Closed Let Me In

[Elias Caldera]

The 15th Day of Winter
The 11th Bell

The crack of thunder overhead heralded the arrival of two men upon the barren bridge that night. They stared at one another from either end of the cursed crossing, their features revealed only when the lightning, like a painter’s stroke across a blackened canvas, illuminated the night.

On one end stood the knight, his steal gleaming dimly in the heavy rain and his body tense against its relentless assault. Blond hair, matted and flattened, was pushed aside to reveal the weary blue eyes glaring out from beneath. He stared at his counterpart across the way, hand at his hilt and nerves long since steeled against threat this city had to offer. On the other side, waited the stranger, unmoving, unflinching even. Garbed in all black save for the sword at his back and the unnerving white mask hiding his face beneath a drenched hood, he simply stood there, blocking the way with all but his weapon drawn. When the lightning came again, the knight finally took notice of the length of rope coiled around his shoulder; there was a hangman's noose knotted onto the end.

The storm’s intensity picked up once more, its frightful noise overwhelming to the point that if either had wanted to speak, their words would have been hopelessly lost in the raging winds that now whipped about them wildly. The Sylirian shifted under his sodden attire uncomfortably, fingers gripping tighter around the pommel of his great blade as he readied himself for what he knew was about to happen next.

Lightning snapped, a dancing, jagged serpent lacing a path across the sky and signaling a sudden movement from the masked man. The knight ripped free his massive blade from its sheet as he began to take heed of what was happening around his silent foe. Impossibly, the rain had stopped falling and the wind had ceased its dogged offense, but only around the stranger. Instead, it seemed they now refused to touch him, their natural rage ebbed and swayed by something unexplainable. Caught it some kind bubble around him, the forces of the storm swirled and coalesced into something altogether unnatural around the man in black.

Magic. The thought raced to forefront of the knight’s mind as he looked on in disgust and growing anxiety. He charged without a second thought, blade at the ready as his masked assailant whipped the air and wind around him into a frenzy of flailing, watery tendrils and howling gusts. The mage too flung himself headlong into the fight, freeing his steel and racing forward with surprising speed.

The two rushed at each other with silent vigor, their clash to be settled in blood at the center of the bridge neither man could cross until the other was dead.

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Steel met steel as the storm worsened with each passing moment. The clang and clatter of two swordsmen dulled by the incessant pounding of the rain and the deafening thunder that had cleared the streets and sent every living thing scurrying for shelter. No one could hear them as they fought, nor could anyone bare witness to who would be standing as the victor by end, but there bout wasn't to do with glory or bragging rights. Each warrior wanted the other dead -needed him dead- as the alternative would be their own life forfeited. They both had already come to terms with this in their own ways.

The fight had gone on for more ticks than either of them had time to count as the desperation of the battle left little room to focus on anything but. Guttural grunts and hissed curses went unheard as the fighters pressed into one another without relent. The mage was quick and clever, his blade arching at awkward angles and with dangerous precision. The knight however, was a tower of might and an unwavering bulwark that withered the flurry of attacks with startling ease. With a roar tethered behind clenched teeth, the knight swung his massive great sword, the veritable wall of steel cutting a swath through the curtain of rain that divided both men. The mage panicked, caught completely off guard by the power exerted and the agility demonstrated. His sword met the swing and was effortlessly torn from his grip, its sharpened edges glinting every so often as it tumbled down into the abyss below them.

With hands outstretched the masked man did beckon upon the storm to serve him once more and a torrent of water came rushing to his aid. Like his weapon before it however, it crashed against the unyielding metal monstrosity like waves upon a shore and was smashed aside, leaving him open and all too vulnerable. The mage barely managed to duck under the second heaving swing that followed, but the clenched fist that awaited him next seemed utterly unavoidable. The masked man reeled back, shards of his porcelain mask mixed with his blood as both sprayed from his face, the blow planting him unceremoniously on his backside with a wet thud.

With the mask broken the knight could now see his attacker's face for the first time, and what was revealed in that instant made his actions in the next clear as the morning this he knew storm, like every other storm before it, would soon relent to. He raised his sword and readied to lay the final blow. Elias lay prone on the ground before him, his bloodied smile and wild eyes glaring up at the swordsmen and the enraged heavens beyond him. With the promise of a swift and ugly death spurring him own, the Caldera reacted hastily, hands haphazardly cast out in front him as he ushered forth his res in one last desperate effort. He wasn't sure what to expect, but the skies answered his call with terrifying fervor. A bolt of lighting, swifter and deadlier than blade in this world, sliced through the air and crashed right into the summoning res waiting between his fingers... or at least it would have, had the knight not been standing in its path.

The blonde man cried out in unexpected agony as his back was struck by a force unlike any other. His blue eyes, wide with shock, looked down at Elias's with confusion written on every feature of his twisted face. Then his body spasmed out of control as a second strike ripped into him from behind. The bastard sword fell him his grip, fingers helpless to obey under the duress that every muscle beneath his skin was abruptly put under.

Realizing how very close he was to suffering the same fate, Elias began to hastily scramble away, his creation of res forgotten in his haste but still calling out to the storm above where he had left it. His entire focus was on escape at that point as more and more shafts of burning light struck the gilded knight and the stone walkway all around him. Many dissipated into the aperture's gaping maw, but others cracked the ground and split brick to bits with their unchecked ferocity. The sight of it was awe inspiring to say the least, but just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. In it's wake was left the smoldering remains of the once great knight, his shallow gasps and blistered, smoldering skin belying the threat he once posed.

Elias sauntered towards his beaten enemy, a smile returning to his freshly busted lip as he quietly took in his victory. Clearing his mouth of blood, the reimancer knelt down before the blonde man, his one remaining good blue eye still open and defiant in the glare it pinned on Elias. The mage ignored it. There was only one question had for the dead man; "Now, where are your friends?"

Something small and hard bounced off his cheek in response, and when Elias looked down to where it had fallen he realized it had been half a tooth, spat at him by a man whose body had been so mercilessly wracked by the lightning he had crushed his own dentures in the pain. Elias grimaced at the thing for a moment before turning his attention back to the crumpled swordsmen. "Funny. That's what they always say."

He chuckled and rose, deft hands going to work unraveling the hangman's rope from around his shoulder.

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They would find the wretched remains of the knight's body swinging from bridge in the morning, the scars of the fight that had claimed his life evident all across the cursed archway. That was, unless the Aperture had other plans for him. Irregardless, Elias was done here. He had managed to retrieve a leather bound journal on the dead man's person before the rope had snapped taut, though its secrets still remained as much until he could find the time to explore them. For now though, he could move on to what he had been really looking forward to since his arrival in this city.

A little time alone with the family.

A bell later he was battering down the door to some some gray-grim shack tucked away in the heart of the Eastern Quarter. Neither his city map -now thoroughly soaked- nor his memory of his last visit to Nyka had helped much in its locating, but by the grace of some god above Elias had managed to find it in all this mess. His fists crashed against the oaken door once again, its meek rattle competing poorly with the tumult of the storm bellowing around him. Wincing against the now almost painful shards of rain, he managed a glance upward at the sign above the smithy as it danced madly in the wind. The... The Ocean's Forge. He grinned. How very Zeltivan of you.

When the door finally swung open, Alija would find herself met with the expectant, smiling face of a stranger looking back at her, lip swollen and eye already turning blue and black from some earlier trauma. At his stomach the man clutched at something, forcing his figure to bend at the waste. It wouldn't be until she managed to get some light on it would the blacksmith recognize all the blood his gloved hand was trying to staunch.

"Hello cousin. His smile widened.

"Let me in would yah, its chaos out here."

ReceiptLength of Rope -1 GM
City Map -2 GM

[Alija]

The storm pounded around the building, ominous crashes sounded around them as all four huddled in the living room, crowded around the fire and hoping that the damage they could hear happening was only exaggerated by the wind - hoping that the wind wouldn't rip the roof off their heads. It crackled almost soothingly, the family trying to have a clam and collected conversation amid the thundering.

Something thudded downstairs, crashing under the sound of the rain. Alija looked towards the door, almost wishing she didn't have to leave the room and the company of friends and family. Something thudded again, sounded like the door rattling on its hinges. Slowly, she rose, curious and wary at the same time. Her father inched behind her, for once brave enough to venture down to the shop, out of the safety of his home.

He moved to the shadows as she moved to the light, a candle flickering with the wind that slipped through the gaps around the door. Something crashed against the door again, hard, firm. Someone was there. Someone wanted to get in. Someone... or something. Slowly, she crept to one of the shelves on the walls, taking the spade off it firmly before inching closer to the rattling door.

She pulled it open with a quick movement before she changed her mind, gripping the spade until her knuckles went white. A sharp blast of wind ripped the door out of her fingers and pushed rain inside, forming an instant area of wet. She let the man stumbled inside, the door slamming shut again with a large bang that caused her to jump.

Then the blacksmith took the moment to observe her companion, terrified at his state. He smiled, but his lip was swollen and eye bruised. He clutched his stomach, bending over. His face was dotted with scars - some lining his eyebrow, one across his nose, one leading from his mouth. A visible ring around his neck caused her to gasp with shock, stumbling back with fear.

Her father met her, placing a hand upon her shoulder reassuringly as the large man sized up the injured one in front of him. They could take him easily, if he meant harm. From his state, however, it appeared he only wanted help.

The words that came from his mouth shocked her, the name with which he referred her. Cousin? She only knew of one cousin. But that cousin had disappeared so suddenly, so abruptly, he couldn't still be alive. She raised the spade a little, warning him not to get closer until he confirmed his identity. "Who... who are you?" she tried to sound demanding and authoritarian, but it came out weak, scared. Of course she was scared. She was terrified.

[Elias Caldera]

The bloody, battered mess of a man that had crashed through the door now groaned as he lifted himself off the floor with a visible struggle, the storm's soggy remnant slick upon his clothes and making every movement that much more strenuous. When he was finally upright, Elias found himself under siege from a pair of familiar hazel eyes, and though ripe with fear, still made his heart ache ever so slightly. To see her so close again after so long apart brought a flood of emotions and memories down upon Elias that even he was surprised to realize he hadn't been entirely ready for. "I'm hurt-" he muttered, feigning exhaustion. "That you would forget the face of your favorite relative so easily..." The confusion written unto her features as he stared at him, deadly spade still at the ready in her hand, was plain and painful to behold, but not unsurprising. The big man behind her mirrored much of the same sentiment, save except he seemed more prepared to throw Elias out the door he had just come through more than anything else. "Uncle Jaiden?" The mage suddenly blurted as he locked gazes with the stout man. He was larger than the Ravokian and had a powerful look about him that only men who spent a lifetime hammering steel and iron around the fires of a forge could accomplish. Though, to see him as he was now though, the old man seemed different somehow; almost smaller perhaps, and definitely a hell of a lot more tired. "Uncle Jaiden is that really you? I haven't seen you since... well, you know. I gotta say though, I'm really liking the beard." Without warning he began coughing and hacking, cutting off his hollow attempt at small talk before doubling over in raucous choir of discomfort and pain. "I wasn't kidding, I am hurt. Would you mind terribly if I just-" He pointed frailly at a nearby bench and began limping over to it without so much as another strained word. His dangerously swaying bulk and clumsy hands began knocking over metals wares and other furniture in his path before he finally managed to collapse unto the creaking oak with a hiss.

Then, he lay there dying.

It took a great deal of self control to stop a smile from cutting across his bleeding lips. He was quite proud of how convincing this charade had turned out to be. The fact of the matter was the mage wasn't nearly as hurt as he was pretending to be, obviously. Sure his face stung like a real sonuvabitch, and there was indeed a sizable gash on his abdomen, but pain like this was nothing compared to what he had grown accustomed to. He'd get over a black eye like he would a splinter, and the fact that the very shallow cut on his stomach had been placed there by his own hand, with his own dagger no less, and within only a few ticks before he had started pounding on their door, made the idea of his "gruesome" injuries being so unbearable a laughable one. It was all just a ruse, but it would be an important one. This moment had been two years in the making now, he reminded himself. Well, a little more than that actually, considering how much time he spent withdrawn and secluded after his mother had died. Regardless, after so long apart, Elias felt he couldn't just leave their reunion to mere coincidence and fate. It had to be impactful and beyond emotional. She had to remember how much she once cared for him all in one heartfelt moment that would last, or else the mage was afraid she would simply forget him altogether. That would have been a pain not even he could have endured.

He looked at her from his deathbed, eyes wincing with agony and a desire for help as he waited. Waited for something to click in her thoughts, to shift in her stance, to soften in her eyes. Anything. Come on, Alija. Come on. You know me. Truth be told, why it had been so important he do it like this, as if it were a sick test of some kind, the young man was having a hard time justifying even to himself. Perhaps in Alija's unbidden acceptance he could prove to himself that Elias Caldera was more than just dead parents and a petched up backstory. That maybe he was actually worth loving or something- Gods, he didn't know! He pushed that thought away with sickening haste. Such disgusting self-aggrandizing and pity was just about as nauseating to think out loud as it was to ponder over, yet that didn't stop him from still hanging on to his cousin's every subtle movement for some kind of sign.

In a blink of an eye the sight beyond sight took hold of him, his vision distorted and shifting violently into more than just what mortal eyes could behold. He saw the auras of the world around him swirling and bright, and with trained concentration quickly focused it all on just the interior of the smithy. That's when he noticed the other two upstairs. He took from them a pungent odor of alarm, uncertainty and hesitation. It was fear made palpable, and it hung around the shop like a veil of mist, permeating everything he could see now that he was deeply focusing in on it. Could it really be him that troubled them all so? He hadn't seen any reason for them to have been so on edge when he had been spying on them from afar a week earlier...

Yes, fine, he had been watching them! It wasn't like he could just walk up and say hello out of nowhere. He needed some facts first was all, it wasn't weird or anything... It wasn't!

If Alija was down here however, then that meant to two upstairs were likely the boy and the boyfriend he had seen hanging about. No surprises there. Jaiden on the other hand, he hadn't been expected whatsoever. Elias had no bloody idea where the big man had been hiding all this time, or for that matter what the hell he was doing here in Nyka. Was this where he and his wife had disappeared off to? Where is Fiona then? See, this is why he was spying, so he could avoid unwanted surprises and unanswered question just like this.

Honestly, thinking of it now, the ex apprentice hadn't ever really gotten a chance to know Jaiden much during his time in Zeltiva. The man was kind of like any other parent of your friend's when you considered it, just part of the background noise that he would often hear shouting after Alija to be careful once Elias had come round to collect from her house so they could begin whatever foolhardy and childish adventure they had planned for that day. He had never given the man a chance, nor had he ever cared to. His mother had made her own distaste for interacting with him more than clear in the way she outright avoided him most of the time, and pondering it now, that silent evasion of her's might have just rubbed off on her son unconsciously.

Speaking of sons.

Elias's gaze shifted to the stairway, a little body of blue and saltwater doing a particularly poor job of hiding himself behind the wall while he spied on the situation going on downstairs. The aurist let go of the djed filling his senses, its confusing readings dissipating to reveal the child looking intently down at him. "Hello, you." Elias said groggily, his bloody fingers wiggling in greeting at the boy. The kid almost jumped out of his skin at the realization he had been spotted, and by the strange amalgamation of expressions that crossed over his face, it seemed he had been: A) angered by the fact that he had been scared, and then B) grown even angrier still at Elias for being the reason of that fear. He stepped out of the shadows boldly to reveal the spade clutched in his grip. The other man who had been waiting with him upstairs appeared a tick later standing by the boy, a spade deftly clutched in his hand as well. They both looked at Alija for some kind of guidance here, but Elias couldn't help himself from laughing out loud this time.

"Oh gods, unless you all are planning to help dig my grave with those things, i'd really appreciate it if -ugh- if someone would, oh I don't know, help me with all this blood I seem to be having such a hard time holding unto over here."

[Alija]

The man struggled with his injury, yet spoke with such sarcasm, as if it was nothing to worry about, instead, wondering how she could forget his face. True, the more she looked the more she saw how this man could be Elias - could be her cousin. He broke into a friendly conversation with her father, noting on the added facial hair before coughing violently, limping over to a bench.

He made a trail of metal behind him, her hard work clanging to the floor. She paid him no attention, moving to collect them. Sure, he was her cousin, or at least injured and needing her help, but for someone who needed it, he didn't seem to have his priorities straight. Besides, Alija needed to think about it without looking at his sorry state. Instead, she stared at the gleam of the metal, clutching it tight until her knuckles went white. What was he doing? She had such a good, perfect life before he had shown up. Elias had a way of wrecking things, messing up what she had planned. When she had been younger, she hadn't cared, but now...

The blacksmith was older. She had a business, a family, several to provide for. She heard him talk to someone, then a laugh, almost chilling, and she spun back around, spotting Thegans and Kial both clutching spades as well as they watched the stranger. Alija looked at them, then at Elias with a look of deadly anger. "Boys, meet Elias, or the man who claims to be him," she simply stated, finally taking a deep breath, "Once my cousin. Now... I don't know anymore." She sighed, looking back over the blood around his stomach, his hand soaked in the red liquid.

"Elias, what have you got yourself into?" she finally let out, hurrying over to him and giving in to her urge to help the man she once called family, "Thegans, fetch some clean water, a cloth and a bandage. Hurry." He did as she asked, returning quickly with what she wanted. The bandage wasn't bandage exactly though, only a strip of cloth, but would have to do.

She dunked the cloth into the water, loosening her eyes the way she knew how to see the world beyond. The world he could see too, trained by the same man. Had Elias abused his skills, practiced them, ignored them? She could barely remember him using them. All she could remember was after the Djed storm, him lying injured. So much must have happened that she missed. Her eyes focused in on the wound on his stomach, straining to see the auras behind the tears building up on her eyes. If there was infection, she should have seen it already. She shook herself out of the magic, shaking away the tears as well as she dabbed at the wound, doing her best to clear it anyway.

Passing Elias the strip of cloth, she let him bandage himself up, only helping when she really had to. She didn't know what to do about his eye, but that couldn't have given his as much trouble as the cut. Once he was done, she rose, stamping away again. The crowd watched her, all scared and curious. She turned to them rather angrily, snapping quickly with tears in her eyes. "Help him! To the couch, he can sleep there."

Nodding quickly, Thegans and Jaiden moved to help the man as Alija marched over to Kial, grabbing his hand and dragging him up to his room. She sat him on his bed, looking at him with utmost seriousness. "Listen, Kial, okay? I don't want you near Elias. He can be dangerous. I don't want you getting hurt, okay? Don't trust him, okay?" The little boy nodded, intimidated and confused, "Now, good night." She kissed him on his forehead lightly, before returning downstairs, ready to face her cousin.

[Elias Caldera]

There it was then, the thing he dreaded most. Rejection and distrust, all neatly wrapped into a single, sullen sentence. They were cruel words matched only by an even crueler gaze that in itself spoke volumes. Instead of the love and rekindled fondness he had longed for, Alija had only loathing and venom for the man that was supposed to be her kin...

How petching dare she!

Elias bet she'd show a little more affection if it was her bloody father lying where he was now, guts all over the damn floor. Or maybe that boy of hers, who the hell was he anyway! And the way the little bastard just kept glaring at him with that same petching revile in his eyes. I should come over there and tear the petching- No! No, no no no. It took some effort to stop himself from going down that mental path. None of that. Not here. Not with her. Elias blinked, shame and disgust flushing over him all at once as he sorted through the jumbled, wretched thoughts that plagued his mind. He tried glancing at Alija again for some sort of reminder, but found he was too ashamed now to even look her in the eyes anymore. Never with her. You don't have anyone else left, you damn fool.

What seemed like an eternity of onerous patience and uncertainty was finally rewarded when it appeared her better nature got the best of Alija and the Zeltivan smith came rushing to his side, concern finally winning over caution. He watched in silent relief and rising apprehension as the girl he thought he'd find here waiting for him slowly started to turn into a woman he didn't know if he recognized anymore. Every barked order and deft slight of her hands that sought to aid him changed her before the mage's very eyes, yet all at once somehow still reminding him of the sweet girl he'd left behind two years ago without so much as a goodbye. That memory bit at him angrily and Elias was already dreading the moment he knew he was coming where he'd have to try and explain away that whole mess, but for time being, there was another tale he needed to spin first; why was Elias Caldera here.

"Just this city, i'm afraid." He said, responding to her almost rhetorical question with a now mirthless tone. She was cleaning the wound for him at that point, but the Caldera's eyes were firmly fixed on the ceiling above him while he lay there speaking. "I was back in Zeltiva not to long ago." He went on, remembering to wince every once in a while in order to make his terrible injury look convincing. "I came by to your old place, thought it be nice to -ah- reconnect after so long. Your neighbors told me you had left. Just packed up everything you owned and then practically ran out the door, they said... I got worried." Naturally, the Ravokian wasn't going to divulge the real reason he had been skulking about Zeltiva in the first place, nor what it had taken for him to get his hands on the ship registries that had inevitably pointed him to Nyka either, but the rest of it was truth, or close enough to it anyway. "I made my way here and started asking around." He turned to Jaiden, the man still uncomfortably vigilant as he watched his daughter work on his nephew. The blacksmith noticed Elias's gaze and noticeably stiffened, crossing his arms in a vein attempt to hide it, but for whose sake the mage wasn't sure. "I finally caught a break and heard about this place, but as I was on my way here, I ran into some... locals. Monks. They uh, mugged me, beat me up pretty bad when I wouldn't give up my purse as you can see, and when they were done they left me in an alley unconscious. I woke up a while later half near drowned to death in this bloody storm. I figured i'd just limp my way here as best I could while my legs still worked."

The story seemed to have its desired affect on Jaiden. The way he shifted from watchful papa bear to aghast and slightly infuriated let Elias know the big man had been hooked at the very least. Even the one his cousin had referred to as Thegan, as he was handing the cloth Alija had requested over to her, cursed under his breath and muttered something along the lines of "those gods damned monks" before shaking his head in disgust. It was only when she had handed him the cloth did Elias notice the tears in his cousin's eyes however. Tears for me? He wondered, instinct telling him he should reach out to console her before he realized how red his hands still were. Whose blood is that? Oh... right. Mine.

"I'm really glad you're alright." He said, absentmindedly wrapping the offered strip of bandage around his cut. "You know me, I always think the worst and-" She rose and turned away from him, heavy, angry footsteps distancing her from Elias all of a sudden as Thegan and Jaiden came to lift him out of the messy pool he had left on the bench. He didn't need their assistance, nor wanted it for that matter, but he let himself be carried along none the less while he watched his cousin ascend the stairs and disappear out of sight.

He said his belated thanks as the two other men set him down on the couch, but before Jaiden could escape, Elias snagged him with the question that had been nagging at him since the burly man had unexpectedly appeared. "What happened to you Jaiden? Are my aunts hiding around her somewhere too?" The Zeltivan hesitated for a moment, his mind clearly working through something dearly important to him before he dared to give an answer. "That's a tale for another time, lad. Best you get some rest now and we'll discuss it when you're feeling better." To his credit, that had sounded much less skeptical and unnerved that the mage had expected, but it didn't take an aurist to tell the man was still hiding something from him. Being Elias, he already knew it was going to be bad. Without any other kind of recourse available to him though, Elias simply nodded and the smith turned to leave, taking Thegan by the arm and shuffling the younger man away with him. Thegan offered offered a charitable "Good night" before being led off upstairs to join Alija. When they were gone, the only sound the Caldera could hear was the beating of the rain outside and the chattering of his own teeth.

Alone again.

By the time Jaiden had reached his daughter at the height of the assent, he was already pulling her aside and out of the way. Thegan joined them a tick later, apprehension clear on one's face, confusion on the other. "Listen Alija, I don't think its any coincidence that that boy just so happened to show up on our doorstep here and now, of all places. That's Raina's son downstairs." He paused for a moment to let that sink in, but when Thegan still didn't seem to understand, his brow thoroughly furrowed, Jaiden sighed and finished. "Her sister. Her side of the family." He looked at them both and straightened, tired and wary eyes making clear just how much this frightened him even in the dimly lit bedroom. Her father let out a heaving sigh as a calloused hand ran over the wrinkles on his brow. He took a moment to wipe the sleep from his eyes before he went on. "I know he means something to you -meant something- Heck, after he and Raina showed up, it felt like your mother and I couldn't turn our backs for a chime without the two of getting yourself into one mess or another, but that doesn't mean we might not have just let a serious problem walk into our home. If he really is working with that witch that took Fiona from me... Well were going to have to find a way to deal with that problem, do you two understand? I can't have her coming after you too Alija, I just- I just can't."

Left to his own devices downstairs, 'the problem' was fidgeting restlessly with his damp clothes. Between biting his lip and playing with the itchy rag on his stomach, Elias wasn't sure what he was meant to do now save stare into a lifeless fireplace while wondering just what they were whispering about without him. He could of course just take a little peek into their conversation with a bit of magic, but he thought better of it after a while. Unfortunately that still left him with idle hands and a nervous jitter. Eventually his agitation got the better of him, and by the time Alija was making her down stairs again, she'd find her cousin surrounded by a swirling vortex of rain water as globules of res worked to suck the moisture right out of his coat and clothes with exceptional efficiency. By the time he was done, Elias had collected a sizable pool of water and was now awkwardly looking about for a place to put it all before anyone noticed. Being that he was in a smithy, he finally remembered they usually kept barrels of water around to use in cooling the metal after they were done shaping it in the forge. As a kind of smith himself, the mage had often used something similar on his work as well. Putting himself in that mindset he managed to find one tucked away by some aprons and hastily poured it all in there as discreetly as he could.

The stealthy mage noticed Alija on the stairs looking directly at him a tick too late as it turned out.

"You're dad's got himself a nice place here." He said smiling, trying to play it off as if it nothing had happened. It wasn't as if she hadn't known he was a practitioner of the arcane arts anyway. Hell, they had learned auristics together from that rather peculiar man who called himself a wizard back in Zeltiva. Of course like everything else, Alija had taken to that like white on rice. She always had been a passionate one when it came to honing the crafts she felt were important. Whether it was the forge, or another book about some nonsense, it didn't matter, it was always a battle to tear her away from it. This time though, she couldn't escape.

"So... here we are."

[Alija]

Alija wasn't really listening to his story. It didn't make sense, not all of it, and from the pieces she put together from her half-listening state, it sounded like he knew more about everything than he should. The monks, of course, had got in the way. She hadn't expected anything else. Why else would you find a man injured and seeking help in the middle of the night? For anyone else to be roaming the streets would be surprising, shocking. Almost unheard of.

But she left without letting him finish.

When she retreated downstairs from warning Kial, her father stopped her, Thegans too. Watching his heavy sighs, his tired eyes, Alija couldn't help but wish it would all get better. The life in her father had been drawn out with her mother's disappearance, with the hiding. She noticed it every day. How he moved slower, trying to drag out every action because there was nothing else to do. How he forced his smiles, no longer coming naturally. How every night, he would open his window, feel the breeze of freedom and hope for Fiona's return.

Elias had only made everything worse. Her father had begun to worry for his daughter too, worrying that her aunt, and her cousin, would come and take her from him too. Alija paused, wanting to reassure him. Instead, she hugged him, the man squeezing his daughter tight. "I won't let her, let him. I won't leave you."

He tried to smile, tired eyes creasing as he disappeared. Thegans nodded softly, awkwardly at the side. "I'll be in the kitchen," he finally spoke, "If you need me."

She followed him down, moving to the living room. Alija blinked, catching sight of water, hanging in the air. It disappeared in a tick, leaving Elias dry unlike how he had been not long ago. Magic. But of course. He had always been curious, been fascinated, been entranced by it. She had taken to it well, but it wasn't as much the magic part, but the knowledge part. She learned because she loved to learn. He learned... she didn't know.

"Actually, it's my place now." Her statement was firm, no emotion, in reply to his. "I bought it, I own it all. The shop, the house. My father may have resided here as the smith before, but now he cannot leave these floors. I don't know when the last time he set foot in the smithy was."

She moved over to the fire, letting it warm her as she nodded, to herself and to Elias. She didn't know what to say. He didn't either. She didn't know what to tell him. Which parts to leave out.

"Elias, you are my cousin. We were so close... I'm happy to help you, let you stay here even. But I can't trust you. I can't trust anyone. Not now," she hesitated, hand lingering on the fireplace without even noticing it had moved, "Have you noticed she's not here? Have you noticed that no one called her, went to fetch her?" The her in question was obvious. "My aunt - our aunt - took her. Made her a slave. We don't know where she is. Whether she's alive."

Alija turned away, hiding tears once more. They dropped onto the fire, hissing slightly as her two elements joined. "I hope you understand. I hope you show me that I can trust you."

[Elias Caldera]

Elias fumbled for the words, his jaw left slack and useless by the utterly insane things Alija was suddenly confronting him with. A Caldera... enslaved! He stared at the honey haired girl for a moment, aghast and silent in his feverish contemplation. Truth be told it felt more like a reverie than anything else. He hadn't even noticed when he had straightened upright on the chair, but the scrape on his belly was all but forgotten at that point. Instead of clutching at his wounds, a balled fist had found its way to his lips as he tried to make sense of everything his cousin was revealing. Elias could feel the anxious impulse to start gnawing away at his fingertips restraining him from moving it back to his waist- A wretched habit he had picked up recently and one that he endeavored to do away with even if it killed him. For now though, it was a struggle just to lower his hand, but he managed it just long enough to give shape to a response that wasn't just the obligatory 'what?!'

I suppose that explains why you treat me like i'm the wolf come to blow your house down. The mage muttered, rubbing a hand across his chin in clearly mounting frustration. It was a feeling born of the enshrouding bewilderment that defiantly refused to settle and give him the peace he needed to think clearly. "So let me get this right; the aunt I never met has kidnapped your mother, put her in chains, and driven your father into hiding." This is a lot to drop on a guy all of a sudden. He could hear himself saying in another life. I just came by for a hug and maybe something hot to eat, but this... Naturally that would have been followed by some overwhelmed guffawing and a few nervous chuckles for good measure. The situation hadn't called for that though, not when he could see the turmoil plaguing his cousin. The truth was, he knew exactly what she was going through.

He'd suffered worse once and had scars to prove it.

"My father's dead." The truth was sudden and unwelcome, and it came with a wave of darkness that weighed heavy on the shoulders of the one who had uttered it. Elias leaned in, elbows resting on his knees and hands clasped tight together as he glared at the weathered, wet stones at his feet. "Just last summer. I was there when it... happened." The mage cleared his throat with plain discomfort etched in among the cuts upon his face. "Before the son of a bitch petched off to the other side though, he told me something. He told me -with this look in his eyes I'd never seen before- that we were cursed. Our family I mean. Something in our blood is just rotten and wrong he said, and its left generation after generation of Calderas struggling to find respite from a storm of bullshyke that's been hounding us for longer than anyone can remember."

Amidst the uncomfortable lull the young man left as he gathered his wits about him, his tongue played idly with the false teeth hammered into his jaw. He winced as it found the tender, swelling flesh beneath where the knight's fist had connected, then pushed deeper into it until the pain threatened to overwhelm. In the Well he had come to accept a lot of things. Pain was one. His place in Defiler's world was another, but there were just some things that never stopped haunting you, hurting you, killing you, and for good reason. Raina was one of those, and now here he was dredging up that pain for something he wasn't entirely certain was worth it. He'd thought many a times in the past that he had finally moved on from feeling like this about her, and every time he'd find himself in a situation just like this; dead wrong and agonizing for his arrogance. That was the funny thing about memories though, they were more dangerous than people liked to admit. You could turn them over and over until you knew every touch and corner, but in the end you'd still find an edge to cut you.

This one was too deep, he realized solemnly. Too damn deep to ever heal.

He sighed and willed himself to press on.

"Normally I wouldn't have believed a word Torian Caldera ever said, that man made serpents and wolves look like the clergy of Yahal in comparison." The god's name left a bitter taste in his mouth and it took all he had not to spit at the mere mention. "But when my mother died after the storm, and I was about to join her, someone came to me on that beach." Elias looked up, a cold blue gaze studying Alija as he retold his dreaded story. It was one he hadn't told anyone before, and one could tell by how he hurried to rush through it as fast as he could. "Me and this man, we talked for a little while about things that are difficult to explain, and even I didn't understand it all to be honest. I was dying you understand, and annoyed by how long it was taking. Like a newborn babe i'd found myself cast into a new world crying and bloody, and the last thing I wanted to do was try and make sense of any of it, least of all the part where my mom wasn't coming back to me."

He turned his attention then to the fire, an idle finger swirling in its direction. A moment later the flame reacted, a brief glimmer of something almost alive and serpent like dancing to the orchestrator's will. "I realize now the man on the beach was trying to tell me the same thing Torian was."

There it was, epiphany and understanding, both parts equally devastating and thoroughly unpleasant to behold. He'd come to Nyka looking for neither and yet he couldn't help but feeling like it had just smacked him upside the face none the less. "Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying I believe in some convenient evil we can blame all our problems on, I'm just trying to -what I mean is..." He grunted and rose out of his seat, a fit of agitated pacing taking a hold of him as he did battle with his own roiling thoughts in a desperate effort to give shape to the right words he knew were in there somewhere.

The mage bit his lip and stopped his fidgeting all at once and spun himself to face his kin.

"What i'm saying is, I've suffered, Alija. I've suffered more and one man has any right to. My uncle, my mother, my father, they're all gone save the cruel memories I keep of them. My family is undone, and I think I came here looking to pick up the pieces of what was left, maybe even see if I could put some of it back together again, even if I knew it wasn't ever going to be the same again. Instead I found you here, trying to do the same, but balancing on the precipice of a fate more terrible than words can express."

"I'm not going to tell you to trust me, because it doesn't matter. What matters is i'm here, cousin, and now that I am, i'm not going to let anymore of my people -my blood- endure what I had to. Not you, nor Jaiden, nor that boy upstairs deserves any part of that."

He sat himself down across from the blacksmith and hoped the passion of his words had reached her in some way. He was so accustomed to the falsehoods creeping into almost every word that slipped off his lips, but he had no need for that this time. Maybe it was the gnosis on his shoulder, or how close to home this all had abruptly hit him, Elias didn't know. Like he had said; it just didn't matter.

He held out a calloused and pale hand, the fingers of which had been broken and snapped by torturers more times than he could count, and prayed she'd take it. It didn't have to mean much, but it was a sign of at least something real and tangible between them that wasn't just another part of the lies and the deceit that ruled over the rest of his life.

That, and he needed her help if he ever hoped to help in return.

"Start from the beginning and tell me everything."

oocGo Go Clunky Ass Exposition Bomb!

[Alija]

Alija watched him struggle with his thoughts and actions, balled fist lifting and falling with anger. The wolf to blow her house down. She would have never put it like that. She didn't want to admit it, but it was how she felt, however. He could be a wolf disguised as her cousin, ready to wreck havoc. Alija bit her lip, rubbing her knuckles anxiously as she nodded to what he said, feeling the words said aloud by him cut deeper than ever before.

But he had suffered too. He spoke of his father's death, of a curse that ran in their blood. "That can't be true," she replied, instinctively, "No, we aren't cursed." She wasn't cursed. Alija was better than all that. She was a Piper, not a Caldera. But a snake by any other name was still a snake. And the blood that ran through her was as Caldera as Elias'. She gritted her teeth, turning away, then back towards him, then biting her lip harder. The taste of blood built up before she felt the pain of where the tooth had done in so hard.

Elias rushed through the story, cold gaze watching Alija as she struggled with it, hugging herself tight despite the glowing fire behind her. This thought hurt her, so much. Alija had never been one to call herself proud, believe herself to be better. She took her achievements gratefully, she worked hard and knew that anyone could achieve what she did with practice. But this thought made her want to be, made her want to think that she was better that a curse. She could defeat it, be stronger than all that.

A convenient evil to blame their problems on. That was exactly what it was. Before he could speak, Alija started yelling, throat caught. "Yes, it is! It has to be! What would drive a woman to do that, to her own sister, who left everything just to help? What would drive her mad to sell her as a slave and try to hunt her husband down? This curse, whatever it is, is the evil to blame. It has to be."

She stopped, looking up to find him staring at her. He had suffered more than her. She was acting like a spoiled princess, but she had nothing wrong. Her mother was gone, but at least the woman was alive. She had her father - in fact he could never leave her. She had Thegans and Kial to help her through whatever pained her. And now she had Elias, her cousin.

He wanted to repair the rags of family her had left, sew them back together into the tapestry of great men and women that it might have once been. Alija wanted to help him. That was what she was doing here. To pick up the pieces, repair the tears, and make them whole again.

Alija stared at him, eyes swirling like the sea. She stared past him, into him, watching the pure passion and pain in his emotion. It curled around him, moving with his own movements. His chest moved to breath, the aura gliding with it, thrust forward. His hand moved forward, the pain his muscles, tensing and loosening with the action, hugging the real muscles so tightly it was hard to tell which was which. She stared deeper, deeper, but nothing else came. It wasn't because there was nothing else to see, or because she couldn't see it, but because she didn't want to.

She let it fade, seeing the pain and passion with normal sight, a pale hand with fingers that didn't look quite right. A scarred face, eyes dripping with these feelings. She took the hand gently, before squeezing tight. She was there. She wanted to help him. She needed to help him.

Tell me everything, he said.

So she did. She told him about when they left, promising to write but how she never got a single letter. How she didn't think of their fate because she didn't want to know, how the messenger came telling her that her father was dead. That she had to move to Nyka and buy the shop he owned. How she left the next day, so suddenly, travelled with tears in her eyes.

The shock of finding him alive and with Thegans poured out. The story he had told her, about the long search to find her aunt, then her mother's disappearances as she spent more and more time with her. How eventually she disappeared forever and he discovered that she had been sold as a slave. How there were men still out there keeping an eye out for her father.

Everything poured out, everything to do with her family and everything to do with everything else. How she settled in. The shop. The strange request for knockers. The feeling of being trapped and tied down. The wonder of having her dream of owning a blacksmith.

Alija felt lighter after it all. It seeped off her, letting her rise, feel so much better. Elias had helped without knowing it. "Thank you," she mouthed at the end, squeezing his hand tighter as she sunk onto the couch next to him, "Thank you."

[Elias Caldera]

It felt almost alien to be on this side of things. To be not the confessor or the confider, but instead the one who was confided in. This had never been Elias's place in the past, nor had he ever thought it would be, yet as he clung to Alija's hand, her story pouring forth unabated and its entirety, he experienced something he could only describe as privileged. It was still strange and terribly unconformable of course, a fact the mage made none more so evident than with the awkward arm he had placed around his cousin's frame in some stiff, amateurish attempt to console her when the girl's tale inevitably took its darker turn.

Curious as it was to admit, it was actually kind of nice. As if Elias was helping in a way. Truth be told, it was all he felt like doing at that moment, and perhaps it was that urge to finally embrace a sense of family that helped him overcome his hesitant and uncertain demeanor after a while. The awkwardness gave way to surety as the chimes ticked by, and his graceless, limp attempt at a hug soon became ever tighter and sincere, offering as much of a welcoming bulwark as Alija needed him to be. The two of them talked -really talked- for what felt like the first time in a very, very long time, and the Caldera could do little but marvel at the life he had missed. He counseled, congratulated and consoled rarely, interrupting only when he felt necessary, because for the most part he simply wanted to listen. He been absent for so much it almost pained him to hear it all in the past tense.

During their time in Zeltiva, the two of them had rarely seen eye to eye on matters, nor had they ever truly showed the same passion for things the other thought important. Elias, to his credit, had never gone so far as to reveal in-depth what he had been or done before Alija had met him, but as an angsty teenage boy his propensity towards violence, along with a number of other things even less reputable, was unavoidable and unmistakable. While he sought to wield the sword however, Alija had been the one who dreamed of forging it instead. Despite their initial differences, and the ones that lingered between them still, the mage would be lying if he said he wasn't at all proud or thoroughly impressed by what his cousin had managed to accomplish and endure with that same mindset, and in so short a time too. Compared to Elias, it was almost embarrassing really.

They were two complete opposites for all extents and purposes, yet by the grace of kinship they had been driven together into what some might argue was friendship. It was irrelevant if that had only been the case because of what ran through their veins, especially now. Back then however, it had taken some... adjusting on his part, and probably a great deal of patience on her's, but the crude and unflattering truth of the matter was; when you're around someone for that long a time, eventually they just kind of... grow on you.

It hadn't perfect by any means, in fact it would sometimes be downright turbulent to say the least, but it had been something, and Elias, perhaps too late for his own good, realized now how desperately he had needed it.

"I never thanked you." He said after a while, his appreciation spurred by a torrent of memories made fresh and vivid by their conversation. With it came a new and unfortunate wave of guilt. "When I first came to Zeltiva I was mess. Angry at just about damn near everything, plus a teenager so, you know, throw irresponsible, irrational and down right stupid on top of that and you've got yourself the perfect storm of hormonal angst all neatly bottled up and ready to blow." He smiled at her from across the couch, but the levity never quite reached his eyes. "I had never been outside Ravok before that. Everything I knew and understood and loved had been Ravok. Zeltiva seemed like a punishment, a prison, and everyone around me my jailer. So when you feel like everyone is your enemy or your lesser, there's not a lot of room left for friends. I mean, there was Raina of course," he continued, throwing up his hands conscientiously, "but you met my mother, she was not so much the doting, care-giving kind as much as she was the brooding in the dark, back never to the door kind. That and it didn't help half the time I was angriest at her most of all, usually for some laundry list of nonsense that I don't even remember anymore."

Elias sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. The effort of the kill was beginning to seep into his bones now that the thrill of it had waned, but even still, the reimancer was surprised at himself. How could he think of rest when there was still so much left to do?

"If it wasn't for you, I think I would have just gotten worse. In fact I know it. It took a kind and forgiving heart to put up with me, but you did none the less. Which is what makes apologizing for how I treated you even more difficult. After the storm I was just so caught up in my own misery. Thinking the shyke I was going through was always inconceivably more important than anyone and anything else. Even when Jaiden and Fiona left, I was never there for you like I should have been, and I'm sorry for that. Hell, I never even said goodbye... but i'm gonna make it up to you, I swear."

With that, Elias shot out of his chair abruptly, the damp jacket clinging to his shoulder falling away as he rose and began running through a mental check list in his head. "So," he began just as quickly, "first we have to find your mother."

There was a plan brewing all of a sudden.

"To find a slave, you find the slaver. I'll start by going round town, making a list of the likely sellers that could have been used in handling Fiona's capture and auction. If were lucky she might still be in the city, but I doubt it. They couldn't have gone to Ravok, I would have noticed if she was there, plus It would have been too easy to stir up a fuss over who she was, or rather who she was related to. I don't know what Torian's relationship with his siblings was like, but the shame of discovering a Caldera had been enslaved would have been too much. He'd have put an end to it faster than a bloodbane on the hunt. So I'll get my hands on shipping manifest for any vessels heading south around that time with human cargo on board." His words were getting faster and faster as he went on, fingers shooting out as he listed off his to do's with almost callous efficiency. He barely even paused to breath. "No vessel with slaves is going to risk making port in Zeltiva, so they'll have likely docked at Sunberth. Unless this aunt hoped to see her suffering there, I doubt she would have sold well in a place like that. Too old, too defiant, her chains too fresh. You said she was good with the needle, right? Then its more likely they kept going south then. Kenash maybe, with its swamp lords, or If were unlucky even further still to Riverfall."

The Caldera put a halt to his ramblings as movement caught his attention. It was Jaiden, glaring at him, a tray with three cups simmering in his tightening grasp. "You got all that then?" Elias asked, licking his busted lip nervously.

"Mhm." The big man replied coldly. He stepped over to where his daughter was sitting and set the drinks down absentmindedly. Tea probably, maybe something stronger. The mage bit his tongue and ignored it. "The gist of it at least. Have to admit though, it bothers me that you can talk like that about these kind of things. Like selling innocent people is all just business to you." His tone was agitated, testing, as if he wanted the younger man to take the bate. He was angry, Elias understood that, and he even understood why. It was his wife the mage was talking about after all, not some missing livestock like Elias's distant attitude about it had probably made it seem.

"I can't pretend i'm not Ravokian, Jaiden. If what I've seen and learned there can help, I can't just ignore it when I could be using it."

Elias had reason to be angry too, but like his placid response had demonstrated, a moment of clarity could sort out all that unnecessary rage. The kind of rage one felt when he tried to comprehend what possessed a man to hide his head in the sand while his woman was shacked and shipped off to god's knew where. The kind of rage that brought you to blows over even the slightest excuse. Thankfully, his time with Alija had kept him calm, relaxed and considering all the angles instead of just the one that lead to confrontation. The answer became clear with consideration, and it was simple: Jaiden, as big as he was, was no warrior. The man never mastered the weapons he forged, nor could he fling fireballs from his fingertips upon a whim. It was easy for Elias to think of nothing but violent reaction, but that was only because he was trained to do so, not to mention good at it too.

See, she's already doing you a world of good. I knew it was a good idea to come find her.

That said, Elias couldn't bring himself to apologize despise knowing he likely had reason to. Jaiden's reply was a further twisting of his lip and a reassuring hand placed on his daughters shoulder. The sight of him standing there grimly gave the young man an idea, and he struggled to hide the devious smile creeping its way up on him.

"Of course," he continued, "We could forego all that rather easily." Devilishly, he let the suspense of his words hang for a moment. "All we'd need to do is find a way lure our crazy aunt out of hiding again and snatch her up. The only problem is, we'd need to use the right bait."

Cold blue eyes turned Jaiden and waited expectantly.

[Alija]

He thanked her. It was strange and unexpected, speaking of when he came to Zeltiva. How many years ago was that? His reason for mentioning it seemed strange at first. He spoke about what a mess his was, what a mess everything was then, before pausing, rubbing a hand through his hair. Alija stopped, waiting for the true reason behind what he was saying. He wanted to thank her for putting up with him it seemed. Thank her for helping him and being there.

He started suddenly with a plan, so organised, so knowledgeable, it was almost as if he had done this before. Alija tried to listen to what he said but the words blurred together, met only with the thought that her mother was gone. He mentioned places, places so far and distant. She would never get her mother back. It seemed to unlikely.

Her father entered, placing down three cups of tea. She took one, trying to drown her troubles in the drink. The warm drink soothed her, but the shaking cup brought attention to her trembling hand. She moved her other hand to hold it still, watching the tension between the two men grow. Her father was angry and testing, Elias trying to stay calm.

When Alija spoke, her voice trembled too, but brought the attention of the men. "Father, he wants to help. Let him, please," she almost whimpered, the man looking softly at his daughter. He melted a little, taking a drink.

Elias then had another idea, revealing it slowly. Suggesting that they needed the right bait, then they could lure the aunt out. His eyes snapped to her father, who tensed, squeezing the cup until it smashed. Silence hung in the air, a tension covering all of them. Before anyone else could, Alija spoke again, determined not to let Elias get stupid ideas.

"We get the shipping manifest, ask around. We find out which ship she was on - where that ship went - where she went," Alija paused, eyes growing a little darker with his proposal, "No one is getting used as bait."