Kaia the Argent Wing

“I can't believe he took away my hex bags,” Chloe pouted, folding her arms as we left the admin block. Then she glared at me. “Oh, and I'm not forgetting that you gave that kid my knife!”

“I agree with the Captain, you can't be trusted with weapons right now,” I said, trying not to show how amused I was. “Plus, the kid was pretty excited to have a knife that's been stabbed into a dude.”

“Vicious little cretin,” she grumbled, still pouting.

I couldn't help it, I laughed and threw my hands in the air. “You're the one who stabbed the guy!”

We made our way back to the books we'd been studying, but the whole time I was thinking about what'd happened. Despite the laughter and the jokes, I was kinda disturbed by it. First, those two dudes were brazen enough to go out and snap Tess’ bow. Second, the way Chloe had handled the situation was not how I wanted disputes to be handled in whatever society I was living in.

The third and most disturbing thing was the powerlessness of those guys once Cynath stripped away her protection. That couldn't be the response to a crime that was only tangentially violent. I decided, then and there, to talk to the Captain about things, and perhaps even see about upgrading and expanding the wards so that punishments could be more targeted when Cynath or the Captain meted them out.

 

Chloe and I continued reading and translating the books for the rest of the day, until it was well past dark and my eyes were hurting.

The next day, after I'd transformed back into Kaia, I found myself working to make another bow for Tess. She'd been pretty shaken up after the attack yesterday, so I did my best to spin this as an opportunity for improvement rather than a setback. That whole day was lost to carefully shaping and carving out the bowstave to her and Cynath's specifications. Then, it was off to carve some bones to strengthen key areas of the stave—I may or may not have klepped some lion bones for the job. I didn't get to snuggle into my sofa-nest until well after dark, again. I really hoped that didn't become a trend.

The day after setting Tess’ new bow to drying and shaping in a rack, I went out with my friends again to chop some more wood. The few logs we'd brought back had been used down to the last scrap. It was hard to overstate just how much of a boost it was when an item had every component made from Storm-native materials.

This time, I even had my very own armour, as Kaia. Okay, in reality it was the arm and leg pieces from my Silver set, but with buckles that could be easily switched between big and small mode.

I still swapped out my standard issue axe and shield for the custom ones I used as Silver, once we were out of sight. That also led to me changing into Silver, because frankly, it was safer for us if I could immediately respond to threats with my full power. Oh, and speaking of weapons, Chloe was still ‘grounded’, hence why she was missing from the party despite wanting to join us this time around. We were also missing April, but that's just because she had no real reason to come with us.

While we were walking to the Castle Woodland, I decided to take that opportunity to sidle up to Immie.

“Hey,” I murmured as I came alongside her at the rear of the group. “How're you doing?”

She'd been much more subdued than normal since I revealed my identity as Silver.

“Hey,” she said, glancing up at me briefly. “I'm okay.”

I hummed softly and kept silent for a dozen heartbeats. “You know… in my experience when someone says they're just ‘okay’, they're generally not okay.”

Her lips quirked in amusement for a second. “That's a pretty solid observation.”

“So…” I said, then trailed off. Gah. What did I even do here?

She sighed heavily and caught a leaf from a passing shrub between forefinger and thumb. “Honestly, uh, Kaia… I'm just…”

“It's the Silver thing, isn't it?”

She nodded. “Yup.” She said, popping the P sound like it was bubblegum. Then she gave me a hasty smile. “I'm not angry or anything—you’re the same friend I’ve always had, regardless of how you look. I'm… trying to figure out, uh…”

I waited, watching her think things through.

Finally, she continued, “I'm trying to figure out where we—your friends—and I personally went wrong that you didn't immediately feel comfortable telling us about,” she gestured up and down my body, “that.”

I winced and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “It's nothing you did, Immie. It's this neighbourhood, this town. Gender stuff was right in the line of fire in the culture war, and I've heard too many normal, otherwise good people say the most out of pocket shit about the subject. That’s why I was scared.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, but then shook her head. “But see, we should've been more outspoken about it back then—all of us. We just kinda let it slide, except Estelle of course.”

I snorted. “And Chloe.”

Immie smiled fondly and giggled, “Man, on god that girl is wild. Love it now, of course. That stunt she pulled the other day, reminding everyone that their safety is directly tied to how happy Cynath is with them, that was some masterful politicking.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“It was,” she insisted. “The number of people causing problems has dropped pretty hard. Nobody wants to be helpless in front of people that’re angry at them”

I shrugged a shoulder. “I guess. Still makes me uneasy, though. Anyway, back on topic, it's really not your fault. You had a life, shit happening, all that. I don't blame you or the others one bit.”

“Yeah, but if it weren't for Ollie growing her scales and the whole coma transformation thing, I don't think you ever would've been comfortable enough to tell us on your own,” she said sadly.

“I guess,” I sighed, forced to concede the point. She was right. I never—

A dull thud from farther ahead had me instantly alert. My ears perked up as much as they could, and I squinted into the woods. Everyone else had frozen too, and we glanced at one another with wary curiosity.

“That was the sound of a fire spell,” Camillo murmured, gently setting down the makeshift logging cart he’d been pulling. “Was there anyone else coming out this way today?”

I shook my head, and so did everyone else. No, there was not supposed to be anyone else out here.

Swallowing a nervous lump in my throat, I signalled us forward. We needed to see who this was.

As a group, we spread out into what the books would call a ‘skirmish line’ and continued into the woods. We kept hearing the sounds of spellwork as we went, until finally we got line of sight on the little stone tower we'd named the woods after.

Arrayed in front of the makeshift door we'd added to it, well outside the wards, were five individuals. They were wrapped up tight in cold weather gear, more than us by a pretty substantial amount, actually, along with makeshift armour strapped to their arms, legs, and chests.

The moment we came into sight, one of them saw us. He muttered an urgent word, and they turned to look at us. Now, I know this probably shouldn't have been the first thing I noticed… but all five of them were black.

Since I was in the middle and in front, I gave a cautious wave. “Hello?”

The five strangers glanced between one another, before a woman stepped forward. “Sup. What’re you doing out here?”

I swallowed my nerves and called back, “We're here to chop some trees. We're making… well, lots of stuff out of them.”

“Yeah?” She asked, giving a guy beside her a little unreadable glance. “Where you from?”

“Edgewood,” I said automatically. “The High School. That’s our tower just there, we warded it.”

“Oh?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “Your tower, huh?”

I couldn't tell by her expression, we were too far away, but she didn't sound impressed.

I winced. “Well… I guess? We didn't build it, it just appeared one day, but we figured it'd be a good outpost for when we're foraging or logging out here.”

“Aight,” she said after a moment of silence. “And what's a ward? In the context of the apocalypse, I mean. Some ability you got?”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head, then sighed and asked, “Can we come closer? I'm not sure shouting back and forth in the forest is a good idea. There's some dangerous monsters around.”

“It ain't the monsters we worried about,” she called back, getting a round of nervous chuckles from her people. But she did give a wary shrug and wave for us to come closer.

“Give us a couple yards, yeah? You ain’t the first folks we’ve run into since the apocalypse,” she added when we were in conversational volume range.

Camillo cleared his throat. “We only know of the people up in… fuck, I forgot the name of it. It’s a church.”

The woman, who I saw was about mid twenties, shook her head. “They dead. It was their killers we ran into. Some crazy motherfuckers from Theprin penitentiary escaped and came through. Real feral folks. We lost a couple of ours when they tried to fight, but they backed off when they saw how many we are.”

“We had some people come all the way from Fort Knox, but by the time they got here there were only three of them,” I added.

“Shit, some of them are alive?” one of the men said, speaking up for the first time. “We found some of their bodies down the freeway some.”

“Three ain’t a lot,” another guy said, shaking his head worriedly. “My bro was there.”

“Your brother might still be alive. According to the three boys who made it to us, most of the troops stayed in Knox,” I said by way of consolation. Then I jutted my chin at the tower. “Anyway, your question. The wards are set up using our patron goddess’ power. It means that monsters avoid the place and nobody we don’t want can enter. Keeps people from hurting each other inside them, too.”

“Real?” the woman asked, surprised. “You can do that? Man, someone gotta tell Asa about this, she’s been slacking.”

“Who is… Asa?” I asked, intrigued.

“She’s our goddess,” the woman said proudly. “We learned about her from the aunties, she was from around here back when she was alive and, you know, human. Born a slave, freed by her own hands, lover of gossip and kicking confederate ass. Her spirit turned up outta nowhere after the apoc happened and started doing the whole godly thing. Apparently the way Bandon had her on a pedestal was enough to turn her into a goddess.”

That had me grinning. She sounded pretty great. I wonder if her and Cynath would get along. “That’s cool as fuck.”

“Hell yeah, it is.”

“Well…” I said, suddenly eager to help out. I glanced around for a second, then bent and picked up a rock. My dagger had a dull point on the bottom, so I drew it and began to carve. It only took me a few strokes and a carefully done curve, but the weird icecream cone symbol that created one cornerstone of a ward was finished. I showed it to our new acquaintances. “Carve that symbol on a rock or a brick—Something sturdy. Then you need someone close to your goddess, like a priest or an angel, and the goddess can channel a tiny bit of her energy into it and it becomes active. You need at least three to mark out an area to enclose. For town wards, it’s way more complicated, but I can show you later if I have the tools and stuff.”

“Legit? Thanks for the tip,” the woman said with a smile. “I’m Brielle.”

“I’m Silver,” I said with a smile.

“For real?” Brielle asked, giving my hair a pointed look.

I laughed and shrugged self consciously. “I know.”

We made introductions between everyone else, and once that was done, I asked a question that’d been burning a hole in my brain. “So, y’all are from Bandon, right?”

“Yeah. What gave us away?” one of the guys asked with guarded amusement, and if I was honest… yeah, he had a point.

I felt my face redden. “Uh…”

Brielle, who had the same amused smile on her face, waved a hand in a calming gesture. “Chill, we get it.”

Thankfully, Ollie saved me by asking a question of her own, and it was actually a pretty damned important one. “So, if you didn’t know about wards… how have you been surviving? With the monsters, I mean.”

“We fuckin’ kill them, that’s how,” Brielle said with a toothy grin.

O-kay. That’s certainly one way to do it, they must have some very competent fighters.

“Hell yeah!” Ollie grinned, turning to me as though she expected me to add something. I nodded. What do you want, Ollie.

To Brielle, I said, “Well… we need some of these trees, do you mind if a couple of us go get our cart? We can talk more while we wait and work, if you’re okay with that.”

“Of course,” she nodded. “Y’all are cool. So we’ll be cool too.”

Phew, this was pretty nerve wracking at the start, but now I was really happy with how things were turning out. We might’ve just gained an ally in this shitty, desolate new world… assuming people like Pastor Thomas could keep their shitty beliefs up their asses where they belonged.