"So what is exactly the plan for when we actually get back to your pit of despair?" Vadei asked me while she tapped her chair.
"We go in and save your people and then I handle the issues regarding mine and you just go on home?" I said back to her, slightly confused as to where this was coming from. Hadn't we already discussed what we were doing?
"That's what we are doing, not what the plan is."
"Oh, right..." I mumbled before going quiet.
"You don't have one?"
"More like I don't actually know how to plan one. The area all your family and that are, to my knowledge, is not a place we were normally allowed. The defences and so on just do not exist in my head... So, no plan."
"Great..." she lets out with a frustrated sigh before she taps away at some screens.
"But, we do have one advantage now." I said while looking down at my claws.
"Less than four fingers is not an advantage."
"No! My strength given to me by my magic! I can use it to climb the mountains near my home. We can have a look about without putting the airship in harms way."
"This airship has shields strong enough to withstand something that melted your body and armour that survived you suddenly sending it flying up."
"It also has armour that got torn apart by bugs, no?" I commented as I swear this was the same type we once camped out in.
"The osibindah earth shaman used giant pillars of rock to slam the airship straight down into a mountain. Of course, it would get torn up!" she tells me matter-of-factly while also rolling her eyes.
"Either way... Airship will likely survive whatever my home can throw at it?"
"Most likely."
"But your family are unlikely to?" I asked while thinking of the idea of just landing in that farming area they were all in.
"If we were coming after them just after they got captured... Maybe they would come out unharmed... But not now, not when they have spent so long in magicless lands..." she explains with a quiet whine as her gaze goes down.
"So we would need a distraction?" I put forward while pondering the gates I could pass through. Or, at least, could when I was younger and not working.
"What, you gonna charge straight into the city or something?"
"I was thinking more of parking the airship beyond Tobaballe's walls. I climb into the holdings of the Civil Mountains and then cause issues. I mean, look at me! You already hate me because of it, think of what people who have never seen an osibindah will think."
"I don't hate you, I just find you irritable." she corrected with a smirk leading me to scoff at her.
"But yes, me big scary osibindah. It will work as a distraction, especially well when I prove that they need to send in the Goldhands or something."
"The magic-capable guard of your home?"
"I assume so, they became known as goldhands for a reason."
"Then why doesn't your home, you know, go up in a fireball?"
I frowned, "Maybe they have somehow set up areas where magic is able to be used? Or maybe it's just tech they have with some internal magic? My first exposure to magic was a casually lifted statue after all."
"If that was the case, I wouldn't have had to keep my magic under control when I was a slave."
"Again, tech maybe? Or... All that gold...?" I said to her before thinking aloud. Reminding myself of how pretty much everything in the upper levels had different degrees of gold involved. Even what they ate...
"It might be, I think I do remember someone mentioning thunder-gold when I was being sent back as it were." she told me before snarling towards the end.
"That would make sense, Heiya and that did say the magic around there was unique in that it had a very... Tight area of influence." I began to say before waving my hands close together.
"Alright, we have established how your super elite guard might be able to use magic, but how does that help us get them to go after you?" I was then asked by Vadei as her chin rested on her open palm.
I put a claw to my chin and stroked, "We lure them out with magic? I go somewhere quiet and just let a small amount out? A bluish explosion is sure to grab their attention, no?"
"It's probably the best plan of action we have..." she says once more with a sigh before slumping back into her chair.
"Vadei, I know it is probably a bit stupid all things considered. But, I promise you, we will get your family and such out of there and make sure you are on your way first. The issues of my home are my problem, but your issues are linked with mine. So you have my word that I will help."
"You'll have to forgive me if I doubt your word at the moment..." she says to me with no notable hostility. Even if it still did irk me either way.
"Then don't doubt my words, believe in my actions." I ultimately pleaded to her with as I sat down on a deactivated console.
"Let's wait and see, shall we?" was all I got from her.
So now, in an effort to change the topic, I looked down at my seat, "So how come most of this stuff is turned off? It was all on when we were flying by the Anvil-Peak."
"The magic in this place is thin and nearly non-existent. I am having to keep us at an extreme height even for this airship just to keep magic flowing into our systems."
"So you have turned off all non-essentials?"
"More so I am figuring out what can be turned off without issue for now. We still have plenty of stored magic, we just don't have a particularly good input of it."
"Will the batteries manage while we sort out the situation with your family?"
"I admittedly don't know, I have a prediction on screen, but, I am still uncertain if it is right given our circumstances."
"And how much is the prediction?"
"A few weeks worth of fuel, so, enough to grab everyone and fly back up, and, of course, any waiting time."
"Can't you just turn it off while we save your family?"
"You would have no means to communicate with me, so I would need to keep it on and ready to go."
"Are there no tools on board so we can?"
"There are, they're just not fitted for your head and would not likely survive your distraction or your general movements."
"Then how are you going to keep track of me?"
"Remember how we picked up how Larishazza was approaching us when we first left?"
"Yeah."
"I can use the airship's sensory equipment to track you. And, apparently, this airship was given a module that lets it record data related to magic and that. I have everything I need to watch you. Just not communicate."
"So we do it all in my own time?"
"Unfortunately..." she groans out while paying attention to my brief smile.
"Don't worry, I will try to be quick about it."
"You better, I understand you are here because this is your home, but try not to go sightseeing."
"That's one thing I cannot promise. I have been waiting for quite some time to get back home and despite my feelings towards aspects of it... It is still an exciting experience that just needs satiating."
"Again, you better not get lost sightseeing." she repeated with a firmer tone while leaning forward.
"Don't worry, I may be excited about finally getting home, but I am also very eager to deal with a certain woman you used to love referring to me as."
"I didn't love calling you 'Ho,' I just wanted a personalised insult." she commented while looking away slightly.
"Wasn't a very good one, I have to admit. Up until now, I have had no negative connotations with her name. Now, though, maybe."
"Well, make sure you make her suffer alright. Make them all suffer for what they have done..." she growled out as her nails dug into the chair.
"My anger is exclusive to those involved in the exchange of my people with Suhurlodst. Which, so far, only includes two to my knowledge. Iishar herself, and some other guy who apparently pet named your kind as floofs." I clarified and explained for her, watching as she shivered at the end part.
"I know the one you mean, it's why I ended up getting shipped back."
"What did you do?" I then asked her as she stoked my curiosity.
She flicked some of her nails up, "I did a little carving and biting." she maliciously grinned, making sure to show off her canines the whole time.
"What did he do to you?"
"Oh, nothing much, just touch my little sister inappropriately and myself in a similar manner because that creature had a fetish for our tails." she explained while protectively stroking it.
"You brutalised a man because he touched your tail?"
"You already know I do not like people touching my tail. Both because of my personal feelings to it and how we are raised. Our tails are special and they should only be shared with those we hold in special regard."
"So I can go and touch your tail? You did offer it to me once." I asked, leading to her face going just slightly red.
She looked away first, "The circumstances for that were different."
"Yeah, I could just walk into any part of the aelenvari flower and take what I want while you were constantly refused basic manners. You had nothing of value but I had access to all the things you wanted and needed." I said with a shrug and smile. Making light of what was likely a humiliating offer on her part back then.
"Shut up." she quickly barked out after.
"But, yeah, don't worry, I am sure I'll be able to figure out which one you are on about and deal with him when I can."
"No, if anyone is going to deal with that creature, it will be me. Especially if I find out he violated my sister or any of my family in the meantime since I was last in your decrepit pile of piss and mortar!" she exclaimed with a slammed down fist at the end.
"First come, first served."
"Then I guess we will be wreaking havoc in your homeland together then and then we can save my family!"
"It's a date."
"I didn't..." Vadei groaned out while I smirked some more at her.
"But, no. Focus on your family, focus on getting them out safely. I'll handle the spire-lords and all that." I told her, something she nodded to without much resistance.
Then, after a brief quiet, she spoke again, "So what are you exactly going to be doing once you get back home and this is all done? After we're done freeing my people, you're not just going to be able to settle back in. You'll be a mercilessly hunted criminal!"
"Don't worry about me, I have experience in that regard." I answered with a saddened frown as I stared at my barely visible reflection. The face of the monster that terrified me staring right back at me. Imitating every movement I made no matter how slight or hidden it was.
"It seems rather odd that I would be setting out to free my friends and family, only to leave one a prisoner the rest of his life." Vadei then commented as she stood up and walked over to me.
"It will probably do me good, since being in that small camp with you, Vapooliar and those two little midgets... I have gotten rather comfortable with the idea of solitude. Lots of people just don't do it for me now, if they ever did that is."
"You don't have to do it, you know. You don't have to return to Tobaballe just because."
"It's my home, Vadei."
"Home is where ever you make it. You just want to go back because it is familiar and all you have been exposed to since I have first seen you is the unfamiliar."
"Or, instead of giving me a lesson in philosophy and psychology, you could just accept the fact I want to get back home?" I said back to her with a raised tone.
She shook her head and sighed, "Nin, do you seriously want to tell me your life would be better off in that city? From what you have described it is a place that grinds you to the bone doing nothing but work and you only actually get to enjoy life when your hair goes grey."
"Your point?"
She stood up, "You may have an osibindah's body, but you still have the soul of a human. That has allowed you to make friends who care about you, friends I hope I can consider myself a part of. Think about it, life may not be as easy as it once was with the aelenvari, but you have everything you need and friends to support you through it."
"Be quiet..." I bitterly muttered as she brought back old arguments I kept beating down in my head.
"No, quite frankly, I think you need the second opinion! You're throwing away and cutting yourself off from people who care about you just so you can die in a hole in a place that has never cared for you and will forever hate you!"
"I said... BE QUIET!" I started off irritated yet quietly at first before I went into a brief charge and yelled in fury. Vadei flinched away with wide eyes and nearly fell over. She said nothing else and quickly scurried off to captain's chair. An unsteady shiver went through her as I passed by and went outside.
And with a need to vent anger out, I enacted something that could help me deal with it. I slammed a fist straight down onto the airship railing and snapped it. One part still stayed on, but it was clear it was deformed permanently for the time being. And, despite just breaking it, I would put it somewhat back in place before walking once more.
"Who in the name of all the gods does she think she is? It is not her place to question my reasoning... Her place is to be thankful that I am even helping her at all!" I ranted out loud to myself as my claws twitched about. Yet, even as I flexed my angered form around, I did not lash out at anything nearby. Instead, I tried to calm myself down by going on a little walk around the airship.
Unfortunately, however, every room I went by seemed to make me increasingly bothered. Each room gave me a memory of something I had done in the rooms with the others. Be it just talking to them, sharing a snack or playing around with them. And in a few cases, I was helping them fix the airship or make something out of the bits they found.
Despite this just being an airship we stole so we could get back home... It already was loaded with small, happy memories calling out to me. Each one making the same argument as Vadei just did and I have done before... You are happy with these people, so why give it up?
Yet, for some reason, I could never quite make a good argument for why I was. I tried arguing it from a selfish standpoint, like how many back home would do it. But I had long since changed from that sort of life. My friends now were people willing to nearly die to save me, not just people I joked with and insulted.
I was actually happy with these people, not just mutually miserable. We might have not enjoyed doing all the same things. But, what we did share mattered. Einervaene wore clothes I helped her make and look after.
And, well, Larishazza was a woman who had just captivated me since the beginning. When I thought I was all alone and that seeing Undwote again was the best course of action. Her childish antics might have been unbearable at times, but she was so sweet. And I left her alone in the middle of a wasteland with no explanation...
Just like that, as if I were someone who moved to a higher floor at the expense of someone else. So I guess, in a way, despite all that has happened to me, I was still a Tobaballian. Someone more focused on what benefitted them. No regards to others being paid their due...
Perhaps I could just go back with Vadei once her people had been saved? Once mine were no longer in danger of undergoing what I nearly went through. But, again, everything I have done since even the camp where I met Vadei properly... It has all been in a single effort to get back home...
I couldn't just stop on a whim, not after I have already put so much effort into this journey. I nearly died, had died, nearly died several more times. All in the name of returning to my homeland. To the city I was born in, that birdcage shaped meatgrinder.
How could I just drop it all because it made me sad to leave some people behind? Surely me actually feeling comfortable was more important than just another friendship? Yet, was this really just another friendship? One saved my mind and the other saved my body from potential death.
One could not just say this was the same standard to which all friendships were measured... What I had with those two was special and meaningful. Yet, again, I once thought that about Rose and she abandoned me for another. When I needed support the most from her, she just up and left me to wither away.
Even Einervaene did the same when it got rough. So what's to say it won't happen again. What is to say I won't find myself on my own again? To be told so finely that I should have gone off to Tobaballe...
To have broken off the friendships myself and saved me the torment. To protect me from their imposed solitude by just making it myself... Now if only it was an actually quick affair. And not one that left me wandering an airship, bitter and disgruntled with it all.
"Give it time I suppose. I got over never seeing my old school friends. I... I should be able to do the same here." I said as I sat down on a chair in the cafeteria. A doodled on piece of paper soon entered my grips after a short while. Something Larishazza must have done at some point. Or, perhaps not, because it was an outfit outline.
So that must have meant it was one of Einervaene's drawings. And now, I became curious, because the drawing was one of me, so I headed off to another room. This picture was not me in my usual bandages and cloak, though. But, rather, in a rather normal-looking set of baggy robes.
At least, I assume it was robes, it was certainly something from Einervaene's homeland. It had that particular elegant simplicity to it. Where the means to make it were simple, but the way it was done was fine and precise. Each piece being a canvas for the artistic talents of the maker.
Yet, now that I was in the room Einervaene had been using for her clothes making. I found out that what was in my hand only existed on this paper. Just like the dozens upon dozens of other pieces of paper. Each one a design for me, her, Vadei or Larishazza.
There was even one for Heiya and Paps surprisingly enough. But there was also something else of note. Large scratches and tears across the wall and crude notes jotted down where ever there was room. Some were her letting out grief about what happened when I took off my bracelet, others were more innocent.
Just her complaining about how she had all these ideas but not the material to make it.
"I suppose it doesn't really matter if I keep any of this, does it?" I then asked myself as I took off my clothes. Leaving my mask on a desk while folding up my cloak and resting the hat on it. The bandages, however, I just sort of spread about in the corner.
And now, I was naked once more, just an osibindah with the eyes of a human once more. It would probably mean little to her, but I suppose this act of kindness should help. She could maybe make some of these ideas now that she had the material. Or, at least, little miniatures of the ideas.
But, if I was going to leave behind a kindness for Einervaene. Surely I should also try to make sure Larishazza had one too? It may have frustrated me that even with the bracelet she did not have feelings for me. But I still had feelings for her, she was very important to me and to just leave her out...
No, I would not do it... So now I just needed to figure out what she might like. What she might want. Yet, I knew the answer to that and it left me sad again.
She wouldn't want a parting gift. She would not want a little gesture from someone she would never see again. She would want her friend to be with her. To laugh and play with so she could enjoy life with them and all the other friends she had.
However, I could not give that to her. I could not give her, her friend back. Her friend wanted to go home and she wasn't coming... So, with this in mind, I sat down and tried to think.
But I could not think, there was just too much in my head. Too many regrets regarding her and the other one. I could not get myself to forget about them no matter how hard I tried. Like how the earth was always touched by water, like how lightning always struck down...
I could not properly detach myself from either of them. Two cases of where they had both saved my life. I would carry those thoughts in my head forevermore. And I despaired at what that would bring for me...
Restless nights caused by nightmares filled with their tears and anger. A distracted mind that just kept trying to tie myself back to them. A heart that would keep aching at how I rejected its right to love. That is what was coming for me right now if I stayed the course.
But, I could change my mind. I just had to go back to Vadei now or later and tell her I wanted to go back. Back to Suhurlodst so I could stay with my friends. My beloved and appreciated friends...
Ones I would spend months trying to repay the kindness they have given me. Ones I don't even think I could repay at all actually. I mean, how does one repay the right to life? How do I repay someone who rebuilt my will to go on?
Every joy I would experience from those points on were rooted in their actions! Just like how every moment of sadness and anger was too, even if they were not actually involved. It would always go back to me crying with a broken knife in hand in the dark. It would always go back to me lying there in fear with a burnt and melted body.
I owed them so much and they barely owed me anything when you got down to it. I have not saved their lives, I have kept them safe, sure. But not once have I ever saved their lives like they had mine... And now, once again, here I was, crying my eyes out as indecision took over.
"Nin, can you come back to the bridge, please?" I heard Vadei gently ask through the airship's speaker system. Initially, I did not want to listen to it and just ignore it. To stay in this growing pit of misery I was in. But, as I did not want to be on the floor moping, I got up shortly after.
I then slowly moved back through the airship until I reached the open decking. And, it would seem like Vadei was watching me as now the airship was turning around for some reason. Then, once I was done being confused by why we had suddenly turned around. I saw why we had turned around.
"Tobaballe..." I let out quietly as I saw the very, very distant sight of a city wedged between two ends of a mountain range. My home, I was finally within viewing distance of my home again, even if it seemed deceptive. I couldn't make out much given how far we were. But the crown of the city helped outline its tall towers for us.
The great clock that dangled in the centre, I forget its actual name, but it was helping me so much.
"Nin, again, bridge please." Vadei asked once again with more urgency this time around. And I didn't question it or ignore it this time. I just went straight for it and walked to the bridge. Perfectly aware of what we might have to speak about in this moment.