"I have a daughter."
Shiv used every last ounce of willpower left in his depleted, beaten body to open his eyes again. He looked at Esmeralda, who remained completely still, aside from her mouth, as she spoke.
"You wouldn't understand this because you're not a part of the church, nor, I suspect, are you even native to this world…" She inhaled quickly and exhaled slowly, in a controlled manner. "I, as a warrior priestess, am supposed to sacrifice that which I love most. That which I hold most dear to me, to our god."
Shiv's eyes began to close again, but he knew that the moment they closed would be the moment this world was rid of him, and he couldn't allow that. Not yet.
"Executioner loved her freedom more than anything." Esmeralda chuckled without feeling. "That's why she married that man. That was her way of sacrificing that freedom."
Shiv persevered. He kept his eyes open, even as tears poured out. He kept them open.
"I should have sent my daughter to an orphanage, or left her with a royal family, or… anything. I should have done anything but keep her." She looked up, now, and met Shiv's eyes. "But I couldn't. The love I felt when I looked at that baby girl was such a powerful feeling that, from the moment I found her on my doorstep, I knew I would sacrifice myself for her."
Shiv bent over and coughed up several globs of blood, grimacing at the pain of the weapon impaling him, before settling back against the chair.
This seemed to shake Esmeralda out of her daze. She stood up unsteadily as she spoke. "Nobody in the church knew about my daughter. Still, nobody knows. I was proclaimed the Hero of the World, prophesied to prevent its destruction." She stumbled and caught herself on a table. "Tell me… Shiv." Shiv was in too much pain to celebrate the fact that she had used his real name, and didn't even consider attempting to respond.
"Have you ever spoken to a deity? I have. You see, I'm not originally from this planet." She stumbled from the table to kneel in front of him. "I was summoned here for the sole purpose of preventing a monster from destroying the world. And I suspect… that you are that monster." She touched his cheek, searching his eyes for something. Her next words came out as a whisper. "Are you?"
Shiv began coughing again, though no blood splattered out this time. When he finished, he nodded.
"Tell me, Shiv… why are you trying to destroy the world? Why, when such wonderful human beings as your daughter and my daughter live here?"
Shiv pried his mouth open and whispered a single sentence: "I want to go home."
Somehow, Esmeralda understood. She nodded and sat back, staring at him.
As for him, he was beginning to feel slightly better already. He used his control over the earth to push the spear out of his back, and looked down to watch with interest as the wound he'd just opened bled profusely for several long seconds. With a grimace, he turned off his fire resistance and cauterized the wound shut on both ends by controlling the fire on his body with his mind. He'd learned from last time, and now didn't have to deal with the same blistered hands as last time.
"I'm not going to destroy Blaze." He said when he'd recovered enough strength.
Esmeralda had watched the entire thing without a flicker of change in expression, but Shiv could still sense the shock and the fear emanating from her.
"The rest of the world has to go, though." He said.
"Can I stop you?" She asked, the fear now evident in her voice.
It wasn't the fear Shiv was used to seeing, however. It was different in some way… 'Oh. She's not fearing me, or fearing for her life.' Shiv sighed. 'She's afraid for her daughter.' He could understand the feeling.
"No." He wasn't lying, or acting confident. He was speaking the truth.
She nodded, accepting this. "Then…" She went silent, and Shiv respected this, not bothering her while she sorted out her thoughts. "Then if I help you, will you spare my daughter alongside your own?"
Shiv looked to the side, unconsciously frowning as he thought it over. Eventually, he looked back at her and nodded. "I'll do my best."
This seemed to satisfy the beautiful, dirty, broken woman, for she closed her eyes and drifted immediately into sleep.
Shiv was not able to escape into the sweet release of slumber, unfortunately. The pain was unbearable, and the turmoil of emotions roaring for him to go save Blaze were keeping him awake, albeit barely.
He laid back and suffered. Closing his eyes forced all of his focus onto the pain, so he continued to keep them open, watching as all the dust settled and light began to fade.
***
"Shiv, do you want me to kill her?" Duncan's voice broke Shiv from the trance-like state he'd entered.
He sat up quickly, "No- gah!" he doubled over from massive amounts of pain that throbbed around the area he'd been stabbed. "No." He repeated in a groan.
"Woah. You look like you've been stabbed all the way through. Stay here, I'm going to get a healer."
"Wait." Shiv grunted, but it was too late. Duncan was gone.
Esmeralda had awoken from the noise, and sat up with a lot of effort. "I'm sorry. I know neither of us are in any shape to be doing anything, but if we are to have a chance to save your daughter before the holy council gets a hold of her, we need to act immediately." She stood up and offered her good hand to Shiv.
He finally stopped shaking from the attacks of pure pain, and labored to grasp her hand.
Together, they stood and left. Shiv pretended he didn't notice Duncan hiding in the shadows in the corner of the room. He also acted as if he didn't hear the words Duncan muttered to himself: "Interesting. Looks like I've gotta move the schedule up."
Outside, Shiv and Esmeralda supported each other as she led them down the street. Inexplicably trusting her, Shiv didn't ask where she was leading him. He simply focused on moving.
When she stopped moving, Shiv looked up from his feet to find himself at the very busy, populated docks. "You see her?" Shiv didn't see anyone recognizable in the mass of people surrounding him coming and going.
"Not quite yet. But if the Hoods haven't left yet, they're bound to be here soon." Someone jostled her broken arm, and Shiv had to move quickly to catch and support her so that she didn't fall. He braced himself for a wave of dizziness and nausea to assault him, and was relieved when the preparations proved to be unnecessary.
When he looked up again, he found himself looking into the most deranged pair of eyes he'd ever seen. They passed him, and the clank of chains tickled his ears before something small bumped carelessly into his leg. He looked down and saw a small hooded form lift its head to look up at him.
"Blaze!"
The moment they recognized each other, chaos incarnated into the dock. At Shiv's shout, the man who'd just passed him turned and stabbed at him with a dagger that was intercepted by Esmeralda's quick strike. Shiv heard Duncan yell, and the clash of weapons somewhere behind him, toward the direction of the boats.
Shiv didn't acknowledge or even notice most of this. He just knelt and hugged Blaze, who was sobbing and saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I just wanted you to come back. I'm so sorry."
"Hey, hey, it's OK now. Don't worry, I'll keep you safe from them."
"No! You don't understand! I'm not the one who was hurt. It was… I was the one who did the hurting." She broke down crying again, and Shiv only gripped her tighter.
Around him, a mix of cloaked and uncloaked people were fighting savagely amidst the crowd of civilians. If he took the time to look around, he would find that Duncan's infamous Mirrors were barely keeping a diverse group of cloaked people from falling upon him with daggers and chains.
One of the Mirrors was killed right beside Shiv, and fell to the ground beside the unmoving man with a dagger in his heart, allowing his opponent to take his chain and wrap it around Shiv's neck. The cloaked fellow jerked back violently, knocking into another cloak and causing the man's death at the hands of Esmeralda, weakened as she was, but the former cloaked man succeeded in separating Shiv from his daughter. Immediately, a giant cloaked man swept in and grabbed the crying girl. He ran for the ships, shoving people and combatants aside, while Shiv tried to regain his footing with the chain tightening around his neck.
Watching Blaze suddenly disappear like that lit the fire of anger in Shiv, and the result was a rush of adrenaline flooding his body. He got his feet under him and jerked. The man who'd chained him went flying at Shiv.
Shiv ran after the giant, leaving a dead body and a shattered chain in his wake. He pushed through the crowd, which seemed to have gotten thicker, and searched in every direction for his quarry. Thinking he caught a glimpse of him on a ship, Shiv pushed through the crowd with much more vigor and reached the boat.
It wasn't the right man.
Desperate, Shiv looked wildly around, but saw only strangers of normal sizes.
"Shiv! At the end of the dock!" Duncan's voice rang out clearly and with urgency. Shiv immediately began pushing his way there, and broke through the crowd at a sprint. He passed sailors and crates and boats, but saw none of them. He saw only the Hood holding Blaze by her hair, staring at Shiv with a grotesque smile as he stood on the back of a ship sailing away at a ridiculous speed.
Shiv didn't hesitate. He lessened his weight and threw himself off of the wooden dock with every last bit of strength he could summon.