadn't said before, but at least he was pretending to include her. "And how did you all get involved?"
Quatre slanted a glance at Heero. "It seems they need a channeler to get the job done."
"And Heero's sister is a channeler," she recalled from her study of Heero.
"Yes," he answered simply, keeping an eye on Heero's fists as they tightened in his lap.
"I'll tell you whom you need to talk to."
Heero prepared to push himself out of his chair. "I'll get dressed."
"You are going to sit down and drink your potion," Sally retorted immediately, brandishing a spoon at him.
He gave her a steady look. "It's not ready yet."
"Those Cataclysm fans will talk your ear off, given half a chance. You go out there, and they're not right next door, you won't be back 'til nightfall, and that's only because they don't want to have to offer you supper."
"Perhaps the fresh air..."
"You should probably stay away from those geomancers, anyway," she added with a soft frown. She turned back to her work. "The geomancers felt it in the earth. What happened at Yardrow. Whatever it was. They might be able to recognize you."
"I'm a channeler. A conduit. That's it. The energy goes through me. There should be nothing of me in it."
"You directed it. You said as much just now. That's something. True, I'm just hypothesizing right now. I'm no geomancer, I don't know the full profile of the power that shook the earth. But I'm sure you don't want to take the risk."
"I should stay with you," Quatre piped up. "You're too open, too vulnerable to their power. With Sally's expertise, perhaps we can help you find a way to shield yourself against it."
Heero frowned, but could not disagree. The disorientation that hit him whenever their power was invoked was a serious liability. "I'm getting dressed anyway," he proclaimed grumpily.
Heero had assured Quatre that his unsteadiness would pass, and though it had not been too long ago, he had thought he would be rather farther along the process by now. Sally was filling Wufei in on the people he needed to talk to, and advising that Trowa accompany him. One of the geomancers would likely be more than happy to trade information in exchange for Trowa delivering some of her instruments up where a dragoon would have no trouble reaching. Quatre was offering his own input. The hour was approaching mid-afternoon already. It seemed unlikely they would be able to talk to all of the neighbors Sally was suggesting in this one day.
Duo was already waiting for him next to his alcove, lopsided smile on his face as if to say, ha did you think you could slip away and no one would notice?
He held his hand out silently, a single raised eyebrow asking the question for him.
Duo handed over the leather leggings. "What? I told you I'd squire for you."
"For the dressing, and the undressing. Yes, I remember," he answered dryly. "Did you 'squire' for me earlier?"
"Nah. I mean, I totally volunteered, soon as Sally asked, don't think I'm falling down on the job. But then Wufei, yanno, disagreed, and that sneaky little Quatre snuck on in and did the deed."
Resigned to the fact that Duo would not be going away for the moment, Heero pulled the leggings on underneath his robe and started lacing up.
Duo watched for a little while, then looked away. "Had me real worried for a few minutes there, yanno?"
He absorbed that, recalled thinking about Duo during his final charge. "It was the best plan I had at the time."
"Not saying you didn't save all our asses..."
"But no one else's."
"Huh? Whaddya mean?"
Heero tied off his laces with unnecessary force. "There were no other survivors. Right?"
"Uh, yeah, Sally said that's the word around the mountain."
He nodded to himself. "I could feel it. All that power... coming from all those people." He'd become a two-way channel in those final moments, as the energy that had been called from that other side rushed out through him to destroy him and his friends. All the lifeforce of Yardrow had been soaking into the ether slowly, naturally, but suddenly a new pathway had opened for it, and it naturally followed the path of least resistance. It reminded him of the explosion that night in Sanq, the way the flour dust had ignited and consumed all of the air within, leaving a void which in turn sucked in all the air around it. The energy flew at him, then past him, and by the time he had recognized it for what it was, he was already committed to bending the energy coming out through him away from its intended goal.
But now he had the time to mourn those losses, and his inability to do anything to stop what was happening. He knew those people were already dead, that their lifeforce was not the same as their soul, but it was difficult not to feel as if he'd hastened those people on to a grim fate, that whatever it was that awaited them on that other side with its cold, inhuman patience would twist their life into death, that he was the instrument of their doom and would be again, if that unholy feeling at the edge of his consciousness could have its way again...
He gasped softly and shuddered, coming back to himself. Duo hovered uncertainly at his elbow. Heero smiled weakly for him before sitting heavily down upon his bed.
"Heero?" Quatre called out questioningly from across the room.
Wufei had gone, along with Trowa. Heero hadn't noticed. He met Quatre's eyes in acknowledgment before looking back to Duo and gestured for him to hand him his boots.
"Yeah, I don't think so, buddy," Duo answered jovially, playing along with Heero's attempt to cover-up his lapse. "I'm not making it easier for you to sneak out when those two over there told you to stay put."
Heero sighed loudly. "My shirt, then?"
"Hmmm..." Duo made a show of looking around for it before holding it up. "Oh this? My, my, look at this tear in your sleeve! We can't have you wearing this."
"Are you trying to keep me in a state of undress?"
"Why, Heero, what a dirty mind you have." He glanced casually over to the healer and the chemist, and saw their attention had strayed from the apparent flirting. Or perhaps it was actual flirting, but with an ulterior motive. He turned the obviousness down a notch. "Let me mend this for you."
"I can mend it myself." Heero looked deliberately at the others, then back to Duo. "But thank you," he added quietly.
Duo sat down next to him on the bed, nearly hip to hip. "Sounds like they're going to be keeping you busy for a little bit. This'll give me something to do. Trust me, you'll be doing us all a favor."
"That won't occupy you the rest of the afternoon."
"No, but it's a start. Let me provide you what support I can." His soft tone came across intimately.
"I..." Heero swallowed and looked down at his hands in his lap. A part of him still thought that sounded like a lovely idea. And a part of him still thought it sounded like a terrible idea. Perhaps moreso now than it had been before.
Duo smiled and backed off. "Come on, even Trowa's found a way to be useful with his jumpy thing. Unless they find something out there that needs to mysteriously show up in our possession... the least I can do is help take care of your gear." When Heero finally conceded with a small, rueful nod, Duo patted his knee. "That, and I like you in a state of undress." He flashed Heero a mischievous grin before hopping off to search for a sewing kit in their packs.
"Hm, scions of dark...," Sally was saying, back on the topic of ancient mythology with Quatre. "Well, by convenience only, it's important to note. It's said they were created by the gods in opposition to those we label the scions of light, but I can't say the scions of light were particularly benevolent in any sense. They just won the propaganda war in the end, by virtue of staying on the gods' good side and not joining the rebellion."
"I think you're paraphrasing ancient mythology."
"Maybe just a little. Or maybe it's important not to believe everything you read. Or at least not take it too literally."
"So I take it the scions of light will be of no help to us?"
"Eidolons bend more easily to a summoner's will. But it took the gods themselves to force the Espers into submission. And you are neither summoner nor god. If you were to somehow call upon one... 'light' or 'dark'... I think I would be very wary of the outcome. Is that what they're doing? These unidentified people of yours that are summoning something?"
Quatre mulled it over. No need to mention the possibility that they had already succeeded in summoning some Espers by way of the Zodiac Stones. He nodded at Heero as the other man joined them by Sally's workbench. "Did the Espers bow to anyone else besides the gods? Was there a central figure of their rebellion?"
"Yes, there was." Sally was silent for a short while as she precisely adjusted the flame beneath her brew to reduce the concoction to a steadily steaming simmer. "There was a leader of their rebellion. The most powerful of them... Punished most severely by the gods... Drat, the names are escaping me. E... Epiris? Epima?"
"Epyon," Heero said suddenly.
"That was it!" she exclaimed, looking at him in surprise. "Epyon. How did you know that?"
"Epyon..." he repeated thoughtfully. "And... Zeromus?"
"That's it exactly: Epyon, in opposition to Zeromus. Don't tell me you've had a secret interest in ancient mythology all this time."
"I have not."
"Then...?"
"I don't know." There was a faint edge to his words that belied his calm.
Sally glanced questioningly at Quatre. "Perhaps you overheard those names? As you did the others?"
Quatre shook his head slowly. "I don't recall those..."
"I, too, am fairly certain I did not overhear them." Heero frowned slightly. "But the names came to me just now... as from some half-forgotten memory."
"Does anything else come to mind when you hear those names?"
"Nothing specific..." Drawing on vaguely remembered lessons from a lifetime ago, he let his attention be caught and held by the little fire heating his potion to focus without focusing. "Only... an association with... that other side."
Quatre pushed himself off the table he'd been leaning against and began to pace. "If traces of Heero could be left in the power pushed into the earth... You're suggesting that traces of the power could be left within Heero, too, aren't you?"
"It stands to reason."
"Well, this seems like an excellent time to work on Heero's defenses, then."
back to previous part
on to next part
This entry was originally posted at https://turnippatch.dreamwidth.org/161578.html.
Part: 36
The Faithful and the Brave
Part 36
The screen to the alcove opened. Sally stood frowning as Heero pushed himself out of the bed and came unsteadily to his feet. She kept her arms crossed in disapproval. If he thought he needed to be out of bed against his healer's recommendations, he was going to prove himself by doing so unaided.
His friends were not quite so strict. Quatre put his teacup down hastily and hustled over to take his arm. "Heero," he chided. "You should get some more rest."
"Sally will be brewing me a potion. Were I to sleep, she would only be waking me soon enough."
"You still feel... unsteady." On the inside. On the outside, they'd cleaned his wounds and bandaged him up. He seemed lighter than usual, and Quatre had to look at him with his other sight to reassure himself that the impression of sickness and frailty was a conjuration of his worried imagination. It was only that Heero was unencumbered by his typical leather and armor. The thin patient's robe was impossible to associate with good health and strength.
Heero patted the hand on his elbow reassuringly. The support was unnecessary, but appreciated nonetheless. "It will pass."
"A pity I've not your power."
"How so?"
"Then I could gift you my energy, as you have so often, so generously done for me."
"It's a good thing you haven't this power." Heero settled into a chair with a soft sigh. "Then perhaps it would be you in this mess instead."
Sally was in the process of collecting a variety of ingredients from her shelves for Heero's potion, but she was listening still. "Yes, you boys were just about to tell me all about this mess you're in, weren't you?"
Wufei responded quickly to Heero's questioning look. "I believe you are mistaken."
"Is that so?" She hummed absently to herself as she sniffed at a pot of herbs. "Then why don't we go back to discussing ancient mythology? That's a harmless topic, yes?"
He grimaced and cast a glance at Quatre.
Quatre considered it for a few seconds before shrugging. "Does the 'Necrohol' mean anything to you?"
"Necrohol," she repeated slowly. She paused thoughtfully in her potion-making. "It sounds pre-Cataclysmic in origin. Its etymology suggests a location of some sort. I couldn't say much more than that, though. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing really." Aside from the fact that it had gates, and they couldn't even say if they were literal or figurative gates. "We just heard it in passing. You wouldn't happen to have any reference materials, would you?"
"For chemistry? Plenty. For more obscure research topics? Not more than just a book or two at the moment. I know some people around the mountain that might have more to offer. The Cataclysm is a topic of fascination for many geomancers."
"Hm, we might want to ask around."
"So this Necrohol is a place of some significance, eh?"
"Stop fishing for information," Wufei grumbled.
"Just making conversation," she shot back calmly. "You're about to go out there and fish for information yourself. I suspect you'll have a difficult time with it if you're so unwilling to offer even the slightest hint of what you're up to. People enjoy discussing their topics of interest. They don't enjoy being interrogated."
"That's our problem, not yours."
"Hmpf, do me a favor and don't mention you're friends of mine, then, since you're so intent on keeping me out of things."
"We don't know all of the people involved," Quatre explained delicately. "We don't know who or what they are attempting to summon. We do know that it is dark, and that they are willing to kill many people for it."
She accepted the offering thoughtfully. He hadn't really said anything they hadn't said before, but at least he was pretending to include her. "And how did you all get involved?"
Quatre slanted a glance at Heero. "It seems they need a channeler to get the job done."
"And Heero's sister is a channeler," she recalled from her study of Heero.
"Yes," he answered simply, keeping an eye on Heero's fists as they tightened in his lap.
"I'll tell you whom you need to talk to."
Heero prepared to push himself out of his chair. "I'll get dressed."
"You are going to sit down and drink your potion," Sally retorted immediately, brandishing a spoon at him.
He gave her a steady look. "It's not ready yet."
"Those Cataclysm fans will talk your ear off, given half a chance. You go out there, and they're not right next door, you won't be back 'til nightfall, and that's only because they don't want to have to offer you supper."
"Perhaps the fresh air..."
"You should probably stay away from those geomancers, anyway," she added with a soft frown. She turned back to her work. "The geomancers felt it in the earth. What happened at Yardrow. Whatever it was. They might be able to recognize you."
"I'm a channeler. A conduit. That's it. The energy goes through me. There should be nothing of me in it."
"You directed it. You said as much just now. That's something. True, I'm just hypothesizing right now. I'm no geomancer, I don't know the full profile of the power that shook the earth. But I'm sure you don't want to take the risk."
"I should stay with you," Quatre piped up. "You're too open, too vulnerable to their power. With Sally's expertise, perhaps we can help you find a way to shield yourself against it."
Heero frowned, but could not disagree. The disorientation that hit him whenever their power was invoked was a serious liability. "I'm getting dressed anyway," he proclaimed grumpily.
Heero had assured Quatre that his unsteadiness would pass, and though it had not been too long ago, he had thought he would be rather farther along the process by now. Sally was filling Wufei in on the people he needed to talk to, and advising that Trowa accompany him. One of the geomancers would likely be more than happy to trade information in exchange for Trowa delivering some of her instruments up where a dragoon would have no trouble reaching. Quatre was offering his own input. The hour was approaching mid-afternoon already. It seemed unlikely they would be able to talk to all of the neighbors Sally was suggesting in this one day.
Duo was already waiting for him next to his alcove, lopsided smile on his face as if to say, ha did you think you could slip away and no one would notice?
He held his hand out silently, a single raised eyebrow asking the question for him.
Duo handed over the leather leggings. "What? I told you I'd squire for you."
"For the dressing, and the undressing. Yes, I remember," he answered dryly. "Did you 'squire' for me earlier?"
"Nah. I mean, I totally volunteered, soon as Sally asked, don't think I'm falling down on the job. But then Wufei, yanno, disagreed, and that sneaky little Quatre snuck on in and did the deed."
Resigned to the fact that Duo would not be going away for the moment, Heero pulled the leggings on underneath his robe and started lacing up.
Duo watched for a little while, then looked away. "Had me real worried for a few minutes there, yanno?"
He absorbed that, recalled thinking about Duo during his final charge. "It was the best plan I had at the time."
"Not saying you didn't save all our asses..."
"But no one else's."
"Huh? Whaddya mean?"
Heero tied off his laces with unnecessary force. "There were no other survivors. Right?"
"Uh, yeah, Sally said that's the word around the mountain."
He nodded to himself. "I could feel it. All that power... coming from all those people." He'd become a two-way channel in those final moments, as the energy that had been called from that other side rushed out through him to destroy him and his friends. All the lifeforce of Yardrow had been soaking into the ether slowly, naturally, but suddenly a new pathway had opened for it, and it naturally followed the path of least resistance. It reminded him of the explosion that night in Sanq, the way the flour dust had ignited and consumed all of the air within, leaving a void which in turn sucked in all the air around it. The energy flew at him, then past him, and by the time he had recognized it for what it was, he was already committed to bending the energy coming out through him away from its intended goal.
But now he had the time to mourn those losses, and his inability to do anything to stop what was happening. He knew those people were already dead, that their lifeforce was not the same as their soul, but it was difficult not to feel as if he'd hastened those people on to a grim fate, that whatever it was that awaited them on that other side with its cold, inhuman patience would twist their life into death, that he was the instrument of their doom and would be again, if that unholy feeling at the edge of his consciousness could have its way again...
He gasped softly and shuddered, coming back to himself. Duo hovered uncertainly at his elbow. Heero smiled weakly for him before sitting heavily down upon his bed.
"Heero?" Quatre called out questioningly from across the room.
Wufei had gone, along with Trowa. Heero hadn't noticed. He met Quatre's eyes in acknowledgment before looking back to Duo and gestured for him to hand him his boots.
"Yeah, I don't think so, buddy," Duo answered jovially, playing along with Heero's attempt to cover-up his lapse. "I'm not making it easier for you to sneak out when those two over there told you to stay put."
Heero sighed loudly. "My shirt, then?"
"Hmmm..." Duo made a show of looking around for it before holding it up. "Oh this? My, my, look at this tear in your sleeve! We can't have you wearing this."
"Are you trying to keep me in a state of undress?"
"Why, Heero, what a dirty mind you have." He glanced casually over to the healer and the chemist, and saw their attention had strayed from the apparent flirting. Or perhaps it was actual flirting, but with an ulterior motive. He turned the obviousness down a notch. "Let me mend this for you."
"I can mend it myself." Heero looked deliberately at the others, then back to Duo. "But thank you," he added quietly.
Duo sat down next to him on the bed, nearly hip to hip. "Sounds like they're going to be keeping you busy for a little bit. This'll give me something to do. Trust me, you'll be doing us all a favor."
"That won't occupy you the rest of the afternoon."
"No, but it's a start. Let me provide you what support I can." His soft tone came across intimately.
"I..." Heero swallowed and looked down at his hands in his lap. A part of him still thought that sounded like a lovely idea. And a part of him still thought it sounded like a terrible idea. Perhaps moreso now than it had been before.
Duo smiled and backed off. "Come on, even Trowa's found a way to be useful with his jumpy thing. Unless they find something out there that needs to mysteriously show up in our possession... the least I can do is help take care of your gear." When Heero finally conceded with a small, rueful nod, Duo patted his knee. "That, and I like you in a state of undress." He flashed Heero a mischievous grin before hopping off to search for a sewing kit in their packs.
"Hm, scions of dark...," Sally was saying, back on the topic of ancient mythology with Quatre. "Well, by convenience only, it's important to note. It's said they were created by the gods in opposition to those we label the scions of light, but I can't say the scions of light were particularly benevolent in any sense. They just won the propaganda war in the end, by virtue of staying on the gods' good side and not joining the rebellion."
"I think you're paraphrasing ancient mythology."
"Maybe just a little. Or maybe it's important not to believe everything you read. Or at least not take it too literally."
"So I take it the scions of light will be of no help to us?"
"Eidolons bend more easily to a summoner's will. But it took the gods themselves to force the Espers into submission. And you are neither summoner nor god. If you were to somehow call upon one... 'light' or 'dark'... I think I would be very wary of the outcome. Is that what they're doing? These unidentified people of yours that are summoning something?"
Quatre mulled it over. No need to mention the possibility that they had already succeeded in summoning some Espers by way of the Zodiac Stones. He nodded at Heero as the other man joined them by Sally's workbench. "Did the Espers bow to anyone else besides the gods? Was there a central figure of their rebellion?"
"Yes, there was." Sally was silent for a short while as she precisely adjusted the flame beneath her brew to reduce the concoction to a steadily steaming simmer. "There was a leader of their rebellion. The most powerful of them... Punished most severely by the gods... Drat, the names are escaping me. E... Epiris? Epima?"
"Epyon," Heero said suddenly.
"That was it!" she exclaimed, looking at him in surprise. "Epyon. How did you know that?"
"Epyon..." he repeated thoughtfully. "And... Zeromus?"
"That's it exactly: Epyon, in opposition to Zeromus. Don't tell me you've had a secret interest in ancient mythology all this time."
"I have not."
"Then...?"
"I don't know." There was a faint edge to his words that belied his calm.
Sally glanced questioningly at Quatre. "Perhaps you overheard those names? As you did the others?"
Quatre shook his head slowly. "I don't recall those..."
"I, too, am fairly certain I did not overhear them." Heero frowned slightly. "But the names came to me just now... as from some half-forgotten memory."
"Does anything else come to mind when you hear those names?"
"Nothing specific..." Drawing on vaguely remembered lessons from a lifetime ago, he let his attention be caught and held by the little fire heating his potion to focus without focusing. "Only... an association with... that other side."
Quatre pushed himself off the table he'd been leaning against and began to pace. "If traces of Heero could be left in the power pushed into the earth... You're suggesting that traces of the power could be left within Heero, too, aren't you?"
"It stands to reason."
"Well, this seems like an excellent time to work on Heero's defenses, then."
back to previous part
on to next part
This entry was originally posted at https://turnippatch.dreamwidth.org/161578.html.