Bird Calls--A Keep Story (Interlude 1 up)

[Kestrad]

Chapter 5
Lachesis laughed as her koi nibbled gently at her fingers as she dropped small pieces of bread into their waiting mouths. The pond with her koi was right behind her house, but she almost never visited during winter because of the ice that formed on top. Ever since she'd become a fire magi, though, it had become much easier to melt the icy barrier. For all that koi were of the opposite element to the one she had chosen, they were still among her favorite creatures.

Suddenly, the water frothed agitatedly. A huge fin broke the surface, then another, and Hobbes the forest leviathan leaped out of the water and snatched the whole slice of bread from Lachesis's hands. Lachesis smiled, glad she had had the foresight to cast a water-repelling spell on herself, and petted the leviathan's head. "I've missed you too, Hobbes," she said. "Where are the others?"

The leviathan lay down heavily on the bank around the pond and started to snore. "Sleeping?" Lachesis asked. Hobbes got up and nodded vigorously. I see," Lachesis said. "Will you give them some bread when they've woken, Hobbes? " The leviathan nodded again, and Lachesis handed him several more slices of bread. He nuzzled her happily and then dove back down to the bottom of the pond.

Lachesis finished feeding the koi and bade them farewell, feeling more calm than she had in a long time. She knew the tranquility would be short-lived, though--she was off to visit her amagnae next. The young fire magi hoisted several large bags of seeds onto her back and started off towards the woods.

As she approached the place her flock had colonized, several turkeys flew straight at her face. Fortunately she knew from prior experience that this would happen, and pointedly ignored them. They crashed directly into her shield spell with a flurry of feathers and indignant squawks.

"Oh, quiet, you angry birds," Lachesis said to them. "I bring you seeds, and this is how you greet me?" She scattered the contents of several bags on the snow covered ground, to the glee of all the turkeys in her flock, and a few that weren't. The ones that had dove at her assumed an air of injured dignity that anyone who didn't own amagnae would swear only cats could put on.

"I know you were only trying to have some fun," Lachesis pouted. "I just wish you'd make an exception for me."

One of the young amagnaes stopped pecking at the seed and flew away at her comment. He returned a moment later with a piece of leather tied together at the corners and dropped it at her feet, before returning to the feast.

"Oh," Lachesis said, surprised, as she picked up the bag. "Well, thank you. Yes, I do see now that you appreciate me after all." She picked up her now-empty sacks and left the turkeys to eat in peace.

Lachesis glanced at the sky as she walked back to her house, judging that she probably had half an hour left before her next class. She put away the seed sacks and opened the bag her amagnae had given her. As she had expected, it was filled with tan, brown, and silver feathers. But in the middle of the amagnae feathers there was also a small, bright orange stone, set in a silver pendant on a fine silver chain. It didn't feel magical, but the stone seemed to almost flicker with flames under its surface. Lachesis frowned, wondering where her turkeys had gotten it from. She would have to ask them tomorrow--she needed to return to the Keep for class now. Lachesis stared at the necklace a little longer, and then impulsively put it on before grabbing her cloak to go out.

Her oldest phoenix pair, Pele and Agni, landed on her as she put the purple garment on, looking at her expectantly. Her next class was Magical Duels, and each class she was usually allowed to bring a creature or two along. She had brought Pele and Agni along a few more times than her other creatures, and they had come to expect being chosen.

But today, they were having practice duels for the entire class. And unfortunately, her sparring partner for the day was Vash. Lachesis felt nervous just thinking about it. The two of them were fierce rivals when it came to who was better at dueling, but there was no denying that Vash was clearly more skilled. And strategizing didn't help Lachesis much either--he was also far better at that than she was. Lachesis looked at her two birds, then shook her head slightly. They chirped and flew away. They came back a few seconds later, though, chasing a rather bewildered-looking crystalwing towards her.

Lachesis stared, then laughed. "Thanks," she said to the two birds. They chirped happily and landed on a roof beam above her, looking very smug. Yes, the crystalwing was definitely a good choice, Lachesis decided. Everyone else in the class was definitely going to use as much fire as they could now that they were fire magi--not having to use spells to control it meant an edge in speed--but Lachesis had decided she should try to avoid using it until she could figure out a way to manage the images. Taking her crystalwing along would help her cast air and stone spells more quickly, alleviating some of her speed disadvantage.

When she arrived at the Keep, Lachesis quickly dropped by the magically heated section for creatures who didn't like cold. Her hellhound pair yapped happily to see her, licking her hands. Lachesis smiled and scratched them behind their ears. She knelt next to the female one. "Wanna come with me to combat class today?" The hellhound barked and nodded eagerly. Lachesis smiled and led her through the halls of the Keep to the combat arena, hoping all the while that the book of non-fire spells she'd read the night before would help her.





Whew, done with this chapter! fail Epic fight scene in the next chapter!

EDIT: Changed the tienko to the crystalwing. I decided that it would make much more sense for Lachesis to bring the crystalwing to duel with her, especially because he plays a more important role in the story than the tienko.

[Kestrad]

Chapter 6
When Lachesis stepped into the changing room for female students, the others in her class were all already there. She waved to Celli and grabbed her magic-resistant suit from its hook and started to change.

"Hey, Lach, what's that?"

Lachesis spun around to see Lyneira, a magi whom she hadn't known very well until they'd both ended up in the fire class. Ever since then they'd been good friends. She was already dressed and pointing at Lachesis's new pendant.

"Oh, it's nothing," Lachesis replied, "My amagnae found it and gave it to me, and I just decided to wear it." Lyneira lifted her eyebrow. "I doubt they stole it from anyone," Lachesis said quickly. "Otherwise they would have been a lot more smug. They come upon a lot of things when searching for seeds, though usually they hoard them rather than giving them to me. Besides, most people have learned by now to avoid that area of the woods."

Lyneira grinned. "So true. Those birds are vicious." She went to the wall where a collection of staves hung, grabbing the one with an emerald-green stone on top. They always fought with staves in Magical Duels. "Alright, I'm going to warm up now. See you at the arena."

"See you," Lachesis grunted as she finished shoving pieces of her suit on. It consisted of a tight leather tunic, tight leather breeches, leather boots, and leather fingerless gloves to promote dexterity. The entire suit was enchanted with spells to resist magical and physical attacks, preventing serious injuries from occurring during practice duels. Some of the female students preferred a top that exposed their midriff or sometimes the entire expanse between their breast and their hip, though Lachesis thought that was plain silly. The enchantments protecting from magic were supposed to protect exposed areas as well as covered ones, but the ones protecting from physical attack did not. And what was the point of exposing so much skin? The idea was to fight one's duel opponent, not seduce them.

Lachesis hung her clothes on the hook her suit had been on, tucked the pendant under her tunic, and grabbed the staff with the purple crystal, then ran out to the arena. It was a large indoor dirt field enclosed with glass walls. Her creatures had been waiting for her. They seemed quite eager to fight, unlike Lachesis, who felt herself trembling slightly from nerves. She always did when the class agenda was to duel. She did her best to ignore it and practiced holding and swinging her staff instead, going through each position as slowly and carefully as possible. She warmed up her magic by performing a few of the simpler spells she'd read. She would have liked to practice some of the advanced spells too, but decided to reserve her energy for the actual battle.

Then Master Bellera strode into the arena. All the students stopped practicing and lined up the instant they saw her enter. Lachesis glanced around and saw she had been right. Almost all the creatures were fire ones. Hellhounds were particularly popular, though many phoenixes fluttered about as well. Lyneira had the most expensive creatures by far, a celestial dragon and a valcerian dragon. Celli stood with her amarth alagos perched on her shoulder to Lachesis' right. "Hey Lach," she whispered. "Why didn't you practice with any fire? If the things you see are interfering, why don't you talk to Master Kilandra about it?"

Lachesis sighed. Celli had been bothering her about this over lunch, too. She knew her friend meant well, but..."I told you, I don't want her to think I'm weird," Lachesis whispered back. Master Bellera slammed her staff into the ground for attention then, and Lachesis faced the front, glad that Celli wouldn't be able to reply.

"You're dueling today," Bellera said simply. "As you already know. Don't disappoint me. Vash and Lachesis, you go first. Everyone else, grab a seat."

Celli patted Lachesis on the back before heading towards one of the doors with the other students. "Good luck, Lach," she called. "Beat him this time, won't you?"

Lachesis grimaced. "I'll try. No guarantees." She could see the first few students sitting down behind the glass wall. She ran to catch up with Master Bellera just before the combat master went through the door too.

"Master Bellera," Lachesis asked urgently, "Vash is a much better dueler than I am. Why do you always pair me with him? There are several people better matched with him than I am--"

"Apprentice Lachesis." Bellera cut her off. "Work on that confidence of yours, will you? It'll help you beat Vash, and it'll help you get more if you beat him." The master lowered her voice slightly, as if telling Lachesis a secret. "It'll do him some good to be beaten too--he's too cocky. That is why I paired the two of you." The dueling master turned around and closed the door behind her. Lachesis returned to the center of the arena, taking her place opposite to Vash. Her crystalwing flapped eagerly beside her. Vash had brought a hellhound and a molten bone dragon. The two hellhounds lowered their ears and snarled, circling each other.

A few seconds later, Bellera's voice boomed throughout the arena. "Vash and Lachesis, you may now commence your fight."

Lachesis, always a cautious dueler, immediately backed away and raised her staff before her and cast the most powerful shield spell she knew. The invisible wall came into existence not a moment too quickly. Vash had started by immediately sending a sheet of flame at her, and fire rippled around Lachesis close enough for the heat to be uncomfortable. Vash sent another sheet at her--was he trying to overwhelm her with fire? Lachesis guessed he'd seen how tired Fire Studies made her and wanted to use that to his advantage. But he hadn't looked too good after class either...

Lachesis's musing was interrupted as Vash threw yet more flames at her and she was forced to focus as much power as she could on her barrier. As the flames hid her from view for a moment, she recited all but the last word to a water spell. When the flames dissipated, Lachesis saw Vash was ready with another fire attack.

Lachesis spoke the last spell word as he released. A sheet of water sprang up before Vash. His fire attack slammed into the water and disappeared. The water wall continued though. Lachesis gripped her staff until her knuckles were white, willing the water to wrap itself around her opponent.

Vash yelled a dissipation spell, and for the moment, the duel came down to a battle of wills as Lachesis fought to keep the water in place and Vash did his best to dismiss it. Lachesis gritted her teeth and sweated, feeling the first touches of tiredness. It was no good--Vash's hellhound and bone dragon assaulted the sheet with flames, and Vash's counter-spell slowly caused pieces of it to dissipate against Lachesis's will. Her own creatures did their best to help her. Her hellhound wrestled with Vash's, distracting the other from destroying the water, and the crystalwing directed gusts of wind to blow flames back into the bone dragon's face. Even so, Lachesis could tell it was a lost cause, and severed her connection to the sheet of water. With no more of her power to replenish it, Vash's spell dismissed it immediately. His hellhound threw Lachesis's off and blew a column of flame at her.

Lachesis instinctively jumped to the side, and realized that her shield had expired as the flame narrowly missed her. There was no time to cast another. Vash and his creatures sent stream after stream of fire at her, and suddenly Lachesis found herself jumping about to avoid their attacks. The constant movement was quickly tiring her out, and she had no chance to cast any counter spells. Her creatures were doing their best to harry Vash's, but they could only do so much.

Numbly, Lachesis realized that she would have to use fire magic after all. She stood still, panting, concentrating on the flames that streamed towards her, willing them to go away. And to her surprise, they did, while her mind stayed completely clear. Tentatively, she sent her own sheet of flame at Vash, who was starting to look exceedingly pale. Her mind remained free from the images, even after her attack.

Now it was Lachesis's turn to overwhelm her opponent with flames, with help from her hellhound. It was surprising to her how little energy it took to control fire, now that the images had stopped invading her mind. Vash managed to disperse the flames each time, and his creatures sent bursts of flame her way constantly, but dispelling them was suddenly easy for her. And she could see that Vash was tiring quickly. But then again, despite her newfound ease of control over fire, she was extremely tired too. Her breath came in gasps, and her side burned with a cramp.

Suddenly, her crystalwing slammed his tail into the bone dragon's head, knocking the creature out cold. Lachesis and Vash both stared for a moment, shocked. Vash recovered first, sending a fireball at Lachesis while she was distracted. Lachesis rolled out of the way just in time, but seeing her crystalwing had given her an idea. She threw most of her remaining energy into an air spell, using her crystalwing's presence for extra support. The spell allowed her run on air for ten seconds, effectively allowing her to jump extra long distances.

Vash threw another fireball at Lachesis, and she leaped. The fireball followed her. Lachesis felt panic rising in her as she realized that Vash had used the time she'd spent reciting her spell to place a homing spell on his fireball. That completely ruined her plan!

But she was already in the middle of carrying out her plan, so she forced down her panic as she ran through the air, the fireball behind her. Vash watched impassively, sure that his fireball would take her out. Perhaps he was almost out of magic too. When she was floating not too far from him, she used the last of her magical reserves to cast a speed spell and zoomed to land behind him before he could turn around.

Or at least, she tried to land. As soon as her feet touched the ground, her knees bucked and she collapsed into a pile on the ground. But that was lucky for her, because the fireball had sped up to match her speed. When she collapsed, it sped past over her head, unable to stop quickly enough, and crashed right into Vash. His suit absorbed the magical attack, but the force was enough to knock him to the ground. If she hadn't been panting from exhaustion, Lachesis would have shouted with glee. She'd intended to whack Vash with her staff, but what had happened worked too.

"Well done, Apprentice Lachesis," Master Bellera's voice boomed. "You have won this fight. Both contestants now report to my office for critiquing. Celli and Lyneira, get into the arena. Your match is next."

Lachesis groaned as she picked herself up. All the adrenaline in her system had suddenly disappeared, leaving her fully aware of just how much energy she'd expended. Vash managed to get up first and offered her a hand. Lachesis glanced at him, surprised. She'd expected him to simply stride off scowling. But instead he looked thoughtful as he bent over her, arm extended.

As they shuffled out, they passed Celli and Lyneira. Lyneira simply nodded approvingly at Lachesis, while Celli grinned and clapped Lachesis on the back. "Good job," she said gleefully. Lachesis simply nodded in response. She was still catching her breath.





Long chapter is long! Any comments? I'm not good at writing fights.

Notes for this chapter:
-Anyone other than me find it stupid that female fighters in fantasy rpgs, comics, that sort of thing all wear ridiculously scanty outfits? They'd be dead in a few minutes in a real fight.

[Drei Korvik]

Not good at writing fights?! It was great! Really exciting.

I think it's stupid, too. That's part of the reason why I don't play fantasy RPGs much anymore. >.> It doesn't make sense.

[Kestrad]

Not good at writing fights?! It was great! Really exciting.

I'm glad you think so! I still feel that I need to edit that section a bit sometime, though. For what exactly, I'm not sure yet.

[Kestrad]

Chapter 7
"That was one of the worst duels I've seen from either of you," Master Bellera scolded the two apprentices in her office. Behind her desk was a window overlooking the entire arena, from which she viewed each fight. The usually terse master always became extremely verbose when she was busy picking apart a duel. "Unnecessarily long and dragged out, and exceedingly uncreative. And I cannot believe the amount of wasteful attacks from both of you. Vash, you are used to being more powerful than your opponent, and as long as you are, overwhelming them is a tactic that works. But in the real world you won't always know your opponent. While you, Lachesis. You are the most cautious dueler in my class. Why did you first use no fire at all, and then suddenly start throwing flames like there's no tomorrow?"

Lachesis shifted uncomfortably. "I thought, in a real duel, it would help to keep my opponent guessing about my element. And then I...I got caught up in the moment," she finished lamely.

Master Bellera glanced at her with a slightly surprised expression. "If your opponent didn't know you, then yes, it would throw them off," she said. "But not all of your fights will be against people who don't know you. And you should fight each duel based on your opponent, not based on hypotheticals." Then she turned her attention to Vash again. "And Vash, you could have finished Lachesis off early on if you'd used your homing spell earlier. Why didn't you?"

"I thought I could simply overwhelm her," Vash replied. "Stupid, I know. I should have made sure."

Master Bellera nodded. "Correct," she said. "I hope you've learned to be less cocky next time. Dismissed, both of you. By the way, Vash, go revive your dragon. The next round can't begin while he's still lying in the arena."

***

Lachesis jammed the top of her pen against her chin in frustration after crossing out half of her potion recipe for the umpteenth time, then winced as her arms protested against the sudden movement. "Down from three phoenix feathers, down from one arkai feather, half a vial of koi pond water, mix everything together and swirl counterclockwise three times," she read from the list that remained, then sighed. It was too simple. She was sure that her purification potion needed something else. Maybe some koi scales? Koi were good at purifying. She wrote down, "Sprinkle one crushed koi scale onto potion." Yes, that felt right, but something was missing.

Suddenly, her tienko jumped onto her desk, nearly knocking over her ink bottle, and grabbed her pen in his mouth. "What in the name of--" She paused as she realized he was drawing something at the top of her sheet. "Is that...vervain?"

The tienko dropped the pen and jumped into her lap, purring. Lachesis petted him as she wrote "Add a pinch of vervain and invert vial once." Finally satisfied, she put her pen down and thought.

She didn't understand. Why would the images that had plagued her whenever she sought to control fire suddenly disappear? Idly she snapped and made a flame appear between her fingers. That was all that happened. Maybe the things she saw had simply been a phase, and she'd gotten past it. Or maybe...

Tentatively Lachesis took off the pendant her amagnae had given her, and tried to put out the candle on her desk. As the flame sputtered and went out, her room disappeared for a moment, replaced by the image of her tienko standing on three of her koi. They were still thrashing, desperate to breathe. She watched, horrified, as the tienko calmly bent down and started to eat one of them. The bitten fish thrashed harder, once, in agony before falling still.

The image faded, and Lachesis looked down at the tienko in her lap. He had gone to sleep while she was lost in thought. He shifted slightly and purred. Lachesis gently lifted him out of her lap. Then, with trembling hands, she re-clasped the pendant around her neck.





The plot grows thicker! Yay!

[Kestrad]

Chapter 8
Lachesis let a single drop of her potion fall into a flask of dirty, turbid water and waited, watching to see what would happen. At first, there was absolutely no effect. Then, slowly, the contents of the flask started to glow, imperceptibly at first, then brighter and brighter until it was hard to look at directly. Suddenly the glowing stopped, leaving behind a flask of completely clear water.

Alchemist Raden glanced up from where he was helping a student and nodded in approval. "Well done, Lachesis," he said, before turning back to making sure no one harmed themselves. Lachesis smiled, proud of herself, and tucked the small bottle containing her potion into one of the potion niches in her backpack.

Her contentment was quickly killed, though, by an explosion--actually, three explosions--from the back of the room. Raden looked up again, yelling "Vash, I told you not to make a blast potion for this class!" Lachesis turned around to look. Vash was picking up shards of glass. Next to him, Lyneira was in a similar situation, looking confused.

Alchemist Raden walked over to the two. "Apprentice Lyneira, what were the last two items you placed into your vial?" he asked.

"A piece of ice dragon scale and some ground hellhound horn," Lyneira replied as she shook a few strands of black hair out of her eyes. "Ow!" A shard of broken glass drew a shallow cut into her palm.

Raden frowned. "Ice creature ingredients are inherently incompatible with hellhound ingredients," he said. "Do not try something like that again. I read over your recipes for a reason. Follow what you write next time." He turned his attention towards Vash. "And you. I told you not to make a blast potion."

"I didn't," Vash replied. "It was supposed to be liquid fire."

The professor gave Vash a slightly withering glance. "Also a dangerous choice. Next time, write a new recipe and show it to me before going off and just throwing ingredients together."

"Excuse me, Alchemist. There will be a next time?" The question came from Lyneira, who had finally finished picking up all the large pieces of shattered glass.

Raden flicked his hand, and the small bits of broken glass flew into the air and landed in the broken glass bin. "That would be correct," he said. "From now on, you will be inventing your own recipes as homework every night, and making them the next morning. We continue this until everyone in the class makes a functional one."

***

"Hey Lach, congrats on getting moved to the advanced group!" Lachesis smiled at Celli, who herself was still doing rather dismally at Fire Studies. She could create fire at will and disperse it, but that was about it. It wasn't that she didn't have enough energy to do anything else, she'd told Lachesis. Rather, the flames just didn't obey her.

"Thanks," Lachesis replied, leaning against the wall. It was still slightly surprising to her how easy controlling fire became when wearing the pendant. Reflexively she looked down at her chest. The chain was usually tucked under her tunic. She started when she realized she'd forgotten to today and reached to tuck it away.

"Hey, Lachesis, can we talk?" Celli and Lachesis turned to see Vash. "Alone, please," he said, glancing at Celli.

Celli giggled and winked at Lachesis. "Well, then, I'm off to get lunch. See you later, Lach!"

Lachesis gazed coolly at Vash. "What is it you want to talk to me about?"

"Where'd you get that pendant?" he asked bluntly.

Lachesis's hand strayed to where it rested under her shirt. Since it hadn't been hidden earlier, there was no point in denying she had it. Actually, she wasn't sure why she kept it out of sight. It wasn't exactly that she was hiding it, but she didn't exactly want people to know if its existence either. "Why?"

Vash held his hand up for a moment, just quickly enough so that she could see he wore a ring on his middle finger. It was set with a stone just like the one on her pendant.

Lachesis looked up as he dropped his hand. Pieces started falling together in her mind. "You see the images too, don't you?" she asked, quietly.

He nodded. "I was about to ask you that." The two stood in there in the hall facing each other, neither quite sure what to say next.

Lachesis broke the silence first. "So, what now?"





Anyone have any thoughts about the story so far?

[Kestrad]

Bump. I got rid of the spoiler tags. Is it better without them, or was it better when I had them?

[Kestrad]

This was supposed to be another chapter, but then I realized I need to pack to go back to college. So have a bump instead. Chapter 9 will come soon. I might be introducing a new character in it! We'll see how it goes.

[Icethornstar]

Good gosh.
Kestrad, this story is amazing! :o The pace, the writing style, the mechanics... It's all there, and it's actually realistic, though it's a keep story. There's enough description to satisfy what the characters look like, and there's already a base establishment of their personalities, too. The overall design of it, like the chapter cutoffs, the amount of stuff in the chapter, how the chapters look in text; all very good, it sounds very professionally novel-like.
Keep on writing, Kestrad!
You have a lot of talent, I'm looking forward to reading more of your writing!

It's better without the spoilers, in my opinion- your thread isn't really littered with a ton of randomness comments and such, so it's perfectly fine.

[Kestrad]

Good gosh.
Kestrad, this story is amazing! :o The pace, the writing style, the mechanics... It's all there, and it's actually realistic, though it's a keep story. There's enough description to satisfy what the characters look like, and there's already a base establishment of their personalities, too. The overall design of it, like the chapter cutoffs, the amount of stuff in the chapter, how the chapters look in text; all very good, it sounds very professionally novel-like.
Keep on writing, Kestrad!
You have a lot of talent, I'm looking forward to reading more of your writing!

It's better without the spoilers, in my opinion- your thread isn't really littered with a ton of randomness comments and such, so it's perfectly fine.

Thank you! I'm so glad you like the story so far! I'll be honest--it's the first time I've actually written so much for a single work and haven't abandoned it yet. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up