Rising in the East

It's nighttime and you're huddled alone in a little hollow between two trees, a ways up from the Pebble's banks, too paranoid either to start a fire or to go to sleep. You've put as much distance between you and the shadowland as possible, but you can't rule out the possibility of being assailed by ghosts still, hence your bleary-eyed vigil. The lack of a fire is to avoid detection from more human foes. Relatively speaking. You've made an enemy of nearly everyone now, after all.

You're not so cold at least. The green jade wrackstaff, laid out across your lap, doesn't seem to want to let you be uncomfortably cold or miserable, even sitting as you are in the dirt with your back against a tree trunk. The weapon's presence is tangible — not a thinking thing, but something that seems to feel, somehow. What you're getting from it at the moment is the sense of something entirely satisfied. You refused to compromise with the wicked, and fought them in order to save the innocent. It's almost pleased by this, not even understanding the concept of such things having negative consequences, let alone being troubled by those that you face now as a result. It's like being comforted by a friendly dog, if a dog were an indescribably valuable weapon made entirely from enchanted metal.

Something flutters by overhead, startling you until you recognise it as a bat. This offers little reprieve when it lands nearby, and begins to assume human shape. You shoot back up to your feet, wrackstaff in hand.

"It's me," says Silent Pause. He straightens out his robe, looking about as tired as you are in the faint light of the crescent moon. "I caught up with them. No one else saw me give him the message."

You slump back down to the ground. "Good. Thanks. Sorry. Captain Wandering Heart's going to be getting enough hard looks, now that people know about me. We don't need to add to it."

"I offered, you don't need to apologise. Are you alright? You look exhausted." Pause settles himself down across from you, legs folded beneath him, as comfortable here on the ground as he would be on a temple floor.

"So do you," you say. "I can't sleep. I can keep watch, if you need to, though."

He gives you the sort of gently disapproving look that every Immaculate monk you've ever met seems to have mastered long ago. "Aster, you need to take care of yourself."

"I'm fine," you say, not meeting his gaze.

"No, you're not. You're running yourself ragged," he says. "I remember what being newly Exalted felt like — I know you feel invincible right now, but you only have so much. If you don't rest, you'll bleed your magic dry, and your abilities won't be there when you need them. sleep."

There's something abnormally compelling about that direction, beyond the authority that a shaven head and a set of hempen robes implies to you. Now that you know what Pause really is, there's a part of you that can't help but be suspicious of this sensation, of how reasonable and rational his words always seem. You've heard of the many horrible ways an Anathema can ensnare the mind, after all. But, Pause is the only friend you definitely have left in the world, however young that friendship is. So when he commands: "Sleep. It's been a hard day, Cub. With harder to come. Find peace where you can," you listen.

You curl up on the most comfortable piece of land you can find, cradling the staff for the warmth it provides, as ridiculous as that makes you feel. "You need sleep too," you remind him.

"I do," Pause agrees. He settles his back against the same tree you'd been leaning against, closing his eyes. "I will awaken at the slightest hint of danger. One of Luna's gifts to me."

"... if you say so," you say. Then you close your eyes, and you're instantly dead to the world.

















You wake from the dream to find yourself back in your little hollow, the seated form of Silent Pause assuring you that you are, in fact, safely half a world and nearly two centuries removed from that scene on the hill you just witnessed. You don't immediately get up, or say anything. Being told that the power you have once belonged to the likes of Jochim the Anathema is a very different matter from somehow sharing a dead man's memories from so long ago. It had all been too real to just be a bad dream, too — some of your own memories are less vivid than that had been. You felt the cold of the wind, the impact of your — of his fist as it struck Jasmine's face.

At this last thought, you can't help but recall something she said after you'd made clear your intentions to fight her, back in the shadowland: "You always do this! You hurt me, and then you act like I'm the one in the wrong!"

You're so preoccupied by these thoughts, you don't even think to ask how Pause intends to get you back to the city in time for your meeting with Wandering Heart, until you're both awake and walking down to the river, and he casually tells you.

"I should be able to cross the distance in that timespan. My river dolphin shape is quite fast, even with someone hanging off of me. And it might be easier to remain concealed that way, although I will need to take us under from time to time with little notice."

"Won't I freeze?" you ask, considering spending that long in the water. The sun hasn't risen yet, and this close to the Frozen Wood, the Pebble is still cold as spring meltwater.

Pause glances down at the wrackstaff you're still holding. "That's Verdance, isn't it?"

You frown. "Verdance?"

"A famous weapon. I had heard that one of the monks carried it into the shadowland with her; it protects the wielder from the natural elements."

"It... did stop me from feeling the cold, even back in the Wood," you admit. It feels right, you suppose, that such a weapon should have a name. Something else occurs to you all at once, something far less important, but still, you ask: "You... ate a dolphin, then? For its shape?"

Pause blinks, then laughs. "No, actually. That shape, I earned quite bloodlessly. It came from a young moon-touched I aided... it must be years ago, now. Ask me about that another time — it's a good story, but we need to get underway."

It's a very strange feeling, holding onto a dolphin's dorsal fin with one hand, Verdance with the other. Pause sets a startlingly fast pace, making use of super-human... or, rather, super-dolphin speed and endurance. You're hauled through the water behind him like a piece of flotsam, travelling at least as fast as the boats had managed. It helps that he's going downstream at first, but it's still a stark reminder of how many tools that Lunar Anathema have at their disposal when it comes to travel and evasion. It's impressive that Wyld Hunts find them as often as they do — you have quite a bit less going for you in this department. A troubling prospect, but...

You're not really expecting to walk away from this in the end, are you? You just want to do what you can before your luck runs out. You don't want to die, but surviving past this crisis would be... what would you even do? Better not to even think about it.


Drying your clothes off while hiding in the countryside outside Greyfalls wasn't fun, Verdance or not. Getting back into the city, however, is less fun still.

Security has plainly increased in your absence, presumably in response to the Lunars' presence... and to yours. There won't be any Jewel to talk you past the gates this time — even from a distance, you can see that the same one you originally came in through is now manned by at least five guards, as well as a Dragon-Blood, conspicuous with his bright green hair and skin, plainly in charge.

You very quickly decide that you'll need to wait for dark, and go up a wall. Your first concern — cresting it and finding someone there to catch you — is covered by Pause, who promises to discreetly draw attention elsewhere for you. Moon Mad or not, you're increasingly glad you took the time to befriend the Anathema monk. He's extremely handy to have around.

The second concern is Verdance. You have no idea what you're going to do with this incredibly conspicuous weapon when you'll need both hands to make the climb. Before you can even voice the concern, though, it simply vanishes from your hand in a small burst of golden light, startling yourself. You can still feel its connection to you, it's not really gone, just... somewhere else. You know instinctively that you could pull it back if you needed it. Anathema magic is very strange.

The wall is both tall and sheer — no ordinary human should have been able to scale it without tools in broad daylight, let alone in the middle of the night. You find a way, though, the same as you found a way to leap between tree branches, or to run along a clothesline as though it were a broad avenue. You ascend a series of barely-protruding bricks like a ladder, making your way up the fortification as quietly as you can manage.

By the time you get to the top of the wall, mercifully darkened and deserted, you're breathing a little hard. It's nothing so bad that you can't swiftly make the descent down to the clay-tiled rooftops below, however. On the streets below you, patrols are increased to such a degree that even taking the high route as you are, you're forced to take lengthy detours to avoid detection. This city where you've spent months of your life feels utterly transformed now. There's a tension in the night air, and even the Giant, despite being frozen in place with a waterfall coming from its stone mouth, seems to be glaring at you a little more than usual. You don't belong here anymore.

It's a relief to see that the night market is at least open as per usual. The populace must have noticed the increased security, but clearly the satrap doesn't want to cause a panic, or disrupt commerce by shutting it down, or warning the public at large of a probable Anathema attack. It will get out eventually, of course. Such things always do. For now, the place is still thronged with merchants and buyers, the scent of good food thick in the air. You ignore the gnawing hunger in your stomach and instead make your way to the meeting place you requested.

It's a quiet, out of the way corner of the market, a couple broken stalls crammed into a forgotten nook. Still in plain sight, but not so close to everyone that you'll be immediately overhead over the sounds of the crowd. And here, tall and pale and blond as ever beneath a hood, is Captain Wandering Heart, looking characteristically stoic, if a little out of place. Unfortunately, that's not all. A figure lurks on the rooftops above him, darkly clad, trying its best to blend in, plainly watching the captain. He doesn't seem aware of them, and you don't think either have spotted you yet.

Has he been followed? Is this the satrap keeping an eye on him? The Lunars? Yet another group you haven't even thought of yet? Panic claws at your chest.

Article:

What do you do?

[ ] Confront the watcher
[ ] Get the drop on the watcher
[ ] Greet Wandering Heart, and try to warn him discreetly