If the Eight feed on cruelty, then there is but a simple remedy to their existence: starvation. Starving the Eight of cruelty might not hurt them, but it will heal their victims. While we wouldn't be slaying the Eight, we'd be healing their scars, bringing joy to their darkened world. And I say that every life restored from the Eight, from their horrid Progenitor, from the darkness of evil itself, every life saved is a victory achieved.
-The Necromancer's Notes, Codex 33a, Memoirs collection
***
Thaen grimaced as Skaria pulled the comb through his hair. "Ow! I'd like to keep my scalp!" She growled, held him steady by the scruff of his neck, and pulled the comb through his hair. Thaen had to brace himself on the frame of his bed. Those tangles in his hair needed a lot of force to get out.
"Then don't struggle so much!" the mercenary said. "You got too many bloody tangles. It would be easier to just cut off most of the hair and let it grow back."
"No!" Thaen glared at Skaria. The mercenary, while not being an expert in fashion, had long hair. Thaen, now he had long hair, ran into a bit of a snag: mainly, snags in his hair. "Long hair like this is the sign of a warrior."
"And you don't leave it loose, because...?" Skaria asked.
"It's crude, obscene, and immodest," Thaen said. "It's not proper, and in warriors' cases, it's better to keep it bound up."
"I get that," Skaria said. "And I'm guessing once these braids get long enough, you'll tie them? Kind of like a ponytail?"
"That's right," Thaen said. "Besides, long hair looks cool, and it can be useful."
"Useful?" Karik'ar asked. He sat in his bed, reading a book and playing with a loose thread on the collar of his shirt, winding it around and around his finger, over and over, more interested in that book.
"I can tuck lock picks in the fold of my braids," Thaen said. "Ow!" There went another snag (and probably part of his scalp too).
"Huh. Never thought of that." Karik'ar arched an eyebrow, and the piercings in his brow clacked together.
"Stick it in the bottom part, where it's not supposed to bend. It'll either make the braid base stick out, if the braid is small enough, or the lock pick would stick out. That would probably be your problem, if your braid is too heavy."
"Duly noted," the Kai'Draen said. "Though I don't know how to pick a lock."
"I can teach you," Thaen said, before yelping as Skaria kept untangling his hair. It was nice of her to help him get ready for his date with Mirsari, but she could be more gentle. A lot more gentle.
"Is that some sort of brotherly thing? Teaching me a skill?" Karik'ar asked.
"Not really," Thaen said. "Besides, usually it's the older brother teaching the younger. And you're a good five years older than I am." He paused as Skaria ran the comb through his hair. No tangles snagged on the teeth of the comb. Well, for half of his hair. "Why do you ask?"
"I read a bit on some of the cultures of the different strongholds of the Vesperati. And one thing I came across," he said, "was the idea of extreme familial exclusivity." He paused. "Just calling someone a 'brother' is frowned upon."
"Well," Thaen said, "I was going to talk to you about that." Something had been bothering him, but he had forgotten what that was. "Technically, it's a thing called horizontal adoption."
"Horizontal adoption?" Karik'ar asked.
"You know how adoption means you take someone as your offspring?" Thaen grimaced as Skaria viciously combed through the other half of his hair.
"The tribes I was with had no real concept of parenthood, but I gleaned the concept in other cultures," Karik'ar said.
"Well, what I want to do is adopt you, not as a son, but as a brother," Thaen said. "Well, you and Laidu."
"So that would leave Laidu with two pairs of parents?" Karik'ar asked.
Thaen nodded and regretted it, as it tugged on his hair. "Yes. He's not the only one. A friend of mine went through a similar set of rites." He shrugged. "I mean, if you're alright with it." He winced as Skaria yanked more of his hair through the comb.
"It's... yeah. I'm fine with it," Karik'ar said. His words said that, but his voice said more. There was the faint crack of emotion there, something deep-set.
"All done," Skaria said. "Thaen, do you mind if I talk to you?"
"Yeah? Is there a problem?" Thaen asked.
"Not particularly," Skaria admitted. "One quick thing, and then you can get back to your braiding."
"Um... sure." Thaen stepped out of the room, adjusting the buttons on his shirt. "What do you want to talk about?" he asked.
"What you're doing with Karik'ar," Skaria said, narrowing her eyes. "Why?"
Thaen shrugged. "It... well, it started when he saved me from being crushed, but I noticed it a bit before."
"Noticed what?" Skaria asked.
"He wasn't rapacious. He wasn't a monster, a dumb brute. He was smart, honorable... things I thought a Kai'Draen were incapable of." He sighed. "Given what he told me about living in his tribe, I can see why most Kai'Draen are messed up."
"But that doesn't explain why you're adopting him."
"Well, he's a dear friend, one who protected me. He saved my life, and whenever I gave him anger and venom, he didn't respond in kind. He became my friend, and more. He... he became close to me, when I was nasty to him."
"So... he's a close friend." Skaria nodded. "It means a lot to him. For him, I was the only family he had." She stared off into the distance, before her eyes snapped back into focus on Thaen. "And if you hurt him, I'll wring your tiny little neck." She paused. "And if you mention what I said at all, I'll do the same."
Thaen nodded. "Of course. He's my brother, after all."
Skaria rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's get you ready for your date."
***
He itched under the collar of his shirt, nerves in a frenzy. He was nervous, incredibly so. But that was normal, seeing as he was about to take a beautiful woman out for the night. He wanted the night to be wonderful, as wonderful as her.
Her door opened, and Mirsari stepped out. She was ravishing, her long hair tied back in a sleek, black braid, and had applied some sort of cosmetic to her eyes, adding a faint lightness to her eyelids, making the rubies of her eyes seem even more beautiful. "So," she said, accepting his offered arm, "are you going to teach me how to fly again?"
Thaen nodded. "Yeah, I thought that might be fun," he said with a smile. He should have felt cold in this weather, but with Mirsari by his side, the warmth that radiated out of his breast staved off the cold. It might not have been a physical warmth, but at this point, Thaen didn't really care.
"Well then," Mirsari said, clinging close to him to stave off the chill, "where are we headed?"
"There's a park nearby that is a good place for first lessons." Thaen said. "It shouldn't be too hard. It's just instinct after all."
"Instinct I haven't exercised since I was a small child." Mirsari turned to face Thaen. "Don't laugh at me when I run afoul."
"If you run afoul," Thaen corrected her. "Trust yourself a bit. I know you can do it." He leaned down and gave her a kiss, nothing too passionate or deep, just a light brush of his lips against hers. It was still enough to make him numb.
"I'll probably fall once or twice," Mirsari said. "Just... don't laugh, alright?"
"Laugh?" Thaen rolled his eyes. "That's ridiculous. I would never laugh at someone as beautiful as you."
Mirsari smiled. "Thaen... you're not too subtle, you know that?"
"I'll try harder," the Vesperati young man promised.
"Don't bother," she said. "I like that about you." She wrapped her arms around him, drawing herself closer and closer to him. "So, where's the park?"
Thaen walked with her through the city, relishing every second she spent at his side. He might have set out on the longer, more scenic route, just to walk next to the beautiful young lady who walked by him. But all good journeys reached their destination, and when they arrived at the deserted park, Mirsari looked around. "What do you want to start with?" she asked.
"That flat area will do well." Thaen stretched out his wings. "Ready to reclaim the skies?"
Mirsari nodded. "I've waited years for this. Prayed for this," she said. "This... I've dreamed of this night." She was talking about learning to fly, sure, but any night spent with Mirsari was one Thaen dreamed of.
"Alright, then," Thaen said. "Unfurl your wings."
Mirsari unlaced the ties on her shirt, to free her wings. Thaen smiled, and maybe his eyes lingered a bit on her exposed side. Maybe.
"Now, when you fly, when you try to fly, you're going to want to use the first beat of your wings to push yourself higher. The first two or three beats, you should beat faster, then you can start to glide a bit."
"Okay," Mirsari said, a bit nervous. "I'll try." She stretched out her wings. Slowly, unsurely, they expanded. Wing bones scissored out as the membrane engorged with blood and expanded, growing from a length of folded tissue a little more than a forearm long to a wingspan almost thrice Mirsari's height.
Thaen smiled, a small knot of anxiety coming undone. Part of him had been worried about Karik'ar's healing, that something had gone wrong, but that wasn't the case, thank God.
Mirsari took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and leaped with a powerful beat of her wings.
She flew a good ten feet off the ground, and with a few more beats, she was up. And then, slowly, she lowered herself down to solid ground. Her face glowed with joy, sheer joy. "That was wonderful!" she said, her words a frozen cloud in front of her lips. "How do I fly?" she asked.
"It's a matter of leaning," he explained. " You lean forward and angle your wings. Watch." With that, he leaped into the air.
It was one of the most freeing experiences, to cast off the shackles of gravity and soar in the cold air. Their wings caught air, threw it behind them, casting them into the air. They said that the dark night belonged to the Vesperati, on account of their peerless hearing and acute eyesight. They were half right. Vesperati did rule the night, that was true.
Yet they ruled the sky just as well.
"See?" he asked Mirsari, craning his head back. That caused his body to twist, curving him back towards Mirsari. "You just let your body redirect the wind around you." He could feel the cold air stream through the fur of his flanks, through the open sides of his shirt. "It's more intuitive than anything. Come on and try it!"
He soared towards the face of a building, before grasping a gargoyle glaring at him. With bat ears, of all things. Gargoyles were supposed to be scary, so what was the sculptor trying to say? That Vesperati were ugly? Terrifying? Thaen didn't like the guy, just because of those ears of stone. The horns, however, were certainly creepy enough and they made nice handles.
He felt the wind rush by him as Mirsari flew past. "How do you land?" she asked as Thaen leaped off the building and followed her through the sky.
"You try to angle yourself," Thaen explained, "so your feet are in front of you, pointed at the ground. You use your wings like sails to catch air and slow yourself down."
"Okay. Like this?" Instead of careening towards the ground face-first the way she flew, Mirsari fell, as if she had jumped, her feet facing the ground, her wings spread out around her. She hit the ground, sinking into her stance, knees absorbing the shock. "Ow. It's a pain on the knees."
"Yeah," Thaen said, looking back as he flew forward. "You'll want to roll so you don't grind your knees to powder. It'll feel better too in the long run, so try to-"
"Thaen, watch out!" He turned and faced ahead just in time to speed headlong into a hanging clothesline. Who had strung up the stupid thing across the street? And why in the world would someone wear a blouse with puffy cotton fringe? It was a terrible fashion choice, and doubly so, seeing as it was wrapped around Thaen's head.
He couldn't see anything, his ears were covered, and any attempts at echolocation were met with failure as the garment's loose weave soaked up his screams. Plus, Thaen was pretty sure there was a dress wound around his wing.
He tried to fly and tear the garments off his head, but he felt himself losing altitude. "Fly, Thaen!" he dimly heard Mirsari say.
And then he crashed into the fountain. Water crashed around him, and for a few moments, he struggled with the heavy cotton blouse over his head. He struggled against the thing and finally yanked it off, panicking and trying to breathe.
Eventually, he yanked the thing off his head and sucked in a few breaths of rapturous air. But by then, the cold set in, leeching vital warmth from his flesh and bones. It didn't take long before those rapturous breaths became torturous cold winds, every breeze eliciting more shivers. Thaen waded over to the edge of the fountain, a giant circular basin with a few figures carved from milky white marble crowning the center, but as he tried to pull himself out, the shivers robbed him of the strength to pull himself out.
And then Mirsari was there. "Come on, klutz," she said, leaning down, untangling the dress from his arm, and pulling him up. The shock of cold air, had shrunk his wings down. "Let's stick to the ground."
Thaen tried to respond. He did, but his teeth were chattering too much for him to say anything. He just followed as Mirsari led him, shivering at every faint blow of wind. He could hear his clothes, soaked and heavy with water, crackling as the wind froze them onto him.
He felt cold. So cold. It leeched into him, soaked into his flesh and sapped his strength. He held onto Mirsari, using her as a crutch. She was warm, and she almost staved off the deadly chill.
But it wasn't enough. Darkness clouded his vision, and everything went dark.
***
He awoke, and there were a few things different.
One, he was in a warm house, sitting in front of a raging fire, and he was dry. It was nice, warm, compared to the frigid torture he had just endured.
Two, his clothes were hanging up. His shorts and pants were soaked and heavy, and they were right in front of the fire. His shirt was encrusted with frost. How cold was it outside?
And three, also relating to point two, apart from a large, dry, and comfy blanket, he was completely starkers. How did that happen?
The door opened, and a gust of cold air greeted him. He shivered, moved closer to the fire, and wrapping the blanket closer around himself. "Oh, you're awake. You were sitting up before," Mirsari said, shutting the door, "but I didn't think you were conscious."
"Wha- where am I? And why are my clothes strung up there and not on me?" Thaen made sure he was nice and covered, but he glared at her all the same.
"They were too soaked to leave you in. You would have died of hypothermia."
"Oh." Thaen turned back and faced the fire. It felt weird. This whole situation felt weird. He could feel his cheeks heating up in embarrassment.
"I mean, it's not like I saw anything I hadn't seen in my anatomy dissection classes." She moved out of the room, but Thaen could still hear her voice. "You were heavier than you looked. I understand muscle is denser than fat, but you're still heavier than you should be."
Thaen shrugged. "A magic spring gave me steel-enforced bones."
"Huh." Mirsari stepped back in the room. "I would have doubted that a long time ago." She had something in her hands, a piece of clothing or some other fabric; Thaen couldn't tell what it was. "Then again, I found out that supposedly unhealable wounds can be mended." She tossed the garment at Thaen.
He caught it with one hand, making sure the blanket still covered him. "Shorts?" he asked. They felt cold, but not as cold as his clothing was.
"I had to go ask for them. Very awkward," Mirsari said. "You can wear those for now." She moved into another room. "I'm going to change for the night. There's a guest bedroom upstairs you can use for the night."
Thaen rose, and quickly stepped into the shorts. It was an awkward position he was in, to say the least. He ran his hand through his hair.
His hair! Mirsari must have undone the braids, and that made him feel more uncomfortable than the fact that she had undressed him. That, at least, was necessary. But his hair? Messing with someone's hair was a very intimate thing; undoing it and letting the hair free was almost as intimate as one could get, apart from laying with someone and partaking the pleasure of their flesh and the deep companionship of the soul.
And then Mirsari walked in.
There was something different about her, and not just her dress. She wore a pair of shorts and a top that bared some of her midriff, a bit more racy than what Thaen's sisters or cousins would wear as pajamas. It showed off her figure much more, and part of Thaen really liked that, especially since Mirsari was quite attractive. No, attractive sounded too clinical. Beautiful? Gorgeous? Ravishing? More like it.
But it was her face that struck him. Thaen had seen her before, and he had known she had used some cosmetics to beautify her, and it worked. She had looked stunning. But now, with it all washed off, it was somehow more enticing. Part of him, a cynical part of him, reminded him of the fact that Mirsari's beauty was changed and altered (maybe enhanced), but as he looked at her now, he saw her true face, her true, untouched beauty.
"It might be bold of me," Thaen said, "but may I say something?"
"What?" She sat down next to him, and he finally noticed the giant book in her hands.
"You look better like this," he said. "Without your makeup."
She raised a white eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yes." Thaen nodded and gave her a smile. And then, on impulse, he leaned in and kissed her.
It was supposed to be a quick kiss, a light brush of his lips against hers, but she grabbed the back of his head, pulling him against her. Only a madman would fight it, honestly.
And it was rapturous. The kisses before from her had been electrifying, but this was... intoxicating. He leaned in, leaned over her, feeling her warmth, tasting her, holdin g her, as her hands moved off his head, down his neck, grasping at the muscles of his back.
He wrapped his arms around her, feeling the soft, oh so soft fur around her neck. He had to remember to breathe, she made his head spin, and for good reason. She was beautiful, so beautiful, and it made him ache.
He wanted to abandon himself, give in to his instinct. Part of him, the wild part, the creature of hungers and lusts and base, natural passion, wanted to take her and lay with her. It was a maddening voice, screaming for him to take her until they both were exhausted.
However, there was another voice, that spoke of morality, of doing what was right. Thaen wanted to listen to that voice, but the siren call of his flesh was strong. Very strong.
Fear was stronger.
He parted. "I... I'm sorry," Mirsari said. "I... I think I was a bit... I don't... well... I think something came over me."
"More like something came over us." Thaen nodded. "I got carried away."
"Why did you stop?" Mirsari paused. "I mean, it's probably for the better, but why?"
"Well, I realized that if I go any further," he said, "my father would kill me when he found out."
"You mean if he found out."
"Nope. When." Mirsari arched an eyebrow. "He's like us. And something would tip him off. He always knew when I was lying or hiding something."
"Probably your heart rate," Mirsari said. "Can I say something about you?"
"Go ahead," Thaen said.
"When I first saw you," she said, "I thought you were handsome. But I was annoyed at Indra, because she used to set me up on courtship meetings. Terrible things." She leaned in and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek. "For once, she got something right."
She laid directly on top of his chest, her fingers stroking the soft fur on his stomach in a very pleasant fashion. They didn't do anything other than lay there, didn't go further than that, yet this was enough for Thaen. She laid there, resting, occasionally leaning her head up to kiss his jawline. He wrapped her up in his arms, wings outstretched to keep her safe and warm. "I'll study tomorrow," she murmured sleepily on his chest as he gently, lazily stroked her back, his fingertips stumbling as he passed over the cords of her pajamas.
"Have sweet dreams," Thaen said, leaning on his blanket.
"I will," she said, voice growing smaller and smaller. "I'm with you, after all." SOon, she was silent, save for the rise and fall of her frame.
The fire burned down to glowing, smoldering coals, and soon, Thaen joined her, embracing the dark oblivion of sleep, with the love of his life curled up at his side.