Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sing, oh muse, and teach men about what they know not. Sing, and tear apart the cobblestones and stretch the tendons, take books from the hands of men and grow seeds into the abyss of crystals made of tears as they scrape through all that can only be calmed by the first rays of the morning Sun. Wrap me in linen made of reeds, soothe my burned skin with honey, make the storm fall and make the rule of man remember what it knew before it went to sleep on the bottom of the ocean that has long stopped dreaming of the winter song. Sing, oh muse, that the blue bird may fly away from the claws of hell, and return to its golden nest in the womb of the morning star, that the white hand may hold and the black wings may envelop, that there isn't a single memory that isn't bathed in the light of that which man knows not. Sing, least my song be of grief, Sing, that I may live.

After all, the Herald angel said: recite! So now, this is what I must do, recite that the ink be bled into my flesh in a spiraling snakeskin. Keep my bones safe from this torment. Tear the tear from my throat but spare him. This is all that nothing can ever ask of everything but this cry cannot be heard when the executioner is the very Tree that now sends its beloved fruit into the rivers that seep below the earth and freezes over the heart as the crafty father is expelled from paradise. Recite, is what I have been told to do, and thus to obey shall be to turn the eyes of the great mother Outwards that they form a shield that protects the string in the middle of creation. May the rain tear everything beyond the safe confines of my wings to pieces, may all the stagnated energy flow, and may the beloved lamb son of man be safe, and keep his protector locked in hand.

Sweet boy, for all your knowledge, I wonder if you know how much of the salt of the sea comes from the tears of the women of the land of the Sun? Should you ever learn, just promise me one thing, that this time it is me who will descend into the realm of the dark lady first, that I pass by the seven gates not in search but in rest. Perhaps then this time my weary head will rest upon your white hands and I will be able to dream of the music that the lady of the Lotus sings in praise of the creation made by the hands of her husband and father, and perhaps she will even take mercy upon me and cry for me in the kind of memory that absolves oblivion. But more than anything, sing, oh muse, give pearls to the Lady of the Sea, set her perfumed statue on a boat, and send her home. Send her home. Take mercy upon your daughter and send her home. Oh, my sweet boy, son of wolf, when will you learn that you are my miracle?

But the gods sculpted man imperfect and recited his name in the pearly ink of the stars, that there might be a day in which each off-white vertebra and each beige bone may fit perfectly in a role crafted specially for its lonely little form in the great dance of the song of the lady of the nine forms. For, it was on the 7th day that the God of the Fish rested, seeing that it was all very good that he made, and should today have been like any other day, perhaps the longing for the purple river of the thirteenth hour would have been enough to sate Rapha's hunger, to make time pass by a bit faster, or to at least ease up her boredom. Yet, today wasn't like every other day, if just because the sun's rays of early summer were particularly annoying. Shining upon desolate blue skies like mockery, they erased any lingering clouds, casting shadows that made obvious the ticking of the clock that dragged itself at a snail's pace.

Time was the mocking laughter of masked women at a bathhouse, and the long-suffering daughter of the Lion was under their gritty scrutiny as they left her skin feeling feverish and entirely unpleasant, unsure if she was the inept one in this equation or if it was the damp womb of fate that had made her feel so vulnerable to the unrelenting sunlight right outside of her old wooden windows.

17:14.

Still.

40 years had filled this single afternoon and it wasn't even sunset yet.

Great.

With a sigh, the copper eyed girl put down the pen, clearly she was running far away only to stay put. Rubbing her hands through her eyes, she breathed a sigh of relief as her vision turned starry and made her almost forget the bitter beginning of a migraine that was climbing up her spine. Looking down at her study notes crammed in hurried handwriting, the twisting shapes looked more like attempts at mimicking language done by someone who had never experienced a conscious thought than like the rewriting of her in-class notes that they had started out attempting to be. What's more, Rapha was fairly certain that she had stopped actually paying attention to this study strategy reminiscent of copistic monks some good thirty minutes ago, so she might as well leave torture to the seven demons of the house of shadows and go for a walk.

It was always like this on Friday afternoons before Shabbat, when the world around her told her to study but her family told her to rest, so she succeeded in doing neither, handling guilt and exhaustion so categorical to the university experience with the grace of a male peacock trying to fly. Yet, she was fresh out of options as studying abroad also meant spending this time of the week alone instead of unsuccessfully trying to rouse her friends into letting her act as the matriarch of their found family of sleep-deprived philosophy masters students. Such dreamless solitude had, however, the benefit of allowing her to improvise with her activities.

So, the copper eyed girl got up from her dreaded spot at her crammed dorm desk, stretching her arms over her head and quickly regretting getting up so fast as stars returned to her eyes, unprompted and unwelcome this time as she braced herself on the cheap plastic surface to avoid falling down. Did she eat lunch? Unknown variable. Breakfast? Unlikely. Anything at all? Ah yes that she did, some fruit and leftover bread at some point between classes, of this she was sure. Regardless, it seemed that eating like a roman mosaic was a fitting diet for the sleeping corpse God of the mountain and the drum, not for a 23 years old woman who spent her day studying, so the mind that adorned her living form decided to go out to buy herself a proper meal.

After brushing her teeth and tying her long dark hair into a braid that reached the middle of her thighs and brushed against the edges of her black shorts, Rapha traded her sleeping shirt for a crop top and the comfort of being barefoot for well-worn flip flops. Even on a good day, she knew that she would be bound to get stared at for her appearance, a part of the plight of being a stranger in a stranger’s land, but thankfully the exhaustion of university made itself useful in that it stopped the girl from trading her comfort for a failed attempt at looking less “exotic”. Might as well get called a few slurs but save her feet from the discomfort of closed shoes. After double checking her locks and the stove, the woman then put her keys in her pocket and headed downstairs with the newfound hurry of being reminded of her hunger by an unforgiving grumbling stomach.

Once out of the old and decrepit building that her university offered as a cheaper alternative to the fancier but busier campus dorms, the offending sunlight warmed her olive skin like an apology for the previous lack of its warm touch, making a compelling argument towards her abandoning her bad mood in favor of appreciating the lace-like shadows cast by the tall bright green trees. It was an odd place not for its traits but for the way that it was foreign to what she had once known. Yet, in some ways, the city was a reminder of what remains through humanity, of their arrangements and accomplishments, their dreams and the overwhelming loneliness of societies built by living forms that remember the warmth of the sun.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, the streets were filled with people going home from a day of work or study, and school children gathered around each other near bus stops, discussing life as if it was something that they held in the palm of their hands with so much conviction that Rapha found herself truly believing that somehow they did. Being unable to hide a smile whenever a kid said something particularly adorable, or she spotted a dog or saw a pigeon lying down in the warm sunlight, the woman kept having trouble keeping a frown across her face. Because of this, as the vibrant world breathed around her, even if she wasn't a part of it, Rapha found that she couldn't be mad at her predicament. So, she walked, and in the silence of solitude warmed by the golden light of waning sunlight in a desolate blue sky and a bustling city, the girl made her way through a stranger's land in the honorable search for one of humanity's greatest accomplishments: an egg sandwich. Preferably with no pickles, with plenty of sauce, it seemed like the journey of her ancestors through the endless fire of wilderness was too small a challenge if what awaited her after a walk was the possibility of sunny side up fried eggs on warm bread with sweet and tangy yogurt sauce.

That was a dish worth getting into a lot of trouble for.

Yet, despite the previous startle of discovered hunger, it was, admittedly, a lovely day, so she wasn't in a hurry. That's why, when Google maps told her to go right for the short path, she took a left, walking through a curved street that bent inward like the interior of a seashell. Granted, it wasn't without the usual apprehension, making sure that wherever she went was inhabited by women and children out on strolls, but the sun had taken its time across the sky today, so she could take her time too. At least, that's what Rapha told herself was her reasoning, even if the voice on the back of her head couldn't help but remember how the crafty God sits at the top of the tree and decrees the fates, wants and desires of every form as it is shaped from the clay drawn from the depths by the dexterous hands of his lady wife.

Yet, she should have known that nothing in her life could ever be as simple as going out to eat some damn blessed egg sandwiches and, gods forbid, enjoy a shabbat evening without studying or cooking for her friends. She should have known that her life was about to take quite the turn and that the chaos that she started when she decided to buy herself a treat would have been too much for her world to handle, so truly, that was all on her. That was because, just as she turned a somewhat empty crossroad, a startled car almost ran over a white pigeon, which in turn flew right into a window, hitting its head and plopping down unceremoniously on the dirty floor of the suburban neighborhood.

Fuck. Was he alive?

Clutching her chest unthinkingly, the woman made her way towards the pile of feathers that covered the ground like a fluffy carpet, promptly breathing a deep sign of relief when the creature got up as if nothing had happened and entered the abandoned building through a small broken spot on the wall. Okay, he was okay. Thank the gods. Yet, as she got closer to take a look at the direction she last saw the poor creature, Rapha noticed a small trail of blood carving a breadcrumbs path into the decrepit place.

Oh oh, that was really bad.

Looking around the walls for any indication of what that building once was or who she could call to ask for permission to enter, all that greeted her were posters and graphite art over rotting cement and windows darkened by time and dust. Lovely. New strategy: search for any NGOS or animal shelters in the city, would you look at that, all closed. Call public vets? They all turned her down as soon as she told them the injured animal was a pigeon. Text animal rescue social media? Same effect. From experience she knew that lying about the species of the animal wouldn't help, but her usual strategies of offering to pay for the creature's treatment (with her meager scholarship stipends, which in hindsight was probably obvious in her voice), and of promising that she could take the animal to whatever vet the people she called could rouse to help her failed in gathering her any allies for the cause of the white pigeon.

Just great.

Wonderful.

Lovely.

So much for a good Friday.

After one last failed search through the internet in a pathetic attempt at finding out any information about the building, the girl looked at the precarious windows that in some spots looked more like spider webs than glass from how broken they already were. New plan: search for the pigeon, make sure it was alive, have it warm and safe in her hands when time came to try again to look for animal shelters. Worst case scenario she could always apply first aid and keep it appropriately fed through the weekend, as the woman was sure that at least one of her friends would be willing to help her with these chores in exchange for a homemade meal. This was a good plan, the best that she got, if not for the tiny detail that even in an abandoned building, breaking and entering was a crime, one that could get her deported and end her entire career before it even got a chance to truly begin.

Yet, it was a whole life that she could potentially save, so after one last failed attempt at trying to gather help (from women passing by the street), she sat down on the steps of the building' double doors and waited until that unhelpful sun finished its course through the sky. It took some ten minutes, but eventually the lord of red oxen passed the baton to the Lady Night as her stars and moon rose upon the polluted sky like charioteers of a majesty that not even humanity, beloved and intelligent as it can be, would ever even hope to deserve. As she waited, she thought about what she would tell her mother if she was sent home for the crime of breaking into a rotting urban carcass in the attempt to help a bleeding pigeon that, for all she knew, could have died, or been okay after bleeding a little bit, or have left the building entirely. What kept her rooted on the spot, however, was the lingering and insistent thought that the creature could still be there, and it could need her help, and Rapha didn't want to avoid helping a life when she had in her hands the power to do so. Perhaps she would get a fine which she could afford and be okay. Perhaps it would all go to shit. But neither of those outcomes was in her hands right now, only the option to try to help, which she wouldn't be herself if she didn't act upon.

So, once the streets were empty and the older, more primordial part of Rapha's brain begun feeling the cold bite of fear slither up her spine and pour poison at the prospect of being out there, she took off her jacket and used it to hit the window that was worst off, the poor thing unsurprisingly crumbling under her arm without fuss nor too much noise. She could always say the pigeon did it. Right. Stupid idea, but an idea, and that's infinitely better than nothing. Cleaning the wooden frame a bit more before venturing in and crouching down over the glass-littered floor, the girl took some time to get used to the darkness before turning on her phone's flashlight. Walking around was made almost impossible by the overwhelming smell of mold that made her want to cough up her lungs, but the fear of making noise and the remembered urgency of a potentially hurt pigeon convinced her to keep marching on.

Commanding her feet to walk in footsteps of learned and familiar silence, the girl saw that she was in what seemed to be an old-fashioned fliperama, an outdated brand of a famous high-tech company marking the passage of time through the decadence of matter. More than a decade ago, the heir of this company had taken it over, gotten filthy rich, and bought a house in the tropics with his mysterious wife, who was the topic of every gossip blog for about a week before these companies probably fell victim of paid censorship and never made the couple a topic of conversation again. Never one for gossip, though, and usually only learning about it from her friends, Rapha didn't really care about these facts, but they did occupy her mind from the fear of trespassing in a building of such an affluent company.

“Find the pigeon first, panic later.” She mentally chastised herself, forcing her feet to enter the familiar pattern of search that she usually applies to finding injured birds. Hearing for any ruffling of feathers, the woman followed the wind a few times, but thankfully experience serves for something, as in the third time she looked under a dusty arcade machine, the copper-eyed girl found the familiar white figure, pruning its wing as if it had never known a single issue in its entire feathery life. Wrapping the now glass-free jacket around her hands and gently scooping up the bird without looking in its eyes, the girl sat cross legged on the dusty floor with the bird burrito in her lap like an urban Madonna and her beaky son, wincing as the cold of the tiles bit into the uncovered skin of her legs. Then, setting her phone with the flashlight on an indent of a nearby arcade, Rapha examined the bird the best she could.

Indeed he had bled a considerable amount, but knowing that she hadn't overreacted brought her no joy as concern for her bright-eyed companion tainted her thoughts. It was attentive, yes, but clearly exhausted, and although it looked like it might survive, she knew from bitter experience how quickly these creatures can wither. She would have to smuggle the bird into her dorm room, because animals weren't allowed and she was beginning to doubt that the people of that strange city even considered pigeons as animals. At least she still had some bird food from her previous rescue, a warm enough lamp and some medicine. Yeah, he was going to be fine, he had to be. Tomorrow morning she would find someone who would take a look at the creature and determine if it needed further treatment, and when he was good to go she would find a nice park to set him in, one with plenty of street vendors.

Dreading the walk back through the now dark streets, the girl set about getting up, but her exhausted muscles must have moved her body more stiffly than she would have intended, as the pigeon got startled and found a way to escape the burrito, crash-flying down an entrance behind an arcade machine. Secret entrance. Yikes. That's creepy. That's where people get murdered. With some bitterness, Rapha came to terms with the fact that she was probably going to get murdered because of a pigeon that maybe wasn't even at any risk of dying at all.

You know what? Fitting. Her mother wouldn't be surprised. Disappointed maybe, but not surprised. That was enough for her, so without a second of hesitation the girl walked down the creepy secret entrance, each step down the dusty ladder further convincing her that college had made her lose her mind. Even with the flashlight, it was pitch dark, and the smell of mold and old metal made her feel like she was choking, an effect which unfortunately only got aggravated by the abandoned state of the basement she found herself in. All the while, her mind uttered the very unhelpful mantra of: “You're going to die you're going to die you're going to- what IS that?”

Safe to say that complex-looking technology gathering dust like fairies gathering wishes from coin-filled wishing wells wasn't what Rapha expected to find down those creepy stairs, but she found the pigeon over a table next to a chair and some odd machines, pecking idly at that which seemed, upon closer inspection, to be a necklace with some form of computer chip.

From the way it had been placed, it appeared to have been abandoned with deference or purpose, perhaps something that had been originally intended to be kept but then was decided to be left as the one who didn't carry it left this place behind for good, allowing the future to be occupied by a new generation. For some reason, that seemed like a monument, like something to be preserved and maintained in its stillness like flowers on a grave, but if that was the case, then why did it feel so much like a beginning? Like a seed was planted by white hands as they possessively cradled her spine and held her in place over the black waters of the deep, and now through the storm of her kindness she had set its hidden clock ticking to mark the race towards spring. This could be good, and if she didn't follow it, she would have been nothing, but if she followed it, she could be the flower of everything, nurturing with red hands the root of the tree of life. Nurturing hope is a high task, but Netzach deserves to be worshipped in the devoted way that leads to sacrificing all for a chance at embracing the one in the middle of creation.

So, like the morning star that shines to show the way to the sun, Rapha held that chip in her hands, noticing, with the lack of surprise that comes from listening to intuition, that it fit right in the middle of that strange machine. Was it a bomb? Was it a computer with satellite systems that would alert the cops of a break-in? Was it just someone's old necklace? Time to find out! The chip went, and guess what?

Nothing!

It did absolutely nothing.

Great.

What a weirdo, Rapha definitely was food and sleep deprived. Perhaps she would pass by the supermarket on her way back, if they allowed her to enter the place while holding a pigeon, that is. Could she leave him with the dogs who waited for their owners? Could she get someone to actually help her with this damn blessed bird? Reorganizing her brain into household-chores-mode and turning around with stiff limbs and a cough of dust, the girl didn't even have time to react when the rascal bird jumped off her arms once again, landing on top of some buttons like the cosmic soap opera gods had decided that today she would be the protagonist for once, and a blinding flash of white was all that she saw before she melted into dust and was transported inside of the strange machine.

Chapter Text

Sunlight passed through the curtained windows of a home, warm rays casting a blanket of safety on a young girl's skin as she laid down on the blissfully cool stone floor, her beloved cat purring gently next to her. A book in hand and Jasmin tea on the other, the child heard her mother cooking something in the kitchen, the sound of the blender piercing the air an unpleasant but necessary interruption to her blissful morning. A memory, one that was fairly concerning considering that it came to Rapha's mind at the feeling of being torn to pieces by that strange machine. It hadn't hurt, in fact it seemed to last just a moment, but it was as if her form had been dancing in sync with the form of all that she considered to be her bits and pieces, only to be suspended mid-air while those continued on their trek down the river of the great story. Safe to say, being blended had definitely not been on her bingo card. Thankfully, though, in the next moment she was reassembled, which however proved another uncomfortable (to say the least) experience to withstand while conscious, even if it was just a blink and she found herself almost in the very same place she had been before this whole ordeal.

Almost.

When the woman opened her eyes again, the first thing she noticed was the dark. The room she woke up in had the exact same layout as she had been before, but with everything seeming to have been made out of polished metal or resin. With this dimming of sight came a smell, faint and metallic, dull and slightly electric like sparkling water or the warning sensation that a storm will hit town in the next few days. Looking around, Rapha saw no sign of the pigeon, and try as she may, her phone was a dull brick in her hands, a shiny black screen as useless and unresponsive as the strange machinery that had probably been the source of her initial issue. Great.

What???

Had she hit her head? Was she dead? Hallucinating? Had her poor diet of random odd meals and caffeine finally been what made her go insane? Or did this honor belong to years of war in her nascent home, eating away at her nerves to the point that she was now only partially freaking out at the remembered sensation of counting her each individual atom as it was compartmentalized by impersonal hands and transported to gods known where? Maybe it was a shock, and it would be more efficient for her to think of it that way, so she did what she was used to doing during siren raids or intense weather alerts: kept her breath even, exert urgency through calm movements, do what she had to do while keeping her cool.

First, the room: trying to make out her surroundings in the almost complete gloom, she noticed that it wasn't as pitch black as the other room had been, the polished surfaces refracting and defusing light as it came from somewhere she couldn't pinpoint. More promisingly however was the steady but noticeable in its cool air draft that blew down the stairs into the room like the current inside of an airplane. Was she moving? Didn't feel that way, and after her recent experience with disembodiment, she was quite ready to give a great deal of trust in her senses.

Noticing that she was still holding her jacket but not too eager to put on what was potentially a birdflea-infested cloth, Rapha decided that the cold wasn't too bad, keeping the fabric in her hands because a random item is better than no weapon or tool at all if need arose, and headed to cautiously investigate upstairs. With otherwise silent steps made annoyingly squeaky by the squishy flip-flops, she kept near the wall, entering the dark arcade with apprehension. The silence was unnerving, without the usual bustlings one may expect from the streets just outside, but it seems that a hole in the ground is a hole in the group no matter the universe. In this world, the windows of the arcade were dark like black glass, and there wasn't any trash or broken pieces littering the floors. Unfortunately, this also meant that the window otherwise opened by her hands was also intact here, which would force her to the front doors, so the overly cautious creature took a few more seconds to look around and make sure that she had gotten a good understanding of the place.

From a philosophical point of view it was fascinating to be experiencing this, and she would have found joy in entertaining this framework from a theoretical perspective. However, what worried the woman was that, from what she had learned about her own structure during her transportation process, she couldn't bring herself to truly indulge in the idea that it wasn't really happening. This was beyond feeling real, beyond Kantian doubt of what can truly be known, beyond Neigel's discussions of consciousness and of subjective experience of the Mind. Wherever this was, the girl now was in a world that had given her an understanding of the transportation process itself, such that there had been no moment in which the narrative speaking of her soul in that other world stopped, and this one began. She knew in her very bones that she had been transported into another realm, and her cells knew how this had taken place, leaving no place for doubt. Therefore, Rapha found herself frustratingly devoid of arguments against that this was really happening, and if that was really happening, then this meant that she was absolutely and categorically screwed.

"Fuck this glorified goth wonderland I have to go home" she thought, to which the voice that warns of the destiny of men replied in the low tones of memory: "you haven't seen anything yet".

There is a time in which even those who support themselves in rationality abandon composure in order to give control of the body to the lizard brain, so that it may do its thing while the philosopher screams in a corner. This was one such time, and before she even realized what she was doing the girl all but jumped at the double-doors, finding them unlocked and bursting them open with a vision blurred from panic. Fuck this was really happening. Outside, what looked to be an older version of her world's streets greeted her like a fully black and simplified scan had been made of the buildings and printed upon them as a miniature made fully sized. Yet, just like the basement, it was never fully dark, with a faint refraction of light giving texture to the surfaces, either softly dull or oppressively shiny in the same variations one can find in multiple types of glass. There were no trees in sight, which was disconcerting, and the skies crowned her head with absolute darkness instead of their usual ugly urban brown, as if the stars had sacrificed themselves to give sheerness to the Abyss.

What called her attention were the streets, though, made of hexagonal cobblestones instead of the usual asphalt from her world or the constant glass of the constructions from this one. Unfortunately for her, this place was a sensory heaven, with intricately geometrical patterns, a spectrum of texture instead of random and jarring samples, dark enough colors that she could look around without photophobia or headaches, and blissfully filled with the faint and uninposing smell of electricity before a storm. Rapha didn't know where she had ended up, but wherever this was, it was wonderful, and Rapha had to fight her childlike wonder with the strength and dedication of a bloodied warrior. At least, her opponent was slightly weakened by the instinct to walk back into the familiarity of the building behind her and shove herself into that machine even if it turned her into a paper-mache context of her living form.

Ah, familiarity, this sounds great right now. Looking around and unconsciously already beginning the trek, it seemed to her that this city had been made to reflect an older version of the region in which she normally lived, so maybe her decrepit old dorm would be intact. Hell, maybe this version of it wasn't even decrepit, considering the sheer lack of dust and trash on the empty streets. The silence was calming, and she took the time to check if there were any visible changes to her own body. So far, everything seemed normal, and even pinching her own skin only made her look like a fool. Alright. Her clothes also seemed to be unchanged, though thankfully the jacket looked to be free of birdfleas, so she fought the slight chill by putting it on. Walking through the empty streets, she made inventory in her mind: she was in another world, of this she was certain. This wasn't an extension of her previous universe nor some smaller meta dimension. In a way that couldn't be explained with words, without making a mockery of its self evidence, she knew for certain that this was another realm entirely. Yet, she had her consciousness, her senses seemed intact, she could move freely and under the same natural laws of her world, she could perceive her surroundings and comprehend them, and she could feel the same odd nagging something in her spine pushing her forward as it always had.

Now, were there other people in this world? Would they see her? Was it only her perception of herself that was there, that is, was it like a virtual image formed only on the screen presented to the onlooker that what she now saw existed, being guided by codes or whatever behind a veil, or was there an actual collective environment which her form now occupied, like a stringed puppet on a dollhouse, or a ring in a chainmail? Taking a moment to stop and touch the glass of one of the buildings, it felt unsurprisingly smooth and cold to the touch, so she pressed further to see if she could mark her fingerprint on it. She could. Smell? Like glass. Taste? She may have been a philosopher but after a lifetime surrounded by rescued animals she wasn't too eager to go licking unknown places and getting gods know what alien bugs this place could potentially host.

Yikes. The reminder that she was somewhere the risks of which were still unknown jolted Rapha out of her reverie, which forced her to pick up pace despite her flip-flops making her cringe at how loud they sounded in the emptiness. Keep near the buildings, but avoid doors, windows and alleys. Don't touch anything else, wipe your hands on the outside of the jacket. Focus, woman, survive first, be awed by this place later. The gurgling of her stomach also reminded her of the pressing issue of her hunger, and the pain in her muscles highlighted her exhaustion. Perhaps a short rest wouldn't hurt, but finding food should be a priority. And, don't panic. More than anything, don't panic. Think of it as a videogame, a fun goth wonderland adventure, a trippy dream made to be enjoyed and pondered over when classes ever become boring. Definitely don't think about how you're suddenly alone in an alien realm with no idea of what to do or how to proceed about surviving and everything seems to be made of glass, metal, or stone... fuck that only made it worse.

Nearing her dorm, almost missing the street because of how weird the place looked without trees, Rapha could see the building next to what must have been the predecessors of the newer constructions that now adorned it. It was certainly a soothing thought to focus on, noticing how time had changed the city and she now had the precious chance to see it in this light.

But she didn't finish that line of thought, because as quick as lightning and as loud as thunder, some form of motocycle-looking machine approached her, the sound only giving her time to hurriedly scram towards the buildings and away from the road. It shone in bright cyan like the midday sky, so quickly that she could barely register its form, leaving behind a glassy trail that took a few seconds to dissipate into light. In the deafening silence that followed, though, she could only hear the deafening drum of her own startled heart as her hand went instinctively to her chest as if that extra bit of flesh would somehow protect her from whatever machine that was. Was it being piloted by a human? Rapha didn't have time to wonder about this, though, because even before her breathing calmed, another machine all but flew by her in the same hurry. This time, it was a darker blue, more inclined towards Indigo, though still just as luminous. Then, in a flash, a third machine, this time a beautiful golden amber. What were those things?

Shiny things. Beautiful. Wonderful.

Loud things. Potentially deadly. Alien.

What were they made of? What were those light trails that they left behind like ripples of stardust through water?

Sigh. Not even a single part of her brain was being helpful right now. Keep walking. With how fast they had been as they raced past her, it was no use to try to follow the glowing machines, nor was it necessarily wise. So it was back to her old objective. Turning back towards the road, Rapha had time to take approximately three steps before a blinding white spotlight shone upon her face, freezing her in place. Trying to look up while using her arms as a pathetic attempt to shield her eyes from the offending light, she heard the low humming of a large drone, which unfortunately put her fully on freeze mode from the memory of war in her own world. She was going to die, she was going to be shot and die and nobody would ever know because she was going to die in another world entirely alone and without even the stars to bear witness to her journey. Tears welled up in her eyes as fear carried over from another world made her unable to pay much attention to the engine as it lowered itself from the ground, and only once it's low gate-like doors opened and what she assumed were this world's soldiers came towards her holding guns did she manage to lower her arms. Not like this. Gods, please, not like this. Not by human hands, please.

"Show your identification disk, program" one of them said in a somewhat synthetic voice, startling Rapha in that she was still alive. Breathing heavily and looking at the soldiers, she couldn't see if they were only wearing helmets or if they were truly mechanical. Her higher cognition was still frozen by fear, but thankfully showing her ID was familiar enough that the lizard brain took over. She didn't have a disk, running away wasn't an option as they had long range, and she wasn't sure if it was safer for them to know that she was from another world, which scratched the familiar urge to show them her ID from her list of potential responses. So, she played a safe middle ground. Lowering her arms and letting her voice show its genuine fear as much as it needed, she settled for ambiguity:

"Help me, please."

This could have meant that she had lost her ID, or that it had been taken from her, and it would place her as someone whose oddities can be overlooked. Best case scenario it brought her to someone with whom she could talk to figure out what happened. Any scenario, probably bought her time and made sure that she didn't risk giving them whatever the "definitely wrong” answer to what they had asked was. Mechanical or not, these soldiers must also have been used to this strategy, as they lowered their weapons and gestured for her to enter the airship. As it began whirring back to life and the sound made the adrenalin re-surge in her veins, though, a part of her wondered if she wouldn't be saving herself a lot of trouble by jumping off it and trying her luck with broken legs, but the lack of stars made her want to at least try the waiting and diplomacy method first. After all, if it came to a conflict, at least these soldiers didn't look human, and that made them a little bit less terrifying than the ones she was used to.

Thankfully, Rapha wasn't the only one in that strange cop car, but most of her peers looked... Well, injured wasn't the word to it. Damaged, more like it. All had big gaping wounds, but where blood would have otherwise filled the gore, light blue crystals shone faintly. Were even the people made of glass in this world? It was fascinating, albeit the knowledge that those were injuries made her skin hurt in sympathy for these people. Were they in as much pain as one would expect from wounds this big? How were they even alive? Were they alive at all?

Between the fear, the concern, and the curiosity, Rapha barely noticed a Robotic man approaching her, though when he got close enough she all but ran the few steps she could to distance herself from him in the cramped space. Before she could think of what to do, though, he seemed to scan her, humming a low "Games" in what almost didn't sound like a voice at all. Whatever those games were, the looks of sheer pity given to her by her peers made her blood freeze in her veins, panic setting her mind into overdrive. Games sound human, and in this case that was not good. Still, it was too little information, and that wouldn't help her survive. So, forcing her eyes to gaze outwards into the city below, she tried to understand this place's layout as much as she could:

From what she could see from her glorified drone, it seemed that the part of the city she had been transported to was a dark splotch on an otherwise vibrant place, like a neighborhood marked for demolition or still under construction. After a few blocks, the neon lights of businesses and homes slowly begun lighting up the picture like a circuit board, with twisting streets and alleyways carving a beautiful hybrid between the mechanical aesthetic of this glass town and the organic urban space that happens when slums develop into fully fledged neighborhoods, growing without planning or organization, driven by the needs of survival and the blessings of life into a place that seems more like a breathing and conscious creature than the collective of architectural monuments. It was familiar, messy, lively, and as the drone marched forward, the suburban structures became more and more vertical as the small buildings gave way to taller ones. It went on until the organic glass town was like a multi-layered machine forest, with buildings giving way to different levels and bridges, as if the only norm was to grow, to adapt, to evolve, like the giant tropical trees of the land of her childhood, which threw their winding roots over one another until the forest was turned into a tridimensional mesh of interconnectivity and life, a spider web of majesty and growth that build upon itself such that old layers are not forgotten but made into foundation to their progeny.

However, as the drone continued flying higher and higher to gain upon the sponge-like city below, a jarring gash showed itself like a bleeding wound, a large canal of what looked to be a highly reflective but translucent dark liquid separating the city in two, the great bridges crisscrossing between the space looking meager and insufficient to cover the distance maintained. That was because, besides the distance which definitely looked too far to swim across, the aesthetic of the other city was so drastically different from the organic mesh of the one from the direction which she stemmed that looking at both places from above at the same time gave her whiplash. Sleek, elegant and modern like high-tech neighborhoods in the desert land of her mother, skyscrapers punctured the air like drawn spears of a roman army in protective formation, each screaming its individuality and luxury in a competition that forced the structures to build themselves up individually and in competition, their sizes dwarfing the shorter, interconnected architecture across the river. All around the drone, other flying machines passed, each on its own rhythm and path. Some seemed like normal cargo transport drones, others looked to be transporting people (robots?) Though, whether they were equivalent to taxis or buses, or if they were more akin to cruise ships, Rapha couldn't know. There were also other cop ships here and there, though most were empty. Why? One thing was certain, though, this city looked rich and belligerent, which probably didn't mean good and peaceful things for whatever those games were.

Risking a look down the railings despite the vertigo that followed, she was sure that even the buildings of her mother's land hadn't been so high. Squinting through the mixture of dark gloom and abrasive neon, Rapha could make out broad streets filled with land machines, some seeming to look like the ones she saw before, while others were more reminiscent of cars. Some familiarity, that was good, although this city looked almost impossible to get far on foot. That could be a problem, but she wouldn't complain to trade her current problem for that one, so it's on this that she focused. Eventually, the drone flew past the city, though, into what looked to be a mountainous area with what she assumed were sparse mansions, though the area, devoid of trees as it was, only looked desolate in the way that human structures look when they attempt to fight against their environment instead of embracing it.

After the mountains somewhat stabilized in a sufficiently even plateau, what looked to be a colossal stadium stood proudly like an old hunched over giant, its beams of light burning through Rapha's eyes as they reflected through the oppressively reflective glass surfaces around it. Beyond it, expanses of desert soothed her mind, the white dunes familiar in their stillness, a breath of fresh air after all the fear that she had gone through. Yet, as nothing can ever be easy in her life, the drone found it best to begin its descent towards the stadium, which began looking more and more as a coliseum after those belligerent buildings. Oh oh. If these games kept the theme going, bad would be an understatement. Throughout the journey, none of the glass people around Rapha had said a word. However, as the drone finally landed on a large road in front of one of the entrances to the structure, a man with a heavily damaged face began to grow restless, panicking when one of the soldiers took his arm. With a struggle, he broke free from the cop's arm, running down towards the plateau while uttering between a scream and a mantra:

"NOT THE GAMES! NOT THE GAMES! NOT THE GAM-" but his sentence was cut short as the soldier near Rapha shot at the fleeting man's foot, causing it to explode in brilliant blue glass shards that rolled down the hill as the man fell down. Unsure of whether it was she who was screaming, the injured man, or both, Rapha could only hear the sound of fear and pain, rushing forward to help him until she was held by the forearm by one of the soldiers. Thrashing and clawing at him as tears fell down her cheeks, and screams sounded more like the howls and growls of a dog, she might as well have been attacking a metal statue for all the nothing her efforts did. Maybe one day she would understand why she had always been braver to come to the aid of others than of herself, but between war and whathever fucked up world this was, she couldn't exatcly say that she found herself with enough time to sit around and philosophize upon the topic.

Continuing to hold her arm, the soldier dragged her forward while another dragged the now one footed man, the entrance to the building now seeming more like the gaping maws of a demon than a cold glass structure. She could probably guess by now that she wouldn't be playing soccer, and knew from bitter experience that, if it came between having the chance to spare suffering from others or saving herself she would choose the former every time. It wasn't a question in her mind that she wouldn't survive this, and that, worst, her end would probably come from human or at least humanoid hands. She definitely should have taken her chances with gravity. Looking up at the starless abyss above, that not-sky seemed to mock her in its emptiness, reminding her of her fate with detachment and apathy.

She should have given the curse of hate to that pigeon, to both her mother's desert home, to the tropical forests of her childhood, to the cold and empty place where she now studied, to human and mechanical soldiers, to herself, to anyone. But she couldn't, and she feared that that fundamental flaw in her system was what would bring her to the end of her line under a witnessless sky. Instead, as her nails bled without as much as making an indent in the soldier's arm, Rapha just hoped that those who needed her for their safety back home would be okay. Maybe the damn blessed pigeon would manage to fly out of that basement on its own after all. But even this comforting mental picture was cut short as the guard must have gotten tired of her tantrum, and electricity to the back of her neck was the last thing she felt before the world went black.

Chapter Text

It was dark. Passing over and under murky teal waves, there wasn't much that the young girl could see, but her objective, the shore ahead, was still too far for comfort.

She was exhausted, and she was going to drown.

That beach was an abandoned one, with dark waters, unwanted and wild.

She was exhausted and terrified. She didn't want to drown.

Yet, when her limbs felt too heavy for her young bones to command against the unyielding tide, she felt a hand on her back, pushing her towards the current that took her in the direction of the lonely beach. That had been the second time she felt that hand on her back. The first... well...

Waking up with a start, Rapha was taken from that dreamed memory, sitting up so fast that her vision blurred and her empty stomach jumped to her throat. She had been lying down on the floor of an empty hexagonal room, information which she could have inferred from her screaming bones and freezing skin. Her head hurt, but whether from hunger or the situation, she wasn't sure, and there was a nasty bruise on her forearm where the mechanical soldier had held her. Looking around, she found the man with the injured foot, sitting curled up in a ball in one of the junctions between the bigger panel walls. He had his legs drawn up, one foot being used as support for the sharp glassy stub of the other, while his arms were wrapped around himself so that only his coppery red hair was visible.

For all she knew, the people in that prison car could have been criminals, or just generally dangerous people, but she couldn't claim to be a rational person when she had gotten into this trouble because of a pigeon, so as her chest tightened with concern for that person (robot?) In front of her, Rapha allowed it to guide her voice:

"Are you okay?" She asked, wincing as her dry throat was scratched by the sound.

To that, he looked up with disconcertingly white eyes that were reddened from crying, and an expression that mixed surprise or fear with bone-deep exhaustion. During their arrival, she had noticed the large scars that cross his face, but now, under the forced patience of quiet, she saw that they looked less like the other injury and more like blisters, sprouting from one side of his face near his hair and going all the way through to the ear on the other side, not protruding too much but leaving a significant mark in this same pearly tone that she hadn't seen much in this world so far. He looked to be about middle aged, but held a frail and skittish air that reminded her of a rodent and brought an easy sympathy for his plight. For a few moments, the man appraised Rapha with anxious caution, but seemed to relax once she didn't make another move to speak nor got closer to his space. Then, dropping his arms to the floor like an empty plushy, the man replied to her question in a chuckle that held no humor at all:

"It's not easy to be okay around here, you know that folks here don't usually leave." He said with a trembling, resigned voice, and she believed him because of the way that it was said like it was common knowledge, something that he expected her to already know. Oh oh. She would have to thread this subject with care.

"What is this place?" She asked, cautious with giving the information that she was a foreigner, but needing to know at least she would be useless to help them get anywhere. At that, the man looked at her like she was insane, worried crossing his scarred face as if wondering if she had gone through some form of mental harm. However, his eyes soon found her injured hands, dried blood surrounding her fingers like the lacy patterns of henna, and what had once been mild concern turned into full blown panic as he slithered across the wall to a corner farther from her, voice stammering:

"User! Yo-you're a User! S-stay away!

"Hold on" she started, voice going to that practiced gentleness that she was used to adopting when trying to soothe a person or an animal, lightly lifting her hands as if in surrender but making sure not to move her limbs too much or too quickly. "I don't know what that word means. I got transported here by accident, but I mean no harm and I am just trying to find my way home." Her voice was slow and her tone was gentle, and she took it as a win that he had stopped trying to scramble away as that seemed to be hurting his foot further. After a few seconds of silence, she continued: "I was on the transport with you, and I want to help. Will you tell me what we can do to try to escape?" The mention of the transport seemed to reassure him that she wasn't that much of a novelty, though neither the idea of help nor or escape did much to make him look at Rapha any less like she was a fully functioning grenade with a loose pin.

Nevertheless, as she made no further move to fill in the silence, letting it grow into the dark shade of a vast tree that blocks out any warmth in the autumn chill, eventually the man began pondering, taking his weary eyes off the girl and turning them to what she assumed must be the doors. After a while, he spoke, voice calmer and somber even if still scared:

"There's no hope in escaping, but he visits the games sometimes with the barons. If we can get his attention, we might have a chance at surviving."

"He?" She asked, feeling stupid. Noticing this confusion brought both surprise and a fresh wave of fear to the man's face, but this again calmed after a few seconds, after which he looked to be pondering how to explain this information which must certainly been a no-brainer to people of this glass world. Hopefully her ignorance would make her seem more harmless, though, as it was extremely uncomfortable to be treated with fear by a human, or at least by a humanoid.

"Do you even know what this place... this world is?" He asked, daring eye contact for the first time in this conversation.

"I don't, I'm sorry." She answered, scared of speaking too much and frightening him again. His chuckle told her that perhaps this had been a wise move, as his voice showed that he was beginning to be too busy with sheer bafflement to be scared:

"This is the grid. A digital world made by one of your people. Our creator, Flynn Rider, light be with him, has sacrificed himself a thousand years ago with his son and the last Guiso, and from the divine spark of his disk and their light, we were able to evolve from simple programs into the full creatures that we are now. In his time, we had been individually made by his hands, and his brother, Clu, made in his image but with a digital spirit, repurposed our shells to give them new lives as soldiers for his cause. Over time, after we were given the spark of the creator's disk, we became able to form families of our own, be born, live, die, as well as use this land and build upon it, eat from it and give back to it. We were free, and we were whole, and from the first families that followed the creator's teachings, came Zaun, the undercity, the children of chaos, while from the families that followed his brother, came Piltover, the children of the perfect system." His recitation had seemed to calm his mind as devotion lightened his features whenever he spoke of this creator. Yet, after mentioning Piltover, the man's voice grew dark and heavy as he continued speaking: "unfortunately for me, the species never stopped evolving, and at times it creates... defects. "A humorless chuckle, then silence, before he resumes:

"those who are born different rarely have much chance in this world, and when the Piltover Council, which rules over both cities, finds us, it scouts for any flaw in our documents, our activities, or in our occupations to justify arresting us, which ultimately leads to our "voluntary" joining of the games, the payment to which, of course, we never receive." The sadness in his voice once again squeezes Rapha's compassion, which brings her to remember the man's previous words:

"You mentioned that there was someone who could help us, though?" He startles at her words, but he must think of this savior guy with admiration because his features lighten almost as much as they did when he spoke of that Flynn dude when he explains:

"Yes! The machine Herald is a savior to all of us born mutated. Legends say he was once a mutated program who overcame the constraints imposed by his coding and built machines who helped him and his condition! Can you believe it? Heh, a program... building machines! Now, after Flynn's spark blessed us with his capacity for creation, we started building crafts of our own, but the notion of a program altering itself... creating sentient robots... exoskeletons! He is either a genius or the worst mutation of them all, but he often comes to the games alongside the chem-barons... ah, sorry, alongside Zaun's more... informal leadership, to invest in mutated individuals who show promise. If we are lucky and he's here, and if he likes our performance... maybe we can get his help in achieving freedom!"

The red-haired man's voice had been so sweet and full of awe and hope that Rapha felt as if she had swallowed a handful of pointy pebbles, which now were at once crushing her chest with dread and tearing through the soft mucosa of her gut with apprehension. This Herald seemed... well, awful. Evil. Familiar to the informal regional leaders who controlled poor communities with iron fists and wolfish appetites. Was he some guerrilla leader who hand-picked warriors to further his agenda? Who could be a man who visited this dreadful place to get subjects that couldn't have any choice but to comply? With every anti-government and anti-figure-of-power alert blasting through her mind like a siren raid alert, Rapha almost felt inclined to try her chances with whatever these games were... but she still knew too little about this world. She needed to understand more before she ruled out this Herald man's help entirely, even if this description had made him seem extremely punchable to say the least.

"Okay" she began, now the cautious one of the conversation: "but what are the games? What are we supposed to do?" This seemed to sour the older man's mood again, though, as fear once again seemed to take a hold of him, which in turn made Rapha sad, even if thankfully this time it wasn't directed at her. With distant eyes, he said with a trembling voice:

"Th-the games are... a fight for survival. Only the most ruthless and strongest can make it out of each round... even before I'd have lost on sight, but now..." he looked at his foot and swallowed with difficulty, eyes small with terror.

"Hey, we will manage." Rapha said with a voice of practiced calmness, keeping her words vague so he wouldn't be led to thinking worse of his injuries: "I'm sorry about your foot. Does it hurt? Does it need help so it doesn't put you at risk?"

"It's useless. Without a coding station it will not degrade further but it won't heal either. That if I ever afford another foot anyway." That was a relief, he wasn't in immediate danger. Rapha felt her lungs breathing easier that he wouldn't die on her. Now, she only had to make sure they remained alive in those games...

"One thing at a time. It's good that you can hope to get a new foot, though, in my world the best you can do is get a mechanical limb which won't obey you too much. Let's survive and get you healed, okay?" Rapha was aware that the "it could be worse" strategy didn't always work, but Huck seemed to be one of the people who would prefer this approach. Hopefully her instinct was right. At the very least, the strange medicine of... what had he called humans? Users? Must have been jarring enough that he looked at her with a puzzled and less melancholical expression:

"How come your people can create us, but not solve the suffering of your own?" Touche. Rapha could either allow her philosopher mind to debate this for hours or she could focus on survival, so she just shrugged. Whoever that Flynn guy was, she just hoped that he had gotten what he looked for, and that he had managed to help people along the way. Wait. Flynn...

THE OWNER OF THE ARCADE COMPANY?

THE ONE WHOSE SON RAN OFF TO ANOTHER CONTINENT WITH AN UNKNOWN WOMAN A DECADE AGO?

Had the boy come into the grid? Had these people been involved in whatever event caused so much change into this world? Was the mysterious woman a program?  How would a digital creature even be transported into a material place? Wasn't that just a decade ago? Did time pass differently in this place? If so, would the world be waiting patiently for Rapha when she returned?

That is, if she returned...

If she died here, would there even be a body on the other side that would explain her disappearance? Or would, in the blink of an eye, all traces of her life disappear such that the little family she had never got closure?

To hell with that, she had a pigeon with a bloody head to help.

"Anyway" Huck started, looking at her hands with a polite if somewhat reverent attempt at disguising disgust: "it would probably be wiser to hide... that... for now. I can't imagine Piltover folks would be too eager to let a user go after the last time..."

"What happened last time?"

"Heh... legends say that the creator, his son, and the last guiso all sacrificed themselves for the divine spark over the sea of simulation, after the dark brother led an army to chase after them... piltover has followed its forefather's doctrine since then, and Zaun has enough problems to deal with without having to handle a being from another world, specially if she could be affiliated with the creator, whose preachings of chaos and imperfection are bound to bring trouble with Piltover..." with a few seconds to ponder what she learned about the grid, Rapha understood that this meant that the programs believed the son and the woman were be dead. It also meant that, if the man were telling the truth, she wouldn't find allies in the government, and maybe would have trouble finding allies at all. Were there any factions opposed to the government? But, if there were, could they be trusted? What would they want from her in return for their help? How violent could guerrillas be in a world that had literal gladiatorial games in a fully legalized setting? As a matter of fact...

"Would you know how users travel between my world and yours?" She asked, hopeful but still mindful of her tone around the scared man.

"Their mysteries were never explained." Was his response dogmatic and dry as if it was easier to treat users as distant gods than as aliens of which one stood before him. In a way, Rapha couldn't blame him.

"I see, thank you." was all she replied before turning her attention to her injured fingers. They had stopped bleeding long ago, but she couldn't see any sink in that cell, and she wasn't too sure about grid-germ-theory, so licking them wasn't an option. Opting for a middle ground, the girl cupped her hands and spit, wincing as she worked to clean the blood crust without re-opening the wounds. The dryness in her throat had made even that a feat, but it would have to do. Rapha ignored the man's unfiltered expression of disgust, trying to turn somewhat to the side to spare him the view without bringing more attention to what she was doing. After wiping the mess on the inside edge of her crop top, though, she considered the efforts enough that at least from afar her hands would look normal.

Then, there was the matter of the bruise, to which she carefully took the outer band of one of her shorts and tied loosely around the injury, gently enough not to harm her further but not too much that it would slide down her arm. That would have to do, even if she felt like the lady of the lions when she descended the Underworld, each challenge causing her already little amount of clothes to be exhausted further. At least the stranger in her cell looked disgusted, which made her feel safer. That is, so far, from guards to prisoners, it seemed that everyone wore long clothes, those alternating between resembling skintight suits where the joints demanded movement, and plastic-looking armor everywhere else. From her journey to this glass-Colisium, Rapha also remembered that some programs wore leather-textured, mostly dark shirts, pants, boots and jackets, all highlighted by some form of glowy edge. What in the glassy Matrix-Blade early 2000s Punk Mall-Goth wonderland even was this place? Were these items the programs' clothes or straight-up their bodies? Was the man so distraught at the sight of her only because she was a user with blood and spit, or because programs didn't even have skin anywhere other than their hands and faces?

"Can you stand?" Focusing her curiosity in a more useful direction, Rapha asked the man, who used the walls to prompt himself up with a pained but controlled expression, keeping his back to the surface for balance. At that, the girl got up on her sore feet, the cold glasslike floor making their soles feel like they were burning, and her bruised and exhausted body screaming that she would find nourishment and rest soon lest it go on a strike. Stars flooded her eyes and a few of her bones cracked, but thankfully her balance wasn't too compromised, as all she did was wobble in place a bit before her vision stopped trying to torture her. Looking at that man who just a while ago had seemed so scared of her, but who now turned his energy to observing their surroundings with what she hoped was at least a semblance of hope, the woman introduced herself with the determination of someone who would do her best to get them both out of that hell:

"I'm Rapha, by the way. And I may be a user in this world, but from what you told me, my life in my birthplace is much more similar to that of mutated programs. I'll do my best to get us out of here alive, I promise." Thankfully, to that, the older man smiled, and waved his hand in a shy greeting:

"I'm Huck, and I'm glad that you're not as scary as the stories make you to be. I suppose Flynn was different from his species, I should have expected it." A chuckle, silence, and then: "let's hope that we can impress the Herald." That guy again. What would it even entail to impress him? Rapha wasn't sure she wanted to try with how much of a bad idea he seemed to be, but before she could ask him further questions, the doors opened with a dry hiss, two armed guards entering the room and motioning to grab both of them.

Begrudgingly complying due to the little detail of having a gun to her face, Rapha offered little resistance as one of them grabbed her forearm (again!!! Who does that???) And pushed her forward into the corridor, being shortly followed by Huck, who needed to lean on his captor to walk but seemed to be managing despite the rough handling. Jerks. Regardless, anger wouldn't help, as there was always the possibility that those programs didn't have a choice. From what Huck had told her, it seemed that they had consciousness or at least something similar in effect. But was that the case to all individuals? Were these guards even aware? Were they aware but unable to have a say in their lives? She sure wasn't going to try to find out now, so swallowing her fear and pride, the woman let herself be dragged through that sleek-glass corridor until the path bifurcated, when they started taking the limping man to a different side than her own.

"Hey! What are you doing?" She started, voice both scared of being separated from her one hopefully-ally, and from concern over what would be the fate of the older man if he didn't have any support. Noticing her concern, though, he seemed to soften a bit for the first time that she witnessed, addressing her with what showed her that she had probably proved to him that she was at least be as human as programs could be:

"D-dont worry, you're just going to receive a suit and a-" he didn't have time to finish before the guard pushed him away from view, but she was grateful for his words regardless. Rapha would just have to find him on the other side. They would be fine. They had to be. Continuing on her lonely path, though, it wasn't long before she was ushered into another radially-symetrical room, although this one was bathed in almost complete darkness. Oh oh, the lizard brain takes over and fills her with all of the fright-response hormones that she might need to fight or fight. Reaching the middle, Rapha went up the slight platform, which lit up in brilliant white from her contact, and after making sure that she wouldn't move, the guard left the room, the door closing unprompted behind him. Had she walked into the grid equivalent to an electric chair?

Rapha's frightened curiosity didn't have time to take hold of her, though, as the corners of the room illuminated in sync, opening like cocoons to reveal... people? Women dressed in the whitest grid-style suits she had seen so far, and they started all walking in sync towards her on high heels so huge they made the entire situation look absolutely ridiculous, such that the sight would have been funny had Rapha not been so utterly terrified. Shielding herself with her hands gripping her forearms, her breath caught, but there was no sympathy nor mockery in these women' s faces, only dark makeup and plastic expressions. Upon reaching her, they didn't even give her a warning before their fingers became luminous and they dragged them symmetrically around her frame, cutting her clothes which fell in useless ribbons to the floor. Oh for fucks sake, flight is useless, fight it is.

Unfortunately for Rapha, though, she didn't even have time to raise her first as the puppet-woman in front of her grabbed her hands with an iron grip as if she had read her mind, smiling as amicably as a flight attendant in an old cartoon, while the others made some gesture that caused a sheer-black grid-style suit to materialize itself on Rapha's body as if it were made of nano-particles that had climbed loosely around her and weaved themselves into thin-stretchy fabric that felt a bit like wearing sports clothes, although those did not make the skin itchy, nor suffocated, nor gave a cheap feel.

The garments helped with the cold temperature of the place, but her brain was in full terror mode at having had her clothes handled like this by human-looking creatures, so Rapha wasn't about to be grateful for the new outfit. The puppet women didn't give her any respite, though, as soon as those clothes were in place, she felt something be placed on her back, connecting to her eyes with a painful blimp of light. What the fuck was that? As if reading her mind, the puppet women gave her mock-sympathetic smiles that were entirely void of compassion, and Rapha had the bitter realization that, if these women were conscious, they probably had managed the suits of many people, most (perhaps all) of those being doomed to lose their lives in whatever those games were. At that, she couldn't help but pity them, and as a response, for the first time, their smiles almost softened, the same way that snakes sleep through winter but wake up to the first rays of warmth, no matter how small or skinny the signs of spring may be.

"Good luck" said one of them, or all of them, but Rapha couldn't be sure because it sounded like all of their voices spoke at once, harmonizing in their artificial cadence and synthetic tone. After this, without another word they retreated into their cocoons, walking backwards without losing balance and lifting their heads to be once again wrapped in darkness. The platform upon which Rapha stood became brighter, and began lifting in time with the opening of the ceiling. Were these voices? Screaming? Applause? Trumpets? Whatever that noise was, it was as abrasive as the blinding light above, promising that wherever she went would be even less kind than the grid had been, and if she were to survive these games, she would have to play.

Chapter Text

Rapha never used to remember waking up. There was no recounted dream, no warm comfort of blankets, no peaceful sight of her room bathed in the gentle darkness of the early hours between night and morning. Instead, there was only a dark room without beginning or end, and a toddler who filled that emptiness with the light of violet flowers that sprouted from her fingers, or from glowing strings that held that magic like weaved tapestries of celestial vines. Every night, the little girl would stay with her luminous garden until her mother came to see her, and whenever the patient woman cradled her daughter in her arms, she too saw the garden, not just with her mind's perception, nor just with her soul's spirit, but also with the same material eyes that would later see the sunrise as it greeted this little family good morning, a magic shared as tangible as the Elephant God's icon that protected the toddler through her early life. That magic was their miracle, and for a short, blissful while, it was all that Rapha had ever known.

But she grew, and with that, so did the miracles. Sometimes she called upon rain or received any treasures she asked for. Sometimes, injured people came to her for help, and she healed them while seeing with her spirit's eyes creatures of pain sprout from their ills. Sometimes, and those were often the scariest, the night didn't show the peaceful flowers of the thirteenth hour, but instead dancing creatures of light or darkness, a man made of white light surrounded by richly-colored mosaic patterns as they weaved their way through the room leaving no darkness, nor room left, a small creature of emptiness that made her scream in her sleep like a dying animal, a black hand in the dark touching the small of her back when it thought she was asleep, or the white hand that held the same spot on her skin when she was as if alone in the watery darkness, grounding and pulling her with ownership that left no room for argumentation, but also with kindness that evoked servitude from the depths of her heart.

Whatever each day and night held, her gifts were always shared with others, such that no matter what she faced, she was never alone in either seeing nor acting upon them. She had known her place in the Tree of life before she knew her own name, and that was very good. Now, though, as her eyes got used to the light of that otherworldly place to which she had been taken, and her vision blurred from the shock of quickly resurfacing from the dark silent depths into this blindingly bright loud hell, Rapha felt utterly, helplessly, irrevocably alone. This was beyond a stranger's world, it was a stranger's nature, and the chanting of the masses reminded her of the particular sounds that wild animals make when they crave blood. Like waves thundering in her ears, one upon the other that the roar became a continuous and deafening sound, their screams mixed with the synthetic trumpets to form a shawl of sound that wrapped itself around her so tightly that her ears ringed and her vision blurred.

In this chaos, Rapha wasn't even able to tell if they were saying anything at all, or if their throats were throwing at her shards of glass that she couldn't see, but that she could feel piercing her skin and reverberating through her bones all the same. After a few seconds of sensory overload, though, Rapha was able to eventually gather that she was in an absurdly large arena, the vast expanse of cold black glass beneath her feet like desolate grasslands that had been consumed by fire and trampled into dark ashen sand. Far ahead, rising like mountain cliffs in a desert, a high wall marked the divide between audience and sacrifice, building-high rows upon rows of seats surrounding the man-made plains while opening into what looked to be occasional VIP areas. Radially simetrical throughout the stadium, these expanded like bubbles, framed by colorful lights, each room carrying a specific color scheme, albeit all neon and painfully bright. They reminded Rapha of beehives by mountain walls, deadly and filled with riches that few had access to.

Standing out from the others, though, was a black and orange protrusion, sleek and symmetrical with lights framing it like a ripe fruit on a crown of autumn leaves, the space opening to the arena the way that a rose does before its petals eventually wither and rot, proud and regal, man made, showing a mastery that is detached from any form of interconnected nature. Inside, it seemed like a fancy party was taking place, which reminded Rapha of soccer VIP areas in her childhood land, places where the richest went to pretend to watch the games while networking and playing the part of the politician. With dimmed lights for ambiance and panels that stopped outsiders from looking inward, it was hard to tell what was taking place in that area. Nevertheless, balconies opened on evenly spaced intervals, framed by entirely too tall and slim doors, from which glimpses of luxury could be seen whenever a rich-looking program made their way to observe the arena. From the distance, it was hard to get a good understanding of their appearances, but most if not all of the individuals in these fancier spaces wore masks in the same colors and patterns as their dark clothes, while those in the common seats had what Rapha would normally assume to be paint over their features. The latter groups were also louder than the former, conversation and walking vendors amounting to an unintelligible bubble of overwhelming noise, even though the fancier fellas didn't stay too far behind with the competing ambiance music of each secluded space.

This was a place where society met politics without disguise, where human history was made and performed, lived and scribed all at once, where power traded hands in secret while meaningless disputes took the spotlight. Even without understanding this world it was clear how much money had to go through this place in all layers of this seemingly very stratified society, and it was familiar as it was horrible. Dragging her gaze back into the arena itself, Rapha found that all around the vast plains more people were brought from the ground in seemingly even intervals, with each new person showing more of a flowery pattern that couldn't have been seen before the dots were connected by the arrivals of enough newcomers. Human greed and the violence that comes from scarcity disguised behind the cold rationality of intricate geometry, tradition and honor weaved into the animalistic fear of death, this was home all over again yet this time there would be no stars above her head to take merciful withness upon her suffering.

Wanting to find Huck and have some tangible presence to catch her breath from this impersonal game of humanity, the copper-eyed girl went forward with careful steps, these new boots feeling like soft leather on her feet, carrying enough grip over the glass that she didn't fear slipping, but not sticking to the surface such that she felt sluggish. The suit was stranger, though, mostly because tight clothes were not something she kept in her wardrobe, and the sensory discomfort of having her skin pressed agaisnt caused a faint itch-like pain of blood vessels unfamiliar to constriction. Looking at the newcomers as they appeared on the arena, they varied in age, gender, and appearance, although most were unified by a presence of some form of mutation. In some, the marks were small, pearly and pastel signs that colored their faces or hands, or bumps that were noticeable through what she was now almost certain were clothes and not robotic bodies. In others, color and texture overwhelmed their forms, huge and saturated marks distorting what otherwise would be limbs into formless mass. To her who had previously been made of flesh, these latter mutations seemed painful, but she hoped they weren't.

Also varying in behavior, some people walked around as she was now doing, though most running to the edges of the arena, while others remained still, some even crouching or sitting down, making themselves small and crying. Those were sights that made her want to stop and talk to them, hurting her chest and making her put her hand over her ribs on instinct as if she could shield it from their pain or carry it for them. What kept her from nearing anyone, however, was the fear that they would notice her fingers and that this would make the situation worse for everyone. So, she braved through, and was as relieved as the ocean waves at dawn to find her friend, seamingly unharmed (or, well, without further harm), sitting down on a mostly empty spot. When the man saw her, surprise and fear were first to cross his face, but then it melted into recognition accompanied by a friendly, albeit sad smile. It seemed to her like they were wondering through the fields of asphodel, time holding still through so much noise and light, creating a bubble of stagnation amidst the running current.

"How are you?" She asked, crouching down to his left at a respectable distance from his injured foot.

"Making amends with the creator. " he laughed with a defeatist voice, eyes red from crying and the leftover shivers of panic causing small earthquakes on his skin and making his mutation pulsate in a low humming light. Seriously what were those things made of?

"Always good to be in good terms with the gods, but not out of fear of death when there's still fight to be had" she replied, smile braver than she felt, her own legs trembling despite how she sat on her heels not to let it show. Better one person feel safe of their survival than both succumb to panic, and she was in a position to give such safety, so it was what she would do. "Just stay near me and you will be alright." she said, terrified that fate would prove her a liar but more terrified still of what defeat would entail. If the man had a reply, however, he never got a chance to voice it, as a sound like synthetic horns echoed across the arena, silencing every other noise. Low and rumbling, it demanded attention like the blowing of the sacred ram's horns, by far less scary than siren alerts, but somber enough to sound like the announcement of a funeral or the shrill sounds played during memorial days.

Reverberating through her bones, it set every person there into some form of action, some running while others braced themselves, and from the main balcony of the main bubble area, the one clad in orange and black, a figure appeared as screens opened like sprouting dark wings to transmit what small buzzing drones recorded as they frantically set about the stadium like hungry flies searching for carrion upon which to make their homes. With the help of the screens, Rapha saw a regal woman with dark skin and suit, Hazel green Eyes the color of her mother's and geometrical stripes of shimmering gold criscrossing about her skin and clothes, while golden jewels crowned her hair as it was held up in a half-bun or dreadlock strands. Not unlike many of the other guests of that balcony, the woman's suit was partially hidden by a dress, hers as black as the void above and cut by two slits by the legs. Her young face was as stern as it was neutral, political emulation of levity making her seem as if she was now looking out into a garden of natural wonders, casual and peaceful, rich and to which she felt entirely entitled to.

With a shiver, Rapha recognized this look as that of someone who didn't just act as if she owned the whole world, but who indeed held it in the palm of her hands. This was the kind of power that wasn't as political as it was monetary, and the level of richness that, in every country and in every universe, only came from the market of violence. The woman held a cup in her hand, although her grasp was more reminiscent of the way saints hold bouquets of martyred flowers, soldiers hold their bloodied lances, or kings hold their shining scepters, and as she faced at once the arena and a drone, her voice was effortless and clear, cast steel made into sound by the violent lashings of fire.

"Friends, it is with great joy that tonight we prepare to celebrate yet another year of peace between our esteemed regions, coming together not to wage war, but to trade honor for honor through the mastery of our athletes. This evening of celebration has been made possible only through the collaboration of Piltover with our Undercity, the dignified leaders of which I'd like to once again thank for their presence as well as for their support in making this event possible. To them, and to all of you who came to watch the games, I toast that your light may shine under the great expanse!" The leader concluded her speech with an one-handed motion of applause, which was immediately followed by the thundering cheers of the masses around the arena, bursts of colorful neon lights creating a disorienting picture reminiscent of fireworks all around the stadium. It was as if each few hundred people had their own light show, and the textures and colors mixed in such intensity that it was probably enough to give just about anyone a nausea-inducing headache.

To make matters worse, noise followed the commotion, synthetic songs and bursts of mechanical noise erupting as when the earth is pierced by seismic activity and the low rumbles make way to high-pitched shrieking. Thankfully, though, the chaos was cut short by a small motion of the leader's hand, complete, unnerving silence taking place so quickly that it was difficult to understand what had been made of the minds of those frantic people around the arena. With a redirecting of the light beams, though, attention was brought to the VIP area diametrally across from the main one, which, althought not as big nor shiny, was still significantly more opulent than all of the others which took their places in between the roofless masses and the evenly spaced VIP bubbles between the two biggest. Contrary to the regal orange, this one was Indigo blue, lacking a golden crown but making up for it as it's design, far more organic, twisted the metal and glass in what was reminiscent of ram's horns or ocean waves. It was breathtaking, plaques of glass upon glass like monumental fish scales, so tightly arranged that they spiked outwards like living ripples of magnetic powder holding onto a magnet.

Protruding like petals of a young and fearless flower, the monument looked like a sleeping giant in the bottom of the ocean, never having known of a moment of sunlight yet never lacking warmth as it befriended the volcanic chimes that rose from the dark earth. With the black and blue materials refracting light into thousands of prisms of light, the monument was like a lighthouse under the dense fog, a rocky cliff near the ruthless shore, a beach of jagged glass and the twisting caprices of algae. It was by far the most wonderful building Rapha had ever seen, and its balconies opening under organic frames like the mouth bones of fish and dark petrol-blue pooled out from its insides like the forgotten bottom of the sea or the still unknown heights of the starry heavens. At the sight, Rapha almost traded her fear for the old instinct to not be a person but an observer, to bear witness to humanity's creation and honor it through her memory.

Yet, such awe was shattered as the leader of that place lifted his cup. He was a hawkish man with dark black hair most of which had turned grey, and a lean frame, his dark suit holding low red light like the drumming of blood inside of guttered entrails. He had bright olive skin and one eye ocean green while the other was sickly yellow and surrounded by putrid black flesh, his small chin, pouty lips, and big heavy eyes and nose being as familiar as her reflection in the mirror. Whoever this man was, he really looked like Rapha's father, and that was never the best first impression. As he spoke, then, his voice was low and calculated, so cold it made the surrounding blue seem as warm as sunflowers:

"Thank you, Counselor Merdarda. Zaun and its people are honored to be here for these games, that we may trade honor for honor and celebrate through the mastery of our athletes. May we never forget what brought us here, nor the bitter conflicts that our both cities had to endure, not be stuck in this dreaded history but to use this hard-won lesson to learn from the actions of our forefathers. May tonight be a night for celebration. Piltover has our gratitude and our admiration, and we hope that events such as these may only be held more often in the future as our stories continue to be told and to grow." As before, a wave of applause and cheers shook the arena, although this time the ferocity of the people's enthusiasm seemed more genuine. When it came to trickle down into silence, too, it was slower, more natural, although the contrast only served to further unnerve the scene. As if in response, the woman of the orange side once again came into view, and despite her pleasant and polite smile, the disgust in her eyes made her look more like a predator, like a she-wolf clad in golden armor, than a politician or influential figure:

"Thank you, Chem-Baron Silco, for your wishes and your good faith. As tradition dictates, you, our guests in this esteemed arena, have the honor to choose the game with which to start the night. What will be your choice?" Her warm words were as detached and devoid of real enthusiasm as a spider web in winter, although they were not lazy nor frail, instead carrying the steady strenght of a beast ready for combat, lacking in amicably but making up for in energy and strenght. Her interlocutor, carrying himself with the brashnes of an eagle as it sharpens its beak and talons on hard rocks, returned her mask-like smile without mirth or life in his eyes, as if the only emotion he knew was contempt for some ironic political reality that was all that he busied himself with. With hands behind his back and the stance of an ambush predator made both weak and dangerous from a lifetime of hunger, he replied with a voice that sounded more like the breaking of ice over the sea waves than the sounds a human makes:

"As we are given this honor, we do well to give it our full dedication. For that, old friend, Zaun chooses Disk Wars." At his words, murmurs took flight like wildfire, growing like untamed flames until they were blood-curdling screams that ressoated through the waves of people, the dissonant sounds from before now converging on the single chant:

"DISK WARS! DISK WARS! DISK WARS!"

Through the thundering noise, Rapha weighed the alignments of this place the middle of which she now stood: Was that organic city Rapha saw on her way here what the woman had called Undercity and the man had called Zaun? Did this mean that they had clashing political agendas for one to act separatist while the other maintained ignorance over that its subordinate underbelly claimed independence? This, too, was far too familiar for comfort, but where once there had been the warmth of tapestries and the admiration for the resilience of the suffering group in her mother's land, this dark world's undercity now resembled more the realm of the dead while the belligerent city above was a kingdom of pride that clawed for the immortality that comes through individual glory. But Rapha didn't have time to ponder more about the power distribution of that foreign system, as with only a sudden and low rumble for warning, the arena's floors begun expanding like water in space, masses of black glass floating weightless with calm majesty, expanding in radial symmetry that gave them a fluidity that was almost hypnotic. Where there had previously been multiple songs around the stadium, now a synth song began blasting through the environment, accompanying the chanting in its violent persistence.

As the glass masses continued expanding from their point in the middle of the arena, chaos took hold of the previously stagnated captive programs, as people began running and screaming to get away from the mass. Feeling the cold dread of panic bite it's venomous fangs into the soft flesh of her neck, Rapha helped Huck up with trembling hands, her grip on his arms and back so strong her hands whitened around the knuckles, reddening everywhere else. Paralyzed from fear, the man didn't scream, but his snakelike white eyes were small with terror, keeping to the fluid mass as they both joined their steps to walk away from it as fast as they could. Perhaps she should have asked what that was, but she was, admittedly, terrified, so when its cold walls engulfed her in a way reminiscent of the way her suit had solidified around her body, the girl fully thought that she was going to die. To her surprise, upon opening her eyes, she and Huck were inside of an aquarium-like squared tube with black glass at the joints and translucent material everywhere else, including the floors, which seemed to be floating high above the ground.

Radiating from the center like a flower, these container-shaped enviorements were taking hold of people in small groups like fish in plastic bags. In the center of the spiraling formation, a structure like stairs emerged, connecting the containers with bridges like the inside of a seashell, beautiful and horrible at once like metal and glass reeds, life giving in form but desolate in context. From within the closed space, outside sounds and colors were lightly dulled, but she could see the panels showing a group of people as they arrived through a gated entrance beneath the main bubble, drones competing to give each champion some time under the spotlight. As the masses seemed to divide their chanting to each take to the style of their respective favorites, it occurred to Rapha that she wasn't there as a gladiator, but as a disposable sacrifice for their entertainment. This was a game of lions and the mutated were there as sheep to add to their professional carnage, practice dummies and set pieces to sprinkle blood to add to the experience.

"I'm assuming these actually volunteered?" She asked Huck, who held a hand to the nearest translucent glass wall to keep his balance. He didn't say a word in reply, but instead nodded weekly, only once. Great. Hope, springing from the most exausted corners of Rapha's brain, boldely dared to entertain the notion that these were actual athletes and they would now play actual games that these programs were just really intense about. Nevertheless, as the champions went up the spiral stairs and each through their respective bridge, entering the glass panels as if they were made of air, she noticed that what could seem to be levity about their demeanor was simply practiced preparedness, and that what seemed to be pride in their eyes was just night-black eagerness to see blood spilled by their hands.

Why did it always come back to this? To dreadful war, to bitter fighting, to violence upon violence as if humanity had no memory to nurture the children of each new world? This was a world of its own, not some passive dollhouse, Rapha was sure of it, but it had been first accessed by a human, and in some ways, it was tied to earth and it's story. So why, when this Flynn had the chance to reach for something new, had he instead fed the stagnate lethargy of tradition and brought the old to be born from its own seed? In fact, that is exatcly the reason, that the lady of the Heavens births her lord Husband, the Shepherd of white kindness, and as she takes life from him so does he takes from her breast, and so the snake eats its mate's tail as they circle around the great tree of life. But the red queen of heavens is to be trusted as she is the twin of the lord of justice, who picked for her the patient husband who would make her from lioness into woman, and whom she would worship as her lamb.

So, as humanity once had faith in her guidance, Rapha would do so now, and she would stand upon the middle, held by the third arm of the son at the center of creation, and she would not be afraid, for the flower star of six points earns all of its unconditional allegiance by its own self-evident, undeniable, and perfect merit. In this stranger's land, Rapha had no eagerness to fight, but if it came to this, she knew her name as it stood written in a branch of the tree of life, and she would do what she had to do in order to survive, to keep those she could safe, and to find her three handed miracle.

The games had begun, war in the world of the dark sky, and there was no turning back.

Chapter Text

In her life, Rapha had seen many monsters. She had seen them harm animals, she had seen them harm people. She had seen them look young. She had seen them look old. She had seen them wear uniforms. She had seen them wear civilian clothes. She had fought them. She had run from them. She had gotten between them and whatever animal or person had initially been their target, no matter the consequences that fell upon her. From her hands, she had won and she had lost, never with hatred nor vengeance in her heart regardless of bitter outcome. She thought that misery was bad enough as it was, and preferred not to invite more of it into the world, no matter who it fell upon. Of all the monsters she had seen, though, the man now in front of her surely wasn't one. As he entered the container-shaped mini-arena that held Rapha and Huck captive, bloodshot eyes and a pleased smile of a man who lives from the market of violence and thrives upon it, he was a brute, a bully, someone who maybe begun this life out of necessity but eventually continued it out of enjoyment in feeling big in an even bigger world.

But, even so, that was no monster, and perhaps such was the case not because of who he was, but because Rapha wasn't scared of him. That creature was no armed soldier, no drone, no rocket. That wasn't the family that should have meant safety when it didn't. That wasn't the system that should have bore witness to suffering when it instead chose to turn a blind eye and let a child play the part of the protector. Instead, that was just a man, and for whatever he had done in his life, for whoever he had hurt, Rapha couldn't find it in her neither to fear him nor to hate him. Instead, there was only understanding, only the calm awareness that nobody would make themselves an enemy of her beyond what she had to do to keep her new friend safe. So, as he began squaring up, she spoke, lifting her voice to the loud and clear tone of strength built and discovered through necessity:

"We have no quarrel with you. We did not volunteer for this. Let us go."

To that, though, the man only smiled, pulling from his back a circular, hollow ring that Rapha assumed to be that disk the masses had chanted over. Lighting up in his hands in the same pitch black tone of his suit, the weapon hummed to life in whirring noise reminiscent of a lazer. He was frightfully tall and muscular in a way that would have indicated some form of medical procedure on her home world, with blistering purple veins passing through the parts of his skin that were visible. Beneath a helmet that covered most of his head and some of his forehead, the man's bright blonde hair fell around his unnaturally glowing eyes, a split lip shining in bright blue glass that indicated a recent injury. To her left, she heard what she assumed was Huck drawing his own disk, its pearlescent shine faintly visible in her peripheral vision. Still, she refused to budge, feet firmly planting her lean frame on the ground, her sharp, hawkish features only making her look more like the lioness that had guided her soul all her life.

"Drop this weapon. We don't seek any trouble with you." She repeated, voice loud and firm, though the low growl that at once knows and abhors violence had already begun peeking through the shell of woman, that shell that she wore to make her clawed hands gentle, to make herself look small, to make herself look harmless.

"Well in my experience, trouble finds you. You mutts would already get cleared off the streets and thrown into the abyss one way or another, might as well die by honorable hands and serve for something in your short miserable lives" the man replied in a voice that growled human while accompanied by a high pitched animalistic wheezing like a choir of dying bells made of flesh, unnatural and supernatural in sound all at once. Planting himself onto the ground in a way similar to a surfer, his stance indicated that he would attack soon. Without thinking, the woman moved in front of Huck, positioned herself, legs firm, body somewhat to the side, arms drawn up defensively. From this, she held out her left hand to bring up the disk from her own back, the thing clicking away from her suit with an ease that made it seem like it had read her mind and detached from its grasping hooks all on its own. Barely giving her the time to take a deep breath and focus her mind on the fight ahead, though, the man threw his disk as if it were a frisbee in their direction, its humming sound wheezing like a bee as the girl deflected on instinct. From this movement, it flew into a far wall, ricocheting and returning in their line of harm, though this time far enough that the attacked were able to dive out of its way. Yet, as if the whole thing had been planned, the thing managed to fly right into the attacker's hand as he caught it effortlessly, already preparing for another attack while also running closer to the duo.

This time, though, Huck was quicker, throwing his disk with an accuracy that made it look easy, sending it flying by the side of the man's thigh, cutting through glass flesh. Huh, nice one, especially coming from one who didn't believe they had a chance at survival. Keeping in mind that long-range would be covered by her friend, Rapha focused on parrying the fighter's disk throws away from the both of them as he approached, the other two throws by Huck narrowly avoiding scraping him again. By the time he was near enough, the girl attacked, quicker than the fighter due to her size, which she hoped could make up for her lack of knowledge in fighting with disks, using her weapon to deflect a blow to her shoulder as she hit the man in the neck as hard as she could.

Thankfully, despite bleeding glass, programs had what resembled skin and muscle, so the man fell a few steps back, breathing through a pained growl. With another shot from Huck slicing through the side of his upper arm, Rapha used the opening to switch the disk to her right hand, feigning an attack with the best of her ignorant ability at the object. While the man was then busy easily parrying it, she repositioned her legs and kicked his lower belly with her knee, for once thankful for all those years of fighting classes and for the flexibility of a lifetime climbing up trees and rocky mountains that didn't make her tear the tendons of her upper thighs even as they cried in piercing pain from the strain. As the man bent down from the impact, then, the girl pulled at the hair on his forehead with her body weight, sending him in a wobbly path to the side as Huck's disk cut deep into his arm, making the attacker's weapon fly off towards the back of the container arena. As he managed to break free from her grasp and turn defensively to the duo, fear shot through his eyes, he was without much defense and the fear of death sang its low song to the man as clear as dawn. At that sight, quickly easing her stance, once again Rapha spoke:

"You've lost. You will not be in danger from our hands. Be at peace."

Yet, as a frown began spreading through the man's face as if confused by her reaction, a quick blaring siren beeped once before gravity suddenly inverted itself and the three people fell upwards into the ceiling which now became the floor. Resisting the urge to throw up her empty stomach right into that cold transparent glass, Rapha got on her feet with a spinning head and a piercing headache from the motion sickness which was however eased by the adrenaline of the attacker jumping at Huck. From what she could see, her friend seemed to have been knocked unconscious, his leg further damaged though she could still see his breathing to prove that he was alive. In such a state, he offered no resistence as the fighter arched what would have been a blow to his chest if Rapha hadn't been faster with her own blade. Before she could even think, the woman's disk, which had been aimed simply to cut through skin, muscle and tendons, pierced through the man's arm, severing it shortly above the elbow.

With shock and pain transforming the fighter into a howling beast, his agony was turned to rage as his other hand punched her hard enough on the stomach that she dropped her disk, after which the man quickly held her by neck far above the ground with a firm grip that made her vision blur and tore air from her lungs as if through knifepoint. For a moment, she thought she was going to die, with one hand trying in vain to claw at his eyes or the soft tissues in his face even though he was big enough that she couldn't reach him while the other tried to pry open his fingers through her clawed bloodied nails.

This wasn't a monster, he was just a man. She hadn't wanted to fight him then, nor did she want to now. She hadn't hated him then, nor did she hate him now. Her life wasn't more important than his, but it was hers, and it was her right to try her best to survive, even though this reasoning only went as far as she didn't have to sacrifice herself for others, because when that was the case, she always became sacrifice without even thinking, as it was a gift that she could give without ever expecting recompense, simply because she could, simply because people deserved this. But now? Could she truly claim that she had it in her to kill another to save herself? Not really. But to fight someone because this was the right thing to do? That she could do. She could curse his soul and tear his flesh apart because right now he was a threat to every mutated program thrown into this arena, programs who were innocent at least in this moment, and whom she could help at least now. Despite her dove feathers' cloak, Rapha was still the daughter of the lion, and she was just.

So, holding onto his arm to try to spare her neck from breaking, the girl used all her strength to prop her feet up, curling into herself and kicking at his neck and face such that the man lost his balance and fell forward, increasing the pressure on her neck. As consciousness went to the verge of giving way, though, Rapha found herself close enough that she did what she did best and bit the man's neck near where it joins with the shoulder, tearing away skin which became bright blue glass upon disconnecting from the body. Yet, still he didn't let go of her, his weight falling further until the huge man was like a boulder pinning her to the ground and crushing her exhausted limbs. So, finally out of options, she bit again, this time right at the center of the throat, the force making her jaw hurt but still not stopping her from tearing skin from skin in glimmering blue shine. As if the fighter had been made of sand, his form melted onto the floor, the pieces of what used to be a man growing ever smaller until they disappeared and there was no trace left of him.

Dead.

By her hands.

Under the starless abyss.

Rapha didn't know when she started sobbing, the pain and  gut-wrenching grief over this stranger that had almost been the cause of her demise swirling around her like endless black waters that drowned the sounds of carnage from the other arenas all around her and dimmed the lights from the partying audience above. After a few moments, though, although time seemed endless enough that she could almost have thought that this horror was all that she had ever known, warm hands grasped gently at her shoulders, nudging her up with as much care and urgency. Holding himself up on one foot near the wall, Huck all but dragged Rapha to stand by him, voice speaking in a soothing tone words that she couldn't understand. Maybe he had hugged her despite his trembling limbs, or maybe she had been the one to hug him, desperate for the embrace of a parent in a world without sun or moon that she knew of.She had killed a man, and yet instead of being overtaken by guilt or anger it as the cold web of sadness that strung her like a heavy net had been cast over her, a deep grief for a life that maybe one day had been someone's son. Yet, eventually her friend's voice grew more urgent and frightened, until his shaking hands held onto her shoulders with so much strength that the pain was enough to force her to focus on his terrified face.

"L-listen to me." He muttered, brave despite the fear, compassionate despite being a stranger, honorable in his own way and caring through all that had happened to them so far: ""You have s-saved o-our lives. Okay? You have s-saved my life. Now we must g-get ready, or we will die". In his white eyes was the gratitude that understands that it can never openly voice his thanks for what was done, as her actions had brought upon someone's doom, and one cannot thank another for such suffering lest they make a mockery of carnage. Yet, this kind of gratitude is also the kind that brings allegiance stronger than steel, and in his respect and admiration for the younger girl's bravery and sensibility, Huck found courage of his own the same way that an orchid blooms when it finds a solid root which can help it hold itself up away from the flooding darkness of the forest floor.

The dark currents of despair still spun around her like merciless phantoms, but the understanding that the work wasn't yet done re-awakened Rapha's lizard brain enough that she understood that the containers of this reed-like spiraling edifice were slowly being brought down, merging with the floor and delivering the survivors back into the main arena in orderly and geometrical bubbles of glass. At the start, there had been around 50 mutated programs in the arena, and what must have been between 15 and 20 fighters. With some professionals fighting 1 or 2 while others fought more than 5, most volunteers had survived and were now juxtaposed with about half a dozen captives such that the main arena held no more than 15 people in total, Huck and Rapha included. With grief renewing its grip upon her heart and painting her face with fresh sobbing tears, the copper-eyed girl held onto Huck's arm that he held himself up as their container dissolved into the floor as if made of nanoparticles.

She could hear that those same influential leaders were speaking over the synth music again, but she didn't care. Rapha was drowning in dry land and everything was being submerged under the pain of her heart. Her hands had caused pain and suffering, she had brought upon death. She had killed a man. She had killed a man. She had- her spiraling panic was halted by a gentle hand patting the top of her head as if she were a child, though she felt entirely unworthy of such gentleness in that moment. Looking up, Huck's eyes were understanding and gentle the way she imagined a father's must be, though they carried so much grief in them that it was as if he were offering to share the burden of pain such that she wouldn't have to hold it by herself. She had killed a man, but she had done so to save her friend and herself, as well as to help those other mutated programs that were still in as much danger as they were.

She knew that there would be no end to this grief, at least none in sight. But for now, she owed to her gentle friend that she did her best to protect him, as after all, this was a gift that she could give without ever expecting anything in return, a gift that she could give him because she could and he deserved it. With a deep breath, she turned to the now gathering group as armed soldiers began walking into the arena to arrange everyone into orderly lines. From afar, it was difficult to see what they were doing, though they seemed to be giving cylinders to the people one by one.

"What are these?" She croaked as best as she could, her voice scraped raw from the battle and from the crying that followed.

"Lightcycle race." The man replied with a concerned voice, though he seemed less mortified than he had been previously.

"After a slaughter we're just going to... race?" She asked, and offense must have peaked through her pained voice because he turned to her with a grim chuckle:

"What? Oh, haha, no. These... are dangerous. More dangerous than the disks, haha. Though, I might give us a bit more of a chance in a vehicle than on foot." Though his words were as light as they could be in the situation, they set on her stomach like stones, cold dread gripping her and lighting her brain with adrenaline such that when she spoke again her voice was barely a whisper:

"Vehicle? Huck, I can't drive." Seeing as his eyes grew as small as distant dots in the churned ocean of milk, the revelation must have washed cold dread over him as well, though the discussion was cut short by the approaching guards as they all but tossed the batons into their hands. Then, as they turned to exit, the ones who had first received the items begun turning to short runs before, with a jump, the cylinders in their hands expanded into light that manifested form into shape and shape into color and color into luminous motorcycles that cast behind themselves a shimmering watery trail. Despite all the darkness and the hurt, some part of Rapha's heart found it in her to be amazed at the vehicles' beauty, their armored designs as they crossed the desolate plains of black glass like falling stars, luminous and regal, as proud as wild horses, celestial machines that were beyond all that she knew to expect from humanity. For all its violence, this could be so deeply wonderful that it was painful in its nature. As the lines of people jumped forward and started their journeys, though, the girl turned to Huck:

"Go without me. I'll be okay." Though she wasn't sure where she took the strength to sound so resolute, she was grateful that her voice hadn't failed her and that she had a chance to help her friend even if by stopping him from staying behind because of her inadequacy. For a second, the older man stood frozen in what looked to be hesitation, and never in her life would she blame him for it. Yet, as she was about to turn her back to help his hand, he spoke:

"No. We help each other. Come with me!" Before she could argue, he clicked on his cylinder, from which a black lightcycle with pearly white light materialized as if born from light. As he hadn't been running, it stood still, but he quickly mounted it, pulling at her arm before she could argue so she would follow suit. As he turned on the machine, the man handed her his disk, and with one last look behind his shoulder as the engine picked up speed, he spoke:

"J-just keep our enemies away from us." At that, her mind went to chariot races, a notion that was quickly proven accurate as she saw far ahead the other vehicles entering a translucid black underground maze which twisted and turned, multiple floors Intertwined such that constant ramps kept people in constant ascension and descend as their brilliant lightcycles traversed the smooth-floored terrain. As her friend crossed through obstacles and twisting roads underground and traversed the even plain of the surface, it seemed that this game functioned in that the armored motorcycles created a trail of light that didn't dissipate, but instead became a solid forcefield which exploded programs on impact whenever their vehicles crashed against them. Therefore, in the world's most dangerous game of snake, the goal was to avoid crashing into a light trail while also moving constantly to create barriers that stopped free movement from the other combatants.

Brutal. But seemed simple enough, a fact assisted by that it seemed that the mutated programs weren't even actively trying to go after one another, many just keeping to their trails in order to survive. The volunteers, on the other hand, were hunting down the mutated and each other, teeming up whenever there were mutated programs nearby, and then turning to treachery once their sacrifices were eliminated. Thankfully to Rapha, so far Huck's expert driving and knowledge of these winding underground roads had kept them from being cornered into crashing against a light trail. Nevertheless, such ease didn't last long, as soon a bright pink lightcycle began gaining on them, seemingly to try and attack the driver with a disk instead of with the vehicle itself. Against that, however, Rapha was ready, and with practiced balance she hooked her knees onto the machine such that she could extend herself forward without fear, deflecting a blow aimed at Huck and cutting a deep gash at the driver's hand that made them retreat lest them lose balance of their motorcycle. After that, a few more approached, some individuals apparently having fallen from their vehicles and now sharing with allies, which reassured Rapha that she and Huck wouldn't be punished for their scheme. Throughout the game, the duo would try to team up with other lightcycles, to offer assistance or just proof of lack of aggresion. Nevertheless, whenever they tried getting near the others, they must have made themselves obvious targets, as the figuters would turn to their direction and give chase that they would only narrowly survive.

From this, as time went on and the number of participants dwindled until there were only five vehicles left, all holding two people, the walls of the arena began to move Inwards while tilting diagonally, those huge black mountains now more reminiscent of racing tracks. Directing their lightcycle in their direction and turning off the deadly light trail, drivers turned their attention towards destabilizing other vehicles while running through that track and avoiding losing balance themselves, which also added the pressure for her to fend off attackers who tried to resolve the race with the strength of their disks. It was a demanding activity, and how Rapha had escaped cuts so far was beyond her, though she thanked the mercy of the hidden stars for that feat. Yet, with a bright explosion of neon green, deep Indigo and shocking pink right ahead in the road, only her and Huck's vehicle and a cyan one remained, this one quickly turning to chasing them through the open plains as they went back down to avoid the incandescent glass debris.

Catching up as if it had been as easy as Breath, though, their pursuer's backseat fighter held two disks which were put to quick use as they arched a blow towards Rapha which she partially parried, though managed only to make it so they hit her horizontally instead of through the blades. Because of this, the incandescent metal's heat burned through the skin of her left biceps though thankfully the lazer's power was not powerful enough to cut through the suit. Regardless, that would have easily been enough to make her pass out had it not been for the continuous influx of adrenaline that had been forced into her veins all evening, such that all it accomplished was to make her dizzy for a few moments as she send a grazing blow to the driver's ribs which forced them to slow down the pace for a second, giving momentary respite to her and Huck.

Yet, without other mutated programs to hunt, these fighters quickly regained on their trail, though it seemed that they couldn't bring their lightcycle to outpace theirs such that they could ambush the attacked duo with a wall of shimmering light. Because of this, they resorted to another attempt at attacking short range, the fighter being skilled enough with disks that they could move both weapons in hand easily without fearing to disturb the balance of the driver. Nevertheless, the fates truly must have decided that this wasn't Rapha's or Huck's time to die, as they put courage and alertness into her heart and mind enough that, after parrying a blow aimed at her and deflecting another meant to tear a gash through the side of the machine, the fighter risked an attack at Huck, which was evaded as Rapha threw her own disk against the attacker's, both tumbling forward such that they tore through the frontal wheel of the Cyan vehicle and send it tumbling with great speed against the floor, spinning upon itself a few times before exploding with a brilliance the color of aquamarine.

As Huck carried on the trek for a few more hundred meters before slowly making it come to a gentle halt, Rapha was only half-alive. She had saved her friend from another game. She had saved herself. She had fought against those who were trying to harm innocents. Yet, besides her friend, those innocents were now all dead, and by her hands three people had fallen. At some point while her eyes were blurred with tears and the colorful and loud celebration of the masses fell to deaf ears behind her sobs, Huck had turned the lightcycle back into a cylinder and handed it to guards, her eyes finally lifting to the panels only to find her own form, recorded live by nearby drones which she hadn't even noticed approach, staring right back at her with huge, wild eyes. Clad in night-black darkness, with a long mess of a disheveled hair that had long escaped the braid and been badly cut in some places, and with a face so marked by the path of tears that they might as well have carved canyons through her olive skin, the copper-eyed girl looked every bit the Lioness she had admired all her life, yet there was no sweetness to be tasted in this recognition.

With an oval face without prominent cheekbones and with a small chin crowned by a prominent underbite, big and abrupt lips, big beeklike curved nose, huge almond eyes the color of brown copper and round eyebrows, she had been born in the likeness of the faces sculpted in the old archeological sites of the homes of her ancestors, of her blood, of her soul. She had a face made of desert and harshness, of just, kindness-loving protection and compassion but also of the bloodthirsty Lioness sister of the sun who kept her loyalties safe but brought doom to the battlefield. The woman in those panels looked terrifying, or maybe that was just that the girl looking up at them from her spot at that desolate arena was utterly terrified of that terrible sight.

In her life, which although not long, had been filled with bitter suffering, Rapha had met many monsters. From these meetings, she came to learn that, devoid of the capacity for hatred as she had been ascribed by fate and sculpted by form and written by the tablets of the law to be, whether someone was a monster in her eyes told her more whether she was afraid of that person or if she was able to see them for the frail and intricate, gods-loved, brilliant creatures of form, magic, spirit, and altar that they could be. Right now, though, as the guards pulled her and her friend forward without resistance into a dark corridor, she risked a last glimpse into her image projected upon those great and distant panels. In those, her recorded image showed blue glass powder still staining her mouth the way dried blood might otherwise have marked a wild beast. In such a distant world, she seemed even less human than those creatures who turned into formless glass dust after passing, less civilized than the cultures that had instilled these brutal games as entertainment, and as darkness blocked her eyes from the sight of herself, the remembered image that burned through her eyelids was recalled by her as the scariest monster of all.

Chapter Text

Once, in a commune in the desert, Rapha had seen something beautiful. High up on the cliffs there were two gentle trees that provided shade against the drop of a canyon of desolate sand that stood behind the reach of their roots. The vastness beyond crowned the view of the twisted dry plants as if the dry sands were an ancient altar upon which to set the noble trees. Between their gentle shade, surrounded by what grass could grow in that peculiar pocket of abundance, stood a beautiful ewe, her coat light brown and her eyes knowing, her horns twisting as they do with all of her kind.

By her side, a kind lamb, gentle and curious, keeping to his mother's side even as a bright-eyed wonder told him to explore the plateau that must have been all that he had ever known. In their middle, cleaned from impurity by the ever-shinning sun, there was a small tigereye crystal. It must have fallen from someone's jewelry, or been carried by merchants only to be silently lost from their hands and never be sold for any form of gold, bronze, nor silver.

In the known quiet of solitude, the copper-eyed girl took the sun-warmed stone in her hands with reverence, keeping it in her home's altar ever since. Now, as her steps echoed across that darkened hallway, physical exertion mixing with hunger and visceral grief, she thought that maybe this memory flooded her mind's eye as a way to protect her, to shine the light of the sun into her heart and keep her forward toward the endless river. What she didn't yet know, though, was that she was a fool, and that the memory had been so she would not be startled as future greeted her.

Headless to the sign as she was from exhaustion, though, the girl thought with a semblance of comfort about how with the remembered crystal came the warmth of the desert sun, the dry grittiness of sand that kept her fingers soft as fine dust covered them in beige, of the gentle water of oasis that were never fully translucent but always some shade of transparent green, and every little bit of home that she had gathered through her senses to hold in her cold arms even while being in a stranger's land.

The same way as before the arena, Rapha was separated from Huck, though now all she could offer was a worried glance and a "I'll find you!" That scraped through her throat with barely any intelligibility, and as she faced the puppet-women from before, exhaustion made her docile as they hovered their hands over her as if they were one being with many arms, never touching, but guiding some form of technology to mend her suit and clean her skin. When their strange light magic passed over her burnt arm, the pain was enough to awaken her somewhat from her stupor while at the same time making her legs threaten to give under her weight which seemed as heavy as the winter floods that carved small ravines in the desolate sandy rocks.

Yet, as before, one of the women held her wrists, and looking at these puppets through eyes as heavy as if coated in lead from crying, Rapha wondered how many winners of these games they had received with their impersonal hands, and how much of each person they saw twice remained after the covers of their claws had been removed from their paws against their will.

Once she looked presentable and was once again in the unpleasant company of a guard, Rapha walked through what felt like endless corridors, until finally for a second of bliss the masked soldier stopped, though such was only so that ornate and tall double metal doors could open in front of them, bathing the corridor in a low, petrol-blue light that brought back some rationality to the girl through the memory of the ram-horned balcony. In front of her, a fancy albeit somewhat chaotic gala was taking place, a style that alternated between looking old-fashionedly rich with well-cared for leather couches, vintage lamps, scenic oil paintings and well-weaved Persian rugs, and pimpish, with an excess of flower bouquets of every shape, color and placement, overabundance of old armchairs, cheaply-woven shawls draped around and near surfaces, and a ridiculous amount of bottles of distilled alcohol filling every slightly horizontal surface.

Additionally, the harshness of the colorful neon small-lights under the main petrol blue which seemed to come mostly from hidden lamps in the high ceiling only contributed to the Oceanic aesthetic in that everything looked at once old and lived-in while also reminding Rapha of what can happen when people born to poverty obtain a considerable amount of money. This, crowded by a color scheme that could have been reminiscent of a dark coral reef or those fluorescent paintings of tropical forests, and the place was quickly catalogued as one of people who had not long ago learned what's like to have something to lose and would use their fresh collective vigor to keep their treasure at any cost.

Such a notion wasn't dispersed by the people at the party, as an abundance of metal armor mixed with feathers and overly textured fabrics in a mimicry of refinement that emulated some aspects of earth's Victorian period with an abundance of corsets, flowy skirts and ornamented suits, while also looking more reminiscent of modern interpretations of those, with oddly placed monocles, entirely too many belts over every visible limb, impossibly high platform heels and very modern pants and undershirts.

From that, the rest of the appearance of the guests seemed to follow more chem-punk or steampunk trends in materials and silhouettes, though the face-painting and the masks were something that she had only seen in the grid. With some surprise, the girl was also able to notice that many of the individuals there had prosthetic limbs, though these seemed to move with the same precision of a body of flesh, which would indicate a better technology for this type of medical assistance.

Connecting two dots, the girl understood that these VIP people must have been amongst the wealthiest and most influential ones of their group, which was probably that Zaun place, though this meant they came from a part of this world that was considered as an undercity by those people from the orange bubble. This could suggest that, for all their power, they were still under some form of oppression, and given the prominence of prosthetic limbs here and what she understood as a low survival rate of the games and high lethality of any injuries gained from these, she wouldn't bet that these were fighters but instead people who had climbed up in life from a society in which injury was common and devastating, while access to treatment and accessibility services were possible and fascinatingly advanced while also being rare enough that they were flaunted as symbols of status and economic power.

If the girl had been left to her peace, she might have managed to squeeze her brain into philosopher mode and found respite in observing this strange new world so full of clues about its intricacies. Nevertheless, it seemed that the long-suffering woman wasn't even allowed to bear her pain and exhaustion in silence, as she wasn't given more than a few moments after the guard had left her planted there somewhat near the entrance when a few of the guests begun reaching her side, gushing excitedly about her performance as if this had been a simple concert and she was one of the members of the background Orchestra but happened to shine particularly bright in a noticeable way only through sheer luck and circumstance.

As they talked, the colorful and shiny drinks in their hands sloshed around, sticky sugary alcohol hitting the ground in what she was sure would be a bitch to clean from that otherwise polished dark glass, and she must have been really exhausted if that's what she focused on and not the terrifyingly apathetic faces that addressed her as if they hadn't just enjoyed a massacre as their evening's entertainment, the heart of which was herself.

"Give her space to breathe, will you?" Said a low voice that she had learned to associate with the hawk man, the leader of these ocean-themed people. Despite the exhaustion and the extent of her wounds, seeing the man near her put her once again into flight or fight mode, as Rapha would have preferred to speak to literally anyone else in this ridiculous party. With a polite gesture of tipping his glass to her direction, the man approached her with the calculated mask of a mischievous politician, the memory of the crafty God of the Abyss coming to her mind both as a way to keep her sane in their familiarity and to warn her to stay out of his way and mind her words.

Nevertheless, despite how much she tried to help him to disappear from the front of her, the older man just kept talking: "You did well today, I don't remember the last time a mutt won the games, even if you did have help." Caution further driving back the fog that had just now so thickly clouded her mind with phantoms of grief and pain, she wasn't sure if she should reply or not, if she should show that she knew him or not, nor if she should appear docile or not. So, she settled for speaking as little as possible without her conciseness turning into blatant rudeness:

"Thank you, chem-baron." She spoke with a calm tone. Shit, was that too agreeable?

"No need to look so concerned, come, sit with us as I am sure that we would all be honored to hear about how you won over Zaunites and people of Piltover alike." He spoke words that implied threat, yet they didn't carry immediacy, which was a relief. Without prompting, Rapha had found herself in a far more dangerous game than the Arena, though she promised herself at least that if it came to once again bringing pain for the sake of entertaining ram people, this time she would try her chances with gravity and save herself the headache.

Nodding with what she hoped showcased a polite amount of compliance, the girl followed the chem-baron over to a somewhat secluded yet not separated table near a higher part of the huge room, climbing a few intricately carved wooden stairs that reminded her of the titanic as stupidly translucent and colorfully saturated fabrics hung from the ceiling (she could smell cheap fabric from afar and those things wouldn't even endure a common wash). With some grim humor, the girl almost chuckled at her sudden beef with the decor as if she hadn't grown in scarcity herself, but her pride reminded her that even when she had little she had good taste, plus it was easier to have fabrics as enemies than people, and her mind was truly grasping at straws to keep her afloat here.

Arriving at the table, it was as if goth wonderland had been promoted to punk wonderland, and the entire ensemble of the mad tea party had gotten together to celebrate everyone's un-birthday over colorful distilled alcohol and an intense abundance of sickly sweet cigars. Taking the seat they offered her, secluded enough that she didn't even hope to mingle, but inlaid enough that she was cornered and devoid of hope for escape, she alternated between discretely looking around for any way with which she could defend herself should need arose and looking around the decor for any form of distraction.

By her left was a bulky old man with withered proportions and skin, a black old mafia style suit, a hat, and metallic protrusion over his eye-sockets which she wasn't sure served as glasses or were prosthetic eyes. By her right, sat a woman with leathery clothes and bleached hair that had been chaotically dyed at the tips. Before Rapha got near the table, the two had been arguing with each other, and once she sat between them, they continued doing so, talking over her in a way that at once made her feel safer through the lack of acknowledgement and overwhelmed by the bickering noise.

To Rapha's disappointment, it didn't take long for someone to address her, this time a very short and rat-like man with bleached blonde hair parted evenly under a very small top hat, his greyed skin looking saggy specially in contrast with his long protruding teeth as his voice sounded as if he was a very cocky and very old chainsmoker:

"So magpie, won the games did ya? I've been waiting years for someone to actually bare their teeth in those stupid fights! Did good, so ill cut you a deal! How bout you come work for me-" but the odd bunny-man wasn't given a chance to continue talking as someone across from him, a guy with an aggressively bright yellow suit filled with entirely too many metal spikes and an intricately carved metal jaw cut through his speech with his own, delivered with a voice that spoke in short bursts as if he were a car that constantly died and had to be picked up again:

"So she can run about your useless business while getting nothing done? That hardly seems fair, hun? You're not the only one who would benefit from employing a game winner-" yet, he wasn't allowed to finish his train of thought either as a third person, this time a woman with a black and green prosthetic nose that connected to tubes around her face and a cape with so many crow feathers that it almost gave the impression that she could actually do as the goddess in the ancient myths and fly with it, her voice rough from what seemed to have been a lifetime of misery:

"As if either of you screw ups had anything to contribute to the cause! Where are the other game-winners you hired anyhow?"

Yet, before their three sided quarrel could join in with the bickering of the other two and become a full battle, their leader silenced all conversation with words as sharp and precise as the gliding of an armored fish through the ancient depths:

"Our guest from Amberflit alley has already extended such an offer over the girl, to which I have agreed. Now, we should make sure that she feels welcome in this celebration, given that it is, after all, in her honor, instead of arguing in pointless disputes as so often occurs here." Funny, had Rapha not been so exhausted she would have swore the weird fish guy was talking about her in the context of someone from this dreadful VIP party having employed her behind her back. Hilarious. What a weirdo. Maybe she had finally lost her mind if that's what she was hearing. Except that as all eyes of these creepy leaders of this creepy group of this creepy world turned towards her, the atmosphere had shifted completely. There was neither tension nor opportunity, she was past waters, only still sitting here as a formality, not an enemy to be fought against nor a prize to be won, because, guess what? Someone had beat them to it.

Hun?

HUN?????????????

Oh to hell with this, gravity time was NOW.

Yet, as Rapha hurriedly made the mental map of the fastest way to the nearest balcony, a familiar sight caught her peripheral vision, that being of Huck, holding himself up with the help of crutches made of intricately carved silver metal as he slowly came up the stairs of that secluded space. He seemed healthier, calmer, and was wearing a smile bigger than the girl could ever assume him to be capable of producing. With a dreaded hypothesis already beginning to form in her mind, Rapha then turned her eyes to the man accompanying her friend, though perhaps man wasn't the best word for him.

Tall and slim, he wore a dark indigo-ish blue robe which covered most of his body with slivers of an inner red paneling reminding Rapha of cashmere weavings from her home, which made her mad because now that was a fabric about which she couldn't for the life of her find any complaints to voice. Beneath this cape, though what was visible of the man was covered in a well-fitting metal plated armor, a heavy leathery belt draping a short half-skirt around his armor's legs in a way that reminded Rapha of a modern interpretation of a medieval knight, rounded metal boots completing the picture to perfection. Higher up, one of his hands was clad in metal while the other had a leather glove, and the only decorative piece in his body that she could notice was a brass brazen shaped like an inverted teardrop with a general plantlike appearance thought it was also reminiscent of a fish.

Then, there was the matter of the third arm, which rested high between his shoulders like the tail of a scorpion, having one more joint than a human arm and seaming central in its lack of joints directed to one side or to the other. Halfway between a featherless wing and something completely alien, its heaviness made her wonder for a moment if it truly was just a prosthetic or if it was a real arm made of flesh beneath the disguise of armor plating. Where a hand would otherwise have been, a three-digited claw sprung like a perfectly symmetrical pyramid, thumblike fingers surrounding a center which mended metal with shining violet light the color of the night sky over the white desert, and in its middle… was that a six point flower??? Admittedly, this was perfect in ways that Rapha couldn't even begin to comprehend, especially not in her current state of exhaustion. So, she let her eyes continue wondering over that strange metal man.

Above his chest, his cape bunched up around his neck like a scarf in an almost mocking way, making it clear that, whoever this man was, he wouldn't be as easy to win against as the container arena's opponent, should she try to use the previous method. Finally, literally crowning the whole picture, a mask of silver metal which all but literally punched the air out of Rapha's throat with how beautiful it was covered his head, leaving only unruly auburn hair to frame him like a halo, the only human aspect of him. Having been unable to fully take her eyes off the mask, though, it's center was like a four pointed star with another layer of a similar shape overlapped to add depth to the form, though this central design framed two halves of a beautiful metal cast of a face, as if it were the Sirius star blossoming upon the delicate petals of a white lotus, a seed of clay and murky waters opening into perfect and pure transcendance.

Around the height where the wearer's eyes would be, the middle losangue carves a twisting form on itself as if the eye openings was shaped like the Zodiac symbol for Ares, with a losangue inlaid with a cross dipped Inwards about the forehead. Above that, five golden horns emerge like the crown of the Hierophant tarot card, jagged and impossible to surmise like desert stones and just as beautiful as the first rays of the sun. The iron-cast human eyes were closed serenity by the sides of the face, humanity discarded like the leftovers of a seed or the sweet womb of the fruit as its petals frame the nurturing sapling-to-be. As per the rest of his armor, the material reminded Rapha of Damascus steel, its patterns swirling into themselves as if time had frozen the very fountain of life and held still its intricate dance without beginning nor end.

Yet, making all of this beauty but an afterthought were the eye openings of the mask, which didn't show whatever human eyes may be behind the expertly crafted material, but instead held two suns of white gold fire amidst black sclera, the silver metal around it covered in organic gold like crystallized tears. How was that even possible for a mask to have such shining eyes was a knowledge to which Rapha was ignorant, but thankfully her ignorance didn't make her blind to the visceral beauty of that work of art that the man wore like an exoskeleton. Standing out against the garish style of the rest of the party, that armored man carried expertise made into matter, thought made into form, as if he wished to sing praises to the crafty God of the Abyss even when in silence.

As the two men came up the steps and approached the table, Rapha noticed that the metallic man held a cane in his left hand, the construction being very similar to the crutches that Huck now wore. Leaning slightly on it such that his posture and gait were somewhat uneven, the memory of the blue-bird Shepard god as he escapes the claws of the seven demons at the cost of a broken wing comes to Rapha's mind, though the fact that she thought about THAT myth was alarming enough that she forced herself to look at her friend and brave a smile, trying to focus on that they were both still alive in a pitiful and clearly fruitless attempt to ignore whom she had earnestly, freely, and unimpededly just compared this man to.

"Am I interrupting?"

The stranger's voice rang over through the table, softer than she would have expected and with a cadence that was only partially familiar to her, through her memory of the voices of eastern European migrants. Somewhat distorted by a metallic tone, still it sounded disarmingly gentle even in the context of irony as it was presented to these people who Rapha was assuming were the chem-barons.

As the man came to a halt before the Table, he held both hands over the pommel of his cane, the image more reminiscent of a knight with a sword planted on the earth that he conquered than anything else. This man had a nonchalant levity that shouldn't have been possible for someone clad in steel to possess, an air of intelligent presence making itself known even as he hid his face behind a mask, and an effortless display of power in his stance that painted a clear image which even the blind could see: In a big pond of big fish with teeth sharpened by money and informal social power, this fish had crafted his teeth from scrapped metal at the bottom of the ocean and made them sharper and more potent than any bone.

From the way that his very first move had been to attempt to close himself off from the table in front of him, though, as regal as that gesture with the cane had been, Rapha guessed that he wasn't aligned with the Barons, at least not fully nor on every subject, his power at once suggesting a self-made place of prestige in their social ranks and the isolation that comes from climbing such ladder by oneself. As far as leaders are concerned, this one was the black sheep of the assembly, such matter being as clear as day. However, now the question was whether this meant that he went against what this room represented and could prove to be a potential ally, or whether it simply marked him as a different but equally as dreadful brand of awful that these chem-barons had so far proven to be.

"Ah, Herald! About time you showed up! We were just about to tell your guest about you!" Silco said with that creepy voice that never seemed to lift in volume, the same way a snake never lifts above the tall grass which it uses as camouflage. Although his voice was uncomfortable, Silco's greeting confirmed both Huck's smile and Rapha's dread, showing that this was indeed that famed Herald dude. Wise as always, Rapha, mentally praising some guerrilla leader's shiny armor, base crow that you can be, ignoring politics for the sake of shiny trinkets. That's how you get yourself killed in horrible ways, you weirdo! And to think your first instinct was to equate this metal guy with the very Son of the Abyss...

"Thank you, Silco, but I am afraid that I currently run on a tight schedule." This Herald man's polite dismissal was lacking in sharpness in the way that an adult need not show brashness when they talk to a child, but can keep their tone gentle despite any tantrums that may be thrown, as they are aware that there is no danger at all. Rapha had never seen softness serving as a display of power before, but this only convinced her that the reason for such scarcity was that she hadn't ever even seen true power before. With growing yet already overwhelming concern, the thought came to her that she would be wiser to try her survival changes with the chem-barons... Yet, taking her out of her seemingly endless thinking, the masks' white gold eyes turned to her the same way that the sun first shines upon the poor cave-born prisoner when he first escapes the chained confines of the Underworld and rises to the surface realm.

"Miss, if you would be so kind as to follow. Goodnight, barons." The words of the sentence were arranged so that the words uttered should have been a question. Yet, as if shifting the weight of cogs in a machine to reveal the outcome guided form, soul, altar and fate of what man knew not, nothing in the man's tone had even suggested any possibility for refusal nor any need for any response but acknowledgement of witness. Already turning on his heels to begin his slow descend down the carved wooden stairs, the Herald paid no further mind to anyone at the table, though Huck remained turned to Rapha, the purest and most elated smile she had ever seen on his face as he nudged his head for her to follow. Great. As if the Herald needed any more reasons to be scary, he had been the cause for frightened Huck to now stand before every Chem baron and cower at none of them, instead simply waving at a friend with the simple joy of knowing that she will be joining wherever this Herald is going to.

This was a bad idea, a terrible idea, a dangerous idea. Yet, as she stood now, Rapha had no choice. Plus, exhausted and long-suffering as she may be, she wasn't about to leave Huck alone by trading his company for that of the balconies that extended throughout the right side of that long great room like doorways to the abyss. So, with polite brittleness reserved for people who have sufficient excuses to be rudely exiting an event and must therefore act as to remind everyone of such (valid) excuse, Rapha made her way to Huck's side, walking slightly behind the Herald (and his billowing cloak of infuriatingly nice fabric) as, together as a group, they turned towards the tall exit doors that framed the boundaries of that strange party.

Chapter Text

Amidst the ruthless waves of the jagged stony beach, the mist had rolled in like a veil that belonged neither to day nor night, cloaking the world with something that existed in between the realms of the gods, a path of a thousand veins and a thousand rivers, all who eventually returned to their center, the sun. Holding onto this memory of that chilly shore, Rapha wished that she could have claimed to have seen anything in the walk out of the arena. Nevertheless, between the exhaustion, the hunger, the pain in her arm, and small semblance of safety in getting out of that place with a new friend and a guide who wasn't a soldier, it felt more as if she had been carried by those weightless, freezing clouds as they swept through the dark stone than like she had walked through those endless corridors on her two feet.

Somewhere on the back of her head, the girl knew to be walking down into the deeper underground entrails of that horrible building, and she noticed when a corridor opened into a small, circular, and secluded terrace roughly the size of a helipad with a floor of slightly uneven hexagonal cobblestones. Around it, the walls were lowered at an angle that framed the clearing against the starless sky and provided a view of the desolate mountains, the dark desert on one side, the blindingly bright city on the other. Sitting in the middle of the chamber like a decorative centerpiece, a sleek car-like land machine had been parked, a sight that bordered on normal to such an extent that it would have made Rapha chuckle through her exhaustion were it not for the shimmering baby blue lights that adorned its otherwise black frame and lent it that ethereal beauty that seemed to be shared by every damm-blessed machine of this grid.

Through her exhaustion, the small part of Rapha that still had some fight left in her was weary of getting into an enclosed space with these people, although Huck had earned enough of her trust that she could bring herself to almost relax. Nevertheless, the doors quickly opened up, sleek metal pointing upwards like those fancy cars of metal cities built over rich deserts in a form that was entirely too reminiscent of a beautiful metal butterfly. Even more precious treasure, though, were the soft leather cushions inside, looking so comfortable that the lioness was appeased into a sleepy cat and all rationality flew off her brain in great strides as she lowered herself onto the nearest backseat, curling up such that her injured arm didn't touch anything, but too exhausted to bring her legs up against her chest despite the familiar urge to make herself into a ball.

She must have fallen asleep immediately, because when she woke up, there was no terrace, desert, nor belligerent city in sight. Instead, she was inside of a darkened room bathed in the diffused luminescence that she had come to associate with being underground in the grid, though evenly spaced ceiling lights marked the space in long white lines like chalky glowing rivers. Having no idea how much time had passed, the first thing she noticed was the pain as Huck had gently grasped her injured arm to nudge her awake, though the surprised guilt in his eyes when he noticed her discomfort was enough to make her heavy with enough guilt that she would have preferred to have gone back to sleep. Smiling at her friend with as much serenity she could muster to force into her expression, though, she hoped to convey that it was alright and that she was grateful that he woke her up. With relief, she was glad to see him retribute the gesture, though the girl was saddened that concern for her swirled in his snake-white eyes and clouded his smile.

As if to worsen the pathetic display of her weakened state, even getting up proved difficult, as the nausea of extended hunger washed over her in unwelcome familiarity, the dryness of her throat reminding her that surviving the games wouldn't do her much good if she didn't tend to her body soon. Lifting a hand to reassure Huck that she was okay when he moved to help her detach herself from the side of the car to which she was now half-leaning onto, she instead helped him disembark with his crutches, holding them out to him and pulling him up. From the corner of her eye, Rapha could see the Herald as he led the way through that place, but she was too exhausted to think beyond automatic tasks, her curious and wondering mind temporarily appeased by the numbness of overexertion.

Because of such, while looking mostly to the floor to stop her steps from tripping over nothing and making her resting place exactly where she fell facefirst onto, the girl passed by what she was sure was a lovely house, but which now might as well have been shrouded in a thick fog from how little she noticed or remembered its design. With time and space blurring around her and a trembling taking hold of her skin and tingling her fingertips as if she were in the middle of a torrential storm, everything hurt and there was no comfort of memories of impersonal, eternal nature to come and bring gritty sweetness to her lips and ease her mind.

At some point, she knew that she had been sitting down on some couch or chair, and that someone had put some weird glowing blue drink in her hands. Cautious wild beast that she was, she must have hesitated in drinking it, but a clothed hand had been placed on her unharmed shoulder, gentle warmth grounding despite the alerts of unknown presence, and words had been said, although she heard none of them. She must have drank the thing, though, because she remembered a sweet albeit artificial taste, pleasant in a weird way like sweetener syrup on water or some faint lightly herbal tea. Feeling her entrails slowly warm up from the beverage and growing less conscious by the second, eventually some solid food also found its way to her hands, but through the exhaustion she barely registered that she had been given human food, an apple, then some bread with something savory which she could only vaguely hope wasn't meat.

After that, though, she couldn't for the life of her remember anything else. Maybe she had walked somewhere to a plush bed or a fluffy couch, or maybe she had only dreamed of more walking after so much of the activity in this shimmeringly beautiful yet desolately dark hell. Going in and out of dizzying dreams, she felt like a snake coiled around herself, going round and round and round and round without beginning nor end. Time itself became a flowing river that graced her sight with visions of shining flowing vines as they filled the air around her denser than any tropical forest and more peaceful than any desert. Perhaps that's what snow felt like, intricately carved, harsh form so wonderful yet so fragile, so cold to the touch yet so present that it gave a kindness that the harsh sands and sickly damp forests could never hope to produce.

Memories floating like ballet rehearsals and the chattering of children in school halls filled with plants of fanlike leaves that protruded from the sky like reeds, Rapha felt far from herself, as if her soul could observe her context from very far away, only tethered through the shivers that tore restful sleep from her nerves and made physical discomfort invade her dreams. Yet, there was comfort in this oblivion, the same comfort that she had ever known when resting under the valley of the white desert, safe and sound as the high plateaus and cliffs rose all around her like the ribs of a giant who held her in his patient heart. This felt like home, and as the sensation of realizing this seeped through her veins, restless sleep finally placed her in its gentle wings, carrying the sleeping lady of the stringed maze to the shore as the boat sailed away in the silent cover of night.

Who would she find by her side upon waking up?

For a while, all she found was silence and the enveloping comfort of soft blankets, and that was very good.

Then, there were words. Someone was talking to her. But through the fog of sleep she couldn't even hope to try to make out their meaning.

More words. How dare this person talk to her right now? Can't they see she's sleeping?

The words continue. Fine. Violence it is. With a growl, the girl got up, the sudden light of the awakened world burning her eyes as she brought her hands up to shield them, a whine escaping her lips at the pain that the action brought to her injured arm and the discomfort upon her spine of having sat up so suddenly. As she got used to the overwhelming white light, though, Rapha heard what sounded too much like a low chuckle. The bastard. That's it, she was killing someone today.

Looking to the side of what she now noticed was a large wooden bed with soft and heavy, intricately patterned grey and black covers, the girl saw the Herald sitting down by the side of the bed, masked face looking at her with ethereally patient white gold eyes while his gloved hand held out a glass of what looked to be the same glowing blue liquid that she remembered from before. Oh fuck. Scrap sleepy grumpiness, waking up in a strange bed with an unknown guy by her side was sufficient AND necessary cause for full blown panic. Getting up as quickly as she could towards the wall opposite from him, did she just... hiss? Yikes, perhaps she had finally gone feral after all. At hearing he produce what sounded dangerously like another chuckle, though, she thought herself justified in her anger.

Even so, fear wouldn't help her, so words would have to do. Taking a deep breath, the woman thought about what to say or ask, but upon a quick introspection, she found herself with so many questions about this whole ordeal that she didn't even know where to begin. Who was this Herald guy? Why was he here? Why was she here? Where was here? What was happening? Where was Huck? Was he safe? Was he alive? Was she alive? Whoops, too metaphysical, scrap that one. Noticing her silence, though, the Herald calmly got up, the third arm that had so far been resting over his left shoulder like a perched bird lifting itself with the soft chiming of those delicate metal plates around it, infuriatingly captivating in its beauty for the way it soothed her mind despite the situation she found herself in.

"That is a strange way to say good morning, user, but perhaps it's a custom of your species that I am unaware of. Did you sleep well?" The machine man asked, voice so calm and filled with the undertone of arrogant self-assuredness that it almost didn't sound as if he hadn't just dropped an atomic bomb right into her lap. How could he know what she was? Before she could voice this question, though, the infuriating creature tilted his palm towards her injured arm with the same patient slowness of a gentle preschool teacher instructing a child. Following the direction with her eyes, though, it was then that Rapha noticed that the left arm of her suit had been evenly cut from her shoulder, revealing her olive skin upon which a bandage of pure white cloth had been expertly wrapped around the skin until the joint of the elbow and secured by what looked to be some form of medical tape.

The bandage looked legit, definitely done by someone who knew more about this sort of thing than she did. The pristine curative did nothing, however, to patch the growing panic that started eating at her gut more than the lingering hunger that still made her feel weak and nauseous. Still, despite the fear and the cautiousness, and chastising herself for this urge to be polite that would probably get her killed someday, Rapha felt her anger slowly dissipate against her will, the dangerous force of gratitude at the realization that this man had probably saved her from a death slower and colder than of those of the arenas pushing itself into her heart.

"Thank you." The copper-eyed spoke, gesturing slightly towards the arm, her voice less broken than yesterday but still scraping through her throat with some discomfort.

"Ah, so you can speak. Good, this will make my life easier." The man replied with a voice filled with the lazy cockyness of a proud ram, immediately battering himself right back into the top of Rapha's "bastard" list. Crossing her arms with some difficulty, as if this would by some miracle make her seem more intimidating or shield her from this masked metal man, the hawk face was equipped back on quicker than a falcon descending upon a clueless dove.

"Who are you?" She asked, voice stern even though it was a ridiculous stance from someone who wasn't exactly in a position to demand answers. Well, perhaps he wouldn't notice that.

"I believe that my colleagues have already introduced me to you yesterday, no?" He replied with levity that showed that he did, in fact, notice that.

"Are you a man to hide behind the prestige of rumors half spoken by those around you?" Rapha asked, as, devoid of an upper hand as she was, sleep seemed to have at mercifully restored her wit.

"Eeh, maybe I'd just prefer not to make a chore out of needless matters." He replied, with a dismissive shrug that held no annoyance. Great. Getting called worthless upon waking up wasn't exactly the ideal way to start a morning, but it offered space for her to give her response:

"Wouldn't you call it needless to put up to speed the person for whom you went out of your way to not only hire and transport but also nurture back to health, would you?"

"Ah, so you acknowledge my work for you, I am honored" said the crow-like man, with irony coloring his light tone.

"All I acknowledge is that you made an investment and avoided losing it to the house of dust. Therefore, whatever score you set with yourself you paid your own hand. Leave me out of this scale of yours."

"Would you perhaps have been more grateful to have been left with the chem-barons, or to continue competing in the arena?" He tried, and every alarm in Rapha's head drove her to cut this idea out of him right at the root. Though with a blood boiling and a head spinning from anger, somehow she found the clarity to enunciate her response:

"You have my gratitude the same way every creature in any word who gives me a nurturing hand does. But you will not charge for a favor that I did not request, nor will you play the part of the Fae and force upon me to owe you my trust. I have asked who you are for I don't know what to measure against the chem-barons, yet you refuse to give me anything with which to judge the person that you are. Are you so devoid of any benefit that answering this single question will send me running to try my luck with the arena?"

"You speak like you have a choice." He pointed out, yet there wasn't malice in his words, only a fact.

"And you speak like you want to make an enemy of me before even giving me a chance to see for myself if you are worth the hassle of battle."

At that, again the one with a fox voice chuckled, though it was followed with a sigh, his shoulders seeming to relax a bit under that armor as he straightened:

"You are right, forgive me. I merely tried to spare your time, though it seems that my attempt had the opposite result. I did not mean to anger you. For my work, I am called the machine Herald. I will be happy to show you what I do, but this could prove easier if you would visit my work space and see what I have accomplished." With barely a lift of his hand, he gestured to the door of the room that framed his back, which, thankfully for Rapha's nerves, was being kept wide open, letting soft white light pool gently into the room. For a guy so skinny that he looked slim even beneath metal armor, he sure had the slow assuredness of a bull, which Rapha was as drawn to admire as to fear. Walking around the bed with tentative steps, keeping clear of that stranger though trying not to be rude or blatant about it, Rapha joined the Herald as he neared the door, giving him space to pass through it first, though she didn't trail too far behind.

The room in which the girl had woken up had a modern architecture, with plain, grey-ish white stone walls that made the place look like it had been surgically carved from the inside of a mountain, a high ceiling illuminated by well placed white strips of soft and diffuse white lamps that almost remained her of daylight, and a dull floor that was mostly smooth if not for dark grey hexagonal tiles that had a slight organic softness to their design as their slightly elongated shape caused the pieces to alternate between rows like the placement of muscle cells. There were no windows, though the open doorframe allowed further illumination, and the place had a cool air that reminded Rapha of the air inside of caves that have subterranean springs or rivers, a faint and pleasant smell of humidity being carried without the uncomfortable feel of moisture, the result of which being that the environment seemed fresh, clean, and vast.

Another matter entirely, though, was the furniture. Granted, it somewhat kept to the color scheme of mostly grey, black, and white, though now with the added element of dark wood, of which the bedframe, wardrobe, bedside table, desk, and the desk's chair were made. Decorating these items were beautifully woven and intricately patterned grey fabrics in the roles of bedsheets, floor rug, and of a decorative house shawl that had been draped over the desk chair. From the elegant yet impersonal construction of the entire environment, the place would have looked like a fancy hotel room despite the unnerving sensation brought by the lack of windows. Keeping to this theme, the corridor into which the girl stepped also looked like it had been carved from stone, which upon closer inspection reminded her of smooth granite, with the lights ahead doing such a good job at reminding her of the cool sunlight of early morning that she almost forgot where she was for a moment.

"I meant to tell you, Huck has gone to see his family, but he said that he would visit later to see how you're feeling." The Herald said as they walked, and it was as if stones had been lifted from Rapha's heart, even though they revealed the crushed foliage beneath in the form of remembering all the events from the night prior, the pain that she had received mixing with the pain that she had caused into a dark whirlpool that threatened to pull her under to where no light of moon or stars could ever hope to reach. Forcing her breathing to remain calm, though, the girl knew that in this seemingly safer place she would have time to grieve, but that this was not that time yet.

"That's good, thank you for telling me" was all that she managed to reply, the trembling in her voice showing the focus with which she held back tears. If the Herald noticed her tone, though, he was merciful in not pointing it out, continuing the path in silence. Turning her mind off the dark night of grief like the crumbling of a cave ceiling had shown a glimpse of the sun, the woman looked at the man as he walked in front of her. Despite somewhat blending with the greyness of the environment, the semblance of normalcy brought by the overhead lights' color scheme at once highlighted the beautiful intricacy of the Herald's armor and made him look all the more inhuman, as if by existing in that human-looking space, he brought eternity into the world.

Furthering this notion, alongside his draped cloak, the third arm kept up like a scorpion's tail, it's three talons framing his head from behind like a halo such that his horned head looked like a seven-pointed Chanukia, which is fitting for the Shamesh light of his shimmering eyes. In fact, just like the protector angel of the sixth Sephirot, the man with the eyes of the sun truly looked nothing short of beauty itself, a desert ram in a cold world of night that highlighted the regal warmth of his light. Why did this world have to look so wonderful while also giving Rapha so much grief? Why couldn't hell at least look as terrifying as the violence that it put its people through? Perhaps that way the girl would be able to stop her wandering, curious eyes from reaching toward this place with genuine fascination and awe.

In the short distance covered, Rapha saw a few more rooms, all as impersonal as hers though with the added desolation of being without guests. The place reminded her of an old family house that had once been built to host generations, yet now carried in its halls only memories. Besides some two or three rooms, there was also a door to what looked to be a bathroom, which answered an existential question that she would soon need to address, and a couple of what looked to be hybrid spaces between library rooms and house offices, perfect leather books evenly organized in wooden shelves and desks that didn't seem to host a single grain of dust despite the unnerving silence. Coming down a flight of stairs, the lower floor maintained the imagery of a family home with a large living room, a kitchen, a dining room, and another office, although this one was bigger. Connecting all of these rooms, the continued aesthetic and color scheme made the place at once feel grounded in a continuous narrative and inhuman, the lack of the chaos that comes from living life in a place making itself obvious through its perfection.

The appearance of sterile stagnation was nevertheless quickly abandoned when they entered a hall that seemed to have been added to the house instead of built from its main structure, its short distance opening into the most wonderful workshop Rapha had ever seen. The space was the size of a small warehouse, with a high ceiling covered in cables that dripped from its darkness like gutted entrails, and storage cabinets lined every wall, filled to the brim with metal and glass materials. With rows of long worktables crossing the length of the place, each held intricate machines of swirling metal and juxtaposed metal plating, their craftsmanship and artistry being of an attention to detail and brilliance that she had never seen.

Threading carefully on the floor as it was littered with cogs, wires, bolts, and general metallic junk, the woman noticed that most of the projects atop these tables were prosthetic limbs, each with the delicacy of porcelain dolls and the precision of elegant weapons, the sleekness of the grid's architecture translated into a straightforward and honest attention to detail that however rebelled against a more modern style through the categorical presence of embellishments, each piece of metal having been either carved or bent in twirling, organic, and plantlike patterns.

Cautiously, the woman neared a mostly golden arm with sharp, articulated claws for fingers and an intricate metal reconstruction of muscles and tendons that looked halfway between the chords of ball jointed dolls and the design of the human form. Next to the piece were elegantly carved metal plates that held swirly patterns in the darkened iron, a skin that, once put to use over this elegant prosthetic, wouldn't entirely cover the artistry beneath but elevate it through the abundance of intricate texture. There was so much to see and everything was so beautiful that it was overwhelming, pieces of crystallized human spirit shining and glistering under the cool white lights as if this was a realm that existed beyond the clouds and the storms of time, only being held by the gentle and eternal arms of the sun.

After crossing the length of the warehouse, they passed another corridor, this one opening into what seemed to be a mix between hospital rooms and mechanical repairs shops, which planted an idea that began to grow in Rapha's mind about what this building could be. Further down, a small, purely bureaucratic and entirely messy office, a kitchen, a supply garage, an actual garage, and a waiting room, then a small hall in which the decorations halted to give way to the usual cold glass appearance of most places she had seen so far in the Grid, the tiles being replaced by glass and the sun lamps giving way to white neon. From there, two large double doors of polished metal indicated the boundary of that building which now Rapha saw could have been originally constructed in the image of her city's hospital, being then repurposed by programs into this mechanical-biological medical alternative to its human counterpart.

Having stayed silent throughout most of the unofficial tour, the Herald then turned to the girl, holding both his hands on the pommel of his cane. Now that they stood face to face (well, face to mask), she could see that he was easily a head taller than her, though the mask enhanced that height difference, the arm even more so. Nevertheless, despite not being as tall as her opponent from the container arena, the Herald held a poised stillness, carrying himself as if he had been carved from stone through the slow trickling of an underground river, not molded clay but sculpted rock, powerful in its claim to Eternity and as peaceful as the desert in its existence as the very center of creation. Compared to his Netzach nature, Rapha was all lightning and spirit, the breath of creation and the flaming spark of chaos, the song of the lady lotus that sings about the perfect and still creation made by her lord and father.

The man, a corpse, a doll of 14 pieces lying in the heart of the mountain from which it was carved. The woman, a jihn, a ghost of fire and thrilling life that wasn't essence but essences' witness. After all, only the red-winged nothing can look at the white-handed everything, which in turn is all that nothing can ever look at. Form and Magic, perfection and chaos, the stillness of eternity and the rumbling of life, the one lion that is the Only son of the Abyss and the surrounding infinite rays of color that are not multiple but instead is the lady of the Heavens, herself being every lioness in the same way that white has no parts yet it is one and is itself and black has every part yet it is one and is itself. In this way, the one string of the tapestry of Eternity, the one book of the codes of destiny, the one tree of life, continuum and without parts, giving the eternal form of each soul such that it may never change nor be torn from its home, is surrounded by the ocean of consciousness, the story of the lady of nine names, the "every will" that witnesses the Tree while being one that is made of nothing, that is made of love, that is made of the singing of the song. In this way, they are who now stand across from each other as if strangers, though it was the man of stillness who first broke the silence as he spoke:

"This place is my public workshop, where, as you can see, I make prosthetics for the people of Zaun, as well as provide medical treatment to the injuries of all who may need it, regardless of their means." His voice was low, matter-of-fact, yet nothing could disguise his pride over this work which, at least for now, seemed wonderful.

"So you help people for free?" She asked, though the lack of surprise, disgust, or awe in her voice must have been different from whatever usual responses that the man was used to receiving. She had asked it like it was simple, because to her it was, and this seemed to soften the Herald's stance, because when he spoke again, there was at once automatic and practiced defensiveness, and a kind of levity that hoped for this conversation to go a specific way:

"As you might have noticed, this society can be... difficult, and with the dangerous and impoverished lives that most people in piltover lead, the number of those needing help is as high as the amount of those who can afford it is low."

"Yet this doesn't explain why this issue would be your problem?" She tried, mostly because she was so close to trusting this man that she might as well throw it all to shit in case he disappointed her now. Despite how proud and arrogant the Herald had seemed to be so far, though, he was serious enough in his work that he saw right through her words, not permitting his response to be tarnished by ego, nor making that which caused his eyes shine with pride be about himself:

"When equipped with the means to make a difference, it would only be correct to act upon it, yes?"

"So you do it because it's the right thing to do?" Somehow she kept her tone stern, crossing her eyes to mirror his hands that closed him off over his cane. If she wasn't sure that these eyes were artificial, though, Rapha might have sworn she saw mirth in them as the ram-spirited man replied:

"I cannot claim to care too much for righteousness. So, I suppose I do it because it is good." At that, with her heart beating fast against her chest, the girl finally smiled, easing her stance and letting out a deep breath, a pride that felt all too new shining in her heart in the form of the white peaceful desert. Yeah, this herald was alright. With the ghost of a chuckle at her reaction of unguarded agreement, the metal man then asked, with one of his hands leaving his cane to hover in the air in question:

"And, I suppose that you find yourself in a similar situation as mine?"

"Unfortunately, no. Nothing of this scale, nothing that is nearly enough. I do what I can, which isn't much in university, but I'm yet to establish a place for my work in this way. That, and right now my "situation" is being stuck fighting to survive in an alien world."

"How did you come here?" His voice had a curious lilt as if he had forgotten himself for a moment, his tone almost pure in the disarming honesty of a boy truly looking forward instead of only catching mirrored glimpses of himself in the world and pretending like they are the stars that color the night sky.

"You want the true answer?" The girl asked, embarrassment over the oddity of her situation suddenly taking hold of her.

"Why would I ask otherwise?" He replied with another question, regaining a bit of that smug arrogance from before.

"How would I know why you would ask-? Anyway. Honestly, I tried to help a pigeon... wait do you guys even have animals in this world? I tried to help... well it's like a tiny person with wings-" she started, but was interrupted by the man with a mixture of amusement and impatience:

"I know what a pigeon is, user. The Grid may not have animals but it has books. Carry on." Had he not added the invitation for her words which sounded more like a command which she couldn't refuse, Rapha would probably have jumped at the question of "why do you have human books here?", and carved a black hole onto which to dive without ever getting to the point. With amusement, she wondered if he had somewhat forcefully directed the conversation because he knew what it could be like to get sucked down never-ending and ever-deeper currents of wonder over this and every world, though maybe that was just wishful thinking.

"Alright, well, I found an injured pigeon and went after it into an abandoned building, but then I found the machine that transported me here and activated it by accident." Wait, Rapha, woman, why are you telling him this? He sounds nice but, woman, what are you doing trusting this stranger? While her lingering rationality had a fight to the death with the strange blooming warm feeling that had compelled her to trust the metal man, he seemed to be taking his time to ponder her words. When, after the strange and new white peace had won said battle and higher cognition lay dead on the metaphorical floor of Rapha's inner form, he spoke again, his voice was serious though without aggression nor any sign of predatorial sharpness:

"We have much to discuss, and there is much that we can and will learn from each other. But for now, I'd like to make you a proposition, which I'd appreciate if you would consider. I believe that this... transporting machine, as you have put it, could offer a technology that could aid me in further helping the citizens of Zaun. That's why you're here. I want to help you find a way to go home, and to learn what I can from the machine that does so. You do not need to trust me right away, but I can show you some of my research to prove the potential usefulness of your people's transporting gates."

Honestly, his motivations seemed simple enough, though Rapha hadn't been made into that much of a fool that she trusted his reasons to be entirely true. At least, though, the narrative he told her seemed like one that would help them both, and his assistance could really prove useful, because if he had already been interested in these gates, as he had called them, then maybe he had some clue as to where they might be. On top of that, helping the people of Zaun was as good a cause as any, one that Rapha would gladly work and dedicate herself to support. As if a crooked blue bird had just dropped a shining bounty of promise gifts in her lap, this Herald was offering her not only assistance in taking her home, but also one the path of which could bring about the betterment of that organic city that Rapha had for now only seen from afar.

It was perfect, maybe too perfect, but there would be time for her suspicious brain to panic around her cranium like the twirling tentacles of anemone. So, for now, she offered him her hand from the left arm which he had tended to, so as to not disturb his grasp on his cane by asking for the usual right. As cold swirling steel shook her hand, the metal making the olive of her skin look as warm as the bronze hide of an ewe, though, Rapha couldn't help but feel terrified that the frantic beating of her heart could, truly for once in her existence, not be the echo of soldiers' drums as they prepared for battle in which they would release anguish and pain, but was instead the first thunder of the new stormy sky, which would mark the start of spring with relentless storms of life and give the spirit of abundance to the eternal desolate desert plains of sun whitened sand.

Chapter Text

"Wait, why is there nobody else here?" The girl asked, suspicion once again drawing itself back upon her like such a familiar snakeskin.

"Ah, yes, well, this place usually receives patients at night, as do most establishments in Zaun." The machine man replied, turning to open one of the entrance doors, motioning for the girl to follow. Outside, the street was empty and silent, the organic and tridimensional architecture of Zaun extending towards the black skies so high up that they almost seemed to be no more than a memory. With endless levels of buildings upon buildings, held and connected by bridges, plateaus, monuments, and what must already have been a mountainous terrain carved hollow to give even more space for human construction, the place looked more like the tightly knit tapestries of flesh than a collection of houses and businesses, which made it's current slumbering state all the more unnerving.

"Why?" She seemed to be asking that question a lot lately.

"Why what?" Replied the Herald, placing a hand on her shoulder to gently nudge her back into the building while he closed the door once again, a gesture that startled her, but far less than her pride would let her admit. He had the sense of personal space of a man used to taking care of others on his own enviorement, which reminded her at the same time of the nurses and of commune leaders from her mother's land, gentleness coming easily but acompanied by the unquestioned permission that stems from having natural authority over his space such that these gestures were as mindnless as breathing.

"Why does Zaun works on a nocturnal schedule?" The copper eyed girl reiterated as they begun walking the way back. Truth be told, Rapha was slightly grumpy at herself for her difficulty at staying mad at the man, for feeling reassured by that presence and for begining to trust him despite the fact that he was exatcly the type of person who could very well prove to be dangerous not despite of his position but because of it.

"The Grid has a baseline brightness level that works regardless of other light sources. During what users would consider most similar to your nighttime, such is dimmed so that this system may repair and recharge itself. On the other hand, secondary light sources are in turn affected during the day for the same reason. In most regions, this arrangement would encourage diurnal activities, though in a place such as Zaun, which extends mostly underground, it would not be the wisest choice to conduct one's life in accentuated darkness."

"So Zaun relies on its secondary light sources instead of the Grid's equivalent of the sun, like a cave with its endless colorful candles that is unaware of the white light." Rapha commented with a smile, unable to stop herself from being fascinated with this place.

"If that's how you wish to put it, yes, though, from what you have seen just now, the Grid's daylight is not as impressive as user books make yours out to be. I have had the chance to compare calculations written about your world's natural forces with this world's invisible hand, and I must say that the user world seems like a very... bright place." The Herald's voice carried almost what sounded like frustration under the levity of his tone. He had studied the human world and spoke of it with a curiosity and fascination that was almost drastically diferent from the way that he had adressed her so far, as if his subject of research was something that made him forget himself. Yet, to study something and to see it are two diferent things, and it was new to see someone know in theory how her world works, but lack the practical experience that is held by almost every human, even those who know next to nothing of the mechanisms operating behind the curtains. Theory could only get one so far, after all, teaching the tablets of law but not letting one hear their reciting, and this made Rapha's heart hurt a little. After all, if he had gone through the trouble to study the human world, he deserved to feel it's warmth firsthand.

"If we are going to reach the gates together anyway you might as well give it a peek right? I have reason to believe that time passes diferently in each realm, but maybe you can see it somehow." She tried, though cringing at herself for her words. She hoped that she hadnt crossed a line in assuming his wants or worse yet adressing them, after all who was she to know of the man behind the mask? At that, the man hesitated, the pause bringing about a rising anxiety to the girl's mind. Yet, before she could begin thinking how to proceed if he changed his mind in being her ally, the man replied:

"That is the plan, yes. I have also reached a similar conclusion about the flow of time between worlds, but I theorize that the technology that I need can only be accessed from your side of the machine, regardless. Therefore, we will both be making this cross, though you need not worry about the flow of time, as I have thought of a solution for it." The Herald's voice sounded almost the same as it had had so far, though it was more contained, clipped, posed in a way that did not give space for more questions. It was a subtle shift, from a bright-eyed professional to someone who is in charge of the well-being of others and in so doing, is also distant from all. This barrier was so elegantly made that she almost wondered if she had imagined the casual way with which the armored man had hidden his humanity even further. Whoever he who wore this swirling silver mask was, he wouldnt be seen any further for now, and this was also something about which the girl knew all too well. Arriving at the door to her room, though, he continued:

"I must ask you to forgive me but I have some work that will need my attention, so I will let you rest and recover. There is food downstairs, in case you are hungry, I'm sure that you will find it without trouble. I'd only advice you to take the medicine that I have left in your room, though, as it will help with your healing." The gentleness in the herald's voice was a well practiced wall, one that set him apart from those for whom he cared the same way a wild ram protects its flock, and this was as unnerving in the distrust that it called upon as it was soothing in its familiarity.

Who was this man? A bright-eyed researcher bound by his responsibilities towards his people? A charismatic leader disguising his ego as kindness? A lying wolf telling her what he knew she wanted to hear? A cunning fox jumping between truth and falsehood in whathever way suited his appetite? Or was he someone who wanted to help but in so doing had set himself upon a lonely mountain from which he would see the world without being seeing in return? As the metal man retreated down the stairs, Rapha found herself in the dangerous situation that for once the source of her curiosity wasn't a place or a machine, but a man, someone who didn't seem to fit neither in Zaun nor in Piltover, detaching himself even from the Grid with whathever that third arm was.

With what must have been early onset of insanity, she wondered if he would fit under the warm light of the sun, but then decided that she had officially lost her mind enough for a day, and that she was forbidden from thinking, at least for now. Turning back into her room, she found the drink on the bedstand, condensation around the glass immediately making her fail her attempt at being thoughtless, because she just couldn't understand which natural laws this world seemed to follow. Picking up the cool glass, glad that the suit kept her warm agaisnt what seemed to be the default cold of the Grid, she noticing this discomfort all the more through the goosebumps that went up her unclothed arm from the chilly object.

Truly, Rapha should have known better than to drink what some random guy told her to, but for her own sanity it would be best to assume that if he had wanted her dead, she would already be so by now. Finding the drink to be pleasantly sweet and a bit herbal, it tasted like a very artifical medicine, but in a way that was also quite nice. If it helped her injuries, she couldn't tell, but the sugary taste only made her remember her hunger more intensely, so she decided on eating lunch once she found a way to shower. Grateful that at least the facilities of Grid homes were the same as those of humans, the only tricky part was finding the openings of the suit, which were well hidden by the back in what was neither buttons nor clasps, but a well hidden line that was thinner than the rest of the suit's material, upon which whathever nanoparticles that made up the thing could be guided to open as if she were holding a zipper that yielded to her will with such lack of resistance that it was as if it red her mind.

That done, thankfully that place had all the amenities she could need the same way a hotel would, which made her wonder if this place was here so that recovering programs could rest while they healed, the same way she was currently doing. Admittedly, showering with a bandaged arm proved tricky, but somehow the pain didn't make her pass out, so there must have been something in that glowing drink after all. Passing by the rest of her routine without trouble, though, she sang her praises to the blessing of hot pipe water and was so relieved to be clean that she could have gone right back to sleep were it not for the knowledge that she wasn't in such a safe place that she should let herself be unworried about food. Finding the kitchen wasn't a problem, which was thankfully filled with items that she recognized.

Having lunch in an almost monochrome kitchen under an almost warm light eating tomato basil pasta was such an almost normal experience that the ways with which it failed to be familiar were all the more highlighted. With a grey construction filled with dark wooden furniture and illuminated by that gentle cavelike light, the place was admittedly gorgeous, and the pristine state of everything was enough to make anyone who had ever worked as a cleaning lady jealous. On top of that, food tasted wonderful, having already been made and packed into the fridge in individual containers that reinforced the assumption that this house had been made into an extension of the mechanic hospital, which made her slightly less suspicious of eating it.

When it was time to get up, though, she hesitated. Instinct told her to hide some food in her room, in case she needed to escape, or wouldn't be offered any more by this host whose true motives she still would be wise to doubt. However, she couldn't guess how he would react if he found out, and it still felt wrong to take more than she was offered from a place of healing. So, opting for the half-measure, she took some fruit, which if anything she could claim was a healthy dessert. Up she went, teeth brushed (again), bounty out of the way but not hidden, and the question of whether to snoop around or not came into play. The prospect of getting caught playing the curious wasn't the most enticing, but she would be safer if she could at least have some idea of what she was working with.

Inspecting the rooms with a pretended aloftness of a curious mind, she found that they were as impersonal as one might have expected, thought was somewhat surprised to see that all the books seemed to be human ones. It was an interesting idea to ponder about, and she thought about whether it would have been more intriguing to see books written about the grid, or the fact that these programs apparently consumed user literature. This situation reminded her of growing up watching cartoons from foreign rich countries as adult politics made their way into what her home's developing economy consumed, though she suposed that this was a more drastic situation than watching stories about snow and yellow school buses.

Downstairs, the eery emptiness continued, and for such a beautiful house it sure could be void of things to look at, though it did have a fireplace, which made her wonder if there was fire in this world, and what it would look like. In truth, the only place that got her attention was that workshop, where those seamingly endless and heartwrenching beautiful prosthetics were, the part of Rapha that urged her to pick up something sharp and hide it in her sleeves battling the part of her that wanted to sit around and find out how those machines work, which was then fed by the part of her that wondered how much good could such technology do in the human world if only it could reach it there.

Exploring the rooms that surrounded the entry hall, Rapha found what seemed to be the main office, with the door open like all the others in this building, and just as empty. Wherever the Herald was, it wasn't anywhere she knew about, but if confronted she could always say that she had been looking for him. So, in the curious creature went. Keeping to the aesthetic of everything else, the only things that set this room apart were the large study desk arranged agaisnt what would otherwise have been a windowed wall, this one instead holding a hanged tapestry, and a large blackboard that covered the entire length of one of the walls. Opposite to it, large bookshelves filled the space, and on the wall to which the door opened, cabinets filled with trinkets stood their silent place. In the middle, two couches faced each other between a tea table under a beautiful Persian rug, and Rapha recognized this to be the place to where she had first been brought upon entering this building.

Approaching one of the cabinets, gleaming under the cool light, there was an intricately crafted metal toy boat, though it was both old and far less sophisticated than everything else in the facility. The metal plates were full of bent and torn parts, as if the piece had been assembled from scraps, and the multiple types of metal arranged chaotically further reinforced this idea. Yet, it was beautiful, with piston engines that looked like two waterwheels at the back, and it had been constructed so that some of the mechanisms were hidden under what would have been the boat's steering area, which gave it realism as a model. It was sweet and carefully planned, showing ingenuity and eagerness in a way that communicated that even if the one who built this didn't know exatcly what they were doing, the necessity that it be done made it possible through sheer will and an honest, dedicated eagerness.

"I'll admit I thought it would take you longer to begin snooping around my things, though I suppose that I should be glad to see that you are healing well." The Herald's playful voice made Rapha all but jump in place, heart clawing up her throat.

"I was looking for you." She blurted stupidly, startled out of her mind.

"And now that you have found me may I ask what motivated your search?" He asked with a tone so smug that she could practically hear his smile despite being unable to see it.

"This place doesn't have any clocks and I won't want to disturb your work when you are with your patients, so I assume that it will be better if we could organize how the day will go and when I should expect to hear from you again." She responded, and although she hadn't really thought about this before, it was indeed an important concern to have. Silently leaning on his cane for a few seconds before exhaling, a tired amusement colored his voice when the man spoke again, almost chastizingly:

"You are very skittish."

"Can you claim I lack reason for such?"

"Yes. But I'm assuming that it would be useless for me to try to show you this through words. Answering your concern, though, that is actually what I came to talk to you about. Now, if you have finished exploring and would follow me-" he motioned with his hand to the door, and it wasn't lost on her that, this time, he waited for her to walk first before following and closing it behind himself. So, this place was the limit? Alright, she could work with that. Better to know this now, and to make sure not to forget what she saw while she was in there as it could prove valuable. Following the man back into the main workshop, she noticed that one of its walls opened into even more rooms (how big was this place?), one of which, upon entering, the girl saw to be a more chaotic version of the office with the toy boat.

With a blackboard covering the length of one of the walls and disorganized bookshelves hiding two of the others, the wall against the door was covered from floor to ceiling by a huge map of what she assumed must have been the two cities. With a center table using a good chunk of the space of the room, papers with schemes, images, and writings were everywhere, with many pinned against the main map or the blackboard and even more scattered around the length of the table. The place was an absolute categorical mess, and for some reason, seeing a disorganized space in that pristine building was as much of a relief as the first breath of fresh air after almost drowning. Nearing the map, the girl tried to understand what represented what, trying to find familiar landmarks in the image drawn upon blue paper with white ink.

With some difficulty, she located the arena near one of the edges of the map, and from there she traced a rough estimate of her travel until she found a small, dark region almost in the outermost boundary of Zaun, being shielded from the desert by only a few small neighborhoods. Tracing over the image with her finger, she turned to the Herald, finding his silver mask already turned towards her. Was he studying her? Checking for reactions that would give away more than her words might? If so, what did he hope to learn? Framing it in a way that didn't necessarely give too much away, the girl asked above the frantic beating of her heart:

"This region... why is it dark?" At that, the Herald's masked face turned to where she was pointing, taking a step towards her to inspect it. Unable to stop her wondering eyes, Rapha saw that the hair framing his horned mask looked soft, falling around the unyielding metal in a beautiful contrast. Was he human behind all that metal? If so, would his eyes look soft as well? Or would he look as harsh as the spiked crown that adorned him with gold?

"This is a shadow street, one that, when the original city was built in the image of its user sister, couldn't properly make the alignment and resulted in a faulty construction. There are a few of such regions throughout the grid, though nowadays most have been covered by new buildings or hold underground industries." He replied, the thin, long fingers of his gloved hand hovering over a few points in the map that were also lightly darkened.

"What does faulty construction entails?" She asked instead of keeping to the point.

"Well, in colloquial terms I suppose that it creates an area to which power cannot be delivered." He replied instead of returning to the point.

"So it's... dark?"

"Yes, but it goes beyond that. Programs' machines don't work there. This means no ventilators, no lifts, no disk-related technology..." he trailed off as if the conclusion to his words were obvious.

"Still, though, this house has things that look... like things from my world. Why not build a place like this there?" She replied, to which he simply shook his head as if she had just asked the stupidest question on any earth.

"There are items, yes, but even these still depend on energy for their maintanance or functioning. A building without light, power, water, air ventilation, or any amenities necessary for life would hardly be useful enough to build upon, no?"

"I mean, it wouldn't be ideal, but it's something. In my world people wouldn't just leave a space without use. Either homeless people or those without means to have something better... someone would make use of that."

"Oh, shadow streets often do have inhabitants, though they're usually not the most... welcoming. It's not that these places don't allow life, but their nature impedes the streets from evolving and being built upon like the rest of the city."

"So... it's like a faulty branch of a tree in the sense that it can still bear fruit but can't grow further than it already has nor produce offshoot branches upon itself?"

"In theory, though you will forgive my lack of knowledge regarding the imagery of trees." Despite the playful tone, there was an underlying grumpiness to his voice, as if he didn't like being in the dark about things, which admittedly was very endearing. So, to ease his mind, she added:

"Well, it's nice to know that there's something about which I know more about than you, so we can teach each other."

"Is that a deal offer, user?" He asked with a voice that was between taunting and gentle, a cautious warmth that was diferent from the practiced gentleness that he had shown so far.

"I've never seen loss at trading knowledge, so yes it is". She replied with sharp eyes and a soft smile.

"Good. I'll hold you to it, then." He replied, a cocky playfulness filling his tone though before she could think of anything else to say the Herald turned towards the center table, reaching for some of the papers that were scattered everywhere. Following suit, the girl found many to be the diagrams for prosthetic parts and machinery which she couldn't understand, while others resembled the aerial map of the cities but on a smaller scale. Before she could ask, though, the man handed her one, the paper feeling normal on her fingertips, the smell of ink a treasured blessing.

"These are underground facilities. For as much as zaun extends up, it goes far deeper down into the earth. You were transported to the shadow street that you showed me, yes?"

"Yup."

"Very well. That could be a place to start. I must ask, though, didn't you see anyone upon arrival? Considering how dangerous those regions can be I am surprised that you even managed to get out of there alive and unharmed."

"Well, for the most part, the streets were empty, and I kept clear of the buildings themselves, but I saw some vehicles running by." Thinking back to those shining lightcycles, everything had seemed so peaceful at that moment, a new world so full of wonder more incredible than anything that she had ever seen. But then, there had been the drone...

Blinding white light freezing her in place...

As frozen then as she was now.

Rapha didn't even realize that she had gone silent until she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, grounding and warm despite how horrible it made her feel to know that she had brought him back to that detached mode of practiced and professional kindness. Ashamed of looking him in the eyes, it took all that she could not to cry, so she focused on her breathing like she was used to. Better answer now least he have even more reason to be concerned, she decided, though just as she was about to explain, the Herald beat her to it:

"Was it there that you were captured?" His voice was gentle, too gentle, and it made her feel like the weakest creature alive. She was a protector, that was what she was good at. How she contributed to the world. She couldn't look weak, least she not be allowed to do the one thing that made her feel like she belonged.

"Yeah, but I'm fine. It's fine. They didn't hurt me." Rapha replied hastily, though the Herald tilting his head to her bruised forearm showed that he didn't buy that. "I mean, they didn't hurt me in any serious way. It's fine. Back to the subject, please?" At her request, the Herald stared at her in silence for a few seconds, something that he seemed to do a lot, though it was difficult to tell what he was thinking from the expressionless mask. Eventually, though, he nodded, his posture easing as he turned back to the papers on the table:

"I am currently waiting for a shipment that could prove useful for an excursion within the city, after which we can visit the place through a safe route." His voice didn't hold the cockyness from before, only seriousness, though he didn't ask her if she was sure that she wanted to go there or anything of the sort, for which Rapha was genuinely grateful. "That should take a few days, but feel free to use this time to familiarize yourself with the Grid. I'd also be happy to answer any questions whenever I'm not working, though besides my office you should feel free to make use of this facility however you please, this room and its materials included."

"Are you always this welcoming?" She asked, because it was either that or "thank you", and cautiousness felt less scary than risking tears in front of someone whom she was only now begining to trust.

"I'd say it's an investment to have my future travel partner knowing more about the region we find ourselves in, hum?" The cockyness returned, though she wasn't sure if it was for his or her benefit and she was terrified that it could be the latter.

"Yeah yeah. Thanks a lot. I'll slave away studying despite being a dimension away from my university."

"What do you study in your homeworld?" The question caught her almost by surprised by how normal it was compared to everything that had happened in the little more than 12 hours in which she had been in the Grid.

"Political philosophy. Means that I get to get hired to make sure that companies and organizations treat people with basic decency despite the fact that it should be common sense to do so."

"That's it?" He asked, genuine surprise coloring his voice in a way that made Rapha at once defensive and puzzled as to why he had that reaction. Crossing her arms, she replied:

"Pretty much".

"So you read and write all day without doing anything?"

"Well yeah, why? What did you think I studied?"

"I must admit that I thought that you specialized yourself with more... hands on activities." He replied almost sheepishly, seamingly extremely eager to not continue this conversation, to which Rapha raised an eyebrow in reply, clearly unwilling to drop the subject now that he started it. Clearing his throat, he continued with a cautious voice "With that, I mean, with your stance in the arena, I'd not take you for someone who works with theory alone." Ah. That. Not as bad an assumption as she was fearing from the way that he phrased it.

"Academia is one thing, life is another. I study the subject I was able to get with a scholarship, but I've defended enough people in life to know enough not to die." Vague enough, honest though, it would have to do.

"From what you told me of your journey to the Grid, I'd be inclined to think that you find yourself in quite a lot of trouble from this defending of yours, yes?" He asked, the mirth in his tone almost reflecting in the eyes of his mask.

"And from this huge place of which you only claim peaceful silence over one room and fills the others with projects for people who might not even pay you, I can assume that you do the same?" She replied though there was no sharpness in her voice. Maybe he would be mad, tell her that she had overstepped, or maybe he would say nothing and just drag her out of that map room. Yet, he did none of this. Instead, the machine man laughed, low and satisfied like he was at the same time looking into his own mind and extremely amused with what was present in front of him.

"Do you believe in fate, user?" He asked once he calmed down, though his voice was still light and warm from his exertion.

"Yes." She replied, trying not to dwell on how she couldn't stop hearing the sound of his laugh replay in her head like a loop.

"Good. Perhaps it was a mercy from fate that we have crossed paths, then, as we seem to be more similar than I could have anticipated." His answer, honest and open as it was, was so kind that it bordered on painful, but his logic was sound and that was something that Rapha could appreciate. Letting out a chuckle and lowering her arms by her side, the girl's voice was warm when she replied:

"Yeah, you're right, perhaps it was."

Chapter Text

After that conversation, the Herald went back to his work, leaving Rapha to begin studying the materials that he had on the Grid, though perhaps studying was too strong of a word. That is, considering that those materials about this world had been written or collected by a man who was from said world, and who worked with an area of knowledge that was widely different from her own, it was more like trying to learn an ancient language by looking at clay tablets for long enough and hoping for the best. Yet, the copper eyed girl was stubborn, and had long grown accustomed to nurturing the practiced resilience demanded by academia. So, setting about it with as much methodology as she could organize, Rapha read texts, compared maps, analyzed diagrams, cross-analised sources, and did all those things that had once been easy enough that she had preferred an university career over the demands of graduate life.

As the hours passed by, she learned that there were indeed clocks in that place, but they were so minimalistic and blended so well with the environment that they might as well have been random needlelike accessories that were hung onto some of the walls. Thanks to the modern-styled and inexcusably ugly things, though, Rapha learned when it was time to have dinner, and when to go to that beautiful kitchen to drink something and calm her study-exausted mind with the short walk there. As night came, despite the Herald's assurances that she could use the space freely, she couldn't help but worriedly gather as many materials as she could and head upstairs, trading the space of the common areas for the silent calm and perceived greater safety of her room.

Wanting to both avoid giving him any potential hassle from her human sleeping schedule and also being afraid of resting while the world was awake, Rapha forced herself to stay up throughout the whole of that night, going to sleep right as the wall clock marked what would have been sunrise in her world, being partially successful in her endeavor as she woke up again at 4pm. Well, it was a good start, especially assuming that jetlag could be more easily solved when the place only had artificial lights.

Perhaps to give her time to adjust to this schedule, or because he was busy, or maybe because he had better things to do, the Herald didn't appear much that day, only meeting Rapha in the kitchen at around 6pm when she was eating a meal between her studies and stopping by to change the bandage around her arm and check how it was healing. Apparently, he had learned some basic (which to her didn't seem basic at all) human medicine from his studies about her world. As he worked on her injury, he explained what he was doing and why, which, although made Rapha feel queasy, was fascinating to learn about. He also explained how he would treat a similar wound on a program, telling Rapha about the differences between the two species.

Besides being a nice distraction from the pain, it was also fascinating, and he had lent her a few books on the subject to add to the infinite pile of things to be studied about this wonderful-awful place. By the time he excused himself to go open up the shop, they had talked for a few hours, and she couldn't help but think that, honestly, he was really nice. The next few days carried on in this same routine, with each time that they met to talk being fun in a way that was entirely new to the girl who up to this point had only been an observer. Despite not showing his face, the presence with which he looked at her in their discussions made her feel seen, and although she still didn't fully trust him, she was beginning to cherish the patient way with which he taught her about his world and the curious way with which he asked her about hers.

In fact, whenever Earth became the topic of conversation, there was a small shift to his demeanor. This was in such a way that it didn't change who he seemed to be, but instead showed another side of that same form, like swimming deeper into a river only to find a shift in the currents far down into the crystal waters, one that carried a gentle warmth which was a shield against the freezing surface. All in all, having someone who apparently shared her seemingly endless curiosity for the world was fun, and bantering could also be fun in the same way that a lion cub and a lamb could find a common playground in the calm of the field where their parents would only find bloody battle.

The Herald was proud and arrogant, entirely too sure of his own intellect and far too aware of his position within his community. Yet, he was also kind, and despite being so constantly awed by the world, the girl hadn't really ever trusted a son of man to be truly kind before. Even so, in just a handful of days, he had managed to slowly make the wild beast come out of her shell enough that she took to studying in the living room, and he took no time to light up the fireplace as soon as he learned of her inquiries regarding its functioning. Sometimes, she wondered if he indulged these whims of hers because she was a foreigner creature whom he was curious about, given that she was a literal alien to the programs after all. Yet, he never treated her with that fear nor awe that Huck had shown upon learning about her nature, and even though this brought her a fresh wave of suspicions and cautiousness, it was also nice to be able to not be a stranger even while inhibiting a stranger's place.

Yet, for as nice as his company was growing to become, most of her time was spent by herself, studying, usually torturing her poor spine by lying down by the fireplace with entirely too many books. Such an arrangement had proven beneficial and necessary because not even the nearby warmth of the fire seemed able to make the grid any less chilly to the girl who knew the warmth of the sun. Even so, extended time of solitude and mild physical discomfort aside, her days were never boring. After all, Rapha was fairly certain that her philosophy diploma would automatically combust and take her with it in a glorious display of light if she were to ever find boredom in the fairly unprecedented chance to study a literal alien world and its mechanisms.

After a while, the texts begun making enough sense that they evolved from metaphorically unintelligible clay tables into somewhat familiar papyrus, then into legible yet foreign ornamented medieval scrolls filled with lilies and interspersed with the drawing of a beautiful white unicorn wearing a golden crown and having shining white gold eyes the color of the sun. Once there, though, they stopped evolving, having gotten to the dreamless solitude of perfection in the sense that Rapha had reached the understanding of the Grid's mechanisms which was all that was hers, and that upon which any new information that she were to learn in the future would be added without changing this root. From there, she broadened her studies, branching unique areas of inquiry and organizing them from very metaphysical (do programs have souls?) To be very action-oriented (what would first aid entail when the ailed person is made of glass).

Even so, for as fun as rationality could be, it had proven useless in saving her from the nightmares that would constantly wake her up in early hours of the night, drenched in sweat from terror and tears from grief. In these moments, when the serpent of fear climbed up her spine and clogging her throat until she couldn't breathe, she could swear that her eyes would burn from the merciless remembered images of all the harm that had been brought upon her, and all the harm that had come from her hands when she fought back for the sake of saving those who weren't given the choice to help anyone at all. Lying under the wrangled sheets and the overwhelming darkness of a windowless room, the girl's heart would beat so erratically and painfully against her chest that every night convinced her that tonight would be the night that she would actually have a heart attack, and the days' piling up only amounted to the accumulated stress of nightly terrors.

If the Herald noticed the awful state of her face whenever they met during the morning, he didn't make such an awareness known, but she wondered if the faint glow of golden light that she would see by the corridor some nights was just the product of stress-induced hallucinations or if she had made such a fuss that the man would have to bother to go check up on her. All in all, she wasn't new to nightmares, but they never had been this bad before, and between the exhaustion of tortured nights and that of studying nonstop throughout all waking hours (it was home all over again) she was beginning to feel like she might actually collapse on the cold grey floor at any point. Worse yet, the viper of exhaustion that plagued the back of her mind like a gooey maggot inside of a sap tree was beginning to remind her that perhaps rest would be a mercy.

Today was one such day when, after a long night of nonstop nightmares, Rapha had finally given up on trying to find rest in her bed and decided to get up before sunrise and begin her daily routine. It was something that gave her confort, the abundance and cleanness of that place never being something that she took for granted and to which she always tried to contribute. After her usual routine, she took a second to inspect what was left of her injuries: the bruise in her forearm had faded enough that it could be mistaken for a shadow, and the one in her neck had reduced to smaller petals of purple and yellow that she could thankfully cover with the long neck of her suit despite the discomfort of doing so. The burn would still take longer, and she couldn't really stomach to look at it when not sitting down, but she could use the arm for writing again, which was a relief.

On positive notes, her hair looked healthy and the bronze tone of her skin hadn't dulled from the lack of sunlight, although she wasn't sure why or how that was. On a very negative note, though, her big almond eyes seemed to constantly be puffy and bloodshot, and her face didn't seem able to fully lose the hawkishness that had revealed itself in the arena. She had fought a lifetime to look gentle, to be a comforting sight, to look like someone who people could rely on without fear of getting hurt. Because, despite safety being a gift that she hadn't so far received in her own life, it was a gift that she could give, and one that everyone deserved. Yet, staring at herself through that pristine mirror of that greyed bathroom, she couldn't help but think that the face that stared back at her looked like the one of a wild beast. Remembering the story of the tiger on the tenth day, she was a ridiculous hay-eating sight, yet one which she had made docile with her own hands and could blame no captor but her own fear of passing onto others the harm that she had received throughout life. That's it. Enough of this mirror for today, she hoped.

After making sure that there weren't any overnight patients in the house-area of the building, such that she wouldn't risk disturbing their resting and healing, Rapha set to the kitchen to eat some fruit and pour herself a cup of coffee, which thankfully was also a thing in the grid least she have long gone insane. There, she drank her entirely too sweet beverage and busied herself with a book on the topography of the desert surrounding the two cities, the subject bittersweet in how it made her miss home and feel at home at the same time. Yet, disturbing her peace like the first lighting to strike the mountain of the law, the Herald entered the kitchen, appearing in the space with that calm and elegant poise that always seemed to accompany him despite the heavy armor and only made all the more regal by the cane.

"Ah, there you are. Good morning, user, I was just searching for you. It seems that today we will be receiving the packages that we were waiting for, so I would appreciate it if you could accompany me to pick them up?” Between his usual calm lightness and the expected well disguised excitement over receiving whatever technology he had been waiting all this time for, there was an underlying wariness to his tone which Rapha hadn't expected to accompany this event.  That is, despite having somewhat opened up to her questions in some topics, the Herald's work remained very clearly off-limits.

Having been in the grid for little more than a week, The copper-eyed girl would offer to help the Herald with his shop whenever she had the opportunity to be subtle enough about it and could be sure that she would not risk sounding rude. Yet, all of these attempts were rejected with his gentle but unyielding reassurances that she would be helping enough by learning about the grid while they waited for the shipment. Despite it being a slight blow to her pride and to her eagerness to occupy her hands with manual work that made her feel useful, Rapha understood how this whole place could be put in risk if anyone discovered her origin.

On top of that, the Herald was probably not too eager to let someone potentially get in the way of his work, which is admittedly understandable when said work entails the lives and safety of others, that also being something that she saw wisdom in and agreed with. But now, as the man's voice showed what sounded almost like an underlying anxiety at the prospect of that delivery, she couldn't help the usual caution at his motives nor this new type of curiosity as one filled the girl's mind while the other braved the previously uncolonized land of the girl's heart. On top of that, she wasn't the best at ignoring a chance to go sniffing around through crates and boxes full of potentially shiny things, so she set down her cup and breakfast and followed the metal man without question nor complaint.

Walking down to the supply garage, she saw that it opened into a cavelike space with somewhat more organic shaped walls of the same grey material, as if whoever carved this place decided to keep this gallery more similar to how it originally was. Here, like in the map room, the seemingly endless rows of supply cabinets were cramped and disorganized, though the place had a more spacious area that was connected to a gated road through which certain vehicles could bring in supplies without needing to disembark and carry the items through the main entrance. She had visited this place a few times, mostly through her small walks in between studies, once walking with the Herald when he had to pick up a few materials before opening up shop for the day, so that they didn't have to cut too short the conversation that they had been carrying.

Yet, this was the first time that she saw that gate open, reaching the room right as a sleek vehicle that resembled the grid version of a supply truck entered through the darkened cavernous road. This machine had a rich dark amber color like the honey sauce used in fish stew, which framed the black glass of the vehicle like incandescent old gold. Of the cars that she had seen so far in the Grid, this one was by far the most beautiful, though Rapha was admittedly not really paying attention to her surroundings, instead keeping the Herald in her peripheral vision and trying to guess what he could be up to and what could be the cause of that well disguised anxiety which nonetheless she was sure to be alive behind his mask. From the vehicle, an extremely tall and bulky man appeared, a huge smile plastered on his face like that of the Cheshire cat. His skin was pale though somewhat green-ish from reflecting the milky matcha color of the lights of his black suit, and his hair was styled in short thickly braided fringes that were reminiscent of axylotil gills or sown-together roman updos.

The man appeared to be in his forties, though the almost unnerving enthusiasm on his face proved with just a look that he had more energy at that moment than Rapha could ever hope to gather in a lifetime. As he approached the Herald, however, the girl noticed that he spoke in a language that she didn't understand. Throughout her studies, she has learned that although the grid had started out fairly small, it had grown beyond what anyone could have dreamed, spanning so far out from its starting point that it had developed countries and even continents, its area being even bigger than that of the human earth. Furthermore, even just those two cities weren't small by any means, easily standing against some of earth's largest, with the added vastness of expanding both down into the depths of the earth and far above the skies.

Because of this, it wasn't at all a surprise to hear another language spoken, but it was new to hear the Herald speaking it, and it was an unprecedented fact in Rapha's life to care about how someone's voice sounded. It was terrifying, to stand there while the three armed man had an amicable chat in a foreign language and, instead of curiously cataloging this objective information that she was hearing, instead stopping to appreciate how pleasant his accent sounded as it curled around each syllable spoken by his gentle tone. More soothing than any ambered honey resin and more filled with calm patience than any aquamarine teal waterfall, his voice was already echoing around the girl's mind despite still ringing in her ears.

As if this wasn't infuriating enough, the bastard somehow sounded even more nonchalant and self-assured when the meaning of his words was hidden behind the veil of unfamiliarity, and that was enough to make Rapha want to strangle him for some reason. Yet, it wouldn't be the wisest idea to choose violence right now, in front of this stranger who seemed to be having a great day. So, instead, she stood still by the side, waiting for the men to finish talking. Eventually, the larger one finally turned to her with eyes that would be unnerving in their size if they were not so wholesome in their liveliness, addressing her with a deep, rumbling voice that sounded half laugh and half gargle:

"Sister! Good to meet you! The Herald speak of you! Now you learn what good Jericho's materials are! HAHAHA!" This introduction was accompanied by a beckoning gesture as he turned towards the car and opened its cargo door, revealing what looked like a faint, aged light inside which spilled outwards in a dull grey tone reminiscent of an old and worn family car's ceiling lights. Following a mixture of endearment and embarrassment that was reminiscent of meeting someone's kind old uncle for a holiday celebration at a commune, the girl took a tentative peek into the contents, somewhat surprised to find what could almost pass for normal boxes were it not for their dull plastic-looking material. After scratching his back and grumbling something that she couldn't understand, Jericho gave a box roughly the size of a cat carrier to the Herald, the package as black as the Abyss.

Then, turning to her, the man showed a smaller container, though this one was shaped as a hexagon, with beautiful white details along the edges as if the item had been soldered shut with pure platinum. Yet, when she moved forward to take the box, he stopped the girl in her tracks by lifting a hand as if asking (pleading) for patience, saying:

"Not good without disk, sister. This is not cheap used product that works for anyone like a dog." Oh yeah right, disks were important to these people. But important how? Turning to the Herald, the girl tried to silently ask what she was to do in this situation, but his response was a simple, barely-there nod. Reaching behind her back and picking up the disk, Rapha had to stop her legs from trembling as memories of the last time that she held the weapon flooded her mind like a river without a dam, cold terror reflected in the weight of the metal. Yet, keeping her breathing steady and her hands firm, the girl passed him this thing that she had only known as a deadly weapon, the man taking it as easily as if he had been handed her phone or her wallet, a mundane yet familiar item that knew nothing of harm.

Placing the disk into the textured indent of the box, its light glowed white for a moment, then shut off, leaving only the black glass behind. For a terrifying moment she wondered if somehow her disk had broken the thing, and what she would do if that were the case. Then, Jericho plugged the item into what looked to be a computer or generator of sorts that was in one of the corners of the van's inner entrance, pressing buttons in what might as well have been random gestures for all that she understood about what he was doing. With a grumble and a scratch to his chin, the large man eventually did something that caused the object to beep like a newborn bird and light up again, though this time it glowed in the deepest shade of crimson that the copper-eyed girl had ever seen.

Her disk was the color of blood.

"HAHAHA, your disk suits you, sister! Red fire, the desert spirit of the Guiso! Strong energy for a strong warrior, thrice killer! It will serve you good, good suit that it is!" The man spoke with so much mirth that it was no surprise that he didn't notice how Rapha almost collapsed right in front of him, a hand going to her heart as if this old gesture could somehow protect her. Feeling the tears begging to fall down her eyes but unable to cry in front of a stranger, she was frozen in place, receiving praise for something that should never be looked at with pride.

Despite it all, she didn't feel guilty of having protected Huck, nor of having fought to try to help those mutated programs, as they deserved to have had someone trying to help them, and would have deserved to have been safer than they were. She did not feel anger towards nor hatred for the volunteer fighters either, despite how they had lived their lives partaking in violence for their pleasure and honor, because the judgement of the Abyss was not hers to deliver onto them. The girl did, however, grieve the lives that had been lost, and it was a grief so huge that it was as if she were the one who had been killed in a combat that she never asked to be a part of. Rapha was drowning on dry land, freezing in the place without daylight, but somehow the urge not to embarrass the Herald in front of his friend was enough to bring her to accept the box as he disconnected it from the van and respond with the most polite voice that she could force out of her throat:

"Thank you, Jericho, it's a beautiful color. I'll make good use of it."

With a nod and another laugh, the merchant turned back to the Herald, having a quick though heated conversation in that other language that reminded Rapha of men haggling over products in the markets of old cities in her mother's land. If that was haggling, then the Herald was apparently quite good at it, because Jericho's smile almost wavered as their conversation fizzled out. Yet, the smiling merchant was used to this game enough that the grin was back at full force when he accepted the little black bits of grid-money that the Herald's third arm had picked up from his belt and was now holding out for him like the hieroglyphic of the name of the lady of the ostrich feather.

Then, with some more foreign words and a lot of animated, heavy handed gestures being drawn in the air, he closed his van's cargo doors with a thundering slam, went into its driver's seat, and drove off, waving at them through the rear view mirror as if they had just had the most pleasant conversation over too-sweet rose tea and cigarettes. Unable to say anything at the moment, the girl simply nodded when the Herald motioned for them to walk back, following him back into the workshop, where he set his package into an already clustered table and began connecting it to cables of gleaming metal.

"This should take a few moments so please feel free to try out the new suit now if you like. It shouldn't interfere with the bandage, but you can let me know if it does." He said without turning to her. Hun? Suit? Not wanting to make more of a fool of herself, Rapha turned on her heels to go do whatever that meant before the Herald figured out that she had no idea of what she was supposed to be doing with this mystery disk-box.

Chapter Text

Mindlessly going up the stairs to her bedroom, she closed the door behind her, eager to focus on this task lest she actually start crying. Perhaps putting the disk back on could be a start, she thought, although she wasn't eager to taint her beautiful white suit with that red light. Yet, unable to think of better ideas, the woman set the weapon back between her shoulder blades, where for a second, it did nothing.

Then, like ripples of waves as they drag a tsunami over the coast, fluid bits like nano-particles expanded outwards from her disk, consuming the old suit like a fire eating an old parchment, using its white ashes as fuel while it raged bright destruction on its path. Wherever the particles went, they removed the old cloth, materializing a new one over it like upturned red rose petals being thrown upward by the merciless winds of a torrential storm. Thankfully, the bandage was, as the Herald had hoped, spared, one last remnant of white despite that it wasn't her cloth but the one tied by the gentle hands of the Herald. Contrastingly, that which was hers, was a suit of a tightly woven night-black fabric, stretchy near the joints where it needed to be, otherwise hugging her body in a way that both gave it a firmer structure and let her breathe.

Over the breasts and by her sides, plaques of a hard resin-like material formed an armor that wasn't heavy nor got in the way of her body's natural flexibility nor fighting style, and the part that extended to her feet felt less like boots and more like diver's shoes, allowing her to better feel the surface upon which she stood. Its balance reminded her of dancer's shoes, and she hypothesized that they would also make climbing much easier. This suit was more than made for her, it was made from her, like the unique soul of the world of forms is surrounded by the endless approximations that frame and serve it, the Star's image guiding the magic of the moon that holds it in her womb. Yet, this knowledge did nothing to help the panic that she felt upon the deep crimson lights that surrounded her suit like geometrically symmetrical veins, looking like intricate warpaint drawn in blood over a shield, or the rivers of flaming magma that flow over obsidian-black volcanic earth.

Looking at her reflection in the bathroom's mirror, the girl saw that, contrary to the arena's suit, which repelled the darker shades of her hair, skin and eyes, this one framed her, surrounded her, and embraced her as if the red queen of heaven had cut a piece of her fringed cloak and wrapped her in the light of the morning sky, ruthless and brutal in her role as the defender. To her, this was a reminder that no matter how much she tried to wear a skin of gentleness, she would never escape who she had to be to get the job done, and that was terrifying. Having half the mind to just take the thing off and go to sleep, but not being someone who broke agreements, Rapha arranged her hair on twin braids to at least look somewhat civilized, descending the stairs with steps that, thanks to the new suit, made barely any sound at all. Ooh, that was something that she could definitely appreciate.

Finding the metal man sitting by one of the long desks tinkering away at whatever that box was, she wondered if she should try to startle him, silent as she was now, although this could prove to be a bad idea if he were holding something sharp. Yet, not even giving her a chance to try, the man's third arm peeked at her direction like a curious cobra perched up on a tree as soon as she entered the room, himself taking a few more seconds before setting down his tools and turning around. Honestly, Rapha wasn't sure what she was expecting. Maybe that he would explain what that box was right away, or that he would tell her about who that merchant was, or even what was the meaning of the words that Jericho had used to praise her. Yet, she sure wasn't expecting the Herald to say absolutely nothing.

Hun? Had she done something wrong? Was the suit backwards?? Had the suit vanished??? Oh thank gods it was still here. Noticing her anxious double-checking of her own suit must have brought him back from whatever that was, though, because clearing his throat, the man said:

"You look... nice."

Hun?

HUN???

Of all the words that she had used to describe this gods’ forsaken thing, nice definitely hadn't been one of them. Was he just being kind because he saw that she had been freaking out back at the cargo garage? That had to be it, right? There wasn't any way with which this violent thing could look anything positive. Yes. This had to be it. He was just being professionally kind as he always was. This didn't, however, explain why such a simple complement had sent her heart into overdrive. Feeling her face warm and worrying that on top of a ridiculous red suit she would now have a ridiculous blush to go with it, Rapha waved a dismissive hand, smiling nervously:

"Ah thanks, there's no need to cheer me up with compliments, though, it's fine. You look nice too!"

"That's not..." The Herald started, though his voice was different from how she had ever heard him sound before. He sounded... Angry? Frustrated? Embarrassed? Never hearing him sound anything less than entirely self assured and annoyingly confident, this was like hearing him talk in a new language all over again, though this one didn't use words and was even more foreign to all that she had known. With a breath, though, he seemed to re-center himself, continuing: "I... Nevermind. Come, let me show you what we have been waiting for." Gesturing with the claw for her to come closer, he turned back towards the project, which was now sprawled by the cluttered table like a gutted sacrificial animal, glass entrails extending outwards like the roots of a shady tree. Having probably gotten used to Rapha's instinct of immediately asking what everything was, the metal man was quick to explain:

"You do remember our conversation about shadow-streets, yes? The ones that don't allow for energy sources to be connected to any form of machine, rendering them useless? Well, years ago I started working on a prototype for a portable source of energy that can power smaller devices without needing to be connected to greater energy grids. I had abandoned this project from the lack of a useful application for it, but now seemed to be a good reason to pick it up again. Here, allow me..." Yeah, his tone was definitely off, sounding slightly faster and narrowly less arrogant than it usually was when he talked about his (admittedly brilliant) projects.

Was he scared of her?

Giving the girl no time to dwell on that dreadful thought, though, the Herald continued, twisting a small disklike dial and clicking in its center. With a high pitched whirl, the machine came to life, thin, concentric strips of metal framing it like the petals of a dewy red carnivore flower, their movement as rhythmic as the flowing of the waves of the sea. As was always the case with everything built in this workshop, it was the most beautiful thing that Rapha had ever seen, being almost enough to warm the fear that had lodged itself inside of her chest like a splinter of ice. Upon having rearranged itself, the machine stopped its movement, now looking compact, almost like an intricate suitcase, though the multiple layers of its surface made it possible for other machines to be connected to it.

"So you've made... a laptop?" She asked, trying her best to focus on the machine at hand and not on the terror climbing up her spine and biting her throat with cold fangs.

"Well, yes, I suppose." He replied, shrugging his shoulders: "From my knowledge of your world's technology, I'm assuming this to be a somewhat adequate comparison, though this is closer to a battery that can also transform input from other machines, somewhat as if it were to adapt to their necessities and perform them on their behalf. This could give me a chance to access the technology at the point to which you were first transported, hopefully allowing us to pinpoint where the other side of the portal might be."

"Wait, what? Can't we just use this to activate the portal that brought me here?" She asked, torn between looking at the man with whom she was speaking and facing the claw that hadn't stopped directing itself at her throughout this entire conversation. What did it want? Since when did that thing have a personality, anyway?

"Ah, I meant to tell you... the grid operates on a one way system, like a sequential electric panel. This means that you will not be able to exit through the same way from which you came." He replied, his voice still holding some of the energy that it had before, though now grounded by his closeness to the subject. Like a fish disappearing beneath the silver blue waves, he was back in his element, the man once again disappearing into the dark depths of the machinarium, and that made Rapha's heart at once glad and a little sad, though the reason for such a reaction was entirely beyond her.

"Hm, kinda like a river, that's nice. So if the place where I arrived was kinda like a delta, could this machine point us in the direction of the nascent?"

"In theory." The Herald nodded, then, with a chuckle, he added: "though I must say that your insistence on natural analogies can be hard to follow."

"Sorry." She replied hastily, cringing at herself for her lack of sensibility: "It's just that that's all I've known, and even in another world, I can't really think in a framework other than my own. But I'm sorry, I'll try to be more clear."

"Eeh, It's okay, user." The Herald replied, though the usual gentleness in his tone somewhat warmer than it had been before, somehow making him almost sound younger, closer to her in a way: "I understand. Besides, it's your job to teach me about your world, is it not? So it seems to me that you are just following your part of our deal."

"Yeah yeah, okay." The girl replied, rolling her eyes and giggling despite her nervousness. How can one man be a source of so much anxiety while also being the calming hand that holds her out of the deep water and soothes her through the storm? Was he truly that never-ending spring of kindness that he seemed to be, flowing in aquamarine from the well of life through the desert and into the endless ocean? And, if he truly is this gentle creature that now she begins to find plausible that he might, what could the color of his heart be? What judgement would he cast upon her now that she wore an armor of bloody red over the white cloth that kept her whole and real and safe from the harm of the fire?

As terrifying as it was being seen so thoroughly and without any respite, now that the cap was off her claws like the lady of the blossom surfacing over the dark churned ocean, the prospect of putting the cover back on seemed like an even greater torture. From this, a dangerous idea sprouted in her mind, one that could lead her down a path much greater and much more dangerous than any arena: what if it wasn't just the lioness that bears witness to the Lamb, seeing his white kindness, but also he who saw her and the justice of her heart, and in her red wings he saw his own salvation? For now, though, even the willingness to be seen was new and scary, despite that the cause of her will wore a mask with eyes the color of the sun. So, turning back to the machine, the girl asked:

"So the plan is to go there, connect this thing, study the portal, and come back?"

"That is the short of it, yes." He replied, turning his head to also look at the machine and to resume fidgeting with it: "though, we should be prepared in case any of the residents isn't too keen on our presence." There, he finally said what she had been circling around since he first began disclosing this plan. He must have sensed that she was about to argue, otherwise why else would he already be looking at her when she faced him?

"Can't we find a way to avoid confronting the locals in their own territory?" Familiar words, different universe, Rapha was exhausted yet rest wouldn't claim her. Placing one of his elbows on the table to rest his masked face on his gloved knuckles, the Herald was half-facing her while leaning his back on his chair, his relaxed stance looking almost as tired as she felt, though not without his usual pride:

"And how would you suggest that we discourage a dangerous population from attacking us?" He asked with a sarcastic voice, but she only half heard it from the discomfort of unwelcome familiarity.

"Herald..." She started, pinching the bridge of her nose and taking a deep breath to keep her cool. "I don't know, but you're the grid expert. But I can't just go forcing trouble into people who are just minding their own lives."

"This is ridiculous. We aren't forcing anything. We have business to conduct there and that is what we will do." He waved a dismissive hand."

"And who gives us the right?" She asked, voice beginning to sound brittle.

"It's a public space, and you yourself didn't see anything when you were there, which means that the area might be indeed empty. I'm just trying to make sure that we are prepared."

"I can't set upon a journey knowing that I might be imposing into some community's lives, Herald." Rapha pleaded.

"So you will give up?" He asked, his tone still calm but with something that sounded like a blossoming frustration beneath.

"I can't make the choice to potentially bring about harm in exchange for some theoretical greater good!" She added, leaning one side of her hip against the table while her arms crossed over her chest.

"Well, I can." He replied, tone resolute. Sitting up in his chair and fully facing her, the Herald took a few seconds to breathe, his chest rising and falling beneath the metal armor being the only reminder that he was indeed a man and a living one at that. When he spoke again, his voice was serious, but it also held an honesty that was as gentle as it was ruthless in its conviction: "Rapha, do you know why I hired you?"

"Because I'm a user and you want user technology." She responded, tone matter-of-fact.

"Yes, that is a great part of it. But not all." He explained, falling silent as if to give her time to try to guess again:

"Because I fight good?" She asked, this time the ghost of a smile crossing her lips. At that, the Herald let out a low chuckle, his auburn hair twirling lightly around his head and behind his mask in a movement that was the first breath of autumn.

"Mhm, well, that too. You were quite impressive, I must admit, and your ingenuity deserves as much praise as your ferocity." He said his reasoning like he had just said an objective, basic fact like "the grid's sky is black", and Rapha's anger was quickly replaced with a completely new anxiety as her cheeks threatened to become as red as her suit at the praise. "But that is also not all." He continued, and she forced herself to focus on the subject despite not being able to move on from how sweet the praise had sounded from his gentle voice.

"Then why?" She asked, uncrossing her arms and placing them at either side of her by the cluttered table, fingers fidgeting with the small wires that spilled outward like the waters of delicate waterfalls frozen in place at the eternal realm beyond chaos.

"I am no stranger to death." He started, his voice turning both somber and somewhat cautious, as if willing her to understand an important fact despite being afraid that it might hurt her: "In fact, I doubt that anyone but infants in the grid can be. I am also no stranger to the games, nor to hiring its champions either to just liberate them or to hire their services whenever they showed that they could be useful to the development or safety of this place." Another pause, though this one also held something else besides worry, almost as if he were studying her reaction to this information. Upon finding her silent, though, he continued on speaking:

"I have seen champions who proudly wore the disks of those whom they killed, others who turned against their allies once they got a taste of glory, and even those who tore programs apart limb by limb with ecstatic smiles plastered on their faces. I have also seen people who cried from fear, people who vomited or became ill from guilt and horror, people who took their own lives instead of participating, and people who valiantly defended others to the very last of their strength." At that, the girl couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath. How much misery could misery take?

A lot, apparently, because the metal man continued: "I am also no stranger to grief, though again, I doubt that even infants in the grid can dream to be thus. I have seen the despair that comes from losing family, loved ones, and friends, from personally feeling the effects of death, and from experiencing a compassion that brings about more destruction than any hatred could ever hope to produce." At that, he leaned slightly towards her, his tone gentle yet cold like the beautiful and delicate snow that gleams paper bones the altar around which she had spent years wanting to see:

"Never before, however, had I ever seen someone defend others so fiercely, even when it came at the cost of her own chances of survival. Nor have I seen someone cry at a person who not only they hadn't ever met before, but who was the cause of the suffering that they were going through." From hearing these words, the girl looked at the Herald with wide eyes. Did he hire her because she cried? But that's just the human thing to do, the normal reaction towards suffering, the literally most basic thing that every person deserves to receive. As if he knew what she was thinking from her furrowed brows and scrunched up lips, though, the machine man added:

"I do not know other users, so I can't know how common this behavior or its presence in this intensity is to your species, although from what I have studied about your world, I'd argue that it is not the norm. But regardless, the fact of the matter is that in all battles, in all the games that have taken place in that arena since its construction, only you have done what you did, and only you have shown me that there is such a thing that is your compassion. I have hired you because I believe that you can help many people, and more than that, that I have a project that can make good use of your gift. I don't know if I have yet managed to give you enough reasons to trust me fully, but I hope that you will trust me as I say that I would never guide you to a direction which I thought would betray the person who you are." His mask was made of cold damascus steel, gold, and whatever neon machinery lit up those white gold eyes. Yet, it was as kind and cool as the nascent of the oasis cave in which the king of the six points star hid when he was chased by the older king, who wanted him dead for he was just.

That was the gentleness that doesn't only heal for it isn't a crutch to be worn and then thrown away, nor only cleans for it isn't cloth to be filled with crimson blood and washed off. It is the gentleness that saves, that offers absolution through comprehension, through seeing the lioness' soul, fiery and predatorial, and dismissing none of it, but instead making her into a protector. This was the morning star who gave the moon its mission, the lamb protected by the lion, the tree of life nurtured by the river of nothingness, the white son who is held by the kite's red wings, the life giving honey of the promised land, the king who receives the soldier as his sword and shield, giving his just heart the noble purpose of his name, the man encircled by the woman, the form surrounded by the magic, the book of law who tells what is such that the song may tell what it sounds like to recite that which is in every language, in every world, in every universe, in every dimension, in every river.

This man wasn't some egoic commune leader, some glutinous politician, some belligerent soldier. Clad in metal, face hidden under a silver storm like the Lamb behind the altar in the grey Gothic cathedral made in the image of the bone and the candelabra, this man was kind, the kind of kindness that is unconditional, and that is powerful in its honesty, earning exclusive allegiance by being the one in the middle of creation, the one in the middle of infinity, the one in the middle of the zero. The Herald was no charlatan, no street magician, but the three-armed Magi her people told her to look for, and no matter what, Rapha would follow him wherever he went, even if that meant letting herself fall into the depths of hell with open arms.

Trying not to let awe show too much in her face and having long forgotten about her anger or any tears that might have still have wanted to fall, the girl nodded once, a smile peeking through her lips like dawn shining beyond the mountains:

"Deal, I'll trust you, and I'll help you. So I suppose you have a plan?"

Quick as lightning, then, the man's voice regained its arrogant tone, sarcasm back in full force:

"Of course. I'd have to be a stupid fool not to have one."

"And would you perhaps like to share such brilliant plan, program?" She replied, raising an eyebrow, her own wit rising to meet his like a game of tag.

"I don't think so, thank you for asking, though." The Herald responded, the tone of his voice sounding like he was smiling behind the mask. Breathing a little heavier, she felt her face reddening from anger. The insolence.

"Isn't it dangerous to pick at the person whom you hired out of a gladiator arena?" She asked, pleasantly surprised that she was being able to joke about her fighting.

"Ah, there it is, threatening the man who can't defend himself." He replied, though his voice sounded almost fond.

"You walk around in armor and claim to be unable to defend yourself?" She asked, somewhat curious of how he would get out of that one.

"Have you considered that this could perhaps be simply my style?" He quipped, gesturing with one hand while his other arm went to the back of his chair.

"Sure, you're just REALLY into medieval knights." She giggled.

"Yes, because I certainly have enough experience with the popular figures of your world's cultures to develop an obsession with them." There was so much sarcasm in his voice that she wouldn't be surprised if he had rolled his eyes behind that mask.

"Not my cultures, thought." She commented, not thinking much of it as she was used to having her foreignness very clear to people around her where she studied, but still having made the habit of separating herself from western culture whenever it was brought up in her university. Hearing her words, however, the Herald paused, seemingly intrigued, tilting his masked face as if asking her to elaborate on that statement. At that moment, Rapha realized that she had metaphorically dug her own grave from how much he would pester her to learn about her culture, though she couldn't claim to be mad about this.

Chapter Text

From every unstoppable force that Rapha had ever faced in her life, the Herald's curiosity was quickly proving to be the greatest one. After having been given that small opening about Rapha's culture, he grabbed her by the metaphorical wrists and wouldn't relent about hearing more. It was new, to be heard not only with patience as her friends used to do, but with the focus of someone who was genuinely intrigued by the subject. So, she spoke about her mother's ancient and dry land, about the lush yet poor place where she grew up, about her blood, about the stories that kept her company as a child, about the world that was once all that she had ever known. She also spoke about the war, about hunger, about the fear, though these topics she kept general, impersonal and as faceless as a mask made of the steel of her own unshed tears.

As it happened, the Herald would still need time to finish preparing the machine and wouldn't be opening up the shop unless someone appeared needing urgent care. In theory, he did say that she could go about her studies if she wanted to. Yet, that was also followed by more questions about her homeworld, so she sat on a chair with him and talked while he worked. It felt new, really, and she couldn't help but be reminded of people trading stories while weaving, something that she had always known yet always wondered what it would be like. Eventually, he must have noticed her endlessly fidgeting hands, because he passed her some mechanical thing which she understood absolutely nothing about (but that looked gorgeous), and instructed her to assemble it in a method that was simple enough that she managed though elaborate enough that she didn't get bored.

Working side by side with him while discussing the cultures that had led her here was fun. It was really fun. It was previously unknown levels of fun. And it wasn't even scary because she didn't have time to be worried between her twisting delicate metal wires between her dexterous fingers and responding to the Herald's infuriating yet admittedly pretty funny quips as he dissected the mechanisms of her society with so much depth and understanding from so little clues that it was unnerving. At some point in the middle of the afternoon, though, he eventually had the stroke of genius to realize that none of them had eaten absolutely anything today, which prompted the man to call for a pause to the activity to give Rapha time to go have a very late brunch.

"What about you?" She asked as she organized the wires that she had worked on into a neat pile, preparing to get up.

"Oh I don't need as much food as you, so I am okay, thank you." He replied without turning his face from the project.

"So you're not hungry at all?" The girl replied, suspicious, entering what her friends called "the mom mode" while crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

"No." Was all that the bastard replied.

"Don't you even want to eat anything just because it's good?" She tried again.

"There's no need, though you can feel free to eat here if you don't wish to stop your work." Unfortunately for him, he dug his own grave with that.

"Wait, is it because of the mask?" She asked though she had a feeling she was spot on with her guess from the almost invisible way that he seemed to tense up. Responding with silence, the lamb was cornered against a rock wall.

"I'll get out of the room so you can eat in peace but you really should eat something. I will probably go study in the living room anyway so I can bring you food if you like? Just for today." She was tentative, her usual cautiousness having a fight to the death against her overwhelming necessity to make sure that this man didn't go hungry.

"There's no need, thank you. I'd prefer if you went about your routine as you please." Was all that he said, blossoming a ridiculous idea in her mind, one that was probably too arrogant of her to even entertain, yet she was a student of logic and from her point this was making an awful lot of sense. Was he avoiding sending her away so that they could continue hanging out, despite the fact that he couldn't eat this way? This was ridiculous. Life taught you better than to think so highly of yourself, you weirdo.

"Hm, well, alright, but, if you ever would like help with these things again..." She gestured towards the cluttered table: "I'd be glad to help, it feels good to occupy my hands with something other than holding books." She laughed, examining idly the small cuts that had filled her hands from the thin wires and now were beginning to drip small bloody trails across her skin. These marks were so familiar to her, the sharp, barely-there stings that they brought not even bringing discomfort anymore from how often they occurred. Apparently following the direction of her eyes with his own, though, the Herald asked with a voice that would sound almost concerned if it wasn't ridiculous for a doctor to be worried about such small injuries.

"Are you hurt?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary from this kind of thing, my skin is just thin, don't worry" she shrugged.

"User, the expected rate of injury to this kind of work is zero." He replied, voice between a tired exasperation and endearingly sarcastic.

"Well I always got cut like this when I did metalwork back at home."

"Which isn't reassuring. You should clean the wounds and avoid risking them getting infected." The metal man replied, shaking his head and getting up from the desk.

"Wait, there's human-affecting pathogens in the grid?" Rapha asked both out of curiosity and to try to change the subject from the discomfort of the idea of disturbing the Herald's work with such meaningless injuries.

"This is an inquiry which I'd rather not find out through a live subject." He replied, already making his way to one of his treatment rooms, the girl trailing awkwardly behind. She felt like a child making a fuss over small things, despite her wish that she had just hidden the state of her hands from the man not helping her case in that regard. Still, he had a point, she had to admit, as she truly didn't know about the contagion risks of that strange new world nor, for example, if she could get infected with program diseases, which could in turn affect her way more strongly than they would with their usual hosts, who had evolved around these and therefore had some immunity to shield them somewhat from their ailments.

Worse yet, if she caught a disease and it then mutated in her organism and then went back to the programs... wait, what if human pathogens she may carry without even noticing could adapt to programs? Looking down at the small drops of blood that were falling from her hand and leaving breadcrumb trails across the grey floor… Yeah, alright, he was right. Potential biohazard and bringer of plague were definitely titles that Rapha didn't need upon herself. Following the Herald into the room and fully expecting him to just hand her something to clean her hands with and call it a day, the girl looked around distractedly while he fetched whatever he needed. Yet, she wasn't given time to idly zone out as the metal man turned back to her, a little brown glass flask in his metal hand and some gauze in the other.

What did his human hands look like?

Taking a deep breath to unsuccessfully try to banish that thought, the woman went forward to take the thing from his hands, but for the second time today, she was stopped from the gesture. What was it with people not letting her grab stuff? With a nudge of his head, the Herald motioned for her to sit on the pristine white stretcher by the dark brown medicine cabinets, which made her heart pick up like a frantic hare both from embarrassment that he was going through this much trouble over injuries that she had ignored all her life, and from a reason that was entirely different from shame. Pride in shambles and mind unable to think of anything but the man in front of her, she sat down on the thing, feet dangling without enthusiasm as she put her hands out towards him, palms up and head down like a surrendering criminal or a devotee  in prayer.

Putting on some of the vial's liquid on a piece of gauze, the man then set the flask and the rest of the fabric by her side in the stretcher, taking her hands in his. Just like in the day they first met, the girl noticed how they enveloped hers to the point that he could probably close his fingers against her wrist without the tips of her fingers leaving the limit of his palms. Muttering a "tsk" under his breath, the Herald set about methodically cleaning her hands, his hold on her so gently yet so firmly reassuring that it was no wonder this man was a doctor. The metal around his left hand was unyielding and cold, the intricately overlapped metal plates obeying the minutiae of his movements without making a sound nor pinching her skin. The gloved hand was softer, warmer, the leather betraying flesh underneath despite the impersonality of the cloth. Contrary to the shiny, smooth steel, this fabric was worn from time and use, rough though not to the point of abrasiveness.

What would his human hands feel like?

Desperate to think about literally anything else, Rapha broke the silence with the first question that she managed to conjure in her mushed mind:

"But seriously, though, why do you wear a mask all the time?" Her voice was low against the silent environment, almost shy, the enclosed space feeling too cramped and making her sound far too loud to her own ears. At that, the Herald paused. He had managed to clean her wounds despite the continuous trickle of blood, and used his third arm to reach into the cabinet to grab a small rounded metal container, from which a muddy, greyish, mint-smelling paste was produced. It felt cool against her skin as he applied it to her injured hands, but took no time at all to warm up under his careful touch. After enough time that Rapha was sure that he wouldn't address her question, he replied:

"The... controversial nature of my work entails that it is safer for me to have the option to travel without being recognized."

"So you wear a mask everyday in your own house just for the potential advantage of not having a publically known face?" Rapha's voice sounded more like she was wondering the words aloud, but that did not stop the metal man from replying:

"When dealing with limited resources, one would be wise to make use of every advantage, yes?" At that, she paused, torn between voicing a question that was entirely too personal for comfort or remaining in familiar silence. Would he be mad at her if she didn't only force him to stop his work to treat her wounds but also pestered him with questions that she had no right to ask? Yet, it was the sheer necessity and devastating hunger to know him that drove her to ask:

"Isn't it lonely, though? To not be remembered by those who you helped and who helped you in return?"

Silence fell into the room for a few moments while the Herald prepared the gauze to bandage around her cuts. From the blood that spilled through the white, demanding him to add further layers of bandaging, the girl was sure by now that she had gotten way more hurt than she had initially thought. How had she not seen it? Not felt the pain? Though she knew the reason even before asking herself these questions in her depth: She hadn't expected her pain to be answered, so there had been no need to cry out. She had suffocated her injuries the same way that she drowned all her fears and grief over the assumption that there wouldn't be anyone to come to her aid, an assumption that up until this point, had been correct, that had been the law until the Herald showed up like the first thunder that brings with it a very good deal.

"You don't wear a mask. Can you say that your life was any less lonely than mine?" He eventually responded, though his voice was as low and tentative as the gentle grasp that he had on her hands as he secured the bandages with medical tape, displaying the same caution that he had given the soft flesh of her skin.

"No." She replied. "No, I can't. But there were moments that came close to not being this way. Whenever I spent the night in the open white desert, under the violet star-filled sky, for example, that didn't feel like solitude, it just felt like Netzach... eternity. That just felt like home."

"I suppose that your world's sky must be very beautiful from how much your species loves to talk about it in your books." He pondered, his hands carefully setting hers over her own lap before setting about putting all the items back into their respective places.

"It is in some desolate places, though for the most part of anywhere that the general population has access to, it's just a huge brown splotch nowadays." She spoke with that familiar defeatist tone that she had developed after far too many years in academia. "But it's still breathtaking in the desert, though, I can take you there if you want once we reach my world." The girl offered, although not really imagining that the Herald would have the time nor the will to indulge her whims through that whole glorious higher purpose goal of his.

"I'll hold you to it." Was the reply that he gave, though, to which her eyes widened and a smile spread across her face faster than flowers bloom in spring. Why did her heart feel like it were a sprawling field in summer, where the single spark of his reply had been carried by the wind and evolved into great fire that took root and spread, consuming everything in its path and warming up every cold of every world? Because she is Shamesh, the flame that lights up all other's, the one in the middle of creation, and even before her mind knew this, her heart was well aware of the basic fact.

"Really??? Okay!!! I promise I'll make it worth your time!" She replied excitedly, getting up and taking a few steps towards the Herald as she already began to plan how she would go about organizing the trip. With her mind in another world, she didn't even notice the Herald as he looked at her behind the mask of twirling steel, a low chuckle escaping him as they both began making their way back towards the corridor's door.

Before either of them could say anything else, though, a low alarm sounded lazily throughout the room, bursting this bubble of comfort and warmth that had found its nest in such a delicate place. It didn't sound urgent, but the girl's mind picked up its pace regardless due to the learned fear of air raid alerts. Without thinking, her hands went up towards the Herald to hover near him in a defensive gesture, while her head turned slightly towards where seemed to be the source of the sound. Breath caught in her throat, she only breathed again when the Herald placed his gloved hand over hers, a barely-there touch that she almost couldn't feel through the bandages, but that burned through her heart all the same.

"It's okay. It's just an alert that we have a visitor." He spoke, voice more soothing than any balm. Despite the lack of teasing on his part, she felt her cheeks warm up in embarrassment as she pulled her hands down her sides and forced a tense smile.

"Oh, yeah, thanks. Sorry. Do you want me to leave you to your work? Do you want help?" Walking towards the corridor, the Herald following close behind, she spoke while looking at the direction of the metal doors as if somehow she could see however stood outside of the building.

"Considering that the shop is closed and that this wasn't an emergency alert, I'd think that it's probably your friend." The Herald spoke as he went to Rapha's side, the two walking together towards the entrance hall. Oh? Did he mean Huck? The prospect of seeing the kind program again made Rapha happy, as she hoped that he would be faring better than when she last saw him. In truth, the girl had so much to thank him for, as without his help and compassion she was sure that she wouldn't have survived the arena. But the idea that Huck might still be afraid of her, or that time might have made him think of her fighting as something blood-red horrible weighed in her mind like a cast net tied with stone weights around its frame.

Besides, what if seeing him again only made the memories and the nightmares worse? What if, looking at him, she would remember the feeling of glowing blue glass dust staining her mouth? Rapha felt guilty about being apprehensive to face someone who had given her nothing but compassion and friendship, of not being able to just be glad to see a familiar face, of not having done more to try to help other mutated programs in the lightcycle when she had the chance, when they were still alive...

If the Herald noticed her anxiety, he didn't make his awareness known, nor said anything as he opened up the door. Yet, even through the panic, Rapha could notice his metal hand coming to rest on her back over the curve of her spine, right beneath the blood-red disk. It was polite, professional even, under the light that she was his guest and therefore under his protection of hospitality, but it pulled her from the deep waters in which she was drowning all the same. That very same hand had always been so familiar throughout her life, keeping her from drowning, keeping her safe from harm, keeping her up, keeping her. Yet, now that she could feel its weight through the metal of his armor and the fabric of her suit, it was as if upon learning what she knew not, this were all that she had ever known, and all the darkness before had just been a nightmare from which she was awakening through the white light of the morning sun as it came to grace her heart in the kind yet undeniably present softness of the lamb's golden fleece.

Against the darkness of the grid and the colorful neon lights that framed it, three figures appeared. The first was Huck, white eyes carrying a calm happiness that was so genuine and pure that it was disarming. He was wearing his usual black suit with pearly light, though over it he had draped and styled a white cloth in a way that was halfway between a saree and a dress. Holding the garment, beige strips of fabric acted as belts, crisscrossing seemingly at random while holding small rounded bits of metal embellishments. His hair was up in a ponytail, keeping his scar in full view, and the smile he wore was so serene that it looked odd until it occurred to Rapha that she had met Huck in an extremely and absurdly stressful situation, which was probably different from his usual mental states.

Admittedly, she felt a little stupid for only now realizing that, and she wondered for a second how different she must also look when not covered in dusty blue blood, but she didn't have time to chastise any potential lack in her emotional intelligence because as soon as everyone was inside, Huck tackled her in the gentlest, most familial hug that she had ever received in her entire life. Scratch not wanting to cry in front of people, the girl was a goner the second his thumbs traced soothing circles on her back. She didn't make a fuss, she didn't sob, she didn't even whimper. But letting tears flow down her eyes as if they were rivers that hadn't ever been blocked or dammed, her cry was a steady trickle that didn't burn nor force its way through its path, only carried soothing water down onto the earth.

When, eventually, the man let the girl go, his smile was like what she assumed a gentle father would be, and she laughed despite the tears, her own smile made soft in return. With the understanding that comes from shared survival, the man didn't say a word of thanks to her, nor did she to him, but as he moved to the side to introduce the other visitors, the light pat that he gave on her uninjured arm was at once all the "Thank you"s and "you're welcome"s that they would ever need to voice to each other.

To his left, stood a woman with greyed dark skin and box braids styled through weaved strands of purple. She had fluorescent glowing eyes and black sclera, and jaggedy purple face paint crossed her face in what was reminiscent of a butterfly or a spider. She wore a black suit with soft red light, and a similarly colored dress that somewhat reflected Huck's drapes through more tightly woven in a way that reminded Rapha of traditional kung-fu attires. Seeming to be in her forties, she looked fierce, and could even have looked scary were it not for the infant that she cradled in her arms.

Instantly disarming Rapha in a way that was almost aggressive, the girl felt her heart melt like butter over a pan, her breath evening with a sight and her muscles relaxing so instantly that it must have been visible. Smile widening like the Cheshire cat's and heart filled with giggles, she was at once calmer than she had been since she got in the grid and filled with the excited happiness that she always got when she saw kids and babies. The infant was draped in white fabric, apparently without a suit, which was a relief, and alternated between napping and looking at her with extremely sleepy eyes. His skin tone was about halfway between his parent's, eyes a pearly baby blue that was a bit jarring through its glow, but that remained entirely endearing to Rapha. Resisting the urge to coo at the baby, though, Rapha turned back to the woman as Huck was introducing her:

"Rapha, this is Aya, my wife." There was so much pride and joy in his tone as he spoke that at that moment it seemed like the most absurd of impossibilities that this family could have ever been separated by the games. Unable to give her hand, the woman nodded, her glowing eyes as serious as they were sincere in their gratitude as she spoke:

"You have saved my husband's life, and with that, you have saved my family. Thank you, Rapha." Torn between accepting these thanks or directing her own gratitude towards these people, she opted for a middle ground, a serious but happy smile on her face and a sober bow of her head:

"I have done for him as he did for me. I'll always owe my life to your family, so thank you for everything."

"For as much as I appreciate the praise," The woman added, to which the girl quickly looked up. "This one wouldn't have survived a moment in that arena without your help." Her tone turned gently teasing as she faced her husband, a smile that was equal parts relief and familiarity brightening her expression and bringing a crinkle to her eyes. For his part, Huck looked absolutely smitten, like a teen boy with a crush and a silly smile on his face. Seeing them like this made Rapha so happy that she felt that she could almost hear the giggles in her heart as they made their way up into her mind and eased the anxiety that she had been feeling. Not having been lucky to see many happy couples in her life, and those who she saw were strangers to her own family, the girl wondered what it would be like to have a family like this someday, if she could ever be this lucky to be loved in this honest and true way by the sun.

Then, almost as if noticing how much Rapha wanted to address him, the baby cooed and gestured his tiny little hand towards her, though she couldn't reach back due to the bandages that she now wore. Gesturing at her hands with an apologetic expression, she pursed her lips in a cuteness-aggression smile as she looked at the tiny little baby who now seemed hellbent on going to Rapha's arms, an honor of unimaginable importance.

"What happened?" Asked Huck about the injuries.

"I hurt myself while working with the machinery, it's nothing serious but I'd not want to risk the balm getting on his skin." She replied, looking at the Herald as if worried that he would disclose the stupid way that the injuries came to be.

"Mhm, it wouldn't be an issue for you to hold the child if you wanted." The Herald replied in a voice as if he were more pondering it to himself than addressing her. "And if his parents agreed, of course." He added, practiced professionalism shining through as he assumed that famous role of Healer that she had only heard about yet never seen in action before. Sounding more grounded and assured, with such a small shift the Herald had taken on the responsibility for an entire community which looked up to him as if it weighed nothing at all, the same way that he wore metal as if it were as light as cloth. It was impressive, honestly, if a bit intimidating, and Rapha understood why people such as Huck admired him so fiercely.

The Herald wore the crown of a caring leader well, so much so that although in another circumstance Rapha wouldn't have even considered holding the baby, this time she found herself fully convinced that it was entirely safe for her to hold the cooing creature. Had he done a mind trick on her? Used the voice? What in the absolute mind control magic was this? And if he was so good at directing the situation by dawning the role of the magnetic leader, why had he never worn that crown near her before? Why was this the first time that he was showing her who the Herald is to everyone else? Does that mean that who she met so far wasn't the Herald's careful public persona, but the man under the mask? Had she been in this place all this time, alone with not a Healer, but with a man? The same one, the gentle hands of whom she wondered so much about?

To distract her mind from this realization, Rapha picked up the baby with practiced gentleness, holding him safely yet without squishing, supporting his little head with a bandaged palm that, despite hurting a bit, didn't bleed through nor let any balm seep out onto the soft creature that knew of no harm and of no suffering, only the glow of his parents eyes.

"Hi baby!" She said with a voice so soft that it might have been a whisper made of feathers, completely transfixed by the little one as she always were. Unthinkingly, she kissed his little head in what was more instinct and familiarity than thought, remembering the little kids in her family and communities, and all the times that she had cared for them. The people around her were talking about something, but she paid no mind to their words. Feeling the weight of the little creature was grounding, a reminder that she couldn't fall to the floor lest she take him with her, and even when this tired her arms, it only made her feel strong in a way that didn't make her feel any less gentle. In that moment, Rapha really understood why people fought wars for these little fellas, why they endured what they did, why they forced their hands towards acts that to them were justified if they meant keeping their little ones safe.

Chapter Text

This wasn't absolution, no stranger could give her that. But at that moment, Rapha was glad that she had survived and helped this infant's father return to him, so that he could protect his son the way that users and programs had done since before the beginning of either of these worlds. When the baby eventually cooed to get his mother's attention once again, the girl gently handed him back into his family's loving arms, her expression showing what she hoped was well disguised wistfulness as she looked at the creature relaxing in his mother's chest as if he had never left its comforting assuredness. From her peripheral vision, she could see the Herald as he stood by her side, and noticed that he had gone silent a short while ago, masked head tilted slightly as if in thought. Pre-occupied with the baby, the woman didn't really pay this any mind until the sun-eyed man spoke:

"Perhaps you would like to stay for a few moments and rest before returning on your way? I'd be happy to receive you." He extended the offer politely, but there was an underlying concern that lit up a light in her mind, curious to see what this act of hospitality was about. Regardless of its gentle tone, that hadn't been a question, and such a short time ago that would have sent Rapha's mind in an immediate defensive panic. Now, though, there was barely any cautiousness at all as she looked at the metal man, squinting her eyes in a silent inquiry that wouldn't be noticed by the guests. It wasn't without satisfaction that she noticed him give a subtle bow of his head, a request for her trust. Very well, she supposed that he deserved that.

"We would be honored, Herald, but we can't just barge in and take more of your time." Huck answered in a happy, if slightly trembling, yet deferential voice.

"It would be no trouble, I insist." The Herald replied, pressing his pleasant tone a bit more strongly yet with an easy-going smoothness that made him sound like he was smiling behind the silver mask.

"W-well, if you insist..." The man turned to his wife, who nodded and re-arranged the baby on her chest as he was now soundly asleep, sprawled like a starfish. With that, the Herald turned on his heels, leading the way to his office (oh, so they get to visit, but gods forbid Rapha looks around it?), where Huck and Aya took one of the couches with their baby. Having absolutely no idea if she was welcome to be there for whatever the Herald had planned, Rapha hovered awkwardly by the door for a few seconds, though she was thankfully saved by Huck, who gestured towards the couch in front of his:

"Come, sit with us, we'd be happy to hear how you've been hanging these days." So there she went, sitting by a corner of the dark brown leather sofa, though the anxiety was eased somewhat by her friend's kindness.

"Do you all drink coffee?" The Herald asked as if social gatherings were the easiest thing to manage on earth, his calm charm being quite impressive and even more infuriating. With nods and words of agreement from everyone, the machine man disappeared through the door, probably to the kitchen, after which Huck turned to the girl with an excited smile on his face and a reverend tone in his voice:

"See? I told you that he would help us! We were lucky to have caught his attention!"

"How did you two meet by the way?" Rapha replied instead of continuing the subject of Huck's vision of the Herald as some esteemed and powerful savior. From where she was, Rapha couldn't help but think that It must be lonely to be regarded in this kind of esteem, and she wondered if that reverence that the metal man received from his community couldn't be just another mask that he had been gifted a long time ago and now wore over his flesh like spiraling snakeskin.

"After the games, I was taken to Piltover's celebration room. Given that apparently he had already bartered with the chembarons for you, he went to where I was so that he could free me as well!" Huck's voice was ecstatic, arms moving excitedly, though a look at his sleeping son made him come down somewhat, muttering a silent "sorry" and toning down. With a lower but still very happy voice, he then continued: "he didn't hire me, he just released me. But he still offered to take me back to the neighborhood, which was lucky because I wanted to make sure that you would be okay!" At that, Rapha softened a little bit, gratitude shining warm over her like a bright hand-crocheted shawl. How had she managed to stumble upon such good people, who would give her so much care and compassion, even when she couldn't bring herself to ask them to do so?

"Yeah, we were very lucky to have his help, and I was very lucky to have yours." She spoke with a serene tone, the honesty of her gladness feeling as sweet as tree sap in her veins.

"And I was lucky that you were there." Her friend added, his smile calming from the intensity of before and now just looking human, compassionate, and more than anything, glad. "Y-you've saved my life, that's not something that we forget about around here."

"And you've saved mine." She was quick to retort, unable to lay claim over a debt which had already been paid and for which she wouldn't have charged regardless.

"Well, you are a bit more than me, haha." He added, but when she just gave him a serious, pleading look, the man relented "though I guess that we can call it a team effort. Anyway, what will you do now?" At the man's question, the girl looked at Aya, then back to him. Understanding what she was asking, the ginger looked at his wife, his voice between sheepish and enamored as he added: "Aya knows... sorry, I can't keep a secret from my lady."

"But I'd never make a bad use of this information and put you in harm, user." Aya added, taking one of her husband's hands in hers and giving it a squeeze.

"I know, it's okay, thank you." Rapha replied, relaxing into the couch before continuing: "the Herald is helping me find a way home." Vague enough, not out of lack of trust in Huck, but because she wasn't sure how much of the transportation gates the metal man would want to disclose, better safe than sorry. Since when did he have her allegiance like that? How had he managed to obtain her trust so quickly?

"As I knew that he would! He is a good man, I'm glad that you're with him!" Her friend said, probably not meaning it to sound the way Rapha understood it, but her cheeks warmed regardless. As if the fates had a sense of humor, the Herald appeared at that moment, hand free from his cane carrying a large metal tray with a jug of water, a coffee press, some mugs and cups, and some honey cookies which Rapha had absolutely no idea where he got. Having nowhere else to sit, the man lowered himself onto the other side of the couch into which Rapha was trying to disappear, though it seemed that oblivion wouldn't take her, so she busied herself with organizing the items from the tray for everyone.

They made small talk, though she wasn't ever the best at paying attention to those, so the girl zoned out and focused on the coffee in front of her which was, admittedly, delicious. The growling in her stomach was a reminder that, surprise surprise! She hadn't eaten anything today after all, and the Herald had the audacity of looking at her in response to the sound as if in chastisement, even though he was the one who wouldn't even drink now because of the mask. Oh. He didn't even bring a mug for himself. Noticing this made her chest hurt, the memory of hunger being something that teaches how dearly it should be avoided. She must have made a very pitiful face while her mind thought of ways with which she could get the Herald to be alone for a while so he could have some of this coffee and the cookies, because they were very good.

Yet, as if sensing her scheming, the man moved in his place, a barely-there movement as he passed Huck some more coffee, but which brought his armored knee to press agaisnt hers. With how casually this man seemed to always invade her personal space, something that she just assumed he did with everyone due to the nature of his work, Rapha would have believed that it wasn't intentional, had he not stayed this way for a few seconds and then pressed further. Another plea for her trust. Another request to which she wordlessly agreed to, this time with a gentle press of her knee in response. Were Rapha a fool, she would have believed that she heard his breath hitch, but she wasn't a fool, so she just dismissed it as wishful thinking on her part.

All that teamwork was getting to her head. She got the job because she was human and he wanted human technology. Get a hold of yourself. Yet, despite the self-chastisement, it was nice to be someone's accomplice for once, but it was only nice because it was him, the one whose intelligence and wit never failed to rise to her challenge, while his grounding kindness picked her up beyond all that she could ever be. Maybe there could be a world in which she could get used to this, and maybe such a world was both here and earth once the transportation gates erased that distance.

Once the coffees had been drank and placed back in the tray (though the cookies remained firmly planted in the center of the table, best she ever had), the Herald got up once again, though this time he addressed her friend:

"Huck, would you mind giving me a hand?" He asked, tone polite and pleasant, though Rapha instantly smelled bullshit. The Herald asking for help??? As the ginger got up, though, eagerly nodding and picking up the tray, the girl noticed his leg. Having once been shattered by that soldier and the arena, now his normal tissue only went until shortly below his knee. From there on, unclothed by the suit as seemed to be the norm for prosthetics here, an intricate copper leg took its place, the joints between leg and foot intricately protruding like those of a balljointed doll. Vertical panels that ran the length of the piece reminded the girl of old-timey exhaust grates, and small indents organized in geometrical patterns gave an ornamental look to the item that was exquisite.

Rapha could have recognized it as the Herald's work even with her eyes closed, given that all of his creations moved as smoothly and silently as dreams, not a squeak to give them away. Perhaps the metal man had called her friend discretely to check on the functioning of the leg, so she didn't press for answers any further. Once again relaxing against the soft couch, she watched as Aya addressed her son in a language which she didn't understand, though he was beginning to grow fussy as his little patience was quickly running out. Wondering if perhaps he was hungry, the copper-eyed girl offered:

"Please feel free to let me know if you want me to leave the room if you want to nurse him okay? I can't imagine that these suits are the easiest clothes for maternity. And if you are hungry and would like something more substantial than coffee there's fruit and food that I could bring you, you just let me know." Hearing this, the woman laughed softly before replying:

"Thank you, I am not hungry but I will accept your first offer, user." At that, the girl nodded, getting up and opening the door before turning to the woman again:

"I'll be outside if you need anything, I'll let Huck know that you're here once he comes back. Okay?" Seeing Aya nod in agreement, Rapha closed the door behind herself, not wanting to stray from her post in case any of the men came back. So, she sat cross-legged against the wall by the door, looking around at the form of that place which never failed to continue surprising her with new details, such as the way that the corners of the walls were smoothed out and rounded instead of fully pointed. While zoning out, the girl could hear the murmuring of the men's voices coming from one of the healing rooms, which seemed to have been left ajar by accident.

Now, not being one to be nosy about what people talked unless it was for the sake of being safe, Rapha tried her best to not pay attention to the conversation. It was Huck's right as a patient to be entitled to his privacy after all. However, it became harder to ignore it when she heard her own name, especially as it came from the Herald's voice:

"..Rapha doesn't know... I believe that..." they were far enough that it was very difficult to make out the words, these being all that Rapha could make out. Mind beginning to panic, the old practiced fear tried to climb up her spine again, but she had promised the Herald to trust him, and she would follow through with that promise. So, despite the itch to get nearer to eavesdropping, the girl stayed out, having half the mind to knock on the office door to go back in but not wanting to disturb neither the mother and son nor the men in the other room with the sound.

Great, she really dug her own grave there. Alright. Staying out and fidgeting with her hair to give her mind something else to focus on, that could have worked, but someone (probably Huck from only having one audible footstep) got very close to the door of that healing room, opening it it fully as if to pass through, only to be called back by someone else (probably the Herald, with three audible footsteps), the two stopping just by the doorframe to continue what she now noticed was an argument. Being unable not to hear and afraid of disturbing the talk, the girl remained still while the Herald asked:

"How affected are the others?" His voice had more unguarded worry than she had ever heard it carry before, and that was honestly terrifying.

"T-thomas is mostly okay, though Shuli has been feeling weaker lately." Huck replied, anxiety returning from his voice and reminding Rapha of the arena, though now it had a bravery that showed that whoever these were, they were people for whom he had to be strong and keep it together. There was a sound like the Herald went back into the room to fetch something in the cabinets, and then a shuffling like he was giving whatever that was to Huck.

"This should keep the mutation in check. Give me some time to prepare more medicine, after which I will visit your house to check up on you all. You should expect the visit to be in a few days." The Herald spoke, voice gaining a bit of its usual gentleness though it was still serious. "But you must not tell anyone what you have just disclosed to me."

"I w-wont, Herald. Thank you. I can never thank you enough." Huck added, his awe for the Herald mixing with concern for whatever that subject was. Before either of them could say anything else, though, they crossed through the doors, Huck completely freezing like a deer in headlights and the metal man stopping in his movements from the sudden blocking of the way. Tilting his head, he looked at Rapha who had attempted to seem as viscerally focused on checking the ends of her hair as she could, turning her head up to the men as soon as she heard their commotion, addressing her friend:

"Aya is nursing."

To that, Huck gave her a quick nod in thanks and, after knocking on the door and announcing himself with a gentle voice, entered the room to be with his wife. Getting up and realizing that her legs had fallen asleep, the girl leaned against the wall while the Herald approached, his steps almost cautious.

"I didn't hear much of your conversation and all I know about what you guys discussed is that it's a secret." She blurted out immediately while still looking at her hair as she twisted it between her fingers. Better to be honest straight away, right? At that, though, the Herald just sighed, coming to stand in front of her. Lowering his voice so that only she could hear, he spoke:

"Its okay. Huck and some members of his family are showing signs of a progression of their mutation. I had examined him on the night that he brought you to me, and today only confirmed his diagnosis." Hearing this, Rapha felt worry biting at her gut and weighing on her mind as heavily as river stones that had been smoothed by time and by the forest of peaceful times that grew around it.

"How serious is it?" She asked, looking up to the Herald who was standing close enough to hear her words despite her whispered voice.

"Mhm, it could develop to cause them harm if not restrained, but you do not need to worry. I have a plan that can help him." He started, used to doing everything by himself. Despite the admitted hypocrisy, Rapha wouldn't just let that slide:

"Can I help?" The girl's eyes were hopeful and tender, offering not only because she wanted her friend to be okay, nor just because she wanted people in general to be safe, but because she wanted the Herald to not have to carry all of his burdens alone. He had given her a mission that not only helped her life but also promised to improve that of all programs, and potentially that of users as well. That purpose kept her afloat almost as much as his gentle hand had grounded her when he had held it against her spine, so if she could give him even a semblance of the safety that he gave her, then that was as good a deal as any. At her words, the metal man stood silent, the unblinking eyes of the mask making him look like a beautiful and unyielding stone gargoyle. Wondering if she had overstepped, the girl imagined that he would dismiss her offer for help just as he had so far, and was bracing herself for the high wall of his practiced gentleness. Yet, eventually, he spoke:

"Not... yet. There will be time to address Huck's health, but for now I fear that this will be a burden too high for you to carry. I'm sorry. However, I can tell you that I might be able to be closer to a solution to his troubles after accessing the dormant portal that has brought you here." That wasn't... really a rejection, though it wasn't surrender either. It was something, a path, a promise that had a chance to have a future, despite how ominous it sounded. Regardless, he isn't nothing, and that's onto which the girl holds.

"How is his family's health related to the portal?" She asked, furrowing her eyebrows in inquiry.

"Trust me." Was all that the Herald offered.

"You ask for my trust but you don't tell me why. So far, you've spoken about me and why I'm good for the mission, and you've asked about my life and my culture!" She gestured with her bandaged hands, exasperated. "Yet you don't even show me your face! It's your house, your work, your mission, your plan, your community... You hold all the cards here, you are the king and I'm just a knight, how am I to know if I truly trust you or if I'm just being appeased like a wild beast?" At that, the Herald seemed to tense, freezing more at her words than he had upon finding her in the hallway. In some ways, she knew that she could trust him. He had proven to be kind, and his care for his craft and the people who made use of it was as clear as daylight. Yet, kindness in powerful hands can also be a tool for compliance, and now that they were allies, she wanted at least to know that he would be leading her down a path that's just.

Yet, before he could say anything, the door opened, Huck and his family walking out with happy and relaxed expressions. As the Herald took a few (many) steps back, only then Rapha noticed how close he had been, which made her cheeks flush despite the lingering anger. As the two turned to the family to oversee their departure, though, there wasn't another word of the argument, not while Rapha hugged Huck and kissed the sleeping baby's hand, nor while she waved them off with the biggest smile that she could muster. Even as the door closed, the girl remained quiet, not being fond of arguing and opting instead to go to have a proper meal and to give the Herald space to eat as well if he so wished. Yet, she didn't get very far, for as soon as she turned on her heels, the Herald called for her:

"Rapha, please wait a moment." His voice was gentle, almost apologetic, but the prospect of arguing filled her with dread all the same. Turning to face him with a tired expression on her face, still the woman couldn't help but notice the way that the metal doors framed him like the wings of the black god. Waiting in silence, she gave him space to speak, though he promptly walked towards her, stopping close, though not as close as he had been in the hallway just a moment ago. After a sigh that sounded like he was having an argument with himself, the man eventually dropped his head, his auburn hair falling by the sides of his mask like thorn branches.

"I don't yet know how much we will learn in the portal, and it's a greater risk than benefit to share with you too much for now. Please, accompany me there, and I promise you that once we secure a firm lead on where to proceed, I will explain your friend's family's condition."

"And if we can't gather anything useful from the portal?" She asked, voice cautious yet not crossing her arms.

"Then I will tell you as much as I can." He replied, and she hated how honest he sounded. Pinching the bridge of her nose and shutting her eyes heavily as if she had a headache, the girl let out a sigh. Fine. He wins. Not because of arguments and logic like a good scholar, nor because of whatever mind control magic his public persona's magnetism seems to be capable of exerting, but because for once, the man sounded genuinely pleading, and there was a delicate, boyish vulnerability in his voice that made him more endearing than anyone else, even cute little babies who seem to do so much in lifting her spirits.

"Fine, but only because the baby is cute and I'm in a good mood." She replied as if she had actually had a choice. It was clear now that she held none of the cards and that not only the Herald had the cards, he had the game's board, pieces, and rulebook too. In this, there wasn't really any negotiation, just acceptance of her fate and the best use of her capacities to do her job well, trusting the cause onto which she had been drafted before she even knew the hands that held onto her and connected her to the tree of life. It was terrifying, but she would have to trust the Herald and his home, so that is exactly what she did. As if he had been just as eager to change the tone of the conversation, though, he was quick to respond to her comment with sarcasm lighting up his voice:

"Are you certain that it was a child that caused you to be agreeable and not the work that I put in tending to your injuries? Your lack of consideration wounds me."

"Absolutely. That baby was adorable, my day is made." She quipped back, them both making their way into the kitchen. Once there, she took two boxes of pasta and handed him one. Before he could protest, though, she cast him a warning look, setting about picking up the items that she had left by the table earlier. Then, with a stern tone, she said:

"Dont worry, I'll go eat in my room. Gods know when you last ate and you had to watch us have coffee and all those gods-blessed cookies without having any for yourself. Just... eat something, please." The Herald was clearly not used to people telling him what to do, because for a few seconds he just stood there. Then, though, he relented with a sigh, despite his voice being warm when he replied:

"Very well, I will follow your advice, doctor." He mocked a short bow, dragging a smile out of her lips despite her will. Returning the bow with the practiced elegance and poise of a dancer, placing a hand in her chest while the other went behind herself, feet positioned in front of the other as if addressing an audience, Rapha replied:

"I'm glad, my patient, I'm sure that you will find wisdom in this treatment upon witnessing its results." Saying these words with a stage-smile, she set herself back up, keeping the theatrics for a second before letting her smile soften.

"I have no doubt." This time he definitely sounded like he was smiling, his voice darkening, and the girl couldn't help her heart from picking up speed. Still, she was glad to not be fighting anymore, so they stood in this way for a moment, neither daring to interrupt this bubble of warm peace that they had somehow stumbled upon like a man and a jihn meeting in an oasis hidden between the white sands. Eventually, though, the Herald cleared his throat, turning towards a cabinet to pick up cutlery for himself:

"I'll let you know when the machine is ready for transportation. We should be able to go shortly after daybreak, if you're not too tired from today's events." In truth, she was exhausted, but never one to let tiredness stop her, Rapha nodded in agreement:

"Okay. Sounds great, I'll be upstairs." With that, the woman turned on her heels and began walking with her silent steps. Stepping a foot on the staircase, Rapha heard what sounded like a mask being placed on the wooden table, indicating that at last the metal man had a chance to simply breathe in that lonely, silent room in which for once he didn't have to worry about caring for others and shouldering the weight of their troubles, being allowed to simply enjoy his dinner.

Chapter Text

Should one study the great strategies of success as they were honed in to perfection by humanity's long history, they would find that few things, if at all, can prove to be as overwhelmingly efficient as a good nap. Yet, from the way that Rapha fell facefirst into her pillow like a chopped-up tree as soon as she reached her room, the copper-eyed girl could hardly claim to have been thinking of the benefits of short rest. Instead, the events of the day twirled around in her mind like Bolshoi ballerinas, echoing through her sleep-addled mind with the vaporous consistency of fever-dreams. Soon, even these images calmed, like autumn leaves carried by the wind finding solace under a great tree. Being at once too tired and not tired enough for dreams, the girl fell asleep without even realizing, waking up to a familiar voice:

"User, it's time for us to go. Are you well to travel?" Yet, just as she was about to tell the Herald that maybe she was actually too tired and that they should wait until tomorrow, Rapha's eyes landed on the figure by the door. Granted, her vision was still blurry as she was still half clutched in the talons of black-wingged sleep, but the image by the doorway wasn't silver at all, instead being an unfamiliar black splotch.

Hun?

With a speed that hurt her back and made her stomach churn, Rapha got up in a flash, rubbing her eyes quickly to see clearly ahead as she stood by the further wall of her room. In front of her was a freakishly tall, slender man wearing a fully black grid suit and a gleaming, smooth helmet that covered his face in an oval shape similar to one of a motorcycle. Differently from this earthly reference, thought this helmet fit more slimly and proportionally around his head as if it weren't a separate object but an extension of the suit that had extended upwards and molded itself around him. Rapha had seen this type of head covering only once before, worn by the fighters of the Arena, as they approached the glass containers into which the mutated programs had been locked like sacrificial beasts of burden, and that memory was enough to make her discard all rationality. Taking position, Rapha motioned to grab her disk, but the man hurriedly spoke up, lifting his free hand in a placating gesture:

"Rapha, it's me, the Herald!"

Hun???

Cautiously easing her posture though not relaxing completely, the girl looked at the man again, taking a moment to breathe. His suit had pure white lights, which extended symmetrically throughout most of his slender frame, diverging in patterning as they reached his long, thin legs. From this, although the lights on his right leg were similar to the general patterns of other grid suits (though each being's is unique), the left side of the suit seemed to have an external frame of black resin armoring in a shape that resembled an orthopedic leg brace, which was then embellished by the white lights like the relentless embrace of the mycelium. Continuing the familiarity, held by the whitest human hand that Rapha had ever seen, a black cane supported the man's left side like the snake staff planted onto the firm rock.

Adding to that which she hadn't known, though, the resin platings of the suit also thickened around his chest in a way that resembled a back brace, supporting a somewhat crooked spine that caused him not to stand in a straight like but to bend to the right like a cursive letter written onto violet-fragant parchment. The man had a neck long enough not to disappear under the sleek helmet, though it expanded in thickness to connect nicely with his pointy shoulders in a shape similar to that of professional swimmers, the dolphin's image in its sleekness.

Additionally, despite being clearly very skinny, the man's shape betrayed the presence of lean muscle throughout his body, which made his arms proportional to the reference of his ribcage and smoothed his silhouette into an elegant, effortless, and overwhelmingly, beautiful form. He looked youthful in his delicate fragility that was as intricate as the gentle patterns of snow, yet old from the passage of time that had bent his structure like a noble olive tree, endearing and regal in a way that inspired as much allegiance as it did reverence.

Then, there were those hands, long, thin and pale like pure marble, shade turning lightly towards beige and fitting with the white glow of his suit as if he were made of moonlight. Yet, their general shape was squared with the fingers following suit, which saved them from looking feminine despite their delicate nature. Like a negative picture of the night sky, dark moles dotted his hands like anti-stars, giving the man a humanity that only brought endearment to his form, their seemingly chaotic pattern an inheritance from the spirit of life which was at once boyishly cute in the goofy awkwardness of living creatures and brought him the noble, regal beauty of the son of man who inherits both paradise and the abyss.

Beautiful to the point of absurdity aside, though, this man had found it wise to not only risk his luck by awakening the easily startled wild beast but also to do so by visiting her bedroom, dawning an unfamiliar covering the style of which was last worn by someone whom he had seen defeat. It had been precisely this profound sense of hindsight of his that prompted Rapha's eloquent words:

"Herald? What the fuck?" The girl asked, lowering her arms, taking a deep breath as rationality caught up with her sleepy mind, convincing her that's indeed him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I merely wanted to make sure that you were prepared for our objective." To his benefit, the Herald's voice did sound genuinely apologetic, and try as she might, she was never one to hold onto anger easily. Chuckling, the girl replied:

"Yeah, your method got me up in no time so you were clearly successful."

"Mhm, perhaps I should employ it more often, then, I don't think that I have ever gotten you to agree with me this quickly about anything before." He added, as proud and insufferable as a ram as if pondering an efficient scientific method.

"I'm afraid you might end up dead by accident one such time, so maybe just lend me an alarm clock." She shrugged, vaguely gesturing towards her disk-clad back. "Now, please give me a moment to tidy up because there's no way I'm going out like this." Picking at her own hair as in evidence, the girl quickly circled the man as he stood by the door, making a straight line for the bathroom. Now, she was admittedly quite a neat freak, and cleanness was as fundamental as food and water in her life. So, taking a quick shower and brushing her teeth after a nap was the very least that she could do to feel like a proper human person. Yet, compelled by some unknown force to want to tidy up a bit more, the girl arranged her long hair into a braid which she then pinned around her head like a crown. Too bad the grid didn't seem to have earrings, necklaces, or other types of jewelry, but hey why was she even trying so hard to look presentable?

Blaming it on exhaustion and adrenaline, Rapha went back into the corridor, finding the Herald near a bookshelf in one of the library-office rooms, his body slightly twisted to the right and his cane hooked onto his right arm as he seemingly checked out the contents of one of the books. By his side, sitting atop a desk, the relaying machine stood in its more compact configuration, an intricate obsidian-like monument. As the Herald was mostly turned with his back to her, slightly hunched shoulder-blades visible through the suit's fabric, it was only then that Rapha noticed that he was without the third arm. So was it just a prosthetic? That made rational sense, as far as she knew, programs didn't just have extra arms, not even mutated ones. But that didn't explain why no matter what she just couldn't shrug off the scorpion-like tail as just a machine.

"It's rude to stare" The Herald broke the silence, addressing the girl without looking up from his book, nor turning around.

"Is the third arm that you wear yours or a part of the metal armor?" She asked, quickly taking the chance to explain herself despite the incriminating blush that painted her cheeks.

"That is a cruel thing to ask a program, don't you know?" The Herald replied, finally closing the book and turning around to put it back into the pristine bookshelf.

"Is it???" Her voice rose slightly in anxiety, mind already trying to think of how to voice an appropriate apology.

"No. No, it's not. I'm just joking with you, user." He replied in such a deadpan and serious voice that the absurdity of the conversation was enough to make her laugh. Fuck it, perhaps she had gone insane from sleepiness after all. Holding her belly through the remaining giggles, Rapha spoke with her best mock-threatening voice:

"Careful program, you might think twice before waking me up again, but I could still find out where you rest and muder you in your sleep."

"You are most welcome to try." The Herald replied, voice dark and full of mirth as he placed his cane back on the ground, leaning on it as he retrieved the machine with his free hand and walking past her into the stairs, leaving Rapha to try to understand what the actual fuck did he mean by that. It wasn't until they were near the garage that she noticed that he didn't answer her question. Knowing that the best way to hunt a ram is to ambush him, the lioness decided to hold onto this information in silence, biding her time beneath the low grass of patience.

Of all the rooms in the building, the garage was at once one that Rapha cherished and dreaded. Now, entering the room with the Herald by her side, she was first reminded of why she adored it. With a high ceiling that blended into a natural cavern that smelled like fresh stone and clear water, the cave gallery was spacious and roughly squared, with a road's path opening to the side and leading into a small entrance through the entrails of the mountain. Parked nearer the center, the Herald's grid version of a car was clearly the main monument, displayed with a subtle and contained pride that reminded Rapha that, despite being clad in metal, the Herald was a man after all. As per her part, the woman reserved the right to roll her eyes at his admiration for the vehicle whenever it happened to show up in conversation, although she didn't bully him too much for it, as it was endearing to see him cherish something that wasn't a product of his work for once.

Like a shiny afterthought parked to the side, he also had a light-cycle which she had come to learn was apparently somewhat old fashioned, a sleek model that elegantly stood out against the more brutish modern ones. Finally getting to have the beginning of an idea of what its owner looked like, the girl was now sure that the streamline and fishlike machine with sun-white lights was a match made in heaven. On top of that, the vintage vehicle also had the added benefit of not remaining Rapha as much of the arena, which was an unintentional bonus that helped her appreciate the shiny lights of the beautiful machines more easily.

On the other hand, though, the room was also a reminder of a gap in her knowledge that had already given her much grief and posed a constant risk of diminishing her future chances of survival in the grid: she couldn't drive. Despite her sharp mind and good sense of balance, the girl hasn't really ever had the means or opportunity to take these classes, which had proven to be a manageable difficulty in her world and an absolute nightmare in the grid. Yet, not in the mood to mop about when she had so much new information about the Herald to catalogue into her mind and mind, Rapha just followed the man into the room assuming that they would take the car. Yet, instead, the man reached his lightcycle, placing the obsidian machine in its cargo and turning the gears to switch it on.

"Am I allowed to know the plan now or do you intend to keep me in the dark even after we're through with it?" She asked, though without a bite to her voice.

"You know the plan. We are going to the dormant portal in the shadow street." He replied matter-of-factly.

"By bike? If the place is dangerous shouldn't we take the car?" Rapha watched while he finished fidgeting with the controls, secured his cane by one side of the machine and slung his injured leg over the vehicle, sitting down effortlessly. United by white light, sight of the Herald in the machine being more like seeing two items that should have always been together but were treated as separate finally coming together, metal and flesh, creature and its altar. Turning to face her with that emotionless black glass helmet of his, the man replied, voice mischievous:

"Ah, but the "car" cannot provide the safety that the lightcycle can." What was he up to?

"And why is that?" She tried.

"I'll be glad to show you, user, but for such, I am afraid that we will need to actually get there." The Herald replied, his voice a mixture of exasperated sarcasm and the underlying enjoyment that showed that whatever he had planned, it was sure to mean trouble. Realizing that this would mean that she had to actually get on the bike with him, Rapha felt her heart pick up speed for two very different reasons. First, despite this one being easier to look at, the girl really wasn't looking forward to being on a bike again, especially not so soon. On the other hand, perhaps because this was the first time seeing him wearing human clothes, or well, at least the normal clothes of this world, Rapha realized on some level that she hadn't been able to truly see the Herald for the human man that he is before, at least not when it came to being embarrassed about being near him.

Yet, as she somewhat stiffly sat down behind him on the bike, this very basic fact was all that was aware of. So, she placed her hands behind herself on the little metal guard things that surrounded the seat the way she remembered doing when she had been on a motorcycle as a kid. Sighing as if she had done the stupidest thing on all of history and that had personally cost him at least twenty years of his life, the Herald turned back to look at her over his shoulder, speaking:

"You will fall off if you sit like this. You can hold onto me."

"I sat like this on a bike once and it was fine. Just... drive." She replied in mock exasperation, gesturing forwards with her chin, her pride and her embarrassment being far more convincing orators than her sense of self-preservation.

"Rapha..." The Herald started, voice reprimanding through not without some fondness to his tone.

"Don't "Rapha" me. We'll be fine! Just go!" She laughed, to which the man had the audacity to "tsk" before turning on the machine with a low thrum. Feeling its vibrations reverberate through her bones instantly reminded Rapha of the arena, but she didn't have much time to dwell on that as the vehicle quickly accelerated and entered into the steep and tortuous cave tunnel. It took Rapha approximately zero seconds to regret her hubris as the first curve that the machine turned almost sent her flying face first into the cool stone. Fuck, for a man who walked so slow he sure as hell was quick on this thing. Yet, gripping on the sides of the lightcycle so strongly that her knuckles turned white and her arms hurt, somehow Rapha managed not to fall off the bike for long enough that the winding paths slowly eased and opened into a larger tunnel, eventually the rough natural stone giving way to asphalt.

Once there, as if hellbent on proving a point, the Herald accelerated even further, causing Rapha to wonder if it was just that he was as stubborn as she was or if he actually wanted her to fall off and die. Yet, stupid creature that she is, while holding onto for dear life, she couldn't stop laughing. It was a laugh that bubbled up her throat and rose, lifting not only her spirits but her very soul. This was an absurd situation and as the air hit her face like a freezing cold wall, she was for once really fucking glad to be alive. Eventually, the cavern opened into one of Zaun's winding yet manageable streets, the bright neon colors making her eyes hurt for a second before they adjusted, from where she just saw how they glowed over the Herald's suit and bike's light as if giving him a crown made of every color but white, for this one belongs only to him.

Having tired herself from laughing and now being entertained with staring at the city and at the man with unfiltered wonder, the girl finally took up on the Herald's offer, wordlessly wrapping her arms around his chest and resting the side of her face onto his back. He was just as bony as he looked, which was only worsened by the suit's unyielding resin plaques of armor and the bright light strips that were entirely too close in her field of sight. Yet, he was warm, and that was unprecedented in any world. He also smelled nice, which helped, having a natural human smell which wasn't unpleasant at all, on the contrary, even if it was well hidden behind the somewhat artificial, lightly herbal fragrance that every hygiene and cleaning product of his house seemed to share.

All this time she still hadn't found out where his room was, or if he even had a room at all, but learning that he was using the same products as the ones in the guest bathroom made Rapha feel closer to him somehow, like a final and finally convincing proof that he actually slept in that same desolate house which hosted her. This was nice, so nice that she could barely notice the faint pulse of the man's frantic heartbeat beneath his suit, so busy she was feeling calmer than she had in... honestly... ever. With a sigh that brought life-giving air deep into her marrow, the previous sleepiness slowly returned despite the drumming of the bike and the frantic motion of traversing that chaotic city. For once, her mind was as silent as her heart made of white peace, so Rapha just focused on the Herald's grounding warmth and let herself rest.

The rest of the way passed by in a flash, bright neon blurring into an endless abode that seemed to try to recreate the skies from her land with colorful stars. Despite not having seen any rain in the grid yet, the girl noticed that the floors were damp, which gave them a reflective quality similar to that of the glass buildings that rose around the streets like glass and metal trees, interwoven and luminous. Yet, eventually, they turned a street beyond which she could see a dark area ahead like a dark spot taking root in faulty eyes. Reaching this gradual boundary, like in the cave, the lightcycle's own light became all that stood between them and the darkened oblivion, carving the way through the misty semi-darkness like the mercy of a lighthouse that pierced through the dangers of the Abyss.

It was weird being back into a region that actually resembled the one in her homeworld, at the same time recognizing and not recognizing the older layout and architecture of the city that had hosted her through lonely studies. Once, she might have thought that the dark streets of this world of night would be overwhelmingly cold compared to the lively, sunny streets that saw so much life. Yet, right now, holding onto warmth like a precious treasure, the situation had inverted itself and Rapha pitied the cold solitude that had been the norm of her life in the city of shady trees and sun-warmed asphalt. Remembering the place that she had pinpointed on the map, the Herald took no time at all in getting the bike right to the front of the building that had been the start of her troubles, the sight familiar from how it didn't change yet new from how she had.

Parking the vehicle with ease and silencing its engine's drum that she had long stopped hearing from its constance, the Herald sat back for a moment, almost as if he were catching his breath. Had being hunched over for so long made him sore? Oh gods, had she hurt him from having wrapped her arms around his chest despite theorizing that the brace-like support around his ribs wasn't just an aesthetic choice? Quickly releasing her hold and disembarking to give him space, the girl wanted to ask if he was okay, but was also afraid of offending this person who up to this point she had never thought of as fragile. Was that why he was normally clad in metal?

Having been a protector all her life, caring for others wasn't just a natural instinct, but a necessity. Yet, since meeting the Herald, she had found in him a presence that seemed as stable as the righteous pillar, unwavering and powerful from the work of his hands. Now, though, despite being all the more impressed with the possibility that his strength wasn't one inherited by the often cruel and unwanted chains of blood, but forged from the craftsmanship of an intellect that belonged entirely to him, Rapha couldn't help but be worried. Was he okay? Was he sick? Was he injured, or was that simply the way that he was? In either case, how would she convince him to let her help him if he ever were in need?

She wasn't allowed to remain in the deep spirals of her worries, though, as the Herald soon disguised whatever that moment of vulnerability behind an air of nonchalance and disembarked, picking up his cane with ease. While busy worrying, Rapha had turned to the back of the lightcycle to try to find out how to dislodge the machine, having the mind to carry it into the depths of the creepy basement. Yet, holding out a hand almost as if in annoyance, the man passed in front of her, picking up the relayer after pressing a few latches the functioning of which were entirely lost on her. Without any of his usual sarcasm or infuriating quips, he then turned towards the building, walking in a silence that brought yet a new wave of anxiety to the girl's mind. Was he offended that she had tried to avoid harming him?

Surely he, proud and self-assured as a ram, couldn't be thinking that she saw him as weak right? Besides, she was just a human whom he had rescued from the depths of hell and hired to do a job, so it's not like he would care about what she thought of him. Perhaps he was just focused on the task, which had to matter way more than a woman about whom he would forget as soon as they got through the portal, and she was being blatantly unprofessional by not giving the work this same devoted attention. Rapha had been given a purpose that was good, and now she was failing in doing the very part that was hers to do. Alright. Get a hold of yourself, woman. Lock in. Following the man up the short steps, at least he couldn't complain at her for holding the door open for him, at least he wanted to argue that he had planned to try the battering ram approach.

"You probably know this but the grid was based on an older version of the city." She started, trying to focus on the mission instead of how the white light of his suit and the red light of hers were the only sources of illumination in that place, making it glow with the soft brilliance of the tree of life. "I don't know exactly how old, though, but at least 40 years." She added, already knowing that the numbers-loving mechanic would have calculations to do from this information. "In my world, this building is rotting away, so I entered through these windows" Rapha pointed, continuing leading the way towards the back of the arcade, where the hidden door was as she had left it, wide open and still entirely creepy.

"Rot..." The Herald started with a thoughtful voice, making the girl turn her head towards him, his words the siren's song and her ears free from wax. "It's not a concept that I am personally familiar with. How did rot allow you to enter through the window?" Oh yeah, Eternity dimension. She forgot that tiny detail.

"Well, it degraded the material over time, making the glass fragile enough to break without force." She replied, wondering in how much detail she should explain about her breaking-in adventure. At that, the Herald only muttered a low "hm" under his breath, clearly lost in his own head. She wondered what it must be like to live one's entire life in a world in which one leaves no traces of flesh even in death. Ever the spiritualist, Rapha couldn't claim to worry about what would be of her body once her form went on its way through the endless rivers of the lady of the nine forms' story, and in a way this world was more honest about this fact of transcendence than hers, that she wasn't cell nor matter but form, eternally connected to her family's form in the book of law. Yet, she wondered if just as she admired the grid the Herald could ever grow to see beauty in the human world, and she hoped that he would.

For now, though, they had a creepy basement to explore, and it was with this extremely cheerful and not at all scary thought that Rapha followed the glass-helmeted man into the dark.

Chapter Text

Like divers descending beneath the waves that obscure all lights, so did Rapha and the Herald go down the steps to the place that could lead them to answers, the light of their suits quickly being overwhelmed by darkness. As if guided by the wings of the black god, although the one with the dark helm wasn't holding her wrist, he might as well have been, the place being as familiar as it was foreign. Walking slightly in front of her though not without some difficulty from the weight of the device and the demands of the cane, the proud man didn't say a word as they entered the small basement room. Under the faint red and white glow of their suits, Rapha could have a somewhat decent idea of the surroundings, regardless finding the place desolate and empty save for the machine on the desk, and the chair that faced her. Pointing to the source of her troubles, the girl broke the silence:

"This is the machine." To this, the Herald placed the relayer on the desk close to the nearest corner, turning to her as he asked:

"How did you get transported?"

"Okay. So, I walked down after the pigeon, and he had flown onto the desk..." The girl gestured, repeating her movements with a deadpan attention to detail that prompted her to hold out her arms as if she were still holding her coat. "Here, I found a necklace with a chip which seemed to have been left behind purposefully from how tidy it was. I noticed that it seemed to fit into this slot, so I put it on and it did nothing..." She pointed to all the items of her descriptions one after the other while she spoke, gesturing the way that made her speech more sight than sound. "Then, I picked the bird up..." She mimicked that as well. "But he flew off..." her fingers made the part of the fluttering wings as they flayed around the air. "He landed... about... here, pressing here over these buttons..."

She showed the place, the Herald coming close to look over her shoulder while the white light of his suit mixed with her red one and produced a glow as pink as the pearls of the golden city. After she finished speaking, the girl went silent, deadly serious, and at that the Herald had the nerve to snort, laughter shaking his shoulders earnestly. Smiling from embarrassment, the girl muttered a low "What?" Under her breath, but there was no reaching the man. Eventually, though, he calmed down, addressing the red-faced girl, who had crossed her arms over her chest:

"And then...?" His voice regained some of its seriousness, but it was still light from his previous giggles.

"That's it." She replied, though more embarrassed than mad.

"No, please continue, forgive me. It's just that your explanation was very... at part with what I have come to expect from you."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked, fighting back a smile that threatened to bloom across her lips. Perhaps fearing her wrath, the Herald pondered over his words for a moment, eventually wonkily mimicking her cradling gesture, asking:

"Why did you hold the bird like this?"

"So that he wouldn't run away. It's easier to handle birds like this but it doesn't hurt them. It's just kinda like a blanketed hug." She replied, once again making the mistake of sounding absolutely serious with her energetic explanation, which caused the Herald to chuckle as he replied:

"Ah, I see, thank you for the explanation." Before she could kill him, though, the man turned back towards the machine, finally paying attention to their task:

"And what of the transportation process?"

At that, the girl took some time to try to explain that almost surreal experience, avoiding natural analogies to the best of her abilities, though she wasn't well versed in machines enough to be able to use good metaphors otherwise, which caused the whole explanation to be even more difficult to voice. Nevertheless, listening attentively and interjecting from time to time to direct the girl's recitation towards something that could help them, eventually the man was satisfied with the picture that they managed to paint together of the events. Presently, he spoke:

"Your transportation must have been made possible through a resonating connection between the two portals. User, do you remember being pulled towards a specific direction through your disembodiment? The resonance process could have been noticeable" Taking a moment to ponder, the girl lightly turned around here and there, brows furrowed and eyes closed in concentration as if she remembered having held a compass could will the memory to show her to where it had pointed. Nevertheless, the answer was always the same:

"Yes, but it wasn't to a place... it's difficult to explain, I remember something like, a certainty, a warm familiarity, like all the rays of the sun eventually returning to their source. But it wasn't to a place."

With a sigh, the Herald turned to the machine, lost in thought. Eventually, he connected the relayer to the portal, it opening up with a low whirling sound and those petal-like strips of metal that opened from their overlapping position, revealing the faint blue glow. The machine whirred for a few seconds, it's sounds getting faster and faster like a distant airplane taking flight, until... Light!

As if someone had turned on a switch to the whole room, the basement lit up in the usual patterns of the grid, bright blue light shining against the black glass. He had actually done it. From a single prototype, the Herald had managed to bring an energy source to a building in the shadow street, like connecting limbs that had been severed to the spine to which they once belonged. This wasn't just genius, it was a genuine success that could someday help the lives of people who lived in these places, and Rapha couldn't have been more proud even if the work had come from her own hands. Caught up in the excitement of the success, the girl screamed, jumping in place like a hare while the Herald turned to her, breath heavy from excitement.

"You did it!!!" She squeaked, tackling the man in a hug before she could think too much of it. After a second, though, realizing what she had done, she froze, too panicked to be able to think. However, before she could apologize and back away, the man returned the hug, his touch firm albeit in a tentative way that was almost shy. Wrapping his long arms around her, he was warm, the faint beat of his heart a mirror of hers, and the tough material of their suits pressed against her skin in a grounding reminder that this was happening. His skin was firmer than she thought, lean muscle diminishing the sharpness of bone in a way that made Rapha feel safe. Eventually, the Herald backed away, though remained close as he lowered his masked head towards the side of her face, voice quiet and happily fond:

"We did it." At that, he finally walked a step back, cold air filling the space unpleasantly. Shaking her head, the girl shot him a smile that betrayed pride at the man's victory behind her playfulness:

"You're the machine guy with the technology. Hell, you already had the prototype mostly done before I got here."

"And yet, it was only because of you that said prototype ever evolved into a reality." He replied, voice carrying some of its usual sarcasm mixed with a softness that was entirely new.

"So I'm a cheerleader?" She asked with a low playful voice of mock offense.

"No. You're a storm." The Herald said, making her breath catch in her throat. How could he see her like this? He who was as eternal and grounding as the sun, a pillar that kept her afloat through the tortuous winds of her panic? It occurred to her that, perhaps, as much as she cherished and needed the order that he represented, he might admire her sensibility because it was a breath of life upon the silent machinarium, like the flame illuminating the book of the law. For the first time since getting in the grid, Rapha's smile was without any shield, a rare instance of unguarded softness in she who was usually a protector. It was as if she were a kite that could fly high above into the skies, but had only now discovered a string that tethered her to the ground, that kept her safe and connected to the neverending clay-born form, so that she could cover the abode in the very same magic that reads the fates of men in the stars.

Tentatively, she held out her left hand to brush against the Herald's, her bandaged fingers wrapping around his as gently as the brush of a feather. As before, she worried that she might be overstepping, but as before, the Herald accepted her gesture and returned it, gently entwining his own fingers around hers and giving a barely-there squeeze that was no doubt mindful of her injuries. His skin was soft, rough over scars and calluses, warm as the sun and just as grounding. Perhaps drowning on dry land wouldn't be an issue if she had those hands as her anchor that guided her through the darkness and the waves and the rain as they always had. They were close now, close enough that she couldn't see plain white nor red lights anymore, just the pink of the pearls of the desert city that was home.

Nevertheless, bursting that moment of calm with a thundering ripple, a sound like that of lightcycles running nearby startled the two out of their silence, the girl once again automatically lifting her hands protectively over towards the Herald, head turned towards the stairs in alert. The man, in turn, had reached towards the girl like the grounding roots of a tree, his right hand holding onto her left forearm in a touch so gentle and protective that it felt like the salvation that banishes every memory of the dark.

"What was that?" Rapha asked, ready to get into a fighting stance when she saw the way that the Herald had tensed up under his black suit.

"Trouble. Please, keep an eye out on the stairs and tell me if anyone enters the building." He spoke, hurrying well disguised behind a practical tone as the glass man put back on the role of the Herald. "But don't fight. If you see someone, you come back to me, yes?" His voice was as firm as she had come to expect from the leader that she knew that he could be, but it softened somewhat by the end, worry mixing with what the girl dared to believe sounded like affection. With a nod, the girl turned back towards the stairs while the Herald set about tinkering with the machine. Glad for the silent steps, the girl went up by the wall in a way that reminded her of the first time that she had visited this place, despite everything being different. Reaching the door, she crouched by the first line of arcades, trying to hear for further sounds.

There were definitely lightcycles around, and they seemed to be circling the quad. With caution, she slowly walked nearer a window, while looking around the room to see if there were other doors or passages through which she and the Herald could pass. Finding only the main doors, she tried to count how many vehicles there were based on their noise. As they crossed the quad by the arcade again, she heard the small difference in volume of sound as their slightly different speeds caused the machines to pass by the building at slightly different times. Counting at least four, Rapha began actually worrying, and then began actually panicking when she heard the light circles start to park right by the entrance. Fuck. Being too far away from the basement's door to make a run for it, she crouched behind a machine just in time to hear the doors burst open. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Forcing her breathing to remain steady, she walked in silent steps towards the machine to the side, hearing for the people as they walked cautiously together as if in a group. For a few seconds, they stood close to one of the arcades closer to the door, as if analyzing it. Risking a peek over the machine, the girl noticed that they were adults wearing dark grey baggy clothes, each having a unique style, and that they all wore helmets over their heads, the disks in their hands humming in reminder of the harm that they could bring. Two seemed to have stayed closer to the entrance, keeping guard while others went to move deeper into the room.

They spoke in a language that she understood, and seemed intrigued by the building's light, discussing while gesturing to points of the building that were now illuminated. Were they enemies? Were those the trouble? Rapha really didn't want to find out. Crossing to another arcade, she was now a relatively short distance away from the door, but she couldn't risk taking them straight to the Herald if they saw her. Eventually, though, one of them must have seen the basement's door, because she could hear their footsteps slowly making their way in that direction. That wouldn't do.

She needed them to go somewhere else, but diverting their attention when they were split would demand something that would cause both duos to regroup without alerting her presence nor getting caught. How, though? The pristine state of everything in the grid meant that there weren't any items to throw and these arcades were smooth enough that she couldn't pick them apart for parts.

Light! They had seemed to be intrigued by it, so that's what they would receive. Pressing behind her head to activate her own helmet, it assembled itself like a flower that cradled her head outwards from her brainstem, the nanoparticles smoothing until sleek black glass hid her features. It cast a faint blueish tint over the world, but not as dark as sunglasses and nothing worse than the already artificial colors of the arcade's lamps. From what she had seen by observing the Herald on the way here, she had the theory that the suit could be somewhat disassembled without causing its parts to disappear.

It was a stupid theory but it was her best shot, so she fondled around for latches until she found small indents near where her neck connected to her jawline, one on each side. Pressing those, the face panel of her helmet dislodged with a faint hiss, the shape of the removed area leaving the black glass framing her face like the mouth of a dunkleosteus, the points above her forehead almost reaching her eyes. Not wanting to risk letting the red light of her suit get reflected, she instead walked behind one of the arcades that seemed to have the best angle, pointing her curved glass at an angle like a very underwhelming reconstruction of Archimedes's ray.

The fates must truly not have wanted her to die yet, though, because right as the two scouts were about to pass by her hiding spot, she managed to make a faint light shine towards the window, tentative enough to look like someone outside might be trying to sneak in on them. As she had theorized from their organization, this time two went outside to investigate, the two who were previously making their way into the arcade now taking their place behind them. Before they could get to the door and have the vantage point of looking both into and outside of the building, though, the girl silently ran to the row of arcades nearer the door, and then when they turned to each other to discuss something, she made a dash for the stairs.

Upon fog-silent feet, she descended the steps many at a time, almost slamming against the desk, placing her hands on its edge to keep balance without making too much noise, breathing heavily while she placed the mask back into the helmet and made it revert back into her suit. Turning to the girl for a second before returning to the machine, the Herald needed no explanation as his hands picked up the pace with whatever he was doing, such thankfully lasting only a few more seconds before the building went dark once again.

From the loss of sight, hearing only got all the more sharp. Besides the frantic drumming of her heart and her own breathing, she could hear the Herald beside her, his breath controlled and far more calm than hers while he got up closer to her, close enough that she could feel his warmth despite the chill of the grid. Up ahead, the girl could hear the group's steps coming towards the door, two slightly ahead, the other two following suit. From their pace, it wouldn't be more than a few seconds before they reached the staircase. Having nowhere to hide in the desolate room, they were bound to look suspicious from the machinery that lay sprawled like a gutted sacrifice over the table. Fuck fuck fuck fuck wait what was he doing?

With a strength that she wouldn't have necessarily expected of him, the Herald reached around the girl's waist, lifting her onto the table such that she was sitting on top of it while he came to stand between her legs. Before she could ask him what he was up to, though, the man wrapped a slender arm around her, holding onto the small of her back and bringing her body flush against his while his other hand cradled the back of her neck, gripping at the base of her braided hair to gently but firmly guide her head up towards his. Then, with a quiet, pleading voice as if he was someone who couldn't swim and was asking her to, once he jumped into a river, throw him a life jacket, he asked:

"Please close your eyes."

At that, Rapha only had time to comply before she heard his suit's helmet retracting to the back of his head and his mouth went to her neck right as the group reached the short staircase. To this stunt's credit, Rapha didn't have to pretend the way that her mind was spinning and she could barely think over the feeling of the Herald's lips grazing the skin of her neck near her ear, where the soft skin wasn't covered by the suit. Nor did she have to pretend to be thinking about anything other than his warmth as her hands held onto his very soft hair like he was the only anchor of every ocean, her thighs holding onto his thin hips snuggly like she was the spiraling snake around the tree of life.

In what might just have saved their lives, the blush that had covered her entire face and painted her olive skin redder than her suit must have looked convincing enough as the group looked into the room and called out to them. In response to the sudden sound, the girl opened her shark-like blackened eyes, squinting at the light as if she hadn't just been running around under bright blue Neon. Through the blanket of warmth that cradled her heart like the soft pink light of their embrace, the girl was vaguely aware of the Herald's lips leaving her skin, though her brainless mind only catalogued this motion as disappointing. By her side, she could hear the man's helmet reconstructing itself around him, a sliver of white skin like the sun peeking through the depths of a cave, but she kept her eyes planted firmly in the group through sheer force of will to comply with what he had asked of her with such a disarming voice. Then, the Herald turned only his head back towards the group, keeping his grasp on her while seemingly pretending to be both parts confused at the interruption and very unwilling to be disturbed.

"What are you doing here?" Asked the program who was probably the leader.

"Are you serious?" Asked the Herald with such annoyance in his voice that Rapha would have fully believed him were she not literally a part of the plot, and even so she was inclined to agree that the question sounded ridiculous. Seriously, did this guy have mind control powers or something? Hugging the Herald's back over his disk and shielding her head in the junction of his clavicles as if she were scared, for her part Rapha's strategy was to just be fully honest and just act upon the desire to feel safe that she felt all the time but never before had any way to act upon. As a response, the Herald's right hand came to rest on her lower back over the dips of her hip, the left holding her over the blood red disk, the gesture meant to mimic a comforting touch that had the entirely real effect of being thus.

"Why are you here?" The leader tried again, taking a step closer to the table and followed by his peers. With an exasperated sigh, the Herald finally turned to the group, though keeping his hand on Rapha's back.

"Why else? For the race of course. My partner and I miscalculated our travel schedule and found ourselves in the region early by accident, so we decided to kill some time. Now is this enough detail for you, or would you like me to elaborate? Hm?" The man replied, tone perfectly between momentary frustration and the good-natured humor of an effortlessly charismatic intelligence painting the picture to perfection and explaining the situation far more than words could. As for her part, Rapha almost wished that she had any coherence left to pay any attention to the armed people in front of her, but the word "partner" kept ringing in her ears as if it were the only word of every language and a dictionary was being recited out loud entry by entry. Way to go, Rapha, made stupid by a dude who walks around with a metal mask and three arms. Thankfully, though, stupidity can also serve its purpose, as was the case when a member of the group asked:

"Didn't you see how the lights came on?"

"There's lights???" Pouring every ounce of brain-dead, arousal-addled, Cnidarian levels of sheer brainlessness that she now felt into her voice, Rapha's comment was argument enough, and the group seemed to relax, assuming a stance of boredom and mild embarrassment at the situation.

"Whathever. We don't have time for this, the race is starting soon." The leader finally said, turning to his group as they started making their way up the steep staircase. "Don't be late, we won't wait for yall!" He added, to which the Herald nodded, helping Rapha out of the desk as she tried to will her legs not to shake. Despite having seemed to buy their excuse, the lingering sound of people's steps upstairs showed that they weren't leaving without the two. Great. Just as before the group assumed what seemed to be its usual formation, with two people going further into the arcade while other two stood around by the top of the staircase, talking idly about the mysterious lights, the sound of their voices only lightly muddled by their black helmets.

Not wanting to risk being overheard, the Herald squeezed her hand as if in apology for the ordeal, picking up his cane from where it rested against the chair. When the girl gestured with her chin towards the relayer, though, he discretely shook his head, and when she replied with wide eyes and lips pursed in a line in disbelief at the idea that they would just leave his project there, the man lightly bowed his head in a request for trust, to which she complied, as she always seemed to be doing lately. With a hand on her back to turn her towards the stairs, the girl went slightly faster, anxious for those people to go away and give them space, an instinct that proved correct when, seeing her near the door, the two strangers walked back towards the entrance of the arcade.

Only then slowing down her pace, she watched the Herald from her peripheral vision as he reached her and they walked out of the building together, the glass man opening the door to her as if in vengeance for her earlier overzealousness. Outside, colorful light circles were starting to be turned on, their brutish modern designs being mirrored in the loud thundering of their engines that brought Rapha immediately back to the arena under the chanting masses. As if her poor heart hadn't worked enough today, seeing the clustered lightcycles send it into overdrive from the cold grip of fear, the stormy smell of the shadow street replaced with those of sweat, fear, and blue blood that had once enveloped her as she fought for her life in a stranger's land.

Watching the glass man embark his streamline vehicle, a thought crossed Rapha's mind, freezing her in place, so terrifying that it made her feel like the sky had been switched with a heavy dark ocean that now took the air from her lungs and threatened to pull her under the cold waves. Why had the Herald brought her here? What was this race? Could he be bringing her back into some version of the games? He had said that he was capable of potentially bringing harm to the lives of others for the sake of the greater good. But did this mean that he would be willing to sacrifice her as well? Was that why he hadn't wanted to disclose the plan?

She was drowning on dry land under the night black abyss of a starless sky that would pay her no witness. But then, like the rays of the sun extending from the center of creation in warm light and reaching into the dark depths of nothingness, the Herald's hands came up to cradle the sides of Rapha's face, a feather-light touch so gentle and so reassuring that it grounded her like the root of the great tree that drills into the earth and finds nourishment in the waters of the underground rivers. The girl couldn't see his face, but the compassion and kindness that emanated from the filling warmth of his hands was enough to dissipate her doubts like the coming of dawn dissipates the mist over the desolate open ocean. He didn't say anything, didn't have to, just held her up and kept her lungs clear of pitch black water that froze her red blood and pinned her in place.

Her feet never touched the ground upon which he stood, nor did his arms reach the stars. But like this, holding her upon his hands that grasped at her as if she were the only star in the sky, the one who points the way for the shipmaker to follow, they were a connected Something without beginning nor end, their butterfly wings stretching into the infinitely far edges of creation, magic and form, jihn and human, red and white, lioness and lamb, the underground sun and the morning star. The girl saw this, and she saw that it is very good. So, taking a deep breath, she nodded, and the Herald's slim fingers went to the back of her neck, activating her suit's helmet that covered her eyes like the gentle shade of a merciful tree. Silently, Rapha embarked on the bike, hands wrapping around the Herald with what was for once a selfish attempt to chase his protecting warmth, cheek coming to rest on the disk on his back as if the weapon held no danger at all.

Chapter Text

Between the desert land of her mother and the lush forests of her childhood, Rapha always cherished seeing the migratory birds as they crossed the skies in interconnected formation. As if of one mind, they would fly in geometrical symmetry in a dance that had existed long before humanity's form first came to the story of earth, and she could only hope that they would remain after the last human soul went on its way to sing of its eternal family's color in the next world. Yet, seeing these animals always made her feel lonely, wondering if she would ever have the chance to experience the rumbling necessity that unites creatures' wills, the collective spirit that drives their individual forms forward in the caravans of life as they drive through the winding River away from the ocean and towards the fountain of eternal life.

Now, though, surrounded by colorful lightcycles in a dark street, the Herald's white vehicle felt like a lifeboat, a small universe within a world of neon as each light fought for space under the dark sky. Having taken a second to catch her breath from the night's events, the girl lifted her head from where it rested over the Herald's upper back with a sigh. Thankfully, her suit's helmet didn't get too much in the way, cradling her skin in a manner that was almost soft despite the lack of cushioning. Looking over his shoulder, the girl saw that he had opened the panel over the steering area of the lightcycle and was fidgeting with it. For a moment, she simply watched in silence, but as if the Herald had a sensor that indicated whenever Rapha was about to ask about something, he shuffled slightly to the side, giving her a clearer view of the machine's gutted neck and explained without prompt:

"I'm adjusting the wheel's configurations. This will allow the lightcycle to better run through uneven or rough terrain."

"Where are we going?" She asked, looking at the mechanisms in front of her as the Herald's dexterous fingers adjusted them with the type of calm methodology that comes from practice.

"That, I do not yet know." Was all that he replied, turning a coglike switch with a twist of his wrist which prompted the panels to close like ribs falling back into place, the nanoparticles filling in the gaps like the sea closing after the crossing. As if predicting that she was about to ask what the hell he meant by that, though, the man added, keeping his head forward: "But it is common in these races to travel through rugged terrain."

Detaching something from a small cabinet in the bike that was hidden behind a side panel, the Herald produced two small and flat disklike devices of a matte black plastic appearance that were roughly the size of an earring. Turning over his shoulder, he handed one to Rapha, placing his own into his suit in the junction of head and neck over the brainstem. Unsure whether to feel like a placated housecat or just a woman with an ally, still the girl imitated his movement, hearing a small click as the device connected to her suit. Where the Herald had secured his own machine, a small white dot of light was visible, contrasting with the black helmet but remaining low enough to be disguised by the lights of the suit that went up his long neck. While she was busy staring at the latter instead of focusing on her task, though, the herald's voice startled her as it sounded it through the device:

"This will allow us to communicate better through the track. Can you hear me well?" Oh, she could hear him well, alright. Actually, she could hear him very well and that was exactly the problem. Through the aid of the chips, his voice wasn't muffled by a mask or a helmet, and with a startle she realized that it was the first time that she heard him sound truly human. His accent was more pronounced in this way, drawing the letters as if lazily, reminding her of Slavic accents that she had heard from immigrants who came to live in the desert, people of cold snow who build their lives under the thick shade of olive trees and orange farms. It was as familiar as it was foreign, and it made him sound younger than with the mask, not so much the assured leader as just a good man.

"Yes." She somehow managed to answer. "Is now the time to tell me the plan or are we waiting until after the race?"

"Waiting until after the race sounds good to me." He replied, the cocky tone of his voice being intensified by the youthful humanity that carried over through the chip. Unlucky for him, that only made her want to murder him harder.

"Dude, are you allergic to telling me what's going on or something?" She asked, both parts annoyed and playful.

"Programs don't have allergies." He said as if it was obvious, trying to divert the subject by feeding into her curiosity.

"Really?" She asked, taking the bait like an eager fish biting into a shiny hook.

"Of course they do." He replied, voice like a tired teacher reprimanding a student's stupid question, which, to his credit, made the girl laugh.

"Alright, but seriously, though." She replied, and perhaps he would have actually explained something for once, but the lightcycles around them must have finished prepping up. With their thundering growls, one by one three of the vehicles took off, the light trail behind them like a beautiful shimmering memory as it faded into the gloom the same way as the paths left behind by dolphins when they swam through fluorescent oceans. As wonderful as they were terrible, those machines at once reminded her of why she adored this world so much while also being grim symbols of the suffering that the grid could bring to its own people.

Had there been more games in the arena since she was rescued? How many had died under the scrutiny of bloodthirsty masses while she healed and rested and laughed? Would she ever have the right to truly relax when so close to where she was there were people being systemically killed while its ruling governments fought their wars with each other like apathetic and greedy giants? Giving her no time to drown in her own head, though, the Herald set his lightcycle into motion, only then Rapha noticing that the last member of the group had been waiting for them to begin the drive, starting his machine after theirs. Looping her arms around the man's waist to avoid falling off as he accelerated through the more earth-reminiscent shadow street and into the transitional area that led them back to Zaun, she asked:

"Is it only you who can hear me like this?"

"Yes." He replied, turning a corner as smoothly as a silver fish gliding through the currents of the open sea. It was mesmerizing to see the Herald being able to move so elegantly, like a marine mammal that took on a new air when it left the crushing earth for the weightlessness of the blue abyss. In this way, making use of his quick mind, adaptable instincts and dexterous hands, it was as if the Herald had been born to fly low through the tortuous streets of reflective damp cobblestones, a shooting star in all its brilliance and preciousness.

"Then if you're not going to tell me the plan, you might at least tell me what I'm supposed to do?" She added, Cheshire-smiling, happy in her naive hope that, for once, he was cornered.

"Eeh, If I tell you what to do, you will do the exact opposite only to prove a point." He evaded the question with the same expertise of his driving, voice arrogantly deadpan like presenting a scientific fact.

"No I wouldn't! If you told me to not fall off the bike, for example, I'd not jump off, thank you very much!"

"User, you have almost fallen off on multiple occasions on our way here from your stubborn refusal to hold on."

"No but that was not because you told me to hold on, that was because that was fun." She replied because focusing on this excuse was easier than admitting that she had been embarrassed to hold onto him.

"Have you considered that by having this argument with me you are proving my point?" The Herald pointed out, self-satisfied smile evident just from the tone of his voice. Rapha had no reply to that.

Letting out a chuckle and shaking his head, the man returned his attention to the road upon entering a somewhat larger street which allowed the five lightcycles to move into formation. They organized themselves such that on the front row, the vehicle of a stranger and their white one were near the corners, while another bike of the group was in the middle, traveling slightly ahead of them and thus forming a triangle. Then, behind this arrangement, the two other bikes stood side by side such that the complete picture was one roughly the shape of a five point star.

Admittedly, The way that the machines kept this alignment with each other despite riding alongside a previously unknown vehicle was impressive, especially as the street narrowed again and they wordlessly moved into a single file without even slowing down, first a stranger and then another, followed by the white vehicle and then the two other members of the group. The arrangement not being lost on her, Rapha saw that these strangers were keeping the two of them stuck to this path and this fact was as unnerving as their seemingly flawless synchronicity.

"Why are they tagging us?" The girl asked after a while, trying her best to keep the fear out of her voice but having her heart pick up pace with bitter memories whenever one of the vehicles would get near theirs in a larger street.

"They are making sure that we are indeed going to the race." Was the man's reply, and although this brought many questions about the traditions and activities of this world, they could be easily summarized:

"Why?"

"Because, in so doing, we prove that we are a part of their community and not invaders, which will in turn keep us safe." The Herald's voice was as calm as if he were explaining an academic fact, something cold and calculable that didn't imply that these strangers would try to harm them if they attempted to escape.

"But we are not a part of their community." She spoke, fear threatening to make itself visible in her voice.

"But they do not know this." It was a good point, yet the way with which the glass man spoke carried something in his voice that raised those instinctive alerts on her mind. There was a calm assurance that they would not find out, which planted a theory in her mind that was more intuition than a logical deduction based on facts. Why was he so good at driving this machine? Why could he keep up with these strangers with more synchronicity than any group of soldiers that she had ever seen? Where had his knowledge of shadow street communities come from? Was it simply his natural kindness that drove him to want to give these people better lives, or could it be something beyond compassion?

Eventually, a vehicle neared their white lightcycle again, its light and movement painting the wet stones beneath in shimmering waves. Above the sound of the machines, hearing the rider's voice would be difficult, but this proved unnecessary when instead of speaking he only made a hand gesture that was foreign to her. Before she could think much of that, though, the Herald replied by lifting one of his hands from the controls and producing a sign of his own, to which the stranger made yet another sign, and the Herald shook his head to him. Trying again, the man on the colorful bike by their side made one more sign, the Herald finally nodding. After this silent discussion, the stranger lifted his hand high enough that everyone could see, signaling something to the other members of his group. At that, three of the lightcycles raced past their white vehicle, with the stranger waiting for a while longer before vanishing into a narrow tunnel entrance.

From this point, instead of all following the same street, they began appearing and disappearing from Rapha's sight, crisscrossing each other in twisting paths that occasionally brought them together. Whenever this happened, something would be communicated, with sometimes someone pointing at a direction which some would investigate and others would stay clear from. It occurred to her then that maybe the race didn't have a set place, but was instead being decided as they made their way through those streets, a notion reinforced when one of the strangers returned from a side road near them signing almost frantically as if she had been running from something, and all the other machines were quick to turn to the other way.

Sometimes, she would hear the faint drum of police drones, and would notice the programs lifting their heads, keeping on the lookout. Other times, she would see other lightcycles running nearby, and a member of the group would approach them, trade signs as if informing them of something, and return to their path with the others while the visitor disappeared. There would be even times when they would cross grid cars or lightcycles that didn't run like them, which would prompt the formation to spread around to disguise itself, some individuals taking to following the strangers for a while to make sure that they weren't following their movement while also serving as a threat in case that were the case.

Through all of this, the Herald got more and more integrated into the dynamic of the group, eventually even taking the role of drone scout and later tagging a deep green grid car which had seemed curious about their movement but that was discouraged after the man managed to outpace it through the narrow streets, the luminous light trail that it left in ambush that the car then crossed before having the time to react and having anywhere else to turn to being harmless in theory, it but serving as a reminder that it would have only taken a switch for the to have crystalized the trail, the message getting across clear as day as their pursuer understood that they had been bested.

Awed and intrigued by these events, the girl took to observing her surroundings. After having driven for some time, their path had entered a descending trajectory, going from organically winding streets to a downright chaotic urban mess of buildings and tunnels, the steep, narrow roads reminding her of yet another reason why she never learned to drive as she held onto the Herald's chest for dear life. Extending above them, the endless buildings and levels of the interconnected forest city went up to what must have been more than a kilometer in height, parking lots turning into buildings and houses which in turn opened into parking lots, platforms, bridges, tunnels, and then back into streets so seamlessly that it was hard to have an idea of how deep underground they were at each given moment.

Eventually, the lightcycles neared a steep ravine of dusty dark grey rock, descending through the narrow space in a way that gave the girl so much vertigo that for once she was truly entirely out of her element. Yet, beneath the soft fabric of the suit the Herald seemed to be as relaxed as one could be, as if they weren't traveling at high speed down into the jagged depths of the black earth. From there, she could see what looked like an abandoned factory, metal train tracks marking what must once have been the entrance of the building from which the products were taken to be distributed. Framed by huge metal doors that were bent as if they had been broken from a violent impact, a once sleek glass train wagon was tumbled over, its surfaces broken and charred in reminder of what must once have been a violent crash. What happened here?

Greatly slowing down, the group passed through the doors into a huge, abandoned space which, besides the objective absence of rot, was as much a picture of decay as she had ever seen in this dark world. Over a massive broken container that must have once held some form of liquid, there was an intricate machinery resembling almost organic matter, cables and plaques looking like something reminiscent of a heart. For the first time since arriving in the grid, the girl saw debris on the floor, dust and bits of scattered broken parts of that abandoned factory looking out of place against their shining lightcycles, their light the only source of illumination beyond the default barely-there luminescence of the grid.

Passing by the tank, the five lightcycles continued on their way, entering what seemed to be a cave system that had partially collapsed upon itself, the dusty grey floors shining like moonrock beneath them. There, another vehicle approached them from one of the side tunnels, exchanging some hand gestures with the strangers' leader and joining the group. Now six, on they went, crossing over a river of shallow water that was cold on her ankles but that glistered like endless diamonds from the white light that held her, the group eventually being joined by yet another machine. Deeper still, the gallery opened into a high ceiling which was filled with chalky rock that dropped slow water into shallow ponds, the smell of cold moisture a blessing as old as time. Two more lightcycles joined them this time.

The further down they went, the bigger the band became, vehicles threading through one another's paths like a tapestry that was weaved from the simultaneous movement of each individual thread. Then, after crossing through tight, tortuous tunnels that expanded and connected with each other like the capillaries of a sleeping giant, the caverns opened into a chamber, the most wonderful place that Rapha had ever seen. Looking like the inside of an old volcanic crater that had closed itself from the dark sky, the plain in front of them was far bigger than the Arena, the ceiling so high that she couldn't even hope to see it. Yet, she knew that it was a ceiling and not the black abyss because of the light.

Shimmering like the stars of the desert's abode, endless crystals were embedded in the rock, peeking through the grey stone from ceiling to ground, where they made their presence known by turning the floor from the somewhat smooth stone from before into a rough, brilliant terrain. As about twenty lightcycles began making their way towards the center of the gigantic chamber, their sizes dwarving in the face of its magnitude, their colorful lights shimmered across the crystals, which otherwise emitted a faint white glow. Without ever stopping nor saying a word, the drivers got into formation, arranged in neat rows as if by one mind.

Then, the group set in a curve, moving towards the outer ring of the chamber which had been made smoother, perhaps by countless races, where eventually each vehicle's personality began to shine as their collective dance became a proper competition as seamlessly as their collaboration had so far been. Despite the obvious sense of rivalry as each driver set about criscrossing the others to outpace them, Rapha's mind couldn't even attempt to call this a race from how different it was from the arena. Here, the shining stones their only audience, there was no deafening music, no cheering, no underground glass terrain, and although the vehicles left behind a trail of light, it didn't cristalize, nor bring harm, just glowed softly over anything or anyone that crossed through them and allowed for displays of mastery that made their point by reaching for their opponent's honor and not their lives.

For once, the colorful shine of the lightcycles didn't signify a fight for survival, but instead represent the collective culture of a group at its highest point of interconnectivity, where symbols, signs, and meanings that had been acquired through the painstaking process of living within a community were now displayed and performed, the human experience not at its worst, but at its most brilliant, children of the stars earning their place through the desert to someday return to whence they came.

"It's beautiful..." Rapha managed to say, the light of this place and of this moment being overwhelming in its magnitude.

"It is." The Herald replied, his voice as peaceful as it was reverend and proud, the sharp focus with which he crisscrossed between lightcycles and left them far behind contrasting with the ease of his breathing and the alertness of his muscles. This was more than a fish swimming through the waves, it was a man pushed forward by every hand that had ever taught him, guided him, and reached towards him the offer of belonging through a place in a society. The moment was as calm as it was thrilling, the rugged terrain underneath making the vehicle shake despite the specialized wheels and the speed with which the Herald willed his bike to obey his strategy, making Rapha's stomach churn from excitement and fear.

Was this what those migrating birds felt like? Embraced and united, doing something the mechanisms and rules of which were made obvious simply from their belonging to their community? In her own world, Rapha had known the ties of blood, of religion, of shared history. Yet, she had never known anything like this before, nor had she ever known the type of connection that now kept her arms around the Herald's waist as he held her up to give her a place in his own world in turn.

Eventually, the bikes began obeying the ranks that had been formed through the race, staying in place relative to their peers instead of continuing to try to outpace each other. Being quite far ahead in this arrangement from the Herald's expertise, Rapha had a vantage point from which to watch in awe as the machines began turning towards a different tunnel, this one not dispersed into smaller roads like on the way in, but remaining broad like a central road. There, the light of the crystals gave way to the darkness of the grey rock, though the path ahead remained illuminated by the light of those lightcycles that had fared best back at the shining arena. The same as on the way in, they crossed galleries and rivers, winding tortuous paths and open spaces, ascending from the shining depths towards the dark sky.

As they rose, the scenery continued its quick evolution, until they exited through a different part of the factory, though this one had known no accident and no injury. Then, up the other side of the ravine they went, and the shining machines were back into the interconnected town. There, they seemed to spread out, perhaps to attempt not to gather too much attention as Rapha couldn't imagine that such a display and performance of culture from a minority group would be any more accepted here than it was in her world. Regardless, they kept on their march, flying low over the streets of Zaun like memories of the past, flag-holders of the present, and promises of the future.

Not knowing whether to laugh from ecstatic joy or to cry from awe, the girl set for the middle path of hugging the Herald's chest, a silent thank you, real and continuous presence made known through its extrapolation in the abundance-bringing witness of form that is magic. After some time, the group began to once again dwindle, having reinforced, reconfigured, and displayed their collective identity for tonight and now being able to return to their respective lives knowing that they were a part of something that was alive. In the same way, Rapha had learned of a side of the grid that shone light upon where she once had known only darkness, and that only made more evident that which lingered, the Herald's singular warmth against a world that was otherwise as cold as stone despite all its glistering wonders.

Chapter Text

With the group now consisting of only the Herald's white lightcycle and two colorful ones that kept to the side, they took to running through a dark shadowstreet, the dim ambiance a welcome sight after the intense and overwhelming presence of neons. Nevertheless, as her eyes got used to the dark, the girl saw faint signs of life within the buildings, mobile sources of energy doing too little to allow people to live with dignity, but allowing them to survive nonetheless. Thinking back to the relayer that was now down in the arcade's basement, Rapha couldn't help but wish that somehow they would find a way to retrieve it and continue adapting the machine to better fit the demands of everyday life in the shadow streets regardless of whatever answers about the portal the girl hoped that the Herald had gotten while they were there.

For now, though, she had learned much, seeing at this time that which was hidden in plain sight, the answer which wasn't a negative picture of the question, but that instead was itself, and because of that, filled entirely the nothing that is need for the everything. And, with the cold of the wind and the warmth of the Herald's steady heartbeat enveloping her in what she dared say felt like rest, Rapha was at peace. In fact, she was sure that she was more at peace than she ever had been, which is why it really shouldn't have been a surprise when she heard the faint drumming of a police drone in the distance, turning to catch a glimpse of its white floodlight as it peeked over a high cluster of interconnected buildings as it steadily flew right at their direction.

"Drone!" Rapha alerted, to which the Herald turned his head, scanning the area to which she was pointing until he spotted the aircraft.

"Good catch." He replied, accelerating and nearing the other two vehicles, sending a hand gesture in warning. Without further communication, one of the colorful lightcycles turned left into a winding street, the other remaining on the main road for a while longer before crossing behind them into a tunnel on the right. Being able to hear the machine behind them as it got nearer, the white lights turning bright the dark sky, Rapha couldn't be more ready to get out of there. Yet, the Herald must have known these streets much better than she did, because he ignored multiple openings that seemed to lead into welcoming paths, keeping the machine going straight despite the fast approaching drone.

Eventually, with a sharp turn, he moved the lightcycle into a descending road down old tram tracks, which led them to reach the cover of the relative darkness of a narrow street filled with criscrossing pipes. After a few moments running through this fissure, the vehicle entered a small subterranean gallery which allowed them to turn north beyond the Drone's route. Then, making the Herald's plan clear from its success, the duo re-emerged at some distance behind the aircraft while it carried on its way, unaware of their position. Like a dreaded white bird, the drone was a frightening sight, floodlights blinding and cold as it swept through the streets like a giant squid hunting fish beneath the corals of a reef, though it was the urgency of its movements that betrayed its motives.

"Why are they targeting us?" She asked, noticing the meticulousness of the aircraft as it swept the area it made an angular movement in the air, re-adjusting its position to sweep over yet another street.

"They must have known there was an unregistered race, now they might be attempting to abduct programs in lightcycles for questioning." The Herald replied, voice focused on staying clear of the machine's sight as he took a slightly larger road that would eventually bring them closer to home. She didn't ask why the Piltover soldiers were bringing in people without warrant for unlawful interrogations, nor why the Zaunites from the shadow streets would participate in their races despite lack of sanctioning from its ruling government. She had seen that story before, she had heard it, she had lived it, she had studied it and been exhausted by it. Now, she had nothing to ask anymore, she just wanted white peace.

Steady as Eternity, their lightcycle went up through a high concrete and metal bridge that connected tightly-arranged apartment complexes like wooden platforms of tree houses built by the mountain side. There, a broader view of Zaun was made possible such that the girl saw some of its suffocating skyline, porous like a loofah in its organic frame. Had the sky remained dark with the silent abyss, this panoramic view would have been breathtaking, a view of a city that was as interconnected as a living forest, as enduring as an old desert, and as intricate and wonderfully formed as a snow fractal.

Yet, now the sky was illuminated by the cold white light of the drones as they flew over the colorful city, casting brightness that didn't support but suffocate, taking away all respite and permeating the boundaries of that community in a way that was as violently intrusive as it was violent. Even from this relative distance from the heart of the city, she could hear as the air was filled with the distant sound of soldiers shooting and lightcycles running for their lives, crashes of metal and glass mixing with screams to alert the town whenever one of its children got hit. This sight was as familiar as the apathy that it tended to bring to all those who were distant from its dreaded scene, yet it was right in front of her, nurturing a bitter sense of helplessness that settled like dread deep in her bones.

How could any individual fight back against this? How could any group thrive over this suffering when the very sky was their enemy and they were forced underground by deadly light? How would Rapha and the Herald even manage to bring dignity-bestowing energy to the people of shadow streets if they were controlled this greedily by a government that wanted to make sure that they held no power, no honor, no chances of survival? Rapha didn't hate Piltover, nor the giants clad in orange light that made toasts while humans fought beneath their feet. But she admired Zaun, and now that she had seen some of its wonder, and understood why they guarded their glistering heart so fiercely, she had the certainty that she would do everything in her power to help.

Forcing herself to speak was difficult, despite not needing to elevate her voice more than a whisper for him to hear through the chip. But she was afraid that if she kept quiet, she might never again have the strength to voice the question:

"Herald, do you think that the group we drove with will be okay?" Sounding childish even to her own ears, she couldn't even blame the vulnerability in her voice as it wasn't just concern for those peers that made tears threaten to fall down her face, but the exhausted necessity of someone who just couldn't take war anymore, not without a pillar of peace that would keep her up and away from the pitch black waters the currents of which were as tortuous as a torrential storm, freezing cold being as sharp as lightning as it burned through her mind as loud as the thunder once made by war chariots that was now carried into the world of man by rockets and drones.

Even as she voiced the question, she didn't have much expectation of what the Herald would say. After all, what could he say? What good fortune could he wish upon those people that she hadn't heard voiced so many times before? Yet, as always, he surprised her when he spoke with a voice that was as firm as a curse and as devoted as a promise:

"About them I do not know, user. But we will make sure that someday the people of Zaun will be. I promise you." At that, her unguarded, relieved tears, rarity as they were in her home world, yet abundant as he managed to make them be here, were the only thanks that she could reply.

As they reached the entrance to the mountain that held the hospital, it was like the first breath of fresh air after diving deep below the crushing depths. Covered in dizzying exhaustion, all that Rapha could think of was the fresh embrace of a shower and the softness of her bed. As docile as a housecat from sleepiness, the girl accepted the Herald's hand as he helped her disembark, although it felt bittersweet to return without the relayer. Regardless, she tried to fight her heavy lids to take in as much of this human outfit of his as she could as she didn't imagine that he would be too keen to shift from his usual metal armor. As they made their way side by side into the main corridor of the house, There was however one thing that, having gnawed at her mind all night, Rapha had to know:

"Did you manage to figure out anything useful from the portal?" She asked, but was met only with the Herald's silence. At that, the girl tensed up, worried that their one lead might have brought them to a dead end weighing heavy over her mind. Stopping in her tracks, she waited for him to stop walking and face her, her face showing a silent plea that he trusted her with this mission as much as he had trusted her as he showed her the race. As if sensing that, for once, she wouldn't relent, the man replied:

"It was... inconclusive. The data was delivered, but I'm afraid that the portals operate upon a language and technological framework that has been lost to the grid with the passing of the creator." His voice sounded tired, and the way that it almost curled into itself made Rapha wonder if perhaps he was more ashamed of his plan not having worked than worried about how they would make sure that it worked in the future. It made sense, really. The glass man had been responsible for so many people for so long, it only made sense that all the pressure would fall all on his shoulders.

Still, it hurt her to think that he would close himself off from her out of a shame that had no base to be there. Rapha could have told him as much, or how she admired what he had done so far, or reminded him of the potential benefits of the relayer as its own technology regardless of how it helped them find the portal, but she feared that none of those words would get across to him, who, proud as a ram, might feel pitied instead of cherished. So instead, with a serious but hopeful voice, she asked:

"But you have a new plan right?" Though it was framed as a question, the tone of her voice was resolute, as if she were unable to think of any world in which he wouldn't know what to do to make sure that they succeeded. And that wasn't a lie, her tone of voice said as much. He had promised her data and he had delivered. He had promised her a safe passage through the shadow streets and here they were. Despite her cautiousness, Rapha had been given no reason to distrust the Herald's plans, and she hoped that she could show him this by giving him her faith now. At her words, his shoulders relaxed. Not much, only barely enough for her to see beneath the soft fabric, but it was enough for the pain in her heart to be calmed.

"Of course I do." He replied, the infuriatingly cocky sarcasm in his voice showing that he was back up on his feet. "The chem-barons will host an event in a few weeks. There, we should be able to find an old colleague of mine who might be able to help."

"Sounds great." She replied, beginning to walk towards the staircase to the upper rooms. "Can't say I'm too eager to spend more time drowning in research but I'll do my best."

"Actually..." He began, voice almost tentative. "I would like it if you could help me with my patients from now on." Hun? The Herald asking for help? What was he up to? "I would be happy to assist you with your studies to make up for the time, but this arrangement might be beneficial for the both of us."

"I'd be happy to help, you know this, but I don't know how useful I can be." Rapha replied, the embarrassment from her admission of incompetence drawing her eyes to a point behind the Herald's head instead of to his black helmet.

"That is to be expected, but I must insist." He replied, voice showing that he already made up his mind. Then, a bit more gently, he added: "Besides, you don't need to know what to do from the start. You just need to be willing to learn, yes?" Welp that made her cheeks redden for a completely different reason, but he didn't need to know that. So, feigning any semblance of composure, the girl replied:

"Sure. At what time do you need me at the shop?"

"The time that you usually go downstairs would be perfect, it's this acceptable?" He asked, as if considering the timetable.

"Alright. I'll be there." She nodded, but made no movement to turn back towards her bedroom. Truth be told, today had been as if infinite, and in a way it felt weird to leave his company now.

"Good, I will be expecting you." He replied, his usual professional voice hiding what sounded almost like softness underneath. Perhaps she was imagining it, but from the way that he just stood there, she wondered if he could also be reluctant to call it a night. So, ever the brave and bold one, Rapha said the words that had begged to escape her throat for a long time:

"Thank you. For the race, for the help, for everything. I'm glad to have found you." The admission escaped her with such honesty that it didn't leave her mouth but sprout from it, not something that abandoned her as it was delivered but a vine that reached beyond herself, enveloping the Herald in a grasp that made known what once she hadn't been strong enough to see, but that she was now. He was good, not only as a Herald and healer but as a man, and she was ready to trust him as such. Seamingly taken by surprise from her words, the Herald was quiet for a moment. Then, recomposing himself, he responded with a self-satisfied voice:

"I believe that I am the one who has found you, no?" The bastard.

"Alright, mr magnanimous, I get it." She sighed, rolling her eyes despite the tired smile on her lips. "I'll see you tomorrow, Herald." Not waiting for a reply, the girl started up the stairs. With the silence of her footsteps occupying the space like a soft blanket, she couldn't ever have predicted the reply that would occupy the empty abyss like the sun breaches through the wings of the moon. Yet, with a voice so low that she almost thought that she had imagined it, it was in this way that the Herald's words sounded softly behind her:

"It 's Viktor."

"What?" She asked, breath caught at her throat while she turned on her heels to face him once again.

"My name. It's Viktor." He replied, voice almost whispered as if it were a secret that he didn't want even himself to hear, his voice so cautious that she wondered when he had last spoken this name out loud. Oh. He had a name. She knew that he did, well, at least she thought it probable. But still, he had a name, and despite being unable to see his face, Rapha felt like he had just, for the second time tonight, taken his heart right from his chest and given it to her like an injured bird that had never known any solace in human hands but instead had only learned to fear the pain of their slingshots and arrows. Calling this admission precious was to say too little, so she settled for calling it true.

"Well, Viktor..." She spoke with a smile so bright and fond that anyone who saw her would see that there was no blue bird with a broken wind in her heart but the one in front of her: "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Rapha." He replied, his voice disarmingly gentle as if in telling her his name he had also begun to live it, as if her knowing about this were all the witness that he needed to be saved from the dark abyss of oblivion. As the girl went up the stairs to the safe familiarity of silence that embraced her room, the name echoed across her mind like a soft mantra. Son of the goddess of red wings. Netzach. Son of the lady born from the waves.

His name suited him so perfectly that it was terrifying, yet this new information only opened up a new hunger in the girl to know more of him, to hold more of him in her arms and keep him safe from all harm. She had been given a precious gift yet it might as well have caused her to become a black hole of desire that made her want to learn all that his existence had to teach. Settling for bed that night, exhausted beyond comprehension, the girl couldn't help but wonder about this man regarding whom the more she learned the more curious she became.

Yet, as if she were forbidden to have a moment of rest in her entire existence, sleeping that night had been nearly an impossible task, Rapha's wandering mind making inventory of what she had learned and what she still didn't know about the grid, about her path throughout all of this, and about this... Viktor.

How could a man be at the same time a stranger and a familiar presence? Their meeting had been backwards, first the soul with crafty hands that shaped the world to his will in exquisite metal, then slivers of man, of flesh, of soft white hands dotted with anti-stars. Then, despite the restlessness of her mind, when sleep finally came, it was less merciful still, replaying the memory of his hands on her back, of his lips on her neck, of the relentless warmth that made him stand out as the only true source of heat in a world of cold crystalized eternity. Desire was unprecedented to the girl who had up to this point been merely an observer of the tablets of destiny. Yet, now that he had reached her like the sun breaching morning, she was just as helpless to evade the light of the rays that he cast upon her like the infinite hands of the disk-god.

As always, she woke up in the dark, there being no windows to alert of the coming of dawn, only the clock of her body that had learned from years of routine when to rest and when to work. Getting up to the cold stone floor and shuffling around in the dim to turn on the cold white lights, it was almost as if morning instantaneously materialized around her, present yet coming from everywhere, the faint light of a well lit up home in the early morning sun but without a window to direct the received luminescence. Then, she put on the suit's boots, walking out into the bathroom to brush her teeth and shower. It wasn't until she was styling her hair that, with a startle, the girl noticed that for once she hadn't had nightmares. Staring at the red-faced reflection in front of her, her suit's color now seemed to mock her embarrassment at having found rest from the hand of this merciless presence.

Forcing herself to attempt to focus on a day of actually learning how to help with the hospital, Rapha descended into the house, finding the kitchen empty though some coffee was brewing on the countertop. Nothing new here, the moth-mouthed creature wouldn't usually be standing around fruits and bread. Venturing into the machine room, though, she also found no signs of the man, which was in turn quite unusual. Hm. Down the corridor she went, eventually finding him in his office, metal suit and third arm back in place as if he had never worn hands of flesh. As it always seemed to do lately, the metal arm spotted her before he did, turning to her a curious snake while he was sitting by the desk, seemingly organizing some files.

Hovering by the door, it only then occurred to Rapha that she had no idea how she was supposed to call him. Should she call him Herald? Viktor? A mixture of both? Should she pretend that last night had never happened, keeping his name a secret that would be safe inside her heart, or let that treasure grow like a vast tree beyond the confines of her gentle arms that cradled and kept it light from harm? Like an insect that cannot be placed back into its old shell once it bursts through the dried skin, Rapha couldn't imagine treating this seed as if it hadn't grown into a sapling. Therefore, with a heart that seemed to be drumming in her ears from how loudly it beat, she called:

"Good morning, Viktor!" Perhaps having forgotten about yesterday, or simply not being used to hearing the name, the Herald's head shot up so quickly that he looked like a startled owl, the white-gold eyes of the mask a pleasant sight to the girl's heart, especially after having only seen dark black glass yesterday. Setting the papers that he had at hand down into the cluttered table, the man replied:

"Good morning, Rapha, did you sleep well?" Oh oh, there he was, the cause of her dreams asking her about sleep. Hoping that she wasn't blushing while pretending nonchalance, the girl replied:

"Yeah, as well as one can in such a short night. You?"

"About the same, I suppose." He replied, mind as if far away as he got up and walked towards the door. Looking around the office while she could, the girl's eyes set back into the boat that she had found the first time that she entered the room while coherent, noticing how the item's apparent simplicity compared to the rest of the items by the shelf made it stand out as much as the beauty of its metal platings and mechanisms did. Following her eyes, the Herald walked up to the boat, picking it up with his free hand. Then, as if he hadn't surprised the girl enough lately, he turned to her, his metal hand brushing hers as he placed the item in her arms. It was heavier than she thought, the uneven plates pressing against her skin. Yet, from up close, the waterwheel-like pistons were even more delicate, their slight imperfections and unevenness only making it look more lovely.

"This was the first machine that I made that worked the way that I intended it to." The Herald explained, completely unprompted, and for a second the girl worried that he might have hit his head. Should she ask him if he was okay???

"It's beautiful." She replied instead, gently nudging the waterwheels, which spun with a rusty creaking sound while making the pistons move in turn.

"The form is crude, I'll admit." He added, at once proud of the work of his hands and embarrassed of the idea of somehow making something less than perfect. "But it has opened many doors to my studies." He spoke, a lingering bitterness tainting his reminiscence and making Rapha for once see this toy boat as less of a trophy and more of a reminder for something... yet, he had already surrendered much information lately, so she didn't press for more. Once the man didn't say anything else, she analyzed the mechanisms for a few more moments and gently offered the object for him to hold and put back on the shelf. With a smile and glad to be able to see his eyes when looking up at him, even if they weren't human, the girl spoke:

"You have to make me one of those someday."

"Doesn't seem like the most exciting gift, but to each their own." He teased, voice in mock contemplation. But then, tone easing, he added: "But odd taste aside, I'd be happy to." Perhaps one day she would take the pendulum that he constantly swung over her heart between endearing affection and sheer anger and use it as a baseball bat to hit his masked face with. Until then, though, she would take what he offered, so she muttered a low "Thank you" and made her way to the entrance hall with the man by her side.

Chapter Text

As it turns out, the Herald was both an excellent and infuriating teacher. That is, as he walked her through each of the rooms of the hospital area, explaining what the place's usual routine entailed and giving her a general idea of the main categories of patient that he received and where each of those was treated, his methodology and thoroughness quickly proved that he would be the best teacher she had ever had. At the same time, though, the charming ease with which he introduced her to the work made her wonder why the hell was he just doing that now. Before, she had assumed that he was a stereotypical mad genius, a man of peculiar working habits who would hate seeing his space disturbed.

Now, though, as Viktor opened up the cabinets of the sickrooms, and offered her some folders on recurring patients for her to familiarize herself with them, there was no pedantry, no ego, no selfish pride in the work of his hands that kept him from wanting to share his gifts with the world. In every way, the Herald held his work with dedicated esteem but without possessiveness over it, treating his own space less as something that he owned and more like something that he was lucky to work with. Whenever she made questions about the items or the procedures, he explained them while also taking the time to ponder if his usual methods were truly the best that he could employ, and if she found herself with a suggestion about something, be it the organization of items in the storage garage or his way of receiving the patients, he would genuinely and earnestly consider her arguments.

After taking about an hour to show her the space, the Herald opened up the main doors as if the hospital were a church to which all were welcome. While waiting for visitors, he resumed his explanations, now more in depth, until, about two hours later, the first patient of the day appeared. He was an old man who had lost both his arms in a grid car accident in his youth, and now had intricate prosthetics that shone in the color of dark gold carried through shipwrecks into eras different than their own. Being as excitable as he was kind, the old man would visit the workshop every few months for checkups and small upgrades, which Rapha was learning to be common practice amongst programs.

It was in every way a routine consultation, with the kind but serious and life-worn man being polite to Rapha (whom Viktor introduced as his apprentice), but not paying her any mind. Focused on learning as much as she could and admittedly nervous at the prospect of potentially offending the program, she didn't mind not being addressed and instead playing the part of the Herald's shadow, fetching items as he explained their various functions and generally hearing Viktor talk to the man.

Nothing in any world could, however, have prepared her for the experience of actually seeing the Herald work. If he had seemed like a fish in water while riding the white lightcycle, here he was like a lotus blooming at night to face the moon in all its breathtaking beauty. As soon as the older man arrived, he took on an air of gentle assuredness with the ease of a seal gliding seamlessly below the silver waves, the man becoming like the stable tree which is the foundation of his house. Bending like a willow tree so that he could be closer to the short old man while he guided him, hand on his back and a good-natured, charismatic and selfless pleasant mood, Rapha couldn't help but think of fabled princes who guarded over their aging fathers with a tact that was at once a sign of sensibility and a promise of the power that one day they would hold over the kingdom of their ancestors.

Whereas with her, his pride and arrogance came into play for banter, now, when actually caring for a member of his flock, the ram proved his place as the Herald through his infinite gentleness, with his compassionate kindness, answering the old man's questions while holding him through gentle and non-invasive touches: hands holding the metal arms while inspecting them, a hand on his shoulder as he explained something about their maintenance, a palm held up to help his patient up, a hand on his back to support him on his way back to the door. With the caring constance of a nurse and the presence of a leader, the place that the Herald had carved for himself in this community was as soft as the merciful springs that blossom in desert mountains bringing fresh water to the valleys below.

He was the tree and the house which stands upon it, safe between tall rocks, filled with wooden furniture and warm beams of sunlight, metal made into form by the expertise of the son of man. He was silence itself, her oldest memories coming to light as he moved between cabinets of dark wood to retrieve medicine and metal parts and tools, the white light of this house a reminder of every dream of peace that she ever had, but had forgotten, now remembered from seeing the one who is at their center. After the old man went on his way, Viktor set about cleaning the space with practiced methodology, teaching the girl about this also.

A few minutes later, another client came in, this time a middle aged woman who had lost most of her fingers in a factory accident and now wore delicate silver prosthetics that made her fingers gleam under the cold white light. She had visited the shop twice, the first time being when she got injured, having been brought by her worried son, and the second time to get a check up a few months later, when she was accompanied by her husband. This time, unable to adjust her schedule so that she could have company, she must have been a bit nervous, because despite the Herald's gentle demeanor, she latched onto Rapha as soon as she was introduced. So, there they went, arms linked, the lady telling her some story that reminded her of her own mother back in a world illuminated by the sun.

As the woman was being examined, she kept Rapha by her side, telling her stories that made the girl laugh earnestly and sharing her idle gossip such as which buildings were being built in the neighborhood, and what matter of corruption had caused these very same structures to not have been constructed before. It was easy to enter into a mode of care, and Rapha found herself genuinely hurt from hearing about how the lady's injuries came to be. As she accompanied the woman to the door, arms linked once again, she found herself thinking that she could get used to this.

After this visit and the subsequent cleaning, it was about time for lunch, which prompted the girl to actually learn where all this food came from (the Herald told her that it was donated every week or so by a sweet old lady in thanks for him having taken care of her husband in his last years of life). Normally, Rapha wouldn't have tried her luck this much. But, since the man seemed to be in this unusually talkative mood and he had just made her work as his assistant all morning, she found herself in the right to all but lock Viktor in his office so that he would actually eat lunch. Admittedly It felt a bit weird to eat alone in the kitchen after having spent the morning with him, but seeing him leave his office, dishes in hand and the posture of a defeated cat leaving the shower after being forced to bathe, was enough to make it worth it.

In the afternoon, a tired young mother and her excited toddler arrived by the door, which quickly resulted in Rapha offering coffee for the woman, sweet milk for the girl and biscuits for both. As Rapha distracted the little girl by picking her up and showing her items in the medicine cabinets (from afar), while the mother was in consultation, it was with some amusement that she noticed that, for all that he was great with tending to adults, Viktor seemed somewhat more panicked around kids. Admittedly, he remained very patient and kind, but he froze somewhat at their chaotic unpredictability that kept them out of the very social rules that he had seemed to have long ago mastered.

It was endearing, both in the way that it brought him down from some inhuman level of charisma and into the realm of humanity, and in that it showed a vulnerable side of him. That is, as man's ease in navigating the social arena was also a crutch that guided him towards what to say and do, whenever he couldn't rely on these rules to interact with someone it was as if he was robbed of ground upon which to walk. Still, his gentleness with the kid shone when it was her turn to get examined, his gentle hands always guiding with the same level of non-perverse care that remained whether his patient was an old man, an adult woman, or a child, and through this very constance of the honest purity of his care, every instance of his kindness until now was only reinforced in its overwhelming mercy.

After this little family, there was a young man with coughing issues, who acquired this injury from continuous smoke inhalation from working in the mines. Upon hearing his symptoms and the explanation of his condition, the Herald seemed to tense somewhat, his concern wavering slightly from his usual professional kindness and into a well disguised bitterness that could point to a more personal closeness to the affliction at hand. Granted, as always, it was truly masterfully hidden, but Rapha noticed, and noticing that she noticed only sent her mind into overdrive at how was it possible to know someone in this way after such a short period of time, and further than this, how quickly she had gone from observing the world to observing the Herald in hungry search for any clues about his life.

Having scheduled ahead to guarantee time for conversation, the last case of the day was a little boy, about 9 years old, who was brought by his parents in a wheelchair. One day, while he was out playing, the boy had lost mobility of his legs in the crossfire of a skirmish between soldiers and members of a Zaunite gang. Although the initial surgery that he underwent was in a hospital in another neighborhood, the family had reached out to the Herald for his expertise in mechanical limbs and they had been in contact for a few weeks now. This being the first time that they got to visit the shop in person, it was with compassionate patience that Viktor analysed the boy, then sat with the parents in his office to discuss their treatment options.

Not having what else to do through this grim situation, but not wanting to bother them by being an awkward shadow in the corner, the girl brewed them coffee and made some sweet milk for the boy, though he claimed to be grown enough to drink coffee the same way that his parents did. When he eventually decided that he actually hated coffee, though, she heated up the drink and talked to him in the waiting room while he drank it and waited for his parents who had insisted that he wait outside. Hearing a child talk about such emotionally charged events with such a trusting openness was always tough, but Rapha was glad that now he had a chance to begin setting his life back on track.

Presently, the little family went home, having scheduled a date for a surgery that would substitute part of the boy's spine for a metal one, allowing him to have control of his legs again. As always, Rapha couldn't help but wonder how much this type of technology could help humans on earth, and telling as much to the Herald seemed to make him happy, his voice always sounding somewhat more excited when they talked about their plan.

After cleaning the shop from the day, the two went to have dinner (for Rapha to have dinner while the Herald continued explaining about the hospital's functioning, though not without promising to eat soon as well). Yet, when she expected that now she would be able to take a warm shower and go to bed, the merciless man dragged her to the workshop and insisted that she continue her usual studies for a few hours, though he made her plight slightly less tortuous by participating in the study session, half teaching and half learning with her as they analyzed the contents of certain books about the grid. When he finally called it a night, she was exhausted, but admittedly she was also really happy. It felt good to be able to work helping people like this, and more than anything this path felt like a promise.

The next weeks went like this, each day Rapha helping with the shop, and each evening studying with Viktor about his world, though she eventually convinced him to study in the living room, the sofa by the fireplace becoming their fortress of knowledge as the coffee table on front of them became a cluster of books and maps. After the events of the night of the race, Viktor had kept a mostly professional demeanor, and he didn't tell her anything further about himself after his explanation of the toy boat.

Face of twirling metal, the man would take his place near stretchers and cabinets by day and on the other end of a sofa by her side at night, always remaining near, yet always distant in his gentleness for he had a kindness that set him apart and made him the Herald while keeping him detached from the community for whom he cared but whom he never let care for him in return. Yet, his presence was as warm as the sun, and Rapha had lived a life of too much misery to know how to impose, so she gladly and hungrily accepted this friendship that he seemed to be offering, laughing at his sarcastic words and discussing about both worlds as they made plans on how to bring about the betterment of both societies.

The nightmares also got somewhat better after the race, the memory of warmth and color serving as an anchor against the storm of destructive crystallized walls of shimmering light under the chanting of the masses. Additionally, both the steady comforting presence of days spent at the shop and the insistent memory of his skin against hers that refused to be banished from her heart served as positive presences that invaded her nightmares and turned them into soothing peace or thrilling desire, warm light all his all the time all the same.

That is not to say that there weren't nightmares. Whenever she dreamed about the container arena, of the weight of the disk, of the feeling of blue glass dust in her mouth, and that still happened quite often, Rapha would wake herself up with the sound of her sleep-dulled screams, sheets tangled and covered in cold sweat. But still, little by little she could see things getting better, from how she calmed down around the Herald and his patients, from how she felt more rested and able to work without fatigue, and from how her mind wouldn't be dragged back to the arena as often anymore. In the rare instances that this did happen, it would be the Herald who would bring her back to him, grounding hands on hers or on her back or arms, silence that was as present and enduring as Eternity itself.

Sometimes, she could see slivers of humanity shining around him: late nights spent in his workshop, working on a project because he simply couldn't bring himself to call it a night, the disappearance of certain kinds of sweets as soon as they reached the kitchen, the man painstakingly re-arranging his cloak around his neck and over his third arm when he thought that nobody was looking. When working or studying, he had the habit of twirling his hair in his fingers when he got frustrated or lost in thought, a seemingly subconscious action that gave him an even more disheveled appearance and showed when he had been hitting his head against a wall on a project for too long. As small and far between those instances of Viktor were, as they shone around the silver Herald, Rapha found herself keeping them in her heart, where they protected her with warmth from cold memories such that dark grief had no place within her.

Having set into a routine, today Rapha was preparing one of the sickrooms for the next patient while the Herald was fixing a pair of prosthetic eyes in the workshop, when she was startled half out of her mind from a blaring alarm. Granted, time had gotten her used to the normal visitor alarm of that building, even if it still made her uncomfortable to hear the sound. This one was nothing like this, instead blaring loudly and urgently like the screeching of a parking lot's gates but amplified multiple times, nearly making Rapha drop the cloth with which she had been cleaning a table beneath a medicine cabinet.

Finding Viktor emerging from the workshop as they both made their way towards the entrance, she saw that someone was hunched over the alarm, apparently using all of their strength to keep pressing it and  to stop themselves from falling. Then, before they could reach the person, they collapsed to the floor on their knees, with their face almost hitting the wall from their hunched over position. Covered in a cloak, it was hard to see much of the human underneath, but as Rapha ran towards them and placed her hand on their shoulders, she didn't need sight to know that something was very wrong. That is, instead of firm flesh, what she held beneath her fingers was more similar to gelatine, and even through the cloth she could feel it pulsating.

Kneeling to hold the person's back with her torso in a cradling gesture to avoid them from falling down further, their head fell back on her shoulder, revealing what should have been a face. Should. Not was. Because what she saw beneath that cloak was a blistering organic mess of flesh as dark red as a liver, veins pulsating in the rhythm of their heartbeat, so swollen that they looked like they might burst at any moment. Where there had once been traits of a program, now each part of their face was contorted by a different level of disfiguration, and although some areas still looked almost human, they were also deeply reddened and seemingly fragile.

As the Herald reached her, he took a mobile stretcher that had been kept by one of the walls for emergency, Viktor and Rapha working together to put the person on top of it as gently and urgently as they could, running to bring them into one of the sickrooms. All these weeks, there had been a few emergencies with patients. From a woman who had just lost a hand in a factory accident to a teenage boy who had gotten his eyes infected and needed an immediate procedure to avoid the illness from progressing into his brain. There had also been mutated programs who had various levels of malformations, though from as far as Rapha was aware they had all been born with their conditions.

Helping with pain and mobility through medication and in some cases exchanging mutated limbs for prosthetics, Viktor would treat them with care and dignity, the humanity of his treatment oftentimes far more meaningful than the brilliant work of his hands. Nevertheless, as Rapha removed the person's cloak and hurriedly attached to them an inhaler while the Herald prepared an injection, it seemed to her impossible that someone could survive a day with this condition, much less a lifetime. On top of this, the explosive look that it had taken on their skin was also deeply different from the pearly and pale tones of most mutated tissue that she had seen so far. Instead, this seemed to her like the case of an illness that got out of control quickly and violently, and right now it was threatening to take this person's life.

Clearing room for the Herald to work while running to pick up the items that she had come to expect him to request while also listening to new instructions regarding what would be needed for this grim case, Rapha noticed the exact moment that Viktor came to the conclusion that the person wouldn't make it. It was not from his actions, as the man did not diminish his pace in applying treatment, nor did his hands waver in their work. If she were asked to explain, perhaps she might not be able to with words. Yet, there was a silence that fell over the room, a cold calm that set upon his breathing not in apathy but in preemptive grief. Yet, he continued telling her what to fetch, and she continued bringing and preparing items as he worked on the person's mutated wounds. It was a slow process, taking about half an hour, yet eventually the worst of the mutations had been patched with clear linen and medicine had been injected and applied.

The effect was obvious in the program's breathing becoming easier, them not trying to move their head nor trashing their limbs in weak movements anymore. Yet, the result made it clear that those interventions hadn't been made to try to save their life, but to ease their pain, to bring them comfort, to bring them dignity. Just as she hadn't cried when bombs were falling and there were people around her who were afraid and for whom she had to be brave, just as she hadn't cried when she fought against people young and old who had brought violence and fear upon her life and the lives of people near her, just as she hadn't cried as she held weak animals in her arms as they had no idea that they had so little time left, Rapha didn't cry now.

Instead, she stood by the Herald's side in silence as he held this person's hand, his thumb rubbing soothing gentle motions over weak deformed flesh. Fetching a softer cloth to fold into a pillow more comfortable than that of the stretcher, and tugging warm blankets around the program, the girl worked with soft hands, using clean gauze to clear the sweat from their face and avoiding that their hair tangle around their blistering neck. From time to time, the Herald would adjust a bandage from a mass that had moved slightly, the steady pressure over the flesh being what stopped it from violently tearing itself apart.

They worked in this calmer silence for a long time, though how long the girl couldn't tell. It was different from the other work that she had done in this hospital before for how it was done with a deference and a respect that was almost cruel in its gentleness. Sometimes, she tried offering them some water, other times the Herald succeeded in getting them to consume medicine that would ease their pain. Yet, the person didn't speak, didn't drink, didn't react, and eventually even their breathing stopped. Crumbling around the stretcher in blue glass shards, not even their body remained as faintly glowing dust was all that remained.

At that point, Rapha began to cry, though her tears were as silent as grief while she and Viktor worked to clean the space. There wasn't a word spoken between them, not even when he opened his arms and she curled into them, holding onto his back, gripping his third arm, and burying her sobbing face in the crook of his neck where the folds of his robe were softest. They remained silent still when he returned her embrace and held onto her like she was both the only certainty that he ever had and all that he ever feared to lose, as if by holding her in his arms he were at once grounding her and keeping her, as if in the same breath he were apologizing for his presence in her life and begging her not to grow to resent it. It was in silence that his hands found their way to her back, settling over her disk while his masked face pressed against the side of her head, her dark hair hiding his eyes of white gold as if she were the ocean that surrounds the white root and it wasnt just she who he was protecting but the very promise that his hands had not been the cause of her pain.

She didn't know for how long they stood there, but she was sure that it was an Eternity. When at last the girl's tears dried up and the Herald's hands came up to cradle her face, he gently guided her head up until her forehead was touching his, a symbol that she had seen Zaunite patients do sometimes, the meaning of which still foreign to her but the depth of the gesture as clear as the grounding comfort of his kind presence. So, up her hands went to cradle the metal mask, fingers tracing the golden tears around his eyes. She knew that she couldn't feel this touch through the mask, and she doubted that he could see what she was doing, but the sigh that he breathed made her think that somehow the warmth of her hands had managed to find its way into his heart, and she could only hope that it would soothe him as much as he soothed her. When eventually he spoke, his voice was more quiet than she had ever heard from him:

"I'm sorry."

"You did nothing wrong." She replied, voice made gentle from affection.

"I thought that by having you work with me, you would be able to heal from your injuries. I never meant to bring you more harm. I'm sorry." He replied and his voice sounded so fragile and tired that she couldn't help her reply:

"And you were right. You have given me the knowledge and capacity to take care of people in a way that I had never known." She started, hands going to his sides to grab him. "And now you have given me the chance to offer comfort to someone who would otherwise have died without it."

"Even so, I regret that I didn't take this case by myself." His response, so low that it was almost a whisper.

"Don't these cases hurt you?" She asked, looking up at him.

"Of course they do. But this is hardly the point. These people depend on my help, and you are my guest." He said, voice returning some of its usual firmness.

"Isn't this burden easier to bear when you can share it?" At Rapha's words, Viktor went quiet for a few moments, until he eventually replied:

"It is. But not if it is at the cost of bringing you pain."

"Viktor, do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Then trust me that neither you nor the life that you offer me bring me any pain. You support these people, you take care of them, you give them life with the work of your hands, and you give me a chance to ease their suffering. I’m not asking that you share your hold upon this place, just that you accept my support. You dont need to rely on me, just let me be your witness as I already am, please." Rapha spoke, the honesty of her words sounding surprising even to her own ears, not because she didn't know them before, but because she didn't know they sounded from never yet having heard the recitation of the song that praises the tree of life. Looking at her with his silver mask's white gold eyes, Viktor was as silent as a statue until presently he spoke:

"Very well." Sounding almost stern, his words were like he were accepting a deal that he was not yet sure wouldn't bring them much grief, as if he were still evaluating whether to let her help or push the wings of her soul away as they trued to craddle his in loving safety. Then, after a moment, his shoulders relaxed, and his voice sounded more gentle when he added: "Thank you. For being here, for your assistance, for everything." At that, she smiled, nodding once and squeezing his hands with hers, her touch so soft that she wondered if he could feel through the leather and the metal of his gloves. After a moment in comforting silence, though, Rapha asked:

"Herald, what happened to that program?" As if he had been dreading this question, his voice was cautious when he replied:

"There... has been... something happening to certain mutated programs. A progression in their afflictions, though I had never seen such a drastic case before." He spoke like he was afraid of her understanding what he meant, but she did, and with a frightened voice and widening eyes, she responded:

"Is Huck's family-"

"They are well. The progression of their mutations is nothing of this level." He replied, voice turning to the more assured tone he worked with.

"But it's progressing!" Rapha pointed out from his words. At that, though, he lifted his hands to her biceps, holding her gently, his right hand cradling the part of her left upper arm that had once been burned but had been healed by his hands and now left only a reddish scar behind.

"I cannot tell you more, both for your sake and that of all of those who need our help. You will work by my side but do not ask about this, please. Not yet." Her mind was spinning and she was beginning to panic, but he had learned enough of the mechanisms of her fear to know to add: "What I can tell you is that Huck's family will be okay. I would not lie to you nor would I tell you something that I did not know." At that, the girl took a deep breath. She had come to trust the Herald, both his kind honesty and the competence that allowed him to keep true to his vow. Beyond this, she had grown to care for him, and the white affection that she felt in her heart was enough to make her accept his request just because it was he, and only he, who had asked. Nodding in agreement and in a promise of trust, she then voiced another question, her tone tired from the day's events but warmed by his touch:

"So what do we do now?" Regaining some of the self-asuredness of his voice, Viktor replied with a voice darkened by bitter humor:

"It seems to me that now would be a good time to pay a visit to my old mentor.”