"You sure you're going to be alright?" I ask once again, just to test his patience just a bit more.
"YES!" he growls through clenched teeth and my hidden jawline opens up with a sweet smile.
"Wonderful." I reply, rolling up the last few things in my supply bag. My dominant claw tightens around the noose and it heaves. The rope zips to a narrow clench, securing the contents and straining all the fabric a little closer to its entropic death. It flies and bangs against my back, nothing all that concerningly fragile within.
"Do try to remember why you're going that way," Hrurim mutters, messing with one of his sticks as he seems to refuse to budge on wanting it. The thing comes near and away from his mouth and he sighs, tucking it away again. His arm goes up, reaffirming the direction of his words. As if it was ever in doubt.
"Magic." I answer nice and quick, a joyous chitter accompanying the word. Though, on the inside, I'm practically desperate. An addict, much like Hrurim and his sticks. Looking for a high that has implications for the world all around me. Not just me.
"Well, don't let us keep you, then. I don't want you around and Heiya doesn't seem to particularly care either or-" he starts to go off and I linger for just a bit more teasing, the urgency not really there.
Unless another earthquake happens and brings the mountain down fully...
"We'll just have to see." I interrupt with, heading down the village road and towards the hunter's lodge or whatever it was. Buildings here seem to lack the distinctness I'm used to having. Like it's all a case of you just need to know, which I suppose is fine for a village where everyone knows everyone.
Gods above and all the rest, thankfully, I know where I'm going. Helps as well that Heiya seems to be out and able. As recognisable as ever, with her two guns in hand. One long and sharp, the other a quick affair with hexagonal barrels. And nothing in the chamber in an odd moment of grim disparity.
"Nin..." she greets, looking up from her preparatory business. I approach her as I am able, and take a knee. Well, two.
"You going to be alright?" I ask, eliciting a quiet scoff from her human guardian. One I'm more than happy to offer a smile about and over.
"Y-Yeaaah... I'm... I'm gaing an aaa hunt, saan." she answers, one of her little furry hands pointing off towards the forest. I look its way, noting how light the treeline is. Both in terms of leaves and actual light getting through. It's far from the wilder, dangerous forests of the surface that I've become so accustomed to. An intentional design, much like everything else within the boundaries of this mountain.
The hand comes back, going across her person, and it pulls something out. A bullet. She hands it over, but doesn't quite give it. My palm opens up to meet it and she drops it.
A rush of electricity goes through my arm, confirming the obvious about the metal's minty tint. It's one of those, as Hrurim kept putting it, 'surface-touched weapons,' the kind I was helping myself to during the fateful firefight. My palm closes up and I tuck it away, lodging it comfortably between a bandage by my heart for the time being. I look back to her, still wondering something.
"How come?" I ask, the details not quite clear. Maybe it's so I have emergency magic? A point of reference while I look for magic sources? The gesture seems so odd.
"Sa yau're saaafe." she answers, bobbing her little head a sweet little. I nod back, rising to my full height as she comes a little closer. Not quite touching distance, but easily closer than before.
"Thank you." I tell her, not quite sure of the facts behind it. But, I appreciate the sentiment of the gesture. Even if it potentially ends only in her benefit. The benefit of a vengeful desire fulfilled and satiated.
"Came baaack when yau're aaall reaaady." she tacks on rapidly, twisting and heading off without much else. My free claw goes to my pocketed bullet, tapping away at it as some thoughts pass my head. Small things, inconsequential things. Idle thoughts not worth much effort in any other time of life.
"Sure thing." I tell the long too far hwardgon and I twist slightly for Hrurim.
"Come on, you're done here," the eager man says, knocking his head the way of the palace on the mini-mountain. I take the hint and walk ahead, the pestering human at my side. He keeps eyeing me up and I sometimes match his view, making sure he knows I'm all too aware.
"Something you want to say before I part over the hills and go on far away?" I ask, not meaning much by it as I keep to the road and he lingers on the nearest source of secure leaning. Though I don't stop walking, I do slow down.
"Make sure it's a good amount of magic you come back with, hm?" he asks of me and I tilt my head about, so eager to shrug my shoulders at him.
"Good amount means a lot these days." I answer, heading off with a quick wave of the claw and nothing in return. The road crunches under my heavy, blocky feet and an incline properly forms as the hill takes shape. A steady growth that's not too harsh on wagons and carts and the like, but not a sign of anything invested into the road itself. Outside of some cut stones forming a pair of thin lines with all sorts caught in them. Some flattened, others crushed and broken.
I reach the cresting peak of the hill, and look over the road as it carries on. Turning about towards the village to take in the view of all the places I've been since coming through the hole. The Crack in the Sky as the people of this mountain-interior resort say. And, curiously, Hrurim is still there, still looking my way.
"Seriously, try to do it out of sight, don't you?" I remark way too quietly for him to hear. But I can certainly show off the fact I know he can see me. And I certainly make sure of it by offering him the best kind of goodbye a man like him wants and deserves. A crass gesture.
He returns it, heading off with all said and done.
My smirk dies off and I twist towards the assumed home of the Lady-King. Strange a title as always. I get ongoing, all the eager to meet her and get to the bottom of everything going on in this little mountain resort. Though, if she can point me in the direction of a good magical source, I'll be more than happy.
Maybe it will be as simple as a tunnel to the surface where I can simply breathe it all in? It won't be much, not nearly enough, really. Both short and long term. But, it will be something, and something is what I need.
A bullet like the one Heiya just game me might be good for a burst of energy. In the same way a quick snack can satiate a child's whining, though it's just not enough. I need something hefty and quick, or a pool deep enough to bathe in. Breathe in, rather.
Even just something that's enough to make digesting a shard of that rock would be enough. Won't be the tastiest of nicest thing I've eaten, though, it'll certainly be the healthiest. Something, anything, to help put me on the right path. Each step anywhere is one step closer to Lari's promise and that's just it, really.
Isn't it?
I'm doing it all for the dead woman I love... One I need to learn to let go off. Move on from. Move past.
There are people on the surface that I care for and they care for me. Liadanann, Rose'lhia, Vadei, Einervaene, Inerish. Vapooliar... A lot of people I've hurt and pushed away and I owe it to them. Yet, it all comes back to one name, Larishazza. I owe it to her, to the woman I loved so much who loved me enough to admit that she never loved me...
I survived the fight with Atarifuge. I've got this far in my life since then and while it's not the most comfortable thing. Each day that passes is another one where I'm alive. Alive and able.
Keep my promise, I have to keep my promise. The wavering, the faltering, it must end for the sake of a woman who cannot remind me anymore. She can't draw the lines in the sand and urge me the right way. It's on me and I must do it for her. Do it for her, do it for them.
"Me alone with my thoughts, what a thing to deal with." I remark, looking across the countryside as I pull myself away from the retrospection.
This mountain resort would be a wonderful place to be with one of them on. The girls. We could experience and see all these silly, stupid things together. Rose can be up her backend, snooty over the clothes. Vapooliar could keep herself interested in the palace and how good it is as a fortress proper. Liadanann would go to the bakers and compare the blacksmiths, too...
Vadei and Inerish could...
"It's a lonely thing, really." I let out, noting just how little there is to the world when you're alone. It was easy to ignore when I was obsessing with Smiling Jhurack. But now, not now. He's not there anymore to be the centre of my thoughts and while I have no one there... It all comes to me so clearly.
Even when I was trapped in a cage, I had other things on my thoughts. What was going to happen to me? What was I going to eat today? Ow, my tummy hurts. Things like that, all familiar things.
They all kept the worries away. A moment of near death and the clarity it brings is a fleeting moment, it seems. Maybe it will stay with me longer or not, I don't know. It's hard to say at all.
I can only wish for the days to come that I am able to see them all again. Hold them again, talk to them again. Try and make it work with them in a way they might want, and most certainly how Lari wants it.
Certainly for her, most certainly for all of them. I have to do it, for all of them. If I don't, then there would've been no point in surviving that giant. Life is such a weird thing, a confusing thing, a second life even more so.
"You better look further than you actually are!" I laugh out, trying to keep my mood as bright as the clear, artificial sky above. My claw goes up with a triumphant point and it comes right down, going crooked.
Artificial day...
What a weird thing to experience. Disturbingly uncanny in how it all is. The sky is rock, the clouds are images. There's no Orbital-Halo, but, rather, something that emulates what something else emulates far better. I've been inside of it, too, the Orbital-Halo. I don't think I could ever get inside of whatever is lighting up this place..
Don't think I'd want to, either. You can feel it, you can feel how it's not divine light. There's a distinct feel to it, one that pierces cloak, bandage, shell and flesh. This light is warm to the touch, enlightening as all light is. But it just isn't the same as the light one gets on the surface.
Crops are certainly growing under this light, though you need a mortal to truly appreciate what makes good light proper light.