WHO Serefin Meleski & Ostyia Rabalska WHERE An abandoned building close to Morningside in Dark Vallo WHEN January 20 (backdated to snowglobe plot) WHAT Two blood mages go scavaging and get more than they bargained for (aka too many skeletons) STATUS Complete! WARNINGS Blood and self-inflicted injuries for blood magic use.
“I think I want to learn how to drive a car,” Ostyia said, casual and carefree as they walked along. “It seems like a much more convenient way of going from place to place.” Her easy tone belied the way Ostyia scanned the surroundings. Fog enveloped everything, and Ostyia only had one eye, but she was General Rabalska (and many other titles after that, so on, and so forth) a feared member of the inner circle of the Crown Prince of Tranavia for a reason: because she let nothing past her. Anything that went past her made its way to Serefin, and yes he was the best blood mage Tranavia had ever seen, but he couldn’t watch everywhere at once. Serefin’s safety, and the future of Tranavia rested on Ostyia being cautious.
And because he was her best friend. Small coincidence, that.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, this entire setup wasn’t all that much different from their time going around the country hunting Kalyazi before they themselves could be hunted. Wandering around a bleak landscape, potential trouble lurking behind every tree, rock, and shrub, all they needed was Kacper slipping off without notice and coming back an hour later with the immediate area mapped out. Except for the added element of having to scavenge for supplies. Ostyia wasn’t idealistic, and she trusted no one, she saw the writing on the wall. Adding people to an already strapped area meant for tensions, and they were going to need something to barter with or of use.
A previously abandoned town, the Tranavian wilderness, the Tranavian courts, surviving was surviving, and Ostyia knew how to do it.
Vallo itself was massive, full of residences and industries, and there was no way the limited amount of people here could have surveyed everything, even being wherever they currently were for two months or so. So Osytia had intentionally started their scavenging party further out, away from Morningside, rationalizing that people would begin looking for supplies in their immediacy and then venture further out as time went on.
“The motorcycles look pretty good too,” she commented, fiddling with a doorknob for a second before smashing her elbow into the glass pane above and unlocking the door. “But very loud.”
"Both sound like a lot of work, Ostyia. You learn, and I will simply partake in your efforts. You can drive me around," Serefin said as he followed behind her, eyeing prospective paths. He had done his own scavenging, it was not uncommon, but this version was particularly unnerving. It was similar to how he would feel about looting the castle in Grayzk—the building was familiar, but the abandoned nature, the emptiness of the usually bustling shops sent a cool shiver down his spine.
He knew that sitting back and simply trashing his body with alcohol until someone saved them was not a solid plan. Serefin needed the alcohol to take the edge off, but it never truly went away. He was visibly worried for the people back home. Serefin was beginning to realize how inconvenient feelings were and how Diego attempted to dodge them at all costs. He couldn't stop replaying every various scenario Jacob woke up to—everyone on the train gone
Searching forgotten places in this Vallo seemed to keep his mind busy. And the crash of the glass dragged him away from his dangerous thoughts. He was thankful that the box inside his head, keeping Velyos contained had stayed quiet.
"Speaking of too loud," Serefin said, tipping his chin toward the window she just broke. He took initiative then, sidestepping her into the room as she pushed open the door. "I should have replenished my codex with unlocking spells." He paused in the room—large, cavernous, but filled with several crates in various states disarray. "Someone might have already been here."
Ostiya clicked her tongue and rolled her eye. Clearly already she had weighed the benefits of all actions and chosen the one most successful, and Serefin knew that. Ostyia was a master of appearing to be a rakess who was only paying half-attention at best, no matter the situation, when in actuality, she sized up every room and every person in it immediately, she memorized complicated Tranavian royal lineages, she studied up on bordering countries and their cultures. Because Ostyia couldn’t control what people thought about her, but she could control her own actions, and when given a quarter of a chance, Ostyia would be the best.
Serefin, however, she could give a lot of shit to, with the familiarity that came from years of working side-by-side with someone. Hence why she blessed him with a jab to his stomach from her elbow when she stepped in front of him just to do it. “There are lots of spells I would have liked to have in my codex,” she grumbled. “We need to work on a displacement spell, I don’t appreciate being moved without my consent. I don’t appreciate you being moved without my consent.”
It caused something in her to twist and turn painfully for the High Prince of Tranavia, her best friend, who had never had it easy or safe.
“Someone or something. Hard to tell.” Ostyia bent over a pile off to the left, shaking the crates first to scare off bugs or rodents. “The longest someone has been here is only a little more than two months, did you see? Perhaps this is some sort of future.” She scooped up a few nails, sorting through and discarding ones that looked rusted. Ostyia needed sharp things, and fast.
"It would not be the first time I have been moved without my consent," Serefin added, rueful. The god locked away in his head had forced Serefin to walk off not once, not twice, but no less than three times—and those were only the times he knew of. Serefin was keenly aware Ostyia held more secrets of the future that he had not asked, out of fear or blissful ignorance, Serefin wasn't sure.
He followed her over to the pile of debris and crates she was sorting through. They should have split up, but for as much as Ostyia liked to keep her attention and protectiveness over him, the need went both ways. In their version of Vallo, little danger stood in their way deep in the heart of the city. The same version of that city now was a burnt-out husk with something unfathomable lurking around the corners. He would have preferred walking into a Kalyazi town without his codex than staying too long scavenging up here.
"I don't suppose you're going to use nails in your sleeve for magic, Ostyia," Serefin said, moving another crate—too light to have anything of value. Clothing, maybe, or discarded tarps. "We cut, not stab. If you prefer a dagger, Dame Frye has not come to claim hers—" He slide the elegant blade from his sleeve. His own self-inflicted wounds from the train were already healing, but would ultimately scar.
A small price to pay to to live.
There was a crash, louder, closer than Serefin was expecting from the other side of the room. "Those are no rodents."
“Desperate times and desperate measures, Serefin,” Ostyia returned, sing-song. And this was a fairly desperate time. Ostyia had a codex, but it was no good without her blood. Not that she only relied on her magic, of course. There were times Ostyia weighed the sharp, jagged edges of her magic against the situation and found the risk and consequences too much to handle. Sometimes she could, sometimes it was smooth and elegant and seamless and sometimes? Sometimes she worried it would run her straight through. So she learned how to be faster and tougher and ruthless without magic too.
But she was Tranavian first and foremost, and Tranavians loved their magic.
Her head shot up at the sound, single eye narrowed into a glint of icy blue. “If they are rodents they’re large ones and it very much sounds like something I don’t want anything to do with.” The whole thing made Ostyia doubletime her searching, the fruits of it bearing a rusted and bent crowbar off in a dusty corner and something with a silver handle--she flicked up once, twice, and on the third time, revealed the blade of a box cutter. “Keep the dagger,” she told Serefin, unclipping her codex and flipping to a page. “Just don’t decide to throw it and miss, you know too many people who would tease you about that.” Herself included.
Another crash, and then a third, Ostyia was building a map in her head, and by the fourth crash she cut her arm and bled onto the page of her book. Her hands were a blur and when a half-dead creature, bones contorting out of paper thin skin, guttural breath coming out of decaying lungs threw itself at her, she met it with a violent blast of wind that set it flying against the wall.
"I promise I am not idiotic enough to throw a dagger. The embarrassment alone would kill me for the third time," Serefin whispered harshly, as he ducked behind a crate. Defensive measures first, offensive second. It was what he told Diego. If a person—or in this case, monster—couldn't get to a blood mage, then winning was a certainty. But given his last failure with a barrier, that seemed ill-advised to try again. Not until he had tested it.
Naturally, his general took the first attack, as she often did to spare him in battle. Most of his prowess, and heavily exaggerated rumors, came from following in Ostyia's pursuit. Ruthless, they were both ruthless. The last two days had reminded him that he was capable of such things, that it was bred and harnessed inside of him from a young age. Serefin didn't remember sliding the blade along his arm to bleed again, it was an instinct that moved his hands to work.
More of the decomposing skeletons crawled out of the air duct and somewhere from the ground. The one that had made the sound was recovering quickly. Fire in this enclosed space would be a bad idea.
"Back up, Ostyia," Serefin said sharply in Tranavian as he bled upon the page. As his fingers curled, each digit locking into a fist there was a pop-pop-pop, bones snapping under the immense pressure, three of the half-dozen began to crumple in on themselves, Serefin crushing them from the inside out.
He caught her eye, jerking his attention to the door and back. They needed to retreat if only to lure them to a spot where they had the upper hand.
Ostyia glanced around, mouth twisted in distaste from not thinking to check the vent--they didn’t exist in Tranavia, but that didn’t excuse anything, on the battlefield Ostiya watched, Ostyia paid attention. She flung a wind gust at a tower of crates, scattering them every which way to make for a harder time for the undead. Delightful. Just delightful, thank you wasteland Vallo.
Grabbing Serefin’s sleeve to follow her, Ostyia darted across the room, leaping over the contents of a scattered box. “Quick, tell me, which battle does this remind you of?” She asked, while ramming her shoulder into a door. “We were in a bet with Kacper, he thought he could poison the battalion before you and I could make it through the swamp.” They always worked better together, the farm boy turned spymaster, the noble daughter who chose war instead of court to be with her best friend, and the King with moths and stars surrounding him, and a god they didn’t believe in in his head.
She broke through and shoved them both along a wall. “And we took a shortcut? Kalyazi troops on either side and we…”
"And we set fire to the underbrush because you wanted a challenge. No wonder everyone thought we consistently razed cities, we did nothing but burn things. We could never be so creative, but I might have also been spectacularly drunk," Serefin said, breathlessly as he was shoved against the wall. It was only after they were back in the mostly clear hallway did he hear the rumbling within the walls. What happened to the buildings that were made of solid stone? Where beasts couldn't hide within them?
Serefin placed a bloodied hand against the wall, fingers curling against the plaster and peeling drywall. Another pop, and noise stopped. Briefly. There would be more, so Serefin kept going.
"The fire forced them out of their hiding spots and into the swamp. We didn't even need to use magic, the bog swallowed them up." There was no eagerness in his recounting of the tale—Serefin hadn't even blinked at the screams of his enemies drowning in the thick, murky water then. Kacper had only managed to poison half the battalion before Ostyia and Serefin arrived to finish off the rest.
"You were angry that Kacper—" A slew of half-decomposing skeletons burst through the drop ceiling. If Serefin didn't think it would kill them immediately, he would have ignited the air ducts in the entire building. "Keep moving," Serefin ordered, as the hallway started to become claustrophobic. A skeleton reached for him, and Serefin instinctively punched it in the face. Diego would have been proud.
Ostyia shrugged. “They were scared of us for a reason.” Serefin was the High Prince of Tranavia, the best blood mage the country had and flanking him on either side was his general and his lieutenant, each with their own strengths. They were hated everywhere they went. She used the crowbar to sweep out the legs of a skeleton and then knock its head clean off as if playing golf--if Ostyia knew the reference, golf didn’t exist in Tranavia what with the swamps and the cold and the endless war.
“I was angry that Kacper wanted to poison the battalion in the first place,” she answered. “It seemed like a waste of energy when we could have either avoided them or wiped them out quickly together. I don’t like splitting up.” She jammed the crowbar through the chest of another fiend and, swearing under her breath, lifted it up and over her shoulders to drop it on the ground. Her muscles screamed with the work, but Ostyia didn’t mind. It got out a fraction of the tension she had been feeling from being kidnapped, from Serefin in danger. Now she could take her aggression out on enemies she didn’t have to think about and could just destroy.
Petite as she was, it was easy for Ostyia to forge a path through--and when she finally got so fed up, she slammed her hands together and sent a shockwave reverberating down the hall. But, problem, already she was whipping Serefin behind her, the hallway ended as a T, a deadend on either side. She swore again. “Okay, not that way, unless you want to knock the entire thing down.”
"I do not trust the structural integrity of most of this building, especially with us inside," Serefin said, following quickly behind Ostyia. It seemed odd they would resort to physical violence, but as the hallway narrowed, using any sort of spell that yielded high destruction would come at their own cost. Serefin was bleeding down his arm for nothing, wasting magic.
Serefin's attention was frantic—the deadend, the broken walls, the drop ceiling, the air vent, the increasing number of skeletons that were swarming like ants out of a broken hill. They would die here if they didn't get to a lower level. Serefin had no intention of losing his life to something already dead.
"I need you to get down, Ostyia," Serefin said, in a low voice. She would know, he had done this once before, on the battlefield deep in enemy territory. A Vulture trick he learned from years under their tutelage. But the spell, now slipping out of his book and between his fingers, did not discern between friend or foe, and had taken out Tranavian soldiers as well as the entirety of Kalyazi forces.
Serefin just had to focus, and Ostyia needed to be grounded.
White light crackled across his knuckles as the parchment went up in smoke between his fingers. But before Serefin could let off the spell, a crash—the drywall came down, a skeleton surprised them, sinking its teeth into Serefin's shoulder and ripping away just as forcefully. Serefin's electric hand instinctively reached for its face, to stop it from coming back and to set off the spell. The spark ripped between one skeleton than the other, bouncing down the line in rapid succession taking them out with chain lightning.
Ostyia wasn’t one to shy away from anything, she faced everything head on, full throttle, all system’s go.
But when Serefin said get down, she sank like a boulder and shut her eye against the brightness. Not because she didn’t want to watch (because naturally she was curious about what the effect of lightning would be on the undead, wouldn’t everyone?) but because she needed to respond immediately after the spell was done and being temporarily blinded would render her useless.
“Ser--” she started, the rest of his name drowned out by the sizzle and pops of lightning. But as soon as it was over she was standing, ripping a part of her shirt off and winding it around the fucking bite gushing blood from his shoulder. Ostyia drew in a sharp breath.
She swore. She cursed everything, she cursed wherever they were, she cursed the skeletons, she cursed their ancestors and descendents seven generations each way. She held up Serefin’s arm above his head. Healing magic in Tranavia was rare, out of her abilities entirely, and as such, Ostyia had paid especially sharp attention to medic tutelage.
“Keep this up, do not drop it, if you start to feel dizzy you will tell me,” she said, in a rush. “Stay awake, don’t pass out now.” Mentally, she flipped through her book: fire, navigation, shield, light, tracking. Useful, not enough. She slung Serefin’s uninjured arm over her shoulder, if she had to drag him out she would do it. “Walk, do not make me carry you because I will not let you live it down.”
Adrenaline had numbed the pain, the thrill of magic at his fingertips distracted from the warm heat of blood pouring from his shoulder. He barely recognized Ostyia shoving a bandage to the injury, but he noticed now, wobbly on his feet, that she was incredibly close. It must be bad, but Serefin couldn't seem to feel it at all. He couldn't tell if that was a good or a bad sign.
"You look worried, general," Serefin said, a slow grin spreading across his face as she slung his arm over her shoulder. He could walk, he was certain of it. But it felt rude to dismiss her fussing. It wasn't often he allowed it. And without the current threat of skeletons, whose bodies were strewn across the hallway in various states of burnt-out husks, Serefin slumped ever so slightly against her.
"If I'm still bleeding, we're still winning. Do not discount me so quickly. And whatever you do, do not carry me, for that exact reason." He nearly laughed, knowing that even getting a whiff of being carried out of battle would result in endless teasing from everyone. "Perhaps you—"
Serefin was promptly interrupted. Metal groaned above them, as if the weight of something bigger was pressing into the ceiling. Serefin's attention flicked upward. "We should find the stairs, and get lower. I do not think this is the last of them."
“Shut up and save your energy,” Ostyia snapped. She was more angry with herself than Serefin, of course, Ostyia held herself to impossibly high standards. And she was painfully aware of each time she’d fallen short of those standards. “If you are unconscious you cannot cast. And then I have to cast and carry you, which I can do and will do, obviously.” It was what made the Tranavians so dangerous, as long as they could bleed, they could use magic. There was no asking of the gods, like the Kalyazi believed. There was only belief in themselves.
She believed in herself and she believed in Serefin, so if Ostyia had to drag him out by her teeth so that her arms were free to bleed, that’s what she’d do. Fortunately for now he was upright-ish so there was only minimal dragging involved. “After this, you should promote me again. Admiral? Major General? I’ll come up with something appropriate.” But now, here, outside of the country they loved so much, titles like Prince or General didn’t matter at all. Instead, they were simply Serefin and Ostyia, surrounded by monsters and with each other to rely on. As it had always been.