Caprice
Leilani's annoying voice continues pestering me. I wince as I try to focus on the low–ceilinged hallway and not her rambling. My feet dig into the uneven floor, I hunch my shoulders and trail my hand across the wall. It dead–ended, but I suspect that's not all.
"And so," she expresses to an unimpressed Taurus, "I said, I told you so. Of course, she didn't listen! I told her that Pisces liked her, but she's a Darktale, isn't she, and she never listens. I didn't get any drama. At all. Just a blank look and a snort. Really. They're quite boring, actually."
I curl my hand into a fist and knock it lightly against the wall, trying to ignore Leilani as best as I can, but there is nothing hollow that I can hear. I wonder if knocking on Leilani's head would give me a different result. She doesn't even have a brain under there.
The stone wall feels fake. As if it's just a prop. But I can't go on my instincts, because I can't feel anything behind it. I slide my hand against the wall, my fingers loosely holding onto a protrusion, and it feels as if the wall is sliding with my hands. The small grating noise that reaches my ears confirms what I suspect. It could be a panel.
"Taurus!" I whisper, reaching out in the dark for his arm and nearly jumping when I hear his voice right next to my ear.
"Yeah?" he asks, his breath tickling my neck. Nervously, I push back strands of green hair that have escaped the tight ponytail I bound my hair into.
"Can you shut Leilani up? Please do me this one favor and we might find something," I hiss at him, widening my eyes innocently.
Maybe I imagine Taurus's nod, but at a few hissed words from him to Leilani, she quiets down with a last, "And they think I'm the immature one — oh. Okay."
I try to grip the stone, finding another small protrusion to tug on. Holding my breath and hoping, I pull it. It slides away. Cursing quietly, I murmur, "I wish we had a fire element." A rectangular section of the wall clatters onto the ground and exposes a dark hole.
"I'm gonna reach in," Leilani says cheerily, and sticks her whole arm inside before either Taurus or I can yell at her not to. I can hear a crackling sound as Leilani withdraws her hand. "Oooh, look. Some old paper. Let's go back to Vienna and read it, alright?" she asks in an overly chirpy voice.
I start towards the entrance, an odd feeling swirling in my gut. Something is wrong, and I know it. I begin to realize that something is tingling in my fingers, as if it's seeping through my blood. My heart drops in my chest as I hope I'm wrong. What if the wall was laced with poison?
"We need Vienna," I say, but my voice wavers, sending me into a fresh wave of panic as I hunch over as best I can and make my way to the end of the passage, stumbling a few times in the dark. There's no huge wall slamming down to block my path, nothing. Just an eerie silence. Vienna is tracing her fingers over her arm, glancing at one of the other passages, where Leo is talking soothingly to Sagittaria as he walks her back. Gemi and Scorpio are a bit taken aback, which I can tell by the surprised looks on their faces as they glare at Leo.
"Vienna?" my voice sounds faint even to me, and I hope it's just from panic, but the way she flashes a glance at me says otherwise. It's concern, but she masks it under a casual air. She's not fooling anyone, though. Vienna's always been the one caring after us, and no matter how much she's changed, she can't ever just drop it.
"Capri, you okay?" She rises from where she'd been sitting, legs crossed. Her arm is no longer bleeding, but there's blood crusted all over it.
"I think ..." I manage a weak smile. "I may have touched something poisoned."
Vienna touches my shoulder, "Sit down. Isn't earth magic stereotypically healing?"
"Yeah, but I'm corrupted magic, and whatever you want to do will just crumble," I mention. I can feel a headache coming on. I raise my hands to rub my temples, closing my eyes briefly before reopening them to glance around.
"Oh, I forgot that," she muses. "Then you'll be fine. You probably won't die."
I stare at her skeptically. "What am I supposed to do, then?" I don't believe her. Poison, after all, isn't meant to cause a simple stomachache. The side effects should be worse than that.
She ponders this for a moment before mentioning, "Wait for everyone else to return. We'll see if you can keep going. Where's — oh, there's Leilani and Taurus. Perfect. We're missing Pisces, Aquaria, Carina. Ari and Peridot. The rest we have."
"Should we check on those three and Ari?" Scorpio's casual voice sounds faraway to me as he purposefully omits Peridot's name. I close my eyes and lean back. The tingling in my fingertips is becoming almost unbearable. I just want it to stop.
"Ari and Peridot are fine," Leo interjects in a freezing voice. "They don't need to be checked on. Somebody go and look for those three."
"I'll go," Gemi volunteers. "Scorps, let's go." There are dim noises of Gemi trying to cajole Scorpio into following him. He's only answered by grumbled excuses.
"What's up with Ari and Peridot?" asks Vienna, sounding confused.
"Uh ..." Leo mumbles. "They're alive. You don't need to check on them. We just need to get Sagitta therapy."
"Great, well, let's wait until Pisces comes back." Vienna's voice is heavy with sarcasm as she mentions her ex.
"Pisces is not a therapist, he's a simp!" argues Sagittaria, her voice slightly choked. Leo snorts and mutters an agreement.
The silence that falls after this is oppressive. Everyone's silent as Gemi drags a quietly protesting Scorpio towards one of the hallways. I feel the tingling in my fingers begin to settle. I don't know if this is poison, but I don't like it by any means.
Colors swirl behind my eyes, a silvery blue, a chocolate brown, forming into shapes that I can't quite place, but they're wrong. Beneath my fingers, I find the gritty surface of tree bark. I move my fingers along it as if to calm myself, but this is a hallucination, isn't it? The tree is odd. I can only see the thick tree trunk, but in detail. And there's something carved into it.
I stop there, my fingers tracing the shape as I struggle to think of what it could possibly be. It seems to be a curvy, odd n with a loop at the last leg of the letter.
Something I'm sure that I haven't seen before. I know there's no symbol like this as far as I can remember.
But the images fade away before I can wonder what they are, replaced by a curious girl's face. She has long, straight moon–white hair that surrounds her face in a halo. Sky–blue eyes peer at me innocently from a chalky heart–shaped face. She looks so innocent, but also as if she's trapped in a wall of ice. I can't place her species, but then her pale pink lips part and she hisses in a ghostly whisper, stressing the last word, "Know me for all Eternity."
Pisces
Aquaria's breath tickles my ear as she whispers her now–favorite word. "Simp." It brings a flush to my cheeks as Carina throws back her hair and stares at the ceiling. Aquaria's been glaring at Carina for a while now, displeased. Carina doesn't notice, or maybe it's on purpose.
"For the last time, Aquaria," I say with a grimace, "I am not a simp!" It's loud enough for Carina to shoot me a quizzical glance before shrugging.
She smirks, pulling her hood up to cover her face before kneeling down to inspect the ground, passing gloved hands lightly over the rough ground. She wears fingerless gloves, and her claws scrape the ground, the only noise that is made for some time as I step back to take in the smooth wall.
It's carved with something. As if they're runes in a mysterious language. A line carves down, and then up, and then down again in a misshapen N. Two dots are scrawled in ink on either side of it.
"What is this, a magic spell?" I mutter, touching my finger to one of the dots. It's oddly warm. I decide to touch the index finger on my other hand to the dot on the other side. Something grumbles deep under me. "Guys, I've found something."
Aquaria looks over. "Oh," she says, "look." Cracks run through the stone suddenly, framing the N in a rectangle. She rises, placing her palm in the middle of the N and splays her fingers as she ducks under my outstretched arms. The cracks begin to grow more pronounced and Carina stops to watch us, head cocked to the side in curiosity.
That, of course, is when we're disturbed. Loud footsteps are followed by the silent ones and Aquaria jerks her head to the side, her eyes tracking the sound, as the slab of stone lets out a final groan and is pushed backwards, exposing a narrow hole that's large enough to crawl through. She steps back, but her attention is already fixed somewhere else.
As Aquaria shoots a heated glare at Scorpio and ignores Gemi, I step closer and stick my head inside the hole. A warm hand rests on my arm as Carina observes, "I don't think you should do that."
I stick my head further into the darkness to hide the blush. "Yeah, well, I'm doing that," I say. "It's cold in there."
Steadying myself against the wall with one hand, I reach a hand further in. Carina firmly grips my shoulders as I feel around in the dark hole. I seem to be touching something smooth and cold. Perhaps it's a floor. I can feel no imperfections in it. There's this upraised portion too — it moves — it feels like a crudely wrapped package. I close my fingers around it and begin to pull my hand away.
"Pisces!" yells Carina, suddenly stumbling back and pulling me with her. I fumble and drop the package as I fly backwards, realizing that she's surprisingly strong. A dim, final thud makes me peer back into the hole, but it is now sealed with a slab of metal that blocks it firmly.
I realize that I was very, very close to having my arm crushed. I feel a wave of cold shock surge down my spine as I glance wildly at her, "How did you know?" I demand. Her arms curve around my stomach as she holds me close, her chest rising and falling as she breathes. I twist my head and notice her calm cyan eyes lock onto mine. She seems worried. As if she cares about me. But of course she would. She knows me as a friend, maybe not even that, since I'm the "therapist" of her archenemy's sister, and also her brother's archenemy.
"There was debris falling from above, and something rumbling. I thought you might trigger something," she mentions coolly, her breath catching in her throat as she releases me almost reluctantly, but she doesn't ask me to move away, so I don't. "Now we can watch the idiots yell."
I let my gaze wander over to where Scorpio's eyes lock onto Aquaria's. In a fluid motion, he grips her by the shoulder. She attempts to duck, before closing her hand over his arm and slashing with her nails, slicing his arm. He pays no attention and snaps his hand out to grab her by the wrist, shoving her against the wall and stepping closer. With her other hand, Aquaria attempts to claw at his face as she leans forward, but Scorpio ducks his head. "I believe you said something," is what he states calmly.
"Yeah, I did," she snarls, curling her hand into a fist as he relaxes his grip slightly, the hand that was holding her shoulder sliding down to rest lower on her arm. Still, I can see that she's pinned well.
I throw a glance over at Carina, who looks amused, as if she's seen this so many times. She probably has. The Deadpools and Darktales have not been separated since they were about eleven, when it was all started by Sagittaria picking a fight with Carina, or so Aquaria claims. She tells me things about her past sometimes, when she can't take it. When she can't hold it in anymore.
"Well, I'd ask you to repeat it again, I hadn't heard it the first time." His lips curve into a small smirk as he studies her face closely, his eyes wandering down to the bruise on her throat before he quickly glances back up. Aquaria looks utterly unfazed by this all, flicking her wrist quickly and freeing it, but only for a few seconds. I feel as if she's spotted an opportunity to escape but doesn't care enough to use it.
"I said that your taunts need work," she sneers, the corner of her lip lifting into a mocking smirk as she lifts her free hand to press her palm lightly against his chest. "Asking me whether I still remember the Fall doesn't cut it, you know. I don't care anymore."
I've heard her mention it. I don't know what it is, but Carina's lips tighten as she watches. Gemi is slowly backing away, recognizing that this isn't the best time.
I'm not Carina, but even I can tell the small flicker of hurt in his eyes harden into a glare. If she's trying to provoke Scorpio, it's working. He lightly settles his hand behind her neck, index finger tracing a lazy circle on the side of her neck. "You used to bite your lip when you lied, honey, but now it's the inside of your cheek, since you knew it was too noticeable," he lowers his voice to a whisper and leans closer. "I suppose you're tasting blood right now, are you?"
"Hey, I hate to interrupt," starts Gemi with a nervous laugh, looking sorry to speak up, "but I can hear this weird rumbling and I don't like it."
I frown as I hear a low growling noise, somewhere. Turning around, I see something familiar. But I've only seen it alive, and the corpse from after it's been killed.
There, blocking our way out, is the skeleton of one of the mosquito creatures that used to attack us after we escaped Lonely Star. But just the skeleton, meticulously assembled.
The bones rattle as the skeleton shivers, and a leg twitches. It's dead, but somehow, there can be no doubt that it is alive.
Unknown
Corvus exhales a long sigh, shaking his head. Any Corrupted that diverge are immediately hunted down and killed. He doesn't know of any that have diverged and not been killed. Any others would have been in hiding.
But her? She's definitely Corrupted, and she's right there. What a prize it would be if he could kill her. After all, two against one. But Archer might prove more of a liability. He wishes he had Electra. He'd be more certain of whether he could take her on in a fight.
She approaches warily. Not making any moves, which is wise of her. She's rather short, perhaps six foot three. For Corrupted, that is not very tall. Corvus knows better than to try taking her on.
"I know who she is," hisses Archer, a spark of interest flaring in Corvus's mind as he turns eagerly to Archer.
"Who?" he presses Archer, staring at the brat instead of the girl. Realizing his mistake, he turns back to her. She creeps ever closer. A bow is strapped to her back, and a quiver flung over her shoulders, but her hands are fisted as if she's ready to unleash a magic attack.
"Her name's Cassara Argent," Archer murmurs, staring at her as if hypnotized. Her eyes might be hypnotizing. One is dark amber and the other dark gray. She seems to be dressed in black and white armor. It's relatively form fitting, but he has no doubt that the fabric is Deleian. If it is, that would make it almost impenetrable. Corvus has never fought other Corrupted, which means he has no need for armor. She, however, almost certainly has fought other Corrupted. "She goes by Soluna. One of the only living diverged Corrupted under our current rulers."
Corvus rubs his palms together, eyeing this Soluna and hoping she doesn't approach anymore. Just then, she stops, flashes him an almost coy wink, and vanishes, melding into the foliage as if she had camouflaged.
I know, I KNOW. I'm not dead, I'm fine and alive, I know it was a while, but still. I blame Gatekeep. Also, my absence was partially due to the fact that I'm working on something else with the wonderful people @Jet_Ivory and @Ethereal_Wishes -- well, you'll see about that soon, I hope.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I swear I'll try to update sooner.