• • Raydorn: The War in the Black
• January 28, 2024

Raydorn: The War in the Black (Chapter 54)

“You can’t tell the truth and hide from it.”

Lucilla Indu Nero, 448 A.C.A.

---

Whip.

My flight is done.

Malum’s wings gently set upon the ground inside the forest, right at it’s edge. The forest rested next to the beach, and rose high enough to hide his quick descent and silent landing.

As he stepped out from the shade, Little Stinky was making a far less silent landing. The griffin came down into a running stop, making his passengers bounce on his back. 

Andy and Jack both fell off and tumbled across the sands.

Astrid pulled back on the griffin’s neck knot. She handled the beast like she had been flying it for years, and it acted no differently. The beast even looked back at Jack and Andy rolling around and coughing in the sand. 

Little Stinky arched his feathered brow and chirped.

“Yeah, they’re not built for the sky like me,” Astrid told her mount.

As she sat upon it, she noticed Malum approaching, but for once, she noticed by the sounds of his feet. There was no mistaking the lack of silence that usually followed in his wake.

Astrid stared him down until he stopped before her and the griffin. He looked to the side and up at her, with his arms inside his cloak. What usually made him look like some dark apparition now made him appear like child wrapped in a blanket.

She has always seemed to see me for what I am, she must have known… 

“How did you enjoy flying?” Malum asked her.

Astrid’s face looked puzzled in a way that wasn’t meant to mock. She looked away from him, and with this thousand yard stare on her face. 

“It is the most freeing thing one can do,” Astrid said.

“Yes, yes it is,” he agreed. So freeing, that you feel trapped when you can’t do it whenever you want.

Malum and Astrid grew quiet as Jack and Andy stumbled their way. Despite not being the beast who carried three people, nor the rider who guided said beast, the two of them were panting for air.

“How… how did you… get here first?” Andy asked, bent over with her hands on her knees.

Andy reached out to grab hold of his cloak, and use it to pull herself back to her feet. “You were probably just lost up there in the clouds,” Malum told her, grabbing her under the arm to help steady herself.

What happened to her? She looks exhausted. 

“I… I wish it was just the clouds…” Jack said, appearing similarly affected as Andy, drawing Malum’s eye indeed. 

Then Starshield threw up.

Ah… yes… airsickness… 

Wouldn’t be me.

Andy pointed at Jack as she tried to laugh, joking, “What you can take a dick but you can’t take…” she stopped talking, as her cheeks filled and made her into a chipmunk. “BLEH!”

Andy curled over and threw up right into the sand alongside Jack…

It would be on my goddamn cloak though.

Malum tore at his cloak and took out his sword to begin cutting every part that had been touched by Andy’s bile. Thankfully, it wasn’t much more than the corner.

Andy couldn’t apologize yet, because as she threw up once, she readied to do so again. This time, Jack was able to point and laugh at her expense. “You see, that thing… making bile come up the back of your throat… that’s karma.” 

“Fuck off,” she said as she let out a few dry heaves. “We need to get out of here.”

Jack slapped his hand down on the back of her tunics’s collar, and together they stood up, leaning on each other as they began to walk to the water near their rowboat.

As they made slow progress down the long beach, they were passed by a quietly frustrated Malum playing with his cloak, and Astrid atop her griffin, walking in a trot.

Andy and Jack did not fail to notice how the beast still walked with them.

“Are we really going to let the most unstable person in the legion have the world’s more unstable flying mammal as a pet?” Jack asked. 

Andy rolled her eyes, as if the decision was possibly hers to make. “Yeah sure, why not?” 

Then her eyes went wide just before she turned straight to Jack, “Wait, griffins are mammals?” 

“I dunno.”

*****

The eyes held so much importance when talking to someone. Through eyes you could see into someone’s soul if they let you. Even if they didn’t, you could see the wall that they had put up.

Most people had walls, but they were all a bit different. Some were covered in slime, so you’d get stuck trying to pry your way into their mind. Other’s were of stone, leaving you feeling cold, empty, and devoid of any belief that you were looking into the eyes of a human being.

That’s why Lucilla was always trying to hide hers, afraid to show someone that wall, and how easily the hard surface could crack under pressure.

Lucilla listened to Quintus’s beating heart with her ear to his bare chest, finding safety in how his arms held her both gently and tight to him. She fought back the urge to pur as his hand stroked her head. 

You’re creature of the sea, not cat, she told herself, as she pressed her fingers against Quintus’s very human skin, and he’s no monster.

“Are you feeling better than before?” Quintus asked her.

“Much,” she answered with a nod of her head. It had been some time since she had a good cry. She had done a lot of crying, but none of that would have been considered ‘good.’ 

“Would care if I asked you a question?”

Lucy nodded so carelessly, assuming his question to be something harmless, when it was anything but.

“Why were you so suspicious of me earlier? Asking how I knew I was good.”

Lucy froze, not realizing that she had been moving before she did so. She knew it gave her away immediately but she still attempted to lie. “I wasn’t, don’t worry about it.”

Quintus turned his neck and arched his brow down at her. She had seen the look on him a million times at this point, she didn’t need to look to know, she just hid her face from him. 

“Please,” she begged, trying to hide her eyes from his, “I was being stupid, and superstitious, it doesn’t matter.” She turned her head and peaked out of the corner of her eye, meeting his. Clearly, it mattered more than she wanted to admit. “I never should have doubted you.” 

“You… you doubted me?” he asked. He wasn’t mad, nor fearful. Just somewhat… puzzled. He was still handling her with oven mits, as if it was likely she would burn them both, she could feel it. “What about me did you doubt? Clearly it was something more than my cooking skills?” 

Lucy leaned back, trying to be an adult and not hide his arms. She wasn’t a short lady, and while Andy and Astrid certainly had far more muscles on them than her, she was not small. Still, she felt a bit like a child compared to Quintus. Most would.

“Can we just forget about it?” she said, looking away momentary, at the shame. “Please?” 

Quintus was quiet for a moment, as his eyes stared into her, waiting patiently for her to meet her eyes. “No.” She turned back up to him, to find a rather neutral look on his face. He hid his feelings rather well, refusing to reveal whether he was angry or annoyed with her.

“I’m doing all I can for you, for everyone that I can,” he said, as his hand slowly crept up the side of her face, and up to her cheek. “Do I ask for anything in return? Nada. But today I’m going to ask you to give me what should be the easiest thing to give…” 

In his dramatic pause, Lucy hoped for a number of different things. He could ask for anything else and I’d rather give anything else to him than what he wants.

“I want the truth… why do you look at me with fear?” 

But I owe him it at this point… don’t I?

“I…” she struggled to say, he was patient. Even when she closed her mouth shut, he was patient, and he was patient some more as she sat up on her knees in the sand. He was silent as she rested her hand on his shoulder, trying to consider how she could give him what he wanted without actually feeling the shame of admitting it. 

You can’t tell the truth and hide from it. 

“When you… remember when you saved me from the mermaids?” 

“Hmm,” Quintus mumbled as his slowly rose to her chin, and lifted her face with it between his thumb and fingers. “I would say we saved each other.” 

Lucy let out a rather sad chuckle. 

“Yes, but… it wasn’t… normal.” She looked him in the eye, watching for the slightest twitch as she stated what she believed should have been impossible. “You broke that mermaid’s neck with your arms, Quint, your bare hands.” 

His eyes opened a bit wider than they had before, but they pursed just as quickly. 

“And that’s not the first time I’ve seen you do something like that. Then I…” She looked away again, embarrassed by the actions she took against him. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I… snooped through your tent.” Her face fell into her hands at the memory of being wet and naked in his tent, watching him undress and inspect his sword when he didn’t know she was there.

Quintus went to speak, “You…” but thought better of it. The continued truth was more important, “Go on…” 

“I saw your blade, your strange cleaver,” words that made Quintus flinch but he didn’t look away. “It looked so nasty, like something Malum would use for someone who really deserved to hurt, and that… scared me to.” 

Then Quintus finally turned away from her. She raised her hand to him but held back. Was she supposed to pull him back, to assure him that he had nothing to be ashamed of? But who was she to think of him as someone who should be ashamed? She was the one who invaded his space in a way he never would.

He wouldn’t look, his eyes remained tightly shut, but he still, he asked her to, “Continue, please continue.”

“Oh, okay… so, so I went to Basta, and he told me about the Kasai and the Death riders and…” Quintus’s eyes opened, but they wouldn’t look at her.

There was this tight feeling in her chest that drained the rest of her body of its energy. She was all twisted up seeing the look of ruin she brought upon him.

“It’s okay, alright?” she told him with trepidation in her voice. “I don’t care anymore if you are some Death rider, you’re Quintus, you’re my friend, you’d never hurt me and I’ll never doubt that again. I’m sorry, I’m so…” 

The longer he went without looking at her, the more he became embroiled what were so obviously dark thoughts about himself, and the heavier the weight on Lucy’s shoulders became. What have I done to this poor man?

“I have a shadow.”

Lucy blinked, not registering what he had said at first. 

“What?”

“I have a shadow,” he said, as he turned to look her in the eye again.

“Why… why does that matter?” she asked.

“Those who believe in things like the Kasai, believe in the Tani, the gods who watch us from the shadows.” That helped ring a bell so she could remember the name, the Tani, and recognized the doubt he used when he spoke of them. “Those of us who are corrupted away from the Tani’s… grace… those corrupted towards Koreida… towards being a ‘Death rider’…” 

Quintus raised his hand above him, where the moonlight shone into the cave, and put his hand in the way of the light. Instantly, he cast a shadow that most would get lost in as they tried to follow his example.

“They lose their shadow,” he explained to her, and with a sly smirk, he held their gaze, “and I have mine, don’t I?” 

“I believe you, Quint.” 

Quintus’s smirk looked a bit cruel as sarcasm seeped into his tone. “You can ask the others, it’s a part of the leg-” 

“I believe you.”

“I’m sure there’s someone who could-”

Lucy grasped his face with both of her hands to stop him and his rather petty taunts. “I believe you,” she said, as she got so close that they could each feel the others warm breath against their lips, beckoning them forth. 

Lucy said the words, “I’m sorry,” and she kissed him on the cheek. 

When she pulled back from his cheek, she didn’t feel sorry for him anymore, and was too distracted to feel sorry for herself. 

She found herself lost in his big brown eyes, much like he was with hers. Self-control was a term for those with stronger wills and weaker pulls of attraction.

Lucilla pressed her lips against Quintus’s. It took a moment for him to respond to the way her lips sank into his, trying to drink him in, consume his being and invite him to return the favor. 

She felt his hands grip her sides in a way he’s never held her before, holding her in place, keeping her from an escape she would never seek. 

He moaned into her lips as he kissed her back, and then she purred at the welcoming sound.

Maybe cats aren’t so bad, she thought, holding back a giggle. Then her hands wrapped around his head, and pulled him closer, but he fought her.

The moment he fought her, she pulled away, and looked upon a face filled with shock.

I made a mistake.

“I think you’re beautiful,” was the first thing out of his mouth, and her heart sank into her chest.

Her eyes twitched, fighting back the feeling. A part of her told her to pull back, to get out of his misleading grasp, but every other part of her wanted to cling to the feeling while she still could.

“But what?” she asked, her words barely more than a whine. 

“I’m…” he stuttered in a way that would inspire personal hells, “I’m not…” 

There was a gasp stuck somewhere in Lucy’s through.

“Oh my god, you’re gay?” she said before she truly thought about it. “How did I not know?” 

Quintus’s face twisted into a look of confusion. “Because I’m not gay, I like romance, with women, I just…” 

The with you is silent, she thought, getting ahead of herself.

“… don’t care for the sex part, and I know you do.”

… 

… 

… 

Oh…? 

“Oh…?” Lucy thought out loud, shaking her head back and worth, but her eyes never leaving Quintus’s. She knew what he was, he wasn’t even the only friend in the friend group to identify with this orientation, but the fact that it would be someone who she was so attracted to… who kissed her rather well was… 

Confusing wasn’t a strong enough word.

Growing uncomfortable basking in her confusion, Quintus elaborated for her in a way that he truly didn’t have to, and arguably shouldn’t have.

“It’s… harder for me to be aroused,” he admitted to her, removing his hands from her, though she did not remove her hands from him. He scratched the back of his head, and looked rather embarrassed without a good reason to be. “I’ve done it, it’s nice, it’s just not something I take to, and I know you do.” 

“I… okay,” Lucy muttered, default to a phrase that offered nothing to the confusion between them. “I-I think I understand. I’m sorry, I-” 

Quintus waved his hands in front of him, stopping her apology. “No, don’t be, I quite enjoyed the kiss, I just… I just didn’t want to be dishonest with you, or hide that fact that I am asexual, for the most part.” 

For the most part?

She picked her words rather carefully, hoping to confirm that the desires currently broiling within her weren’t about to be utterly squashed. “Would… would you be against… the romance part, with me?” 

Quintus looked at her, his jaw dropped without any sound coming out. He started shaking his head and stuttering as the worlds came out in a rush. “I- no, no, no, I would not be against that, if that were fine with you. 

“I’m not saying I couldn’t be physical, or that I would never be, I want to bring you pleasure but I don’t… at least not as often… I just-”

Lucy stopped him with a finger over his lips. When they weren’t moving, she could better look at them, inspect how perfect they looked and how they felt when she brushed her thumb gently over them.

“I’m okay with just being held for now… I don’t need… I just… I’m not Andy, I don’t get so desparate that I need hired help, so… if that’s okay with you.”

Quintus’s hands slowly rose up her sides, but as they stopped and squeezed her ribs, rather than rising to touch what most other men would try to touch. That’s when she began to better understand what it was he desired. 

She rested her head against his as she waited for his answer, and gently kissed his nose, waiting for his permission to taste his lips once more.

As she rested in his arms, he asked, “And later?” 

When the future seemed so far away, Lucy answered with a question, “I’m all for dealing with when it comes.” 

He paused to think about, as he went nearly cross-eyed trying to gaze into her eyes and face as it all of it leaned so close to him. 

He kissed her, and appreciated how her hands didn’t linger, and her tongue remained in its home.

“Yes, I believe we can.”

*****

Malum’s shadows were working themselves to the bones after their master’s scathing review of their work. Several times he had criticized how easily he was able to spot them. His criticism came down hard on Sigma, and in turn Sigma came down hard on them. 

Now they spent far less time amongst the Hotun and Icee who had welcomed them, and far more time disappearing amongst the Isles, keeping watch for their enemies. 

For the most part, the majority of them obeyed. They took to their solitude and became one with the shadows. Most of them were used to the shadows that civilization created. Now they grew used to the shadows of nature, and the sounds natural constructions would hide. 

The ones who didn’t obey, put their skills to good use anyway.

In the caverns on the outskirts of the Icy Pearl Isles, one of Malum’s shadows wandered through the dark. The sound of dropping water deafened him. When one sound was all that rang out, it quickly became all one could hear. 

It let her get the drop on him.

A mishapen shadow leaped onto his back and took him to the ground. The shadow quickly got her arm under his shoulders, and her hands to his neck as her legs wrapped around his waist. 

Even through the mask, he could feel her breath on his neck. “Got you.”

“I knew you were there,” he huffed in a way that was not at all convincing. 

Her fingers that were shaped like daggers as they lovingly caressed his neck, “Sure you did, handsome,” before swiping off his mask, the two-toned face of Asmo.

His piercing blue eyes shined through the dark where his dark skin didn’t.

She kicked him off of her, but he was quick sit up and relieve himself of his cloak, and then his tunic soon after that. She could not see him slowly reveal an abdomen you could grind cheese against, but she could feel it as she ran her foot up his chest. 

He quickly grabbed her leg, and pulled her to him,  and tore off her mask, that of Modeus before descending on her. 

They tore at each other, and did so in a way that was far from quiet. Every smacking and sucking sound that could be made, was. It rang through the cavern, but they chose their spot well. Just as next to no light escape, there was even less sound. They could only hear themselves, and the sound of their faces between each other’s legs masked the sounds of feet approaching them.

In their lust of the flesh, they failed in their duty, but not in their technique as a shadow. 

An hour later, as they laid in each other’s arms, they became despondent, holding as close to each other as possible.

“Why do we stay?” he asked her, clutching her and her warmth as close to his chest as possible.

She clung to him in turn, pressing as much as herself as she could, to feel as much of her against him as possible. “It is our sworn oath, to Master Malum, the legion.”

They sought to be so physically close that they could be one, for if they were doing as they were taught, they would be farther apart than they would ever wish for. 

“Why should such an oath keep us here? We were made for the shadows, to watch, to wait, and to learn… what do we learn here?” 

Where he was despondent in despair, she was despondent in hope.

“How to enjoy life? There’s nothing to be learned in the shadows.”

“Are you not learning of me?”

Her fingers trailed down his chest as his words brought a guile smile to her lips. “I know all I need of you.”

“Prove it.”

“Please don’t.”

The two froze at the sound of a third, and before they could separate, and push themselves away from one and other, the voice spoke three more words. “Liga in catenis.”

From the cracks in the earth sprung light, and from the light sprung chains. They wrapped around the two shadows, and forced them to be as close to each other as possible.

Then the voice smoke another word, “Premere,” followed by the sound of a leather glove, tightening into a fist. Then the chains began to grow smaller around them.

In their joining, they failed too utilize their master’s lessons to mindful, but as they were slowly squeezed into one being, as was their desire, they found that they utilized one of their master’s lessons, too well.

As the chains slowly squeezed them to their loud, gut-wrenching ends, their fellow shadows heard and saw nothing of them. 

“Lux,” the warlock muttered, and creating a flicker of fire at the tip of her finger. She looked over at the bloody mess of bodies at her feet, and noticed, a bit of meat stuck to the back of her hand.

She flicked it off.

She turned back, and shined her light on the soldiers that followed her. 

“Start prepping, boys, we have only so much time before the island needs to burn.”