Mythatorium

Author’s Note: While writing characters in my freetime, I started to notice at least a few patterns, two of which included Swordsmen and Elemental Powers. I’ve made several swords, powers, and wielders of them over time, but “Ventaceaster” and “Niang,” two characters that appear here, were two characters with both those attributes that appeared very closely in time to one another. So, in combination with a tendency to put things into fours, I added two more to make it a quadfecta. These stories are in media res, or perhaps start of a new journey, glimpse into each of their respective characters and qualities. The name ‘Cardinals’ comes from the four cardinal directions they diverge in, four cardinal sins they are each responsible for, and four cardinals waiting to be set free. I intended to give each an extreme deficiency or exaggeration of something their element represents in their personalities as well. But, as this is only a glance, it would be better to save that expanding thought for an expansion of their stories beyond this space. Some names, frequently boxed in [], are subject to change, as they are often leftovers from another concept, world, or inspiration. Completing this project is a refreshing achievement, and I hope to be able to write more about these characters again.

TW /// Graphic Depictions of Violence, Self Harm

Ventaceaster was frank when he delivered the news of his duties done.

“The parlor is sorted for the evening, [Madame Peregrine],” He tucked his hands into neat confines behind his back, boxing his shoulders, making eye contact. Were there not pads on his suit, he might be mistaken for one of the butlers.

“And dinner?” [Madame Peregrine], as she was called, did not raise her eyes from her novel reading, nor stir her body from her lounging.

“In preparation,” He nodded straightly to her, lingering no motions out of line.
“Good,” She looked up at him then, keeping the soft smile she had from her imagination to share with him, “Then you may retire until nightfall, [Humming].”

He bowed courteously to her, unclasping his hands to tuck them at his sides while he closed his eyes in his deference. He rose again with practiced hitch, starting and stopping at proper speeds in proper places. Never would he swing an inch out of place, even as he swung his arms to walk out of the room, and leave his master to her waiting.

He returned not to his room, scant of sight or sound, never one to please himself in isolation. He was a devoted servant, and for all his running, and sometimes mad dashing, he was far less content with sitting still. He felt better rest when he took breaths of open air, so he went for a walk, a long one usually planned and dedicated for part of an unoccupied afternoon. He’d make this trip daily when he could, and so most days he did, when he was not completely booked or traveling elsewhere for business. Down and out from the white manor whose wood had started to darken from ivory to bone, he took off in slow pace through the garden, glossing over hedges and flowers which yardsmen watered, weeded, and pruned. He exited the creak of the metal gates, guardsman on post despite its nestling into the space in between the city and the countryside. Neither side needed to meet eyes to recognize [Madame Peregrine]’s apprentice.

He continued his stroll up the leading dirt road, treading the marks of wheels and hoofbeats, his head even and still where the ground managed to be uneven. An uncut, natural path came to him from the nestling treeline next to the bank of the road, crossing the ditch to walk on grass that he alone stamped close to the ground. The pine woods were tight, their prickly leaves compacted close enough to each other, that even when they waved the light from the sinking side of the sun it would not wash him away. The chorus of fauna agreed with the light candor, the chirping of birds calling to each other across bristling breezes marking an unsteady beat that could still find rhythm. 

Ventaceaster took a deep breath as he submerged himself into the crossing, scratching his senses with ticklish spores of pollen, refamiliarizing himself with the smell of earth in contrast to a thick air of processed flora. Sickening sweetness never aligned with him, but he was informed most exaggerations would be lost on him. Despite the comforts inherited to him by his tutelage, there was little effect luxury could have on his conscience. Artistry, painted or sculpted, could receive no appreciation beyond an acknowledgement of realistic replication. Magicians, real or fake, could never cause his hands to clap more than the number of their signs. And surely no chef could divide one meal’s worth of food into ten palettes in a way that satisfied his elongated appetite. He has since lost the excuse of a dour upbringing of fleeting possessions, since he’d spent over two decades in his master’s tenure now, far more than he had spent alone. His one exception seemed to be theater, where in all aspects it could enrapture him. Promised a perspective of privilege with which to see every angle from a grand height, it was one of few times he could sit still for so long without orders. From the show-silencing stars whose voices could cross the whole concert, to the orchestra buried into the enclave, their music bounding off the walls in reinforcement of the other world they helped create, Ventaceaster would seem to never shut his eyes for a moment during the hours it took to perform. It was the most subtle plays and tragedies that seemed most effective on him, the quietest versions of the loudest voices that would worm into his mind. He thought perhaps that’s why he liked listening to the songbirds.

He looked up from his thoughts when the sun blasted his eyelids directly, forced to acknowledge its presence before lowering his head to let his bangs guard him. He’d made it into a wide clearing between the trees, looking beside him to see the straight, wide line in between the two sides in front of and behind him. He might have been able to see out of the woods and into the countryside, had the horizon not bent away from him far away enough. He climbed, or rather leaped, atop a large stone whose surface was flat enough to cross his legs on. Some birds who had rested atop it with the same idea flocked away with their main stay disturbed, but his feet were so light that at least one at the rock’s edge decided not to flee at the perching of the tall, black bird. He had to reach to remove the sword from his belt, unlatching it and letting it sit by his side more prudently. He had that weapon, in part, to thank for the view he now received. It was a gift he received from his master, as well as the gift of how to use it, and the means of which to empower it. The soft wind tousled his hair as he looked upon the even scene’s discrepancies, lines of grass growing shorter than their neighbors, tree stumps sliced down, some in less clean cuts than others. This was the place where he first trained, first because no one could doubt a small child wielding steel while they were in the woods, then to isolate the noise of trees being felled miles from any lumbering camp. Soft muscle became hard muscle, as scratches soon became chips soon became indents. Then soft wind became hard wind, as what stirred around him now coalesced into a mass so firm it would be mistaken for a solid blade. 

He inhaled a breath of that untainted wind through him, feeling power he could control filling his lungs and sorting itself into his blood. Many make the mistake of giving this sense as “just wind,” but his master had taught him better. She had taught him the strength of storms and the pressure of air, and under her wings he could find a way for himself to fly. In this method, he became her perfect counterpart. Where she was the face, he was the hand. Where insight and speechcraft were her specialty, silence and observation were his. He was not her right hand, but her left, for his strength could never supersede hers, but in her sleight of hand it could fool many. Put plainly with more common terms.

He was her assassin, and her spymaster.

He looked to the sun again for guidance, seeing the blue skies still as it began to fall towards the top of the treeline. He let it out of his sight after, while it was still afternoon he would not be needed for some time. [Madame Peregrine]’s guests will arrive by the evening after their horses stoop to rest at Ravendark crossing. They will chat, they will parlay, they will dine. They will speak like friends, yet they will have much business, and they will pass many papers and much news. But when wine is on the table, Baron Vangir’s cupbearer will not be alongside him; neither for his wife, nor his friend Count Duchevy and his wife. Yet when their guards are long out of banter from the hours their employers would have spent filling their bellies and laughing until their throats are sore, instead their faces will be full of soup and salad, their throats closed for more. And before their escort can complain about returning home empty-handed, it will be nightfall, and their necks will be slit in twinning with the whole entourage. Then with the load-bearing of the remaining horses, their bodies can be delivered to a ditch along the road, their valuables collected into a looter’s cache buried in the banks of Ravendark village. [Madame Peregrine] can send a report of the dinner that never came to be, and the horses that wandered near her property with ropes still around their neck. When the officers come searching, they can find the hellish hecklers who are always causing trouble, and still have their bruises from when they were last throwing rocks at patrolmen, where the price of their nuisance necks will be convenient to the qualms of an investigation.

Normally, there would be some messenger or signal waiting for him, being so far away from his target for so long. But everyone knew him to be far less than complacent. When he was needed by nightfall, he’d be there by nightfall. He would not disappoint his role.

After all, tomorrow, [Madame Peregrine] promised they’d practice piano. 

|…| 

Niang lived his whole life being treaded on. 

He wasn’t a snake, for that would imply his betrayal was seeded and subversive, as if he had skin to shed and fangs to drip with. He was no mat, for as much as he has had his dignity stamped and dirtied, there is no reality where he would lie down and just take it. 

He was a beetle, a scarab, an insect.

He was diminutive, a humanoid of below-average stature, thin and skinnied by an insectoid’s expertise for agility. Once he was like his kind in procession, adorned in black chitin and stickly, hunched limbs, topped with glorious horns and reinforced by strong mandibles. They wore white masks often made from the skulls of prey as a way of sharpening their identities, glamoured and carved just like their heads with harkened, unreplicable style. When Niang was chosen by the [Heartwoods] to be a [Thornborne], he was never the same. He was transformed with his designation; a dark exoskeleton became light skin, sharp horns became scrappy hair, and what once bent was now forced to stand up straight. His new form was imprinted, and importantly replicable. He had no need for a mask anymore when he was refused his true face.

He had that community no longer.

…

When Niang opened his eyes again, he awoke once more nestled lonely at the stump of a tree, accompanied only by the blade always adjoining his hip. Laid uncomfortably with his neck bent over a root, he lingered on the stillness of the forest hanging above him for just a moment longer, before he rose to sit up straight. He bent his back to peel the wilted petals off him, rising to his feet as he found the fortune of a brook waiting to quench his fresh thirst. He stooped to scoop from the stream, gulping cool water down in rations, slowing after the first to place a hand around his hilt.

(“Niang! Feeling awake?”) Banshay’s voice charmed into his head.

(“Mmm,”) Niang would always answer with some pause, his thoughts used to churning,

(“Enough.”)

(“Enough is enough,”) He coincided, sweetening a soft tone, (“We can always work out the kinks on the long walk.”)

(“Right.”)

Banshay started and created most of the conversation between them, Niang was never much for, nor did he ever have a way with words. It was a shame that Banshay could do no talking for him from the confines of his blade, but without something more corporeal his attempts at trying have been labeled cursed. They weren’t right, by most means Banshay has cursed himself to a small existence. But to him, it was worth the alternative of losing everything.

Niang pulled a flask from his other side, pouring out its warm contents to steep it in a cool refill. He reclasped it after a wait from the small stream, standing again to retrieve a map from one of the novel pouches attached to him. A half-completed path, crudely marked with a town origin he located, hotspots of encounters he’s followed, with a line ending at a ruined campsite far before it reached the drawing of a castle in its other corner. They could only assume what happened to them, an important part of their investigation cut short by a close encounter with a [Blighted]. It since sent them wayward, and the lack of distinct markers off the path other than the idle scribbling of trees didn’t give much help. So, decidedly, it would be too troublesome to try to chase back into the woods for what was presumably a dead man, and more poignant to discover the only remaining point of the map: the destination.

Guided by the sun peeking through the treetops, just shy of noon, and the moss latched onto many of the trees, they were driving southeast. Niang walked rigidly, his back straight, his shoulders set, pursuant on being no slouch. His eyes were well set forward, droning on into the boredom of a monotonous walk, varied only by the natural humps or dips of the lumpy ground. 

(“What do you think we’ll find when we get there?”) Banshay poked his brain to keep his senses a little more active, understanding what a lapse in attention even in transit might do.
(“A ruined castle,”) Niang remained consistently curt,
(“Hmm, probably in more than a few places, but I meant inside the castle.”)

(“Hmm,”) He hummed back, mentally, in delay of his next spoken thought, (“Monsters. Maybe chests.”)
(“Ooh, like skeletons– or a dragon, guarding its hoard of treasure chests!?”) Banshay worked up an overexcitement for the idea of a realized fairy tale, (“…ooh, but they could be picked clean already.”)

(“I was thinking like body chests.”)
(“Wellll…”) Banshay lengthened his words, letting his voice fade slowly before it returned, (“…Both could be true.”)

(“True.”)

The suppositional supplanted itself into most of their conversations this way. 

(“Well we haven’t had to cut through alot of big bones, but do you think we could cut through big, dragon bones?”)

(“Probably,”) Niang let his thoughts bounce in pause, before appending his statement, (“In a few cuts.”)

(“At least three?”)
(“Mmm, five.”)

(“What about the scales? They used to make armor out of that stuff, you know.”)

(“Depends.”)

(“On what, like the color of it? I hear some colors of dragon are tougher than others.”)

(“On how many times I can hit it.”)

(“That’s also true.”)

This way, the alleviation of pressure could also work as an exercise. Niang would almost never appease his social needs without Banshay, even if his throat muscles were still unstretched. Banshay wouldn’t have considered himself as much of a loner or isolationist as Niang was, but he did understand a bit how he felt. They were all a little bit immortal, they were meant to live on death after death. But even amongst other immortals, friendship was not the sort of thing that was guaranteed. For Niang, it was a story of exile. For Banshay, it was a story of grief. Either way, between the two of them, they now had lost too much to give up now.

(“Niang.”)

Banshay bit his ear with a monotony dry of tone, a frankness that told him much. He knew better than to flinch or wince at the sign, tensing his muscles from their already strict positioning. He kept his pace, his hand already at rest on it, slowly wrapping his fingers around it, on guard. His eyes remained forward on the imagination of a path, knowing what lurked beyond his sight could be cut to by the sharpness of his ears.
(“Heard.”)

To his right, where the shrubbery was more leaf than stick, its movements cracked as its brushing disguise bristled as if with the wind.

(“Human?”)
(“Too big.”)
(“Animal?”)
(“Too light.”)

Banshay grunted, the only kind of beast that could tread lightly would be just what they would expect. He lifted his arm towards its hiding place, opening his palm in a mispurposed halting signal, stopping in place. There would be no correct interpretation of his starting and stopping of motion, daring not even to look its way, until he too began to crackle; to sizzle.

Sucking in the air around his extension, he pressurized and imploded it in his hands, floating flames in a ball just inches from his hand. Then he pushed it, he projected it, making an opening for that condensed heat to escape from, blasting a cone of fire at it in a close matter of seconds. It leaped from its place in its reveal, leaving the cover of life now lit aflame. Its dark outline distanced from yet was still illuminated by the flame, already blackening wood and fiber.

It resembled the form of a wolf or a leopard, doubled in size and upsized in bulk to its spine. Its color was a mix of black and green, overgrown constrictions mistaking its host as an immobile body to feed on, rotten corpseflesh underneath completed only by the lively parasite. Perhaps more impertinently to this mistake, however, were the orange spores that seemed to ooze and fall like mushroom clouds from its orifices, intentional or otherwise, pooling on the ground with seedy corruption. Niang lowered his hand, dripping from the fingertips with unused embers sparking excitedly onto the grass, drawing his sword as the [Blighted] was forced into a wary confrontation. It growled as their glowing eyes met, the rivalry of their evocations testing time, while the brilliance of their respective orange glows rounded each other. This matching force and coloration was the other reason Niang was alone: He too was [Blighted]. 

(“Remember to watch the tail. They really like to use the tail.”)

The monster growled, snarled, and barked with an echo that warped the noise between the sounds of a small plentitude of animals, deepening its poise with implausible muscles.

(“Yeah.”)

(“And remember why we fight.”)

Banshay slinked his presence further towards the back of Niang’s mind, lowering his voice as he infused his impulses with him, feeling his grip tighten as if both their hands held his blade aloft. He could not have his body, but he could lend its spirit.

(“Because we can.”)

That is, after all, what a monster would do.

|…|

Kishar was always particularly meticulous in whatever he did.

When he walked, he did so heel first, rolling his feet in his loafers whenever he bounded level-headedly. When he talked, he did so curtly yet responded quickly, curating a blended conversation made of listening and speaking on two ends. The quick-acting and the quickspoken never had much alignment with him. He found those who acted outside their turn were plenty out of line themselves, composed primarily of the selfishly successful. He knew people of all alignments consisting of such a detail, lowdown or highborn. To himself, the colloquial definition of “class” intermittently defined him. He was thoughtful and composed, conciliatory yet assertive, kind but firm. He was, perhaps, picturesque of what a rich man wanted to appear like. If only his father could see how he continued their legacy now. 

Kishar walked down a dark hallway whose dark lights did little for full visibility. His eyes had to adjust away from the spotlights he’d walked past, the sound of a beating bassline noisily battering the back of his head and his inner ear even as he moved far from it. He had a lack of enjoyment for such high levels of boisterousness, finding the distinct lack of space among strangers a point of contention for him. He was fine putting such scenarios beside him, and getting on with this backroom meeting if it put him ahead of this place.

When he turned the corner, he found a door pretensed by two guardsmen, again adding another layer of security past the many bouncers he’d already been screened by. 

“Hold up,” One raised a hand to him, “Gonna need to take your weapon off you.”

“This?” Kishar raised his brow, looking to his hip, watching a thin rapier skinny inside a bobbing sheathe, silver vines trailing the outward facing guard, “It’s a harmless thing, but I prefer it when she’s by my side.”

The bouncer scrunched his face, burying unpleasant teeth against the inside of his lip, “Can’t let you go in with that on you.”

Kishar let a small puff of breath just shy of a sigh blow from his nose, glancing to the ground, “If that is your rule,” Getting this far in the first place with it in such open carry, there was a mix of surprise and disappointment in him. 

He unlatched her  from his belt, letting him take her clasp and sheathe in with the whole blade. He handled it with clumsy fingers, but cradled her with both hands in recognition of its gleaming rarity. It was no mind to either to have her settled aside in the corner, as he was waved inside. 

Beyond the frame, an assemblage of five scattered about the break room. A pair played pool with cigarettes passing and snuffing between them, one consulted themselves over the contents of a mixed drink, while the other two kept themselves in conference by a couch facing an empty one, one standing behind the other sitting. The last two heads turned to him first, the closest furnishings to the entrance, the rest taking a look after as Kishar took a step into the circle of seating. They, perhaps, stared longer than normal in depreciation of the comparative wear between them. They wore suits of their own, in differing colors, well-tailored shapes, uniquely modernized styles. More important than blueberry or maroon suits, however, was the state they were in. They were not so unkind so as to leave their clothes unpressed and crumpled, but they were unkempt and loose. Many shirts went untucked, belt buckles unaligned, and top buttons remained undone while many substituted a tie for necklaces, chains, or tattoos. Kishar thought such a lack of appreciation for particularly expensive clothing was a misgiving he found at the very least tolerable, if not appreciable. Their style was rather signature, after all, and he wouldn’t chastise how wealth was wielded. He just thought that he wouldn’t be caught dead with his feathers ruffled. 

“Rich boy,” The seated man began with eyes tracing Kishar as he sat down, a gruff tone matching his rough exterior, “Feeling fashionably late?” 

Kishar rose his brow at him as he spread his legs to find his footing, clasping his hands together with formality, the patient smile on his face greeted by an inexorable sneer. Until he cracked a smile to clear the seediness in his expression, tucking his shoulders back just shy of a chuckle, “I had to make my own detours to come along inconspicuously,” He explained once he read the defusal, “Certainly, the layers of men delayed me a bit too.”

“’Course, that’s just security,” He leaned back against the cushy cushions, exchanging amused glances with his friend while the mixer walked along with short glasses balanced and tucked along his arm. He began handing them out, still carrying half of them when he pointed and looked wordlessly to Kishar, waiting on him.

“A Vodka Lime, please.”

He nodded curtly, still sparing no exchange as he moved on to the distant two, moving from jabbing about their game to cheering about their drinks, “You drink much?” He queried into his choice, a simple but bingable drink. 

“I like a pure drink, on occasion,” Kishar touched up his smile a bit wider, letting the man chuckle with him before he took a sip of his drink. He let his overamusement dispel into his drink, waving off his unprofessionalism so that he could cool himself when he put down his glass.

“…let’s talk business proper,” His smile relaxed, as Kishar remained lent forth, “You reached out to us first, best explain yourself.”

 While the two present before him watched him closely, the others in the back had their side-eyes about him too, lingering on the prompt for a while longer under the shower of devoted attention, “Perhaps…if I can put it most plainly,” He lifted a slow hand to scratch his chin, letting pearly teeth peer between his lips, “I’m in need of mercenary men with looser morals than most.”

“And tight lips?”

“I hope that is implied with the cost,” Kishar reached into his coat jacket, pulling from his inner pocket a written check and sliding it across the table, “I’m putting money into local entertainment, I heard the operating costs were becoming steep,” He waited to let him read it over.

“Two-hundred thousand’s not bad,”

“…But I’m really looking to expand into some local industry,” Procuring more marked paper, he unfurled it into printed map, many of its additional details hand-drawn on, “Excavation, for archeological purposes,” He passed the paper on too, inviting surprise on the evening, “I just can’t seem to get the right permissions.”

“Sounds like you need lifting in a few heavy places.”

“Two-hundred pounds of dirt weighs the same as two-hundred pounds of human,” Kishar looked aside to find his drink being delivered to him finally, taking it graciously into hand, “I just need someone willing to move both.”

“Now that’s crazy to hear,” The man shifted forward while sifting a hand through his hair, his pair behind him straightening up, “Real dark poetics you’ve got.”

“Thank you,” He shut his eyes as he took a tentative sip from his drink, letting most of the contents clink glass and ice together when he settled it back down, “But does that sound possible to you?”

“Possible? Always,” He cracked a colder smile, as his friend behind him became distracted with his pockets, “My professional estimate says it’ll be about five million. Information and…’operating costs’ can be a price hike though.”

Kishar filtered a click from his tongue in a sneazly breath sipping from between his pressed lips, “I know this proposition is very preliminary, but you set a pretty steep base. I’m afraid I’ll have to maintain a softer two.”

“Sure sure, I’m just a messenger,” The speaker put up his hands disarmingly, while the partner behind him drew a firearm from his coat. They cocked it in the air, the speaker’s smile cocking with it, pointing both towards the ceiling, “But you shoulder reconsider your position…I think six million sounds like a safer number on our side of things.”

Kishar sighed with a sullen smile, sunken in temper as he put one of his own hands up, disarmed. When the air began to crackle and flake, a slight moment discernible when speckles of crystal seemed to fleck on his palm; before a spike of ice blew forth from his palm, rough shards of rapid expansion desperate to be convoked. They took only a second to cross the twenty-odd feet between himself and the gunman, stabbing through his teeth and spearing his head on the end of a spear. 

“What the FUCK—?!”

“Now—“ 

Kishar reached for his drink slowly, calmly, while the speaker jumped back in his seat, staring at the dip of red tipping the brain-splattered point. Pool cues and glasses clattered out of place, suits sweeping aside to draw iron.

“—I wouldn’t have lost my cool if you were just a bit more disconcerting—“

He began to stand as weapons pointed at him, bullets quickly fired on him while he tapped his finger on the rim of his glass. Bubbles birthed into the air around him, catching aim of the projectiles as their momentum bent into the fizzle of the floating water. One firee had only a moment to appreciate his shots being caught by water, before the bubble bounced, rebounding those same bullets across their body and finally into his head. Another suffering their own shots to their chest and stomach, curling to the floor weakly, quickly spilling over with blood. The last one had ducked with only one shot fired, coming out only grazed as he looked out across two dead and one wounded. The speaker sat gasping face-to-face, eye-to-eye, with the source of fear, as the bouncers outside began banging on the door.

“—But, at least this way, I don’t have to get my Claire dirty.” 

|…|

“Hito’s just a pretty boring guy, if you ask me.”

Chall shrugged his shoulders as he let the comment hit the table, filling a cheek with air as he leaned back. A hand followed up to knock not so meekly into his side, causing him to writhe before the hand peeled back.

“Don’t be rude.”

“What?” He put up his hands defensively at Ade, sporting confusion and recent pain while she pouted at him, “That wasn’t even rude, I was just giving my thoughts.”

“That’s a pretty mean thought to have about someone.” 

She insisted against him, while Miyomi covered her mouth  to conceal the hopping snickers happening behind her hand across from them. Hito sat next to her, spooning careful bites of stew into their mouth, lazen eyes sparing little thought to the amorous noise of the lunchroom encasing them at the edge of the bench-addled table. 

“Hito,” Chall began to plead directly to Hito, “I mean, you said it yourself, you’re a pretty uninteresting person.”

“Mhm,” Hito confirmed with a noise, in the process of chewing.

“So even they don’t think—AAGH!“

Ade cut him off by pinching into his already wounded side, flaring it up like salt.

“That’s not the sort of thing you’re supposed to agree with.”

Miyomi helplessly dipped her head vertically, unable to completely hide the shake of her shoulders and unrestrained gaps of choking breath trying to puff into laughter.

“There’s plenty that’s interesting about you, Hito!”

Ade tried to chime up, pumping both her arms while Chall tried rubbing and tending to his twice-harmed skin.

“Hmm?” Hito lifted their head for the first time since they began their meal, “I don’t see what you mean.”

Ade’s jaw dramatically and sadly dropped at the flat dime-drop delivery of their words, Miyomi wiping their mouth as they tried to speak up and stop laughing.

“I mean— Just listen to Ade, Hito—“ 

She put her hand on Hito’s shoulder, earning a glance and an eyebrow raise past their blankness. 

“Listen to me!” Ade bounced off of that, sounding urgently desperate over a matter Hito found no difference in, “There’s plenty about you that’s unique too!”

“Sure,” Hito nodded shortly in agreement, Ade barely holding her breath as they continued, “I’m different than all of you.”

“Yeah-! I mean—“ Ade’s emotions bounced up and down in lacking interpretation, Chall recovering enough to grow more concerned at Ade’s concern as he grimaced at her unreliable expression.

Ade’s balled hands began to shake as their shoulders sank, lips pouting back together as her eyes began to well, before they burst in a broken slump of sobbing sadness.

“I don’t think anyone’s exactly the same. I just think the traits that make me unique are very average across all people,” Hito’s teeth began to grind against one another in a desire to keep chewing, so their head turned back down to begin to stir and find a good bite, “Average attributes aren’t very interesting.”

“Hitoooo…that’s so saddd…”

“Hey hey—“ Chall began to carefully put his hands across Ade’s head and back, consoling both with more sincere concern, “Come on, don’t cry about-“

“Waaah!!”

Miyomi’s eyes blared away as she, laying wide as she, again, covered her mouth as best she could.

Hito didn’t understand the commotion very well.

… 

When lunch broke, Hito returned to their classes. Basic curriculum was all that was left in the afternoon, in which they could find certainty in a reinforced schedule. Hours in dedication to pragmatic convolution, of soluble solutions, it was easy enough to curriculate, and pretend like they paid enough attention to be divulgent. The procedure worked, and it was plain to tell it didn’t for some, often publicly bogged by lecture. 

Hito asked Miyomi a month ago why she always fell asleep in class.

She asked them how they could tell.

“You hold your head in your hands when you’re sleeping.”

She clicked her tongue, reconsidering her strategies from then on. She found a way to sleep sitting completely upright next week. 

“Do you like math or something?”

“No.”

“…Well, you’re probably more science then, right?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking me?” Miyomi bit back with generic candor, though blunted for the sake of flat-faced recipient whose interpretive skills were limited to dim reflections.

“I’m curious.”

“You’re acting alot like a scientist,” She squinted at them suspiciously, but waved it off amidst a sip of soda, “Because I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

“I don’t care,” Miyomi raised her eyebrow at them, “Why should I care about something that doesn’t matter to me.”

Hito nodded.

“That’s true.”

Miyomi huffed, half-smiling.

“You don’t care either, right?”

“I don’t care.”

“So why not?” She shrugged widely, “What’s stopping you from dropping dead right there?”

Hito looked side to side, to each out-stretched arm and palm that Miyomi spread.

“Nothing, I suppose.”

Miyomi squinted, her smile tensing nervously at the blatant honesty she should’ve expected.

“…I mean come on man, you’ve gotta have something you care about.”

“Not really.”

She shook her head, defeatedly putting her arms down, to slap one against Hito’s back, who didn’t even shake to be phased.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find something, it just takes a bit of time, you know.”

“Hmm.”

…

When Hito emerged from the school’s gates, or at least moved away from all the classrooms and towards the external dorms, they did so crowded by other students clamoring to explore the town while the sun was only just turning pink and orange. 

“Hito!”

They turned to see an ever-serious [Shiinosuke], naturally scowling at them in pure purples and whites that clashed against the falling sun.

“Our meeting today will be in one hour, outside the embassy of [Geumseong,]” He jabbed a finger at them, the both of them standing still as the crowd parted around and between them, “Do not be late.”

“Okay,” Hito responded plainly, “I won’t.”

He nodded, “You look like you have business to attend to first,” And waved to them as he began to filter into the crowd, still blaringly obvious in the middle of it, “Do not be late!”

“I will not!” Hito raised their voice to match him as he finally became lost to the masses.

They continued walking towards their dorm, where the quieter students collected, reserving themselves inside, and rarely outside. Hito didn’t consider themselves that quiet, or at least not that unconversed, but they were considered as such, “an introvert,” when pressed.

Hito walked into their personal dorm to find it empty, the shared space, occupied on one side by gardening tools, half of which were missing from their rack, and a plaid bed, and on the other by a starkly unprovoked and clean area. When discovered, they were told it was if no one actually lived here, as if it were untouched, save for the signs of an imprint in their mattress, to which a haunting was attributed to a few laughs.

Hito began to undress, a long-sleeved and straight coat needing unbuttoned. They dropped layers of padding from in front of their stomach, completing a rectangular shape that aligned with the bandaged mounds they began unwrapping next. They cleaned them and replaced them, ensuring they were taut and immovable. 

Hito held out their hand.

“Hear me, [Enki.]” 

As a glowing, golden shape coalesced into their hand, smaller cracked shapes assembling into one complete one after a slow series of assembly configured the pieces into a simple sword. It was flat, almost two-dimensional, and still had a pale, yet radiant golden glow to it, silently sitting its blocky grip in their palm.

Hito lifted their other arm, and laid the flat of their sword across it, too bright to make any shadow as it covered it, illuminating the follicles of hair on their outline. They turned it over, onto its side, a straight, merciless edge to their skin. They pressed it down, wedging it in, feeling how it tensed their epidermis, before they pulled it back to make a slice, an incision. They cut into the skin, as blood dripped out, unable to stick to the blade, dripping down the skin and onto the ground. They pushed the blade forward, the impossibly sharp edge cutting against muscle, spurting red liquid against their cheek, just shy of their eye, muscle broken barely above the vein. This was how little effort it took to take a life.

Did they understand it? Did they feel it?

They stood there for twenty minutes, fist clenched, muscles tensed, as blood oozed to a puddle at their bare feet, standing alone in the half-dark in only their pants. They watched each second as their wound pulsed with an aching, pained heart, watching the skin, the tendons, the fibers that had to stretch to close it, minute by minute. When twenty minutes had passed, the skin had sealed shut again, leaving only a pale blemish as a mark of what they had done. When it reached the hour they were expected, all signs of it would be gone. Not like it would matter anyways, they thought so, as they began to rewear their paddings, and their shirt, and their coat over that.

It doesn’t really matter.

[…]