The Lady, the Lake, and the Long Sword

Police Lieutenant Edgar Campbell knew his time was up. Was. Had been. His chest and side punctured in a hail of gunfire by a man on so many drugs he could've started a pharmacy. Even now, Edgar could feel the shard of hot metal lodged within his rib. He could barely breathe. He was sure there was no blood left to even think, with the amount covering the seat of his patrol car, and the hands of his partner Mark, who had patched him up. Mark was in the passenger seat, white as a sheet but unwounded. His eyes had not left Edgar's wounds for the entire ride. Not back to the station, or the hospital- nothing they could do now but dumb him down and maybe give a few more unfeeling minutes. No, no. Work to do. Driving down back roads, coaxing the car to the red "Empty" line and far beyond, going far past the speed limit. Eighty, ninety, one hundred miles per hour. Power lines and houses whip by. Trees. All signs of civilization gone. Edgar swerves, slams on the break. The car skids, grumbles, almost flips- stops. Mark's fingers slowly unwind from the sides of his seat.

"We're here," Edgar says through a mist of blood. He attempts to pull himself out of the car under his own power and manages only to fall onto the grassy field he's stopped the car on with a soft, pained grunt. Mark charges out of the car, jumps the hood, and pulls Edgar to his feet. Edgar points.

A lake. Shining broad and glorious in Mark's eyes. A bright, brilliant blue- the color of the sky during childhood adventures traipsing through a forest long since bulldozed for some mini-mall or another. A tear rolls down Mark's cheek before he gets proper hold of himself. Edgar, one arm looped over Mark's shoulder, stumbles forward. At the very edge of the lake he lets his weight drop, sliding away from Mark to kneel in the wet dirt. On Edgar's belt, the following things fit snug:
Standard issue sidearm. Nine millimeter. Matte black.
Mace, one can, with carry pouch.
Handcuffs, two pairs, plastic. Non-standard, but personal choice is personal choice.
Various electronics- a taser, communications devices. So on.

Car keys. Mark hears them jingle as the driver falls. Mark goes just a shade paler. The sound of their patrol car rumbling behind them fills Mark's ears. Mark reaches down and touches his own copy of the keys. He shivers.

Also on Edgar's belt is a simple and non-descript advice: A telescoping black baton, used more often than Edgar ever would think necessary. Never without explicit and extreme reasons, but used. With numb, fumbling fingers, Edgar pulls this from its pouch and flails his hand in the air weakly- as if he had flicked it with the strength and expertise of his prime, the baton flies out to its full length, light from the lake glinting off of its length. He traces his finger along the handle. A worn strip of duct tape navigates its length. Written on this tape is the word "Caled." Edgar had never bothered finding out what it meant. The tape had been there since he acquired the baton. Here. Decades ago, as a recruit.

With a weak grunt, Edgar manages to fling it towards the lake, spinning and shining, until it is caught by a hand covered in green and grey scales. The hand and baton sink beneath the waves, but the two officers can feel a pair of eyes on them, from under the slowly darkening lake.

The shield next. Edgar's badge, currently with no less than five bullets crumbled against its golden facade. Flipping it like a card, the badge glides beautifully just over the surface of the water before dropping into the water unceremoniously.

Edgar smiles, then, and finds the stretch the lean up enough to clasp a brotherly hand onto Mark's shoulder.

"Get out of here, kid. You'll break your curfew," Edgar smiles with bloody teeth and sinks back into the dirt to stare at the lake's dim light, as the light leaves his eyes.

Intermission: The Suit, pt 1.

Up at the crack of dusk. Hilarious, he thinks. To someone who's never heard the joke, certainly. Graveyard Shift had been another good one for about five minutes. He lets out a dry laugh and laces his shoes. No calls today. No double shifts. No extra hands. (Funny for far longer than it should have been.)

No big accidents. Pity.

Shirt tucked. Belt buckled. Tie.. tied. What is the action for ties? He wonders, not realizing he's spoken aloud. Jacket on. Slick black number. New. Unsullied. Middle button only. As an afterthought, he attaches a pair of tasteless cufflinks from his mother: A tombstone on the left, a skull and crossbones on the right. Pretty funny, eh? She had genuinely looked at them and thought her son would wear it. So he did.

His hair-combing, a stall in any case with unmanageable follicles, took twice as long as it should have, to make up for expediency in deciding which button, to button. He glanced at the clock and smiled. Quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes to drive for half of an hour to work. He would have to speed. As he always did. The car unlocks with a soft, strange noise: The music from the exact moment lightning strikes Frankenstein's monster, from the version the man saw as a child. The music is pitched down and chopped into a manageable almost-beep. Nothing in back to slow the drive, either.

He had carpooled, just once, with a coworker who shared his shift. Just once. Are you trying to get us killed? He remembers that he smiled, at that moment, and said no in a voice that was completely genuine. What, then, was he doing on the highway, cleaving time into manageable chunks through sheer speed, in the company car?

Don't do that! Sixteen. Driving practice with his mother. He zooms right up to the nearest car, switches lanes right behind them, at double their speed. Bumpers nearly kiss before momentum pulls him up onto the median, driving through dirt and grass.

This is how the man drives: One near collision to the next, like a beam of light over mirrors.
Swerve.
Back bumper of a red sports car.
Swerve.
Driver side door of an ugly white pickup.
Swerve.
Left turn, rear view mirror passes a hairs breadth from an incoming car's.
Swerve.
Attach, parasitically, to the backdraft of an eighteen-wheeler barreling erratically down the road, unknowing.

Miraculously, he arrives at the mortuary under his own power. From the glovebox he takes a small pad and paper, and adds a small tick mark. There are over a thousand of these such marks.

Myths and Legends, pt 2.

He's in the back, utterly destroyed by some brew or another. I glare down at him, splayed carelessly across a backroom couch. This is the smith I have pinned my livelihood on. A drunkard Mechanic in oil-stained clothes half comatose in the dirty Hive. Fucking outstanding. I lean down and slap him awake.

"Hey! Asshole!" Neither shouts nor slaps rouse the Mechanic fully, but his eyes at least open groggily. His skills are too rare to be burnt out by Hivebrewed grog. I grab him by the collar and drag him bodily through the press of bodies once more. Maybe it's the rage in my eyes, maybe it's just my imagination, but the undulating crowd seems to part in front of me. He begins to protest near the yawning entrance of the club but by then we're far away from anything drinkable. I throw him through and follow him out to grab his collar and start dragging again.

"This is really too much, man," I say, upbeach and out of the noise- next to the sparse woods I have my gear stashed in. Scavengers stay out of the wild parts of the world. The Mechanic stares unseeing and tries to wipe sleep from his eyes. "The one time I need you and you're like this? Arankay, Don!" Names taken in vain mean nothing to someone only half in reality. A few more slaps. "Wake the hell up!"

Don finally lets out a pained groan as his brain lights back up, albeit too slow for my purposes. Burning perfectly good seconds on this idiot.

"Hey, man," Don says with a goofy smile. "Sup?" He tries to stand and fails. In no condition for what he's needed for.

"Sup is me getting to eat this month. You too, if you've got any smarts in you." I step into the forest to unhitch my gear from halfway up a tree. They're taller this time. The trees. I haven't been up this way in almost half a year, but they're taller. Greener, too. It had been a cold summer, by comparison. I drag my things out into the moonlight. "Think you can fix it?"

"Are you kidding me man?" Don laughs so hard he falls back on his ass. This is not what I need. "I fix.. man, you know. Doors and shit. 'Mobiles, occasionally. Rarely. What the hell even is this?" He kicks one of my tires. Asshole.

"It's a bike, man. How have you never seen one of these? Where've you been?" I move the frame out of reach of questing feet. Kick my damn tires, will he. "Any decent courier uses one. They're reliable." Don manages to stifle his snickers. Barely. I resolve to beat the hell out of him if he can't fix it. "Look, can you fix it or not? What kind of mechanic are you?"

"Maybe," he says. "Maybe. We'll see."

Myths and Legends

They say the Hive was carved out of the bulk of an old great Whale, beached just after the days ended. They say it was covered in dirt from some catastrophe, to be excavated, nearly a century later, by some punks barely old enough to remember the end of the end, when the battles were wars and the weapons blazed whole towns.

They say a lot of things. Looking at this Hive, in this place- the thick steel bones re-purposed, if only technically, to support pockmarked skin serving as a roof. This Hive is a well-hidden and open secret among the freeholders of this stretch of the west. A densely populated cave torn from the hammers of what came before. A writhing tumor of metal and drugs and sweat, too far deep for the ocean to reach, if it still came this way.

I weave through the press of flesh while shielding my eyes against the glare of cobbled together lights and glowing vials. The music is oppressive, the dancers are drugged and wild with arms flailing. Everyone is armed.

Somewhere in the savage pulse of flesh and scavenged woofers is the man I need to find.

Character Concepts 11-14

The man did nothing but smile. Part of our reinforcements. By his garb I took him for an engineer, maybe a wizard. Told him to stick to the back and didn't pay much attention. Sent a group of my own men the monsters for an ambush, put the fear of Torm in them a bit, you know? Then I saw the wizard with them through the my telescope as the hammer fell. Ever see a minotaur scream? Bloody hell..

***

A street magician they said. Ol' Cal, they said, he's harmless, pulls a bird out his sleeve, they'd say. But I bit my tongue. Importing scrolls to this damn town cost a lot of money, and people were easily amused by the cantrips. Funny how quick they'd turn amusement into derision given the chance. Then the beasts came. Little yellow men riding on demon wolves. The guard went down.
Men with pitchforks and torches filled in, I joined them. They laughed at me. Even then, they laughed. Gonna pull out some birds, Sideshow man? They laughed and laughed as man died around them. So I pulled out some birds. I breathed fire. I used every trick under my hat. The ones they hadn't seen. The ones that killed. Abrakadabra, no more goblins. They townsfolk stopped laughing that day.

***

Sometimes you had to keep secrets from your brethren. The other archers and rangers of the north forest knew I was good, just thought my absences were for extra practice. This in mind they never asked why I went off every night with a big bundle and my bow. Nobody used my arrows but me, though. I kept a spare quiver for when friends ran out, and they chalked that, too, up to preparedness.
In the bundle was a book. Not a big one, but big enough. Nights, I spent hours with a tiny knife and my arrows, etching the symbols my father had taught me into their shafts, checking the books only occasionally, now, for correctness. My arrows always bit deep.

***

"Yo ho ho!" A worksman called as I passed. Gonnes are surprisingly loud in the big streets of this town. Half of them had never seen its ilk. No one called again, though. An infection was growing here, I the cure. Questions had to be asked, of course. Inkeepers and their ilk, people who would know. There had been disappearances lately. I trailed the rumors to a large house on the edge of town.
Down the street trailing the curious, I drew my sword and stepped into hell.

Character Concepts 6-10

Westerners kept calling him a ninja. Not so. A simple armed acrobat, he says. A warrior trained in Calimshan, he protested. No, they said. The protests are a ninja trick, they told him. If he was a ninja he'd say he wasn't so he could get the drop on people. And besides, no circus performer moved like that. And so he studied, learning about these men. Simple farmers with weaponized tools, a few true assassins among them, and yet people so far away not only heard about them, but had created a rich mythos for them, in which they were sneaks and magicians unto Mask himself. A reputation which proceeded. He continued to protest to their faces, spreading small rumors behind their backs, and adopting a darker wardrobe.

***

The magic rocked over him, threatened to break the trinket shielding him from the assault. It held, barely. His hair stood on end, adrenaline surged through his arms, the power of the gods pushing him forward at the wizard. His sword burned with divine fury as it sliced through air.

***

Patrol had been boring. The birds saw nothing, his fellow patrols saw nothing. Did that not mean the job was done? Something creaked, slithered, not unpleasantly. Behind the next tree. He peeked, held his weapons ready. The trees hold molded themselves into a great wooden cave. Unheeded and out of sight, his Sentinel Sword glowed an alarm.

***

I am a doctor of sorts. Where I come from my profession is called black surgery. Oh, that makes it sound so maudlin, does it not? It is as much science as traditional medicine, I assure you. The difference, madame? I simply go a bit further for my patients than your average physician is paid or trained for. I assure you, every patient that has come to me lacking their, how you say... Get up and go has gotten up and gone. Ha. Ha. Ha. Something untoward, madame? I can vouch for my services. After all, I am not just a provider of them, but a satisfied customer.

***
They called the man swordbait. A bit of a drifter, the party picked him up along some sodden roadside, limping his way. Not much of a magician, not much of a swordsman, and almost always silent. They man could take a sword like anything though. Once he walked into a whole enemy camp while they planned, muttering about a distraction. Walked out with no less than dozen spears in him after the party arrived to save him. He just laughed in his shallow way and said "I still have one," before he started pulling blades out of himself. Probably talking about the bum leg.

Character Concept 5

The firebird was hungry. It was always so hungry, these days. It cooed and cawed in its scorched corner, no longer satisfied with firewood. It was growing. It would wake soon in full and lead us in our quest against the cold and dark of the world. We would raze until every corner was alight.

Except it died. Despite what food I could give it, it died. There and gone as we slept. It will wake again someday, and I must be the one to find it.

Character Concepts 3, 4

The wind whistled and shrieked. Clouds streaked across the sky. The windbringer raised his arms, trailing ritual seals, as Akadi's messenger raged next to him, nearly invisible. Across the field, Grumbar's priest stood steadfast.

***

Eternity loomed. Kelred was blinded by its majesty, but a third eye kept rapt attention. It had been open and refused to close. He could see himself, streaming through the endless, as if from afar. His cloak and clothes dissolved into reaching arms and terrible creatures and he knew this was their true form all along. Watching himself, resplendent in the glory of his own divinations, Kelred did not see the body turn its head towards his vantage and smile gruesomely.

Character Concepts 2

The inquisitors would be along shortly. What little damage the small force could make on their battlements before collapsing would be made minimal with time. The one remaining soldier had taken the name Myrmidon on enlisting with the company, and had not expected his newfound brethren to fall so quickly. He shed his armor for a cloak to move faster, brought nothing but his sword on his harried flight. In the distance, hooves on grass. Myrmidon wraps his cloak around himself as the shadows grow long.

Character Concept 1

The prince was charming and clever, but also happened to have fallen into the habit of those with money, titles, and looks. He was irresponsible, needy, and trusting, from an adolescence spent having his needs waited on. When his father died, he was in no way ready to take on the throne. His grand vizier stepped in, an old friend ready to help. The vizier was a wizard of some ability, especially For the area, and also served as the prince's only bodyguard. the two were as thick as thieves, so when the prince was finally waylaid, nobody even suspected that the wizard had himself was responsible for the final blow.

The wizard, fearing capture, takes the money he managed to get out of the prince, and uses it to make good his escape. Karma catches up to him once on the boat and he loses all of his belongings, and he constantly looks over his shoulder fearing its final strike.

Scry, Pt. 2

Mess of discarded data. Junk emails. Spam. Down the lines. Out. Deeper down past the over-violence of twelve-year-olds on death match. Cherry-pick data for choice parts. Picture here, snatch of text there. Lives left floating in the digital gulf. No time. Strains of song six drift down even here. Twenty minutes tarried in the public domain. Unprofessional, but perhaps worth time. Twenty more minutes of synth-mix.

Find the pipe. Piggy-back output past the dividing line where everything becomes input. Far from home now as song seven slips seamlessly through. Few clocks here are accurate. Trying to discern meaning simple instills jet lag of a kind. An opening to the left, push through. Surface.

Look out. Video sans audio. Greyscale. Numbers gone, no conversations to be had. Pure data formatted for the human eye. Controls elsewhere but output stream from the source. Office building security camera. Empty room. Song eight. Ride the output to a node. Trace a fatter line. Surface.

Son et Lumiere. Full visual spec. Meeting room spycam. Plant the hose, hold on to it. Drag the output end out and through. Surf back to public domain. Song nine. The long one. Ride to a webcam. Video blogger rants the conspiracy of the day. Slide through their space, plant the output of the hose. Their terminal will siphon data silently. Record relevant retrieval data. Song nine closes and the album begins to terminate as song ten begins. Ripcord. Automatic shutdown.

Scry, pt 1.

Stumbled into the apartment with a box full of parts. Heard strains of a canine symphony as the back end of jeans closed the door.

Spread the parts out on the floor. Get the screwdriver and dismantle a size three haul of parts alternatively archaic and gleaming, factory fresh. Check the archaic against the book, assure genuine status. That one, there. Paid five dollars to a dealer that didn't look like he knew what he was doing. The device, supposedly early 90s external modem, cracked open. Hollow except for a small card of circuitry. Rage flares, subsides. Check everything against the book. Huge tome of components material and somatic. Methods to the madness of industrial technobabble. The card is listed. Still early 90s. Game cartridge. Excellent.

Stow the rest, fish out transistors and a single chip from their stasis in an icicle box in the deep freezer. Chip chosen for form this time. Eight vestigial strips of metal oriented down on either side, at once insectoid and polygonal. Old. older than its owner and worth more on the market. New age spider stolen to bless this crawl over optic webbing.

Transistors and spider-chip in the ashtray. Sharp smell of burning plastic filling the hermetically sealed room. Single terminal composed of netbook, two monitors, jiggered power supplies. No record to spin. Discs themselves impossible to buy, let alone turntable parts. Substitution is half the damage. Cleverness the other. Replace two parts freestyle jockeying with one part thumb-drive playlist over tinny speakers. Sound is important. The straining synthetic of song one, titled in some ironic stone-age hackerspeak.

Some things are timeless. Delicate flat disk of glass, delicate etchings spiderwebbing the surface. Open tray. Spin the disk. Take a deep breath. Close eyes. Say the words.

"Hello, world."

The Outskirts 1.

The man closed his eyes. Sniffed the air. Clenched his fists. Where? To the east. The smell was wrong. Wrong in his city. His city. Audacity. Punishment. Kill. Kill. Snap. Bite.

He shook his head, shoved the feelings back down. Made human take over. His face relaxed from the rigid snarl that had taken it over. The man took off to the east, running fast as his legs would take him, and for a moment, a flicker in time, a man driving the same way could've sworn a huge wolf was keeping pace with his car. The driver blinked and it was just a man sprinting, full tilt, mouth twisted into a grim rictus smile.

Grass left long untended swayed. The outskirts. Unwatched, untended, untainted. Projects had sprung up to build malls and shopping centers and other such, but over the years they always seemed to simply fade away, unbuilt. A few sparse trees burned red by the November wind. The homes and stores of the city in the short distance. The highway on the other end. Smelled wrong. Wrong. His lip twitched. He snarled. His mind howled. Something wrong was in his sanctuary. Where w- He froze. Behind him. Inches. He could feel it. Something inhuman. Enemy. Food. Tresspasser. Eat. Eat. He forced himself calm. Turned slowly. Fought down the instincts saying form and smell did not belong to each other. A woman. Eat. Slight. Kill. Completely unintimidating. Tresspasser. White hair. Howl. An overcoat with straight jacket in its ancestry, covering the feet and buttoned up to the chin. Rip. Straight white teeth. Tear. Humorless smile. KILL. Barbed tentacles emerging from sleeves instead of hands. Shit. That voice was human. The wolf read it as surrender and took over.

Claws closed on thin air. Dripping fangs barely avoided biting their own tongue. In the feild, the man took a defensive stance born of time spent street fighting. He carefully wiped a bead of canine drool from his lip. It was laughing at him. Soft. Subtle. His ears barely had to make an effort. The wolf again. Gnashing teeth and flailing claws. Got it. Eat. The wolf held up its kill triumphantly in massive claws. The human sighed. Turned the thing in his hands. Coat. Hair. Skin. Nothing inside but a mass of black blood. Behind him, the thing laughed. The wolf tried to take control again. The man let it- to a point. Human mind guiding the hulking form. The wolf howled its rage in the background. A man's tactics. Feint. Charge. Dodge, Circle. Wolf's speed. The thing raised an arm. Smile threatening to split its face in two. Shit.

From the split in the beasts face came an unslaught of tentacles. Tendrils. Segmented stingers like a scorpion's tail. Latched onto trees. Pulled. Extracted itself. The man paused to fight down vomit. It had eyes everywhere. The woman smiled. The thing from her face screeched. Whipped out tentacles. Grasped trees. Ground. Pulled itself towards the man. The thing wearing a woman's skin floated towards him. Raised its arm. Fire. The wolf howled, rolled out of the way.
Broke. Ran.

Jesus Christ How Horrifying.

I linked this thing in my twitter profile so expect to see actually up to date writing lest I be devoured wholesale. I think I have something resembling an "arc" going, even. We'll see.

Heaven.

Not a world of silence
Not a world of sound.
It isn't something I'd describe
By using just one noun.
Can ecstasy be measured?
Can pure truth be assured?
This place I've found is not something
difficultly endured.
A feeling I'd cross seas for.
I'd go down on my knees for,
Moments spent within her grace
even as with time my life erase.
Would I battle time itself,
for one more careful grasp?
Destroy all physics, time itself
to stave off my death rasp?
All this and more, would I but do
To have a moment more with you.
To see my love smile wide and true.

There is no world without you here,
No silence and no sound.
It's not something I could describe,
with any numbered noun.

For heaven is not a place, my dear.
It's here, and it is now.
I need my lover's smile
Her oath, and solemn vow:

There is no heaven but with you, my love, and it is here and it is now.

Words.

Open window to spring-cleaned room. Morning in bed with new music. Removal of all distraction. Cold drink, hot day. Soft smell of chlorine from summer pools. Own bed after hotel slabs. First fall gust following scorching summer. Likewise, first winter flake. All the potential of a wrapped present. The core of man stripped bare; rebuilt. Tunnel vision. Injection of burning ice to the spine. Smells invoking memories. Religion and all its implications. Boldly traversing the mists of time. A job well and truly done. Quiet contemplation. Passion and power and pride. Single being, split to pair at the beginning of all. Finding a long lost companion.Singing of birds, clarion of trumpets. These are words to describe a girl.

Aftermath, Partner to LupineBridge

Joe stretched, having been watching the light of the setting sun play across her hair. He was only vaguely aware of how long he’d been standing there, while Serci picked berries from the plant with her quick, careful hands. He should be helping, but Joe knew himself. He knew how clumsy he was, how often he’d wrecked a plant almost irreparably, in the few times Serci could even get him to touch the things. No, it was all he could do to watch her in her element. He wanted desperately, of all things, to ask her for a race. He got close, though. It would be worth not playing along and getting her more upset with him to see her sprinting through the forest in all her perfection.

And she was upset, wasn’t she? He had known her for long enough to know when she was upset, and when she was trying to hide it. She always did that. She knew he knew, but even still. Joe supposed it was just a game women play. Perhaps he should perform a study on the mental behaviors of genders within the human, elven, dwarven, a- Joe shaked his head, trying to get back to the present situation. How was he going to figure out just what was wrong without just yelling the question? This may be difficult. Ah, well. Never one to run from a challenge, Joe began trying to formulate a plan.

“Ah, well,” she was talking again. Joe’s ears actually twitched in anticipation. “Found a seed, though.” She stood, self-consciously wiping her hands on the back of her pants. Joe grinned under the helmet. He’d asked her why she’d done it once, and had come to the conclusion that she had no idea she did it every time she touched dirt, or plants, or a felled animal. She did it quite a lot, and Joe found it adorable every time. Part of him was regretting his choice in fields of study. If he hadn’t gone for golemancy, he could’ve studied how the mind works. He would be able to get right down to what was bothering the poor woman, and fix it, or at least address it properly. Though, Joe thought, if he hadn’t gone for golemancy, they wouldn’t be in this situation to start with. Damn.

His ears twitched. This phenomenon must be studied. Oh! It happened when she talked. She was saying something. Pay attention, Joe told himself, in that odd trance state he found himself in, when he got to thinking almost anything at all. He snapped out of it. He remembered Serci had called it his genius meditation, and almost sank back into it, but every ounce of brainpower he had was focused on her words, now. Talking was good, talking gave insight into problems.

“Deeper into the forest, or back?” Serci was watching him thoughtfully. Some sarcastic part of him almost said gee, shall I explore an interesting forest with my Serci, or go muddle about in some town? but was reined in before the rogue thought could cause any major damage. Besides, going deeper into the forest meant more time alone with Serci, something he had needed for… ages, years? Joe didn’t remember.
“Deeper, perhaps?” he said it hopefully, knowing she would come up with some excuse to go back to town. If they got back to town, she might wander off before he woke up, and he’d have to find her all over again. She was probably sick, the poor thing. No, he’d figure this out and save her. They were walking, him cautiously, trying very hard not to run into something or trip, and make a fool of himself. Serci was mostly at ease, and graceful at always. There was something about her usually smooth movements. Something he saw in some of the simpler golems and people that are afraid. Afraid? Was there something in the forest that Serci would be afraid of? Is that why she’s so tense, here? No, she would say something. What would she be afraid of that couldn’t be mentioned to him? Oh. Joe paused a moment, shoulders slumped. But, why? He resumed following her, trying to ponder his way through this. Well, if that was it, it wasn’t some odd mental problem and he could ask her.
“Careful,” he only halfway heard her.

“Why?” Joe looked to her, head tilted, the helmet muffled the crack in his voice. He didn’t even realize it sounded like he was asking her why he should be careful until she shot the goblin. Good shot, too. Probably would’ve stabbed him in the leg if Serci wasn’t as good as she was. By the time Joe even realized what had just happened, she was already inspecting a mushroom patch. “You’re quite good at this.” She looked up at him quickly, blushing ever so slightly. Joe almost giggled. She was complimented, and being Serci, changed the subject.
“This is called Redfoot. None I can salvage, though,” she was pointing at the mushrooms, and Joe dutifully listened, even if his mind was a million miles away from mushrooms, of all things, at present. She actually frowned. Had she noticed? “No.. I was entrusted to protect something.” Joe frowned. He had an idea of what it was, but if she was going to play dumb, well.

“The forest?” he tilted his head and glanced about. It was an impressive forest, but still just a forest to Joe. She stared at him for a long moment, and everything went silent.

“Namely, this,” she took a spear from a bag that was most certainly not large enough to hold it, and held it out to Joe. It was a very magic spear, but to Joe, who could barely look at such weapons without cutting his own limbs off, just a spear. Maybe she would be happy with him, if he learned to use such things, and was able to wield the spear in her protection? She was testing him, that must be it! First things first, Joe needed to learn to use weapons besides his own machinations. Serci might teach him, or expect him to learn on his own. Bother. “I failed, in part of its protection. Or succeeded, I guess.”

Serci was talking about him, he just knew it. How could he have thought she meant the blasted spear. Well, at least she knew she succeeded, right? Maybe he could least impress her with the spear. She shivered. Maybe he should’ve gotten them a room at an inn. She was cold and it was his fault and she was expecting him to talk.
“Well, you seem to wield it well,” if there was one thing Joe had learned, was that eventually, complimenting Serci paid off.

Nothing But, Partner to LupineBridge

He was explaining some minute bit of himself to her. Something he knew, that she knew. He considered mentioning to her that at times like these his mouth seemed to speak of its own accord, so that he could hone his thoughts and senses on her. Even when wounded, or in battle, all he could think about was her hand in his, her presence near his own. She must be upset with him, or something. Joe could tell when something was wrong with Serci, and her pretending to have amnesia was very wrong indeed. But he had already resolved to let her have her fun at his expense. He would take it like a man, as they said. Joe was never quite sure who they were, but he was sure that if he let his mind wander on tangents like he usually did, he’d miss something important.

He decided maybe she needed to know he was safe, so he raised his gauntlet and clenched his fist just so. A projectile (really just a shortened crossbow bolt) fired from the top of the gauntlet and shot past a deer and into the forest. Well, that plan was a wash. She’d think he was incompetent, now. He managed to stutter out an explanation about targeting systems, ignoring the fact that he lacked any ability to aim anything. Ever.

She had tossed him the skinning knife again, pointing at one of the deer she had killed. She always made it look effortless. Serci made everything look effortless. He missed that about her. There were times in their childhood that Joe could still remember. Serci would jump over a creek, or clamber quickly up a tree, or run tirelessly. Her energy alone inspired him to try it with her. He always failed catastrophically. But she was always there to pull him out of the river, or give him a leg up into a tree. Except…

He was going off on tangents again. Joe shook his head slightly, and held up the pelt he hoped desperately was worthy. She smiled at him. Maybe she didn’t think he could see it from under the hood, but he could never miss that smile. Here was the grin, slightly favoring the right as Joe well knew, that had inspired a thousand of his inventions, including the suit. This was the grin that Joe rose for every morning, and stood to fight for every day. He resolved, then, to stand with her forever, whether she acknowledged him or not, and fight the world itself if need be, to see that smile again.

“Where to now?” he hoped it would be somewhere nice. Somewhere, maybe, that wasn’t an inn where she’d be awkward and uncomfortable. He liked seeing her in her element.

“A foraging spot, just over here,” Night was falling, and if she meant to keep foraging, they would have to sleep under the stars. It had been ages since the last time, and Joe’s heart swelled anew.

The Static, Continued. Partner to LupineBridge's story.

This was more like it. Standing side by side with Serci, battling those responsible for destruction, was a feeling Joe had missed for a long time. Even in a moment of violence, Joe was made glad once more for his helmet as his eyes filled with tears of joy. Maybe, just maybe, all could be right with the world. A deer ambled across the field, and she had it down in one quick shot. She always was the best. She tossed him a skinning knife. Another thing she kept trying to teach him, but he’d always turn green and refuse just before. Now, though, Joe would do anything for Serci’s smile, and he swallowed the bile rising in his throat, and did his best. His best ruined the pelt of course, but the meat seemed okay. The first time is always the hardest, anyway. He thought he heard her laugh. That was good.

More bandits felled. Joe tried to collect less grisly trophies than the heads the elf had requested. Serci seemed to take no issue, though she had taken to the creed “A corpse is a corpse, of course of course” the first time they had been asked to dissect something in class. She seemed unchanged in that even now, as her slender sword made its way through muscle and vertebrae. He was so busy watching her that a bandit managed to run up next to him, holding a rather large axe. Joe shoved his hand towards the man’s arm, discharging some of the suit’s electric charge where gauntlet met bandit skin. The man twitched, tensed, and fell. He flexed his hands and the remaining power flared and retracted, coursing back into the rest of the suit.

“Do those… do that often?” she was pointing at his gloves. That particular change had been added after she left, as it were. Joe managed a grin, forgetting she couldn’t see.

“I would hope so; else I’ve made an error in their creation.” She nodded, but didn’t seem to understand his explanation. He had missed having someone to tell about the silly little bits that went into the creation of his various doohickeys, as he lovingly called them. The wandering into a house occupied by the highwaymen, and cleaned it out in the manner adventurers do all things. She led him into a forest, and his heart sang. The forest was her domain, where she truly lived and breathed. He did so love seeing her, in the forest. Goblins, though. Goblins were another story. He made a motion and raised his hand, runes glowing on his gauntlet.

A flash of light and a burst of force dealt with one of the goblins, and Serci’s arrows another. It managed to slice his arm before it fell to the dirt, however. Serci looked at him like she had just seen death itself, and reached out to examine him carefully. The semi-magical weave of his suit closed itself over the wound, followed shortly by the wound underneath. He couldn’t help but smile proudly. He hadn’t known if that particular addition would work, and it was essential. Given enough time, the suit could pull him from the brink of death to the peak of health.

He needed that, because he wasn’t going to risk the chance of losing her by shuffling off his mortal coil.

Nothing but the Static, a partner to LupineBridge's story, Continued.

I know she recognizes me. Joe had worn the suit because it was distinctive. He wore it so she would know he was here, specifically, for her. Yet she was still treating him like a stranger. Had she hurt her head? The thought made him sick to his stomach. If she had, it was his fault for not being by her side. Thralvila’s sister was right where Serci told him, but she was still writing the letter. With Serci finally at his side once more, Joe went back to told the elf he would have to wait.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help more,” Serci mumbled behind him, and he smiled. He couldn’t help but smile, whenever she made understatements, even if she didn’t realize.

“Nothing to be done for it,” Joe wanted very badly to tell her who he was, to make sure she understood. He had heard somewhere it was best to let people regain their memory on their own, however. He wasn’t about to endanger the time he could spend with her, memory or not, anyway.

“There are some bandits, around here,” she was shuffling. Being shy, almost like she recognized him and didn’t want to show it… Well, if that’s what she wanted. Joe agreed, but she went to show him how to properly plant seeds. Ah, Joe thought, she never could get me into gardening. He supposed, what with “not recognizing” him, she had decided now was the time to finally teach him something he had always found reason not to learn. It was more enjoyable than he had thought it would be, years ago. Then again, it may well have been because of the occasional furtive glance her way. The entire experience felt like being a boy again, and catching Serci’s eye every now and then while they did their schoolwork. He almost broke down and told her, then and there. He knew better, though. Serci’s games were usually drawn out, and it would be like trying to run from the law, to stop her before she decided it was over.

Ah, well. She was talking, wasn’t she? All Joe heard was music, but his body seemed to be responding to the instructions, even moving to plant seeds and water them. That task done, she hauled out and assembled her bow with the grace and strength he’d come to expect from her, even if she was completely disheveled all the time. He always did love watching her shoot that bow. There was something in the movements and the meaning that stirred the primal forces in Joe’s heart. She asked his name, and Joeseph Prudomin responded automatically, like most everyone else. Ah, well. One must keep up appearances, with this sort of game.

“And yours, miss?” Joe heard himself say.

“I am Sabine,” she said. Joe recognized the name, of course. She never used it, but what sort of man grows up next to the love of his life, and never learns her surname?