Sylphe
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The squeal of crystal on crystal was not a clean, nor was it a beautiful sound. Ice and blood clashed, holding one another hostage, and their blades scratched against one another, the painful sound tickling Milo’s ears. No matter how beautiful, they were sharp and perfect for killing.
The other man had leaned in, and his voice was winter and blizzard. He felt the chill of his breath as he spoke, but did not move an inch. Did not let any emotions get in the way.
“I don’t know who you are, or why you seem so intent on humiliating me, but I can assure you that you will regret challenging me.”
It was time to focus, to show to the Lords and to not show to his opponent. Time to surrender his freezing cold to lifeblood’s warmth. So he spoke, truthfully, not keeping his eyes away, not for a moment. The struggle was too even to allow missteps.
“Distraction. That’s that. Figured I wouldn’t get your attention off her in other ways.”
For a moment, there came a stillness in the blades. Confusion and sincerity, emotions that barely had time to shine in a fight where there was fury just a second ago. But in that perfect still snowy plain that the impasse and Milo’s face was, there came a sudden change. A blow of warmer winds, for a moment. For another, a painful smile.
“I’ve had enough regrets to last me a lifetime. What is one more?”
In the frozen mask of the angel, something had also moved.
Though Milo had no time to ask then, and he’d never have an opportunity to visit that moment again.
“Deafen him.”
Too focused on the fight, he failed to hear or see anything else, and soon he’d fail to hear or see anything at all. A violent sound tore through the space, causing a strike painful enough for him to shriek out, arms letting go of the blade and tearing at his ears, in an attempt to block the sound that had already happened. He stumbled back, the sound reverberating in his mind as a million stinging lights, all the sound inside, none outside, the second shout was not warning enough, not at all.
“B...n ...m.”
A mistake of reflex once again, the best thing he could come up with was to look up, and witness the first split second of brilliant white. Hands in front, covered with a bloody shield he did not even conjure fully, his fingers shook, his arms as well. He stumbled like a bumbling fool, trying to make sense of things. His will screamed against the vast expanse of white, not wanting to be ended, refusing to give in, and so he turned towards the attacker. Pale eyes open and blind, all he saw in that fateful moment was a silhouette. A less white stain, and yet its shape was unmistakable. A blade, heavy and without point. Blade with inscriptions meant for the friends of death. A blade for a criminal.
Time hushed its voice for their final act. And with the avian roar in his mind and the defeatist sink of his heart, he could not move. There were so many crimes all at once in that one instant before punishment they all formed one enormous cloud of black smoke in his mind, clouding everything else.
The moment had passed, Time had taken a breath, and the silhouette shifted.
She hesitated.
And in his surprise, Milo took too long to draw blood to take on his fleshy thread, to attempt to weave himself protection.
And then, something crashed into his body and bounced off, something he did not even see, but something he felt. Crackles, fluidity and stillness in one. Motion, in the form of a sharp tug of an invisible rope, a ripple, a pulse of energy.
He flew, with nothing on his mind other than the impossibly bright afterimage of a woman and her blade, punishing.
The rocky, wet and impossibly cold ground was there to meet him once again. It was hard to get his bearings. The insistent ringing in his head, the eyes he kept closed. The icy water lapping at him with its deathly hold. Blinded, and losing touch of anything that didn’t need warmth and blood to keep him alive, even the shallows felt like a deep, endless void. There were no wings to carry him up this time, and in spite of that, perhaps because of that, even, he had to get up. Somewhere, sometime in this infinite span of black and headache and cold, something made ripples. Something ran, and Milo did not have time to try and discern what it was from its gait. Was it the kind little robot that had helped, or was it the executioner that had hesitated, and cost herself her kill?
Milo closed his fist, and attempted to make a sound, to call, to roar, anything to make his frozen hands work, anything to not make every movement feel like it made every tendril of tendon snap. Bubbles came out of his throat, in came icy water. In this senseless void, there were small pings of crimson, dispersed in the water around, repelling it like oil. He drew them in, around his arm. They didn’t have much warmth left as the water around made sure to sap that, but it was enough to where he could feel his arm enough to pull himself above.
What was it that she saw, in him, or perhaps in herself? An interesting character she certainly must have been. Just like the cold-winged one. It stung a little that he made them his enemies. Now he was lying there in the water, crumpled and at mercy of someone who wasn’t his enemy. And as he stood there watching over him, Milo was no longer sure if making enemies was the right call, even in an arena with one victor.
With one eye open and a water sputtering cough, he focused on the robot. He couldn’t see what was happening out there, not while his eyes were still full of blitzing and dancing afterimages. But maybe, right now, that’s all there was to do. Like he’d trust Peregrine to snatch him from the air a thousand times, nevermind that once, his heart had been feathered and black. Maybe now was the time to trust someone else.
“Th…” Take two. There’s still water in you. “Thank you. For saving my life, for whatever it’s worth.”
He had a feeling that there was something owed, and he was going to give it. A question, a recognition, of someone who perhaps wasn’t recognized too much, but nevertheless absolutely deserved it.
“What is your name?”
Milo frowned, and made sure to drag himself a little closer so that he could understand. A whole half of him was still awfully deafened, and while the ringing in his skull was not a ping of bright yellow and red, it was still there to distract. With the right ear turned, Milo heard…
“v...e…, v…”
“..eet..r..bee”
So by putting those two together, he’d get…
“Veeterbee?” Milo confirmed in a question. The last thing he’d want to do was to get it wrong. “That’s a nice name.”
“Wh...aa..at..”
“.... you?”
Milo blinked, frustration surging in his chest. He couldn’t understand, but he was not going to interrupt the other. His words felt like they required so much effort it made Milo’s throat close up, and not from the smoke or chilly water. Between the struggle to speak and struggle to hear, it was a miracle when they finally reached an understanding, and Milo’s face lit up.
Name! His name. He could give veeterbee that.
“Milo.” He replied, with that smile and also a cough he hoped the robot didn’t catch as a part of the name itself. “I’m Milo.”
The robot shivered, and Milo was somewhere beyond shivering. But even though every part of his body was quickly turning from pale to ghostly and purple, he made his best efforts to get up. Leg after leg, he stumbled, but he had to keep going. A desire that was not really new made itself known. To protect the protector, one that had been trying his hardest to say his name with a broken up voicebox.
“MILO!” veeterbee called, and the pale mage’s eyes snapped towards where the smokey one was catapulted to.
I’m here. I’m here.
He did not speak his words, turning to keep his back on veeterbee. He needed to keep watch on the frozen angel, even if he didn’t seem like much of a fight, watching with that same confusion from earlier. With a blade and a shield forming in either hand, Milo was ready to fight anyway. Nevermind the fingers that felt like falling off, sending dull jolts of pain as they tried their hardest to close around the hilt of a jagged blade. Nevermind the crystals of ice forming on his skin. Who knew how long the peace would last?
It was perhaps the thought of an insane man struck with grief reignited. With all the power in the world, he was too late back then. Perhaps now, with no power at all and flesh decaying with frostbite, he had a chance to be on time.
“Friend,” He heard. And with eyes too dry to cry, he replied, and momentarily turned his eyes away from the frozen one.
“Friend.”
He liked to sing. At times so far down time’s steep slope it almost felt like another life. He liked to sing to others. To Peregrine, to her. To Nela. Never in his life did he think someone would sing to him. Much less a robot elemental. A robot elemental in an arena under the moon’s everwatchful face. A friend that just saved his life.
However much of that life was left, Milo realized, painfully, as his body had more and more of a problem keeping up.
Though perhaps, instead of braving the storm of ice and flame that was to follow, veeterbee had a different idea entirely.
He watched the small one point and stare, and in its movements saw Nela once again. The moon… Without thinking, Milo nodded and rushed forward, blade and shield forgotten. This wasn’t a battle he’d need them in, and they knew it just as well, coalescing and following Milo close by like a comet. With its outer layers freezing, it couldn’t be closer to the truth.
But its owner, its friend, didn’t have the time to watch how the crimson ice chipped off and made a trail. Milo’s eyes were on the moon, on its every silver framed crater, on its every dust sea. On its grand deserts and mountain ranges smoothened by aeons of shooting stars. Anything to push back the thoughts of what’ll follow, of the toes now dead by the freezing cold, of his legs fighting against the ice with shooting pains and against the rising waters of the Fountain.
Just a little longer.
Milo gritted his teeth and waded forward as fast as he could, to match veeterbee’s speed, his momentum. Maybe, and perhaps those were thoughts of someone holding on to the last shred and thread of rationality, it didn’t count which fight it was. A fight with a sword and blade was just as painful and difficult as a fight to get to the moon, even if there was no enemy in sight.
But the pale moon twinkled on the mirrored surface, but the stars ran away from him in the reflection he waded through. And he realized that maybe, if he were to be smitten right here, he’d go out with all of those celestials reflected on the pool, all of them turned into an isle of stone.
Perhaps this fool’s last moments were truly meant to be utterly delightful, even if the scythe of smoke missed its mark.
But he was not here to die, not yet. Before that, he had at least one more thing to do, and he did not have time to bother with vowels that took too long to speak.
“Now, viterbi!”
Fly!
He called, voice raspy, and didn’t bother to cover his head as the elemental bounced off his shoulders. The touch of the electricity, of another body, it had hurt. It had hurt intensely, the frostbite in his skin and strain in his shoulder protesting madly. But as he stumbled back from exhaustion and watched the little robot make his jump, the sky had opened before him, and in it he saw them all.
Rishja, a coyote with a crown of gold and fur of silver.
Akala, a mountain that felled many a climber with the divinities residing at its peak.
The sea monster, now a brilliant quetzal.
And a Vulture, with its wings of night spread so wide it felt like its claws could catch viterbi’s fall.
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