The Gift I: Decision

[Charan`Jaydemyr]

THE GIFT

Then:

After depositing the...Stuff, Charan lingered in the kitchen. It was one of the neat perks to working for Pritchard. The man hadn’t yet addressed his new janitor’s apparent attitude problems, but after things calmed down, The Half had no doubt there’d be…Words. Just as well the portly tender hadn’t brought it up tonight: a certain Blackcloak was fuming about the elusive Solena. If she were truly that powerful, then a great many of his concepts regarding the whole clusterfùck that was the Spires and Mephisto’s apparent demise were way off the mark. He should have done more than just cut the bastard’s head off. Should have reduced the corpse to dust…That was his usual methodology. But there had been Quincy…There’d always, somehow, been Quincy.

…Who had suffered several crises this very night: being accused of murder in the presence of such notables as Kobra and Heldenbrand, losing her lunch from the stress (or was she really sick after all) and, to top it off, a little altercation with Khalika. Somehow, she extricated herself from the mess in the common room. Just within the cooking area, she lurked behind the blackcloak with a frown.

' .. Dog-Ears?' Her voice was strained with cold and something else.

“That was quite a mess, Quincy.” He did not turn around.

' .. S- sorry,' she stammered. ‘If you e'er throw up, I'll clean it up, all ri'?' She was earnest. Why won't he turn around? Quincy certainly wasn’t the kind to force her way into someone's line of sight. They usually did it for her, and it was overwhelming. His avoidance felt even worse.

“Quincy?..Maybe he'd help you up to your room?...so this lady can make sure you alright?..” Khalika sounded a little exasperated to Charan. He’d been busy doing his job throughout most of the chaos, so thought it not his place to judge the woman and her shifting attitudes. Between feeding Maelhim and then fighting one alongside that impressive Minotaur, she had The Half really quite perplexed, but only in a passive sense.

“I don't throw up, Quincy.” Rather than acknowledging the dubious woman, Charan focused on Quincy, because, even though he was now the humble janitor, he was also still her Sword. “I don't get sick and I don't die. You'll never have to clean anything of mine up.” But what a cold Sword he’d become...”Are you going to make me ask what exactly happened tonight?”

Of course, he just had.

Lady Adorain, in whom Charan had found an unlikely friend and almost untimely ally, just stood there, looking professional. Her kind eyes watched for Quincy's reaction. She' was not throwing herself in front of the girl, or anything like that. She was standing by, ready to do her duty.

That was precisely how Charan thought of her. How could he not admire such practicality?

'Will y' please go away? This is stupid.' Quincy turned around to ask this of Khalika, but she did not wait for an answer – after all, it didn’t really matter what sort of response she received. After turning her lean shoulder about once more, she continued to talk to Charan's back. 'I don' know what's goin' on. They said I'm goin' to be arrested for plottin' to kill someone. .. but I didn'. I don' even know 'im.' As for Charan's .. not dying or getting sick, she had yet to swallow it.

“Why are you so important, Quincy?” Despite being located quite close to the portal between kitchen and common room, Charan saw no need to mute his voice in the slightest. “Not to me...To them. What are you not telling me about yourself that has so many esteemed folk trying to put you away?” He still did not turn around.

“Quincy...You’re ill...and your health should not be taken for granted...” Khalika continued to push her point. Charan did not consider her significant, but then the gypsy changed direction, and surprised him one last time. “You...You claimed to be her friend...Well I thought you were once...So maybe you can convince her to return to her room where she can rest...Before this illness get the best of her..”

“Khalika, get lost.” Charan said.

' .. Get lost,' Quincy agreed, giving herself time to think about what he'd just asked of her. Her head turned a curving shoulder, and she rubbed her nose again. She really was trying not to sneeze in the kitchen. Finally, she could be nothing but honest: ' .. I ain' important at all. I jus try to 'elp get rid of the bad things. If there's somethin' else I don' know what it is.'

“Me either. I had no idea being a cleaner was so interesting. I've been waiting for you to teach me how it's done, but I figured with you off being a fighter and all, I'd work some of it out for myself.”

Quincy’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment, not anger. But she did not get a chance to reply immediately.

Khalika, perhaps failing to realise what was happening, really happening, lost her temper. Charan almost laughed, but not in derision. The woman had a right to be angry, and now she was exercising it. Yes, he almost laughed, almost cheered.

“Well fine..You once said...that standing alone in this we never succeed...And I almost believed you...But now I see it was all frelling crap!!...I mean let plagues swarm the land like locusts...Who cares?...Let the Spires be the dawn of the new civilization!...Hell, I fed the Maelhim once...I can damn well do it again!!...Yup; she snapped...Fully and truly. “None of this is worth it...She's not worth it…” Charan did not see the enraged woman slap a hand towards Quincy...”You sure as frelling hell aren't worth it!..”

Charan could hear the spittle in her voice, and he did nothing.

“So here’s to the Death of you all...Cuz’ when blood fills that lake...I am finally free of this Hellish place...Then and only then will I be finally happy....”

Like Charan gave much a shít for her happiness. He’d enjoyed the angry words, but once the woman waxed selfish in talking about what made her unimportant self happy, he disregarded her.

Quincy just made a hushing sound.

Exit Khalika, stage Pissed-Off.

'You do it better than me,' Quincy admitted once they were ‘alone’ and could discuss the incredibly pertinent topic of janitorial duties. 'I been 'elping in the stables instead - bu' they kicked me out 'cause I was sneezing.' Was she kidding herself? She barely had time to work. She wanted to, but how could she with the thousand things constantly demanding her attention? Her shoulders sagged. 'You cou' probably teach me 'ow it's done instead. '

“Things are a bit weird lately. What are you going to do? Go to prison?”

Someone slammed the front door of the tavern. Charan was fairly certain it wasn’t the tooth fairy.

‘I don' want them to think I'm guilty. Tha's what they'll think if I runned away,' she whispered.

What will you do if you find out she is somehow integral to the enemy? Sariana’s voice in The Half’s conscience was as silk wrapped around a shard of glass.

[color=sky blue]Kill her.[/color] Charan’s own mental tone could not have been more resolute.

“I know,” he answered, or maybe just iterated his own dire thoughts. “I know how that game works. You're caught up in their game. I never told you the rest of the story about my daughter, did I?”

Perhaps that is when I made the decision…Because he knew how that story ended.

'Pumpkin's cauldron was boilin' over,' she remembered.

Charan’s defunct heart sighed. All this madness, and she recalled his silly tale that quickly, that easily. He turned around and said, “Come to me.”

She stepped a little bit closer to him, her face turning upwards. This was familiar. Her eye was trying to read him by the shape of his mouth when he spoke.

“Closer.” They'd been here before...But this time, they may take a few different turns, down those darker twists from which more content tales shy away.

Quincy’s heart pounded in her throat; it had done so before, but it was different this time. It was already different. She drifted tensely against his black cloak, and her cheek almost touched his arm. Her black eye searched for anger, and in this closeness: her breathing stopped.

“Cry,” he said. “As much as you want.”

But he did not hold her, did not even pat her.

Her tears were instant and confused; she could not decide if he was being cruel or kind, or if something was wrong. No - she knew that something was wrong. Everything was wrong.

Charan felt the very uncertain pressure of her small face against his side, and since he did not hold her - she held herself.

Oddly, her eye-patch was also wet.

Her tears assaulted his stoic alignment, and then Quincy held herself within his arms, She could still cry - that is what he needed to see. Was it just another test?

“This is what happened.” Charan resumed the story as though he were not resuming at all. “Pumpkin left when she was twelve and...The woman who tried to train me, trained her. She became the greatest warrior in the world. That was supposed to be me...But I chose to be a tailor, a humble, happy tailor in a world of suffering and fear. There isn't much difference between a tailor and a janitor.”

Quincy did not look up, her face so young and dolorous, but she heard him - nodded into him; she would not take advantage of his nearness. It was not a part of her. She felt questions rise up in her, but that's where they stayed - maybe he wasn’t done.

[Charan`Jaydemyr]

“Come...” Was this part of the story? No – for some reason, his voice changed when he was spinning a tale, became more soft, more lofty. Perhaps he was employing that talent for mimicry even then, imitating a troubadour or real Weaver of words he might have met at some point. Now, in contrast, his tone was practical, grounded. “It's not comfortable here. A nice night out there, it is. Noticed that when I...Was cleaning up.”

Charan lead Quincy that precise way. The common room was no fitting locale for what he had to say. She followed him with her soft slippers; they made a sound when she walked, but it was hushed. She could not boast the same silence achieved by many patrons there. Before leaving, she did turn her head - damp eye glancing ahead; it was not because she didn’t trust where he would lead her so much as not wanting to stain his cloak. Even though it always seemed clean.

He wanted to tell her something upon realizing she’d pulled her face away from his cloak, but that, too, would have to wait.

I almost forgot about her,” he continued once they were outside. He knew: Quincy could have disengaged herself at any point: he was not holding her anymore. “Almost. For the first few months, I searched for her; when even I could not find her, I knew where she was. I mourned for years - not for her death but for her life, for what she's chosen. Then rumours began to filter into my little existence, tales of a new war being waged far to the west. I knew, of course, what was happening. My little Pumpkin had begun her struggle. She must have been...No older than sixteen then. My mentor wasted no time in training.

“...And I continued to make dresses and suits.”

As Charan began his fateful recounting anew, Quincy did not yet let go; the shadows might have eaten him before he was done, and then he'd start talking to the voice in his head, and she'd have to talk to his back all over again. .. But at least she did not seek to offend him with her wrong hand; it was the small one with a light handful of cloak beside her teary eye. Her mouth was open in quiet, serious wonder. Quincy felt like she knew Pumpkin.

“Then...At some point, she came home. A war-hero, she was, and of course I heard about the parades and the ceremonies. The day they named her the Lady-Talon of Jaydemyr, I was busy rearranging my shop. I can't really tell you what her title really meant, but...Imagine the biggest hill you've ever seen, and then try to count the blades of grass. That's how many warriors she commanded in her war. Mine, Quincy. They should have been mine.

“...The night she came home, I was an old man. Or...I tried to be.”

' .. Oh,' she murmured, enthralled. The point of her chin turned up, and she watched his cowled face - rapt as though it were open and animated. Mine, he said. Concern made a pale nest in her stare. She’d even stopped sneezing - only the occasional, obstructing sniff.

“She looked no older than twenty, Quincy...But she'd been fighting for decades, I was sure. And there was something cold and hard about her eyes, eyes that had been so innocent the last time I'd seen her. In my little house, the Lady-Talon could not relax, not even for a moment. She called me 'Father'. There was so little recognition in her voice...But when spoke of her war, fire fueled her gaze and passion her words. It were as though she was regaling me with some romantic escapade she'd enjoyed over the summer. I realised then that I didn't know her; that, without my guidance, she had sought all emotion in conflict, all release through inflicting pain, and, of course, ending it.

“And my mentor, from whom I turned, said 'Do you see what happens when you turn away from your destiny?'...I could not answer her.”

That was familiar to her; it was so dreadfully familiar that it carved a path straight to her heart, and perhaps, with fortune, to what existed of her brain as well. .. Or with even more pending fortune - let it cut her in two, split her to the toes until she knew nothing else but that one, singular sensation…And had she let go of his cloak, he would have had cause, even if he did not know it - for alarm. Quincy tightened her fingers and looked on at his face. She said nothing; as far as she was concerned - he'd ask her a question if he wanted her to insert some sort of input…This was his story, Pumpkin's story, and she was listening... And maybe listening to the air on the grass blades, too.

“We argued...Of course. Talon accused me of giving up on her; I accused her of being weak and giving in to the lust for battle. My wife...Her name was Lily, I remember it now...Well, she wasn't like us. Just a normal person, and Talon was too quick to remind her of this. I can still feel my knuckles crushing my daughter's cheek - and I can still see her ruby grin as she staggered back. There was triumph in that smile. Do you know why my own daughter was happy when I backhanded her across the room, Quincy?”

' .. Because you was hurting and took it out on 'er with blood, an' it made you like she was?' It was a rueful, muffled question; her stomach sank. It made her think of Mephisto's victorious smile the instant before her hammer crashed into his apparently-mortal chest…She looked down, hair falling, and her look was private and intense; the angle of it remained for hearing.

“Yes. But not like she was...Like I truly am. She'd freed a little bit of my real self. That was her victory. She asked me to do it again, and of course I didn't. Lily collapsed quietly then, shuffling off to bed, and...My once-mentor went her own way as well. Perhaps she wanted to see if her protégé, my daughter, could do what apparently could not be done. Talon paced my little living room, her familiar sword's hilt glittering above her shoulder, one of those extremely rare and extremely beautiful azure moons. I found that I could not take my eyes off that sword...Off her, my Oni-Goroshi.

“Talon asked, 'Do you want to hold it, Daddy? I promise it won't bite.'...But I knew it would. I reached for her anyway, only to force my hands back to my side. Do you know, Quincy, how some things we really want are actually bad for us?”

'Yes,' she replied without hesitation at the same time that she looked away from his boots. Inwardly, she felt dread, wondering where, precisely, this story is leading. Listening was almost as painfully exciting as walking in a strange, dark place with a candle. Something constantly just beyond the reach of the light... The unknown was frightening but compelling.

“Talon told me about her campaigns, and I was terribly jealous. That was -my- sword! Made for me, responding only to me. You'd think it selfish, I suppose, but I cannot describe the despair on my daughter's face. She knew, deep down, that the sword was rejecting her, killing her. In demonstration, Talon drew my sword and I saw how much effort it took - but wasn't Oni-Goroshi weightless to me? Her tip drooped towards my neck, then my chest, then my feet. Even in the hands of another, my sword lowered herself before me. 'I cannot hold it for much longer, Daddy'...That's what Talon said just before the burden drove her to her knees. And to think: she'd been killing hundreds upon thousands of our kind with that same, leaden weapon.

“...What do you think I did as my daughter collapsed, Quincy?” But - wasn't he asking the sky?

'Did you cry?' she asked with tender astonishment. She did not follow his gaze to the sky - but did glance at the hilt of Oni-Goroshi. That sword? she wondered.

“There were already tears upon my cheeks. I hadn't seen my daughter for an age, and there she was: my beautiful, rotten Pumpkin, verging on ruin, verging on victory. I stepped back - any closer and I would have lost control and reclaimed my sword. I said, 'Drop it, Pumpkin. Just...Let go. You've carried it long enough.' She replied, 'If I drop this sword, someone else will pick it up. Someone without even my will, and it will destroy them, empower them...That's what swords do.'

“I denied this of her, saying that if no one in the world knew what a Sword was, they would not use Swords for killing. Do you understand, Quincy? Is a sword...Just a sword? Or, if people don't think of a sword as a killing thing, can it be put to another use?”

'If I foun' an axe in the woods, I wouldn' pick it up an' think: 'hmm, sharp edge. Perfec' for noggins.',' she reasoned, furrowing her brow. 'So I reckon it wou' be the same of a sword, if I didn' know what it was. Maybe I wou' go try an' chop wood with it.' She looked ahead, and her cheek was red. Her words weren't as pretty, but she did try to be thoughtful with her answers.

“Hmm...Needless to say, I lost that argument too. Talon said, 'There will always be people who knows what to do with a Sword, even if they've never seen one.'...And she was right, of course. I looked down at the forlorn edge, followed her smooth spine towards the hilt and beheld my daughter's unrelenting fists. She wouldn't let go...Unlike me, she was strong enough to choose that life simply because she knew that if she didn't, someone else would. When I tried to explain sacrifice to you, Quincy, that is the precise moment I had in mind.

“...I walked around my daughter and knelt behind her...Reached around her and touched her hard hands. 'Let go, Pumpkin...My sword is done with you. And she did...And Oni-Goroshi's hilt fell into my waiting fingers.”

Just as she 'fell' into Charan’s hand now...But when did he retrieve her from behind the bar? He couldn’t remember, certainly didn't carry her around whence working, of course...But there she was, burning platinum in the deep lunar-bathed night.

[Charan`Jaydemyr]

Quincy gazed at the blade, her mouth open; her fingers unclenched, as though she felt the weight being released from her own hand. Now she did not know what to say, but her small face wondered what happens after that. What would become of Talon?

“The moment my terrible sword left her hands, Talon...My Pumpkin withered, crying for the first time since she first chose that path. At last, she was able to relax, and I, still close to her, placed my sword upon the floor,”

And he did so now, laying Oni-Goroshi in the damp grass where she continued to shine...And he, kneeling...Would Quincy keep hold? Would she let go?

Would she fall with him?

[color=sky blue]Yes…She knows too.[/color] But none of the voices said a thing in response.

Her hold remained; it was a wonder if the grip was conscious anymore - but it must have been, because contact was something that Quincy always noticed. She would fall, too. She had never stopped falling since her first memory of this world. Her wide black eye followed his hand.

“My hands were free, as were hers, and so held her as she sobbed, as she exulted in her long-overdue freedom and victory. Her joy was my entire world - I ignored Oni-Goroshi for that whole time, and it was both too short and too long. My daughter should not have been made to suffer in my stead, but her grief, her lament for a lost childhood - one that I had killed in my own selfish desire to be anything but what I must - should have been louder, stronger...For all she had done and endured, Pumpkin received no thanks beyond the right to surrender.

Was he crying now? Charan’s voice was firm, but...“Then it was over, and she said, 'take it. Her. Yours.' But I know what she really said.”

Charan’s knowing hand wrapped around her hilt once more - her gleaming scythe-like smile fell under his domination yet again.

'Wha' did she really say?' was the tentative whisper on his arm; she watched as his hand wrapped around her hilt, and if he cried or not - she certainly cried for him…Fat tears stained long paths; her lashes were fringed with wet, trembling drops.

“I rose, standing over her, but not as a father...Not with my sword held so readily. Pumpkin smiled through her tears, looking at me. Not the sword, but me. My eyes were diamonds; hers, molten pools of yielding gold. Gazes locked with a sudden understanding and complete agreement. Had this been her plan from the start? Was this on her mind the moment she walked through my little door yet again? My daughter nodded her answer to the question asked by Oni-Goroshi as she, the Goddess of Swords, rose over my fallen progeny like the sharpest, most piercing dawn.

“...My daughter had come home to die, and she'd chosen me as the one to do it.”

Charan stood all too quickly, turned and mimicked the words of the story, such that the awesome weapon stared down at Quincy through her narrow glare.

Quincy looked up with a frowning gasp, slowly shaking her head. Was this the only way for Pumpkin to be happy in the end? She could believe it in her own way - how could she not? She may not have had legions as many as the grass blades in the field, but she knew what it was to be consumed by fighting. Perilously, she looked along the magnificent... terrible edge.

“This will not hurt, my beloved Pumpkin,” he said, and then replied in a broken but somehow ecstatic tone – it was simply not his voice, this raw, shattered...Resigned tone. “No, Daddy...My life hurts. Quickly, please.” He remembered: she smiled then, a pure smile through honest tears, and she closed her eyes. That was the moment. “Now, Daddy. Let me smile forever.”

His fingers tightened even more about the divine weapon's handle. Charan stepped back, pulling Oni-Goroshi further and further away from Quincy; from any perspective, it would have been impossible to misunderstand his intention.

Quincy swayed on her knees in the damp grass, staring at his cowled face - the movement of his mouth, and the way that he spoke his memories. Quincy was not smiling, nor was she speaking - but her large eye perpetually leaked.My life hurts; let me smile forever. Her small hand grasped her cloak at her breastbone, and moonlight streaked her long, dark hair. She almost choked on her tears for beautiful Pumpkin and her merciful father.

“Do you know what she said then, Quincy? What did you say, Pumpkin?” The silver flaw in the dying nightscape wavered. She was waiting; he was waiting. The picture was not complete; the story wasn't over. It had never been his to finish.

Quincy looked at Dog-Ears' pretty sword; she’d always known it was pretty - it was special. It was even more special now that it was going to put her out of her misery. At least, she thought that it was; no one would ever know her story, but that was all right. Phlynn had lived for five hundred years - and Ariane would have Johan. There would be nothing else to keep her here. It was almost a wistful thought while her tears never dried up.

'See you in my dream,' she spoke in a clear, quiet voice. Quincy did more than smile; her shoulders shook with a laugh from the bottom of her throat.

She understood.

“...She said nothing, ever again.”

Oni-Goroshi fell, pulled by the violent gravity against which no true killer ever rebels. Quincy had seen the razor wing's flight before, but never like this. The Goddess of Swords knew her feast; she understood what she was about to do. A virile haze of crimson hunger swirled about the blade's legendary edge. Through this scarlet cloud she dove like a hawk, like an eagle, the true device of Jaydemyrian power. Charan had seen this in his own dreams: his beloved weapon cleaving a girl from head to heels, as smoothly as certainty divided doubt. The dream always ended the same - with him laughing in the gore, with him weeping, alone, always alone.

But.

[Charan`Jaydemyr]

Now:

This is no dream - it won't end here, not for those who call this world, this life, home. Oni-Goroshi whispers past Quincy's head, slicing no more than five hairs from her head. She whistles down the girl's face: perhaps the would-be dreamer feels a cool kiss of respite in the weapon's wake. The sword screams down her flank and howls past her shins. Carried by the decisive movement, Charan is all but pressing his torso into Quincy's face...Can she not feel the heat now?

Oni-Goroshi sinks a full third into the ground.

Quincy stops laughing; she is still, locked, ready for death, and she never closes her eye - it can only grow more round, and that it does…Steel cuts through the air past her face, and she cries out in sudden…dismay? Elation? Gasping, she stares at the front of his cloak - feeling the blade strike and sink into the willing earth, rather than her willing, throbbing flesh…A breath hitches in her pale throat, and she looks up as high as she can. Quincy should be wondering at his madness rather than her own; yet she does wonder - wonders even as her great, seething gaze demands: WHY? Why did he miss? Her small, white-knuckled hand reaches up to curl into his cloak, not to pull him down or to pull herself up - but to wring passionately, to beg for something more.

“Then I woke up...And became the Sword, so that no others would have to. And I never married, never had a daughter. I knew exactly why, and what would happen if I did. But my task is done...Was done long ago. I am your Sword, Quincy, and will be for as long as you need me to be. Let go of my cloak and take the sword. Take your Sword. I have been made ready for you.”

There's more to it, of course. So much more - how he fueled that last strike with all his intent to rend her utterly, as demanded by the rites of succession...But it is not done; Her story is not over. Charan lets his fingers unfurl and slip from the sapphire hilt. So deep is the weapon's bite: she does not fall, but instead defies the flat earth as a Spire of her own...A thin, pure needle of heavenly accusation and judgment.

The moment he lets go of his sword...Her sword, Charan seems to sag. She was holding him up - didn't she knows? All this time, she had been the one keeping him active, giving him a purpose...And now, it is he on his knees, Blackcloak, supplicating to a girl as one once surrendered to him.

Quincy’s hand slips from his cloak, and with hunching shoulders, she hauls herself to her feet; she does not want to believe what she was hearing - but it would not do him justice to deny it. She watches him sag, and the colour drains from her face - gaze lowering to the sapphire hilt, the steel buried upright in the earth.

'You wan' me to take your sword?' She is frightened...But not. Her veins still burn with the feeling of the instant before death, and she wants it again. She wants it to end. She can not begin to imagine how much more Charan Jaydemyr wants his own to end. Quincy steps toward the ominous protrusion, but stops, looking furtively to the blackcloak who lets it go. She wonders how long he has been with this sword - how many of his hundreds of years have been in its company.

Charan breathes: heavy, deliberate heaves of long-dead lungs gasping for grim life - and how grim it is. He teeters, lowering his head and forcing a hand against the grass-laced dirt for support. The other forms a hook and peels back the hood, revealing at last his face, a strange visage from which the light no longer flees. His large, shiny eyes implore her - somehow, despite the absence of brows and pupils, his expression is one of request, demand…Appeal.

And from that too-large mouth with all its many little swords, “Take the sword, Quincy. You will have no trouble lifting it.”

He is but a Half, and thus he can indeed cry - vermilion streaks stain his alabaster cheeks. In contrast to this terrible arrangement of exaggerated neo-human features, his hair would not look out of place on a young man's pate: short, almost-black and rather disciplined...But most striking are the ears: they are indeed tapered, although not to the extent of an elf's. A German shepherd or the like; a hound's ears, pointed but not flared. The name is...Apt.

She looks at his face before she ever takes the sword; he shows himself to her, and she does not gasp - does not make a sound - because he is her friend and that makes him beautiful. The air feels heavy, and the sun is finally rising. She mimics him then - reaching up to pull off her eye patch; there is an eye. It is also black - there is no white; its sheen is starless. Stumping forward, weeping softly, a small hand and a broad hand wrap around the hilt of Oni-Goroshi. Her back bends, and she tries, with all her might - she is sickly but not feeble - to pull the sword from its sheath of soil. He has shown her the meaning of mercy; mercy takes a greater strength than any death that she has ever known, has ever created.

The moment her fingers touch the sword, it hums. Once she grips it, the weight does not so much lower as *reverse* - the Goddess of Swords wants to be torn from the ground, to bear witness to its final morning. Quincy feels it- a wrenching sensation, like death itself if death is nothing more than the loss of free-will.

Oni Goroshi comes free, sweeping high, throwing earth from her lean sharpness; the first rays of daylight embrace her keen edge.

“But once you do lift it...The trouble will be in keeping it down.” He smiles, a weak and tremulous grin; a shadow of the mirthful tale-spinner he once was. “You know what to do with it, Quincy. As I did, as the one before me did. I am your teacher. There is only one way to end the lessons and show me how much you have learned.”

What are you doing?!

[color=sky blue]Putting you to rest. You, and Her, and all the others I've carried too long.[/color]

And you? What of your grandiose tales and sanctimonious speeches?

[color=sky blue]Silent as the steel I will call home...But there is a song too. You know it as well as I. You knew it the moment I chose her.[/color]

Did you? Or did we?

[color=sky blue]There's no difference; you're just a voice in my head...And you know what? I don't need you anymore. In fact, I don't even believe in you.[/color]

And even if Quincy doesn't want this...The sword does. She is still his sword, and this is what he wants too.

Not exactly your usual apprenticeship or years of hard training and rigourous conditioning, but...He was never any good at that crap anyway. That and...Well, he knows she's got a good arm, a strong grip. He might even know about a few of her other secrets. Charan leans back, exposing his black-clad torso to the girl and the sword both.

Quincy quakes. Dog-Ears wants her to kill him. She feels death while holding his blade, and her fingers tremble on the sapphire hilt. She stares at his naked face, and listens to his words - all of them. This hasn't gone on long enough, she wants to plead – you were supposed to stay with me! .... I want to go, too. Her shoulders heave, and she does not recite - no, he might have said it before, but they become her own, too - it is the Perfect thing to say:

'This will not 'urt, my beloved Dog-Ears.'

Then she struggles out something more, something that sounds more like a question: 'This will make you .. 'appy.'

The tip lowers, and she stares with nothing but a terrified gentleness in her own strange eyes along the edge of the weapon. She can feel how it wants what he wants. It is so, so heavy; she wonders how he could withstand the weight for so long.

The weapon raises; it is aflame with the sunlight, prepared to descend. Quincy is never quite prepared, and her vision blurs.

'I 'ope I'll make you proud.'

Charan smiles.

“Name the sword as you send it home...Oni-Goroshi, Demon-Slayer, is no longer proper: my demons die with me. Heavy, isn't it? When you wish to use it...It will be lighter than a whim, but it will pull you towards your desires, so watch what you think, 'kay? And remember: it's me. Every time your sword makes a kill, it is not on your conscience. My kill, my guilt. You'll never kill again. That knowledge will let me smile...Forever.”

Charan closes his eyes and, for the first time in over half a millennium, holds his breath. It's a strangely soothing sensation.

Quincy stares down at him and can not wipe away her tears; it is, at the moment, intensely consequential for her heart to know the perfect name for the sword. He looks almost peaceful while he waits, and she does not want to make him wait too long. She wonders if he feels what she felt; she would not rob him of his dream.

'If it's you then .. I'm goin' to name it after you,' she whispers. But he is not a demon to her. 'Are you ready to go 'ome?'

The sword wavers, and her elbows bend; she does not want to do it.... but it knows that it must.

“Now.”

[Charan`Jaydemyr]

Was she asking the sword, or was she asking Dog-Ears? With her eyes wide open, for it must be perfect - painless, she swings the great sword to steal away his troubles, to end his pain, to kill the voices. It sings in the dawn light; her teeth are bared with the effort behind her strength - her entire body flows into the solid, slicing propulsion - it nearly takes her off her feet, before it slams back down.

There is no blood - there hasn't been natural blood in his body for centuries now. The tears alone drained a great deal of the stolen life. Rather, it is like hacking into a dehydrated carcass. The cloak gives, the skin gives...His body falls in two neat portions. As for what he experiences? A dream, of course - one of returning to welcome arms, a Goddess of Swords with her ever-shifting hair and iridescent face, who was Fa Shai and is Vachaelle, who was never real and never more real, for she was his Sword from the start. The embrace will never end and he'll never know anything but bliss. Not a bad reward for a genocidal maniac...Then again, maybe he never killed either.

The blade cuts through him; it is not how she expects it to be, but it is never easy - despite 'the give' of the dry body. It falls in half, and she cries out as the sapphire-hilted blade slams into the earth - a sob, a name that no one will understand except the sword, because the name is the sword:



’Dog-Ears!'



It is a lament; it is a prayer for him.

The black cloak falls into tatters, for it was his cloak and none other's.

As soon as she names the sword, the flesh of what was Charan begins to fall apart.

Mismatched eyes stare down as the severed body crumbles to ash and dust, the cloak to shreds, and she wets his grave with large tears. Her breathing is ragged, and her face is red - her entire, meager body trembling with sorrow and relief.

And Now:

If Quincy closes her ears, she'll hear his stories, but of course, she can always tell him to shut up. They are hers to share if she wishes or to savour and cherish alone. He will teach her about all his experiences...And, as his mentor had done for him, he will do it within the split second before she needs to know. When she actually wields the sword that is hers to name, it will know everything he taught it and everything taught to him. That is the true magic; that is the rite of succession. The teacher must be slain by the student, and it must be done with the sword wielded by that teacher.

And Oni-Goroshi has had a hundred names, known the exalted grip of a hundred masters, all of whom slew their teachers as that final lesson.

...And, because that which once was the spiritual prison for so convoluted a creature as Chaelle now houses Charan's soul, it, like him, will move in straight lines. There will be no distance between decision and action; his warning was not a vain one. His Fire is hers to command. None may lift him, not without her bidding, and should he be knocked from her hands, he will return unerringly. Not even a thousand men can lift him, but one special girl will never struggle to carve the air with his edge as though she were a dancer, a seraph of divine grace, holy wrath.

Now Quincy has thousands upon thousands of years of killing expertise at her command, at her whim. Dog-Ears will know her physical limits, although he will push them, and if she doesn't train with him, they may have a little trouble working together. Quincy will discover, however, that it won't take hours upon hours of hard training to learn how he works, because, unlike Chaelle and Charan's tortuous relationship, this is one of willing subservience. She gave him the dream, the joy of believing in its verdant life one last time; in thanks, he's given her his power.

...A few feet away, the scabbard waits. Like Dog-ears himself, it's a bit shorter than a standard katana, a bit straighter. Quincy should recognise the strap Charan used to hold the sheathed weapon, but she's free to modify as she will. He's her Sword, after all...It's just like it always was: she gives the word, he goes to work. Unlike Charan, she will not suffer all the voices in her head: she was clever enough not to name the blade after her demons, as he did. But yes, he's in there somewhere, telling a clever story or knitting a new creation...Or defending her, as is his destiny now.

She stands in his dust, bending over the hilt of the erect blade until it presses against her belly; her dark hair hangs to the ground, and she cries. Sunlight drenches her back in warmth, and she lets herself feel it. She leans on Dog-Ears for a long time before she's ready to collect herself, to collect his scabbard. Her Sword, at least, will never think her weak for her tears.

At first, she's going to find him in her hands with just a dark thought or angry mutter - that's part of what he has to teach her. Restraint, control, responsibility...But also decisiveness, resolution and commitment. No sword is light, even if he himself is doing his best to alleviate her burden.

But look on the bright side: at least Chainbreaker will have a playmate now, and Quincy's got her job back.


______________________



Acknowledgment given to the players of Khalika, Adorain and Quincy for their words used here, although without permission, in all respect and with all due homage.






Don't forget what makes things precious, Jen-chan: the fact that they don't last forever. - W