The city of Sunyu Foorst rests within the heart of a far-reaching, mountainous forest with a canopy of fir nettles. With the morning sun hanging overhead, beams of light make their way through the canopy to allow for a plethora of lush groves to monopolize the rocky crags below.
A medley of sounds belonging mostly to woodland critters resonate through the air, and are backed by the croaks of frogs in the nearby ponds that are broken off from the river dividing the island from the rest of Letroseli.
Sunyu Foorst itself is built on the side of the mountainous grove. Sturdy stone buildings and bridges, cave paths wrapping around the cliffs in a rising spiral to the sublime keep at the top, silhouetted by the rising sun and the overlay of trees.
Within the city are, as expected, the world's last stable population of centaurs.
And as expected, they're already seeing the rivalries at just a glance.
As centaurs pass each other in the streets, a mere nudge is enough for swords to be drawn and fists to be thrown. Reela herself had never been to Kilead before Aramora was destroyed, but she's always known about the violent nature of centaurs. But judging by the dreary looks on Corb and Todo's faces, something about this aggression seems different.
As she's trying to read Todo's face, he catches a glimpse of her staring and she quickly looks away. After she got back from Avinalyn's castle last night, Todo had asked her what they wanted to give her but she couldn't bring herself to tell him. Todo had already been on her case about thinking she was sleeping with Avinalyn, so telling him that they just kissed her is probably a bad idea, even if she did poison them in the process.
So she just told him that it was her phone and went to bed. But now she knows that Todo is suspicious. Every time he looks at her, she knows he's wondering what the hell she's hiding. She's going to tell him eventually, but right now she herself needs to process what the fuck happened last night.
But first, Sunyu Foorst.
The moment they cross the ancient stone bridge, they are stopped by a centaur woman with dark skin and an ebony horse body, and she's clad in bronze armor with a sharp metal spear held ready in her hands.
"Halt. Wha' business dae ye have in Sunyu Foorst? Our city isnae in any state fur tourists right now, sae unless ye have good reason tae be 'ere, ah suggest ye take yer leave," she plants the base of her spear on the stone ground.
Reela steps forward and straightens her shoulders. "We're looking for someone. A mage. Goes by the name 'Adaste Mar'Eveis.' Do you know if she's here?" she asks and the centaur woman narrows her eyes and looks her over.
"Maybe. Depends on who's asking," she states and turns to examine Corb and Todo as well, but before Reela can answer, another centaur woman down the road laughs dryly.
"Haw! Good luck. You'd be jammy tae git a single pumpin' dram in this town wi' th' Endile tyrants breathing down yer bloody necks!" the woman picks up a rock. "Hey, wank stain, go suck yer own boaby somewhere else!" she curses before chucking the rock at the woman in front of Reela, Corb and Todo.
The woman turns and slashes her spear at the rock, splitting it into pieces before she readies her spear and faces the other woman. "Ye really want a fight right now, Panele? Yer tribe is nothin' but traitors 'n' cowards 'n' we al' know it!"
The other woman, Panele, scoffs. "Sae says th' knobhead hidin' behind self-proclaimed authority," she spats. "Ye say Sunyu Foorst isnae good fur travelers, but yer tribe is th' one stirring th' pumpin' pot. Dae us al' a favor 'n' take a dive in th' Recharn, ye mungy arse. They two are centaurs. Let them pass," she crosses her arms and glances at Corb and Todo.
The first woman growls and charges at Panele with her spear raised, but Corb sighs with a shrug. "When in Rome," he reaches into his bag and takes out his gun to aim it at the woman, but Todo grabs his arm and forces him to lower the weapon.
"What the hell are you doing?" he snaps.
Panele draws a set of short swords and kicks off to the side, deflecting the woman's attempted strike and turning to bash the pommel of one of her swords into the woman's jaw. The woman staggers with a pained grunt and Panele takes the opening to plunge one of her blades through her throat.
She pulls her sword free and lets the body fall before putting her blades away and turning to face Reela, Corb and Todo again.
Corb scoffs and puts his gun away. "Oh yeah, what I was going to do was so much worse," he rolls his eyes and walks over to the woman.
Panele snickers and crosses her arms. "Sorry fur th' greeting. Reception's been poor since they pumpin' Endile narcs decided tae take over. Apparently ten years is enough time tae start yet another war fur our people as if we're nae already on th' brink o' extinction," she says and reaches down to grab the body and drag it to the bridge to toss it to the river below. She turns back to face the group. "With any luck, th' Endile Tribe will be first tae go."
She walks over to the three and holds out her hand to Reela. "Panele Odion o' th' Kirix Tribe. Pleasure tae meet ye," she says and Reela hesitantly shakes her hand. She feels a moment of fear that she might just snap every bone in her poor tiny fingers, but luckily this woman seems to be holding back her strength.
Todo gasps with a small smile as he steps up to Reela's side. "Wait, you're from the Kirix Tribe?" he asks and the woman nods with a sigh.
"Proudly. Though, these days tha' name doesn't mean much more than a target on our backs, after wha' happened in Aramora. But ah ken that look, stranger. Are ye also a Kirix?" she asks and glances between him and Corb, who shakes his head.
Todo nods. "Yes—"
"No," Corb states.
Todo glares back at his brother before turning to look at Panele again. "Yes. We are," he holds out his hand to her. "I'm Todo Val'Dernak, and this is my brother, Corb," he says and the woman balks as she firmly shakes his hand. Reela and Corb both look at Todo with questioning glares, but he keeps his focus on the centaur woman.
"Tickle mah taint. Val'Dernak? Watch ye don't start throwing that name around too much 'ere. Ye'll end up dead afore lunch," she cautions and steps back. "Best ye lay low while ye'r 'ere. Ah heard ye say ye'r looking fur Adaste. She's Sunyu Foorst's healer, but she doesn't tend tae just anybody; she's very picky about her patients. Sae if ye'r trying tae find her, ah wish ye good pumpin' luck," she says and nods her head back towards the city.
"A've got tae get goin', bit if ye need any help while ye'r 'ere, come find me at th' Haggard Halberd - th' Foorst's tavern. 'N' fur fellow Tribe mates, ah will see about getting ye a discount on food 'n' lodging," she flashes Todo a smile. "Especially fur a handsome thing lik' yerself," she winks before turning and walking into the city.
Todo stands silent with redness to his cheeks and Reela snickers as she elbows his side. "Damn, you may not pull bitches, but you sure can pull ponies," she teases and he swats her hand away.
"Shut up!" he pouts and crosses his arms.
Corb growls and glares at his brother. "Wasn't the plan to not tell anyone who we are? Why the hell did you just tell literally the second person we met not only what tribe we're from, but also the fact that we're Val'Dernaks?" he snaps.
Reela and Todo both turn to look at him and Reela shrugs. "I mean, it should be fine to tell other members of your tribe who you are, right? If they know you're also Kirix, maybe that will gain us more trust."
Corb shakes his head. "The Kirix Tribe is clearly not the favorite around here, no doubt because of our sister. If that Panele woman starts telling other people who we are, it'll eventually reach the other tribes," he explains.
Todo sighs and takes a step towards him. "Maybe you're right. Eventually word will reach the Endile and Mylare tribes. But we shouldn't be here for more than a day or two. So let's just find this Life Mar so we can leave," he says calmly, but Reela can clearly hear the strain in his voice as he tries resisting the urge to pick a fight with his brother.
Corb is obviously still on edge, and now it seems to be starting to wear on Todo, and Reela only hopes this gets settled before it can escalate any further. Centaurs are violent by nature, so a sibling feud boiling over can't be a good thing. Especially since she knows she'd likely get caught in the middle.
And honestly, their bickering is starting to get on her nerves too. So, she does the sensible thing and just starts to walk away towards the town. If Corb and Todo want to stand around arguing all day, then they can feel fucking free. Meanwhile Reela is going to start looking for this healer.
And her experience with fantasy games has taught her that the first thing you should do when you arrive at a new town is start asking around the tavern.
The Haggard Halberd, from the outside, looks cheerful, homey and rustic. Wooden boards and stone pillars make up most of the building's outer structure. It's impossible to see through the large windows because it seems like they've been boarded up from the inside, but the raised voices from within can be heard outside.
As Reela enters the tavern through the huge firwood door, she's greeted by the sight of two centaur men clashing amidst the shouting voices and the scent of sweat and alcohol.
The fight seems to have been going for a while now, judging by the blood and bruises on both men. It's not long before the bartender lets out a piercing whistle and tells them to take it outside, and part of Reela really wants to go watch the rest to see how it ends, but she can probably guess. One of them will die, get tossed in the river, and the other will look smug for the rest of the day. There's no talking things out with angry centaurs.
After the men leave, Reela takes a seat at the bar and glances back to see if Corb and Todo followed her, but she's not surprised to see that they didn't.
With a sigh, she turns forward again and pulls out her phone. It feels so damn good to have this thing back, despite the bullshit she had to deal with to get it from Avinalyn. But she doesn't want to think about that right now. She turns her phone on and unlocks it, only to see a wave of notifications come through. A mix of frantic texts and missed calls, all from Cree.
Fuck. How did she almost forget about the heart attack she must have given him when she broke her phone?
She needs to call him back, but she should do it in private. She flags down the innkeeper, Panele. She pays for the room with the generous discount the woman offered before and Reela hurries to get to the room and shut the door behind her.
She instantly calls Cree and starts to pace the room.
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Avinalyn sits in their chair, staring blankly into the fire.
They lightly run their thumb across their lips, remembering how it felt vividly. How soft her lips were, and yet, how angry she was. A fiery spirit kept contained in a delicate body. She was furious. She was beautiful.
She was clever.
They crack a small smile to themself as they remember the spunk in her eyes. Her arrogant smirk and defiant stance.
Reela managed to trick them. She poisoned them, just as they have done to her.
When they woke up, they instantly checked their desk only to find that Reela's phone was gone. It wasn't a surprise. They should have been mad considering the effort they put into getting that phone fixed to try tricking her into unlocking it.
But they aren't mad in the slightest.
In fact, they find themself feeling quite satisfied with the results of their 'gift' to Reela. They expected anger. They expected her fire, or even, if they were lucky, they had hoped for the Dark. For Reela to grab them and throw them back into the wall like she did to that woman at the club, only they would know how to soothe her anger.
Just cover her eyes and convince her it's all in her head.
But the Dark didn't show. Reela had been angry for a second, and then she was confident.
They don't know how she keeps doing this.
Again, she has gotten into their head. Since waking up, Reela has been all they can think about. They even tried to be angry, but they couldn't help but smile every time they remembered that look in her eyes when she felt like she won.
Perhaps she did, in a sense. She stole her phone back. She poisoned them when they were least expecting it. Never could they have predicted she would've had poisonous lipstick. It's almost like she was daring them to kiss her, just to give herself that adorable taste of revenge.
But regardless of whether or not she won, Avinalyn still woke up in their bed. No one else was there last night. No one but Reela could have moved them.
So it seems that perhaps they've successfully gotten into her head. Just as she has gotten into theirs.
There's a slow knock on the door and they can't help but feel their heart slightly leap, but they relax a little. They aren't going to get their hopes up. It's been only a few hours since they kissed her. It's probably going to be at least a couple days before she comes back.
They take a deep breath. "Come in, Mog," they call back to the door without looking away from the fire. Mog slowly opens the door and glances around the room cautiously, when she sees Avinalyn sitting by the fire like they always do.
Mog sighs with relief and pushes the door open fully to enter the room. "Okay, good. You're not dead. That'd be really unfortunate for our partnership," she chuckles nervously before clearing her throat. "So... how'd it go?"
Avinalyn lowers their hand from their face and takes another deep breath. "It went..." they crack another smile. "Well."
"Okay, I need details," Mog hurries over and hops into the chair next to them. "Tell me what happened. Mog is here to lend her ear. Or kidney. Do you need a kidney? I'm a giving soul," she smiles and holds her hand to her heart.
"I don't need..." they stop themself with a quiet growl. Mog won't leave them alone about this and they really aren't in the mood to try and threaten her away. Besides, maybe an outside – albeit dumb opinion might enlighten them on exactly what might be preventing them from keeping Reela out of their thoughts.
They sigh and slowly nod. "The intention was to get in her head as she had done to me with her words... But she..." they shake their head slowly. "She somehow managed to turn the game in her favor again..."
Mog tilts her head. "Did she curb-stomp your pinky toe?"
Avinalyn slowly looks over at her with eyes squinted in confusion, and Mog clears her throat.
"It's life-changing."
They sigh and return their gaze to the fire. "She... poisoned me. Not only that, but that look on her face before I fell at her feet... It almost seemed like she..." they trail off, when Mog snorts.
"...Enjoyed it?" she asks with a slowly growing smile.
Without even looking at her, Avinalyn nods. "Precisely. How did she know to wear poisoned lipstick if she wasn't aware of my intentions? What if I did exactly what she was hoping for? How is it possible that she turned my own attempt at getting into her head against me?" they ask the questions as if Mog isn't even there.
For a moment, Mog is silent as she purses her lips and sits up straight with her eyes on Avinalyn while they just keep watching the flames dance. "Oh no..." she sucks in a breath and reaches over to stiffly pat their shoulder.
They glare over at her with an arched brow. "What?" they deadpan.
Mog slowly shakes her head. "You've got it bad, buddy," she says with a small, anxious chuckle.
"What are you talking about?" Avinalyn also sits up straighter and glares at her hand on their shoulder. She quickly pulls her hand back and clears her throat again. She crosses her legs and sits with her hands on her knees and turns to face them a bit better.
"Boss..." she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pair of librarian glasses that are missing one frame and puts them on. "I know you're all... 'lonery' and 'broody' and... stuff, but... Have you ever been..." she clears her throat and pushes up the glasses with her finger. "...in a relationship...?"
Avinalyn tilts their head and shrugs as they look back at the fire. "Have you?"
"As far as friendships go, absolutely! Because you and I are as thick as thieves, am I right?" Mog holds out her hand for a high-five but Avinalyn doesn't even look at her so she lowers her hand back to her knee. "But I'm talking about... romantic relationships. You ever... have one of those?"
Now Avinalyn looks at her again and narrows their eyes. "How is that at all relevant to the conversation?" they sigh and shake their head. "You know what, forget it. She may have gotten into my head again, but with luck, I may have done the same to her. Now it's just a matter of waiting," they state and stand up to walk over to their wardrobe to take out a red blouse. They take off their robe to pull the shirt on, leaving it half-unbuttoned as usual.
They take out their rift shard and stare at it with consideration.
No harm in keeping an eye on Reela while they wait for her to come around.
They're curious how she's reveling in her adorable little victory.
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"Reela, you're lucky you're my daughter. Otherwise I would fucking kill you for that goddamn heart attack you gave me, but only after I've checked you into a fucking mental hospital because what the actual fuck are you talking about?" Cree keeps ranting through the phone that she put on speaker after he started ranting. "I have to find four mages? Healers or whatever the fuck you said? Do you know how many fucking mages are in Manatria?"
Reela meekly chuckles. "I'm guessing less now that you've been there," she snickers.
Cree scoffs. "Kid, you know I legally can't confirm or deny that, so I'll just say they were annoying so we can move on," he states and Reela hears him take a deep breath. "I'm going to need you to explain what the hell this 'lead' of yours is. Something about Life Magic?"
Reela nods and sits down on the bed of her rented room. "Yes. From what we understand after we found Romeow, Dad is probably in the hands of someone with powerful Life Magic, on the same level as Nisha," she starts.
"You found Romeow? Holy shit, that's promising. What did you learn from him?" Cree asks.
Reela glances at her backpack and considers sending him a photo of the letter, but she decides against it. She guesses that's something he'd be better off reading in person so she can both comfort him and make fun of him when he inevitably tries to hide the fact that he's crying.
"Well, you know how Romeow is linked with Regan, right?" she asks. "That if Regan were to die, so would Romeow? Well, that happened, and—"
"What?!" Cree exclaims and Reela sighs and has to wait for his little breakdown to pass so she can explain, because he's not hearing a damn thing she's saying. Once he's seemingly done hyperventilating or whatever and probably hugging Achilles, Reela clears her throat.
"But he came back to life," she states with a small affectionate eye-roll. "Which means Regan did as well, wherever the hell he is. And the only ways we know of to bring someone back to life are the way that you did, with the 'Second Chance' thingy, but that's not really an option anymore," she says and hears him start breathing again as he follows along with what she's saying. Thank Maze for that, because even Reela doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
He takes a deep breath. "So it must have been Life Magic. Have you asked—"
"Yes we've asked Nisha," Reela deadpans. "She doesn't know anything. But we have a list of twelve Life Mars around the world who have the power to bring people back from the dead like she can," she explains.
"So one of them must have Regan," Cree says as he begins to understand. "Alright. That... makes a weird amount of sense. Can you send me the list? Who are the four robed cunts I have to beat down while I'm here? I've gotten fucking nowhere with the diplomatic asshats, so I'm runnin' dry out here."
Reela nods to herself and sends him the list she got from Todo. "Here are the names. I'm in Sunyu Foorst looking for one right now, so I'll let you know how that goes. But I should probably get going. The centaurs are real fucking finnicky right now so I need to get Corb and Todo out of here as soon as possible. I'll talk to you later, Dad," she says and he sighs.
"You fucking better. Scare me like that again and Regan won't be the only Angevin to go missing," he chuckles. "Good luck, kiddo."
He hangs up and Reela just sits on the bed, staring down at her phone in the silence that follows the end of the call.
She should get up and go out there to start searching for the Life Mar, but this is the first moment she's had to herself to process everything. She doesn't want to, but as she stares at her phone, suddenly last night is all her mind can think about.
As soon as her mind starts wandering to those dark places, Toya's head pops up out of her backpack with a stern glare that's probably the least threatening thing Reela has ever seen.
"We gonna talk about it?" the fox asks.
Reela clears her throat and points to the door. "Drinks. I'm not talking about it unless I'm drinking," she stuffs her phone into her pocket and marches out the door to drown her sorrows in whatever drink Panele will let her get.
But fuck legal drinking age, she's getting served by a centaur.
Who apparently has a thing for her best friend.
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Notes:
Dammit it's Scottish again.