Day 26:
Hide
Tolnoran smiled at him. “That’s all we can ask.”
Elias approached, whatever conversation he had been having with Lora now over. Lora, for her part, gestured for Bethany as Artemis caught sight of Cass returning with the healer from before. Bethany left his side as he returned his attention to his uncle and Tolnoran.
“Tolnoran, is there any-”
The words stopped abruptly as Elias’s head snapped towards where Cass and the healer were coming from. Artemis followed his uncle’s attention with his own, finding Cass had stopped as well. The healer either hadn’t noticed whatever it was that had grabbed Cass and Elias’s attention or hadn’t cared much about it. The healer knelt beside him but didn’t say anything. Maybe he misjudged the healer’s take on the situation.
His gaze snapped away from the healer as he heard the faint echo of something that sounded oddly like-
“Was that gunfire?” Bethany whispered.
Dlmor growled low under him as he watched Belvren take a step in front of Lora and his sister.
“What the hell are those idiots doing?” Cass snapped, though the volume of her voice wasn’t much louder than what Bethany’s had been.
“Cass,” Elias spoke up among more echoes of gunshots. “Where is Leader Fox?”
She looked back at him, a new touch of confusion pulling at her expression. “Council last I heard. Why?”
“Is he aware of Artemis?”
At first, she didn’t react but from one moment to the next, she lost the color in her face. “You don’t think…”
“If word of what Artemis has done has reached him, I wouldn’t be surprised.” The man’s gaze narrowed. “Not that it explains the gunshots.”
“Uncle?” Bethany called out, the man’s title drawn out and tight with accusation and worry.
“Tolnoran.”
The man was already moving to Artemis’s side. “Already on it.” Tolnoran knelt at his side, arms slipping under him as the man looked to the healer. “Follow quick and quiet. We have to hide.”
“Of course,” the healer spoke, their expression determined. Their words were so soft, he would not have been surprised if Tolnoran had simply assumed what they had said.
Tolnoran picked him up, pinning him to the man’s broad chest. Dlmor shifted into a smaller, lanky form that reminded him of the Cyor lacking the second set of paws before scaling Tolnoran to curl on Artemis’s chest. He covered the small ball of fur and noted that despite the position reminding him of a creature hiding from danger, Dlmor’s eyes were open wide with its gaze out on the hallway as Tolnoran turned.
The gunshots were getting louder.
“Elias, what’s going on,” Bethany demanded, her words wavering around the edge. “Where is he taking Artemis?”
“Bethany, go with them.”
“No! What’s going on?!”
Whatever his uncle’s response was, it was too quiet for him to hear. Shouting started to be heard under the gun fire even as Tolnoran rounded a corner and left the hallway behind. He held Dlmor close. Tolnoran was being incredibly careful but the movement still agitated his head that by the time Tolnoran slipped into some room and there was the sound of a door closing, he was fighting the urge to vomit as his head tried to murder him.
The healer’s voice drifted into his awareness. “This isn’t good. Set them down over here.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Tolnoran asked, his voice low and sounding a bit strained to Artemis.
“Not sure.”
He was laid down on some flat surface but his head was cushioned by something soft. For a long moment there was nothing but silence outside the collective breathings. Not that he was completely aware of his surroundings after the first stretch of silence. Dlmor shifted on his chest, drawing his attention back to the world around him. The gentle Transference agitated the low level headache he had but he appreciated being told that he had dozed off again. There wasn’t much concern in the Transference. Instead, he got some of Dlmor’s exhaustion. He rubbed at the fur under his hand.
“What of the other two?” the healer asked in a soft whisper.
Another gentle Transference; if it had any effect on his headache, it was too slight for him to notice. Bethany and Lora had arrived quietly a few minutes prior. Artemis was impressed Bethany hadn’t immediately demanded his attention upon arrival.
She had wanted to but whatever had spooked them into hiding had startled her into silence. That pulled concern out of his chest but Dlmor didn’t know the answer to his unasked question. Neither woman spoke about what they had seen.
“Ysle is still in the hallway. They’ll show them where to go when they get close.”
He wondered if the “if” was implied or if he was the only one to think it.
Something started scratching at the door. Or, at least, he thought it was the door. He opened his eyes into the mostly dark room as Dlmor got off his chest. There was some sort of light source but it took a long minute before he realized it was Dlmor and not some normal light source. He heard Tolnoran mutter, “Thank you, Dlmor,” before he heard the door click open.
There was the sound of a brief scuffle and something squeaked. He sat up slowly, carefully, finding himself on top of a table. By the time he got his gaze on the door, it was closed. Dlmor had something pinned, teeth clamped around its throat. He noticed the healer putting a hand on his shoulder but they didn’t coax him to lay back down. It almost felt like they were using him as their lifeline, though he couldn’t figure out why it felt that way.
Dlmor’s fur was as dark as the rest of the room but the individual strands that peppered it like glitter were glowing. It looked like the portion of the night sky had been molded into some vague creature shape. Gone were the dark blue eyes replaced by eyes the same strange every-color silver as the fur strands that now looked like stars. The majority of the light coming from Dlmor were coming from its eyes as if each eyes was a full moon in that molded night.
“What is it?” Lora asked the poorly lit room. Whatever creature Dlmor had pinned was obscured by Dlmor’s body.
“It looked like a Cyor,” Tolnoran offered, “but I’m not sure. Dlmor?”
“It’s a Ruhn mimicking a Cyor,” Dlmor growled. “And no, I am not letting it go. Not until Artemis gets over here.”
The downside to those every-color silver eyes was the lack of pupils so if Dlmor was focused on him, he had no idea. Still, he moved to the edge of the table and dropped his legs over the edge. The healer gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, offering in a soft, “Go slowly,” before withdrawing.
His legs took his weight without any trouble.
The floor was cold against his bare feet and for the short stretch between the table and Dlmor he wondered where his shoes had gone. He had been wearing shoes, right? No, maybe he hadn’t been. He couldn’t remember as he knelt beside Dlmor. Dlmor growled, though whether at him or the Ruhn was beyond him. He ran a hand over Dlmor’s head before tracing the creature’s snout down to the Ruhn. It was still holding its mimic when his hand settled against some portion of it. The creature flinched under his touch and he felt Dlmor press against it more. Without thinking, his other hand pressed into Dlmor’s jaw on a point he swore he hadn’t known about that made the creature release the Ruhn.
Dlmor whined as the Ruhn made a mad dash for safety.
His hand closed around it in a sure but painless grip as something fell off his tongue. He didn’t register what it had been but he had felt his mouth move with it. The Ruhn immediately pressed into the floor dropping its mimic. Oddly enough, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Dlmor pressing into the floor as well. It made the desire to know what he had said flare but Dlmor either didn’t hear that desire or chose not to share it.
“Dlmor,” he spoke up instead, not up to dealing with that until things were calmer, “you can speak with the assorted creatures, right?”
Dlmor caught on to the purpose behind his question. “What do you want to know?”
“Why it tried to get in here and if it was sent by anyone specific.” The slight frown on his face deepened. “And if it’s seen any Olnvorox.”
Even with those eyes lacking visible pupils he could tell Dlmor’s gaze flickered up to him before focusing on the Ruhn. The Ruhn started to struggle in his hold for a good minute before calming, though tremors coursed through its body. Dlmor sat back, a frown on its dark face.
“Well?” Tolnoran asked in his stead.
“It is not every day you run into two Bound Ruhn in one day,” Dlmor offered as a starter. “It’s Bound to the healer here. An Olnvorox had caught it briefly, disrupting its connection to the healer.” Dlmor’s attention was on him again as he let the Ruhn go. “Though, whether it is a different one or the one you killed, I’m not sure.”
“Trill,” the healer spoke out as they scooped up the now Cyor Ruhn and hugged it tight to their chest. “Oh, Divine, am I glad you’re ok.”
Dlmor turned its gaze to the healer. “If it helps, they’re safe. Someone the Ruhn notes as family is with them.”
He could barely make out the healer nodding in response. Tolnoran turned a frown onto the healer. “I thought you were Boundless.”
The healer shook their head. “No, not Boundless. Trill usually stays with my kid siblings as a pseudo babysitter. They don’t really need Trill to be there - they’re good kids, able to keep out of trouble - but it’s easier knowing that Trill’s there in case something does go wrong and I can do my work easily enough without Trill there.”
“How young? Your siblings.”
The healer glanced at Tolnoran before curling more around Trill. “Six and nine.”
Confusion flashed across Tolnoran’s face. “And what of your parents?”
A dark look flashed across the healer’s face as they met the man’s gaze. “Not everything is sunshine and roses, Sir. Some of us here are here because we have no other choice.”
He half expected Tolnoran to push but whether the man had planned to or not was disrupted, though by what was unclear as the man turned and opened the door without prompting. He caught the look of determined panic on the man’s face before it was obscured by the door. As soon as the door was open wide enough, Ysle came dashing in followed quickly by Cass and Elias. Tolnoran’s hands were immediately on Elias pulling the smaller man’s weight off of Cass as Chief shouldered the door closed. Both Lora and Bethany got to their feet at the sight of the new arrivals. Dlmor pressed into his side, once again the size he was used to. He buried his fingers into the long fur at the back of the creature’s neck, oddly numb to the whole ordeal before him.
“What happened?” Tolnoran softly demanded, half guiding, half dragging Elias farther into the room and sitting him against the wall. The healer knelt beside the smaller man, checking the massive injury on Elias’s side where the man was pinning a bundle of some dark fabric.
“Crell,” Cass spat. “They’ve gotten in and we’re not sure how. On top of that, Elias’s suspicions around Leader Fox was right: he wasn’t part of the initial gunfire we heard but he’s got a call out for Artemis’s head.” She glanced at him. “Sorry kid.”
He shook his head as Chief nosed his free hand. He rubbed the Jaun’s head. “Why does he want my head?”
“Someone who can control Second Plane creatures that isn’t under his control is a threat to him,” Elias ground out. The man sucked in a breath from something healer did but barely seemed to notice he had done so, continuing, “He’ll make sure you can’t be captured and used against us if he can’t have you under his thumb.
Elias approached, whatever conversation he had been having with Lora now over. Lora, for her part, gestured for Bethany as Artemis caught sight of Cass returning with the healer from before. Bethany left his side as he returned his attention to his uncle and Tolnoran.
“Tolnoran, is there any-”
The words stopped abruptly as Elias’s head snapped towards where Cass and the healer were coming from. Artemis followed his uncle’s attention with his own, finding Cass had stopped as well. The healer either hadn’t noticed whatever it was that had grabbed Cass and Elias’s attention or hadn’t cared much about it. The healer knelt beside him but didn’t say anything. Maybe he misjudged the healer’s take on the situation.
His gaze snapped away from the healer as he heard the faint echo of something that sounded oddly like-
“Was that gunfire?” Bethany whispered.
Dlmor growled low under him as he watched Belvren take a step in front of Lora and his sister.
“What the hell are those idiots doing?” Cass snapped, though the volume of her voice wasn’t much louder than what Bethany’s had been.
“Cass,” Elias spoke up among more echoes of gunshots. “Where is Leader Fox?”
She looked back at him, a new touch of confusion pulling at her expression. “Council last I heard. Why?”
“Is he aware of Artemis?”
At first, she didn’t react but from one moment to the next, she lost the color in her face. “You don’t think…”
“If word of what Artemis has done has reached him, I wouldn’t be surprised.” The man’s gaze narrowed. “Not that it explains the gunshots.”
“Uncle?” Bethany called out, the man’s title drawn out and tight with accusation and worry.
“Tolnoran.”
The man was already moving to Artemis’s side. “Already on it.” Tolnoran knelt at his side, arms slipping under him as the man looked to the healer. “Follow quick and quiet. We have to hide.”
“Of course,” the healer spoke, their expression determined. Their words were so soft, he would not have been surprised if Tolnoran had simply assumed what they had said.
Tolnoran picked him up, pinning him to the man’s broad chest. Dlmor shifted into a smaller, lanky form that reminded him of the Cyor lacking the second set of paws before scaling Tolnoran to curl on Artemis’s chest. He covered the small ball of fur and noted that despite the position reminding him of a creature hiding from danger, Dlmor’s eyes were open wide with its gaze out on the hallway as Tolnoran turned.
The gunshots were getting louder.
“Elias, what’s going on,” Bethany demanded, her words wavering around the edge. “Where is he taking Artemis?”
“Bethany, go with them.”
“No! What’s going on?!”
Whatever his uncle’s response was, it was too quiet for him to hear. Shouting started to be heard under the gun fire even as Tolnoran rounded a corner and left the hallway behind. He held Dlmor close. Tolnoran was being incredibly careful but the movement still agitated his head that by the time Tolnoran slipped into some room and there was the sound of a door closing, he was fighting the urge to vomit as his head tried to murder him.
The healer’s voice drifted into his awareness. “This isn’t good. Set them down over here.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Tolnoran asked, his voice low and sounding a bit strained to Artemis.
“Not sure.”
He was laid down on some flat surface but his head was cushioned by something soft. For a long moment there was nothing but silence outside the collective breathings. Not that he was completely aware of his surroundings after the first stretch of silence. Dlmor shifted on his chest, drawing his attention back to the world around him. The gentle Transference agitated the low level headache he had but he appreciated being told that he had dozed off again. There wasn’t much concern in the Transference. Instead, he got some of Dlmor’s exhaustion. He rubbed at the fur under his hand.
“What of the other two?” the healer asked in a soft whisper.
Another gentle Transference; if it had any effect on his headache, it was too slight for him to notice. Bethany and Lora had arrived quietly a few minutes prior. Artemis was impressed Bethany hadn’t immediately demanded his attention upon arrival.
She had wanted to but whatever had spooked them into hiding had startled her into silence. That pulled concern out of his chest but Dlmor didn’t know the answer to his unasked question. Neither woman spoke about what they had seen.
“Ysle is still in the hallway. They’ll show them where to go when they get close.”
He wondered if the “if” was implied or if he was the only one to think it.
Something started scratching at the door. Or, at least, he thought it was the door. He opened his eyes into the mostly dark room as Dlmor got off his chest. There was some sort of light source but it took a long minute before he realized it was Dlmor and not some normal light source. He heard Tolnoran mutter, “Thank you, Dlmor,” before he heard the door click open.
There was the sound of a brief scuffle and something squeaked. He sat up slowly, carefully, finding himself on top of a table. By the time he got his gaze on the door, it was closed. Dlmor had something pinned, teeth clamped around its throat. He noticed the healer putting a hand on his shoulder but they didn’t coax him to lay back down. It almost felt like they were using him as their lifeline, though he couldn’t figure out why it felt that way.
Dlmor’s fur was as dark as the rest of the room but the individual strands that peppered it like glitter were glowing. It looked like the portion of the night sky had been molded into some vague creature shape. Gone were the dark blue eyes replaced by eyes the same strange every-color silver as the fur strands that now looked like stars. The majority of the light coming from Dlmor were coming from its eyes as if each eyes was a full moon in that molded night.
“What is it?” Lora asked the poorly lit room. Whatever creature Dlmor had pinned was obscured by Dlmor’s body.
“It looked like a Cyor,” Tolnoran offered, “but I’m not sure. Dlmor?”
“It’s a Ruhn mimicking a Cyor,” Dlmor growled. “And no, I am not letting it go. Not until Artemis gets over here.”
The downside to those every-color silver eyes was the lack of pupils so if Dlmor was focused on him, he had no idea. Still, he moved to the edge of the table and dropped his legs over the edge. The healer gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, offering in a soft, “Go slowly,” before withdrawing.
His legs took his weight without any trouble.
The floor was cold against his bare feet and for the short stretch between the table and Dlmor he wondered where his shoes had gone. He had been wearing shoes, right? No, maybe he hadn’t been. He couldn’t remember as he knelt beside Dlmor. Dlmor growled, though whether at him or the Ruhn was beyond him. He ran a hand over Dlmor’s head before tracing the creature’s snout down to the Ruhn. It was still holding its mimic when his hand settled against some portion of it. The creature flinched under his touch and he felt Dlmor press against it more. Without thinking, his other hand pressed into Dlmor’s jaw on a point he swore he hadn’t known about that made the creature release the Ruhn.
Dlmor whined as the Ruhn made a mad dash for safety.
His hand closed around it in a sure but painless grip as something fell off his tongue. He didn’t register what it had been but he had felt his mouth move with it. The Ruhn immediately pressed into the floor dropping its mimic. Oddly enough, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Dlmor pressing into the floor as well. It made the desire to know what he had said flare but Dlmor either didn’t hear that desire or chose not to share it.
“Dlmor,” he spoke up instead, not up to dealing with that until things were calmer, “you can speak with the assorted creatures, right?”
Dlmor caught on to the purpose behind his question. “What do you want to know?”
“Why it tried to get in here and if it was sent by anyone specific.” The slight frown on his face deepened. “And if it’s seen any Olnvorox.”
Even with those eyes lacking visible pupils he could tell Dlmor’s gaze flickered up to him before focusing on the Ruhn. The Ruhn started to struggle in his hold for a good minute before calming, though tremors coursed through its body. Dlmor sat back, a frown on its dark face.
“Well?” Tolnoran asked in his stead.
“It is not every day you run into two Bound Ruhn in one day,” Dlmor offered as a starter. “It’s Bound to the healer here. An Olnvorox had caught it briefly, disrupting its connection to the healer.” Dlmor’s attention was on him again as he let the Ruhn go. “Though, whether it is a different one or the one you killed, I’m not sure.”
“Trill,” the healer spoke out as they scooped up the now Cyor Ruhn and hugged it tight to their chest. “Oh, Divine, am I glad you’re ok.”
Dlmor turned its gaze to the healer. “If it helps, they’re safe. Someone the Ruhn notes as family is with them.”
He could barely make out the healer nodding in response. Tolnoran turned a frown onto the healer. “I thought you were Boundless.”
The healer shook their head. “No, not Boundless. Trill usually stays with my kid siblings as a pseudo babysitter. They don’t really need Trill to be there - they’re good kids, able to keep out of trouble - but it’s easier knowing that Trill’s there in case something does go wrong and I can do my work easily enough without Trill there.”
“How young? Your siblings.”
The healer glanced at Tolnoran before curling more around Trill. “Six and nine.”
Confusion flashed across Tolnoran’s face. “And what of your parents?”
A dark look flashed across the healer’s face as they met the man’s gaze. “Not everything is sunshine and roses, Sir. Some of us here are here because we have no other choice.”
He half expected Tolnoran to push but whether the man had planned to or not was disrupted, though by what was unclear as the man turned and opened the door without prompting. He caught the look of determined panic on the man’s face before it was obscured by the door. As soon as the door was open wide enough, Ysle came dashing in followed quickly by Cass and Elias. Tolnoran’s hands were immediately on Elias pulling the smaller man’s weight off of Cass as Chief shouldered the door closed. Both Lora and Bethany got to their feet at the sight of the new arrivals. Dlmor pressed into his side, once again the size he was used to. He buried his fingers into the long fur at the back of the creature’s neck, oddly numb to the whole ordeal before him.
“What happened?” Tolnoran softly demanded, half guiding, half dragging Elias farther into the room and sitting him against the wall. The healer knelt beside the smaller man, checking the massive injury on Elias’s side where the man was pinning a bundle of some dark fabric.
“Crell,” Cass spat. “They’ve gotten in and we’re not sure how. On top of that, Elias’s suspicions around Leader Fox was right: he wasn’t part of the initial gunfire we heard but he’s got a call out for Artemis’s head.” She glanced at him. “Sorry kid.”
He shook his head as Chief nosed his free hand. He rubbed the Jaun’s head. “Why does he want my head?”
“Someone who can control Second Plane creatures that isn’t under his control is a threat to him,” Elias ground out. The man sucked in a breath from something healer did but barely seemed to notice he had done so, continuing, “He’ll make sure you can’t be captured and used against us if he can’t have you under his thumb.