Valgunn

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant turned her head slowly from the snowflake, her blood-red eyes set deep into her corpse-pale face piercing Markhis. With a complete lack of sympathy for the bedsheet thieves, she turned back to Waves. "Anyway," she said. "What about this thing?"

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant froze in place and was as perfectly still as a rigour mortis-locked corpse. The only thing that moved was the Abyss black locks of her hair and the rustle of her grave-robbed clothes.

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant blinked, the goddess Waves pretended to be faded, and the woman beneath emerged as if through a fog. This was the woman the Truant had decided to help all those months ago; that she had decided to stay with after the disaster that was her attempted romantic reunion; and that she walked with through Great Forks, trying to think of ways to bring a smile to her face. The breath the Truant didn't truly need caught in her throat, forcing her to focus for a moment on her own body. It helped with her breathing, but it didn't help anything else. If she weren't as pale as a corpse and almost as bloodless her cheeks and ears would have gone pink. Instead, they just seemed to flush with a slight living colour that would have disgusted her master. "Oh, er," the Truant stumbled, the living colour intensifying slightly. "I'm not really good with sorcerous stuff, or theological stuff. Even the dead sort of theology." She took a second look at the snowflake. "It's very pretty, though," she insisted awkwardly. "Er, say, why hasn't it melted yet? Snowflakes should melt as soon as you touch them..."

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant shrugged, needles in hand, and let out an inelegnat, half-grunted, "I'unno." It was the kind of noise and gesture that brought down the whole vibe of a moment.

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant moved like a shadow dancing in the wan light of funerary incense. She acted faster than the speed of her own thoughts which caught up to her as she crunched freshly fallen snow under her night black shoes. For a split instant, she was standing there with two Soulsteel needles drawn, the faint images and moans of its horrifying material lingering in the snow-filled air. Then, as her thoughts caught up to her, she realized this was a time of blood but not that kind of blood. Not hot blood spilt on hungry earth, but of blood racing through the body. Even though she thought of herself as dead, she was actually still more-or-less alive and blood still pumped through her veins.

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant looked between Markhis, whose name she hadn't remembered until Waves had said it, and Waves herself. She always felt awkward when Waves was dealing with the members of her cult. In some ways, Waves reminded the Truant of her cousin. Both seemed able to warp reality with their words, though her cousin managed it more with her bounteous breasts than her words, and more often with men than with women, but the basic principle was the same. Old memories of acting as an awkward accessory to her cousin's indecent manipulations—both in the village and out on missions—slipped through the back of her mind. Her beautiful buxom cousin would twist the world around her finger while The Truant stood there—plain-faced, ash-pale, and flat—with nothing to do but wait for her to be done. The Truant stood there, feeling slightly ignored and not sure what to do next, and idly kicked at some of the settling snow out of boredom.

The Truant in the Garden of Death The edges of Truant's blood-red lips twitched slightly and a frown briefly formed on her face. "That sucks," she said irreverently, tossing her glass aside where it shattered into a dozen sharp fragments that glittered in the light. "Things had been going so well, too." It seemed as though she were talking about the defilement of Waves' shrine and the impediment to the steady expansion of her religion, but the Truant was more concerned for Waves' mental state. What a waste of silver, she thought as she imagined the salubrious effects of the fruity drink on Waves draining away in the face of this set back.

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant didn’t even wait for the glass to be offered. It wasn’t clear if she had thought about trying it before or simply had no hesitation. Either way, a large gulp of Waves’ drink had vanished, slain by the thirsts of the Truant. She didn’t make any faces this time, just licked her blood-red lips thoughtfully. “Yup,” she announced with a nod. “Definitely what I thought it was.” She finished her glass very quickly after that, with no further twitching. “You about done?”

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant smiled at the sight of Waves’ little bubble of introspection popping. Her lips parted ever so slightly, showing a sliver of bone-white teeth and an unnaturally sharp incisor. “Cheers.” She tapped her frighteningly yellow drink against Waves’ before slurping down some. Immediately one eye began twitching and she stuck out her tongue. “Gah! I thought that was going to be banana!” She stared intently at the remaining yellow semi-liquid. “What is this?” She slurped some more up. Her eye twitched again. “Definitely no banana in this. Maybe langka?” Another slurp. Another eye twitch. “There’s strawberries in it, though.” She eyed one of the green bits. “No idea what the green is.” Looking back at Waves, she shook her head. “What about yours?”

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant quickly crushed the bird into a paste of bone, meat, and sinew before swallowing it down completely. “Oh, yeah. Nice and crunchy,” she replied. Watching Waves with eyes as dark as the Abyss, the Truant could see Waves was distracted by something. It was beyond the little assassin’s ken what was distracting them, but not beyond her ken to see it was troubling. She didn’t take it personally. Her mind made up as fast as a shadow, she patted Waves twice on the arm. “One moment, boss,” she said before vanishing, the shadows opening up to welcome her in their dark embrace. A second later she reappeared at the front of the queue for the decorated stall, slapping down dinars. Some customers were unhappy, but the stall owner was distracted by the glint of the silver. He happily served two drinks into the Truant’s hands before she vanished in her peculiar way again. Onlookers barely had a moment to process all of that nonsense when the Truant reappeared beside Waves again, birthed by shadows. She held clutched in her hands two of the most saccharine-looking drinks. One was a colour of blue that seemed unnatural with cuts of red and green slashed through, and the other was so bright yellow it was like looking into the sun with flecks of black. The Truant held both out, offering Waves the choice of which drink she’d like, her blood-red lips stretched into a seemingly innocent smile. “Asked for the sweetest ones they had,” she said proudly. “I thought they’d be interesting to try.”

The Truant in the Garden of Death The Truant in the Garden of Death’s bone-white cheeks bulged and blood-red lips struggled to remain together. At the previous stall, she had shoved an entire roast nightjar into her face. Her eyes had been larger than her stomach, and her mouth, but she was determined. If she were a mortal woman she would have choked by now, but she was far from mortal. Empowered by the Void slowly devouring reality she could do the impossible. Walking the streets of Great Forks, the Truant stared openly at the sights. It was what she had come here for and she didn’t care how much of a tourist it made her look. She expected Waves Under the Night Sky had a greater motive than sightseeing, but the Truant hadn’t bothered to ask. It was enough for her to wander the city and enjoy being a tourist until Waves shared her plans. The Truant crunched down on the roast nightjar in her mouth, breaking fragile bones between her teeth. She managed to swallow a chunk of it with a loud gulping noise. A slight trickle of juices escaped through her lips and down her chin. She dabbed her mouth with the edge of her tunic. The ghostly craftsman who had woven it from strands of silk and soulsteel would have been horrified. “You see anywhere selling drinks.” Her voice was muffled by the remaining nightjar but was mostly intelligible. “I’m a bit parched.”