15 Annuals, Chapter 9: The Wind Picks Up.
H-happy birthday, Andy aka andrealyn....Got it out just in time...*FALLS OVER UNCONSCIOUS*
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 9, AKA The Wind Picks Up.
Rating: R. SOOOOOO R.
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch and Cain try real hard and fail real hard. Jeb is BFF with Raw. DG remembers she's a princess, and Zero is so mindfucked he is saying "thank you sir may I have another."
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Chapter 5: The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Chapter 6: That Cliche About Stuff Before Storms
Chapter 7: The Part Where Old Plots Are New Issues
Chapter 8: The Bit With The Really Problematic Present
THIS CHAPTER:
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER IX:
AKA The Wind Picks Up
They didn’t know what hit them because DG didn’t give them the time to even look at her. Her staff was a bit unbalanced from before the alteration, just like Glitch had warned, but fury and adrenaline compensated, making her figure nothing but a whirl of iron and shadow as she tore through the Longcoats, utterly silent aside from the thud of a foot to someone’s chest, the crack of her weapon against the enemy, the opponents, the people who had taken her glitch away. And Cain.
Double the reason to beat them unconscious.
And the worst part of it all, the absolutely worst part, was that she knew without a doubt that Glitch had let himself be captured, risking even Cain’s life, just for her. It nearly made her sick. She was old enough to take care of herself, and he still did things like this, still hurt himself to save her from even knowing there had been the option of pain coming her way. She hated it. Hated it like she hated his smiles when he reassured her everything would be fine before running off to nearly get killed. Hated it like she hated what the Trial had done to him. Hated it like every single Longcoat now laying prone on the ground, unconscious or writhing in pain and wishing they were.
It wasn’t even a question where they’d taken Cain and Glitch. Azkadellia’s Tower. She didn’t know the details of all those times Glitch had put on the outfit that gave her shivers even at the sight of it, but she knew it scared more people than just her. And Wyatt Cain had been leading the Resistance with Jeb before she and Glitch had practically swiped them up and started running around the OZ.
She had nearly pulled out the knife during the fight. Nearly flicked it out and started the blood flowing as it stuck out from the side of her staff, slicing and twisting.
DG shook her head, refusing to think about it. No, she knew Glitch’s plan, and she knew the part she was supposed to play in it.
Hating herself, she flicked her staff back into the slender tube always at her side, and clapped.
---
“Good morning, Sweetheart,” Cain’s voice said close and quietly into his ear, and Ambrose’s eyes snapped open, looking at their surroundings without seeming like he was doing so. Tied in a cart, a hastily built but effective thick wooden cage on the top of it. The jolt of the cart and the horse leading it as they moved, Longcoats giving the cart very, very cautious looks.
“Aww, no morning kiss?” the Longcoat on the horse smirked down at them. “Cain, you must not be very good to him-”
“Oh, that’s right, the delivery boy,” Ambrose cooed, and the man’s eyes shot straight from the teeth-gritting Cain to him. “How’d cousin dearest take the news?”
“Just fine, you son of a bitch-” the man growled, and Ambrose laughed, holding up a hand.
“Now, now, don’t go insulting your mistress’ lineage, puppy,” he said, leaning against the side of the cart, eyes closed and smirking. “She might get a bit peeved with you, after all.”
“Puppy?” the man hissed. “Do you even know who I am?”
“I leave knowing and caring about you to Cain,” he smiled, earning a return, deadly smile from Cain. It seemed that, thankfully, Cain could take Ambrose’s ‘sorcerer’ part just as wonderfully as every other part of him. He never ceased to amaze Glitch. “He seems to know you VERY well.”
“His name’s Zero,” Cain said, eyes latched onto the other blond. “He murdered my wife and put my son in an Iron Suit.”
“Along with you, Cain,” Zero said, sounding far too pleased for Ambrose’s taste. “Can’t forget those wonderful years of watching your family tortured over and over again, trapped-”
“Do you like your intestines, puppy?” Ambrose said, idly scratching at his nails and noticing that at least a bit of that fizzy feeling was fading. “Because if you do, I’d suggest you shut the fuck up.”
“Ambrose, I can take care of myself,” Cain growled.
Glitch looked back at him with a smile. “So can I. Doesn’t mean we should have to.”
Cain actually smiled back. The cart lurched again, and Ambrose could feel the tingling move straight into his legs at the impact, leaving him blinking. As an experiment, he smacked his hand against the floor of the cart.
The tingling was there, alright. Stronger than it had been even when he’d woken up that morning.
Well that is certainly an asset, Ambrose mused a bit whimsically. Maybe I can forgive the Queen just a bit for this, after all.
“…You just figured out how to kill a lot of people, didn’t you,” Cain said from his side.
Ambrose grinned at him. “I knew there was a reason I’m marrying you.”
And the man named Zero continued to ride next to the cart, listening.
---
“Where are they?” Jeb asked as soon as DG had reappeared, hair tangled and mussed to an almost ridiculous degree, light blue eyes fierce. “…oh.”
“Longcoats,” Raw nodded as he spoke, and carefully put a hand on DG’s clothed shoulder. “Be okay.”
“Thanks, Raw,” she smiled thinly, and the Viewer just nodded, a shy little smile on his features. DG sighed. “Now, off to find my dad.”
“How are we even going to find him in…this?” Jeb asked, gesturing to the mass of people, bright lights and dark shadows, the carnival of existence that the Realm of the Unwanted had adopted.
“We’ve got two options,” DG said. “Either start asking, or start asking.”
“I’m getting the feeling that the second option would work best,” Jeb grinned at her, helping Raw up from the bench they’d been sitting on while waiting for DG to clap on back. “Where to first?”
“‘A bar has two things - information, and people too drunk to realize they’re giving it for free’,” DG quoted in a surprisingly good impression of Glitch when in lecture-mode. “Let’s find the booze.”
“Good plan,” Jeb said lightly, trying to not be amused at the idea. Finding alcohol in the Realm wasn’t exactly hard, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many bars they’d end up going through. But it seemed like everything with DG was an adventure, so he wasn’t about to complain. It was harder, yes, but it was definitely worth it.
She smiled back at them. “And if you see a blond man with really big sideburns wandering around, just shout out and we won’t even need to go bar-scrounging,” she said brightly. “Doubt we’ll just see him, of course. Couldn’t even do that when…we were kids…”
She blinked, suddenly looking lost.
“DG?” Jeb asked cautiously, about to grab onto her arm, only for Raw to hold him back.
“No,” he said quietly. “DG has more family than Glitch. Needs to remember how much family.”
“But what if she falls down?” Jeb asked, frowning, and got one of the strangest looks he’d ever had the privilege of receiving in his life from the Viewer.
“DG will not fall,” he said, and paused. “…now.”
“So she’s going to fall eventually.”
“Never said that,” Raw shook his head, and Jeb let out a harsh breath. Raw shrugged. “Everybody fall at some point.”
“Are you always this cryptic?” Jeb frowned.
“Are what are,” Raw said.
Jeb crossed his arms, looking intently at the Viewer. “Okay, now you’re just teasing me.”
All he got was a smile, and DG jerked upwards, backing into the wall and breathing harshly. “Hey, you alright?” Jeb asked, and received a nod as she put a hand over her eyes.
“…she’s still in there, Jeb,” she said softly, and Jeb frowned at her. Instead of explaining, she just shook her head. “Nevermind. Let’s head for the bars.”
And bars there were. Practically every third building was a bar, every fourth a brothel. They walked down what seemed to be the main of the Realm, reading the Bar names aloud and trying to decide where to start. The Pumpkin Head. The Bitter Bride. The Hard Fool. The Wicked Bed.
“Is there a single bar that’s not a double entendre?” Jeb asked absentmindedly.
“It’s called the Realm of the Unwanted for a reason, I think,” DG said dryly. “Nobody goes ‘oh, hey, I want a bar called The Hard Fool!’ Sounds pretty Unwanted to me.”
“This one,” Raw said, and they immediately turned.
“…Local Tavern,” DG stated. “That one is Unwanted just because it’s boring.”
“If a Viewer says-” Jeb began, and DG waved him off.
“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. “Come on. I’m sure we can get something out of this if Raw says so.”
Local Tavern was bland and red and looked like a bar. There were a few people at the tables, a couple men at the bar itself, and the bartender looked like he wanted to shoot himself in the head he was so bored. He was just standing there, wiping the same spot on a mug over and over and over.
“I wonder if the rag or the mug will die first,” DG said idly, and headed for a seat at the bar. The wistfully suicidal bartender blinked at her. “Hi! I’m looking for a guy named Ahamo.”
“Who’s looking?” a man from down a few barstools called defensively, and she rolled her eyes, getting off the stool and heading for the man who had shouted. “…and you are?”
“Shut up, Dad,” DG said. “You’re supposed to help me find…something. With a balloon.”
The man with huge blond muttonchops blinked at her. “…DG?”
“That’s me,” she said dryly. “Hi.”
He went to hug her, eyes wide and smile brilliant, but found himself holding nothing but air, DG having taken a step backwards. “…angel?”
Both Jeb and DG laughed shortly at that little endearment. Even Raw smiled a bit.
“Just help us out,” Jeb said, giving the older man a pat on the arm.
“And who are you?”
“Jeb Cain,” he said. “My dad and her da…um.” He looked over, frowning at DG. “I guess we’re step-siblings or something?”
“It’s complicated,” DG agreed, and led the way out of Local Tavern. “Where to, Ahamo?”
“You can call me your father, at least,” Ahamo frowned, looking pained, but DG just sighed.
“I haven’t seen you in fifteen annuals, you barely recognize me when you do see me-”
“It’s my fault you went through puberty?” Ahamo gaped.
“…well that is sort of true if you consider things,” Jeb said, looking like he was thinking a bit too deeply about that.
“The last I saw of you, you were a little girl with a smile as bright as the sun,” Ahamo said, already slipping into nostalgia as he led them through the streets of the Realm. “I remember when you and your sister would come home all mussed and grinning and full of secrets, your mother going mad with worry-”
Yeah, that’s nice and all, but we’re kind of in a hurry,” DG snapped. All three of them took a step back at that tone of voice. “Longcoats have Jeb’s dads, and I care as much about them as he does, so we’re getting this whatever it is and going to save them.” She looked straight at her father, eyes cool. “You’re just a step towards them, Ahamo.”
Ahamo stopped dead in his tracks. “What happened to you, angel?”
“I grew up, learned about life, and realized that what’s worth fighting for shouldn’t be interrupted by these…side-trips,” she sighed. “You can sit me down and give me a stern talking-to or whatever real parents are supposed to feel like they’re required to do later. For now, we’re heading for whatever we were sent to get and you know how to get it.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said quietly.
“Glitch was,” DG said, turning back towards the path they’d been traveling down. “And that was the important part.”
---
Glitch was asleep on his shoulder by now, but as ever fully prepared to snap awake and wreak havoc, and Zero was still riding next to their prison. Apparently their little caravan didn’t get stops, although they were moving pretty slowly. Or maybe only Zero didn’t get stops. Cain was rather fond of that idea.
“…how did you manage this?” Zero asked, quiet enough that Cain almost thought he hadn’t heard it.
“Manage what?” he asked. He’d been doing this all day - tormenting Zero in as many ways as he possibly could until they got out of the prison wagon and Cain got to kill him with his bare hands.
Zero gave him a look that strongly suggested Cain was a moron. Cain gave him one back that told him right where to shove that sentiment. “You’ve got the Sorceror asleep on your shoulder. He kills first, kills more, and then asks HIMSELF questions, usually ‘could I have made that more fun’.”
“Only when he’s in a bad mood,” Cain smirked. “Practically a kitten any other time of day.”
“You do realize that eventually that ‘bad mood’ is going to turn on you and he’ll kill you without a second thought,” Zero said, completely ignoring Cain’s words. “You’re fucking a monster, and you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Actually I really don’t know what I’m doing,” Cain said honestly, but glanced down at Glitch’s head, and then back up at Zero, smirking. “But seems to me it’s working. I don’t know about you, Zero, but I’d rather have a monster asleep on my shoulder than behind me with a whip.”
“I serve because of loyalty, Cain,” Zero snapped, only for Glitch to shift and mumble something, making Zero quiet down very, very quickly.
“Don’t forget the fear part of it,” Cain glared. “You’re just as terrified of Azkadellia as Ambrose, and now you’re stuck between the two, trying to pick the side of the stronger monster.”
Zero was deathly silent. The road went on.
“I hope I’m there to watch when your precious kitten of a sweetheart turns on you and rips your beating heart out,” Zero said, and for the first time since their journey began, rode further up the column.
Cain took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Glitch and pull him closer, earning a happy, deep noise from the other man. He’d managed to explain the magic thing migrating around his body enough that Cain knew that as long as he didn’t touch Glitch’s legs, he wouldn’t get zapped. He appreciated that a lot more than he could ever say, taking a moment to just hold him, close his eyes, put his head on top of Glitch’s and just breathe.
“Go to sleep, Cain,” Glitch muttered from the nape of his neck, breath tickling his skin. “We kind of need to be fully functional tomorrow.”
“And you breathing on my neck helps that a lot,” Cain said, no real passion in his voice. He got smacked on the chest for it. Luckily it was a playful smack and not a Kage-smack. He didn’t feel like having internal bleeding in his ribcage while being literally carted off to Azkadellia’s Tower.
“Just try for me, alright?” Glitch asked, almost whining. Luckily nobody was really in hearing distance. Cain thought the whining-pleading might deplete their fear of the Sorceror they had locked up. “Pretty please?”
“Fine.”
He could feel Glitch’s smile against his skin. “And you can tell the puppy I’m busy when we get to the Tower.”
“Have I told you how disturbing it is that you’re calling Zero ‘puppy’? It’s like giving Azkadellia a pet name.”
“She’s ‘cousin dearest’. Pet names scare people.”
“Only yours, Sweetheart,” he muttered into his hair, and Glitch kissed him on the neck.
“I will do many things, Cain, but having sex in prison carts is not one of them.”
Cain grinned. “Yes, dear.”
“Sleep.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And stop that!”
Cain laughed softly, and curled up as best he could with Glitch without getting near whatever the Queen had put on his body. He paused when he saw Glitch’s expression. There was far too little Glitch and far more scared-and-hiding-it Tomo in there. He kissed him, soft and quiet. “We’re going to be fine.”
“I know,” Glitch smiled. “I’m just worried about Hime is all.”
And for the first time since Cain had ever known the other man, he couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying.
---
Ahamo was sulking in such a ridiculously melodramatic way that Jeb was seriously beginning to wonder if he’d lost his marbles over the last fifteen annuals. Or, considering how DG had spoken of him during her childhood, if he’d ever had them to begin with.
He’d led them to a yurt-looking thing missing half of its roof, which he’d proudly declared his home. DG had said something about ‘really liking that whole rustic shack thing’, and he’d tried to hug her again, and she’d dodged again. He and Raw were currently sitting on the dip between the lower and upper levels of the floor, watching Ahamo proudly display a compass-looking thing, but oversized.
“You need to find the Grey Gale, DG,” Ahamo said, suddenly serious. “There, you’ll find the Emerald of the Eclipse.”
She rolled her eyes. “Eclipse. Astronomy. Oh, that’s just obnoxious.”
It was Ahamo’s turn to give DG a look of dubious marble holding, and she waved him off. “Something in the directions to find the Emerald, is all,” she said, and frowned at the contraption in her hands. “Now, what do I do with that.”
“All you have to do is think very hard about ‘open’, and let the Light flow through-”
It whirled like there was a hurricane on the edges, and blinked, pinging, before he even finished the sentence, pointing to the east.
“I see you’ve had some magic lessons,” Ahamo beamed proudly.
“Among others, yeah,” DG said, smiling slightly. “So now we just head for it?”
Ahamo grinned. “And I’ve got just the vehicle for the two of us-”
“Four,” DG corrected.
Her father blinked. “But the Grey Gale is-”
“One of those lessons was basic arithmetic,” DG said. “You, me, Jeb, and Raw, that’s four people.”
He gave her a look that, if someone didn’t live a life like all of them had and did, would have been ominous and dark. Seemed more like pouting to the other three. “DG, you’re my daughter, and I am telling you that only you can go into the Grey Gale.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t come to the door with me,” DG said simply.
Luckily, Ahamo seemed able to tell when he wasn’t going to be winning an argument, so he nodded reluctantly and leaned against the ladder. “We’d have to walk, then.”
“Actually, do you know how far it is from here to the Gale?” DG asked.
Jeb groaned. “I hate this part.”
“We don’t have the time to just WALK, Jeb!” DG shouted at him. “Glitch and Cain are being taken to Azkadellia while we sit around here bickering about whether two or four people are allowed to go on a trip to a DOOR! My sister is trapped by an insane witch in her own body, Glitch sacrificed himself AND your father for ME, and I refuse to just sit around and wait for them to solve all my problems for me and come walking back, bloody and torn like always!” She turned onto her father, whose back cracked against the ladder. “Now, how far a distance is it from here to the Gale?”
“I know it’s across the lake, at least, and in the direction the compass always points to,” Ahamo said carefully.
DG nodded, and he moved aside when he headed for the ladder and right up it, Raw not far behind her. Jeb hesitated, giving her father an appraising look. “How often did the Queen transport you with magic?”
“What?” Ahamo snapped. “Almost never! The amount of magic you’d need-”
Jeb nodded, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder and trying very hard to not give DG’s father a patronizing look. “Just making sure you won’t be vomiting. It seems like the younger you are the easier it is on the body.” He paused. “Don’t mean any offense by that, by the way.”
Ahamo smiled. “None taken.” He paused. “So…you and DG-”
“‘Step-siblings’ or ‘good friends’ is the best explanation for now, I think,” Jeb cut him off, not terribly excited about that topic, either. And since the best way to avoid things was to not be there for them, he climbed up the ladder to see DG kneeling on the lake’s edge, eyes closed as she listened to something Jeb knew he’d never be able to hear. Ahamo joined the team holding four blankets.
“Protective but foolish,” Raw said. “She is strong.” He paused, smiling a little. “She will not fall.”
Jeb just rolled his eyes, and Raw seemed to actually be laughing at him, softly but definitely at him.
“Still, she may be a while in the Gale-”
But then DG stood up, eyes fixed on a spot across the lake, took a deep breath in, and clapped the world away.
“Oh gods,” Jeb groaned when the world came back into view, only to blink, scrambling at the slope of rocks they’d landed on. “Oh, gods!”
“Grab the compass!” DG shouted from above, and Jeb lunged for the little breakable contraption that teetered on rocks so dangerously. His fingers scraped it, and the thing started to fall even more. Jeb lunged for it again, finally grabbing it, but too late realizing he had needed both hands to stay on the slope.
Clutching the compass to his chest, he closed his eyes and winced as he slid down the rocks, down the pebbles…and straight into the freezing, thigh-deep part of the lake that had done absolutely no damage to him or the compass (which, to his relief, hadn’t gotten a single drop of water on it), but gotten him and his clothing soaking wet.
“…great,” he sighed, and stood up a bit wobbly, looking up at the other three. “How do I get back up?” He practically had to shout. That had been a lot of little pebble-rocks on a very tall slope.
“There’s a lower-grade slope to your left,” Ahamo shouted back down. “We’ll meet you over there.”
Keeping the compass cradled away from his wet clothing, Jeb winced at the feel of his sopping wet clothing sticking to him in new and interesting ways as he headed for the hill and back up it, where DG was already waiting to laugh at him.
“Here’s your compass,” he said, handing it over with a sigh, and she was gracious enough to say “Thank you” without bursting into laughter as Jeb pulled off his poor scarf and started wringing the water out of it. The thing started pinging again when Jeb had moved on to his jacket (which had gotten a very surprised look out of Ahamo at the sight of his gun holster), and pointing straight ahead.
DG was frowning at the compass.
“Hey Father, you said just think ‘open’, right?” she frowned, not even noticing the slip. Ahamo certainly did, beaming as he walked over…only to have even his attempt at putting a hand on her shoulder thwarted.
“That’s what you do, yes,” he nodded, and DG just frowned even deeper.
“But it says it’s right here. There’s nothing here except woods, us, and whatever clothing Jeb’s stripped out of.”
“Hey!” Jeb protested (he wasn’t stripping, he was keeping himself dry and safe from hypothermia), but was completely ignored.
“DG must see,” Raw said quietly from where he sat on the ground. The magic clapping hadn’t taken to his head very well, and it looked like he was quickly developing a migraine. “The door that isn’t. DG must twist.”
“Twist…” DG muttered, frowning, and started twisting her head- “GOOD GODS.”
“What? What is it?” Jeb asked, and blinked at the door that just…hovered there, invisible. “Wow.”
“The door that isn’t,” Ahamo said, smiling at Raw. “Quite the Viewer you’ve got there, DG. Doesn’t even need touch to see.”
“He’s my friend, not just ‘the Viewer’,” DG said dryly. “Now how do I open this thing?”
He smiled. “You hope.”
For a moment, a very terrifying moment that seemed to stretch on for days, DG looked completely and utterly lost at that one simple word. Finally, she shook herself out of it, wincing, one hand going over her heart - no, over the Mark - as she started talking, staring straight at the door.
“I have hope. I hope that everyone will be okay, that the OZ will turn out alright, that…that I’ll live up to everything people want and need me to be,” she started, but the doors didn’t budge. DG’s eyes widened, her words growing desperate. “I hope for peace. I…I don’t want anyone else to be hurt like Cain, either one of them! I don’t want people like Raw to be left to die just because people are too scared to help someone in need out! I want my glitch to live for himself, and not just me or Cain or whatever the OZ needs him to live for! I want people to be people, and I wish I didn’t even have to OPEN you, you stupid doors, but I have to try at least, if nothing else I have to try-”
And agonizingly slowly, one of the double doors swung open.
She didn’t even glance back, just ran straight through it, the door crashing shut behind her.
“…she’ll be okay,” Jeb said to nobody in particular.
“If she not fall,” Raw said quietly, but nobody heard him, too busy staring at the door that wasn’t, and hoping.
---
The sky was slowly turning bright orange when Cain and Glitch were jerked awake by the cart’s top being thrown off and a swarm of Longcoats grabbing Cain, yanking him away, and the same swarm surrounding Ambrose, leaving a small circle around him.
“Cain?” he called out, looking up at the sky and looking like he was completely ignoring the Longcoats.
“Mmmrf,” was the response.
Ambrose chuckled. “Oooh, bondage. Someone’s getting inventive and not letting me in on the fun.”
“MRMF!”
“Fiine, fine,” he sighed, one hand going into a pocket. “Oh, puppy?” When he didn’t get a response, Ambrose smirked. “Heeeere, puppy puppy, or else I’ll stop being nice-”
“WE are the ones being nice here, Ambrose,” Zero said, emerging from the crowd, but still not passing that little circle around here. “You’re going to see the Sorceress-”
“Tell cousin dearest I’m busy. You, Cain, and me are going to have a little chat first,” he said. When Zero started to sneer, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and put his palm straight in front of the other man’s forehead, concentrating as much fizz as he could. From the way Zero was staring at him in fear, the man could definitely feel it. Ambrose could, too. It felt like it was going to start tearing his bones out of his skin if he kept this up for very long. “That wasn’t a request, puppy. Now fetch.”
Zero backed up - back to where the newer circle started, thanks to the Longcoats backing up even further due to nothing but a hand making their General nearly wet himself - and glared. “You WILL speak with the Sorceress-”
“Yes, yes, I’ll talk with cousin dearest, but not before our little chat,” Ambrose sighed. The man was intelligent, but had the social finesse of a cow and understood its subtleties just as well as one too.
“We’re not going anywhere secluded,” Zero continued.
“Did I ask to?” Ambrose smirked, and completely waved him aside, hopping down from the truck as Longcoats jumped out of his way. “It all depends on how embarrassed you’re willing to be for your own safety.” He turned, and looked Zero straight in the eye. “And considering I’m promising you I have no intention to kill you during this little chat, that entirely depends on you.”
“And you keep your promises, do you?” Zero sneered.
Ambrose laughed bitterly, flashes of DG’s face - six, twelve, twenty - rolling beneath his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“Fine,” Zero said, and with a couple of barked-out orders, Ambrose had his hands full of a bound and gagged Cain who, to his stupidly absentminded delight, STILL had his hat on. Ambrose reached for the gag and tugged it out, looking at the bit of cloth he held with amusement.
“Is this someone’s underwear?” Glitch asked, grinning. “Gods, you Longcoats are-”
“AMBROSE,” Cain hissed. “If we could get this done a little faster?” He paused, and frowned. “What are we doing, actually.”
“Having a nice, non-fatal chat with the puppy,” Ambrose said, giving Cain a quick kiss on the lips.
“My NAME is-”
“Inconsequential,” Ambrose interrupted. He looked around, at the barren surroundings and the twenty Longcoats spread around them, and nodded. “This is your decision for security?”
“You said YOU wouldn’t kill me, but didn’t say a damn thing about Cain.”
“Oh no, you caught me,” Ambrose deadpanned. “However shall my dastardly plan-”
“Stop toying with him and get to the point, Ambrose,” Cain sighed.
Glitch frowned at him. “What are you in such a hurry for, Cain? They’re going to try and imprison or execute us.”
“Keyword try,” Cain smirked, and Glitch grinned.
“Oooh, I love the mischief that brain of yours comes up with on the fly,” Glitch said, and then blinked, looking up at Zero. “Oh, right. You exist.”
Cain snorted. Ambrose patted him on the head.
“I will swear to not leave the tower, try to escape Azkadellia’s realm, and not resist any attempt to get me to comply to something that I consider reasonable demand given the circumstances,” he said.
Both blondes jaws dropped. Ambrose smirked at the one he wasn’t marrying.
“Under the circumstance that you not only release Wyatt Cain with all his gear, but also don’t follow him to wherever he goes,” he said simply, quietly. This was more than just Ambrose right now. This was every facet of him.
“I can’t do that,” Zero said simply.
He grinned. “Then I swear that any harm that comes to anyone I love will come crashing down on you at the most convenient time in my calendar, and if you try to lock me up, I promise that my calendar will be very, very open.”
“That goes the other way, too,” Cain said idly, untying himself in what seemed like no time at all.
“Wow, that was really impressive!” Glitch grinned as the ropes were flung to the ground.
“You should see my water escapes,” Cain smirked.
Zero was giving them a look that highly doubted their sanity, so Ambrose glared at him. “What, puppy? By all means, speak up. This is your only chance to do it without me ripping you to shreds if you hurt someone I care about.”
But Zero was utterly silent.
“Grab Cain, tie him with something that isn’t just a square knot and rope, and YOU-” he pointed somewhat viciously at Ambrose “- are coming to see the Sorceress.”
“Always did love family reunions,” Ambrose said, and gave Cain one last quick kiss before he was yanked away and Ambrose was left walking behind Zero, flanked by what looked like twenty Longcoats. He was very polite and didn’t laugh aloud at the idea of them stopping someone like he was pretending to be.
---
White. No, black. No, it was gray. No, it was…it was utterly monochrome.
DG hadn’t cried in a very long time, but she was close to it, completely lost. She’d just walked through the mausoleum, examined things, and found the door. And now she was surrounded by the unknown.
“It’s okay,” a voice called out sweetly, and suddenly DG found herself standing in the middle of a plain, everything blacks and whites and grays, a concerned-looking teenager kneeling in front of her in a checkered dress and brilliantly shiny silver shoes. “You’ve been through a lot more than I expected while I was waiting.”
Her voice was like one of Glitch’s rare kisses on the forehead, or a hug. Pure caring. Pure love. Pure understanding. Pure…just purity.
“I believe in you,” Dorothy Gale said, a hand sliding from the top of her head, brushing through her hair, and then cupping her cheek. “You can save her. You can save them all. I believe in you, DG.”
“But how?” DG asked, and Dorothy smiled, opening her other hand to show a brilliant green gem as bright as any constellation could ever hope to be.
“The Eclipse, DG,” Dorothy said, voice so caring, so, so caring. “Our line, yours and mine, has always used it for the future of our world. The Emerald helps our dreams be realized. Helps our hopes become realities.”
The Emerald of the Eclipse was put in her hands. “There are so many who love you, DG, and you only let yourself love them when you’re not afraid. Open your heart. Learn to hope again.” Dorothy smiled again. “Learn to love everything like you once knew.”
“But-” DG began, only to be stopped by another smile. Dorothy grabbed DG’s own hand, and placed it over her heart. Over the Mark.
“What covers you doesn’t define you, DG,” she said, and laughed softly, shaking her head slightly, her braids swaying gently. “And you’ve been here too long.” She smiled a bit wryly. “You got lost along the road, but now you’ve found it again, haven’t you?”
DG blinked at her. “…I have.” It was like there was suddenly a well of care and courage and wisdom and passion inside of her. Or, no, it was like she had suddenly realized it was there, and all this time it had just been sitting, waiting for her to remember.
“Then it’s time you walked it, DG,” Dorothy Gale - the gray gale - said, and smiled as if she could read the thought. “I think we’re both our own shade of storm, DG.”
“And what color’s mine?” DG asked with a smile, already feeling everything vanish, feeling the door to the outside grow closer and closer.
But the happy, amused laughter of Dorothy followed her out the door. “I don’t know. What’s the color of your soul?”
The door to the gray gale shut behind her, and she was inside of the mausoleum again.
Glitch had said she’d know what to do with it when the time came.
She flicked her staff out, and there it was, perfectly prepared to counterbalance the blade if she ever pulled that part out in a fight, an elegant holder - shaped like a cyclone, she noted with no little bit of affection - that fit the Emerald of the Eclipse perfectly. Its shine trembled down the entire staff, making it hum and almost look like it was somehow alive in her hands.
She flicked the staff back together, but it still glowed. Figuring there was nothing she could do about it, she stepped back out of the royal family’s mausoleum to see Raw, Ahomo, and Jeb rushing towards her. She stopped them with one hand, almost squeaking. It was bright out here.
“You were in there the entire night,” Ahomo said, frowning, and instead of shoving him aside, DG smiled and gave him a small hug. He visibly jumped, but she just hugged him harder.
“I’m fine, Dad,” she said, and just smiled at ignored the slight dampness on her shoulder. “Hope Raw and Jeb weren’t too horrible to you.”
“We’re fine, thank you,” Jeb frowned - with, she noted, completely dry clothing. “Did you get what you came for?”
She nodded, letting her father go. “That and more.” She took in a deep breath. “Ready to go save the OZ, my sister, Glitch, Cain, and probably my mother too?”
“Thought that was the original plan,” Jeb smiled.
“Then let’s get to it,” DG smiled broadly, and paused, turning back to look at her father. “Stay safe, Dad. Things are probably going to get pretty ugly out here.”
“Which is why I wish I could make you not go,” Ahamo sighed. “But you’re as stubborn as your mother. Go save the world.”
DG gave him a grin, and they started down the path, Ahamo watching them as they chatted and walked at a speed that would have most people falling down within an hour.
And in her heart, DG prepared herself to go to war.
---
Ambrose was completely unimpressed from the moment he stepped into the tower, through all the hallways and overly cumbersome and inefficient machinery, and into the green marbled area that apparently served as Azkadellia’s study. He was even less impressed when, after he sat himself down in the seat behind the desk rather than in front of him, nobody protested. It was the first thing he commented on when Azkadellia walked in.
“Your hired help is hardly helpful, cousin dearest,” he smirked.
“You should be dead,” Azkadellia said simply, not even trying to take Ambrose’s seat. There was clearly something messed up going on here. He should have been booted out of the chair as soon as she and her attendant walked in.
She had something that could beat him. Either that, or she really was terrified of him.
“I should have died many, many times by now. You probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I say this, but the fall hurts like you wouldn’t believe,” Ambrose said, honest for once, watching her intently. “Doesn’t stop me from getting back up.”
Azkadellia tilted her head to the side, smiling at something he couldn’t see. “You truly are as horrible as all the reports, even as horrible as that memory I used to think was a nightmare.”
“Quite the compliment,” Ambrose stated, pushing the envelope and sifting through her desk’s contents.
“Which is why I’m suggesting an alliance,” Azkadellia said, eyebrows quirking upwards just enough to suggest…something more. “Family, after all, should stick together. What better sort of bond than blood to guard your back?”
Ambrose blinked. And then stared.
And then he tilted his head back, and roared with laughter.
Azkadellia’s hands were clenching the table when he got back under control, smirking absolutely mercilessly at her.
“I’m not what keeps you up late at night, am I.”
Her face turned deadly. “No.”
“And I know exactly what it is that does,” he said softly, darkly.
“Then HELP me,” Azkadellia snapped. “If you know what the Storm is, then we can fight it together-”
“Did you ever consider, even for a moment, that the storm isn’t coming for you?” he asked, using that same tone that was quiet as death slipping into the bedroom. His grin was sheer torture for her. “It’s coming for what’s inside you.”
Azkadellia jerked out of the chair, glaring at him. “If you won’t help me, I will force you to.”
“With what?” Ambrose taunted, heart immediately at war. “Your attempts at science? Your feeble feats of magic? I’ve seen TRUE magic, cousin dearest, the type you wouldn’t even dream of-”
“With Wyatt Cain,” she whispered, and pulled out a view tube, a bloody, unconscious Cain chained inside a cell and stripped down to nothing but his pants. Someone had mockingly replaced his hat on him. Ambrose had a dark, very Kage feeling that he knew who that someone was.
“I told Zero that his pain would be his death,” he said, empty.
Azkadellia tilted her head to the side, smiling softly. “Then I believe we have a deal, cousin dearest. Now, the Storm…?”
Ambrose, Glitch, Spiral, Sessha, Mr. Joat, Tomo, and Sweetheart were one man, and that man looked her straight in the eye, hard enough that she visibly leaned back.
“She is known as the Cyclone, and if she doesn’t kill you, be assured, I will.”
He didn’t dare say another word. The man stood up and strode out the door, and when a Longcoat got in his way he pinned the man to the wall and demanded he be taken to the cell of Wyatt Cain.
“Take him,” Azkadellia’s voice said, completely impassive, and the young man did. He was escorted through halls of cries and screams and whispers until he reached a solitary confinement chamber, where Cain was hung up like very bloody, frayed drapes.
Cain hit the floor with a thud when Glitch finally managed to get him untied.
“…supposed to protect each other,” Cain muttered, glaring at him lopsidedly. “You’re locked in too now.”
“Just…just shut up, Cain,” Glitch whispered, and hugged the other man to himself, not even noticing that the tingling feeling he’d had for so long was slowly ebbing away, and how with every passing moment Cain looked a little better.
---
And in the darkness, Hana’s eyes opened.
She smiled in the middle of the Council meeting, setting aide her documents and parchment, and stood up. The rest of them were still.
“And the shadows will awake, and follow the war in their brethren’s hearts,” she said, finishing the tradition, and they all snapped to attention. “All full Kage have twelve hours, and then we leave for Azkadellia’s Tower.”
“Yes, Hana,” the room echoed, and she smiled again, feeling the determination, the anger, the fear, the love, the power of her family, the Kage’s family, calling them to a battle she’d been praying she’d live to see.
[EDIT] Also out of stupid, idle curiosity, I have a "What do you think will happen in the end?" poll to be found here! IF YOU LOVE ME YOU WILL DO IT. AND IF YOU DON'T I WILL CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP. OR. SOMETHING EQUALLY TRAGIC.
Title: Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch (15 Annuals); CHAPTER 9, AKA The Wind Picks Up.
Rating: R. SOOOOOO R.
Summary: Who needs Roboparents when a Queen's got an Advisor-Ninja to take care of their recently deceased daughter?
This Chapter: Glitch and Cain try real hard and fail real hard. Jeb is BFF with Raw. DG remembers she's a princess, and Zero is so mindfucked he is saying "thank you sir may I have another."
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1: That Part Where Ambrose Gets Executed
Chapter 2: The Bit With The Ninjas
Chapter 3: The End Of The Ninja Bit Thanks To LOTS OF FIRE
Chapter 4: The Resistance Meets A Magical Ninja Princess (And Glitch)
Chapter 5: The Part Where Their Cover's Blown Really, Really Badly
Chapter 6: That Cliche About Stuff Before Storms
Chapter 7: The Part Where Old Plots Are New Issues
Chapter 8: The Bit With The Really Problematic Present
THIS CHAPTER:
Fifteen Annuals With Her Gay Guardian Glitch
(aka 15 Annuals)
CHAPTER IX:
AKA The Wind Picks Up
They didn’t know what hit them because DG didn’t give them the time to even look at her. Her staff was a bit unbalanced from before the alteration, just like Glitch had warned, but fury and adrenaline compensated, making her figure nothing but a whirl of iron and shadow as she tore through the Longcoats, utterly silent aside from the thud of a foot to someone’s chest, the crack of her weapon against the enemy, the opponents, the people who had taken her glitch away. And Cain.
Double the reason to beat them unconscious.
And the worst part of it all, the absolutely worst part, was that she knew without a doubt that Glitch had let himself be captured, risking even Cain’s life, just for her. It nearly made her sick. She was old enough to take care of herself, and he still did things like this, still hurt himself to save her from even knowing there had been the option of pain coming her way. She hated it. Hated it like she hated his smiles when he reassured her everything would be fine before running off to nearly get killed. Hated it like she hated what the Trial had done to him. Hated it like every single Longcoat now laying prone on the ground, unconscious or writhing in pain and wishing they were.
It wasn’t even a question where they’d taken Cain and Glitch. Azkadellia’s Tower. She didn’t know the details of all those times Glitch had put on the outfit that gave her shivers even at the sight of it, but she knew it scared more people than just her. And Wyatt Cain had been leading the Resistance with Jeb before she and Glitch had practically swiped them up and started running around the OZ.
She had nearly pulled out the knife during the fight. Nearly flicked it out and started the blood flowing as it stuck out from the side of her staff, slicing and twisting.
DG shook her head, refusing to think about it. No, she knew Glitch’s plan, and she knew the part she was supposed to play in it.
Hating herself, she flicked her staff back into the slender tube always at her side, and clapped.
---
“Good morning, Sweetheart,” Cain’s voice said close and quietly into his ear, and Ambrose’s eyes snapped open, looking at their surroundings without seeming like he was doing so. Tied in a cart, a hastily built but effective thick wooden cage on the top of it. The jolt of the cart and the horse leading it as they moved, Longcoats giving the cart very, very cautious looks.
“Aww, no morning kiss?” the Longcoat on the horse smirked down at them. “Cain, you must not be very good to him-”
“Oh, that’s right, the delivery boy,” Ambrose cooed, and the man’s eyes shot straight from the teeth-gritting Cain to him. “How’d cousin dearest take the news?”
“Just fine, you son of a bitch-” the man growled, and Ambrose laughed, holding up a hand.
“Now, now, don’t go insulting your mistress’ lineage, puppy,” he said, leaning against the side of the cart, eyes closed and smirking. “She might get a bit peeved with you, after all.”
“Puppy?” the man hissed. “Do you even know who I am?”
“I leave knowing and caring about you to Cain,” he smiled, earning a return, deadly smile from Cain. It seemed that, thankfully, Cain could take Ambrose’s ‘sorcerer’ part just as wonderfully as every other part of him. He never ceased to amaze Glitch. “He seems to know you VERY well.”
“His name’s Zero,” Cain said, eyes latched onto the other blond. “He murdered my wife and put my son in an Iron Suit.”
“Along with you, Cain,” Zero said, sounding far too pleased for Ambrose’s taste. “Can’t forget those wonderful years of watching your family tortured over and over again, trapped-”
“Do you like your intestines, puppy?” Ambrose said, idly scratching at his nails and noticing that at least a bit of that fizzy feeling was fading. “Because if you do, I’d suggest you shut the fuck up.”
“Ambrose, I can take care of myself,” Cain growled.
Glitch looked back at him with a smile. “So can I. Doesn’t mean we should have to.”
Cain actually smiled back. The cart lurched again, and Ambrose could feel the tingling move straight into his legs at the impact, leaving him blinking. As an experiment, he smacked his hand against the floor of the cart.
The tingling was there, alright. Stronger than it had been even when he’d woken up that morning.
Well that is certainly an asset, Ambrose mused a bit whimsically. Maybe I can forgive the Queen just a bit for this, after all.
“…You just figured out how to kill a lot of people, didn’t you,” Cain said from his side.
Ambrose grinned at him. “I knew there was a reason I’m marrying you.”
And the man named Zero continued to ride next to the cart, listening.
---
“Where are they?” Jeb asked as soon as DG had reappeared, hair tangled and mussed to an almost ridiculous degree, light blue eyes fierce. “…oh.”
“Longcoats,” Raw nodded as he spoke, and carefully put a hand on DG’s clothed shoulder. “Be okay.”
“Thanks, Raw,” she smiled thinly, and the Viewer just nodded, a shy little smile on his features. DG sighed. “Now, off to find my dad.”
“How are we even going to find him in…this?” Jeb asked, gesturing to the mass of people, bright lights and dark shadows, the carnival of existence that the Realm of the Unwanted had adopted.
“We’ve got two options,” DG said. “Either start asking, or start asking.”
“I’m getting the feeling that the second option would work best,” Jeb grinned at her, helping Raw up from the bench they’d been sitting on while waiting for DG to clap on back. “Where to first?”
“‘A bar has two things - information, and people too drunk to realize they’re giving it for free’,” DG quoted in a surprisingly good impression of Glitch when in lecture-mode. “Let’s find the booze.”
“Good plan,” Jeb said lightly, trying to not be amused at the idea. Finding alcohol in the Realm wasn’t exactly hard, and he couldn’t help but wonder how many bars they’d end up going through. But it seemed like everything with DG was an adventure, so he wasn’t about to complain. It was harder, yes, but it was definitely worth it.
She smiled back at them. “And if you see a blond man with really big sideburns wandering around, just shout out and we won’t even need to go bar-scrounging,” she said brightly. “Doubt we’ll just see him, of course. Couldn’t even do that when…we were kids…”
She blinked, suddenly looking lost.
“DG?” Jeb asked cautiously, about to grab onto her arm, only for Raw to hold him back.
“No,” he said quietly. “DG has more family than Glitch. Needs to remember how much family.”
“But what if she falls down?” Jeb asked, frowning, and got one of the strangest looks he’d ever had the privilege of receiving in his life from the Viewer.
“DG will not fall,” he said, and paused. “…now.”
“So she’s going to fall eventually.”
“Never said that,” Raw shook his head, and Jeb let out a harsh breath. Raw shrugged. “Everybody fall at some point.”
“Are you always this cryptic?” Jeb frowned.
“Are what are,” Raw said.
Jeb crossed his arms, looking intently at the Viewer. “Okay, now you’re just teasing me.”
All he got was a smile, and DG jerked upwards, backing into the wall and breathing harshly. “Hey, you alright?” Jeb asked, and received a nod as she put a hand over her eyes.
“…she’s still in there, Jeb,” she said softly, and Jeb frowned at her. Instead of explaining, she just shook her head. “Nevermind. Let’s head for the bars.”
And bars there were. Practically every third building was a bar, every fourth a brothel. They walked down what seemed to be the main of the Realm, reading the Bar names aloud and trying to decide where to start. The Pumpkin Head. The Bitter Bride. The Hard Fool. The Wicked Bed.
“Is there a single bar that’s not a double entendre?” Jeb asked absentmindedly.
“It’s called the Realm of the Unwanted for a reason, I think,” DG said dryly. “Nobody goes ‘oh, hey, I want a bar called The Hard Fool!’ Sounds pretty Unwanted to me.”
“This one,” Raw said, and they immediately turned.
“…Local Tavern,” DG stated. “That one is Unwanted just because it’s boring.”
“If a Viewer says-” Jeb began, and DG waved him off.
“Yeah, yeah,” she sighed. “Come on. I’m sure we can get something out of this if Raw says so.”
Local Tavern was bland and red and looked like a bar. There were a few people at the tables, a couple men at the bar itself, and the bartender looked like he wanted to shoot himself in the head he was so bored. He was just standing there, wiping the same spot on a mug over and over and over.
“I wonder if the rag or the mug will die first,” DG said idly, and headed for a seat at the bar. The wistfully suicidal bartender blinked at her. “Hi! I’m looking for a guy named Ahamo.”
“Who’s looking?” a man from down a few barstools called defensively, and she rolled her eyes, getting off the stool and heading for the man who had shouted. “…and you are?”
“Shut up, Dad,” DG said. “You’re supposed to help me find…something. With a balloon.”
The man with huge blond muttonchops blinked at her. “…DG?”
“That’s me,” she said dryly. “Hi.”
He went to hug her, eyes wide and smile brilliant, but found himself holding nothing but air, DG having taken a step backwards. “…angel?”
Both Jeb and DG laughed shortly at that little endearment. Even Raw smiled a bit.
“Just help us out,” Jeb said, giving the older man a pat on the arm.
“And who are you?”
“Jeb Cain,” he said. “My dad and her da…um.” He looked over, frowning at DG. “I guess we’re step-siblings or something?”
“It’s complicated,” DG agreed, and led the way out of Local Tavern. “Where to, Ahamo?”
“You can call me your father, at least,” Ahamo frowned, looking pained, but DG just sighed.
“I haven’t seen you in fifteen annuals, you barely recognize me when you do see me-”
“It’s my fault you went through puberty?” Ahamo gaped.
“…well that is sort of true if you consider things,” Jeb said, looking like he was thinking a bit too deeply about that.
“The last I saw of you, you were a little girl with a smile as bright as the sun,” Ahamo said, already slipping into nostalgia as he led them through the streets of the Realm. “I remember when you and your sister would come home all mussed and grinning and full of secrets, your mother going mad with worry-”
Yeah, that’s nice and all, but we’re kind of in a hurry,” DG snapped. All three of them took a step back at that tone of voice. “Longcoats have Jeb’s dads, and I care as much about them as he does, so we’re getting this whatever it is and going to save them.” She looked straight at her father, eyes cool. “You’re just a step towards them, Ahamo.”
Ahamo stopped dead in his tracks. “What happened to you, angel?”
“I grew up, learned about life, and realized that what’s worth fighting for shouldn’t be interrupted by these…side-trips,” she sighed. “You can sit me down and give me a stern talking-to or whatever real parents are supposed to feel like they’re required to do later. For now, we’re heading for whatever we were sent to get and you know how to get it.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said quietly.
“Glitch was,” DG said, turning back towards the path they’d been traveling down. “And that was the important part.”
---
Glitch was asleep on his shoulder by now, but as ever fully prepared to snap awake and wreak havoc, and Zero was still riding next to their prison. Apparently their little caravan didn’t get stops, although they were moving pretty slowly. Or maybe only Zero didn’t get stops. Cain was rather fond of that idea.
“…how did you manage this?” Zero asked, quiet enough that Cain almost thought he hadn’t heard it.
“Manage what?” he asked. He’d been doing this all day - tormenting Zero in as many ways as he possibly could until they got out of the prison wagon and Cain got to kill him with his bare hands.
Zero gave him a look that strongly suggested Cain was a moron. Cain gave him one back that told him right where to shove that sentiment. “You’ve got the Sorceror asleep on your shoulder. He kills first, kills more, and then asks HIMSELF questions, usually ‘could I have made that more fun’.”
“Only when he’s in a bad mood,” Cain smirked. “Practically a kitten any other time of day.”
“You do realize that eventually that ‘bad mood’ is going to turn on you and he’ll kill you without a second thought,” Zero said, completely ignoring Cain’s words. “You’re fucking a monster, and you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Actually I really don’t know what I’m doing,” Cain said honestly, but glanced down at Glitch’s head, and then back up at Zero, smirking. “But seems to me it’s working. I don’t know about you, Zero, but I’d rather have a monster asleep on my shoulder than behind me with a whip.”
“I serve because of loyalty, Cain,” Zero snapped, only for Glitch to shift and mumble something, making Zero quiet down very, very quickly.
“Don’t forget the fear part of it,” Cain glared. “You’re just as terrified of Azkadellia as Ambrose, and now you’re stuck between the two, trying to pick the side of the stronger monster.”
Zero was deathly silent. The road went on.
“I hope I’m there to watch when your precious kitten of a sweetheart turns on you and rips your beating heart out,” Zero said, and for the first time since their journey began, rode further up the column.
Cain took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Glitch and pull him closer, earning a happy, deep noise from the other man. He’d managed to explain the magic thing migrating around his body enough that Cain knew that as long as he didn’t touch Glitch’s legs, he wouldn’t get zapped. He appreciated that a lot more than he could ever say, taking a moment to just hold him, close his eyes, put his head on top of Glitch’s and just breathe.
“Go to sleep, Cain,” Glitch muttered from the nape of his neck, breath tickling his skin. “We kind of need to be fully functional tomorrow.”
“And you breathing on my neck helps that a lot,” Cain said, no real passion in his voice. He got smacked on the chest for it. Luckily it was a playful smack and not a Kage-smack. He didn’t feel like having internal bleeding in his ribcage while being literally carted off to Azkadellia’s Tower.
“Just try for me, alright?” Glitch asked, almost whining. Luckily nobody was really in hearing distance. Cain thought the whining-pleading might deplete their fear of the Sorceror they had locked up. “Pretty please?”
“Fine.”
He could feel Glitch’s smile against his skin. “And you can tell the puppy I’m busy when we get to the Tower.”
“Have I told you how disturbing it is that you’re calling Zero ‘puppy’? It’s like giving Azkadellia a pet name.”
“She’s ‘cousin dearest’. Pet names scare people.”
“Only yours, Sweetheart,” he muttered into his hair, and Glitch kissed him on the neck.
“I will do many things, Cain, but having sex in prison carts is not one of them.”
Cain grinned. “Yes, dear.”
“Sleep.”
“Yes, dear.”
“And stop that!”
Cain laughed softly, and curled up as best he could with Glitch without getting near whatever the Queen had put on his body. He paused when he saw Glitch’s expression. There was far too little Glitch and far more scared-and-hiding-it Tomo in there. He kissed him, soft and quiet. “We’re going to be fine.”
“I know,” Glitch smiled. “I’m just worried about Hime is all.”
And for the first time since Cain had ever known the other man, he couldn’t tell whether or not he was lying.
---
Ahamo was sulking in such a ridiculously melodramatic way that Jeb was seriously beginning to wonder if he’d lost his marbles over the last fifteen annuals. Or, considering how DG had spoken of him during her childhood, if he’d ever had them to begin with.
He’d led them to a yurt-looking thing missing half of its roof, which he’d proudly declared his home. DG had said something about ‘really liking that whole rustic shack thing’, and he’d tried to hug her again, and she’d dodged again. He and Raw were currently sitting on the dip between the lower and upper levels of the floor, watching Ahamo proudly display a compass-looking thing, but oversized.
“You need to find the Grey Gale, DG,” Ahamo said, suddenly serious. “There, you’ll find the Emerald of the Eclipse.”
She rolled her eyes. “Eclipse. Astronomy. Oh, that’s just obnoxious.”
It was Ahamo’s turn to give DG a look of dubious marble holding, and she waved him off. “Something in the directions to find the Emerald, is all,” she said, and frowned at the contraption in her hands. “Now, what do I do with that.”
“All you have to do is think very hard about ‘open’, and let the Light flow through-”
It whirled like there was a hurricane on the edges, and blinked, pinging, before he even finished the sentence, pointing to the east.
“I see you’ve had some magic lessons,” Ahamo beamed proudly.
“Among others, yeah,” DG said, smiling slightly. “So now we just head for it?”
Ahamo grinned. “And I’ve got just the vehicle for the two of us-”
“Four,” DG corrected.
Her father blinked. “But the Grey Gale is-”
“One of those lessons was basic arithmetic,” DG said. “You, me, Jeb, and Raw, that’s four people.”
He gave her a look that, if someone didn’t live a life like all of them had and did, would have been ominous and dark. Seemed more like pouting to the other three. “DG, you’re my daughter, and I am telling you that only you can go into the Grey Gale.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t come to the door with me,” DG said simply.
Luckily, Ahamo seemed able to tell when he wasn’t going to be winning an argument, so he nodded reluctantly and leaned against the ladder. “We’d have to walk, then.”
“Actually, do you know how far it is from here to the Gale?” DG asked.
Jeb groaned. “I hate this part.”
“We don’t have the time to just WALK, Jeb!” DG shouted at him. “Glitch and Cain are being taken to Azkadellia while we sit around here bickering about whether two or four people are allowed to go on a trip to a DOOR! My sister is trapped by an insane witch in her own body, Glitch sacrificed himself AND your father for ME, and I refuse to just sit around and wait for them to solve all my problems for me and come walking back, bloody and torn like always!” She turned onto her father, whose back cracked against the ladder. “Now, how far a distance is it from here to the Gale?”
“I know it’s across the lake, at least, and in the direction the compass always points to,” Ahamo said carefully.
DG nodded, and he moved aside when he headed for the ladder and right up it, Raw not far behind her. Jeb hesitated, giving her father an appraising look. “How often did the Queen transport you with magic?”
“What?” Ahamo snapped. “Almost never! The amount of magic you’d need-”
Jeb nodded, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder and trying very hard to not give DG’s father a patronizing look. “Just making sure you won’t be vomiting. It seems like the younger you are the easier it is on the body.” He paused. “Don’t mean any offense by that, by the way.”
Ahamo smiled. “None taken.” He paused. “So…you and DG-”
“‘Step-siblings’ or ‘good friends’ is the best explanation for now, I think,” Jeb cut him off, not terribly excited about that topic, either. And since the best way to avoid things was to not be there for them, he climbed up the ladder to see DG kneeling on the lake’s edge, eyes closed as she listened to something Jeb knew he’d never be able to hear. Ahamo joined the team holding four blankets.
“Protective but foolish,” Raw said. “She is strong.” He paused, smiling a little. “She will not fall.”
Jeb just rolled his eyes, and Raw seemed to actually be laughing at him, softly but definitely at him.
“Still, she may be a while in the Gale-”
But then DG stood up, eyes fixed on a spot across the lake, took a deep breath in, and clapped the world away.
“Oh gods,” Jeb groaned when the world came back into view, only to blink, scrambling at the slope of rocks they’d landed on. “Oh, gods!”
“Grab the compass!” DG shouted from above, and Jeb lunged for the little breakable contraption that teetered on rocks so dangerously. His fingers scraped it, and the thing started to fall even more. Jeb lunged for it again, finally grabbing it, but too late realizing he had needed both hands to stay on the slope.
Clutching the compass to his chest, he closed his eyes and winced as he slid down the rocks, down the pebbles…and straight into the freezing, thigh-deep part of the lake that had done absolutely no damage to him or the compass (which, to his relief, hadn’t gotten a single drop of water on it), but gotten him and his clothing soaking wet.
“…great,” he sighed, and stood up a bit wobbly, looking up at the other three. “How do I get back up?” He practically had to shout. That had been a lot of little pebble-rocks on a very tall slope.
“There’s a lower-grade slope to your left,” Ahamo shouted back down. “We’ll meet you over there.”
Keeping the compass cradled away from his wet clothing, Jeb winced at the feel of his sopping wet clothing sticking to him in new and interesting ways as he headed for the hill and back up it, where DG was already waiting to laugh at him.
“Here’s your compass,” he said, handing it over with a sigh, and she was gracious enough to say “Thank you” without bursting into laughter as Jeb pulled off his poor scarf and started wringing the water out of it. The thing started pinging again when Jeb had moved on to his jacket (which had gotten a very surprised look out of Ahamo at the sight of his gun holster), and pointing straight ahead.
DG was frowning at the compass.
“Hey Father, you said just think ‘open’, right?” she frowned, not even noticing the slip. Ahamo certainly did, beaming as he walked over…only to have even his attempt at putting a hand on her shoulder thwarted.
“That’s what you do, yes,” he nodded, and DG just frowned even deeper.
“But it says it’s right here. There’s nothing here except woods, us, and whatever clothing Jeb’s stripped out of.”
“Hey!” Jeb protested (he wasn’t stripping, he was keeping himself dry and safe from hypothermia), but was completely ignored.
“DG must see,” Raw said quietly from where he sat on the ground. The magic clapping hadn’t taken to his head very well, and it looked like he was quickly developing a migraine. “The door that isn’t. DG must twist.”
“Twist…” DG muttered, frowning, and started twisting her head- “GOOD GODS.”
“What? What is it?” Jeb asked, and blinked at the door that just…hovered there, invisible. “Wow.”
“The door that isn’t,” Ahamo said, smiling at Raw. “Quite the Viewer you’ve got there, DG. Doesn’t even need touch to see.”
“He’s my friend, not just ‘the Viewer’,” DG said dryly. “Now how do I open this thing?”
He smiled. “You hope.”
For a moment, a very terrifying moment that seemed to stretch on for days, DG looked completely and utterly lost at that one simple word. Finally, she shook herself out of it, wincing, one hand going over her heart - no, over the Mark - as she started talking, staring straight at the door.
“I have hope. I hope that everyone will be okay, that the OZ will turn out alright, that…that I’ll live up to everything people want and need me to be,” she started, but the doors didn’t budge. DG’s eyes widened, her words growing desperate. “I hope for peace. I…I don’t want anyone else to be hurt like Cain, either one of them! I don’t want people like Raw to be left to die just because people are too scared to help someone in need out! I want my glitch to live for himself, and not just me or Cain or whatever the OZ needs him to live for! I want people to be people, and I wish I didn’t even have to OPEN you, you stupid doors, but I have to try at least, if nothing else I have to try-”
And agonizingly slowly, one of the double doors swung open.
She didn’t even glance back, just ran straight through it, the door crashing shut behind her.
“…she’ll be okay,” Jeb said to nobody in particular.
“If she not fall,” Raw said quietly, but nobody heard him, too busy staring at the door that wasn’t, and hoping.
---
The sky was slowly turning bright orange when Cain and Glitch were jerked awake by the cart’s top being thrown off and a swarm of Longcoats grabbing Cain, yanking him away, and the same swarm surrounding Ambrose, leaving a small circle around him.
“Cain?” he called out, looking up at the sky and looking like he was completely ignoring the Longcoats.
“Mmmrf,” was the response.
Ambrose chuckled. “Oooh, bondage. Someone’s getting inventive and not letting me in on the fun.”
“MRMF!”
“Fiine, fine,” he sighed, one hand going into a pocket. “Oh, puppy?” When he didn’t get a response, Ambrose smirked. “Heeeere, puppy puppy, or else I’ll stop being nice-”
“WE are the ones being nice here, Ambrose,” Zero said, emerging from the crowd, but still not passing that little circle around here. “You’re going to see the Sorceress-”
“Tell cousin dearest I’m busy. You, Cain, and me are going to have a little chat first,” he said. When Zero started to sneer, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and put his palm straight in front of the other man’s forehead, concentrating as much fizz as he could. From the way Zero was staring at him in fear, the man could definitely feel it. Ambrose could, too. It felt like it was going to start tearing his bones out of his skin if he kept this up for very long. “That wasn’t a request, puppy. Now fetch.”
Zero backed up - back to where the newer circle started, thanks to the Longcoats backing up even further due to nothing but a hand making their General nearly wet himself - and glared. “You WILL speak with the Sorceress-”
“Yes, yes, I’ll talk with cousin dearest, but not before our little chat,” Ambrose sighed. The man was intelligent, but had the social finesse of a cow and understood its subtleties just as well as one too.
“We’re not going anywhere secluded,” Zero continued.
“Did I ask to?” Ambrose smirked, and completely waved him aside, hopping down from the truck as Longcoats jumped out of his way. “It all depends on how embarrassed you’re willing to be for your own safety.” He turned, and looked Zero straight in the eye. “And considering I’m promising you I have no intention to kill you during this little chat, that entirely depends on you.”
“And you keep your promises, do you?” Zero sneered.
Ambrose laughed bitterly, flashes of DG’s face - six, twelve, twenty - rolling beneath his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“Fine,” Zero said, and with a couple of barked-out orders, Ambrose had his hands full of a bound and gagged Cain who, to his stupidly absentminded delight, STILL had his hat on. Ambrose reached for the gag and tugged it out, looking at the bit of cloth he held with amusement.
“Is this someone’s underwear?” Glitch asked, grinning. “Gods, you Longcoats are-”
“AMBROSE,” Cain hissed. “If we could get this done a little faster?” He paused, and frowned. “What are we doing, actually.”
“Having a nice, non-fatal chat with the puppy,” Ambrose said, giving Cain a quick kiss on the lips.
“My NAME is-”
“Inconsequential,” Ambrose interrupted. He looked around, at the barren surroundings and the twenty Longcoats spread around them, and nodded. “This is your decision for security?”
“You said YOU wouldn’t kill me, but didn’t say a damn thing about Cain.”
“Oh no, you caught me,” Ambrose deadpanned. “However shall my dastardly plan-”
“Stop toying with him and get to the point, Ambrose,” Cain sighed.
Glitch frowned at him. “What are you in such a hurry for, Cain? They’re going to try and imprison or execute us.”
“Keyword try,” Cain smirked, and Glitch grinned.
“Oooh, I love the mischief that brain of yours comes up with on the fly,” Glitch said, and then blinked, looking up at Zero. “Oh, right. You exist.”
Cain snorted. Ambrose patted him on the head.
“I will swear to not leave the tower, try to escape Azkadellia’s realm, and not resist any attempt to get me to comply to something that I consider reasonable demand given the circumstances,” he said.
Both blondes jaws dropped. Ambrose smirked at the one he wasn’t marrying.
“Under the circumstance that you not only release Wyatt Cain with all his gear, but also don’t follow him to wherever he goes,” he said simply, quietly. This was more than just Ambrose right now. This was every facet of him.
“I can’t do that,” Zero said simply.
He grinned. “Then I swear that any harm that comes to anyone I love will come crashing down on you at the most convenient time in my calendar, and if you try to lock me up, I promise that my calendar will be very, very open.”
“That goes the other way, too,” Cain said idly, untying himself in what seemed like no time at all.
“Wow, that was really impressive!” Glitch grinned as the ropes were flung to the ground.
“You should see my water escapes,” Cain smirked.
Zero was giving them a look that highly doubted their sanity, so Ambrose glared at him. “What, puppy? By all means, speak up. This is your only chance to do it without me ripping you to shreds if you hurt someone I care about.”
But Zero was utterly silent.
“Grab Cain, tie him with something that isn’t just a square knot and rope, and YOU-” he pointed somewhat viciously at Ambrose “- are coming to see the Sorceress.”
“Always did love family reunions,” Ambrose said, and gave Cain one last quick kiss before he was yanked away and Ambrose was left walking behind Zero, flanked by what looked like twenty Longcoats. He was very polite and didn’t laugh aloud at the idea of them stopping someone like he was pretending to be.
---
White. No, black. No, it was gray. No, it was…it was utterly monochrome.
DG hadn’t cried in a very long time, but she was close to it, completely lost. She’d just walked through the mausoleum, examined things, and found the door. And now she was surrounded by the unknown.
“It’s okay,” a voice called out sweetly, and suddenly DG found herself standing in the middle of a plain, everything blacks and whites and grays, a concerned-looking teenager kneeling in front of her in a checkered dress and brilliantly shiny silver shoes. “You’ve been through a lot more than I expected while I was waiting.”
Her voice was like one of Glitch’s rare kisses on the forehead, or a hug. Pure caring. Pure love. Pure understanding. Pure…just purity.
“I believe in you,” Dorothy Gale said, a hand sliding from the top of her head, brushing through her hair, and then cupping her cheek. “You can save her. You can save them all. I believe in you, DG.”
“But how?” DG asked, and Dorothy smiled, opening her other hand to show a brilliant green gem as bright as any constellation could ever hope to be.
“The Eclipse, DG,” Dorothy said, voice so caring, so, so caring. “Our line, yours and mine, has always used it for the future of our world. The Emerald helps our dreams be realized. Helps our hopes become realities.”
The Emerald of the Eclipse was put in her hands. “There are so many who love you, DG, and you only let yourself love them when you’re not afraid. Open your heart. Learn to hope again.” Dorothy smiled again. “Learn to love everything like you once knew.”
“But-” DG began, only to be stopped by another smile. Dorothy grabbed DG’s own hand, and placed it over her heart. Over the Mark.
“What covers you doesn’t define you, DG,” she said, and laughed softly, shaking her head slightly, her braids swaying gently. “And you’ve been here too long.” She smiled a bit wryly. “You got lost along the road, but now you’ve found it again, haven’t you?”
DG blinked at her. “…I have.” It was like there was suddenly a well of care and courage and wisdom and passion inside of her. Or, no, it was like she had suddenly realized it was there, and all this time it had just been sitting, waiting for her to remember.
“Then it’s time you walked it, DG,” Dorothy Gale - the gray gale - said, and smiled as if she could read the thought. “I think we’re both our own shade of storm, DG.”
“And what color’s mine?” DG asked with a smile, already feeling everything vanish, feeling the door to the outside grow closer and closer.
But the happy, amused laughter of Dorothy followed her out the door. “I don’t know. What’s the color of your soul?”
The door to the gray gale shut behind her, and she was inside of the mausoleum again.
Glitch had said she’d know what to do with it when the time came.
She flicked her staff out, and there it was, perfectly prepared to counterbalance the blade if she ever pulled that part out in a fight, an elegant holder - shaped like a cyclone, she noted with no little bit of affection - that fit the Emerald of the Eclipse perfectly. Its shine trembled down the entire staff, making it hum and almost look like it was somehow alive in her hands.
She flicked the staff back together, but it still glowed. Figuring there was nothing she could do about it, she stepped back out of the royal family’s mausoleum to see Raw, Ahomo, and Jeb rushing towards her. She stopped them with one hand, almost squeaking. It was bright out here.
“You were in there the entire night,” Ahomo said, frowning, and instead of shoving him aside, DG smiled and gave him a small hug. He visibly jumped, but she just hugged him harder.
“I’m fine, Dad,” she said, and just smiled at ignored the slight dampness on her shoulder. “Hope Raw and Jeb weren’t too horrible to you.”
“We’re fine, thank you,” Jeb frowned - with, she noted, completely dry clothing. “Did you get what you came for?”
She nodded, letting her father go. “That and more.” She took in a deep breath. “Ready to go save the OZ, my sister, Glitch, Cain, and probably my mother too?”
“Thought that was the original plan,” Jeb smiled.
“Then let’s get to it,” DG smiled broadly, and paused, turning back to look at her father. “Stay safe, Dad. Things are probably going to get pretty ugly out here.”
“Which is why I wish I could make you not go,” Ahamo sighed. “But you’re as stubborn as your mother. Go save the world.”
DG gave him a grin, and they started down the path, Ahamo watching them as they chatted and walked at a speed that would have most people falling down within an hour.
And in her heart, DG prepared herself to go to war.
---
Ambrose was completely unimpressed from the moment he stepped into the tower, through all the hallways and overly cumbersome and inefficient machinery, and into the green marbled area that apparently served as Azkadellia’s study. He was even less impressed when, after he sat himself down in the seat behind the desk rather than in front of him, nobody protested. It was the first thing he commented on when Azkadellia walked in.
“Your hired help is hardly helpful, cousin dearest,” he smirked.
“You should be dead,” Azkadellia said simply, not even trying to take Ambrose’s seat. There was clearly something messed up going on here. He should have been booted out of the chair as soon as she and her attendant walked in.
She had something that could beat him. Either that, or she really was terrified of him.
“I should have died many, many times by now. You probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about when I say this, but the fall hurts like you wouldn’t believe,” Ambrose said, honest for once, watching her intently. “Doesn’t stop me from getting back up.”
Azkadellia tilted her head to the side, smiling at something he couldn’t see. “You truly are as horrible as all the reports, even as horrible as that memory I used to think was a nightmare.”
“Quite the compliment,” Ambrose stated, pushing the envelope and sifting through her desk’s contents.
“Which is why I’m suggesting an alliance,” Azkadellia said, eyebrows quirking upwards just enough to suggest…something more. “Family, after all, should stick together. What better sort of bond than blood to guard your back?”
Ambrose blinked. And then stared.
And then he tilted his head back, and roared with laughter.
Azkadellia’s hands were clenching the table when he got back under control, smirking absolutely mercilessly at her.
“I’m not what keeps you up late at night, am I.”
Her face turned deadly. “No.”
“And I know exactly what it is that does,” he said softly, darkly.
“Then HELP me,” Azkadellia snapped. “If you know what the Storm is, then we can fight it together-”
“Did you ever consider, even for a moment, that the storm isn’t coming for you?” he asked, using that same tone that was quiet as death slipping into the bedroom. His grin was sheer torture for her. “It’s coming for what’s inside you.”
Azkadellia jerked out of the chair, glaring at him. “If you won’t help me, I will force you to.”
“With what?” Ambrose taunted, heart immediately at war. “Your attempts at science? Your feeble feats of magic? I’ve seen TRUE magic, cousin dearest, the type you wouldn’t even dream of-”
“With Wyatt Cain,” she whispered, and pulled out a view tube, a bloody, unconscious Cain chained inside a cell and stripped down to nothing but his pants. Someone had mockingly replaced his hat on him. Ambrose had a dark, very Kage feeling that he knew who that someone was.
“I told Zero that his pain would be his death,” he said, empty.
Azkadellia tilted her head to the side, smiling softly. “Then I believe we have a deal, cousin dearest. Now, the Storm…?”
Ambrose, Glitch, Spiral, Sessha, Mr. Joat, Tomo, and Sweetheart were one man, and that man looked her straight in the eye, hard enough that she visibly leaned back.
“She is known as the Cyclone, and if she doesn’t kill you, be assured, I will.”
He didn’t dare say another word. The man stood up and strode out the door, and when a Longcoat got in his way he pinned the man to the wall and demanded he be taken to the cell of Wyatt Cain.
“Take him,” Azkadellia’s voice said, completely impassive, and the young man did. He was escorted through halls of cries and screams and whispers until he reached a solitary confinement chamber, where Cain was hung up like very bloody, frayed drapes.
Cain hit the floor with a thud when Glitch finally managed to get him untied.
“…supposed to protect each other,” Cain muttered, glaring at him lopsidedly. “You’re locked in too now.”
“Just…just shut up, Cain,” Glitch whispered, and hugged the other man to himself, not even noticing that the tingling feeling he’d had for so long was slowly ebbing away, and how with every passing moment Cain looked a little better.
---
And in the darkness, Hana’s eyes opened.
She smiled in the middle of the Council meeting, setting aide her documents and parchment, and stood up. The rest of them were still.
“And the shadows will awake, and follow the war in their brethren’s hearts,” she said, finishing the tradition, and they all snapped to attention. “All full Kage have twelve hours, and then we leave for Azkadellia’s Tower.”
“Yes, Hana,” the room echoed, and she smiled again, feeling the determination, the anger, the fear, the love, the power of her family, the Kage’s family, calling them to a battle she’d been praying she’d live to see.
[EDIT] Also out of stupid, idle curiosity, I have a "What do you think will happen in the end?" poll to be found here! IF YOU LOVE ME YOU WILL DO IT. AND IF YOU DON'T I WILL CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP. OR. SOMETHING EQUALLY TRAGIC.