A baby girl with thin strains of bright white hair, like a small cascade of sparse sacred threads of light. Her eyes held in them no pupils, no irises, instead what painted them was a constantly flowing stream of what appeared like greyish white mist. Like her eyes held within a boundless sea of fog. Her skin a pale light brown, not yet filled out into her natural darker tone.
She quickly calms down and stops crying, whether by instinct or some other force, it's as if she can feel the mild tension hanging in the room. Her eyes take in this new world she's in. No longer in warm comforting home that her mother once nurtured her in.
Perhaps from luck or maybe just an innate intuition for her safety but she acted only mildly special causing the nurses to complete their normal jobs before starting the containment procedure.
She is wiped down by a large woman who stares down at her with a look of disgust, like staring at a monstrosity, but behind that disgust is a deep-rooted fear, the woman has been taught to fear the cursed children, they are calamities taken form and the one she is holding is meant to be their queen.
After being hastily cleaned, the nurse hears something from the person in the bed. After speaking the nurse with some trepidation walks over to the woman while still carrying her. The woman stares down at the daughter she has just given birth too with an aloof an detached gaze. However the child felt no fear towards her unlike the rest who are in the room.
This continued until she was eventually handed over to the woman still resting in the bed. After coming into her arms this woman looked at her with a gentle smile and warm eyes, like a breeze on a warm summer night. She looked down at her daughter with nothing but pure love.
What her daughter could not see, is the very same mother who is holding her close gazing down lovingly is also gripping the neck of the nurse who dared stare at her child with vile and malevolent eyes. She in one fluid motion broke the nurses neck, letting her body collapse to the ground lifelessly. When she fell, the staff who have yet to leave after the delivery turned all at once, horror filled their bodies and minds. Not understanding why a loyal ranker of the empire would betray them. Before they could make a sound or think any further. Every single one just fell, like puppets with their strings cut.
**
Silence, there was an absolute silence in the room. The only sounds coming from the machines still running in the background. Just a mother holding her child with a warm smile, standing in stark contrast to the lifeless bodies laying littered across the floor. This silence persisted for a couple more minutes before the sounds of a vent being quietly broken could be heard. With that a man drops down from the wall he just crawled out from. He was a man with average height, wrapped in a tight black suit that covers his whole body. No features can be made out from the man, his mask is all black except two eerie grey ocular covers. In both of his hands he carries two duffle bags filled to the brim. He briefly scans the room before promptly ignoring the lifeless bodies and walking up to the two laying in the bed. When he gets there he drops the bags and takes off the mask part of his suit. He has a gentle looking face with sharp feature. His skin a deep copper, his hair black and wavy falling down to his shoulders.
He smiled and asked "How are you feeling? Are you okay? Did everything go fine? How is she? Did anything happen with her? She's so quite aren't babies meant to cry more? How com-" He was interrupted by his wife laughing. She finally turned her head away and looked at her husband with amusement evident on her face "How come you're freaking out so much, you were such a 'nothing can faze me' mr macho man this whole pregnancy" She chuckled again and continued "But everything's fine, honestly it was way smoother of a process than we thought it was going to be. I feel fantastic, outside of the pain from the actual birth nothing else happened. My body healed immediately after and unlike the healing scripts this didn't hurt at all, in-fact it was the opposite, my whole by was soothed."
She turned her head back down and continued "She doing great, although her eyes worry me a little bit but it seems like she can still see somehow which is great. Other than that she only cried right at the start and hasn't made a sound since, it's almost like she can feel that something is going to happen tonight" Her husband also looking at their baby replied "Well maybe she can, the cursed children always have some abnormal senses in some form or another. Plus she's so much greater than everyone else that I wouldn't be surprised if there was more going on" He reluctantly took his eyes away and looked around the room before asking "How come you killed everyone so quickly? I thought you were going to wait until I was already here? Well it doesn't matter too much, but we need to get going soon. Everything's already to go"
She eventually sighed and agreed. She handed over their baby to her husband before quickly getting changed into the suit that he brought for her. As she was changing she responded "Those bastards were looking at my daughter with their eyes and head full of nothing but evil thoughts. That big bitch even dared to wipe her hand on the bed with disgust after she handed her to me! There was no way I could wait any longer after that. Plus it got rid of any little lingering guilt I had about killing our people"
When he heard that her husband looked up briefly and a trace of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes before he calmed himself "Well then I'm just sorry I couldn't have been here sooner. It's not like it matters too much, one of those council members were probably on their way as soon as she was born" as he spoke he quickly checked all of the supplies and tools he was carrying. Making sure that their preparations are good to go.
In just a minute she was changed, having not yet put on her mask. She stood tall normally but with her combat suit on she easily stood a head over her husband. Her sun-kissed skin as if she's spent lifetimes at sea, as if to prove it she has streaks of dark blue through her long black hair that cascades like a waterfall down to her lower back. Her striking onyx eyes naturally looking down on everything, as the arrogance of a warrior who has survived countless battles and made her way to the Empires rankings is clearly reflected in them.
She stares at her husband and child for a moment before sighing and embracing them deeply. She leans down and gives him a deep kiss. He matches her, and they hold that kiss for a long time as they both know this might be their last. When their kiss ends gently holds the back of his head and neck with both of her hands, he does the same with one of his. They quietly lean in and touch their foreheads together. She speaks first "I love you Lucius, I always have and I always will. I knew it from the first day I saw you and it will stay like that until the end of time." after a second of silence "I love you Samira, from the first time you came into my store all those years ago you have never left my head once. You will have the entirety of my heart, my life, my love until we're long dead. I'll still follow you into our next lives and well continue to be together for a thousands lives" They don't speak anymore, everything that they needed to say has already been said and give themselves a few more moments.
They eventually separate and she looks down at her baby, her everything, she leans down and kisses her on the forehead and whispers a light chant in a long forgotten language. Blessing her child with all of the luck she has in her body and soul. Her baby for the first time tries to move and hold her mother like she knows something bad is going to happen. Tears well up in her little eyes but she still doesn't cry or make a sounds, her conflicting instincts and emotions easy to see. "Everything's gonna be alright, mama's always been too strong to let anything happen to her. I wont let anything happen to us until were safe and sound in our new home" She gave a reassuring smile, maybe trying to convince her daughter, maybe trying to convince herself, perhaps it worked as her baby stopped reaching out and brought her little hand back down.
When Samira stands back up a somber atmosphere settles in the room. They both know they can no longer have the light moments they just had. She quickly helps Lucius put his mask back on and when she's done she starts to put hers on as well. While doing that Lucius starts to place their daughter into a special holder, firmly strapped to his chest, it holds her comfortably against his body. Back to being a quite spectator, the little girl lets herself get put into place without so much and a peep.
When everything is all said and done they get ready to head out, Lucius agilely climbs into the vent again. There's just enough room for him and his daughter as long as his back his touching the vents roof. Samira quickly follows behind and they finally start their escape and betrayal of their homeland.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Escape
While trying to be as unnoticeable as possible they crawled their way through the cramped vent duct. They did not speak or make any extra noise or movements, solely focused on trying to leave this building as quick as possible. After minutes of crawling through a complicated route they arrived at a room on the 5th floor looking, it was dark and they couldn't see anyone from the vent cover. However just to be Samira jumped down first, not making a sound the whole time. After checking to room she finally let Lucius know it was safe to drop down.
After confirmation that it was safe, Lucius dropped the second duffle bag that he brought earlier down to Samira before getting down himself. Now down on the floor he immediately dropped to one knee and grabbed a small well concealed device. He also took out his Wife's main weapons as the chances of fighting are about to rapidly rise. Samira softly grabbed her twin blades, two medium length straight blades, both straight and only 2 fingers wide. The blades obsidian in color as if just dragged from night itself, right above the hilt on the back of the blade lay a 3 inch long small knife jutting out of it. A light smile crept up on her face as she looked at her blades now that she can finally hold them again after months of being forced away from anything dangerous.
Snapping herself out of her daze she sheathed her weapons to either sides of her hips. All ready for any potential combat they might have to prepare for. She once again focused on her husband as he secured the duffle bag to his back and was also ready to go. They both looked at each other through their masks and gave a quick nod to let the other know they were ready. With that he crouched down hiding their baby as much as possible and Samira went behind him and covered him as well.
BOOOOM
A thunderous noise travelled throughout the whole building as nearly 100 potential escape route exploded simultaneously, the entire building shook as although each explosion themselves weren't very strong 100 going off at the same time means something completely different. To go along with that multiple secondary explosives went off at key locations to cause certain systems to shut down and create minor distractions for any possible trackers they might have. Lucious stood up and turned around, luckily there wasn't any extra dust coming near him since his wife used some of her energy source energy to cover their immediate surrounding in a wind barrier.
After quickly confirming that they were both still okay they walked to the brand new hole in the building looked down for a moment to make sure nothing was below them and jumped. Now outside they could finally feel just how strong tonight's storm was, however that's exactly what they needed to hide their tracks. They both quickly rushed through the woods doing their utmost to land on the roots jutting from the ground. Although Samira was much stronger than Lucious, that did not mean he was slow or weak by any means. They both rapidly traversed the enormous jungle surrounding the edge of their isolated island nation.
Their journey was experiencing an unnaturally smooth progression, normally this jungle is vicious and constantly hungry as a way to stop any potential intruders from breaking through and finding the nation. However not once on their journey did they find any sign of a predator getting ready to launch an attack. Now that they were paying extra attention they noticed that they couldn't see any signs of any creatures in front of them. When Samira was about to get tense prepared for a trap she felt the presences of some of the beast directly behind them. She tried to pay more attention to those presences in case they decided to try and hunt them down but they weren't moving, as if they were guarding their path and making sure no one followed.
This still did not stop her going from running next to Lucious to being right behind him. He looked at her momentarily before focusing once again on the path before him. He trusted his life in her hands completely and wouldn't questions her actions, so he just tried his absolute best to run his fastest through the forest and not make any mistake. Leaving all their defenses to his wife as that's never once failed him before and he highly doubted that would change today.
They stayed on their course not lowering their guard for 30 minutes, steadily progressing to their boat that Lucious hidden away at some point throughout the pregnancy while everyone's attention was squarely on Samira. He slowly built up the plan for their escape, trying to find out the best way to leave and cover their trails at the same time. Trial by trial he came up with one solution after another all without ever catching any attention from the security forces or the council. Although they know true escape is a slim to none possibility that doesn't mean they wont fight through the abyss itself to try. At the very least let their baby girl get the freedom she deserves.
As they neared the border of the jungle where the sea touches their lands, a whistling sound came from behind Lucious before a sudden clash of metal and a tremble of the ground. He looked behind to see that Samira was turned around with her blades already drawn. To her left and in the ground a spear was sticking out. On the spear were special engravings that no one else dared to mimic as only he was allowed to bear them. The 11th on the rankings and the strongest being in the empire below the pillars "Avantus" Samira snarled before taking a strong step forward, further separating Lucious and her baby from him. Although she knew he wouldn't kill her baby since the Empire dearly need her, it didn't change the fact that he would easily do everything other than killing. He has one of the worst reputations in the Empire, a sniveling coward to those stronger and a evil tyrant to those weaker.
"My my my little girl did you really think that you could run away that easily, did that bit attention you got from carrying a monstrosity in your body cloud your judgement or something. Well it's honestly better this way, now I can do whatever I want to you and that little scholar of a husband you got without having those old guys nagging me" while he was venting his frustrations Samira gave a quick signal to Lucious telling him to go on and that she would catch up soon. Although Avantus saw this he did not care, it did not matter how much a weak little boy ran away he could always catch up at any time. Plus now he can show this arrogant little bitch her place, there's a good chance she will beg and crawl to spare her husbands life. Just thinking about it brings a warped sense of pleasure to himself. Now that would be something interesting to do. As these disturbing thoughts were crossing his mind he raised his hand to his spear and it immediately launched itself from the ground it was buried in back to his palm. They both now weapons ready and prepared to fight, stare each other down.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Run run run
30 - Minutes prior
Humming a little melody Avantus walked his way through the halls coming down from the top of this structure. He was having a great day, that monstrosity was finally born so they wouldn't have to worry about and energy problems anytime soon. Plus he was the one originally in charge of Samira so he pretty much guaranteed his election to the council after this. Finally he wouldn't have to be looked down upon by everyone as being a mere guardian to the positions of pillars, soon hell be able to order those bastards around however he wants.
Although that little girl gets on my nerves always looking at me with such apparent disgust in her eyes, I'll be the gracious person I am and forgive her insolence of forgetting her rightful place below my feet groveling to me, I'll even go so far as to not kill that little pretty boy of a husband she has. I really am such a magnanimous soul.
He walks down the corridors with an excitement slowly building in his emotions. Normally he should have noticed such a thing, but with thoughts about a future he's been dreaming about for 100's of years right in reach, he could not help but lose himself and his better judgement. This continued for a few more minutes until he heard and explosion from all over the building. Fury, an absolute fury suddenly takes over his mind at the idea of someone trying to ruin everything he has been working up too.
The life he desires and deserves right in reach now is a little farther away and he knows they had to be targeting him specifically. Those weak little vermin always whispering about him out of their pathetic jealousy. "How dare they, How dare they! HOW DARE THEY! FUCKKKK!" losing himself in his newfound rage he reacted much much later than he should have. After a few seconds he calmed himself just enough to call the chief of security for this part of the building.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! You better have an explanation for this shit" he roared into the communication device, after a few seconds of silence and his irritaion beginning to bubble up once again the chief finally responded "I'm sorry sir, we're trying to figure it out but it seems like Samira and the Creature escaped somehow" his voice was staid and steady, although he held fear for Avantus it did not change his belief of being absolutely professional when it comes to his work.
Avantus once again lost in his thoughts, his mind twisting and turning between rage and condescension at the escape attempt. He quickly thought of a way to turn this around for himself so he doesn't lose his chance at the council. Remembering the useless chief of security "If you don't want to lose your life you better tell me where she escaped too fast" after that he cut off the connection so he could plan out his next course of actions better without so much distractions.
He realized that Samira trying to escape doesn't matter too much as long as he can get the little monster. In fact he can turn this into a show of how good he is by rooting out that she was a traitor. If he does that then he can even capture he as a prisoner, he can easily get away with putting a slave seal on her and her husband. Glee enraptured his mind, he has been wanting samira to submit to him for years but she has always managed to escape his grasp at every turn. From the first day she joined to ranking at the 100th place till she rose to the 88th and now during the pregnancy carrying the creature. At every single turn she's always looked down on him, no matter how weak she was compared to Avantus she always acted defiant, not even bothering to hide her feelings that she was looking upon filth whenever she saw him a clearly superior existence.
Finally I can break her down, I can finally make her into a toy after all this time. Today really can't get any better than this. His communicator buzzed to life and he got to hear what he was waiting for "Samira and Lucious escaped from the 5th floor on the east side. As far as we can tell they're making a relatively straight shot towards the water, I'm not sure if they will change directions in the jungle or not but that's at least their immediate directions" not even bothering to respond properly I just hum in affirmation before quickly getting to the room and following her traces.
Shooting through the forest I can easily tell that they are trying to cover their tracks but no matter how much they try they can't escape my sights. These little beast that keep trying to stand in my way can't even slow me down as I slice them in half with every swing. I don't even have to break my stride, these dumb beast think they're qualified to stand up to me, that's why they are nothing more that beasts we make guard our coasts. Normally I would be annoyed by such things but this idiot is trying to escape with her useless husband. How pathetic, I can just tell how slowly they are moving through the jungle, they might as well be walking.
After nearly 25 minutes of jogging through the jungle slowly catching up on them like a predator hunting it prey, he sees them. Going just a slow as he thought. Samira running behind with one of her blades already drawn. Well mothers of those cursed things always get a little boost in strength so let me test her. With that thought done he raised his spear aiming straight at the neck of Lucious and threw. As he released his hold on the spear it launched immediately past the sound barrier but no sonic boom could be heard or felt as the inscriptions in the spear glowed very briefly, allowing it to fly straight at Lucious with him having any idea about death looming.
Just as the spear was about to pass over Samira's head and keep going she suddenly turned and jumped up. In one fluid motion she swung her blade down, catching the side spear on the short knife on the back of the sword. The moment the blade was caught she used all of her strength to launch the spear off too the side. With the rebound of the strike she stopped her turn and landed staring straight at Avantus.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Eye of the storm
Although she seems a bit stronger than before she's at most in the 40s in the rankings. Now rid of any of his lingering worries that he might of had, Avantus lets lucious run off since he'll catch up to him in a couple minutes at most. He raises his hand to summon his spear back to him, not breaking eye contact with Samira. Even if he looks down on her she can still injure him with a lucky strike.
As she looks at one of the strongest beings in the whole empire Samira doesn't feel anything close to what she thought she'd feel. She always thought it would be either fear or maybe excitement or something along those lines but all she feels when looking at him now is mild annoyance. Maybe being a mother really does change you, she's much more mature now no longer just thinking about having a fun fight. She has everything that ever has and ever will matter to her right behind her, so there's no way she's letting this walking talking piece of garbage get past.
Staring each other down, she can tell that he really wants to talk, whether to talk down to her or do some scummy monologue she doesn't know. However he can't because she is making sure he feels the pressure of facing her, not giving him the slightest of leeway's to rant. She can tell he's feeling frustrated by that alone, it's strange.
Stepping forward at the same time, they both launch at each other. Avantus makes a simple thrust forward straight for Samira's heart. She leans and turns to the side but doesn't stop her advancement, making a X guard out of her blades she glides down the side of spear. With one blade still catching the spear shaft not letting him swing it towards her, she slides the other one up aiming for his neck. When her blade was close he leaned back and twisted his body, launching a kick into Samira's ribs. She was rocketed into a tree before she could dodge, half of the tree exploded launching splinters everywhere. Luckily she was able to lessen the blow by reinforcing her ribs with energy to and send herself flying with the kick using the wind under her control.
Even if she was able to get away without any breaks in her ribs it still sent a shock through her internals. Getting up and coughing out some blood, luckily the mask already has a function to remove any blood that gets on the internals. He now with even more confidence finally gets a chance to speak like he's been wanting "Come on Samira where's that fight you were showing earlier, where's all that vigor that you had. Did you think that just by dodging my spear and not letting my powers cut you that you would be safe? GET UP! Were not done yet"
Doing just that Samira readied her blades for round two but this time neither of them bothered holding back their powers to test one another out. Samira called down a storm into her surroundings and Avantus called down a rot to start appearing around him. Samira who has her powers boosted by the raging storm above them and from the lingering energy of the curse flowing through her calls upon a raging wind throwing debris everywhere making it harder for both of them to find their opponent. Without giving him time to adjust she summons down a bolt of lighting straight towards his head.
Avantus not bothering to dodge just stood there and swung his spear up slicing the lighting and causing it to rot and fizzle out before it could strike him. However in this time that he was doing that he failed to notice Samira moving from her spot and blending into the storm raging in their surroundings. Only a small radius around Avantus is free from disturbance as anything that comes in that range starts falling apart whether they be wind, rain, or dirt. Boosting her speed using the wind and her attack with lighting coating her blades she charges at him.
She glides past him only making small attacks, shifting her attacks constantly. Every second there's multiple strikes and she's only speeding up each time. Little by little he is being grazed by small cuts, they aren't much damage and he can stop the bleeding for most but they are still coming and they are only happening faster and faster. But this doesn't mean Avantus is just sitting there taking these strikes and doing nothing. No everytime she strikes and enters his area she is being covered in more and more of his rot, it's getting easier and easier to feel her locations. Although this is happening he's showing no signs of discovering this until she's covered enough.
After 30 seconds of an endless barrage of attacks something finally changed. Instead of reacting to her attacks he was already ready for her strike this time, swinging down his spear right on where her shoulder will be, however instead of the anticipated feeling of cutting flesh he was expecting to feel he instead felt a sudden cold on his neck. He saw that she stopped just before where the spear would strike, but more importantly there was only one blade in her hand? When did she throw her other blade? How come I didn't sense it? Why does it feel so cold on his neck instead of the electric shock he was expecting from her? Why is everything getting so dark? I'm meant to be special, I cant die here! NO No no.. n.
Those were the last thoughts of Avantus, ranked 11th of the Empires rankings and one of the strongest beings in the world. He fell to the ground, head separated from his body. Samira called back her blade that she threw, dragging it threw the storm that is now calming. She momentarily stared down at his body, in a daze about how much easier this was than she thought it would be. He was a monster that terrorized her for years, even if she didn't show it he still caused some fear to be planted in her mind.
He simply got unlucky, his mind a mess, underestimating how much energy she received from her daughter, and most importantly rot is just a subset of the path of death, how dare he try to sense her daughters path. No longer bothering with him, she turns and starts following after her family. They need to hurry up since they must've received news of his death by now. Some of the pillars are probably on their way by now hopefully it's not one of those two monsters.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Momentary tranquility
Samira sticking to the path that she and her husband planned rushed through the woods, like a blur, she pushed herself to her normal limit. They were so close so she absolutely could not mess this escape up now. In just a minute the forest floor change from dirt and mud to water as the forest became filled with mangroves. Still running along the roots she eventually reached the final trees and without hesitation jumped straight into the water.
They had a small boat hidden at the very edge of the forest and if it was before they would have gotten on together. However because of the actions of Avantus slowing Samira down, Lucious had to head into the water before her in case he had to leave with just the two of them. So Samira followed their plan B in this case which led her to dive into the water and swim for what felt like 2 miles. Once she was around the position they agreed upon before she held one blade with both hands, filled it with a large amount of her strength and swung down with everything she had.
The explosion in the water rose high and wide becoming easily visible even on this dark stormy night. Samira tried her best not to be caught up in the turbulent water, she managed to struggle through the worst of it and waited in the center of where the explosion came from for Lucious to come pick her up. In just a few minutes she saw a slim, low and flat pitch black boat. It was almost impossible to make out the boat on it's own and it had to be spotted by the absences of light wherever it past by.
Lucious saw a tremendous pillar of water rise into the sky and let out a small sigh of relief. He was extremely worried for the past few minutes, no matter how much he trusted Samira's strength and believed in her it still wouldn't ease his worries about who she was facing and the difficulty of the fight she was having. Quickly making their way over he went to the source of the pillar of water and found Samira floating there. Arriving right next to her he leaned over to quickly help her up. Now on the boat she finally finished her part for the next while, Lucious fully intended to let her get a few hours of peace while he still had a chance.
For a minute they didn't say anything, Lucious immediately went back to driving the boat, steering it towards their exit path in the water. While he was doing that Samira went to her baby, now bundled up in a special little pod that would protect her from the environment outside. It must of been too stressful for the little baby as she was now sound asleep. Her unusually active instincts have been blaring constantly from the moment she was born until when her mom got on the boat. Luckily the pod is advanced and with all of the special systems needed to supply her with everything she needs for the next little while.
After settling in and letting the little moment of tranquility set in, Lucious finally spoke in a hushed tone "How did the fight go? How are you feeling now?" even if he tried to make himself sound confident he couldn't hide his unease and concern threatening to spill out. Samira looked up at him for a moment before chuckling "You're always like this it's just so cute, trying to act all confident and steady just for your obvious worry to show on your face, well I guess not this time but you get what I mean. But anyway everything was fine, outside of some scraps and one solid kick to my side I didn't get hurt at all" Lucious turned to her with shock being obvious in his body language. Whether it was from being called out or from how apparently easy the fight was Samira didn't know. She lightly chuckled again and continued "Yeah it was surprisingly easy, he was acting strange. Even if he was overconfident he still has hundreds of years of combat experience so for him to make such rookie mistakes was odd. Plus the thing that ended everything nice and neat was death energy being a strong counter to his source energy. I had a feeling that rot was a sub branch of death or life but it was proved tonight. He couldn't sense it at all so I just had to throw one of my blades when he went for a big strike and boom it was over just like that."
A second silence washed over them as they both thought about the implications of this. "It's wild that just the excess energy in my body lets me fight people so much stronger than me. Can you imagine just how strong she'll be if she can control all that energy sealed in her. Just looking at the seals on her body gives me a sudden overwhelming dread like I'm looking into secrets of something beyond anything I can understand. No wonder those bastards are so obsessed with cursed children." She grit her teeth just thinking about what would have happened to her baby if they didn't escape.
While she was thinking along those lines Lucious thought down another direction. "Yeah but wasn't the boost to other mothers of cursed children much less potent than yours? I know that our baby girls curse is stronger than others but I thought it was only relative before. Now though I think that she's a lot farther beyond what they the others." Samira smiled under the mask when she heard this, to her it would be great if her daughter could grow up to be strong enough to protect herself. But could tell that her husband was still stressed about something "What's wrong isn't it a good thing if she can be strong?"
He didn't turn his head to look at her, still staring at the ocean ahead lost in thought "No that's not what I'm worried about, I'm worried that we underestimated the reaction of the council when they get news of our escape and Avantus's death. Before they played along with our wishes because we never once showed an ounce of disloyalty so they had nothing to suspect. Also there's a decent chance Avantus didn't bother telling them that we escaped, probably hoping to capture us and make up some fake story to gain some credit from the council. So now that the most important cursed child in history and her mother proving strong enough to quickly kill someone at the 11th rank position is on the escape, I think they're about to have a very extreme reaction. We know they've become obsessed with cursed children as a way to hide from 'Him' " pausing momentarily he turned to stare at his wife "I think we need to assume only plan B. I don't think we can do anything but assume the worst now"
Samira took a second to process what she heard before responding in the only way she could think of right now and mumbled lowly "Fuck". In a third round of silence but this time there was no relief or peace in the air just a tense and somber atmosphere, they made their way into the perpetual storm surrounding their nation. It has allowed them to stay hidden from the world, controlling certain things from the background for tens of thousands of years. However it is a barrier that works both ways, making it difficult to escape without special tools or methods that are strictly controlled by the empire.
This is where the boat and Lucious's specialty comes in as he can engrave runes into objects and infuse them with energy, this lets object perform specific functions. This path is one that relies heavily on knowledge and time, if you are in a place with no understanding of runes then you can't even do anything rudimentary but the empire was not such a place, plus he went with Samira to explore many hidden sights from the different eras. This allowed his rune knowledge to slowly build up to be one of the most expansive in the world. Using this and the time during Samira's pregnancy he spent everyday creating runes just for this escape, from the ones in their suits that make it more difficult to track them, to all of the explosions when they left. Now he showed his worth again with this boat covered head to tail in ruins made specifically to traverse the storm belt surrounding their nation. It was filled to the brim with his energy every single day and now is overflowing with it.
Now it was Samira's turn to place her trust in her husband, and she did just that as she always had. Even if he was never that confident in himself, he's never once in the whole time she's known him failed whenever her or someone else's safety was on the line so she absolutely knew they would make it through now. "Just stay calm, I trust you Lucious. You're runes and plans haven't failed before and that wont change now so just take a deep breath and do whatever it is that you need to" He looked at her again then their child, the air of anxiety just melted away the next moment. He stood a little straighter, gave Samira a small nod and a thank you before going back to steering the ship but this time much calmer and more confident.
With that they entered the belt, a 20 mile stretch of ocean covered in perpetual storms and carnage.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Futility
The sounds of wood being smashed can be heard everywhere in the surroundings of the council chamber. In the center of the chamber the old council leader was standing surrounded by the shattered scraps of wood the was once an ornate table.
"What did that useless little shit do to get himself killed! If that wasn't enough he didn't even tell anyone they escaped. FUCKING USELESS BASTARD!!!" He shouted venting his anger out to lie to himself about the budding anxiousness he felt. Having calmed down enough to think rationally again he turned to the entrance of the room and asked the guard who just showed up. "Where did they go? hmmm... no just tell us everything from the start, don't spare any details even if you don't think they are important"
Another younger council member looked at the old man in confusion "Huh? Why aren't we hurrying to catch them? Aren't we in a rush to bring them back?"
He was responded too by one of the two people who felt the child's birth and the recognized strongest existence in the empire Nachtavius Zaracus "No, now that they already escaped into the ocean we wont be able to catch them within a short period of time" his tone was steady and held no fluctions of a single emotion to the point of being eerie, however the other members of the council have grown used to this.
"I mean I get that they planned an escape and all that and that it'll take a while to catch up but I still don't get why we're acting so cautiously. Even if Samira got a boost in strength she's only so strong and the boost will only last so long" The response he received was silence, he saw the old man and the strongest look around the room studying their reactions with growing disappointment.
With a loud sigh the old man sat down in his chair looking truly tired "This is what I've been trying to beat into all of your heads for so long. Stop just looking at strength as being the only important matter. Take a moment to think about how they somehow planned a well planned and executed escape with little to no signals of their thoughts. Take that with Avantus getting killed with seemingly little effort or at least little time wasted and think about the meaning behind that"
"Who do you think is the biggest problem between the two of them at least when it comes to this escape and us catching them? Because I can tell you it's not Samira, it's Lucious. He is one of the best strategist and rune mages in the empire. He can easily maximize Samira's strengths and hide her weaknesses and on top of that we have no idea what he can really create with his runes. They found an old ruin from the 1st era and it wouldn't be surprising if he found a lot of runic knowledge and never informed anyone" His voice was still steady throughout even while giving his rare acknowledgement towards Lucious
"Yes, as far as I know he has not failed a single time when devising a strategy involving Samira, and now that they have a 'Daughter' I doubt they'll go down easy this time. He either somehow worked a way to avoid us with the three of them or planned with his and Samira's death in mind. If it's the latter it will be much more troublesome to deal with."
A soft tranquil voice added onto their conversation "There's also the fact that our emotions are being volatile at the moment" with that the room all turned to stare at the woman with varying displays of emotions ranging form utter confusion to dawning understanding. She stared at the center of the floor with dead eyes lost in her own thoughts. They knew that was the best they were gonna get out of her and the sole fact that she even responded this much lends some credence to her words. This as well as her being ranked as 2nd in the empire, Calypso the silent dread.
The old man now looking a little chipper explained "Ahhh so that's what I couldn't figure out. I was wondering why we all suddenly started to display our emotions so easily. I even lashed out at a table" with that he started to try and suppress his emotions at least so they didn't spike and change so easily.
Looking up once again he was back to being the old monster who personally saw the end of the 3rd era. Emotionless eyes scanned the room, about half of the room was getting their emotions under control. "Enough of our idle chatter" now looking at the guard who has been quite up until this point "Speak, explain from the beginning all of the information you have"
The guard trembled at the gazes of everyone present especially after seeing all of them in such a bad state moments ago he was scared they would get rid of him the second he finished explaining. He tried to calm himself and took a shaky step forward. As he did he noticed the Council member who spoke earlier that noticed the emotion problem stare into his eyes and say a single word "Suppress". Thus he was, the world felt as if it was stripped of all colors, his emotions pressed down to the very core of his being unable to be connected to. He couldn't even feel fear towards this as that was suppressed as well. Nothing would matter in this state, existence meaningless like a puppet with strings cut.
Seeing the guard no longer shaking like a lamb to the slaughter the old leader spoke one last time with authority in his voice "Speak". Now no longer compelled by the previous volatile emotions the guard began filling in the details to the council. Starting from what they could pick up in the delivery room, the explosives all around the building, Avantus being told of the escape and not reporting it the council, the direction of the escape, and all of the details they could gather from their fight. He added as many details as he could and when he was done went completely silent.
After a minute of silence the old man stood up once again, he calmly and slowly walked to the guard and tapped him on the forehead granting him a peaceful death. without bothering to look at the corpse he stated "He died due to a trap from Lucious and Samira, it's unfortunate but we cannot be allowed to show weakness. Now Nacht and Calypso the two of you will take 5 of the 10 and 10 out of the hundred rankers to go and catch them. Leave in 30 minutes, and during that time everyone can try to look for clues to take a guess at what they are planning. As of now it looks like they are trying to cross the water to the central continent, most likely towards the nearest edge of the continent. Do either of you have any more input into this matter before the meeting is adjourned?"
The response was silence and a light head shake from Nacht. After seeing that no one had any more to add he turned around a left. They all filed out of the room in order of status and importance leaving the final member to deal with the room and body.
As everyone continued to complete whatever they could in the allotted time they could all feel their emotions trying to break through once again. For some it was fear and anxiety but for most of the others it was excitement at the Empire making such a big move after so long, even without targeting any outsiders or going to make a big show of force just the fact that the top two rankers were moving together was big enough. Those who were qualified to know what was happening felt a sense of utter superiority towards the outside as well as pure disdain at the traitors for putting up a futile fight against the empires elites.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): To the other side
Shaking and tremors are all that Lucious and Samira can feel as they travel through the storm. A constant roar of wind, rain, and waves clashing everywhere numb their senses to the extreme. Neither speak not that they would be able to hear much of anything, they can barely hear their own thoughts let alone another person.
Samira holds their baby tight, her legs press against the bench in the center letting her back rest steady onto the side of the boat. The only movements she has is her arms moving constantly against the rocking of the ship so the baby pod rocks to a minimum. Even with this their is still plenty of movement, luckily the shock absorbers are putting in plenty of work letting the inside of the pod experience little to no sensations of movements.
On the other side of the boat Lucious strapped himself down so he can completely focus on steering and keeping the runes working properly. He constantly supplies varying amounts of energy to each individual script of runes so as to maximize his efficiency with his source and not be drained before making it to the other side.
It's a constant mental battle keeping notice of nearly a hundred things non stop with the lives of everyone who matters to him in hands. But just as Samira said he does just that, never faltering once for the short but brutal battle through the storm. Although exhausted and weary they do eventually make it to the other side, now they're done half the problems and just need to finish everything smoothly.
Looking out at the rapidly calming waters Lucious and Samira both let out a sigh of relief before relaxing themselves for a moment. After a minute of silence Samira chuckles "See I told you that you could do it easy peasy"
Lucious just stared at her in bafflement for her definition of 'easy peasy' before giving a weary smile "Yeah 'nice and easy'... but at least we're on the other side now. It shouldn't take much longer until we get to the land then we'll have to rely on you"
Samira was silent for a moment, her expression filled with sadness and a sense of defeat before it slowly morphed into tranquility and eventually a big silly grin, she looked back at Lucious raised her arm... before flexing her bicep and giving it a good slap "hehe those bastards wont know what hit em'. The least I can do for our daughter after giving me a big ole power boost is getting a punch on whoever's chasing us"
Luscious seeing this also visibly relaxed from the tension and anxiety that has been building up a lot more than he realized. He stared at his wife and her big toothy grin and became lost in thinking about how they met. He just ran a book store targeting ancient knowledge and writing some rune scripts on the side. But she.. she was one of the up and coming fighters of the empire. Strong, brave, and full of an infectious energy.
She went to his store because they were going to a ruin and she wanted to find some potential information about it. As she was one of our fighters and explorers I tried to help the best I could, she must have found it troublesome to remember or just pure gut instinct but she instead just took me on the exploration. She didn't even ask if I wanted to go or what I could do just looked at me, gave that same smile then said that I was going to come with her.
As always whatever it was that compelled her to take that rash action was right. It was a strange ruin meant to trap those who weren't qualified to enter and self destruct if someone tries to brute force their way out. I don't know what coincidences led to it but I happened to have just the corrected knowledge to get us through the ruins. I don't even remember what we got from the place but what I could never forget was the two of us walking to my store, her abruptly stopping me once again, giving me that big beautiful smile and told me we were going on a date the next day. She just gave me a pat on the shoulder and walked off like she wasn't the other person going on the date.
However I'm glad she did, I was too nervous and influenced by our social standing to dare to ask her on a date. But oh am I glad she did, I never realized until then how much I was barely truly living. If it wasn't for her I would've never seen she how beautiful and vibrant the world can be. So I don't care who is going to come or what their plans are but I'll never let them take that from my daughter.
As he finished reminiscing about the past and steeling himself for what's to come in the future he gave his own version of her smile that he developed over the years, although much more subtle than Samira's there was belligerence and arrogance in it "hmm... I don't know what they're thinking, if I had to guess they're either rushing straight towards us or tried to look around for any potential evidence for a while before coming. Not that it really matters since we're going for plan B, but the least we can do is give them a good show. Plus we can finally give our baby girl her name"
"I bet she's getting tired of never being called by a real name for her whole life" Samira just chuckled at her own joke and continued "But are you sure about this, those things are from the first era and barely anyone can created them nowadays, hell as far as I know outside of Calypso I've only ever heard about the Demon of Asura maybe being able too"
To her worries, he just happily responded "Don't worry about that I've already checked them a few times over. You can't be the only one who gets to do something cool, I might not be able to fight well at all but I'll be able to brag about writing out and fulfilling a world aftre, how many people in our era can say the same. Plus it's for our daughter and the least I can do is something like this with you carrying the biggest part of the burden"
She just smiled at him because he was genuinely excited about doing this, like a kid who can finally play with their new toy.
They continued to lightly talk enjoying this stretch of peace before things became hectic one again. They laughed and reminisced, they talked about what their daughter would be like in the future, they just enjoyed each others company.
Hours passed by and the first of their stars began to rise, it was a big blue star, like a jewel shining on the world. The distant sky was being lightly hued with a light blue and violet through the dense clouds still hanging in the sky. The coast was now in the distance and they would be their shortly. As they were getting closer Samira took their baby out of the pod she was in and put her back in the wrap so they could move easier.
They moved to the underside of the large cliffed coast and found a cove that Lucious scouted out months ago. When they arrived finally sheltered from the constant rain they started moving quickly. Samira jumped off with their daughter snuggly wrapped to her chest. Luscious tossed her the last bag they would still need. After doing that he drove the boat to the entrance of the cove set a timer to some pre prepared explosives before setting the boat into motion and jumping off into the water and swimming to shore.
As he arrived he quickly grabbed the bag and hooking it to his back, after he took their daughter and attached the wrap to his chest so Samira would be able to fight to the best of her abilities if the need arises. Just after finishing everything he looked into the distance as he heard a light explosion and a barely noticeable flash of light before the pitter patter of the rain was once again all he could hear.
"Ready to go?" he asked Samira. She just responded with a nod keeping a serious expression once more as it was now her turn too take care of them. They quickly scaled the tunnel in the cove that leads to the surface, luckily it was wide and they could just follow the flow of water upwards. After a couple of minutes they surfaced and what appeared before them was rolling hills of large grass for as far as the eye could see. They gathered themselves and found the direction they needed to move.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Run through the plains
They started Sprinting in the stormy dawn, the light that makes it to their feet still mild from the thick storm above and only this being only the first dawn. Both in their pure black combat suits that hug their bodies and full masks that shows no features or contours of the faces hiding behind them. They run along as close to the bottom of the rolling hills as possible just far enough up that they don't have to deal with the flowing water. Samira keeping a consistent awareness of their surrounding and Lucious focused not losing direction and being ready for any ambush targeting himself.
In the relative silence they continued their trek, all that they could hear being that constant rain and their own footstep in the rain. They were a black blur passing through the grass rapidly.
In this time the anxiety that they've managed to push down again and again has begun to rise once again.
Step after Step after Step, this run continued, each holding their thoughts to themselves but both know that they were nervous. Nervous that they would be the cause of the failure and endangerment of their family. Lucious worried that his weakness will cause him to be ambushed and attacked before he could react. Samira worried that she would miss something or make a mistake by not fulfilling her role well.
Step after Step after Step, even with the budding worry of their own failure not once have they considered the other as the one possibly messing up. This is a result of two simple facts, one because of the trust they have in each other to not make a mistake and two because if the other failed they wouldn't be able to doing anything except fall with them shortly after.
Step after Step after Step, The weight of this long night has started to sink into both of them. Even while there bodies and minds are refreshed from their strength or tools their spirits can feel the effects of being on overdrive for so long. Normally they would be fine even after days of having to be completely focused never letting up for a moment but the importance of this specific situation is taking it's toll on them.
After a few hours jog they finally reach a sparse forest, after finding a rock outcropping that Lucious marked out in his head from before they made a stop. They take their masks off and Lucious takes their daughter and bag from before. Samira takes off the gloves and holds their daughter pulling her out of the wrap she was in. She locked eyes with her daughter who irrevocably changed their lives, even if that is true she would hold nothing but love for her daughter. Their child's eyes still looking like a strange constantly moving mist or fog, she noticed that they seemed to changed depending on the situation. If it was relatively calm her eyes would have a slow steady flow to them but in times of anxiety or potential danger they would experience an extremely fast chaotic flow like you were stuck in a storm.
With that thought Samira looked up then wondered if her daughter could potentially be the cause of such a phenomenon, not sure whether to think that obviously the whole sky isn't being influenced by her daughters birth especially not constantly until now. But she could never truly be sure after all her daughter was apparently the most powerful cursed child not that she really knew what powerful cursed children could do. There is those two 'Demon of Asura' and 'Saintess of health' but again I'm still not sure how strong those two are. They should at least be in comparison to the top 10 ranked and if that's the basic strength of them then she couldn't really conceptualize what her daughter could potentially due. All she knew is that it would definitely being something great.
Looking down after pushing away the momentarily unimportant thoughts she continued her previous line of thoughts about the strange state of her daughters eyes. She noticed a few times that in immediate and imminent danger that the moving and swirling mist would come to a sudden and unnerving halt. During one of those moments she looked at her daughters eyes at same moment that she looked up at her. In the moment their eyes locked she felt an instinctual pressure from her gaze. Kind of like an innately higher being looking at you. Like a little natural born queen or empress staring down at you. It felt like the world momentarily turned against her. There wasn't any signs of physical and mental danger or any form of tangible potential threat for that matter, it was just an innate instinctual response.
As she was contemplating the significance behind her daughters eyes, Lucious finished unpacking everything in the duffle bag they brought. He brought out a whole bunch of strange objects but what was most prominent was a carefully sealed piece of writing on what seemed to be a dragon scale or at least something close to it. There was a strange lightly glowing writing on it, but the marks kept flowing and changing shapes but you could somehow understand what they meant, at least the intent behind them.
This was the thing that Lucious previously talked to Samira about getting to do. A contract but specifically a world contract that let's the will of the world act as an enforcer and guarantor to the contract. It's something extremely rare and sought after by the few who even know that such things exist. After all as long as your put up something of equal value or considered fair then you can do something far beyond your ability or means. Just like Lucious is planning now.
Even among contracts this one is special as there is a secondary small piece of metal that was with the scale when found. This piece of metal also contained a contract but this one just allowed him to finish writing the first, putting up his sacrifice or restriction and what he wants in return. All of this despite not being even close to know how world contracts function or are created.
Lucious put the other supplies to the side and came to sit down besides the large rock that acted as a land marker for himself. He placed himself near a little smaller platform that stuck out so Samira could place their daughter down and he could finally give her, her name. A name she will remember no matter what happens in the future and a name recognized by the world itself.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Weight of words
Holding the scale in one hand, arm stretched out in front of himself and the other holding the metal cylinder in between. He began to chant in a guttural throaty ancient language, the surrounding ambient sources began to stir and move lightly, swaying with each syllable spoken, dancing in tune to the rhythm of his chant. It was taking a toll, as his eyes began to bleed and his body shaking in strain but he persisted. Never slowing down or breaking the flow of the chant. After what felt like an excruciating eternity he began to speak in his native language(haven't decided name yet) each word being infused with the entirety of his will.
"Hear my voice, Feel my will, Acknowledge my desire. I Lucious Nepherhai write this contract to be recognized by the world. I desire 'My daughter to remember her name and the meaning it carries' I put up to make this contract fair 'My life span'"
After he finished speaking the scale glowed and the top third of it began to change and rewrite until it matched the description of the contract he desired. The scale was now faintly glowing with ethereal light in it's top third.
Lucious took a few deep breaths to collect himself after straining his body. After he gave a nod to Samira, she responded by putting down their daughter onto the flat stone. They both stood up and came into her view. Even though they would love to do nothing more than look at her forever, time was against them and they need to move quickly. Holding the contract Lucious said "Activate" and the glowing contract started to glow brighter and brighter before melting and seeping into both Lucious and their daughters bodies.
Lucious turned to Samira "We probably on have a half a minute or less, so we should prioritize her hearing the most important stuff" She nodded in agreement and got ready to speak, looking down she collected herself with a deep breath. Leaned in a gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead before beginning
"My precious daughter you probably won't remember us or anything to do with us but always remember your name and who you are... You are Ashai never forget, your name means to live free, free from any shackles, physically, emotionally, or mentally. Never forget your name, let it ring loud in your heart when you are at your lowest. Let the name Ashai ring!"
Lucious leaned in next, following Samira's lead. He gave Ashai a kiss on her forehead, took a deep breathe, smiled then spoke "Ashai I will not ask you for anything related to us, whether you remember us, loves us, hate us or any other emotion I accept it with everything. All I ask is that you do your best to be truly happy. Free from this cycle of hate and destruction. To live free of the desires of others, to live you own life, ... to truly live"
Lucious felt the contract begin to sap at his life so he finished speaking. Completing the contract Lucious quickly turned to the side to cough up a little blood outside of the view of little Ashai. He still needed to do the second contract which was much more important in his opinion.
For the whole duration of the contracts completion, Ashai stared wide eyed at her parent, never moving her gaze away from start to finish for each of them. Her eyes had the fog in them twist around the center were her pupils would have been, like they were trying to draw in as much information as they possibly could.
Samira picked little Ashai back up holding her in her arms, checking if she needed anything. She checked if she needed to be changed, that she did. Samira was surprised that she never once made a sound and when she was all cleaned up there wasn't any signs of irritation or rashes. After getting her all cleaned up she tried to feed her as she didn't know how much she was drinking in her pod on the boat. This proved to be the right choice as she latched onto the bottle the moment she could and gobbled it up.
"Hahaha she's got her apatite from me"
Lucious looked up from getting ready for the second contract and when he saw Ashai drinking her supplemental milk. He gave a soft smile to the scene.
Checking over his condition and the two contracts to see if everything was ready, he waited in silence for Ashai to finish up. After a few minutes she was all done, the day was a long one and it was taking it's toll on her, even with her life source giving her a boost she was still a newborn and the fact that she was able to stay awake until now was bordering on worrisome.
She closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately. Samira gently walked a little bit away so Ashai wouldn't be disturbed by Lucious's chant.
Lucious followed the same steps from before. The strain on his body was hitting him harder than before but he still managed to push through until he could speak the terms he desired in this contract.
"Hear my voice, Feel my will, Acknowledge my desire. I Lucious Nepherhai write this contract to be recognized by the world. I desire 'My daughter Ashai will have the sources of life and death that flow through her body and soul to be sealed, and sealed into multiple layers. I wish for her powers to not run rampant in her body and soul, allowing her to be the one to open the seals whenever she's ready.' as a restriction 'She will have to knowledge and ability to easily open the seals whenever she so chooses. It will be difficult to re-seal herself and the difficulty will grow exponentially with each further layer of seal' To fuel this contract I put up 'My life span and/or my soul until the point of near death'"
After waiting a few second hoping he wouldn't have to re-write any of the terms of this contract, the scale glowed brightly. Much brighter than before, and with that Lucious could feel something immaterial grasp him. The moment the contract was activated he would have his price snatched away and he could tell the price was heavy.
He could hear Ashai crying as Samira walked back quickly. Ashai must have felt the contracts influence about to affect her. She probably was more fueled by her preservation instincts to not let herself get sealed so she wailed, tossing and turning to the best of what her little body could do. It pained the both of them to watch this so they proceeded as fast as they could to get this done.
This time Samira didn't place her down and instead held her as tightly as she could while still being gentle.
"Activate"
Once more the glowing contract began to melt but this time it created a sort of bridge or connection between the two. That's when it started, Lucious immediately fell to the ground squirming in pain, his body withering at a rapid pace but his soul was following along right behind. His thoughts grew slower but the pain, the pain was still there in full force. He wanted to scream but he couldn't, just a string of blood and spit constantly falling from his mouth. He misjudged how much of his body and soul could go while still being alive. His eyes started to dry out and become useless, then his limbs starting from his fingers and toes. Eventually organs began to stop functioning one by one until only his lungs, heart, and brain could still function at a bare minimum level.
He was not the only one experiencing the effects as baby Ashai was also suffering although it wasn't pain she was suffering from. A piece of her was being seal, a portion of something ingrained into every speck of her soul, into every cell in her body, that used to flow freely and with vigor was now being sealed and suppressed layer by layer until only the faintest trickle her sources could move around. She squirmed and fought with all her little might to rid herself of this unbearable uncomfortableness. Yet nothing she tried could get rid of it, eventually the contract was complete, her sources sealed. Overwhelmed by what she just experienced she went into deep sleep. Letting her body and mind auto adjust to her new situation.
Samira was stuck helpless as she watched as the two most important people in her life suffer, her daughter squirmed and moved around as hard as she could and it broke her heart have to hold her still so she didn't hurt herself, She was in tears watching her baby suffering, she felt useless as a mother, she could do nothing but watch and hold her baby still, the fact that they even had to do this was throwing her emotions in a mess, that they had to seal her baby's innate gifts just to help hide her from future pursuit, killed her inside. Then she saw in front of her as her husband sacrificed his body and soul to fuel these seals. He fell to the ground but she was unable to help outside of slowing his fall with some wind. Before her very eyes, her husband began to age rapidly, going from looking like a young man in his early to mid twenties to a shriveled old man that had a foot in the grave. She saw his eyes began to dry up then turn to dust, his limbs started to deflate as their inside must've been turning to mush or something close at least. She could feel his body falling apart, but just the same, his soul was going along right with it. She stood there, not once in her life has she felt so weak, the only thing she could do was grit her teeth as she cried, not willing let either of them hear her cry for the sacrifices and suffering they were going through. That's not what either of them needed.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Broken Promises
When every thing was done Ashai stopped moving and fell asleep instantly, she could tell it was deep, and that she most likely wouldn't even wake up by the time she said her goodbyes to her. Lucious also stopped falling apart, luckily he planned for the possibility of something like this happening so Samira grabbed a specific tool that looked like a plain black cylinder container. Holding Ashai in one arm and the cylinder in the other she pressed the top button and placed it on Lucious body that layed face down in the dirt.
The cylinder hissed briefly before it started to crumble, each piece that fell off breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Then as it was falling apart it started to move into Lucious body. Each piece no bigger than the width of a strand of hair. A astronomical amount of miniature machines. They drilled into Lucious's falling apart body finding where they are meant to go. Some with the goal of keeping his body functioning, others there to help heal what they can or at least temporarily replace the parts that are too far gone. As everything was falling apart they invaded most of his body.
Lucious gather just enough strength to not look like he'd die at the smallest touch. Samira seeing this helped him turn over, then gently brought him to lean against the rocks wall. "ahhzzhh... fuck that was so much worse than I thought it would be. ahhh but it's alright I could at least do my part." With a slight mechanical and robotic voice Lucious spoke. After suffering so much soul damage his mind was working slower but it was still functioning enough to hold a slow conversation.
"Pfft whattt? nah that doesn't look that bad, you'll be fine to fight a dragon in a few" Samira replied in a light tone although she still couldn't hide the quiver in her voice.
"Yeah you're right I'm really just being a complainer hahaha. Still I don't think I can join for the next part, I'll stay here to start destroying all the trails and tracks." there was a slight pause in the conversation, the melancholic and somber atmosphere spiking immediately "Can you bring her a little closer, although I can only see her through the machine constructs it's still better than nothing"
Doing as he ask, Samira brought Ashai to her father. Lucious's empty eye sockets hummed slightly as a soft light extended out of them. He controlled some of the machines to go to his face so he can look at his daughter and wife with a human expression one last time. "I love you Ashai, I'm not sure what you're future will bring you. I have done my best and your fathers a little tired now so I'll have to stay here to catch up later. I'm sorry that I couldn't do any better for you but I really do hope you don't blame me and your mother to much. Thank you for coming into our lives and I hope you don't blame yourself if you find out about us. I love you"
After that, with a strenuous effort his lift his head a little bit to look at Samira "Ahhh I feel a little silly telling her all those more complex things, but I still hope the message got across still" he paused for a moment "Samira I-" But he was cut off "Shhh don't worry, we'll say our goodbyes later so make sure you're okay when I get back, alright?"
He just kept looking at her for a few moments "a-alright", with that he stopped straining his neck and let it rest looking down once more.
They both knew it was a lie, a promise he wouldn't keep, but Samira didn't want the lie to end and Lucious couldn't bring himself to end it for her.
Samira moved and knelt down beside him, held his hands for a few seconds not even sure if he could feel it, then helped him reach out and hold Ashai one last time. "I'll get her there safe so don't you don't have to worry about that, just lay down a relax for a while. Maybe take a nap or something... okay?... just wait for me, I promise I won't take to long so just wait a little bit!" As she finished speaking she helped his hand back down into a comfortable position. She got up took one last quick look, then she turned around and followed the prepared map to the person they were going to entrust Ashai too.
Protecting Ashai with a barrier of wind she was able to sprint through the sparse trees extremely quickly, as long as she made no rapid changes in movement or speed Ashai wouldn't be bothered by any external factors. So she pushed herself, she pushed herself with everything she could. Hoping to beat the inevitable, she didn't know what specifically what he wanted to do but she knew she was going to hate it, hate it to the depths of her soul.
Luscious sat quietly for a few moments before "Phase 1:Clearance - Activate" he infused his will into the robotic voice, then most of the remaining items in the duffle bag started to move. Machines ranging from the sizes of fists to a small animal all started to hum to life. The runic script carved into each making them able to complete pre set tasks. They started to destroy the environment rapidly, nothing too big just the surface level and enough to erase any traces left by Samira. Due to this they could work rapidly, scorching everything with a controlled fire, sporadic explosions to loosen up dirt and topple trees. They continued to expand outwards for 15 minutes. After that "Phase 2: False Trails - Activate".
The machines which were destroying the environment, now a few miles away, all stopped at the same time. Switching their directives and started spreading out in every direction. They left false trails in varying levels of obviousness, some of them making the equivalent of large stomps in the dirt and others so subtle that even the most experienced trackers will have trouble finding it. They'll continue their endless march outwards until destroyed or running out of energy.
"Final Gift: Come" with that the last machine came to life and moved over slowly, it wrapped around his chest and back. A piece that looked like a button coming under his left hand with even his now thin and shriveled hand being enough to press the button down. "Final Gift: Activation condition 2" The machine hummed momentarily before becoming quiet.
Although he wanted to laugh he kept it to himself, the feeling of the machines in his body, mimicking his bodies normal functions are at best uncomfortable, while being extremely painful most of the time, with vocal cords being the latter. Internally sighing, he kept going, finishing up doing what little he could do. Using his will he made some of the little machines in his body leave and drag the scale and tubed contracts, both still had one use left and he intended to do just that.
After they were brought over they were just placed lightly on his lap. Determining himself to what was about to be a very unpleasant experience, even still he needed to do it so he will do it. He can rest after so he had his machines finally speak. He chanted the ancient language one last time, this time much much worse than the previous two. The pain was truly unrelenting, but although his mind was a mess he never broke the chant. Finally finished, the contracts primed to be written. Thus he spoke
"Hear my voice, Feel my will, Acknowledge my desire. I Lucious Nepherhai write this contract to be recognized by the world. I desire 'My daughters traces to be erased, unable to be tracked, her presence diminished' I put up to make this contract fair 'My soul, take it from the cycle, break it down for everything it is worth, use it however the world desires. The time of effect for this contract will be for what my soul is worth'"
Once more the contracts glowed, the cylinder losing it's luster now nothing more than a fancy piece of metal. The scale lighting up softly.
Good he thought. Now he just needed to do two last things, but before that he spoke out aloud once again "I'm sorry Samira, I really wish I could've kept my promise but I'm going to have to break it this time. I've never once lied or broke a promise to you since the first day we met, so just this once I'm going to be selfish. I hope you can forgive me, forgive me for not being able to go on our next adventure. Still I hope you can find happiness in your next life without me, find someone better in your next life, someone not so selfish" pausing he pushed through the pain looking up to see the sky, still grey with clouds but now with scatter strands of blue and orange morning light breaking through. They look so beautiful, they really do, but still, they just can't compare to that smile that's been stuck in my head for so many years.
"fuck... I really am going to miss your big silly smile"
Although he wanted to cry he was unable to, his failing body not granting him his final tears. So he pushed through "Life Retainment System: Mimicry state 3 - activation time 15 minutes", he knew this state was a possibility so he had put a few rune scripts to allow the machines keeping him alive the ability to pretend to be him, using his body like a falling apart puppet.
Now he finally had a few minutes to relax and do the only thing he really could, go over his memories, looking at the most important things in his life over and over. So he stopped having his false eyes send information, not letting anything distract him from seeing those moments again. His final peace.
Chapter ##(Ashai's first day): Memories
With that he had at least 15 minutes before he had to activate the contract. So he did the only thing he could and looked back on his memories. From his childhood, growing up a quiet kid who liked history, his embarrassing memories that are now just something he laughs about but once felt so important. Through the years although changing in how he is socially, he never lost his love for history. Eventually making a little bookstore, he would sell his rune work for money or books as long as they the world and it's history. Until one day she came, she sauntered into the
