Aria (Reprise)

[Orionis]

As the sun dipped below the horizon, a young man collapsed onto a park bench. His white-blonde hair was soaked with sweat, making him grimace as little droplets rained down onto his flushed face.

Ethan hummed quietly, leaning his head against the back of the bench. His glasses were slightly askew. Tendrils of energy snaked around him as he did, acting like an eraser against his presence. It was difficult to keep up such a complex illusion in his state of exhaustion.

Yet he did; he closed his eyes, savoring the cooled New York air flowing around his face. Ethan watched idly as several armed men rolled past. They seemed to be searching for someone by the way their eyes scanned every inch of land around them. If they came any closer, he was screwed.

Thankfully, it didn't seem like they were aware of his capabilities. One of the men had turned towards the bench he was on with a confused expression on his face. Could he hear Ethan's humming? He'd spent years learning how to modulate his voice, learning to sing or hum at around thirty decibels.

He froze as the Harpy moved forward, scanning his surroundings with an odd look on his face. He came to a stop about 20 feet away, turning back to his comrades. Ethan watched the man open his mouth to call to them.

A few moments later, the Harpy took off at a jog back the way he came. His black and purple cape flowed around him like water. Ethan just rolled his eyes. These people were too flashy for his tastes.

He jumped as his phone vibrated in his pocket. It was an old cellphone that was mostly obsolete, due to the lack of features and bulky appearance.

It was perfect as a burner phone.

"What did you find?" Straight to the point as always, these people were. He suppressed a sigh. He fiddled with his watch, frowning at the photos he'd taken. They weren't pretty. Corpses with torn vocal chords were common, as if the overuse had caused them to swell and eventually rupture, creating blistering lesions that danced across their throats.

The rest was boring; information on runaway Ixli, lab notes from attempting to force an Awakening with artificial memories, and a few safehouse coordinates. Hopefully, it's enough to satisfy them, Ethan thought.

"One more thing," Fate Joseph said. "The Oracle spoke of a disruption in natural Ki flow outside of the city. Please, investigate. We only need you to scout; do not, under any circumstances, engage with the source of the disruption. We could not locate the origin of the source's matter, so please proceed with extreme caution."

The Fate tilted his head as he examined Ethan through the holo-screen, his piercing green-eyed gaze borrowing a hole in his chest. "Understood," he muttered, rubbing his eyes and sighing. It usually wasn't much more than a mutated animal, and Fate Joseph has been viewed with skepticism ever since his repeated advice showed more paranoia than logic.

Ethan was not about to get in the middle of that. As a mercenary, he'd rather fly under the radar. The money kept him comfortable enough over the years. That didn't hurt.

It took him two hours by car to reach the signal origin. He shivered at the cold, tightening his jacket around him. At first, he saw nothing. Just endless snow and dead trees littering the valley.

It was only when his eyes adjusted that he saw the large figure standing at the other side of the valley.

 

[WickedWitch]

Kyren considered themselves a person made by a irregular combination of what other people saw him and what he knew himself as; the second son of the Faelar family, a failed knight, the bright-eyed and whimsical bookworm, his universes executioner, and a traveler of worlds.

Sometimes, when they think too long about their family, their world, and all the things that led them to where they were, he regrets it. The burning curiosity of his childhood, and the unyielding and uncaring desire for more that was the beginning of his story and the ending of many others.

Most times though, the regret was simply because of the portals; entering one never failed to disconcert him no matter how many times they tried to get used to it. It was akin to the sensation one got when free-falling without ever being able to see below them (with their stomach twisting and turning up into their throat, and every muscle tensing and spasming painfully) all with their feet firmly planted on steady ground.

But being a traveler means they've learned how to be everyone and nobody depending on the situation, an adaptability he'd learnt out of a necessity to keep breathing; after all the close calls from being too trusting with information.

Unfortunately, Kyren's current situation called for a different type of adaptability, a physical and impossible one— an immunity to cold weather. Having been born in the midst of the Winter solstice seemed to have offered him no favors or blessings.

He didn't know if the cold sweat collecting on his brows was a result of the cold that couldn't be tamed by the thin material of his cloak or because of the numbing sores on his back (each step and the resulting shifting of fabric sent new waves of pain shuddering through him).

They couldn't tell how long they'd been dragging their feet through the thick layers of snow, and he'd either become delirious from the fever steadily rising underneath their skin or he'd been walking in circles without ever realizing it.

Because it had felt like hours had passed, and yet white snow blanketed everything in view, the pale setting sun overhead occasionally bleeding into the snow and making it somehow impossibly brighter. Jumping through portals tended to leave him considerably disoriented, it didn't usually leave him feeling like every step was a bigger tax than it really was.

More time passes, seconds or minutes counted between every chest-rattling gasp for thinning air and the resulting shudder of pain and cold sweat. Eventually, the white starts to ease away to allow for more vibrant scenery, gray and leafless trees, not the most uplifting thing to see in the midst of a winter land but a difference that was enough to reassure that he wasn't actually walking in circles.

Their relieved sigh catches in their throat when they notice another blob of color too far off to make out any discerning details, but by the way it stands out against the rest of the snow, Kyren assumes it's another person (or he really was delirious and the trees had become people in his mind).

Regardless, aimless wandering and second-guessing themselves wasn't going to change anything, so with nauseating apprehensiveness he raised an arm above his hand, hoping the distance wouldn't make him hard to see and waves his arm as much as the wounds on his back allow him to.

 

[Orionis]

Ethan grimaced as the figure waved his arms wildly in his direction. Whoever it was appeared to be quite frantic. It was too late to heed the Fate's warnings-- not that Ethan had particularly cared about that in the first place. The Fates simply knew of his recklessness and sought to tame him. They considered him too strong, too valuable to leave him "unprotected". That's all he was to them, after all. A tool. A thing. A songbird in a gilded cage.

His snow-white hair almost seemed like tufts of snow as the wind ruffled it, stray pieces attempting to catch themselves on the arms of his glasses. He cursed himself for not getting those new-age transition lenses when he'd had the chance; his were old, still made with UV-reactive dyes that struggled to adjust properly and tint the lenses dark enough to see around the blinding snow.

Outside of his glaring lack of a hat, Ethan was dressed well for the weather. His head was nestled the scarf that wrapped around his neck, the ends tucked into a thick winter coat. Heavy boots cut through the snow with relative ease, his legs protected by long-johns and wind pants. He never could stand the restrictiveness of snow overalls.

As he got closer to the figure, he realized they weren't very large at all-- rather, they seemed to be shorter than him. "Damn these eyes," he muttered. It was noticeably darker out than when he first stepped out of the car. How much time has passed? He hadn't bothered to check, and he sure wasn't going to now. His eyes were focused wholly on the man less than ten feet from him.

Something felt... Different.

The man's ears were long and pointed, sticking out noticeably from the sides of his head. He'd seen augmented elf-ears before, but he had never seen any this long. They would've had to graft on new tissue, shaped it, and healed them perfectly. Augmenting technology was growing more impressive by the day, but as far as he was aware, grafting tissue was still extremely difficult. Their skin was dark, but... Ethan squinted through the snow that had started to fall in heavy clumps... Green? It was hard to tell in the fading light.

What he could see, however, was that this man seemed to be sick or injured, telling by their glassy eyes and clammy skin. Ethan approached very cautiously, his hands palm-up at his sides to show he wasn't armed. They were wearing strange, dated clothing, as if he'd just wandered out of one of those fantasy conventions that pop up a few times per year. They weren't dressed at all for the weather-- his fingers were curled inwards stiffly, like the joints had frozen while they were unclenching his fists. Whoever or whatever this guy was, he couldn't leave them there.

His gut told him not to reveal this person to the Fates. This was something... Else. Ethan still could not find the words to describe what he felt. Apprehension? Excitement? Fear? It didn't matter. So he turned for a moment and hummed, closing his eyes.

Slowly, a patch of snow started to reform itself. Ice became bone and snow became fur, creating a lifeless chimera that seemed to be a mix of wolf and scorpion, judging by the stinger that curved up from where a tail should've been. He pulled out the burner and snapped a few photos to send off to Fate Joseph. That taken care of, he turned back to the humanoid swaying in the winter winds.

"I can help you," Ethan called out to him. The chimera collapsed back into snow as he took a step forward. While they were shorter than him, he wasn't sure he could carry him all the way back to his car. Hopefully he had enough energy left. And clarity of mind.

 

[WickedWitch]

His waving causes his tunic to rub unkindly into his alreadying throbbing wounds, and a newer and more intense wave of nausea and dizziness almost makes him lose his already shoddy footing— black stars and spots flicker across his vision, threatening to completely overtake the blinding white snow. So for a split second, Kyren thinks that they had in fact mistaken a tree for the figure of another person. And although he can't really manage an actual breath of relief (his lungs already forced to work overtime through the slough brought on by pain), he gets a short and slightly hissed sigh of relief eased from clenched teeth when the figure wavers and then steadies into clearer view. A person.

The blonde-white head of hair is the only real thing of note that stays at the forefront of Kyren's otherwise blurred thoughts, a somehow surprising color on a man (human, he concluded from the lack of anything physically differentiating) that looked the same or near in age as him. It shouldn't have been truly surprising to him, they'd seen a fair deal of humans and other creatures, some composed of one or two more eccentric physical traits. But, Kyren's recalling the recountings about people nearing death and how they were sometimes plagued with delusions and apparitions, allegedly as the minds last attempt to soothe them in their last moments.

He wonders, however odd it was for his brain to create a whole stranger, if this was an apparition— a last ditch effort of his delirious mind to keep him from fighting off the tightening grip of death. Probably not, even if the white hair seems eerily reminiscent of the sparkling snowflakes that had started to slowly fall around then, and the offering of help feeling too sweet and kind to the inherently guarded parts of him— jagged and sometimes limitlessly suspicious. Yet, the increasingly larger part of him— damp, aching, miserable, and fearful of dying alone in the snow, has his feet moving and him awkwardly moving towards the only other living person in his near vicinity.

Kyren opens his mouth to accept the help, and finds his tongue to be too unwieldy and larger than usual and his lips numbed by the cold. He parts his mouth and clacks his teeth just to feel the slightest bit of something, the large frontal teeth catching on the inside of his mouth is enough for him to somewhat recall how to maneuver his lips and tongue to speak coherent words. "I just need to get out of the cold— 'm back hurts." His words coming out slightly slurred and muffled.

 

[Orionis]

Ethan tried not to stare at the elongated fangs that protruded from the guy's mouth as he stepped through the snow to offer an arm to grab or lean on, whatever was easier. He was no stranger to the supernatural, but... What, aliens? How long has he been out here? What is going on? What... What is he? He'd sort of caught what the strange man had said-- something about his back hurting. The back of his tunic was spotted with what seemed to be blood, as if the fabric itself had rubbed their skin raw. Regardless of what this man was, they were seriously hurt and in danger. No matter what he's been forced to do, Ethan could never hurt someone who was already helpless. Questions could always come later.

He forced himself to focus on only the next step the two of them took together back through the field, on the way the snow crunched underfoot and the chilled air seemed to steal every drop of moisture from his mouth with every breath. The temperature was starting to drop rapidly as night fell upon them, and his newfound companion was not going to last much longer if he didn't get somewhere warm. They shook uncontrollably yet seemed to struggle to keep their eyes open, stumbling like a drunk in the snow. It took most of Ethan's strength to keep them on course. Mercifully, the skies stayed clear.

The stars were blinking into view when they finally reached his car, a mid-sized sedan he'd modified himself. It had been a long time since he'd seen the stars, since he spent the majority of his time in the heart of New York City on jobs for the Fates or underground contractors. He gently shoved the man into the passenger seat, reaching around slowly to buckle them in. They seemed to be somewhat aware of what was going on, but Ethan guessed the pain from the wounds on their back was making it hard to focus as they slumped oddly in the seat. He was no stranger to injury, after all.

"We'll be toasty in no time," he promised. As Ethan settled into the driver's seat, his fingers brushed over the sleek dashboard, where a row of monitors blinked to life, casting a soft glow in the dim cabin. The scent of leather upholstery mingled with the faint hum of electronic equipment, creating an atmosphere of controlled chaos that was all too familiar to him. The screens offered different readouts of weather, traffic, and crime. The center console had a few strange-looking buttons and switches that Ethan ignored, flipping on a few overhead switches instead. The vents grumbled to life, enveloping the pair in blessed heat.

With a clumsy U-turn, they were on their way. He glanced over at his passenger, whose eyes were sliding shut, and reached one arm over to snap his fingers in front of the man's face. Not good... Gotta keep him talking.

"Hey, stay with me. My name is Ethan. What's your name? Where are you from?"

The car rumbled down the winding mountain road as Ethan glanced at the rearview mirror. His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of a pair of headlights in the distance. He drove one-handed, his other hand casually hovering over those strange switches on the center console.

 

[WickedWitch]

Their walk through the snow feels unbearably interminable, each step weighed down by entire galaxies and every breath a bodily strain.. And yet at the same, Kyren watches as they move so fast (too fast) through inches of snow in a way that makes the sky and landscape around them appear as bleeding and occasionally almost blinding lights. Then the world settles oddly in a space, slightly unfamiliar shapes and smells, enough to have made a more conscious Kyren giddy with excitement to learn. Instead, they're sitting somewhere (nowhere, even) with surrounding walls, and he finds himself sitting at an angle and slightly forward so as to not add any unwanted pressure on his back.

The sharp bite of heat easing into frozen bones has Kyren shuffling against whatever was pressing into his chest, the fabric when he touches it is smooth and cool to the touch, but offering no answers to any of his questions. Somehow, even though it's the only thing he had been vehemently wishing for, the warmth is undeniably painful and he can't quite contain the soul-deep exhaustion from sneaking in beside the pain. And even delirious, Kyren knows that the last thing he should be doing or thinking of doing is sleeping, not even for a second. But his eyes start to close against his will, and his body slumps slowly to the side.

Then there's a hand in his face, fingers snapping so loudly and quickly that he almost expects actual sparks to light up; like how he'd (awed and envious) watched the palace mages light up the celebratory bonfires every year. A new ache blossoms in his chest, enough to have him blinking through a worrisome blur in his eyes. Except now there's questions being asked, he thinks, too solid to be any part of his unsteady reminiscence of a past home.

Kyren blinks again, harder this time, slowly piecing together what was said and how he could reply. Lying felt, not wrong exactly, but too much effort. Energy he needed to stay awake couldn't be used just for the sake of remembering how to set his face to hide a lie better. "Not going anywhere, Ethan.." He pauses, then has to clack his teeth again to recall how to move his mouth, "I was called lots of things, but I think it was.. Kyren… But.. Where did I come from?"

He has to think about it, really think about, retracing his steps through the snow and deeper into the forest and, where had he come from? "Books, a book I think. Never allowed to choose which books, so too many wrong turns, the wrong people.. I should have left sooner, quicker, should have left… Left where?"

 

[Orionis]

Kyren wasn't making much sense. Sweat glistened on his brow, highlighted by the soft lights coming from the console. If he was trying to lie, Ethan had no idea what the truth was supposed to be. He took another glance at his companion as they stopped for a moment at a red light. His eyes were still glassy, while their skin looked ashen and clammy to the touch.

Infection and hypothermia, most likely. "We'll call you a traveler for now, then," Ethan replied as he sped down the highway. It took a little over two hours to return home; the falling snow had impeded their travel, and Kyren wasn't doing much better. Their hands seemed to be fine, at least. A small blessing. He hoped the guy's toes hadn't frozen off. The boots they were wearing seemed to be made out of some sort of animal hide, judging from the light smell of wet fur. I'm... Going to open a window when I cut those off of him.

"I'm taking you somewhere safe. It's where I stay in-between jobs. This may be New York, but my... Employers support my quality of life quite well. You'll see." Traffic in the city this late was still abysmal, but they managed to get down to Central Park. Skyscrapers reached up into the sky, their lights blotting out the stars from the sky. People walked or stumbled around on the sidewalks, the late-night workers mixing in with the weekend drunks and tipsy tourists. Ethan turned down a quiet alleyway and hit a button on the console.

Part of the wall in the building next to them slid up, revealing a tunnel just wide enough for the car to slip through. "Secret parking garage. It was in my contract," he grinned at Kyren, who seemed only half-aware of what was happening around him. Ethan had to half-carry, half-drag the.. Orc? Elf? Human? He was still unsure over to the lift up to his penthouse. "My parents... Relinquished this building to me a few years ago. A friend helped me do some remodeling, and then my employers basically built the underground lot for me. You could say that they were a little desperate for my cooperation." He kept chattering as the lift slid open, trying to keep Kyren lucid as he helped him into the bathroom. He needed to get out of those strange clothes, while the wounds on their back needed to be tended to.

Ethan clumsily laid Kyren out in the bathtub. "It'll do for a moment," he muttered to himself while he rummaged through the cabinets for medicine and bandages. He came up with some ointment and gauze for the back wounds, as well as something to help fight off the fever. He placed the pills in the cap of the bottle, which he placed at the edge of the bathtub with a glass of water.

"Take these. It'll make you feel a bit better."

The boots seemed... molded to Kyren's feet. He pulled at them a bit and grimaced. He'd have to cut them off, but with what? Scissors? Ethan shook his head at himself. His pocket knife would do better. "Sorry man, these are totally ruined," he said casually as he slowly worked the knife against the leather. Kyren's feet were cold and hard to the touch, Despite their greener coloration, it was still easy to spot the blueish-white tinge on his toes that signaled superficial frostbite. "Well, you get to keep your toes. So that's something."

Next was the shirt. "I'm going to have to cut this off of you. It... may hurt a bit." Several friction sores had burst open, both dry and wet fluids melding the fabric into his skin. Ethan poured a cup of warm water from the sink over their back, freeing enough of the tunic that Kyren barely grunted when he started cutting off strips of fabric. He stifled a gasp when he saw that the poor guy's back was absolutely covered in friction sores.

"How... How long have you been out there?" Hours? Days?

 

[WickedWitch]

Kyren, who's still just barely hanging onto coherence finds that he can hardly comprehend any of the conversation— even though he's aware that the words are spoken in a language he can speak.. But the cadence of another voice and the heat steadily warming his hands makes it so that he doesn't completely lose his faulty grip on reality (the occasional tunneling of his vision from exhaustion makes it a marginally more difficult endeavor).

So by the time they've reached a seemingly more populated area (faces and buildings passing too quickly for Kyren to take any notes of anything or anyone) and then, struggled to get him out of the strange metal carriage-thing, he's managed to regain at least some of his function over his arms and legs. Though, not nearly enough to keep from being basically carried, a feat that would be more admirable if they weren't cursing the useless drag of their feet. The bathroom wasn't their first guess of destination, but when he considers how unusually heavy his boots were and the area of his neck where his damp hair was glued to, it was safe to assume it was a safety measure to keep him from dripping melting snow anywhere else. Withall, he wouldn't complain as the smooth bathtub was preferable to the floor.

At the offering of a small cap and water, Kyren manages to carefully maneuver his right hand to pick up the cap; that holds two thick oblong capsules of sorts, that he instinctively gives a short sniff of—more out of curiosity than any actual or pressing suspicions. It had an odd smell, too many elements to parse through and settle on anything concrete aside from it being inherently bitter. It's the kind of bitter that typically originated from herbal medicines or the more vexing poisons, nevertheless he decides to take his chances, the pill turning powdery and overpoweringly bitter as his teeth crunches through them. The taste lingers even after he's messily gulped down the entire glass of water; whatever the capsules were they held something too godawful to have been anything helpful (not that it would matter, seeing as how they'd already swallowed and washed them down).

But the action of trying to manually remove the taste leaves very little room to consider or think much about anything else; like mourning the swift loss of the boots they'd spent days tirelessly making by hand and had worn for many weeks. Thankfully his next loss is forewarned by the culprit and not wanting to be any more difficult he grunts something he hopes comes across as his acknowledgment instead of the displeasure that was bristling in his chest. Their rescuer had been ever-gracious thus far, and being unduly rude wouldn't do well in the way of repayment. Kyren almost instantly revoked that pacific conclusion at the first touch of water along his back, but the waning numbness hadn't diminished in that general area, so there's only the barest sense of biting pain and then just the feeling of a breeze grazing his back.

He doesn't know how to answer the question in any way that would make any ounce of sense, especially considering the previous examples of his very obvious scatterbrained speech and thought. For now, he managed something like a very short shrug, eventually they'd hopefully regain enough of their wit to answer as many questions as they could without causing any problems for themselves or others.