Deviation Actions
Literature Text
There was a boot in her side.
It was pointed and really fucking unwelcome.
Before whoever dared attempt to wake her up got a chance to kick her with that damned boot again, Noth’s hand shot out from under her body, grabbing the offender’s ankle and yanking, hard. There was a satisfying smack as whoever it was made contact with the ground, and Noth allowed herself a small smile of contentment before twisting her head away from the sun, under the shadow of a large leaf.
“HEY! That hurt, Ruhtra!” the second-most unwelcome voice in the world screeched, rubbing her lower back. and sitting up with a glare that Noth didn’t notice. Noth gave a noncommittal grunt, purposely ignoring the chit.
“Fuck off, Keepsake.” Noth was too tired to bother even trying to be courteous. “Go do something else other than bother me. Shove your head in a Fire mage’s oven or something. That’s all your brain is good for, after all.”
Keepsake took a deep breath, trying not to strangle Noth with vines, “I didn’t know you like wind chimes, Miss Ruhtra,” the girl changed her method of attack, drawing out the words in a way that hinted blackmail. “Aren’t they a bit too delicate for someone like you?”
“I don’t like them. Go away, krill. I’m not in the mood to humour your mind games,” Noth spat out sourly, cracking her single eye open.
The girl pouted, sparks of green Vernal magic playing in her hands. “If you don’t like them, why were you sleeping so peacefully here for an entire night?” she asked, bemused eyebrows raised.
Still utterly exhausted, Noth closed her eye again, willing Keep to go away. “The wind chimes are the only thing that can drown out his voice,” she whispered, sounding almost desperate - for some reason.
The sparks disappeared with a clench of her fist. “His voice?” Keepsake pressed, light curiosity entering her tone. Noth didn’t reply, as usual, but the girl spun on her heel to go find her uncle, leaving the Escape Artist to a few more minutes of respite.
“... I didn’t know you could paint.” White paused for a moment at the sound of Noth’s whisper. The words were strained, as if she had forced herself to utter something.
It was something, at least. He dipped his ‘borrowed’ paintbrush once again, “Well, I didn’t know you could pick locks.”
Noth shifted uneasily on her feet, glancing at the cloak that was White’s canvas . “I’m from the forest,” she decided was a suitable reply, “You learn many things growing up with the panthers and leaves.”
White raised an eyebrow. “You lived in a forest,” he repeated, bemused, “Did you even have doors there?”
“No.”
“Ruhtra is talking about a man, Uncle Austin.” The guild leader looked up from his paperwork with no small amount of concern. “I found her sleeping in the wind chime garden instead of her quarters. She said it was because the wind chimes drowned out ‘his voice’,” Keepsake elaborated, making air-quotes with her fingers. “Do I even want to know why it’s so important that I tell you if she starts talking about some random dude?”
The magelight floating next to her uncle exploded. “What?” he bellowed, panic spreading across his face faster than a plague in Dagger Row. “When was this?”
Keepsake jumped at her uncle’s reaction. The last time she’d seen him explode like this was when he found out that she’d strung people roof the roof with her vines, leaving them to dangle off of the edge by their ankles. “Just now, uncle,” she replied, trying to not let fear show.
“He probably met her yesterday or so...” Austin muttered, threading his fingers together, foreboding memories of reading Noth’s files surfacing. “Did she mention a name?”
“No...?” she answered hesitantly, but he didn’t quite hear her, his mind racing to comprehend the urgency of the situation.
When he had ascended the position of Head Mage, the council of elders had debriefed Austin on every important issue that his mentor had developed; the Escape Artist case at the top of the stack. Austin had been appalled at first, learning the truth behind all the recent precious knowledge that the Academy possessed. He’d long accepted that Ruhtra’s position was essential to keeping fresh knowledge entering the guild and stimulating the researchers.
That was the reason why he’d made sure to have a close eye on her at all times, assigning his niece to watch over the volatile woman. Keepsake, for all her near death experiences from angering Ruhtra, was good at knowing when something was important.
Like the fact that Ruhtra was talking about a man, someone who he had a sinking feeling was White Ahnas, the person her file had read as liable for trying to forcibly split Ruhtra from the Academy by any and all means.
“Lead me to her location, Keepsake,” Austin ordered, voice barely trembling with something that could be apprehension as he stood up and stormed out of his office.
Noth choked down a giggle up on the balcony, White’s ponytail whipping around with his head to stare at her. Did she just laugh? he wondered, but turned back to the outrage that was scheduled to explode below. Down on the central square, a cluster of people and puns formed around Elder Mateo, some of the more daring ones poking at the shimmering wings that White had painstakingly painted.
Guild master Mateo’s eyebrows furrowed into a confused fjord. It took some of the more obvious fairy puns for him to grasp that there was something off about his cloak. Shrugging it off, much to the dismay of the few art enthusiasts that had mixed in with the crowd, Mateo eyed the wings with a frown that became more and more prominent on his face.
The fact that someone had broken into his quarters was alarming in itself. The fact that they had the time to paint wings on one of his cloaks-
“It looks like he’s going to have a heart attack,” White thought aloud, Noth stifling another giggle at the casual comment.
At that moment, Elder Mateo convulsed, clutching his chest, and threw his magic everywhere in a frightening display of the paranoia of an old man.-----
“I’m so busy with the palace courtyard as is,” Rotem huffed, stabbing his staff in the ground for emphasis, “but thank the deities that our guild was sensible for once and didn’t open up this courtyard for the Tournament. The Vernal mages that they would have hired to fix things up would have tripled my workload.
“I already have enough work with daily maintenance on top of everything, too. Would you believe that yesterday, some young fool went around practicing Fire magic in one of the gardens? It was such a mess - ash everywhere, young saplings burnt and so much needing to be restored! Gah!” the brown elf tossed his hands up in exasperation, nearly hitting a pillar with his staff. “There’s only one of me, for goodness sake!”
“If there were more than one of you,” Nahbi peered from under the parasol that shielded her from the bright midday sun, “you would probably end up arguing with each other on how to mend the garden.”
“At least it would be done faster,” Rotem cried. “Maybe the palace courtyards would be done by now, too!”
Nahbi snorted. “Are you sure?” she asked lightly.
He paused in his long strides for a moment, thinking furiously. “Okay, maybe not,” he amended. “But at least I wouldn’t- AGH!”
Nahbi’s calculating eyes immediately scanned the vicinity for threats, anything that could have been thrown at him. But her worry was needless, as Rotem simply put his hands to his head and wailed, “THE WIND GARDEN!” before sprinting off.
Relaxing since the only thing in danger was really Rotem’s stress levels, Nahbi followed at a leisurely pace, taking in the problem with a single amused smile crisscrossing her face. Rotem was shaking the shoulders of what, at first glance, appeared to be a corpse. “Thank goodness, he’s not crushing anything,” he breathed in relief, taking in the appearance of the plants. “Sir, are you okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary? Sleeping in a garden is nice and all, I would know for a fact, but-”
The not-a-corpse’s hand reached up and batted Rotem away. “I’m tired,” a barely female voice grumbled. “I dont care what you’re doing, just leave me alone.”
A nervous laugh bubbled from Rotem’s mouth at mistaking the elf on the ground as male. “Aha. Well, I need to-”
“I said I don’t care - just leave me alone. I had shit sleep last night until I got here. So just... let me sleep,” there was something in the stranger’s voice that sounded alternately desperate and indifferent at the same time.
Nahbi, who had been regarding the scene unfolding with equal parts amusement and calmness, spoke up. “She looks comfortable, Rotem,” her eyes took in how every line in the woman’s body screamed fatigue, “... I think it would be fine to leave her alone.”
“She’s crushing the grass,” Rotem whispered, urgently.
“Grass will grow back, you bloody lobster. My sanity won’t. Listen to your friend and just bug off.”
With great reluctance, he stood up, scanning the garden for any damage the stranger could have wrecked last night. Thankfully, every plant was accounted for and perfectly intact, not a single blemish manifesting on any of them. Nahbi met his eyes, silently beckoning him to let the sleeper alone.
They walked together towards another miniature garden, Rotem checking over his shoulder every now and then to make sure the Wind Garden wasn’t being trashed. Nahbi eventually had to reach up and tap his shoulder, drawing his attention back to the path in front of him which had nearly lead his nose into an unfortunate meeting with a column. “You worried about your plants so much that you couldn’t tell that was a woman?” she jibed.
“There are few female mages who have hair that short. Much less elves,” Rotem said, defensively. “And if anything I worry fo- I have a lot of maintenance on my hands.”
The words of genuine concern that he nearly uttered hung unsaid in the air, and Nahbi adjusted her parasol, looking away. They continued on like that for a while as he worked on two gardens along his daily route, his words weighing down the air with every second until one of them burst open on Nahbi’s tongue, a greyish hue of concern coloring her words.
The vampire reached for an pouch that had been hanging from her parasol’s hook for a time now. Rotem had been too engrossed with his duties that he either hadn’t noticed or had been too busy fretting over his plants to ask about its contents. “Rotem,” she called, drawing his attention away from a colorful row of zinnias that he had been hovering over, “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Hm?” he looked up at her, and the pouch that was now held out to him. “What’s this, Nahbi?”
“I only just remembered,” the lie stung her tongue, but she shoved the pain away with the thought that this was necessary, “The Rakasha from the last round dropped some of her items in the graveyard. I found them after the fight. Could you run to the Circle of Shadows and give this to her?”
Her intentions were painfully obvious, but before Rotem could point them out, she continued, “The Circle is just a short hike away from the Market Square, I believe. It would be easy for you to drop it off after your errands.”
He looked at her, searching for any hint betraying her purpose for giving him the pouch. But Nahbi’s calm yellow eyes reflecting away his questioning gaze. “... I’ll drop it off,” Rotem agreed with a sense of finality. “I assume that you want me to give it to her as soon as possible?”
Nahbi nodded, not trusting her tongue to not apologize, and the elf sighed, taking the innocuous little pouch in hand and heading towards the gates. But he paused for a moment, and tapped Nahbi’s shoulder. “Don’t do anything rash, Nahbi.”
She watched him walk away with regret playing over her face. As his back disappeared past the gates, the woman took a deep breath before heading off towards the Cathedral of Kypros, center of all Zenith.
Her next battleground.
“Just because you were bored, White Ahnas, does not make it okay to break into Elder Mateo’s rooms and paint fairy wings on one of his cloaks.”
“Actually all five of them,” White corrected. “I only made the one he would wear today so nice.”
Administrator Heisei’s heel slammed on the marble in front of Noth and White’s kneeling forms. “I don’t need any of your snark, Ahnas. I really don’t. Especially considering that this is only your orientation week! If it were not for your gift, the guild master would have ordered your rejection from the program already.”
The older man paced furiously. “How you broke in through his wards is already beyond me, though I will find out, sooner or later... my team is already working on it. Apprentice Cuoter is relieved to have gotten her art supplies back, and you will be issuing a formal apology later, just watch...”
White tilted his face towards Noth. “You broke through wards?” he mouthed.
The elf shook her head furiously. “I only picked the lock,” she whispered back. “There was a weird knot in front of his door that I moved, but nothing else.”
“What knot?” He didn’t get the question out before the butt of Heisei’s staff stabbed the space between them.
He peered down at Noth dismissively. “And your elf friend helped, I see. What is your name?”
“Noth Ruhtra, of the Sa- of the Mage Academy.” Her fists clenched at she stared hard at the ground, not meeting the administrator’s eyes.
Heisei paused in his scrutinizing. “Yellow eyes? I see, a Sayieth. No wonder you got in.” Noth and White exchanged equally mystified looks, but he interrupted their thinking with his annunciation; “Your punishment will be no dinner. Both of you, to your rooms.”
They scrambled up, Noth practically flying backwards to the wall the moment she was on her feet, White’s hand grasping the air where her hand had been. Heisei treated them both to brief glares. “And White, you will be giving formal apologies tomorrow. Don’t even think that incidents like this will be allowed to slide because of your talents.”
“Wake UP, Ruhtra! Ugh, it’s a wonder how someone like you can be a good mage,” Keepsake scoffed, Austin a bit behind her, examining the tired elf with a deep frown on his youthful face.
Noth didn’t respond, still asleep and too out of it. Keep ‘tsk’ed, snapping her fingers and prompting the grass under Noth start growing.
Unfortunately, Keepsake expected Noth to only wake up in a bad mood, not the whip of Shadow magic coming at her, snapping around her neck and smashing her against a wall. Austin slammed his palm to the wall, turning it into soft clay just as his niece’s back came in contact with the surface. “RUHTRA!” he shouted.
“FUCK OFF, WHITE,” she suddenly yelled in return, sitting upright and glaring in their general direction. Her expression faltered, however, upon realizing that it wasn’t White trying to tickle her awake with his Vernal magic, but rather Keep trying to annoy her awake with it. “... Jaundiced shrimp. Krill,” she acknowledged harshly. “I told you that there are reasons why you don’t wake me up with your magic.”
“Uncle-!” Keep cried, massaging her throat and returning Noth’s glare, “Did you see-”
“Keepsake Ventas, know when to hold your silence,” he snapped. Turning his attention back to Noth, “Ruhtra. It’s noon.”
“Your point?”
“You have a battle to fight today. Cathedral of Kypros.” Austin’s eyes met her single yellow one, challenging her to refuse.
Her mouth pressed into a line thin enough that it could mimic razor wire. “Fine,” Noth ground out, word cutting into Austin, not that he would show it.
She stood up, glaring at Keep with a vindictive smirk playing on her lips. “I hope you learned something, Keep. If you’re capable of learning, that is.”
Keepsake’s cries of outrage followed Noth all the way into the dining hall, but Noth didn’t care. She had food to eat and shit to do.
“I’m hungry,” White grumbled into his knees, curled up on his bed.
“So I brought food for you,” the whisper drifted in from the door, and the boy nearly fell off his bed in alarm.
The door hinges screeched like an owl, and Noth reeled back for a moment, the plate in her hands tilting dangerously to the side. Panic slid across her face and she managed to adjust it in time with both hands, sidestepping in and nudging the door shut with her foot.
He stared at his potential dinner hopefully. “How did you get out of your room and get food?”
Noth shrugged, placing the plate on the bed and crouching next to it, leaning her head on the blankets. He sighed. She had a limited amount of smiles, it seemed, and her ghost attributes had reappeared. White wondered if he had only noticed her because she had actually bothered talking, or because the door hinges were grossly loud.
Absentmindedly reaching for a chicken leg, he murmured to her, or rather where he thought she was, “I’m grateful for the food and all, Noth. But really, it’s been a week.” She looked up at him inquisitively, not following his train of thought. “You barely talk to anyone, much less me, and I’m your friend! That is...” White flopped back onto his bed, turning his head to stare down at Noth, “do you actually want to be my friend?”
She stopped her finger-twiddling and nodded, very slowly, looking at the ground.
“Really? Why?” White sat up to get a better look at her, and she hunched over even more, whether out of fear or anxiety he didn’t quite know.
“I’m scared of humans...” was the muted reply. “And you’re the only person I know here... the other races seem kinda scary, and there aren’t any elves from my clan.”
Oh, he realized, no wonder she was acting like a mouse. But that was only half an answer to him. “You say that you don’t know anyone else,” a hint of scorn crept into his voice without him noticing, “but really, what do you know about me?”
She actually opened her mouth with an answer present on her tongue, “You don’t like many people... you don’t actually smile very often. You just show your teeth. You don’t like authority people much, you get bored easily... and you’re bored with me.” She rattled off some other things, but in his surprise, he tuned them out, only catching the last phrase. “Do you want me to go away?”
The thought of Noth leaving had never really occurred to him, and the sheer thought made White’s mouth sour with revulsion. “No, don’t go away- just- I can help you make other friends,” he offered. “Then you don’t have to keep drifting around me because you only know me.” For some reason the concept of Noth being friends with anyone but him also left a bitter taste, but he swallowed it down with a grimace and waited for her reaction.
Noth tensed up, and she looked at him in alarm. “I- I don’t need many friends. I just want one, because one person at a time is all I can handle.” Her fingers played with the edges of her shirt, trembling. “I- and I’m used to you... I think.”
He scoffed, and she flinched, head bumping the plate and nearly making a glop of mashed potato fall on his blankets. “If that’s the problem, I’ll make sure you get used to people then, so you can have more friends.” She cringed at this, more noticeably than ever, and immediately White regretted making her expression turn more anxious that she’d displayed so far. He closed his eyes, thinking towards the ceiling , and decided, “Okay, I’ll give you another chance, Noth. I’ll protect you from other humans that you’re not used to,” she looked at him again, hope mixing in with the anxiety, “but then you have to be my friend. And talk. Like friends do.”
part one: sleepless nights and wind-chimes in this one
part three: vampire blossoms and twisted minds in this one
Nahbi Flowers (c)
Rotem (c)
