She'd been sitting in the Harpy for a while. After fighting with Steel, she needed to get away and clear her head. Somehow she ended up back where she started. Fort Vehl, the unwashed armpit of Mistone.
The argument kept replaying in her mind. Why did it bother her so much anyways? He had agreed to go a year without using magic in exchange for her learning to use scrolls. It was a bargain struck to make both of them feel uncomfortable, but it was struck. And when he stated that he would only not use magic in combat for a year rather than going completely with out, something had just snapped. It was like every disappointment she'd in recent times all the way back until forever just all surfaced and no matter whether it was actually Steel's fault or not, he was going to pay for it.
Because he was the only one that could.
She was grateful for the mask as she sat toward the back of the inn, staring at the people milling around and contemplating the glass of whiskey she had ordered, but had not been willing to remove the mask in order to drink. When emotions run high, masks are welcome. She could appear outwardly calm and collected, the silent mercenary, even if her insides were twisted into knots of anger and anguish and regret.
A kid walked into the tavern. He looked like he couldn't have been much more than fourteen at the very oldest. A drunkard stumbled into him and yelled at him to get out of the way, but instead of running out, the boy just sidestepped out of the way to avoid his wrath. The kid walked up to the bar and quietly put his money down and asked Wheezer for a drink. Must not have been much for coins because Wheezer gave him the cheapest possible excuse for an ale as he could.
Now, what a fourteen year old in Vehl was doing drinking wasn't really all that much of a stretch. She remembered seeing kids as young as eight getting sloshed off of something that the older and bigger kids in the gangs had given them just to laugh when they got sick. But this one wasn't doing this as part of a gang. He was out of his league. That took something most people didn't have. There were no backers here with this kid. She watched him as he sat down in a corner, looking like he couldn't decide if he wanted to be seen or not.
She turned to look at him and made the gestures to warn him off of drinking the swill he had. She stood and picked up her pack and the untouched glass of whiskey and moved over toward him, setting her own drink before her. "You might as well drink horse urine if you drink that. If you want a real drink, take this." The words came out harsh an raspy. Her voice had never been the same after the incident with the Kuhl border guard. They'd taken more than just her boots and a life. It used to be her choice if she wanted to speak or not. Now it was a struggle.
She asked him why he was in a place like this. He said he was looking for work. His voice wasn't much louder than hers. Maybe this was the balance she needed. Maybe she didn't need Steel to give up his magic and reduce himself so that she felt more on even footing. Maybe she just needed to pull someone else out of the same cesspool she grew up in and give them a chance and that would appease the balance. Too many memories of her own had been coming back lately anyways of her days as Mouse. This kid was another Mouse: dirty and quiet and just trying to get by. She told him that she might have work for him if he had the guts. All he had to do was drink the whiskey in the glass she set down before him and she would give him enough money to get out of Fort Vehl and get set up for a new life.
He hesitated and sat back like he was waiting for something else, or perhaps too scared to try. Viper frowned behind her mask. Maybe it was too much to ask after all. Why would this kid trust that she hadn't poisoned him, even if she did tell him it wasn't poisoned? She stood, preparing to leave. The kid sat upright as if startled and almost looked panicked at a lost opportunity. He took a gulp of the liquid and did his best not to choke on it. He squeaked out a question if he needed to drink more or if that would do.
Viper sat back down and pulled out a sack of a few hundred coins. It would be enough to get him on a caravan and decent food. She told the kid that if he wanted more work he would need to head north out of Co'rys to a place called Center. There, he'd need to buy himself a weapon and some decently made leather armor to protect himself. She told him to buy food for travel and put whatever left of the coin into a bank for safekeeping. Viper recalled to herself how she used to hide her own treasures under the docks where she could only reach it when the tide was out.
The boy suddenly seemed eager and apprehensive all at once. She told him to leave town as soon as the conversation was done and warned him not to tell anyone about the coins so that he wouldn't get mugged. She told him where to find her.
As she left, she wondered if she'd ever see the kid again. She waited and watched from a distance as he left and followed as he collected his belongings and then did as he was told, getting passage with a caravan heading north.
There was enough there to find decent life somewhere if he decided to take the money and call it enough. Even if she never saw the kid again, at least she'd done one thing worth while today. Maybe there was a little balance to all of the death that followed her.
She hadn't been expecting to walk down the hall and see what looked like a younger image of herself talking to Lily at the entrance to the tavern. She was supposed to be safe at the temple, away from all of the things that could threaten her. Away from her mother that could put her into danger simply by association. She quietly retreated back down the hallway and up to Steel's office, entering without bothering to knock. He was deep into paperwork, but he looked up at her entrance. Seeing the look on her face, his own expression shifted. “What's wrong?”
“Rebecca is downstairs,” she rasped out.
“So she found her way here after all, did she?” Steel mused. “So go see her.”
Viper shook her head. “I can't do this.” She turned and walked out of the office, hearing Steel's chair let out a soft squeak as he leaned back in it, watching her retreat. He'd deal with it. Her heart pounded and she could already feel her hands shaking. The all too familiar bloom of pain started to spread in her chest, causing her throat to constrict. She was having difficulty breathing just knowing that her last and only living biological child was so close. Part of her wanted to go downstairs and run to her, hold her in her arms, let all of the emotions out and never let go ever again. And with each breath of that one single thought, Viper's mind- Bella's mind- was overcome with panic, memories of the other children that she had lost, and the last time she held each of them before they were buried.
She had to get out of here. She kept telling herself it was for Rebecca's safety, but she couldn't help the pit in her stomach as she gathered the belongings she needed and locked her one crate in her room. Gathering everything up, she took one last look at her room to make sure nothing personal was left visible. She kept her room immaculate just in case it was ever needed for anything else. She didn't want anything to trace her to anyone else. She headed down the hall and started to lay out everything meticulously on Steel's bed to pack it into her traveling bag.
She closed her eyes, feeling a need to pull on the mask, to hide within the security that it provided. She slowed her breathing painstakingly to try to calm her heart and to stop her hands from shaking.
After a while, she heard the door to Steel's room open again as she shoved the assorted tools, potions, bandages, and other gear into her bag that she had laid out and organized on Steel's bed.
Steel stumbled into the room, closing the door behind him. “Good thing you like sleeping in my room. I sent her to sleep in yours.”
“It was only a matter of time,” she said softly. “I should have known.” She kept her voice level and even, trying to keep all possible emotion out of her words. “I'll be gone in an hour.”
“She killed to see you,” he softly scolded her. “At least go stand there awkwardly while she awkwardly tries to speak to her.” You owe her that much, the unspoken words still rang into Viper's mind as if he'd actually spoken them.
She shook her head, trying to clear away the thoughts of guilt and panic. “And tell her what? Why is she here anyway?”
“She came here looking for you,” he told her. “Someone, probably another family member, pointed her here to find you.”
Viper set her jaw and sighed. “Well, I'm not what she's looking for.” She could feel her throat trying to constrict again and she focused on the task in front of her to avoid the rest. “Is she staying, or is she going back to North Point?”
“She's not going back to North Point,” Steel's voice said still behind her. “How long she stays here? I don't know.”
Viper turned to look at him, hoping that his face wouldn't show the disappointment that she felt she could hear in his voice. Disappointment in her. She eyed him curiously, though. “Did she remember you?” She often wondered how much her daughter actually remembered from the time when she seemed so lost to them all, the time when they had lived here together, when Bella had tried to be a mother to her in the only way she knew how.
Steel just looked at her, watching her with the eyes of someone who knew her better than anyone, perhaps even better than she wanted to know herself. “She vaguely remembered me. More as a dream, an image, I think, than really having any true recollection of me. As much as we watched her with divination magic, it's possible she was sometimes semi-aware of us.” He gave her one of his all too familiar looks. “Magic bleeds like that sometimes.”
She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Or she remembered you from when she was a child here at the Arms.” She bit back at him, “It doesn't always have to be magic.” She studied him a moment, then folded her arms. “You want to train her, don't you.” It wasn't a question, but a statement of her observation.
"She said her father recommended that you train her. How about that?"
She pursed her lips. “Dan and I have been trying to be friends again. Perhaps he just didn't realize the implications.” Thanks a lot, Dan, she thought to herself. He had always tried to get her to be a better mother to Rebecca, and Bella had always fallen short of his expectations. Now would be yet another example to add to a long list of other ways she'd failed her.
“Interesting.”
“Besides. I can't train her. I have enough to deal with with Whisper.”
“Whisper could use a sparring partner closer to her skill level,” Steel argued.
“His skill level,” Viper corrected. “Nobody else needs to know that Whisper is actually a girl.”
Steel continued, “Rebecca had two short swords wrapped in her pack. She's heard stories about you from someone.” He continued, musing the possibilities, “Mm… besides, you won't have to worry about Whisper accidentally hurting Becca in training bouts.”
She turned her back to him again and took a deep breath. “Well, you know what they say about Reputation.”
Steel continued to stand still. “But I can say for sure, she is a Poetr,” he said quietly hinting at a new revelation from the night.
"How much in her is Poetr, and how much of her is me?"
“Hard to say,” he considered. “She has your build, and your squeaky voice. But she had no trouble binding to the stones, a notorious trait of the Poetr's. Then again, you're bound as well."
She let out a long breath and her shoulders dropped as a wash of emotion swelled over her. She'd never wanted this life for her. But if the binding was done, there was no way to undo it. It changed people. Binding to the stones set people apart for better or worse, and with it came not only the responsibility, but the need to do something with the new ability to cheat death. It wasn't a way to cheat pain. It rather invited more of it upon the stonebound than less. “So she needs to learn how to survive this life.”
Regardless, Bella had always wanted to protect her daughter. She wasn't good at protecting anyone, but she had wanted that, even if in her mind, that protection was to keep her as far away from her own mother as possible. But now, that protection might be something that Rebecca would have to learn for herself. “If she wasn't my daughter, what would you do?”
Steel kept his gaze on her, she could feel it. “Same thing I always do. Throw situations at her to see how she responds. Hint at the Path. In time, she either comes to me to train and learn of the Dread Blades, or she doesn't. The situations help her decide that for herself.” The same as I did with you, again the unspoken words were felt in her memory as if he'd actually said them aloud.
Viper straightened and set her jaw. “Then do it. If she's anything like her mother, it wouldn't matter if I forbade it. She's already proven part of that as it is. I tried to shield her and it failed. If she's here and she's bound, then I failed.” Daniel had tried to get her to do things differently, to do things the way that he'd wanted her to do, to try to make things work in a world where she simply didn't feel she fit. It never worked. If Rebecca was like her, it wouldn't work now either.
She took another calming breath, but it didn't do much to help. “Do what you have to.” She shoved the supplies into her pack. “I can't be around for it.” She felt her throat starting to clamp shut again and her voice was threatening to break on her. “Because if I see you hurt her, I'm going to kill you."
Steel's voice was disappointed. “Why are you leaving?”
She shouldered her pack and turned to face him. “Because I know my limits.”
His expression was hard, even though his eyes showed the understanding of the woman that had become his daughter in so many ways. “Just to avoid the off-chance she wants me to train her?”
Viper glared back at him. “Am I supposed to stand around and watch?”
“But you don't know your daughter,” he prodded again.
“No. I don't,” she snapped. “And it's best that she doesn't know me.”
“You're supposed to be involved,” he tried again. “I already told her gobs about you. She's itching to find out if what I said is true.”
“No.” She started toward the door before the rising lump in her throat threatened to silence her completely, or shut her down and make it impossible for her to retreat.
Steel stepped aside out of her way. “She will find you eventually, Mouse.”
The old name was spoken almost gently, but in a way that stung. It meant she was acting like the person she'd tried to leave behind so many years ago. It made her stop for a moment and breathe deeply again. “I know,” she said quietly. “But I'm not ready for that today.”
“Will you ever be ready?”
She turned so that her body was facing his, but she could not bring herself to meet his gaze. “I don't know.” She swallowed, trying desperately to call upon the mask that was so much deeper than just the physical helm she wore. “I've got a job on Belinara. You know how to reach me.”
Steel finally moved toward her. He continued walking until he made contact, Bella's face lightly bumping into his chest. He tilted his face down toward her. A few strands of hair escaped from his ponytail and dangled down in front of his face. Gently, but firmly, he raised his arms and wrapped them around her.
What should have been purely comfort to Bella simply made her ache. The tenderness she received from the man who was the closest thing to what a father should be to her wrapped her in a web of safety that opened the floodgates of the deep well of sadness, fear, loneliness and heartache that she kept hidden to all except him. She rested her forehead against him and let him hold her while she let the pain envelope her. She was still a mouse. In spite of all of her efforts for so long, she was still afraid. But she could not find the strength inside of her yet to fight her enemy this time. Today, she would need Steel to fight her enemy for her until she could battle it inside of her on her own.
They stood there for several moments, not speaking, in a way that no one else ever witnessed. Master and Apprentice, Father and Daughter, the unseen side of the Dread Blades. One day, Steel had said to her before, you will become grateful for the pain.
“Take care of her,” she whispered softly as she finally pulled away.
With the last of her remaining will, she tiptoed across the room to peek in the door to her room and see her daughter, now grown, now bound, and now entering a dangerous world without her, asleep on her bed. As the lump in her throat threatened her again, she closed the door softly and left, pulling on the familiar mask of Viper.
It had been a long time since Steel had started teaching her the basics of the dark elven language. With the involvements that they'd had with various dark elves over the years, it made sense. But even with her basic understanding of many words and phrases, her fluency to speak the language was still clumsy. So when the dark elf, Nym'roos came with an apparent job offer, and he agreed to help her with her understanding of the language, it was a very beneficial exchange. Of course, his way of teaching involved him looking down his nose at her pronunciations and nitpicking various words until she got it right, but at least, in theory, she would be able to speak passable dark elven by the time they were through. And, thankfully, she could verify the meanings of the newer words he taught her with Steel to make sure she wasn't saying something completely wrong.
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Topic: From Street Mouse to Striker (Read 2808 times)
