Thunder cracked and lightning split the sky as Lira trudged up to the front door of the inn, cursing everyone and everything that had ever brought her to this point in her life.
She stepped under the slim cover of roof above the door and pulled her cloak tight around her, like it was going to do anything to protect her already soaked clothes. Waterproof, they'd promised--though against the full force of a Wild's storm, she supposed it'd held out as well as could be expected.
Lira pinned her eyes to the faint, blue glimmer on the horizon visible between flashes of lightning and pointed a finger at it accusingly.
"I'm gonna come in there tomorrow and sort you right out," she muttered.
With a huff, Lira pushed open the door of the inn and stepped inside, leaving the door open behind her.
Heads turned as she entered, but as she'd hoped, the homely little inn wasn't busy. Aside from a few patrons tucked into the corners of the room, there were only two serving girls in matching dresses weaving around the mostly empty tables and an angry little man behind the bar. He glared at her while screaming something about closing the door and not serving her kind here while doing his best to rub a hole in a glass jug with his rag.
Lira didn't bother trying to yell over the storm, continuing to hold the door open with her shoulder as she waited for someone to come to her. A large, muddy puddle was forming beneath her feet as her cloak dripped onto the floor, but given the state of it, it seemed like an improvement on the spilled ale they apparently cleaned it with.
After a quick argument at the bar, the man sent one of the serving girls over to deal with Lira's arrival. The girl didn't look happy as she approached Lira with a cautiously stiff smile. She had enough sense to keep a chair between them, though not enough to realise that the thunder was a whole lot louder than her mouse-squeak of a voice and whatever she said was drowned out by the storm.
Lira waited for the thunder outside to cease before she spoke. "I need a room for the night."
The girl clenched the chair in front of her, throwing a nervous glance back to the man behind the bar. "I, ah, I'm not sure we have any rooms free right now."
Lira narrowed her eyes. "There's exactly two horses outside, at least one of which I'm assuming belongs to the inn, and anyone else with sense is getting as far away from the Wilds as they can until the Rupture is closed."
The man behind the bar thumped the jug he'd been cleaning on the top of the bar and started making his way over, wagging his finger towards Lira like she was some kind of child.
"You heard the girl!" he said. "No rooms for people like you! We're running a respectable business here, so you can--"
Lira glanced outside as he spoke, not particularly paying attention as she squinted out into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of her useless companion so she could finally close the door.
"Look," said Lira, cutting him off as she realised he wasn't going to stop on his own. "I'm just as unhappy about this as you are, but you're literally the only inn on this side of the Wilds within a day's run that hasn't already been overtaken. Either you give me a room so I can look at my maps without the ink running off the page, or I have to wait a few more days before I go in there and fix it, in which time, the Wilds will likely have overgrown this area too. What's it gonna be?"
He was quiet for a record thirty seconds as he reassessed her. Lira took the chance to slide the sleek bow off her back and lean it against the wall. She released the straps of her cloak and gathered up the soaked fabric in her arms, making sure the man had a good view of the various belts with their accompanying spiritsteel knives.
Noticing one of her gloves had slipped, Lira frowned and tugged it back up, ensuring it was well up over her long sleeves and covering the skin beneath.
"You're a spirit hunter?" he said with a raised eyebrow. "Sure you aren't one of them poacher types--or worse?"
"Spirit hunter and paying customer," said Lira in a flat tone, wiping a piece of her drenched reddish-brown hair off the side of her face with a grimace.
He sniffed. "Then why aren't you in the Wilds doing your job? Decided to stop and let them grow even further?"
Lira pushed the door open a little further and called out into the stormy night. "Shari! Stop playing in the damned puddles and get inside before I leave you out there!"
In response, a glowing ball of something bounded towards the door, covering the distance with a terrifying speed. Icy blue in colour with white markings, Shari stood out from the bright flashes of lightning long before she arrived at Lira's side, who couldn't help a snort of laughter as the big spirit cat pushed her nose into Lira's waiting hand and purred.
"Tonight is a full moon," said Lira, running her hand over Shari's back, level with the height of her hip. "And if you know anything about spirits, you know that if anything bigger than Shari has wandered through that Rupture, I'll be dead before I can close the damn thing."
To his credit, the man didn't flinch at Shari's abrupt appearance. He just folded his arms and gave Lira a curt nod as the serving girl made a subtle effort to stand behind him.
"You can have a room for the night," he said. He gestured at the serving girl. "She'll take you up. First room on the left. " He started walking back to the bar, turning to point a finger back towards Lira. "Just make sure you get that Rupture closed before the Wilds reach here, will you?"
"I'll do it or die trying," muttered Lira, finally closing the door. She started following the serving girl towards the steps, boots squelching with every step, and jerked her head towards Shari. "C'mon."
"The animal stays in the stables!" called the man.
Lira didn't answer him. Shari padded along behind her, politely nosing the chairs out of the way to make a path for herself through the dining room, then delicately taking the stairs one at a time.
"Why aren't you this well behaved at home?" said Lira, poking Shari in the shoulder at the top of the stairs.
Shari rubbed her cheek against Lira's leg then padded over towards the serving girl, who couldn't stop glancing at Shari long enough to get the room unlocked. When Shari lifted her head to sniff the girl's elbow, the girl dropped the key entirely with a squeak, curling herself into the wall.
Shari sat down with a solid thud that shook the wooden floorboards, tail swishing behind her.
"She won't hurt you," Lira said. The girl couldn't have been older than sixteen. She'd probably never left the inn for more than a day in her life, and in spite of her usual rules, Lira found herself relenting. "Never seen a spirit before?"
The girl frantically shook her head, her eyes squeezed shut as her hand fumbled around blindly on the ground for the key. "Not one that big."
Shari lowered her nose to the ground, nudging the key into the girl's fingers. The girl snatched her hand away, but as Shari remained still, the girl slowly reached down to retrieve the key. She clutched it close to her chest, though her eyes were now firmly fixed on Shari's iridescent blue coat.
"Can... can I pet her?" asked the girl.
"Not my decision," said Lira, leaning against the wall and folding her arms. Shari purred. "That's a yes."
Hesitantly, the girl held out her hand, and Shari practically shoved her face into it, almost knocking the girl over. Lira rolled her eyes, but the girl was smiling, gaining confidence with every strong of Shari's faintly glowing fur.
"She's beautiful," said the girl, finally standing up, yet still too distracted by Shari to actually open the door. "She's bonded to you, right? Is it true that there's always a bond mark? Where's yours?"
"My arm."
"Can I see it?"
Lira set her jaw. "No."
"Oh," said the girl, biting down on her lip. "Sorry. I just thought--"
Lira ran a gloved hand over her face. Things were getting far too friendly for her taste. "I've got a rather long day ahead of me tomorrow, I was hoping to look at my maps, eat something, then try and squeeze some sleep in. Think we could move things along?"
"Yes," said the girl quickly. "Sorry. My apologies."
Shari flicked her tail, catching Lira around the shin as if to say, Be nice.
"Oh it's fine for you," said Lira, shaking her leg free. "You're not the one standing here soaked."
The girl got the door open, deftly stepping inside and placing the key on the table before tucking a piece of her long, dark hair behind her ear. "I, um, I can have a meal prepared for you, either downstairs or brought up. If you'd like your clothes dried, I can hang them by the fire, they'll be dry by morning."
Lira stepped inside the room. Closed window. Single bed. Small table with a chair. Closet. Unlit lantern. Small, but far cleaner than downstairs had been, which was more than she'd expected upon seeing the place. She tossed her pack down on the floor at the foot of her bed and leaned her bow against it. "I have my own ways of drying wet clothing. I'll come down for food shortly."
The girl stepped outside the room, her hand on the door and her eyes on Shari as the spirit cat meandered her way into the room. "Please let me know if there's anything else you need while you're here."
"Won't hesitate," said Lira, already focused on undoing the straps on her pack.
The door closed. Lira paused with her pack. She turned her gaze to the ceiling for a long moment and drew in a deep breath before she landed an accusing stare on Shari, who was busy exploring the room by sniffing everything she could get her nose on.
"Why'd you like her so much?" said Lira. Shari looked at her, then shook her head and went back to nudging the bed with a paw. Lira just sighed. "Weirdo."
After checking that the thick lining of her pack had protected her belongings inside, Lira turned her attention to her damp clothing.
She pulled the small hunting knife from its scabbard on her belt and tugged off her right glove with her mouth. It took her maybe thirty seconds to cut two shallow marks on the back of her hand--water and a crude version of lure. She squeezed her hand into a fist and made the final line to link them together. The whole thing, now a Seal, immediately took on a ruby glow as it activated.
Lira turned her marked hand on her cloak first. As her fingers touched the fabric, the water trapped within it was drawn out, effortlessly hovering around her hand like its own little liquid atmosphere. She repeated the process with the rest of her soaked belongings, dried her hair, then walked over to the window and cracked it open just far enough to squeeze her hand through. The water followed, and once it was outside the building, she reached out with her other hand and pressed a gloved finger down hard on the line linking the water and lure marks, breaking the Seal.
The ruby glow vanished. The water splashed to the ground below. Not the fanciest blood magic to have ever been performed in the history of the two worlds, but it got the job done.
Lira shut the window and took her finger off the Seal, which almost immediately began to glow again as fresh blood appeared on the cut--the annoying part of drawing Seals on your skin.
Lira sat down on the bed beside where Shari had settled and held her hand out towards the spirit cat. Shari licked over the marks. Once, twice, and any evidence that they'd been there in the first place had completely vanished, leaving her skin completely healed. Lira gave Shari a grateful scratch behind the ear in return.
"Now how about we have a look at these maps, hmm?" said Lira, pushing herself up and reaching over to pull the maps up from her pack.
Her other set of clean clothes came out first, unceremoniously rolled out on the bed to reveal the maps nestled inside for safekeeping. She'd kept them folded and rolled as the woman she'd bought them off before leaving the city had suggested, and it seemed to have done the job.
Something that could almost be described as a good mood was creeping up on Lira--right up until she unfolded the maps and the letter fell out.
Lira instantly recognised the sigil. It was exactly the same as the other six or seven letters that had found their way into her hands over the last several months. A simple outline of a crying woman, collecting the tears in a cup.
She already hated the sight of it.
Every letter was slightly different with the flowery words they used, but the message was always the same. Dear esteemed Spirit Hunter! Come work for us on important missions, and we promise you riches and comforts like you could never imagine! Even if these important missions weren't most likely some way of exploiting the Wilds as they appeared across the continent, Lira still wasn't interested.
Just to be certain, Lira opened the letter and read the opening line. The same four words as every other letter stared back at her: Dear Esteemed Spirit Hunter!
"They can't even be bothered learning my name," she muttered, throwing the letter across the room as she went back to the maps.
Her mood went from bad to foul as she realised a rather annoying detail: absolutely none of the maps she had of this area matched up. One showed an easy, if a little hilly terrain, while another had a large ravine that cut through the centre of where she suspected the Wilds lay. Like, sure, the area was remote, but people lived out here. Not many people, but enough that they should be able to keep track of the damn landscape around them.
Another ten minutes, and Lira gave up. She'd go into the Wilds blind. Wasn't the first time she'd done it, wouldn't be the last.
Lira trudged downstairs, Shari with her as always. She found the table furthest from anyone else in the room and sat herself down, glaring at anyone who dared to glance in her direction. Shari made herself comfortable on the floor beside the table, positioning herself to watch the rest of the room.
The angry man had the audacity to come out from behind the bar and approach her, shaking his rag at her.
"Didn't you hear me before?" he said, slapping a hand onto the table. "Animals stay in the stables!"
"She's no animal," said Lira, staring him dead in the eyes until he took an uncomfortable step back. "She's a spirit beast, she's smarter than you, and if you wanna argue about that, I'll let her prove it."
From her place on the floor, Shari growled, and that was the end of that discussion.
Dinner was nothing special, but it was edible. The dark haired serving girl tried to talk to her a few more times. Lira deflected her questions with one or two word answers. When she was finished, she put her coins down on the table and went back upstairs.
Lira double checked the maps for everything she could think of once more and cursed when still, nothing matched. She stuffed them back into her pack and got ready for bed, which mainly involved taking off her knife belt and ensuring her other weapons were well within reach before placing her favourite hunting knife beneath the pillow. She wasn't expecting to be attacked in a place like this with Shari, but during a Wilds storm, it was better to be safe than unprepared.
She blew out the lantern, more than comfortable navigating by Shari's faint glow, laid out her bed roll on top of the blankets, and got in.
Shari's familiar weight jumped up beside her, laying down against Lira's back. Lira flipped over, nuzzling her face into Shari's neck and taking a deep breath. As always, her bond mate smelled like crisp, cold air, her silken, ethereal fur humming with such life and energy that it was enough to remind her that maybe not everything was terrible.
Safe with me.
Tomorrow, they'd leave this inn and move on to the next place, never seeing the angry man with his rag or the dark haired serving girl again--and that was exactly the way that things had to be.
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A/N - New story! Spirit beasts, blood magic, warring kingdoms and a main character who just wants to be left alone.
If you're intrigued, throw it a vote, leave a comment, all that good motivational stuff <3
Or y'no, don't, I ain't telling anyone how to live their life, it's just appreciated :D