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Fandom: FFXIV
Summary: This started out as poking at headcanon and snowballed; Thancred's younger days and how he ended up with the rest of the Archons.
Chapter summary: Trauma! Trauma and the perils of being a street rat of ill repute with a known close buddy of even less repute.
Warnings: Some violence, gore, references to human trafficking.
Also for those not canon familiar, some footnotes in advance: Bells = about an hour. The day's broken up into four cycles of six one-hour segments that're roughly matched to the elemental cycle/Twelve gods. Yalm = a little longer than a yard, malm if that got mentioned is somewhere between a km and a mile. “Hyur” is what humans got called by everyone else when they showed up. Roegadyn are massive (average about 7-feet) and built a little like tanks; Lalafell are at most maybe two and a half to three feet tall, Elezen = vaguely elf-like though they're bad at matching most other world's elves.
Getting out was the nearly unattainable goal for almost anyone there – getting off the streets, getting “out” to some kind of life where there was an idea of where the next meal was coming from and being warm in winter.
Thancred wasn't an exception, and there'd been the same list of jibes, nights where there wasn't much to do besides talk about how everyone was going to get 'out' and pretend it would actually happen, for sure, some day, maybe soon. It just took a few turns that seemed less unreal; starting to get enough from singing in the streets to maybe get notice and take up earning a solid living that way, maybe even get some help from the colleges in return for what he could shake out of the old soulstone they'd been trying to identify for years.
It wasn't hard to tell that something was wrong even before they went really south, either; it was hard not to notice “a few street kids” going missing when they were people you'd grown up with, and dead prostitutes stuck out more when it was a girl you'd known when she was younger or someone that'd brought food and hot drinks out in winter. The guard weren't always much help; for all that they'd be clattering through the streets trying to solve it, the flat poorest weren't the highest priority, and weren't really given to trusting people they recognized as thieves and con artists if someone did get brave enough to risk going to them.
He knew Mattye was pushing for more of an investigation, and helping with it; the scholar had been stubbornly avoiding admitting it, but he read well enough and fast enough to catch an occasional word scribbled in where the man was taking notes when one of them talked about it, and wasn't dumb enough to not connect that to him showing up less often for tutoring and charity work.
Volunteering to help and play guide had gotten a strained sort of fake smile, denial that he'd be involved at all, and something evasive about being a teacher who could barely manage a carbuncle, why would he be on an investigation like that, besides it was better to stay safe and try to stay away from it. Thancred knew Mattye had meant for him to trust that and simply stay put, but also that something had the arcanist terrified – and that had about the opposite effect.
Mattye was far from stupid, and better with magic than he'd usually admit to, but there were some things that you just didn't get good at when most of your life was spent in academic study with forays into charity work, and Thancred had learned to avoid being seen and caught by trained guards. It was a little more worrying that he was out alone, even though Thancred knew well enough that it was mostly that nobody would've talked to him as freely with a couple of guards nearby; he tailed long enough to catch that his investigation was centering on one old abandoned church in an area that'd gone half-empty and to ruin, and that it looked like he was going to be nosing around there soon, then peeled off to get there ahead.
It was empty, but there were too many signs of people there - areas where there were paths in the dust or dust cleared away, rats being more jittery about being anywhere visible, flecks of blood that were dried but not yet faded with age, sigils and holy signs defaced a little too deliberately and consistently. There wasn't a sign of anyone there, but it didn't look like it would consistently stay that way; he'd found a small hidden ledge up in the central room, a walkway that would've served mostly just for maintenance above a choir loft, half checking for signs of anything more useful hidden in less easily reached corners and half scouting for good perches to watch from.
The carbuncle came in first, darting with jerky pauses, tracking something at a run; Mattye was not far behind it, tome out and dressed in something Thancred hadn't often seen, protective enchantments embroidered into the coat. He flattened against the walkway, watching through a gap in the stonework, but Mattye's attention was lower – a recess behind the altar, underneath where he was hiding.
“I know you're there.”
There was a sound of movement; footsteps, cloth brushing the ground – had whoever it was been there the whole time he was nosing around? He sank flatter against the worn stone; it was hard to tell anything about the person with their back to him, and the ornate trim on the hooded black robe was utterly unfamiliar. Still, it wasn't hard to make connections; there'd been rumors about void cultists at work, and he doubted the short blade hanging at the figure'd side was for show, even if what he could see looked battered and out of pace with how well-kept the robes were.
“You're very confident.” The voice was low enough that he only made words out thanks to what was left of the room's acoustics, as if the stranger were trying to avoid being overheard, but something tugged at him about it that he couldn't put his finger on.
“You don't have your followers here, and I wasn't about to risk you going to ground again.” The carbuncle had placed itself between Mattye and the stranger, tails raised, back arched, little eddies of air around it disturbing the dust. “I can handle one lone cultist.”
The response wasn't the human voice of a moment ago, deeper tones and bits of vibration that didn't belong coming from any living being's throat mixed with an airy, empty hiss; there were some sort of words in it, bemused, but nothing he understood at all. Mattye went pale, taking a half step back and moving to have a spellcast ready, and the carbuncle hissed with teeth bared. Not human, some kind of voidspawn
The robed figure didn't move to do anything about whatever he was casting, instead reaching a hand up to his face, removing a mask Thancred couldn't get a look at.
Mattye's spell stopped, sparks of misdirected and interrupted aether arcing from the ink in the tome down his wrist, and the carbuncle vanished with a squirm and a frustrated squall before it could finish its own attack. Whatever the thing was in the robe, it had its hands out, as if inviting an attack; Mattye closed the tome, lowering it, face stricken.
The voidspawn shifted from the mocking gesture, mask still in one hand, drawing its weapon with the other. It closed the distance in a smooth lunge, driving the blade into Mattye's chest; it pulled the weapon loose with a hard jerk, stepping away and letting the scholar collapse to the ground.
He had knives, a brief impulse to try and distract it – but would knives even do any good against it? Going for help flickered across his mind, but if he moved to bolt, he'd only draw its attention and he doubted he'd get very far.
It replaced its mask, leaving Mattye on the ground with a few last, weak shudders – and turned to look up at where he was hiding.
He froze, trying to will himself deeper into the rock, out of sight. Mattye tried to choke something, a hand almost catching the back of the voidspawn's robe; the effort seemed to take whatever little he had left, going still and limp soon after.
The masked figure didn't look away from where he was watching, a glittering dark blooming around it and then closing, vanishing with it; the bloody blade clattered to the ground where it had been standing.
He scrambled down from the loft, nothing quite managing to be coherent; he should be going for help, but he found himself racing over to Mattye first, dropping down by the fallen scholar – no breathing, no signs of life left, and it took a couple seconds to process that he was kneeling in the tutor's blood.
There were heavy foosteps outside, running, and shouting – some of the guard must've caught up; he bolted, racing to get out the back before they got there, instinct overriding everything else with an awareness that if they saw him, they'd be sure he was the murderer.
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He managed to get mostly cleaned up in a pond that'd formed in a sinkhole not far from there, abandoning the bloody pants in favor of something scavenged; it was a set of almost automatic actions, some detached part of him still running down what he'd need to do to survive and avoid getting accused as he walked back to more familiar areas that weren't taken over by some kind of voidspawn and its followers.
He spent a few hours wandering the more comfortable streets, with detours up to rooftops and through an occasional empty building; there were a few familiar faces, but he was finding the circle of who he'd consider talking to right now frighteningly small. The sun had already set by the time it sank in that he wasn't finding the person he was looking for – Gods only knew what Ives was doing, he hadn't ever managed to find something besides thieving that he was good at, and he could only pray the other boy hadn't ended up another victim... or that he hadn't gotten himself caught, he'd been aiming bigger and higher, disappearing for longer and longer periods of time to set up his heists.
Eventually he made his way back to the empty old clocktower he'd moved into; the climb into the little secure space in the mechanisms wasn't enough to shake the numb sickness that was setting in. He didn't bother with the lidded basket where he'd been keeping a stash of food that would keep, and it was a mechanical act to drain part of one of the canteens he'd made a point of keeping filled and stored; he wadded up in the pile of blankets he'd gathered, stolen, donated, or salvaged, curled around the green soulstone.
Keep it – it's responded to you, and I've been hoping to find someone who could use it for years.
Wait, sing that again – you got that from the stone? …...Twelve be good, it's Nymian – no you don't understand, that's second Astral era, we've only barely been able to prove they were real-
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He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep until he started awake, knife in hand and back pressed to the wall, half-awake images of coal-colored masks and a bleary impression that it'd come looking for him racing through his head.
Luckily, Ives was smart enough to stay at the edge of the loft and not move until he was awake enough to distinguish that it wasn't a masked voidspawn come to get rid of the witness.
“Ives?” His voice was shaking.
“You look like Hell.” Now that he'd been acknowledged, the taller boy settled down cross-legged, digging a dry roll out of the basket. “Managed to get a few good gems to fence; if you find a good spot at the festival, we can probably pool it, maybe convince someone to rent us a place, maybe pay our way to the seaport and see if we can get a Limsan crew to take us on.”
He couldn't really find a response, mouth working soundlessly.
Ives set the role down on his lap, propping an elbow on one knee and his chin in that hand. “What happened.”
It didn't come at first; a couple noiseless attempts, and then a half-voiced “Mattye's dead”.
Ives straightened, both hands in his lap. “What? You're joking, right? ….what happened?”
“I – he was tracking whatever's been picking people off, he'd gone out alone, it was the old church down by the wall – I followed him, I'd hidden just before he got there, it – it looked like a person, but it was some kind of voidspawn, it killed him and I ran before the guards caught up -”
The thief lowered his head, shoulders slumping in the dark. “Damn.” There was silence, save for the creaking and clicking of the gears in the tower. “Listen – come morning I'll go talk to Hale uptown. I know you don't like him but he's got resources, and some of his people are losing business to this already without it blowing up because someone from the college got shanked. I'll handle this.”
“What're they going to do? It killed him and – teleported off as if it were nothing, it looked right at me, and it – I don't know if it was possessing someone or using trickery but I didn't know it wasn't human until it said something in voidspeech.” And that was hoping that the crime lord wasn't possibly dealing with it.
“Who else do you think we've got? You think Mattye's college cronies are going to believe you? They'd probably just think you lured him out there to it. He was the only one that gave half a cold fuck, and even that was probably keeping up appearances.”
He curled a hand around the soulstone under the blanket. “Just be careful. Hale might be working with them.” Thancred tugged some of the blankets closer, rolling over to curl up against the corner and try to get back to sleep.
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He'd gone out to one of the squares he usually worked, but nothing really seemed to be working quite right; he finally just gave up and wandered, settling at the base of a monument. It was a tall structure, and something some architect had put there because that particular small plaza had a clear flow of wind down from the mountains; apparently going off something from some old inscription, a twisting pillar of metal, pipes, and wires that would “sing” in the wind.
Whether it was calming or unsettling really depended on who you asked, since it didn't really end up sounding anything like a normal instrument, but it was late in the year, windy, and it meant that it was loud enough that it was hard to hear speech near it, much less hear yourself think if you were sitting right under it.
A few hours had passed by the time he really started paying attention to his surroundings again, sitting up from leaning against the 'harp', and that he only knew by where the sun was in the sky; it was movement that'd gotten his attention, a guardsman in uniform and someone with a thaumaturge's rod hanging from their belt in a long white coat with Thaliak's scroll embroidered on the lapel, both just coming in to the plaza.
Ives would have kittens, but it was the best thing he could think of; he stood and walked over to them, trying not to think about the implications that they seemed to be looking for him.
“You're one of the ones Mattye was teaching?”
He nodded, numbly, and there was a brief glance passing between the two of them.
“I. I was tailing him – he was trying to find out who was killing us, and he was alone so the people he needed to talk to wouldn't spook; I was trying to stay out of sight and – I saw what happened.” He swallowed, hard, but they weren't moving to grab him; coming out and saying something would hopefully dodge getting suspicion.
“Then you saw who killed him?”
He nodded again. “I – they were in a hooded robe, and I was behind them, I didn't see their face, but – they said something in voidspeech and took off a mask and he just... gave up – they vanished after they killed him.”
“Vanished?” The mage was giving him a thin-lipped, studying look. “A teleport?”
“It – wasn't normal, there was some sort of darkness he vanished into.”
The guard looked to the mage with a raised eyebrow; the mage looked...flatly unhappy. “He's claiming he saw an Ascian.”
“I don't know what it was – that's what I saw.”
“The messengers of the void are incredibly powerful in the mystic arts; if they're showing themselves blatantly, they don't stoop to using mortal weapons.”
They didn't believe him. “Maybe it was trying to get you to not think it was there? I swear I'm telling the truth-”
The guard shook his head, pulling out a wrapped bundle and moving the cloth to hold the contents where he could see it. “Is this familiar to you?”
The blade was longer than most daggers, a little short to be called a sword, some bits of blood still caught in the crannies of the hilt; he hadn't even paid attention to it at the time, but now that he saw it, it was familiar, and he was suddenly stuck trying to remember the last time he'd seen Ives wearing it.
“It – looks like the work of the smith east of here.” He looked up to the guard, carefully keeping to the same frightened blank pleading.
“Do you know who the owner is?”
“No – I don't, I'm sorry.” He shook his head; the guard narrowed his eyes, wrapping the knife back up.
“The thief you bunk with; where was he at the time?”
Someone else must have identified who it belonged to. “I – don't know, he was somewhere else in the city.” And filching jewels wasn't something he really wanted to repeat to the town guard.
“Where is he now?”
“I honestly don't know, we don't – really – I mean we touch bases and I'll see him coming in at night but we go separate ways during the day...”
There was a silent, considering moment that made him want to run, get to a rooftop where he'd be harder to grab, and not stop.
“Tell us if you see him.” He didn't sound like he actually expected it to happen; they turned, walking off.
He waited until they were gone and stumbled back to sit heavily back under the wind-harp; they didn't believe him, and they were after Ives for it. The creature responsible was still out there, and probably did have some mortal followers it'd lured along, which meant there would be more killings.
He'd managed to eat something that day from the stash, mostly out of survival reflexes, without even really paying much mind to it; he went back to the clocktower early, curling up in the corner with the soulstone, listening to the steady noise of the gears.
It meant a little less keeping track of time, the noise ticking by, chimes tolling the bells as they passed.
It was late and he'd dozed off partly when Ives finally got back in, battered old pack slung over one shoulder; he woke up, but wasn't quite finding words while the thief was refilling the basket, settling a couple of canteens by the wall, giving him odd glances here and there.
“...Any luck?”
Thancred shook his head; Ives frowned, but didn't comment.
It was missing, the sheath he wore empty.
“...Ives? ….How long has your knife been gone?”
The thief froze, hand over the empty scabbard, and made a small, rough exhalation. “About a week I think? Not sure where I lost it.”
“...The guard has it; they were looking for you – it – the thing that killed Mattye used it.” He turned the stone over in his hand. “They think you killed him.”
Ives shot him a shaded look. “Did you tell them anything?”
“No; I told them I didn't know where you were most of the time. I think they'll be watching me for a while, though.” And what he did, if he could manage it soon, wasn't something where he could avoid being in public.
Ives broke his freeze, finished putting away supplies, and settled into his own part of the blankets. “I told you they wouldn't believe you.”
“The mage that was with them said something – he called whatever I saw an Ascian.” There was something about the word just on the edge of his mind, out of reach. “He said they usually use magic – I think it was trying to get us blamed.”
It was getting dim enough in the alcove that the brief, incredulous look was blurry. “Why would some kind of powerful void being care about something like that?”
“If it's using the killings to fuel something, then it wouldn't want that interfered with until whatever it's trying to do is complete – so if it can make sure the guard aren't willing to talk to any of us on the street, all it really needs to do is bargain off and avoid bothering anybody else with any power.”
“You talk like you're expecting some kind of disaster from an old ballad out of this.”
“How many people that we know are gone now because of this?”
Ives slumped down, settling more prone. “Is it any different than when someone freezes to death, or starves, or dies in a fight? I heard they feed off people; for all we know, it's hunting for however long it's stuck in this world, and we just happen to be the easier prey.”
He turned the soulstone over again before fixing it back in its place in a hidden pocket. “... I can't just ignore this. You can't stop a storm, this is something we could do something about.”
Ives muttered something sleepy and unintelligible; Thancred took the hint, curling up to try and sleep himself.
Summary: This started out as poking at headcanon and snowballed; Thancred's younger days and how he ended up with the rest of the Archons.
Chapter summary: Trauma! Trauma and the perils of being a street rat of ill repute with a known close buddy of even less repute.
Warnings: Some violence, gore, references to human trafficking.
Also for those not canon familiar, some footnotes in advance: Bells = about an hour. The day's broken up into four cycles of six one-hour segments that're roughly matched to the elemental cycle/Twelve gods. Yalm = a little longer than a yard, malm if that got mentioned is somewhere between a km and a mile. “Hyur” is what humans got called by everyone else when they showed up. Roegadyn are massive (average about 7-feet) and built a little like tanks; Lalafell are at most maybe two and a half to three feet tall, Elezen = vaguely elf-like though they're bad at matching most other world's elves.
Getting out was the nearly unattainable goal for almost anyone there – getting off the streets, getting “out” to some kind of life where there was an idea of where the next meal was coming from and being warm in winter.
Thancred wasn't an exception, and there'd been the same list of jibes, nights where there wasn't much to do besides talk about how everyone was going to get 'out' and pretend it would actually happen, for sure, some day, maybe soon. It just took a few turns that seemed less unreal; starting to get enough from singing in the streets to maybe get notice and take up earning a solid living that way, maybe even get some help from the colleges in return for what he could shake out of the old soulstone they'd been trying to identify for years.
It wasn't hard to tell that something was wrong even before they went really south, either; it was hard not to notice “a few street kids” going missing when they were people you'd grown up with, and dead prostitutes stuck out more when it was a girl you'd known when she was younger or someone that'd brought food and hot drinks out in winter. The guard weren't always much help; for all that they'd be clattering through the streets trying to solve it, the flat poorest weren't the highest priority, and weren't really given to trusting people they recognized as thieves and con artists if someone did get brave enough to risk going to them.
He knew Mattye was pushing for more of an investigation, and helping with it; the scholar had been stubbornly avoiding admitting it, but he read well enough and fast enough to catch an occasional word scribbled in where the man was taking notes when one of them talked about it, and wasn't dumb enough to not connect that to him showing up less often for tutoring and charity work.
Volunteering to help and play guide had gotten a strained sort of fake smile, denial that he'd be involved at all, and something evasive about being a teacher who could barely manage a carbuncle, why would he be on an investigation like that, besides it was better to stay safe and try to stay away from it. Thancred knew Mattye had meant for him to trust that and simply stay put, but also that something had the arcanist terrified – and that had about the opposite effect.
Mattye was far from stupid, and better with magic than he'd usually admit to, but there were some things that you just didn't get good at when most of your life was spent in academic study with forays into charity work, and Thancred had learned to avoid being seen and caught by trained guards. It was a little more worrying that he was out alone, even though Thancred knew well enough that it was mostly that nobody would've talked to him as freely with a couple of guards nearby; he tailed long enough to catch that his investigation was centering on one old abandoned church in an area that'd gone half-empty and to ruin, and that it looked like he was going to be nosing around there soon, then peeled off to get there ahead.
It was empty, but there were too many signs of people there - areas where there were paths in the dust or dust cleared away, rats being more jittery about being anywhere visible, flecks of blood that were dried but not yet faded with age, sigils and holy signs defaced a little too deliberately and consistently. There wasn't a sign of anyone there, but it didn't look like it would consistently stay that way; he'd found a small hidden ledge up in the central room, a walkway that would've served mostly just for maintenance above a choir loft, half checking for signs of anything more useful hidden in less easily reached corners and half scouting for good perches to watch from.
The carbuncle came in first, darting with jerky pauses, tracking something at a run; Mattye was not far behind it, tome out and dressed in something Thancred hadn't often seen, protective enchantments embroidered into the coat. He flattened against the walkway, watching through a gap in the stonework, but Mattye's attention was lower – a recess behind the altar, underneath where he was hiding.
“I know you're there.”
There was a sound of movement; footsteps, cloth brushing the ground – had whoever it was been there the whole time he was nosing around? He sank flatter against the worn stone; it was hard to tell anything about the person with their back to him, and the ornate trim on the hooded black robe was utterly unfamiliar. Still, it wasn't hard to make connections; there'd been rumors about void cultists at work, and he doubted the short blade hanging at the figure'd side was for show, even if what he could see looked battered and out of pace with how well-kept the robes were.
“You're very confident.” The voice was low enough that he only made words out thanks to what was left of the room's acoustics, as if the stranger were trying to avoid being overheard, but something tugged at him about it that he couldn't put his finger on.
“You don't have your followers here, and I wasn't about to risk you going to ground again.” The carbuncle had placed itself between Mattye and the stranger, tails raised, back arched, little eddies of air around it disturbing the dust. “I can handle one lone cultist.”
The response wasn't the human voice of a moment ago, deeper tones and bits of vibration that didn't belong coming from any living being's throat mixed with an airy, empty hiss; there were some sort of words in it, bemused, but nothing he understood at all. Mattye went pale, taking a half step back and moving to have a spellcast ready, and the carbuncle hissed with teeth bared. Not human, some kind of voidspawn
The robed figure didn't move to do anything about whatever he was casting, instead reaching a hand up to his face, removing a mask Thancred couldn't get a look at.
Mattye's spell stopped, sparks of misdirected and interrupted aether arcing from the ink in the tome down his wrist, and the carbuncle vanished with a squirm and a frustrated squall before it could finish its own attack. Whatever the thing was in the robe, it had its hands out, as if inviting an attack; Mattye closed the tome, lowering it, face stricken.
The voidspawn shifted from the mocking gesture, mask still in one hand, drawing its weapon with the other. It closed the distance in a smooth lunge, driving the blade into Mattye's chest; it pulled the weapon loose with a hard jerk, stepping away and letting the scholar collapse to the ground.
He had knives, a brief impulse to try and distract it – but would knives even do any good against it? Going for help flickered across his mind, but if he moved to bolt, he'd only draw its attention and he doubted he'd get very far.
It replaced its mask, leaving Mattye on the ground with a few last, weak shudders – and turned to look up at where he was hiding.
He froze, trying to will himself deeper into the rock, out of sight. Mattye tried to choke something, a hand almost catching the back of the voidspawn's robe; the effort seemed to take whatever little he had left, going still and limp soon after.
The masked figure didn't look away from where he was watching, a glittering dark blooming around it and then closing, vanishing with it; the bloody blade clattered to the ground where it had been standing.
He scrambled down from the loft, nothing quite managing to be coherent; he should be going for help, but he found himself racing over to Mattye first, dropping down by the fallen scholar – no breathing, no signs of life left, and it took a couple seconds to process that he was kneeling in the tutor's blood.
There were heavy foosteps outside, running, and shouting – some of the guard must've caught up; he bolted, racing to get out the back before they got there, instinct overriding everything else with an awareness that if they saw him, they'd be sure he was the murderer.
He managed to get mostly cleaned up in a pond that'd formed in a sinkhole not far from there, abandoning the bloody pants in favor of something scavenged; it was a set of almost automatic actions, some detached part of him still running down what he'd need to do to survive and avoid getting accused as he walked back to more familiar areas that weren't taken over by some kind of voidspawn and its followers.
He spent a few hours wandering the more comfortable streets, with detours up to rooftops and through an occasional empty building; there were a few familiar faces, but he was finding the circle of who he'd consider talking to right now frighteningly small. The sun had already set by the time it sank in that he wasn't finding the person he was looking for – Gods only knew what Ives was doing, he hadn't ever managed to find something besides thieving that he was good at, and he could only pray the other boy hadn't ended up another victim... or that he hadn't gotten himself caught, he'd been aiming bigger and higher, disappearing for longer and longer periods of time to set up his heists.
Eventually he made his way back to the empty old clocktower he'd moved into; the climb into the little secure space in the mechanisms wasn't enough to shake the numb sickness that was setting in. He didn't bother with the lidded basket where he'd been keeping a stash of food that would keep, and it was a mechanical act to drain part of one of the canteens he'd made a point of keeping filled and stored; he wadded up in the pile of blankets he'd gathered, stolen, donated, or salvaged, curled around the green soulstone.
Keep it – it's responded to you, and I've been hoping to find someone who could use it for years.
Wait, sing that again – you got that from the stone? …...Twelve be good, it's Nymian – no you don't understand, that's second Astral era, we've only barely been able to prove they were real-
He hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep until he started awake, knife in hand and back pressed to the wall, half-awake images of coal-colored masks and a bleary impression that it'd come looking for him racing through his head.
Luckily, Ives was smart enough to stay at the edge of the loft and not move until he was awake enough to distinguish that it wasn't a masked voidspawn come to get rid of the witness.
“Ives?” His voice was shaking.
“You look like Hell.” Now that he'd been acknowledged, the taller boy settled down cross-legged, digging a dry roll out of the basket. “Managed to get a few good gems to fence; if you find a good spot at the festival, we can probably pool it, maybe convince someone to rent us a place, maybe pay our way to the seaport and see if we can get a Limsan crew to take us on.”
He couldn't really find a response, mouth working soundlessly.
Ives set the role down on his lap, propping an elbow on one knee and his chin in that hand. “What happened.”
It didn't come at first; a couple noiseless attempts, and then a half-voiced “Mattye's dead”.
Ives straightened, both hands in his lap. “What? You're joking, right? ….what happened?”
“I – he was tracking whatever's been picking people off, he'd gone out alone, it was the old church down by the wall – I followed him, I'd hidden just before he got there, it – it looked like a person, but it was some kind of voidspawn, it killed him and I ran before the guards caught up -”
The thief lowered his head, shoulders slumping in the dark. “Damn.” There was silence, save for the creaking and clicking of the gears in the tower. “Listen – come morning I'll go talk to Hale uptown. I know you don't like him but he's got resources, and some of his people are losing business to this already without it blowing up because someone from the college got shanked. I'll handle this.”
“What're they going to do? It killed him and – teleported off as if it were nothing, it looked right at me, and it – I don't know if it was possessing someone or using trickery but I didn't know it wasn't human until it said something in voidspeech.” And that was hoping that the crime lord wasn't possibly dealing with it.
“Who else do you think we've got? You think Mattye's college cronies are going to believe you? They'd probably just think you lured him out there to it. He was the only one that gave half a cold fuck, and even that was probably keeping up appearances.”
He curled a hand around the soulstone under the blanket. “Just be careful. Hale might be working with them.” Thancred tugged some of the blankets closer, rolling over to curl up against the corner and try to get back to sleep.
He'd gone out to one of the squares he usually worked, but nothing really seemed to be working quite right; he finally just gave up and wandered, settling at the base of a monument. It was a tall structure, and something some architect had put there because that particular small plaza had a clear flow of wind down from the mountains; apparently going off something from some old inscription, a twisting pillar of metal, pipes, and wires that would “sing” in the wind.
Whether it was calming or unsettling really depended on who you asked, since it didn't really end up sounding anything like a normal instrument, but it was late in the year, windy, and it meant that it was loud enough that it was hard to hear speech near it, much less hear yourself think if you were sitting right under it.
A few hours had passed by the time he really started paying attention to his surroundings again, sitting up from leaning against the 'harp', and that he only knew by where the sun was in the sky; it was movement that'd gotten his attention, a guardsman in uniform and someone with a thaumaturge's rod hanging from their belt in a long white coat with Thaliak's scroll embroidered on the lapel, both just coming in to the plaza.
Ives would have kittens, but it was the best thing he could think of; he stood and walked over to them, trying not to think about the implications that they seemed to be looking for him.
“You're one of the ones Mattye was teaching?”
He nodded, numbly, and there was a brief glance passing between the two of them.
“I. I was tailing him – he was trying to find out who was killing us, and he was alone so the people he needed to talk to wouldn't spook; I was trying to stay out of sight and – I saw what happened.” He swallowed, hard, but they weren't moving to grab him; coming out and saying something would hopefully dodge getting suspicion.
“Then you saw who killed him?”
He nodded again. “I – they were in a hooded robe, and I was behind them, I didn't see their face, but – they said something in voidspeech and took off a mask and he just... gave up – they vanished after they killed him.”
“Vanished?” The mage was giving him a thin-lipped, studying look. “A teleport?”
“It – wasn't normal, there was some sort of darkness he vanished into.”
The guard looked to the mage with a raised eyebrow; the mage looked...flatly unhappy. “He's claiming he saw an Ascian.”
“I don't know what it was – that's what I saw.”
“The messengers of the void are incredibly powerful in the mystic arts; if they're showing themselves blatantly, they don't stoop to using mortal weapons.”
They didn't believe him. “Maybe it was trying to get you to not think it was there? I swear I'm telling the truth-”
The guard shook his head, pulling out a wrapped bundle and moving the cloth to hold the contents where he could see it. “Is this familiar to you?”
The blade was longer than most daggers, a little short to be called a sword, some bits of blood still caught in the crannies of the hilt; he hadn't even paid attention to it at the time, but now that he saw it, it was familiar, and he was suddenly stuck trying to remember the last time he'd seen Ives wearing it.
“It – looks like the work of the smith east of here.” He looked up to the guard, carefully keeping to the same frightened blank pleading.
“Do you know who the owner is?”
“No – I don't, I'm sorry.” He shook his head; the guard narrowed his eyes, wrapping the knife back up.
“The thief you bunk with; where was he at the time?”
Someone else must have identified who it belonged to. “I – don't know, he was somewhere else in the city.” And filching jewels wasn't something he really wanted to repeat to the town guard.
“Where is he now?”
“I honestly don't know, we don't – really – I mean we touch bases and I'll see him coming in at night but we go separate ways during the day...”
There was a silent, considering moment that made him want to run, get to a rooftop where he'd be harder to grab, and not stop.
“Tell us if you see him.” He didn't sound like he actually expected it to happen; they turned, walking off.
He waited until they were gone and stumbled back to sit heavily back under the wind-harp; they didn't believe him, and they were after Ives for it. The creature responsible was still out there, and probably did have some mortal followers it'd lured along, which meant there would be more killings.
He'd managed to eat something that day from the stash, mostly out of survival reflexes, without even really paying much mind to it; he went back to the clocktower early, curling up in the corner with the soulstone, listening to the steady noise of the gears.
It meant a little less keeping track of time, the noise ticking by, chimes tolling the bells as they passed.
It was late and he'd dozed off partly when Ives finally got back in, battered old pack slung over one shoulder; he woke up, but wasn't quite finding words while the thief was refilling the basket, settling a couple of canteens by the wall, giving him odd glances here and there.
“...Any luck?”
Thancred shook his head; Ives frowned, but didn't comment.
It was missing, the sheath he wore empty.
“...Ives? ….How long has your knife been gone?”
The thief froze, hand over the empty scabbard, and made a small, rough exhalation. “About a week I think? Not sure where I lost it.”
“...The guard has it; they were looking for you – it – the thing that killed Mattye used it.” He turned the stone over in his hand. “They think you killed him.”
Ives shot him a shaded look. “Did you tell them anything?”
“No; I told them I didn't know where you were most of the time. I think they'll be watching me for a while, though.” And what he did, if he could manage it soon, wasn't something where he could avoid being in public.
Ives broke his freeze, finished putting away supplies, and settled into his own part of the blankets. “I told you they wouldn't believe you.”
“The mage that was with them said something – he called whatever I saw an Ascian.” There was something about the word just on the edge of his mind, out of reach. “He said they usually use magic – I think it was trying to get us blamed.”
It was getting dim enough in the alcove that the brief, incredulous look was blurry. “Why would some kind of powerful void being care about something like that?”
“If it's using the killings to fuel something, then it wouldn't want that interfered with until whatever it's trying to do is complete – so if it can make sure the guard aren't willing to talk to any of us on the street, all it really needs to do is bargain off and avoid bothering anybody else with any power.”
“You talk like you're expecting some kind of disaster from an old ballad out of this.”
“How many people that we know are gone now because of this?”
Ives slumped down, settling more prone. “Is it any different than when someone freezes to death, or starves, or dies in a fight? I heard they feed off people; for all we know, it's hunting for however long it's stuck in this world, and we just happen to be the easier prey.”
He turned the soulstone over again before fixing it back in its place in a hidden pocket. “... I can't just ignore this. You can't stop a storm, this is something we could do something about.”
Ives muttered something sleepy and unintelligible; Thancred took the hint, curling up to try and sleep himself.
