Astraea bit her lips as she suppressed a pained groan at the searing burn that travelled along her entire arm through the punctures made by the projectile wood from the shattered door. She glared heavily at the man, assessing him carefully.
The figure stood at about roughly six feet perhaps, completely engulfed in a black cloak with gold embellishments and badges peeking through its slit as the figure raised one of his arms to tip his blood red feathered hat in a polite salute. A white porcelain mask covered his entire face, lips and eye holes black and painted in an almost leering expression. 'Glee', Astraea thinks.
"Hello Miss," he croaks happily with a tip of his hat, as if he hadn't just cleanly ruptured her wooden door and was responsible for the splinters embedded in her arm that was now profusely bleeding, "you look high and well. I must say red is a very nice color on you."
'Give me a break' Astraea bemoans mentally, wincing heavily with every twitch of the muscles in her arm.
"I hope you don't mind my intrusion but I do believe that you have a little something that I'm looking for and I really need it or I'll be in real trouble you see," he rambles on leaving Astraea confused.
He then locks eyes behind her, "Ah! There it is! Very well taken care of I see," he exclaims joyfully making Astraea more confused before looking behind her. Then the realization hits her.
He had locked eyes with Stranger – who was right behind her, just three feet away (when did she even get there?!). Stranger was the thing he was looking for.
'I'm an escapee,' she remembered her saying with that blank look on her face, devoid of dishonesty. That means this man must be…
He must be a hunter of sorts who retrieves escapees. In her case, the very one she was housing inside her own home.
Astraea looks behind her too see the woman had not paid attention to the man, but rather her eyes were fixed on to the wounds on her arm that was currently bleeding now a steady trickle. Not life threatening but definitely hurt like a bitch. Her expression seemed stony for a moment before locking her burgundy red eyes on the man with an unreadable look that was laced with ice. Fear shivered down Astraea's spine.
'At least I'm not the one receiving that look,' she thinks absently before turning towards the man, "Look, whatever you want I don't really care. You cannot just break my door."
"Ah but you see missus, I'm in a bit of a time crunch. Now if you would please step aside I will be collecting my dues and we can all live our blissful lives," he says simply.
Astraea felt torn.
She looked at Stranger and then back to the dark figure that stood at her doorstep. There was a choice for her; she could step away from the matter entirely and let the man take the other away performing his duty as he should. It was the only reason why he came there in the first place. It was the most rational thing to do; all the factors of the situation clearly say so. In end the woman was a stranger and an escapee. Whatever crimes she had committed, the blood she had possibly spilled with her hands, it was none of her business and it was clearly something grave to be hunted like this. Astraea didn't have the right to be tangled in whatever mess this was.
But…why couldn't she move?
She looked again at the tall woman, locking eyes for a moment. Something about her gaze made her stomach churn at the thought of giving her away. Even in the short time that she had met her she couldn't understand what exactly she felt about the woman and her situation. There was a part of her, something innate and almost forgotten, that didn't want to let go. Why couldn't she?
Too many emotions were swirling inside her skull making it ache with the additional pain of the splinter. She could feel her face scrunch slightly as she stood unmoving in front of the man.
The intruder tilted his head, "Well? Move along. You don't have to do anything now."
Astraea said nothing but stare impassively at him.
"Will you not move?" his tone was now bearing a shade of annoyance.
Silence hung in the air.
A sigh sang into the moment, "Fine."
In the blink of an eye he unsheathed a slender blade that was aimed directly at her stomach, the double edge glinting for just a fraction of a second before a loud 'clang' resonated followed loud gunshot sounds that cut through the air. Astraea opened her eyes that had been pinched shut within that time.
A glinting black gun was now smoking softly in front of her, defending her from the offending blade with a solid presence next to her, a warm palm steadying her as it stayed on her spine. She looked to her side, mouth gaping and eyes wide in shock. She felt her heart thump loudly.
Stranger stood like a statue of marble, poised and eyes narrowed in silent rage. The red of her iris seemed to almost glow as she focused on the man in front of them as if she hoped to incinerate him with her gaze. The figure on the other sported a large crack on the corner of his mask and blade was now held diagonally to his chest in defense. Astraea felt her brain still trying to process the second that had just passed.
The man didn't sound happy, "You are quite annoying you know. This was my favorite cloak. Tailors are a bit costly these days."
"You will survive," Stranger says but her tone said otherwise.
Displeasure colored his voice heavily, "Now I'm pissed. This really could have been an easy affair. I will only say this one more time: Come. Here."
The words stirred a sudden irritation inside of Astraea that made her mouth open before she could even think about it, "She's not some dog for you to call bastard."
She resolutely avoided the other's gaze keeping her eyes locked onto the man, feeling her ears heat in embarrassment. 'I really need to keep my mouth shut.'
Whatever expression he made behind the mask she would never know as he lashed out his sword without a second thought aiming to kill. Astraea felt her body being flung towards the side out of harm's way as Stranger moves gracefully to the side and aims her pistol, firing two shots that thundered in the small space they were in. With a flick of his wrist he deflected one bullet and moved away from the other before lashing out his sword again. The two of them were now battling head on in a game of tag where one struck and flitted away from the other.
Astraea used their fight to slip away from the maelstrom now stirring in her living area to a secluded corner behind the couch so that she could finally examine her wound. The dark splinter was a finger's width and height and had only sunk shallowly meaning she wasn't doing to bleed to death. Little mercies she was thankful for.
Taking a deep breath she gripped the piece of wood, bracing the muscles of her bicep before pulling it out in one go. She couldn't stop the heavy wince and the grunt that escaped her lips at the sharp sensation of the projectile being yanked out of her flesh. An unpleasant feeling that made her feet feel almost numb and gelatinous.
Throwing the damned thing away she peeked from the couch and watched for a brief moment the two taller figures wrapped in a heated battle. Stranger didn't seemed very fazed, spare for the slight pinch in her brow and the anger blazing in her eyes, but Astraea could tell she was slightly sluggish due to the injuries she had sustained. It had barely been a few hours since she had patched her after finding her under the maple tree, there was no way her body had managed to heal from that deep low; Astraea had only given first aid, unclear on how to treat the wound completely. Each breath Stranger took had a hidden wince to it.
She won't last forever against the man who was in full health.
Astraea had to do something. How could she just allow someone to die in her very home?
Darting her head to and fro she thought hard, how could she help the woman? It was very apparent that Stranger was physically very capable of fending for herself and had a very good martial prowess, so did her opponent. However, Astraea was not; she had no weapon to defend herself, and she could not guarantee her body's physical abilities to help her be a match – what else could she do?
'Talismans,' her conscious told her, her body suddenly running towards her study and skimming through the various papers scattered throughout the place as the fight raged on. It was as if her body was moving on muscle memory alone as she gathered the small stack of yellowing papers on her desk. They were four fingers wide and square shaped which she used as bookmarks when she wrote her books or in her journal and wrote important pieces of information needed to remember. She grabbed them and the nearest pen her fingers grasped from the bowl of stationary without looking.
'Something to trap him; to stop him moving,' she thinks as her hands moved on their own, drawing a complicated series of triangles and hexagons interlocking and encasing each other and small words engraved into the outer borders.
Truthfully she didn't know what she was doing. The air was thick with her house filled with the loud sounds of bullet hitting metal and furniture breaking. Her arm throbbed and her veins were filled with adrenaline and time seemed to be ticking slower than one would have thought leaving her head aching and mind in a cacophonous mess. But one thought was clear: she had to fight back.
She rushed towards the fight once more, paper gripped between her fingers and the stack stuffed the pocket of her dress and focused her mind resolutely on the runes in her paper, praying it would work. With how vicious the fight was getting she was worried whether the damned spell might fire on Stranger instead, hence she positioned herself in the other's direction.
She threw the paper in their air and shouted, "Chain!"
At first nothing happened. The paper merely floated down to the ground at a leisurely pace, landing flat upon the ground making her feel suddenly very stupid. It stayed on the wooden floor, harmless and useless. It distracted the figure for a second, looking at the ground with what Astraea was sure was disbelief behind the mask before refocusing his blade. Astraea felt her gut sink as if made of hollow cold marble.
She felt her fingers grow warmer as she started at the paper in horror at its failure before looking up to see the figure aiming his sword right at Astraea. Immediately every muscle in her body tensed, her legs making her leap away from the spot as if unwilling to be pierced again. Then as she looked up she was met with a bizarre sight.
The man stood immobile with chains wrapped of blazing bluish white around his torso and legs thus locking his limbs and not allowing him move. The chains glowed as if made from light. It tightened with every twitch of his muscles, however he seemed to be frozen in shock (at least she thinks it was shock. The mask covered his expressions too well).
She felt a tight grip on her arm that made her wince and turn abruptly to see Stranger staring at her with an odd expression on her face that Astraea couldn't quite understand. It would be reasonable to think that Stranger might have felt sort of betrayed; after all she had passionately claimed that she knew nothing of spells or anything of the sort (which was true!) and she was just a humble author (also true!) but with the stunt she had pulled her claim was going to be much less believable. She would be mad too if she were in her place.
"Well, I don't know how long these runes will hold but I think we need a plan. And fast," she opts to say, still feeling the burning warmth in her palm and fingertips. The man in question decides to speak,
"Well isn't this interesting. I didn't know you were a Gifted."
Astraea blithely ignores him as she racked her mind with a plan. They obviously could not stay in the same place anymore. It would be completely stupid and the chains she had miraculously summoned in her adrenaline drunk haze won't last forever and she didn't even know how long it could actually last. The safest option at the moment was to escape and hide away somewhere for awhile before they can figure out a way for Stranger to go on her merry way to wherever she needed to be and Astraea to wait for the mess to die down.
But that would leave the question of where they could actually go. The city was still a good two hours away from them and the quickest way to get there was by train; even if they were to hide in the city, Stranger was a walking target, they would easily find her there with so many witnesses.
'But they don't know what she looks like,' a thought echoes in her head. She shook it away; they would know what she looked like, they had hunters looking for her and the one she had held hostage knew her from a glance.
What would be the next best option?
Suddenly she felt her hands go cold. A strong force pushed her away as a blade sliced right in the spot she had been standing on. She fell on the ground with a thud only to look up to see the man looming near her, mask countenance faced in her direction as his head titled almost thoughtfully.
"You're supposed to be dead," he says monotonously.
"Huh?" Astraea says eloquently, brain rattled at the sentence. Vaguely at the back of her mind she cursed that the bindings had only lasted for fifteen seconds. Utterly weak!
"You're supposed to be dead," he repeats, this time a little louder. His words carried a strange weight that ran in the air and made gooseflesh rise in her arms and legs.
She opts for a sardonic grin, "Well, sorry to disappoint?" 'Though I have no clue what you're talking about.'
He lashed out his blade again, this time it had a more frantic quality to it as if desperate to knick a piece of her flesh. Astraea decided let her body take control and ducked underneath the blade (a ridiculously dangerous move it was!) and roll to the other side. She kept her distance, eyeing the blade warily.
The man stills once more as if thinking before asking, "How did you do it?"
"Eh?"
"How did you do it?" he repeats patiently as if he were asking about the weather. Astraea decided to use the man's misguided thoughts to her advantage.
"Oh um, you know. A magician never reveals her secrets?" she counters saucily. 'If I could get him to talk, I could have enough time to recreate the Handasiun seal so I can teleport Stranger to the outskirts of the city. We should be able to recuperate and decide to part on our merry ways,' she thought to herself. It would also buy her enough time to wait out till the figure's weird fixation on her to fade away so he can go back to happily hunting criminals. It wasn't the best plan but it was her next best option.
Discreetly with the help of the movement of her dress she dodged the next swipe of the blade, quickly grabbing a sheet of paper and used the fresh blood that dripped down her arm to the tips of her fingers so she could secretly write on the paper inside the pocket of her clothes. She tried her best to hide her wince as she moved the injured arm into the said pocket, the pain searing through her veins.
"Fascinating," the man continues, now completely forgotten stranger who, from the corner of her eye, was sporting a livid expression despite kneeling on the ground, very still. There were several cuts on her thigh and face which made her internally grimace in sympathy.
'WHY IS HE FOCUSED ON ME NOW?!" Astraea did not appreciate the extra attention. She glanced again at Stranger, trying to signal her to come closer. If her roughly drawn Handasiun rune worked, she could teleport them both out far and quickly, but she needed to be near her target.
She didn't want to accidently teleport the man with them. That would be risky and extremely unlucky. She had to get closer to Stranger as much as possible; at least two feet should be enough.
Astraea found the right opportunity to do so with the next thrust of his sword which she dodged as gracefully as she could manage (Stranger was much more graceful for someone injured even if distractingly fit) and pressed herself against the now slightly startled woman.
"Do you trust me?" she demands while aiming a burning look at Stranger, hoping she would agree despite their differences. Oddly enough Stranger's face seemed to pale slightly at the words with her red eyes widened a fraction; Astraea thinks it might be because of her injuries though she isn't sure. Almost hesitantly, she nods.
Astraea felt an involuntary grin stretch across her face before it turns mocking towards the man. With her bloodied hand she slapped the blood drawn seal onto Stranger's arm earning a mildly horrified look in the corner of her eye from the escapee which she pointedly ignored.
"Well as much as I've enjoyed your presence unfortunately, we have places to be and better things to do," announced Astraea as the man paused once more to look at them. She could barely contain her focus with the excitement that filled her as her blood sang and her fingertips warmed as if ignited. It felt almost as if an old friend had come back to her.
The air hummed with a restless energy that swirled around them.
Suddenly they felt the ground twist beneath their feet and the air constrict around them like a cocoon, distorting their surroundings with an almost suffocating sensation. Astraea felt her entire body heat and compress at the same time before the world went black.
When Astraea opened her eyes once more – which she never noticed had closed during the journey – she had noticed two important things.
One was the gloomy grey skies that took a more stormy color signaling impending heavy rain that would possibly last for a good few hours. Earnest was prone to long heavy rainfalls after all. The air was cold and nipped the exposed skin of her neck, arms and legs (legs?). Her entire body ached as if she had been trampled by a bull and then pulled apart before mushed together like clay. The puncture wound on her arm still burned but she was strangely becoming numb to the pain gradually. She always had a strange constitution where wounds on her body never retained the initial pain after a minute; she believes it might be a birth defect of sorts. Somehow her body was cushioned from further jostling and landing on the ground harshly.
Which brings her to the second thing she noticed: she was cushioned by Stranger's body.
The taller woman had held her in a close embrace of sorts with her arms firmly wrapped around her body and palms resting on her shoulder and hip thus securing her and lessening the impact of the harsh landing. While she was indeed grateful that she was saved from extra pain, the position which she was in (where she was lying on top of Stranger) sent a rush of immediate panic through her body. What if she was too heavy? What if her limbs dug into her wounds?
Astraea hurriedly sprung up to examine the woman before her body suddenly protested with a burning sore pain erupted from each of her limbs as if her muscles had been overstretched which lead her to fall backwards instead landing on her rear next to Stranger. A fresh sharp pain added to her misery.
"Ouch!" she shouted, holding the sore spot in hopes the pain would disappear quickly. 'That fucking hurt,' she thinks before looking down at herself to notice some parts of her dress had been torn. Due to the strain of the rough blood drawn rune it tore a vertical line down her dress starting from her knee exposing her legs while ripping off one of her sleeves and made a few red scratches on her exposed arm and legs. The once white fabric was now dusty and stained with red and brown in some spots, some of the parchment from her pockets her crushed and threatening to spill out. Her hair had come loose from its bindings and fell across her back with stray strands plastered on her sweaty face.
She really did look like she had been regurgitated out from the belly of a storm.
She was not feeling very bonita at the moment.
Turning to her side she noticed Stranger had sat up as well, breathing heavily with a small wince with every inhale as she tried to regulate her breathing. The escapee's eyes glanced down at her, noticing the exposed ankles and sliver of thigh before her face darkened slightly, pupils blown and lips pressed to a thin line. Astraea didn't know what to make of that expression; she believed maybe it was because of her messy state which she'll admit was not a very nice sight. The thought made her feel a bit sour.
She cleared her throat loudly, "Are you ok?"
Stranger blinks at looks at her blankly before rasping, "Fine."
Astraea feels like yelling, "Don't lie to me, you're clearly not."
"I'm fine," the latter says with a stubborn tone that didn't match her impassive look. Still Astraea noticed the slight furrow in her brow and the ragged sounds she made when breathing which clearly showed the woman was downplaying her injuries. That idiot.
"Yes that's what I'll be writing as your last words on your tomb if you don't listen. 'She said she was fine when she clearly fucking wasn't'; do you want to die in agony? I'm trying to help you and you're not going to say a word otherwise and speak when I ask you," Astraea rages, brows furrowed tightly and mouth curled in anger with her hands gesticulating wildly.
As Stranger opened her mouth she yelled, "Don't you dare tell me it's nothing! I can see your body trembling and your breathing labored with every breath you take because of your older injury! Do I look gullible to you? I went through all this trouble getting my house dirty, using a red flagged teleportation seal that could have almost torn us to pieces and had my arm impaled to save your arse, the least you could do is be honest with me."
Stranger looks at her long and hard for a moment, eyes wide and brows raised a fraction as the outburst. Astraea bit her lip and looked away, willing the knot in her throat and the tears in her eyes to go away. She hated how emotional she was being.
The taller woman's expression softens to that of guilt, "I'm sorry."
With a small sniff Astraea grunts in affirmation, "Just don't be stupid. Some of us want to help people you know."
"I will remember that."
Feeling her limbs losing the last dregs of pains she stood up and surveyed the town that seemed half deserted almost. For a moment she felt confused at the barren state of the roads despite the grey morning, only to realize it was a Sabbath day which meant the townspeople usually stay indoors and enjoy the holiday. Thankfully this would make going through the streets much easier.
She looked at Stranger who began slowly standing up, moving her arms and squeezing her fingers as if she was trying to get the blood to flow. "Can you stand," asks Astraea with a slight wariness in her look.
This time Stranger gives a small honest smile, "Yes."
'She looks much prettier smiling,' Astraea thinks absently, 'she should do it more often without looking like a mourning widow.'
Shaking her head gestures towards silent town, "I know a place where we can stop by to resupply so we can decide what to do next." Meaning what she would do with her which was left unsaid. "Are you sure you can walk Stranger?"
She saw a slight twitch in the corner of the other's lips in the blink of an eye as if something amused her, the reason behind it was unclear (though Astraea firmly believes she's silently laughing at the nickname she had given her), "Yes."
"Good, then follow me. Hopefully we can rest and possibly gain some supplies for you for your journey."
Stranger looks at her for a long moment with a blank look Astraea didn't know how to interpret, too many emotions bleeding through the single gaze. The woman finally speaks up, "Alright."
With a hum Astraea nodded before waiting for her to get up and regain her footing. Soon they headed down the empty street silently with nothing but the cold wind whistling in their ears while she held the front of her dress in an attempt to cover her partially exposed legs which would have been quite a scandalous sight in the prim and proper eyes of people of Earnest had they occupied the streets. She couldn't help but grimace internally at fact that they would be barging in her contact's place without even a warning. She highly doubted they'd let her in that easily anyway.
'But his shop is the only one open on Sabbath,' Astraea thinks, 'I hope Coran is prepared for a new visitor.'