Fowlhunter [GL]

The woman hurtled down the crowded streets, ignoring the annoyed cries of passing pedestrians. She had pulled her hood over her head of tarnished-gold hair, and the only feature distinguishing her from the crowd was the tail of her crimson scarf, whipping after her figure. She barely hid the sparkling trail of Lunaki in her wake; most, not looking too closely, probably chalked it up to the heated glimmer of the fierce afternoon sun.

After her, a tall angel with long, flowing rose hair pushed through the crowd after her.

“Jemi, wait,” Ennanis called after her. “Slow down for a second, will you? Hear me out?”

“Shut up!” a cracking voice yelled back. “Don’t talk to me! Don’t follow me anymore!”

Around them, the passers-by wondered what was going on.

“Are they having a lovers’ quarrel?”

“What kind of guy makes a maiden chase after him? Young couples these days really are strange…”

“Actually, Grandpa, I think the hooded one’s a maiden too.”

The old fruitvendor paused reading his newspaper over his cart of durians, blinking slowly at his grandson. The boy shrugged, weighing another box on the scales. “Hmm… that’s even stranger. Oh. Here they come—?!”

“Move it!” Jemi shrieked as she vaulted over the cart. Creaking, the wooden wagon tipped and crashed to the ground, sending durians rolling in every direction. The woman landed on the other side and knelt swiftly, grabbing in one hand one of the large, thorny fruit, and hurled it backward.

People screamed, but the woman’s aim was true, and the durian sailed like a green cannonball straight over their heads. Hands shooting out, Ennanis caught the thing like a basketball before it could pulverise her skull. Ennanis looked around, before gently setting it down on a nearby windowsill. She continued running as a little boy’s head peeked out from the window, his eyes growing wide with excitement.

The fruitvendor spluttered. His grandson’s mouth was agape. “That’s a maiden, alright, but what kind of maiden acts like that?!” the vendor fumed.

Ennanis was next to run past him. Pulling out her purse, she emptied it onto the scales: a small heap of corroded pennies and silvers that smelt suspiciously like canal water.

“Oy, angel!” the vendor waved his newspaper roll. “Fix things with your maiden! It’s dangerous!”

Ennanis saluted, sunlight glinting off her armbraces, and sprinted on. She was mainly running on foot because her wings were still fragile and healing. At least, people cleared the way for an angel, so she was able to make decent gain on the incredibly quick Jemi.

All the while, she tried to holler some sense back into her.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Ennanis yelled.

“Oh yeah? Then whose was it?” bellowed Jemi. She took a turn into an alley, stumbling into a dead end. Drawing back, she made a great leap onto the wall. It wasn’t quite enough to clear the height, but she summoned silver claws from her fingers and embedded them into the mortar as she landed. She yanked her body up one side at a time at record speed.

Enduring the pain, Ennanis spread her wings, and flew to the top just as Jemi placed both feet on top of the wall. The angel flew in front of her, hovering.

“The plan would’ve worked if the Beasts hadn’t started attacking, right?” Ennanis said. “I saw it. The Lunaki and the rain was putting out the lava. It only stopped doing that when their attention was diverted. That wasn’t in your control.”

Jemi clenched her fists. “There would’ve been no need for the plan if we hadn’t decided to blow up the volcano.”

“If we hadn’t done it, the volcano would’ve erupted eventually,” Ennanis reminded her. “You witnessed for yourself the power of that eruption. It would have killed everyone working in those mines instantly, had we not evacuated them. The devastation… I’d wager thousands of Kancha civilians, if not more, would’ve been implicated.”

“But the Beasts wouldn’t have been involved at all if you hadn’t asked me to help,” Jemi growled.

“It was your own decision to make, Cockatrice,” Ennanis returned evenly.

Snarling, Jemi lunged off the wall at her. Mid-air, she slammed the hilt of her second dagger into the angel’s shoulder. Ennanis smashed back-first into the ground below; Jemi fell to a squat on top of Ennanis, hopped off her stomach like it was a springboard, and continued to flee.

Meanwhile, laying on the ground, Ennanis blinked the spots out of her eyes and regained her winded breath. She rubbed her clobbered stomach, and winced—she could feel where her spine had cracked in two from ground impact, shooting bolts of pain up and down her limbs. It only intensified her still-mending injuries from their fight with the Wardens. Not a permanent issue for an angel, but ow.

Hand glowing, Ennanis carefully summoned a Soleki splint to plug up the fracture. While she did so, she clambered to her feet and hobbled after Jemi to keep her within her sights.

Just then, she heard a raspy voice from behind her:

“Tell me something. Why are you still trying?”

Ennanis glanced to the side. In the corner of her eye, she glimpsed an elegantly-dressed woman drifting past her, cascade of winter hair and blood feather, her armoured gown touched by neither shadow nor sunlight. This version of the Cockatrice lacked any sort of dimensionality, really. The Beast folded gloved arms behind herself, peering at Ennanis through her disjointed facial features. This time, half of her birdmask had melted away, like black petroleum dripping down a pale, freckled face. A stark red gash leaked from her throat, staining the front of her breastplate.

Ennanis limped on, focusing on weaving her vertebrae together.

“What is it that makes you so stubborn?” susurrated the spectre. “You’ve tried time and time again to reach out to her, and time and time again she’s pushed you away. It’s been nine years, Ennanis. She’s incorrigible. Why won’t you let it go?”

Ennanis ignored it. She finished the last of the splint and straightened herself. Jemi had headed into the forest, presumably for the cover of the woods. Not a terrain that deterred Ennanis Zoleil; she tromped in, boots crack-crunch-cracklingthrough thick foliage. At her murmured breath, Lienna glowed alight, illuminating the canopy-shadowed path, and allowing Ennanis to use Soleki to blast through sheafs of vines. Jemi was no less fast, with Lunaki to guide her. The Beast pried apart bushes, which parted like shimmering silver curtains at her touch, and zipped across the forest floor like a fish through water.

The ghost of the Cockatrice followed behind them. She shared none of the two women’s struggles against nature; all she did was float through the trees, phasing through all that was in her path.

“You can’t be that stupid. Admit it—you never bought a word of Chime’s lies in the prison. You can’t be that kind or forgiving, either; your heart is made of stone, your soul of wood, your skin plated gold… beautiful, but ultimately hollow.”

“Be quiet,” Ennanis snapped, to no effect.

“So what is it?” the Cockatrice continued to sing. “What is it that drives you after someone that will certainly ruin you, like a moth to flame? Or maybe… that’s just the point.” Her teeth bared. “Maybe you never wanted to save anyone, or cared about doing the right thing. The real reason you dive headfirst into danger over and over is because without it, you feel so… so very bored. A boredom like death, a boredom so unquenchable that you must chase thrill after thrill just to feel something. And look how many have gotten hurt for your own satisfaction. Those friends of yours. Jemi’s friends. The civilians in Wataron and Kanch. The five thousand angels on Mount Casca. How many more people do you want dead before you give up? Does that thought even make you grieve at all? Or are you just a cold-blooded criminal?”

At that, Ennanis whipped around and blasted the figment of the Cockatrice in the face with Soleki. She merely grinned through the blaze of light, ghostly face set afire.

“It wasn’t me you were setting free that night,” a waxing smile, as she melted away. “It was yourself.”

Then, the sparks of Soleki faded out, the Cockatrice with it.

Breathing heavily, Ennanis pushed on past.

They reached a dark clearing. Jemi Garen stood in the centre of it, back bent over and hands on her knees, her huffs and pants echoing loudly within the copse. She had tugged her red scarf loose to fan her sweat, but then tightened it again quickly once more as Ennanis approached.

Ennanis walked out into the clearing. There was something… off about this clearing. The daylight was completely blocked out by the canopy, the trees pressed forebodingly on all sides of them. The clearing seemed too perfectly circular, and glancing around, it was almost like a fog hung over the surrounding forest; she had no idea which direction she had come from.

Ennanis looked down beneath her boots, moving her hand to cast her ring’s light over it. The grass wasn’t grass but more like wilted pondweed, flat and twisted strands, squelching under her soles even though there was no water to be seen.

It was eerily silent, devoid of cicada song, insect buzzes, or even rustling wind.

Until Jemi stood firm and called out: “Where are you?”

Silence. Ennanis looked around at the empty forest with unease.

“I brought what you wanted,” Jemi’s pitch raised. “So where the hell are you! Come out, Medusa!”