Souvenirs
3 March 2010


It had been too long since she sat down and practiced what was once a very regular habit in Maia's life. It was late, and she kept very quiet to keep from waking Harry. Maia pulled the weathered old trunk from the closet in the spare room, where its home had been these past two tranquil years. Duel keys were inserted and turned, and when Maia heard the definitive click, she flipped it open to examine its contents.

Often times, when more conventional sorts went on holiday, they would return home with some small souvenir of their journey. Some people collected little picture postcards. Others enjoyed the feel of local clothing, and the way it could help transport them to a single moment in their personal history. Yet others opted for the shine and color of jewels from afar, which they could wear like badges of honor.

In Maia?s life, she had not taken many holidays, but she had traveled quite extensively. When she found herself far from home in some strange (and usually horrible) land, the woman usually came out of her trip with a blade of some sort. She loved the simplicity of daggers and swords. They had a clear purpose, and she liked all things that didn?t pretend to be something they weren?t.

The top compartment of the trunk had been carefully altered to hold the eleven daggers securely. Maia drew each one from its space methodically, taking stone to steel to ensure the best possible edge. The scent of the oil and the careful, repetitive movement was relaxing, as rituals often were. As each knife was taken in hand, she remembered where they came from, and in many cases, she remembered which chapters in her life they had started or ended.

The sleek and slender stiletto that Riley gave her when she first left the Asteria, and his whispered words to her. ?Sleep with it. If anyone molests you, cut his balls off and it will not happen twice.?

The plain, but sturdy Rondel that she had worn openly for years as a young captain, always praying that she?d never have to turn it on one of her own.

The balisong she had once used to cut out the blackest heart she had ever seen. Never had she felt so right about something that was so very, very wrong.

Beneath the upper compartment were the spare swords, carefully kept in a manner just like their shorter cousins. Six swords were kept locked away these days, and as she held the weight of each one in her lap, history and memory bore down on her like rain.

The curved, elegant blade of the elven sword given to her in recognition of her service to the Realms.

The rapier that had once belonged to the Rogue.

Its cousin, the rapier that had once gone all the way through her, the beautiful and terrible sword that belonged to the long dead foe who died by her hand. He died for killing her lover. He died for making the grave mistake of underestimating the woman left behind.

Each knife told a story. Each was cared for in turn, sharpened to a deadly point, oiled, and put back into its space. Each was remembered for what it had meant to her, and what it had done for her. Some were regular players in the life of the woman, handy old friends that could always be relied upon in a sticky situation. Some were hardly used at all, but were completely indispensable.

Maia contemplated the feeling that she had that something was out there, and she tried to shake the cold thrill it left in her gut, but this time, it stayed. This time, it told her in awful and familiar language that it was going to come to a head, sooner or later. This time, the woman felt she had no choice but to ready her knives.

At least this time, the woman of shadows knew where to find the sunlight again, when it was time. She knew that she could trust that in this home, that perfect light would be kept safe. There, at home, as she handled and pampered each old blade and lived in every terrible remembrance, Maia let herself begin remember the killer, the huntress, the valkyrie.

Threshold
4 March 2010

Blink. Just blink. It's the tiniest thing in the world, but it will be enough.

Blink!

Nothing yet. Harry carried her over the threshold of their flat, something that had only happened before in a playful, intimate context. The landlords followed, though hung around the kitchen as Harry brought Maia all the way back to their bedroom. He lay her on their bed, very gently on the side that had not been stung, then he crouched in front of her face with a smile that she was certain was designed to reassure her.

It worked, sort of.

"Be right back, Maia, just need to get the first aid kit."

Just don't go back out there.

He kissed her forehead and pressed his hand to her cheek, and repeated himself. "I'll be right back."

I love you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm figuring it out. Just give me time.

Blink, damnit.

Maia looked out the large window and could see birds swooping in the waning light. Maybe they were swallows. Either way, it was a good sign. More mundane animals often avoided nasty magical creatures and were not prone to be dancing around out in the Marketplace if the stink monsters were still running rampant.

She listened, but could not make out all of the words as Harry spoke to the landlords. Something about the kitchen and the bedroom. No doubt he was inviting them to do whatever they needed to do. The bustle in the kitchen increased almost immediately, and within moments, magical, bewitching Hausenfelter-made kitchen smells were wafting through the apartment.

I am rather hungry.

Harry walked in, and she heard his footsteps as they fell lightly on the floor, and then as he pushed the bedroom door gently shut.

Hallo love.

She knew the sounds of his footsteps in this room, she knew the way he closed the door. She knew him.

"Well. This sting isn't going to clean itself, love." The sound of his voice soothed her, and she appreciated his attempt at calm despite the fact that she knew that if the roles were reversed, she would be raging against herself in an attempt to maintain composure.

Just blink, for Harry. Communicate.

Blink.

Maia watched the birds duck in and out of her eyeline, and felt his weight settle in on the bed behind her.

"I'd rather cut your shirt than jostle you about too much, and it's torn anyhow. Probably from the barb on the tail, which is what must have gotten you. You look better in blue, anyway."

You make me laugh. Maybe if I can't blink I can laugh?

F*ck it. Blink.

Harry carefully cut the shirt away from her and let it fall to the bedspread.

"It's already stopped bleeding, but you're all swollen up. Reminds me a lot of a nasty sting. Like a ray or a jellyfish. Or the world's most horrible wasp. I'm going to clean it up, first. A little water to start."

Harry pressed a dry towel against her back and poured a little clean water from a glass over it, to flush it. He did carefully this until the wound looked adequately flushed out, then carefully used a clean, dampened washcloth to wipe the dried blood away.

"The antiseptic might sting, so sorry about that."

She felt the cold of the antiseptic against her skin well before the sting of it in broken skin. The welt was hot, though the rest of the adrenaline-induced heat coursing through her had finally begun to wane. As soon as it was clean, Harry pressed clean gauze to it and the pressure was soothing.

That feels really nice. Please blink. Blink.

"Oh aye, love. This is nothing. You've been through much worse than a sting like this, d'Thalia."

Maia knew that was true as she felt his hands working deftly to tape down the gauze. The evidence of what she had survived was painted on the lines of her back. Every battle scar, every broken bone that had mended and the taut strength of every muscle indicated what she could endure. She hoped Harry would look at those lines now and believe what he had said, completely.

"That's about it. If it's still this red and swollen later, Maia, we might need to see a doctor or a healer or someone. Those beasts pack some sort of a poison, but now we know."

She listened as he put the first aid kit back together and closed it up. Harry then pulled a light afghan up over her bare back to keep her warm, and took a knee beside the bed, looking into her eyes. For the first time, she could see a glimmer of the concern in them, the underlying fear.

Oh, Harry. This IS nothing. I HAVE been through worse. Blink, damnit, now. I can do this. I can do this. I am doing this.

Harry pinched his lips together just slightly as he touched her dark curls and that wonderful scream of white that interrupted them.

"I won't lie to you Maia, I'll feel a lot better when you're here again. When you can talk. When I know, without any doubt that you can hear me."

Her eyes were killing her. It had only been twenty minutes, but that was a long time not to move them, and not to close them. Harry talked and her heart welled up. Maia fought harder.

Blink. Blink. BLINK.

Her eyes teared a little, and then they closed and opened again. Once, she blinked.

Harry leaned in. "Maia?"

The woman might have trembled from the effort of it, but she did it again. A single blink.

Ha! Harry! You saw it! I'm right here. I'm right here! I'm coming out!

He took a deep breath, looked past her for a moment, then right back.

"Are you alright, love?"

Maia focused hard, and carefully blinked out her response as her too-dry eyes continued to tear and mercifully spill over. Long blinks and short ones, carefully spaced.

. _
_ . _ _
.

Aye.

He watched the pattern, a hopeful look phasing easily into a grin of utter relief as realized it wasn't random. It was an answer, and a good one, at that. laughed a little and leaned in to kiss her forehead and her cheeks and her nose and her chin.

"God, woman, let's not do this again."

It took about ten more minutes for Maia to be able to speak again, and the rest followed relatively quickly. She could move soon enough, but truth be told, she had a strange drunken feeling in her limbs for a few hours after she regained the ability to move them.

Things turned to the sublime domestic, for a few hours. The Hausenfelters cooked and they all shared a meal and tea. Bertie insisted on cleaning everything up, and then the bakers turned in relatively early. Harry pulled the murphy bed down in the guest room, made it up nicely for the landlords, and brought Maia's trunk out to the front room, just in case.

Not all that much later, Harry and Maia turned in. When she fell in beside him, he clutched her just a little bit tighter than usual. She clung to him, too, talking quietly into his ear.

"I know it was stupid. I haven't been that stupid in ages, and the minute it was happening, I knew it was stupid. I couldn't stand by and watch those things eat that stupid, lunkheaded kid. I couldn't commit to the kill the way I used to, either. It's that in-between that's the most dangerous, I think. Can't be selfless and selfish at the same time. I'm really sorry, and it won't happen again."

Harry just sighed and turned his head a little towards her. "I can't pretend to know what it must be like for you, love. I hate the idea of you in the dark with your knives. I hate what it's taken from you. But I love you, and I'll be there. Even when it's stupid."

She closed her eyes, and kissed him fervently. "God Harry, I love you. More than I can ever tell you."

For the first night in many, Maia slept decently.

Scars
10 March 2010


Near the end of the work day, that smell had begun to permeate Dockside again. Things were on the move, but at least Maia had a concept of precisely what those things were. Her books had been no help; she didn't have any documentation of anything precisely like what she and Harry and Scotty had faced in the Marketplace. Still, she knew what she needed to know.

The sun was setting and the rotting garbage stench increased. An unease settled over the office, so Maia and Harry stepped into the single office that they often shared. She closed the door, watching as Harry moved to look out the window, as far down the road as he could. The man turned dark eyes back towards her, and Maia knew that look. She wasn't the only one with a game-face.

"It's getting worse, love." She said what they had both been thinking.

"I don't want either of them walking home alone," he said to her. Harry made his way to the desk and opened up one of the drawers. It pleased the woman to see him pulling a few spare clips. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

"Tell me you'll walk Mary home. I'll give you a solid, logical, tactical reason if you want one, but the truth is that she still drives me a little mad."

"And you don't want everyone walking together?" Harry wasn't arguing, he was just playing devil's advocate. Many of their conversations went this way, and it was just right. One problem, several angles, a few moments conversation--it was a formula for the smartest answer.

Maia considered it briefly, then shook her head. "No. I don't. Smaller groups make a great deal less noise, and I want as little time as possible spent out in the open for all parties involved. They don't leave near enough one another. They are coming along in their training, but it's still early, and training is much different than performing."

"Then you'll walk Parker, I'll walk Mary, and we'll meet at home."

"We'll meet at home," she echoed. It was her money-back guarantee. If bullets weren't so effective on the monsters, Maia would be a lot more worried about her Welshman. Things as they were, she could only think of one person she knew who was possibly better equipped than Harry to deal with the threat (and that person couldn't be trusted to walk anybody home).

No. Harry could certainly manage himself.

That business look of his faded for a moment, and something warm crept in, then. They shared a passionate kiss--the sort that often reserved for those only newly together--and when Maia opened her eyes, the Welshman was smiling at her with an expression that smoldered.

"Whoever gets home first runs the bath," he said, running his thumb over the scars at her jawline before letting her go.

"Race you." Maia said playfully.

In the early evening hours, Maia walked beside Parker, ever watchful. At Maia's request, they had not passed the time with idle conversation. The woman wanted all of her senses wholly on the prowl. In her head, she turned the scenario around and around. Part of her honestly believed that had this happened before Harry, she'd be out every night hunting the monsters, whittling away at their numbers until she figured out how to either send them all back where they came from, or until they were all just dead. The city might just be better off if that woman still lived in it. That woman's time had passed, though, and she had too much to lose to live so recklessly.

They were about ten blocks from Parker's and the faint stench heightened again. Something was nearby. Maia tensed as she held still, putting a hand on Parker's arm to stop her and perhaps to reassure her. Parker watched, a little frightened and a little interested all at once. Maia turned in a slow circle. Then she whispered to Parker. "Walk faster. No matter what, get into your house and shut the door." Unless Parker had major magic inside her house, Maia was pretty sure that if she was out of sight, she'd be out of the mind of the beast. "Do you understand?"

"What if--" Parker whispered.

"There is no what if," Maia interjected. "Get home. Get inside. Stay there."

The women began to walk, and then Maia saw it. On the roof, four buildings down the street. Beady red eyes, long ears, nasty teeth. She couldn't quite hear it yet, and she didn't think it had seen them, but it was sniffing. Maia knew why. The plan changed swiftly.

Without hesitation, Maia pushed Parker into the shadowed recession of a closed business. She made the gesture for quiet, and Parker nodded emphatically. The once-pirate backed out into the light of the street, her crossbow locked and loaded in her right hand. She slipped her left hand into her pocket, and pulled out the thing that likely had the beast's attention:

Cela's chaos pendant. Even in a relatively dormant state it was powerful, and it was dangerous. This was precisely the reason that Maia had held on to the thing. It was precisely the sort of thing you didn't want falling into the wrong hands.

It was precisely the sort of thing that made a handy lure for something that ate energy.

She held it out, letting it dangle in front of her. Sure enough, beady red eyes moved towards her, and the beast leapt from rooftop to rooftop, sniffing it, out, getting closer and closer. Maia stepped slowly towards it and further from Parker, keeping her weapon trained on it. This needed to be a sure thing.

She thought of the orange balloon, and she waited. And waited.

It leapt, wings outstretched, coming from above. Maia held her breath and pulled the trigger. The crossbow responded with its sharp, quiet twang. The bolt went straight into one beady red eye. The whole of the beast jerked all at once, then every limb went limp. Maia leapt aside as the stinking thing plummeted to the ground near her, sliding to a halt. God, it stank.

"Stay there," she barked to Parker, already loading another bolt into the weapon as she made her way a little further up the street. These animals did not strike Maia as independent creatures, in her limited experience. Sure enough, at the intersection of an alley, two of the wingless variety were already loping towards her. At the sight of her, the lead one broke into a run. The one behind still loped in a stalking gait. Their dangerous claws scratched horribly on the cobblestones.

Maia felled the one in front with another deadly shot, this one landed between its eyes, but it got the job done. It had been very wise to practice so diligently all week. The one behind it paused to regard the body of its now-dead pack mate, and let loose a strange and horrible snarl and ran towards. It gave Maia time to reload as she backpedaled rapidly. It did not give her time for perfect aim.

The bolt landed in the neck of the beast, which immediately began to bleed quite a lot. She dropped her crossbow and drew her cutlass with incredible economy of motion, pale eyes fixed on her foe. The oozing wound did not stop it, though it took up that creepy, terrifying stalk again. Quickly, it lumbered towards her, teeth bared.

Twenty feet away. Remember to be patient, she thought, holding her breath. Twelve feet. Ten. Eight. Maia then flung the pendant down the street. Instinct, hunger, need...all these things pressed against its lizard brain, and it turned its head to watch its meal fly down the street, pausing for a second.

It was enough.

Maia closed the remaining six feet in a single, wild bound and drove her cutlass straight into the skull of the beast, grunting at the physical effort she threw into it. She carefully dodged the death spasm of flailing limbs and watched this one go limp, too.

That was more like it.

She picked up her crossbow, loaded it, and waited. Minutes passed and there was nothing else swooping from the sky or coming from the darkened alleys of the city. That would be it, for this group. She first collected and pocketed the pendant, then retrieved her cutlass with a little effort. Maia wiped the flat of the blade on the hide of the dead thing to rid it of some of the awful demon gore.

"It's alright, Parker. Let's get home."

Parker stepped very tentatively from her shadowed hiding place. Maia had never seen the woman's eyes so wide. She walked her to her door, and they passed no words between them until they were inside Parker's home. Maia had gratefully accepted a glass of water and a damp rag, but didn't want to walk any further into the place, in case she had demon ick on her shoes or person. The rag did a surprisingly good job of getting the gore from her hands and her blade.

"Thanks for the hospitality. I'm going home, now." she said. Maia turned to leave, but paused when Parker finally spoke.

"You know, I've heard the rumors about you, at work. I've heard, like, all the stories about the zombie invasion and some stories that supposedly go back further, but...I thought that a lot of it had to be talk. I mean. It just sounded so exaggerated."

Maia nodded, shrugged a little. "I imagine some of it is."

"I don't think so anymore. You didn't blink out there. You didn't hesitate. You didn't...you didn't miss. You really are, like, the real, real thing."

"Aye, love."

"And Lowe...is he?"

"Aye, love. Every bit."

Parker nodded, filing away that information. It's one thing to hear stories, but to see something before your own eyes always alters the perception of the believability of that story. What might have been legend to Parker may just have become history, instead.

"Thank you, Maia." She said, quite earnestly.

"You're welcome," she said, and she left.

Maia's route home did not take her past the bodies of the stinking animals, and she was pleased that as she walked, the stench faded and did not return. The swelling at her ribcage had long since subsided, and the redness had faded within the last day or two. All that remained was the scabbed-over wound, where the barbed tail had impaled her. In another week, it might already be new, soft, pinkish skin. In another month, it might be one more scar, faint and small compared to the others in residence on the woman.

She could live with another scar. After being knocked on her arse, Maia had stood up and found her graceful, deadly rhythm. She'd balanced the scales. It made her feel a little bit more right, inside. It made her feel electric. She was all worked up, in a good way.

Fortunately, she had a date with a hot bath and the real, real thing.