Downtown Druid

There were no witnesses dreaming this time, just an empty street, two figures, a pile of ashes, and the sound of wailing. A man wearing a dark blue cloak dug his hands into the pile of ashes in front of him, raising them high and letting them gently slip through his fingers, a gentle wind carrying them through the narrow alleyways and darkened streets, he was frowning for the first time in a long time. Next to him, a green woman with blood red tears dripping down her face. She too dug her hands into the pile of dust, but rather than letting it slip through her fingers onto the ground, she inhaled, and blew, causing it to scatter from her hands into the air, where it slowly fell down like snow, each fleck and particle of it landing on a piece of green in the city, and infusing it. Both the woman in Green and the man in Blue walked together toward the wailing, finding it hidden in an alley.

The rat knew that everything died. Death was a fact of his life from the moment he was born onward. It had become distant for him recently, but it was still always there, the primary driver of his existence, only masked by other concerns as that distance had grown. He’d never cried over death. He’d never cried at all. He did at that moment though, as he felt his own death. A piece of his own soul extinguished.

The man in blue and the green woman both reached toward the rat and placed their hand on his back, comforting him as best they could.

A man armored in red stood behind them, at the edge of the alley. He took a step toward them, but suddenly a gust picked up and those ashes that had just been scattered started to push against him. He pressed forward another step, and another, but the dust kept picking up, blowing stronger and stronger until it blew with the power of a typhoon.

The armored man was pushed back.

…

Gavain stepped back from the spear, breathing heavily. He felt true satisfaction in that moment as he watched the ashes of Dantes’s corpse blow away and scatter. He could feel the damage that the fight had done to him. Hundreds of cuts and bruises, his entire body scorched and shattered by explosions. In spite of all of that, he felt that he could recover. If he could reach the temple quickly enough, or an alchemist, he’d make it. With his increased speed and strength, he was sure he would make it in time.

He looked around, wary of any of Dantes’s allies that may still be nearby, but he didn’t see anyone. He would find and take care of them once he had recovered. He reached forward and pulled his spear from the concrete, looking around. He didn’t know where he was. He walked down an alley and onto a main street, hoping to recognize where he was, but he didn’t recognize the street either. He also didn’t see anyone on it, nor did he hear anyone. No guards rushing to see what the explosion was, no people talking or yelling or running. Maybe he was in a less populated area, that would make sense as a place to set a trap for him.

He bent his legs and launched himself into the air, landing on the roof of a nearby house. He jumped again to reach the top of a much higher abandoned apartment building. He could see… nothing from where he was. Nothing he recognized anyway. Just buildings, streets, and alleys as far as he could see. He bent his legs and launched himself again, landing on a street and running. If he ran in the same direction long enough, he’d eventually hit the wall or the water, and he could figure things out from there, he still had plenty of time.

Jacopo stood still, watching the Viridian Vixen from the outside. He’d seen Orebus being carried in by Wane and Merle missing an arm, Syn dragging herself through the front door, her form flickering wildly as she did so, Jayk and Jayson holding one another up as they arrived back, Murk and his mate had leapt to the roof to enter through that entrance. He knew that they had healing potions, Clay, and Hema waiting for them to treat them, just as Dantes had planned it. He should go inside. He should let them know what had happened, but he just kept sitting there, watching the Vixen from the alley as a rat. He didn’t want to tell them he was gone, that Gavain had beaten them. He had to warn them though. Even as damaged as Gavain was, he was still a threat, maybe even more so thanks to his blessing.

“He didn’t beat me.”

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Jacopo whipped around, his eyes darting back and forth, searching for the source of the voice.

“Technically, it doesn’t matter where you look, I’m all around you.”

Jacopo went still. He’d closed himself off when Dantes had died. Unwilling to feel the city without him, fearful of what was happening, but he forced himself to open back up.

Dantes was all around him. Jacopo had felt the same connection that Dantes had to the city, had felt it when he’d finally been able to open himself up to the rest of the city and gain control of its life, but this was beyond that.

“You’ve become one with Rendhold.”

“Our final option. A binding, a sacrifice, a vow.”

“Gavain?”

“He’ll be dead, but not soon.”

“Why can’t I feel you like I could before?”

“I’m not sure. We’ve always been independent, more so than the other druids. We spend time apart and together. We hate the feeling of losing ourselves…”

“You don’t like it, do you?” asked Jacopo.

There was a pause. “I hate it. Feeling everything means I can feel nothing. I can smell, hear, taste, and see, but not as myself, not the way I want to. I won’t be able to kiss Syn, to smell Zilly’s cooking, to hold Jacque, or hear Alessa sing, not as myself. I can keep them safe though. Make sure that the legacy I left behind holds. I’ll rule the city as I wanted, I just won’t be able to enjoy it.”

Jacopo stood still for a moment. He closed his eyes, and started to push his awareness outward, as he’d done a thousand times before. Rooting through every thread of it, pulling them back toward himself, forcing them where he had to.

“What are you doing?”

Jacopo ignored him, continuing to pull on the threads, drawing them into himself, feeling where Dantes’s essence was spread across the city.

“You don’t have to do that, I know you don’t want us to become the same person like the twins, or Traizen and his partner.”

Jacopo kept pulling. “We won’t be like them. We’ll be better.”

Dantes pulled back, pushing Jacopo’s consciousness away even as Jacopo pulled him toward him.

“Jacopo. Stop.”

“No. Either we’re both here, or neither of us are. You're strong, I’m strong, let’s be even stronger together.”

Dantes kept fighting, and he had all the advantages from where he was, everywhere. “No. There’s no reason to do this.”

“I have sired thousands of children. You, only one. I must make sure you’re here for him.”

Dantes lost focus for a moment, and felt himself move rapidly toward Jacopo.

“Dammit.” Dantes let go, and his consciousness slammed into Jacopo’s.

All of the life and everything in their shared locus slammed together within Jacopo’s body. Dantes was seeing everything in the city one moment, then only what Jacopo saw the next. They oscillated back and forth, seeing as each other, as themselves, then as nothing at all, until finally, it settled.

Dantes looked at his hands, seeing the slim fingers on either hand that he was used to, and flexing a fleshy left hand for the first time in a long time. He didn’t feel any different. He looked around, not seeing Jacopo.

“I’m here,” he said, moving Dantes’s right hand to point at his chest.

“So we didn’t become the same person. We are just both in the same body and…” they both extended their will across the locus, finding Dantes’s connection from the binding to be no lesser than it was before he’d joined Jacopo’s body.

The both shared a relieved sigh. Dantes let Jacopo take over fully, and the body they shared shifted rapidly into his two-leg form, then Dantes took over and it shifted back.

“I guess we were too independent for it to work how we expected.”

“We have stronger personalities.”

“We can work with this though. I take half the day, you take the other?”

“The other one will focus on managing the locus during that time, yes.”

Dantes smiled, and they walked toward the door to the Vixen together. They’d cheated the ritual, but of course they had, they never fought fair.

…

Gavain stumbled, pushing himself back up with his spear to stumble forward a few more steps. How long had he been moving? A day? A year? He had no idea. His wounds ached, his tongue was dry from thirst, his stomach beyond empty. He wondered idly, for the thousandth time, if he’d died in his fight and been sent to the hells. He looked up. The street just kept going. There was no one on it, no animals, no plants. He was alone, and the sun still hadn’t gone down. Has it even gone up? He looked at the sky again, but it was just a haze of featureless light.

He stumbled a bit further and fell onto his knees. This wasn’t fair. He’d been a hero. Even those he’d killed had deserved it. A king of slavers and a leech that survived by sucking the life from a city. He’d done the right thing by ending them. Were the hells truly what he’d earned for that? To be abandoned by even his new god? Where was the justice in that?

He felt warmth start to spread through his back. He turned his head, and behind him stood a man in gleaming silver armor, an axe strapped to his back. He bent down and scooped Gavain up as if he was a child. Gavain closed his eyes as the man walked him into the sky.

…

Dantes and Jacopo approached their garden, seeing Gavain’s body wrapped in flowering vines that grew from him as well as around him. They bent down and took the spear from his dead hand, spinning it idly for a moment.

“You deserved a fair death. If anyone did, it was you.” They stopped spinning the spear. “Unfortunately, Rendhold isn’t about being fair. It’s about winning using any underhanded method you have to do it. I hope you have some kind of peace now, but the important thing is.” They took a deep breath. “I win.”

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