Chapter Text
She returned to the inn to gather her things. X’rhun did not appear to have followed her, and Arya was already asleep. Lyrha didn’t wake her.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had to vanish in the night like a bitter wind.
In a short few minutes, everything was gathered. She left her sword behind. Taking it had been her first impulse; she could use the protection out on the road. But X’rhun had given it to her as a Red Mage. And whatever he might think was in her heart, his esteem could only go as far as his ignorance.
She wasn’t like him. Not even a little bit. The agony of it would eat her alive if she stayed. If she had to look at that crooked blade for another godsdamned minute she might scream. Or do something else regrettable.
Pausing in the doorway, she stared very hard at the battered adobe floor in front of her, fighting the urge to give a last look back at Arya.
Leaving without a goodbye …
Lyrha had never hesitated to do so to anyone before.
She shut her eyes. Tight. None of this should matter.
And yet her jaw clenched tight as she left on quiet feet. Into the hall, down the stairs. She pulled her cloak on, stepped out into the night air – cold, now, in the witching hour. Hardly the best time to leave. But she didn’t have much choice.
X’rhun was still nowhere to be seen.
Not that she cared. Not that it mattered. It was good, actually, if he was letting her go. She’d asked him to. Hadn’t she?
Wind rustled the shrub brush potted in front of the tavern, and she pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. She didn’t look back at the building, either. There was nothing for her except the next step forward.
A port town was a couple days walk South, from there she could find a ship to take her… anywhere.
And do what?
Pillage and steal?
Lyrha told herself she would return to her old life, before any of this had happened. She’d forget it all – she’d remember – but in her heart of hearts she knew she was too much changed for that. It was as hollow a cause as the Red, now. She was flotsam adrift in the ocean, with no clear direction, and currents pulling her to places unknown. Alone.
But a port town was a place of opportunity nonetheless. She might pick something up. At least some gil to keep her going.
And so her feet set roadward, with only the moon sweeping above and its entourage of stars to witness.
By dawn the silence was wearing on her too much and Lyrha was tired of brooding. She’d forgotten how to pass the time without X’rhun to bicker and tease, and Arya to surprise them both when her well-mannered tongue turned out a quip.
Song, then. As the sky before her lightened from black to grey-blue, her voice echoed off the rough-strewn hills,
“Ach anois ó táimse im chadhan bhocht dhealbh,
‘Imeasc na ndúichí fáin seo,
‘‘Sé mo chumha croí mar fuair mé an ghairm,
‘Bheith riamh im Spailpín Fánach.”
Lyrha was not a remarkable singer, but she could carry a tune well enough for her own tastes. There was some comfort in knowing lyrics that were relatable, in some small way, to her own predicament.
Maybe not all the songs of her youth were such fanciful tales after all. The ones that sang about sadness and misfortune, anyway.
You are being morose again.
Her anger had never really subsided, just reduced to a simmer. That bitter thought was all it took, and a sharp flare of vibrant rage burned lashes in her chest.
The song died on her lips.
She flung her bag from her back, shrieking as she kicked it into the brush with all the force she could muster. Her cry echoed off the rocky cliffs, vanishing into the open air to her right where the ocean swallowed all things whole.
Perhaps if she cast herself from the ledge it would swallow her, too, and put an end to this fiery torment of indecision and regret. And hurt.
More likely the water would boil around her and evaporate away, leaving her seething still.
She thought it would have been better if – she wished – X’rhun had left her to bleed out by the roadside.
It wasn’t a rational desire. Pacing to the opposite edge of the road, she sank to her knees in the dirt, shut her eyes tightly and dug claws into wind-tangled hair. Ears flat, her tail lashed.
She wanted to go back.
She couldn’t. Stubbornness as much as practicality made that choice impossible. It wasn’t where she belonged.
Maybe nowhere was. Lyrha’s face contorted into a blind hiss.
“Yer a hard woman t’find.” Whistled a familiar, arrogant voice.
Lyrha’s eyes opened. Heart lurching, she shot to her feet and spun, fur on end.
A harsh laugh followed, as a creamy-haired Miqo’te woman took in Lyrha’s figure with narrow blue eyes. Not the summer-sky blue of X’rhun’s. Dark. Almost black. The color of a storm. “So jumpy. Tsk. Anyone coulda snuk up on ye. Yer losin’ yer edge?”
“V’mirrha.” Lyrha recognized; ears that had lunged upright in shock pinned to the sides again.
“I wondered if ye’d remember me.” V’mirrha blinked, fingers tapping the pommel of her gun. A pair of jagged, lumpy scars disrupted what would otherwise be smooth cheeks and left her face asymmetrical – one eyelid drooping. Lyrha smirked at that.
“Would be hard te forget.” Emerald eyes gave the other woman a quick, assessing once-over. She was dressed for the road, boots dirty from it. Two pistols, one on either side, and a cruelly curved darksteel saber for good measure. Expensive pieces, all, and relatively new. Lyrha hadn’t seen them before.
V’mirrha shifted to make her weaponry more obvious, grinning with teeth. “Heard tell of a foul-mouthed calico raisin’ hells ‘round these parts an’ thought… couldn’t be. But here ye are, and none the worse for wear. Despite them Yellerjackets cutting ribbons t’old Bartholemew’s crew awhile back. Lucky as always, it seems.” She sounded glib, dangerous words entirely devoid of any audible accusation. Lyrha knew better.
This was the part where they pretended it was coincidence, holding this meeting on an untraveled road hours from any real township.
Lyrha smiled back, forcing her fur to flatten.
She didn’t have a godsdamned sword.
“Smart, ye mean.” She answered, “The Twelve never favoured me, an’ Leviathan found me not t’his tastes. That fool bastard took a contract he couldn’t keep an’ the crew paid te price. I barely escaped with me life.”
Without a Focus, Lyrha could still cast… but it would take time. Concentration. And the potency would be far reduced. Not to mention the risk to her own self. If V’mirrha lunged, there’d not be much opportunity to bald her savaged face with a fireball.
“Hmm.” V’mirrha’s lip twisted. “He was a fuckin’ idiot, wasn’t he?” She scoffed, glancing toward the sea. “I thought maybe ye sold ‘im out for spite.”
Lyrha rolled her eyes. “Tink I’d be wanderin’ out here in the ass-end a’Thanalan if I’d got a feckin’ payout? What the hells does it matter t’ye anyway? Didn’t tink ye cared for skeevy old Bartolemew all tat much.”
“I don’t.” V’mirrha answered, tailtip twitching. She’d always been a bad liar. And a helluv’an enemy when scorned. She took a step toward Lyrha.
Lyrha took a step back.
V’mirrha chuckled again. “Relax.”
Lyrha did nothing of the sort.
“I had t’know, ye see. Never could deny myself a curiosity. It’s been said ye were swallowed by the sea that day. Sad business. An’ when I saw ye pallin’ around with that old bastard in Red… Looked t’me like ye’d switched sides. Real curious.”
“Means to an end.” Lyrha answered, not missing a beat. “Keep yer friends close, an yer enemies… well, y’know how’t’is.”
“Aye.” Another step forward.
If V’mirrha knew about X’rhun, then she’d been tailing Lyrha a long time. Long enough to know she was utterly alone, now.
Shit.
Shit. Shite. Fucking piss wagon shit damnit.
“Plunderin’ get you a haul like that?” Lyrha asked, bidding for time as she glanced down at the expensive equipment. “Seen few enough Captains with steel so grand. Bounty Hunters though…”
It was only the two of them. Even without spells, if she made a grab for one of the pretty pieces at the right time, she could still gain the upper hand.
“Well… y’know.” V’mirrha answered in that same upbeat lilt, a cold furrow in her brow. “Someone taught me a right valuable lesson, once. In our line’a work, y’don’t have friends. Y’have price tags.”
Stomach dropping, Lyrha licked her lip, “I imagine whoever yer tinkin’ about came t’regret livin’ that way—”
“Oh! She’s about to.” Clicking her tongue loudly — huntspeak — V’mirrha gave a lopsided smirk.
And Lyrha’s plan to ambush her ambusher went south, as along the crest of the hill, a pair of coeurls blended into savannah grass stood up. Collared and lean — these were the rosetted warbeasts of a pirate called to heel.
You couldn’t outrun a coeurl. Levin whiskers could strike at range, and seven-ilm claws backed by 1000 ponze of pure muscle meant a measly sword wasn’t going to win her any advantage.
“Ye haven’t met my sweets, have ye?” V’mirrha asked. “I’d love te make an introduction.”
Lyrha ran. Leapt, as far as she could muster. At least one legacy of Red Magic remained to her — impeccable physique.
It was a mad dash to nowhere, but she couldn’t fight, and she couldn’t lie, and whatever she’d felt in a fit of passion - she didn’t actually want to die here.
Especially not to fucking V’mirrha .
The bitch cackled, a horrible shriek of a sound that stung Lyrha’s ears.
“Is the Calico Coeurl such a milquetoast now?” V’mirrha taunted, voice cracking with violent delight, giving chase.
“That’s a fuckin’ asswipe of a gird, ye gobshite hoor!” Lyrha spat back, looking over her shoulder to make sure it was heard and grinning a taunt right back. Fuck, those cats were closing fast.
Even at a significant lead, Lyrha could see her enemy’s fur bristle. “‘Least I ain’t the one runnin’!” V’mirrha yowled.
“Well, strictly speakin–”
K-PCHOOW!
Dirt geysered from the ground near Lyrha’s feet, and she felt the shockwave of aether through the ground.
What in seven hells kind of pistol was that ?
Think ye mangy fool, think! Lyrha berated herself. She’d smuggled these coasts, and knew of a few caves – but with miles of countryside between them, that wouldn’t do much good now .
K-CHFWOOM!
K-PCHHHH!
The second shot whizzed past Lyrha’s ear. The third cut hair from her head.
She hissed. The reckless shots didn’t indicate any scarcity of charges. “I’m dancin’ aright? Quit encouragin’ me!”
Cover was needed, not just distance. That and a weapon. A way to get close uneviscerated, so the knife in her boot would suffice. Spells to sleep and addle were an option, too, if only an opportunity to prepare them was made.
Cover first. And time was short.
Jumping to the ocean from this height would kill her. Even if she managed to avoid the bone-crushing fling of waves on rock or landed on a ledge, she’d have lost the high ground. So Lyrha turned her attention to the eroded ravines at her opposite side. Rough terrain, a maze of craggy boulders and cliffs, but if she could avoid getting wedged into a corner she might have a chance.
It was the best stupid idea she had.
Spinning on a heel, she made another great leap off the road and into a narrow break between high red stones.
Gunshots ricocheted in desperate, angry bursts, ringing her sensitive ears.
The washed out ground was more gravel than solid stone, and Lyrha’s feet slipped, slowing her. Loose pebbles rolled downhill, giving her route away long after she’d crossed it. She listened for the crackle of a coming storm — yet no scaled panthers appeared at her heels. That was more unsettling by far.
Tucking into a leftward opening where the path widened, she jumped to a squatting boulder and scrambled behind it. Stayed on her feet. The sun was still too low to stretch its fingers between the craggy spires, but Miqo’te eyes were untroubled by such things.
Swallowing hard and stretching her lungs to resist the urge to pant, Lyrha’s ears twisted for the signs of pursuit. She knelt quickly to pry the dagger from where it hid along her calf. Jewel-encrusted on the pommel, it was hardly a channel to cast off of, but she’d take whatever edge she could get.
Stones rattled under laden boots. V’mirrha was close. “ Hiding, too? I’m beginnin’ to see how you always seem to survive when others don’t. All that hiss and no fang behind it.” Very close.
Eyes round, ears flicked toward each little sound, Lyrha focused her aether and prepared to send her foe into senseless oblivion.
The fritz of static raising the hair on her arms was all the warning she had.
Lyrha spun, flinging the spell upward instead as a coeurl lunged from the rocky plateau above, fangs bared. A fulgration of purple storm arced off its whiskers.
Outstretched claws went limp and the beast lost consciousness mid-ambush, crashing hard into the red ground a crumpled heap. But a shock of fiery pain lit across Lyrha’s left side as the aether it’d unleashed burnt into her flesh from hand to waist. She stumbled, disoriented.
Though impact pulled the coeurl from spellbound oblivion, the warbeast was still groggy, off its feet. It groaned, claws flexing. Lyrha’s unforgiving dagger plunged through an eye – the one vulnerability beneath corded muscle and plated scale, and it did not rise again.
V’mirrha rounded the corner with violent grin – only for wide-eyed horror to manifest across her savaged face. “Ye killed her!” She shrieked, firing both pistols.
“Aye an’ I’ll do the same t’you!” Lyrha snarled, scrambling for cover, still off balance. She slipped on loose stone.
Hot in pursuit, V’mirrha aimed a killing blow.
White-knuckled on the dagger, Lyrha channeled again and flung aether at her foe. She couldn’t force the pirate into a sleep so easily, especially with the attack so sloppily mustered, but a hard enough blast could addle V’mirrha.
Could buy Lyrha time. Even if only for a few seconds.
Dark eyes glazed over. V’mirrha’s shots went wide.
Lyrha rushed, dagger poised to drive into a soft belly. V’mirrha caught it with a downward sweep of metal-cuffed forearm, and Lyrha kicked her hard in the knee. They both staggered.
But the opportunity was lost. She narrowly dodged the sweep of V'mirrha's sword before springing away to cuss in the blood-soaked gravel, wishing for a longer blade.
“Leviathan’s throat shred ye on te way down!” Lyrha hissed. Hot pain spilled from her levin burns. Lucky adrenaline was a hellsuva motivator.
Fur bristling, Lyrha jumped. High . But not high enough. Claws and blade caught the dusty lip of the parched ravine, gunshots twanging off the walls as she scrambled for the safety of the ledge.
Something – like a punch – hit her hard in the thigh and tore clean through the other side. She bit her tongue, pain flaring into malice in her eyes. Kept climbing, over the lip of rock, praying another coeurl wouldn’t be waiting at the top.
“Bilge rat! Scurry all ye want, there’s nowhere to hide out here!” But V’mirrha had only ever been a pirate and a flesh-trader, not a smuggler. And she hadn’t spent the last few moons learning fieldcraft from an Ala Mhigan.
Lyrha kept running. One hand dropped to her thigh as she ducked behind ironwoods, between boulders. A white glow twisted like dew laden petals around the ruinous gunshot until more precious aether plugged the wound and the red trail splattering behind her faded. Still no sign of the second coeurl.
In her haste she almost missed it – a dark blot in the jagged stone, and the rotted post of a cart-stop. Abandoned mines were littered across Ul’dah’s claim, and many were now home to beasts far more deadly than those in pursuit – but she’d take her chances.