• PM To Join • [Skywatch Keep] Keep to the law.

[Finnegan O'Connor]

Keep to the law.

16th Vhalar, 718

Every time he came near the Skywatch keep, his stomach turned. Ilaren’s stained-glass depiction looming over him on approach gave him the shivers but he fretted more over the people it contained. Ever since he’d arrived in Rharne he’d tried to have as little as possible to do with the Lightning Knights and for the most part, he’d succeeded. Until now.

Two stoic lightning knights flanked him, each at least a head-and-a-half taller than himself and adorned in full plate armor and thick helmets that hid most of their features. For every rattling stride they took, he had to take two quick steps and half a skip to keep up. Could’ve been worse, he told himself. Could’ve been a chase followed by inevitable capture. Could’ve been, might’ve been in Etzos, but not here. He’d surrendered voluntarily, and they’d been waiting for him at the gates, commanding him to come along as soon as he’d returned from Storm’s Edge.

One of the knights had rattled off a list of his offences and the reason for his arrest. He’d hardly listened. He knew exactly what he was guilty of. Surprisingly the knights hadn’t brought any ward or protection against his magic, not that he could sense at least. As far as he could tell the tether to his sparks remained intact, though he wasn’t half stupid enough to test his magic in the presence of two disgruntled knights. He imagined they’d equated his age to his proficiency with magic and had failed to bring protection because of it. They wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake, though perhaps they’d simply counted on his cooperation. They should've sent a small battallion if they knew but half of how much magic he’d expended against the flameborn...

He stared down at his throbbing arms as they marched on. The blistering, burning sensation under the tightly wrapped bandages had faded, but hadn’t vanished. Lissi had done what she could with the limited means allotted to her at Storm’s Edge, and she’d insisted the burns crawling up his forearms weren’t like anything she’d seen before. It’d been some kind of unholy fire, a fire that stubbornly refused to bend to his will, a fire that burned hotter and quicker than he’d ever seen it do before. He looked up, meeting the curious glances of passersby. They haven’t the faintest idea… not a clue what’s out there… he thought to himself.

They passed under a large, stone archway and entered the main hall. A young man, on the verge of adulthood, greeted the knights from behind his desk, fished a clanging keychain from a hook on the wall behind him and tossed it at one of the knights who caught it in his gauntlet. Without pause they made a sharp turn, their heavy steps drowning in the deep reverberance of the entrance hall and proceed down a hallway, up a flight of stairs and proceeded through a maze of halls and doors until they finally halted before a single, pad-locked door.

“Stand back,” the knight with the keychain grumbled.

Finn did as asked and bumped into the other knight who let out a little “hmpf” before nudging him back forward. The door swung open with an ominous creak after a moment of fidgeting with the right key and revealed a gloomy, dusty little space that reminded him of the praying rooms in the Cathedral, except more sparsely decorated. A single wooden plank hung from iron chains bolted into the stone, serving as a bench and that was about as much furniture the room contained. There was a small cut-out in one of the other walls like a small window, except it gave a view of an old, withered looking man with thinning hair whose nose was hovering just inches over the inkwell from which he regularly drew between the scratching of his quill.

A recently polished gauntlet motioned for him to step inside. No sooner than he’d done so he was instructed to take a seat while a restraint, chained to the wall, was locked around his ankle.

“Stay put,” one of the knights instructed rather needlessly. He barely had time to answer before the men had turned on their heels and slammed the door shut, causing the elderly man behind bars to jump up and mutter some vulgarities under his breath.

Silence hung over him like the terrifying visage of Zipper’s many failed Doran figurines hanging from the ceiling of her hermit home. A small smile played at his lips. He wondered where she was now. Maybe she’d finally found a place, a good place to carve her Dorans and write her rulebooks- no, rule encyclopedias.

But his smile faded as soon as he considered her habit of walking in at moments like this, whenever he’d just been captured for this or that. He ground his teeth at the thought. He done so well this time: he’d stayed out of trouble, he’d gotten a decent job… and all of it had been ruined because of the ghosts chasing him all the way from Etzos.

The contemplative silence was rudely disturbed by a commotion. Angry but distant voices drew nearer and nearer. Heated words were exchanged, and then the sound of scuffing feet, clattering armour, a shout, the sound of a blade being unsheathed and-

He jumped up from his seat when something heavy slammed into the door and caused all the dust that had build up between the hinges to fly up into the air.

“Hold her, hold her, hold her…” he heard one voice say. “Get her arm, the arm- no! The other arm!”

There was a kerfuffle before the door was finally unlocked and four knights carried in a furiously writhing woman. For one frightful instant Finn thought he heard the wretched voice of his sister spewing hatred at the guard, but then he realized she'd rarely get this worked up. Besides, it wasn't her style to get dragged in like this. Zipper would've made her own hole in the wall and rolled her eyes at the lack of sensible furniture in the holding room. The woman writhed again as though possesed by spirits while two of the knights held an arm each and the other two held her legs, and still they struggled to bring her in.

“WILL YOU BE QUIET?!” The wild shriek coming from the diminutive old clerk was a startling noise and the Knights almost dropped their seething captive in surprise. “I CAN’T DO ANY BLOODY WORK WITH THIS NOISE!” The man threw his quill to the ground which sadly landed a great deal more gracefully than he’d intended.

Finn put as much distance between himself and the crazed, dark-haired woman as the chain to his ankle permitted and looked on in stunned silence as the four knights struggled to apply the remaining restraints to her arms and legs. They left hastily as soon as they’d tied her up and Finn thought he heard at least one of them breathe a sigh of relief before the door was shut and locked again.

Almost instinctively he reached for his magic, his only protection against the disheveled and flustered woman who looked like she wanted to strangle something, but found a wall instead, a barrier of unbridgeable nothingness standing between him and his sparks.

Was this their punishment then? To be locked up with a bloodthirsty hag until only of them remained standing? He retreated into the furthest corner, never letting his wide eyes leave her and praying to the high heavens that she wouldn’t notice him.

[Max]

The trial had started out relatively docile for the ex-convict of The Beneath. She threw no scathing remarks at her allies on her way out the door. No shattered glasses or knocked over rum bottles littered the place in which they stayed. The marked woman still didn't resemble the better-fed version of herself she was before she was arrested in Ashan. Her cheekbones held more definition in her face and dark circles colored just beneath her eyes. The clothes she wore were still a couple sizes too big. With time she'd no longer appear the emaciated, scrawny victim she did to-trial. Eventually she'd recognize the face in the mirror. The scars wouldn't vanish from her visage, but with those she'd already made her peace. The inner wounds that marred her would sooner prove to be her undoing.

The Copper Prince had turned out to be her chosen haunt of the trial. It took her no time at all to fall right into the thick of the low class culture she'd been accustomed to for most of her life. Depreciating prods turned to boisterous laughs and a show of coin earned her a seat at a gambling table. Maxine was in her element. She drank her rum. She smoked her ambrosia. Now and then she even influenced a dice roll or two in her favor to earn some extra nel. A naive bystander might've seen her and pinned her as a woman genuinely having fun. For a while she was. Now and then an intrusive, assaulting thought would jump into her mind to toy with her emotions. Her hunt for Francis Higglebottom plagued her in particular. Each time she merely poured herself another shot and drowned the animosity.

Forget, forget, forget...but forget she could not. Maxine couldn't forget the Earth Mask any more than she could the horrible things that had happened to her during her incarceration. Ambrosia had kept her out of her dreams now just as well as it had in the trials leading up to the Ashan riot. If history truly did repeat itself, the marked woman would soon be due for some extreme lapse of judgement. Until then she'd deny the inevitable chaos to come and take everything one trill at a time. She plunged herself into focusing on the dice game on the table before her. A good crowd had formed around the gambling spectacle. The pot was growing as well as the anticipation of the room. The Copper Prince was not a tavern filled with well-to-do patrons. The other players at her table were starving, down-trodden folk of the Dust Quarter desperate to win themselves a minor break with a game of chance. The Warden's generosity ensured that the ex-convict didn't need the extra nel presently at stake. Adored by Lady Luck, this match against Maxine was one that no other was ever going to win; and like her callous mother, the marked woman cared not for the plights of the poor she'd conned.

When the fateful dice roll finished, cheers erupted from the audience so loud it nearly shook the structurally questionable tavern. Maxine smirked up at the viciously cursing gamblers seated across from her. Just as she was preparing to lean in and scoop her winnings, she felt a forearm come across the front of her throat. The whole world stopped right then and there. The cheers deafened in her ears. Time felt like it slowed and her pupils dilated before it all went black. It wasn't until later that she'd pieced together what transpired next. The arm had belonged to one of the drinking friends she'd made for the break, and his gesture was meant to be a congratulatory one. The only thing she'd perceived was a threat.

In a trill he was thrown over shoulder, back slamming down upon the table much to the surprise of everyone else around them. She didn't remember wrenching him off the table to the floor any more than she did smashing a tankard over his head. When she'd mounted his grounded frame, repeatedly bouncing his head off the floorboards with the most powerful strikes she could muster, she wasn't in the dim-lit Copper Prince at all. She was back in the dark in depths of The Beneath and she was fighting for her life.

A small collection of brawny do-gooders did their best to pull the spit-fire woman off the unconscious drunk. A good handful of them suffers busted jaws and cracked orbitals for their efforts before the Lightning Knights arrived. She gave the armored soldiers plenty of hell until they managed to get her into their custody. Her transport back to Skywatch Keep was certainly one they'd gripe about for the rest of their careers. Alas, they succeeded in dragging the woman, kicking and cursing, into the fortress and past the main hall.

"Get your fucking hands off me," Max's demand echoed throughout the hallway they forced her into. One of the guards holding her arms smirking caught her attention. "You think this is fucking funny?" The irate woman lifted a brow at the man and curled her hands into tighter fists in the shackles. The guards yanked her toward a locked door. "Wanna see something I think's funny?" She violently dropped a shoulder and turned in place, raising her shackled hands toward the smug city guard. Acid sprayed from her palms directly into the man's face. He shrieked, the irritation in his eyes turning into a fierce burn that made Maxine darkly laugh. The indisposed guard dropped his hold on her in favor of his face. A side kick into the knee of the guard holding her opposite arm won her enough space to taste the sensation of freedom from the grasp of authority. Maxine turned, bodied the first guard into the wall, and dropped her shackled wrists over his head. The sound of clanging armor rushing toward her again had her spinning to face the cavalry, tightening the chains around the first guard's neck.

The scramble to regain control of the criminal was one in which the Lightning Knights elevated their use of force. They drew their swords on her, pointing the tips of their blades at her unarmed body while their peer strangled in her grasp. Max rolled her eyes and released the man after a trill of deliberation. He collapsed at her feet, gasping and coughing while his eyes still burned in their sockets. The swords returned to their sheaths for the most part, and once again it was battle of will until four knights managed to literally carry her into the locked room. They didn't dare take the shackles off her wrists when they pushed her down to sit on the bench. It was only when both her arms and ankles were connected to a mess of chains that the Lightning Knights hustled after a new, less-abusive assignment.

"Dickless assholes!" Maxine shouted after them before the door slammed shut. "Fuck!" She rose from the bench to give the exit a childish kick before sitting down again. She leaned back against the wall, dark eyes staring up toward the ceiling. Her impulsive reaction at the tavern had been a product of a twisted survival instinct she'd adopted while in Slags Deep. The behavior had come on so unpredictably, so wildly, that Maxine knew she ever had a chance to stop it before it had seized her entirely. Her leg bounced. She was supposed to be helping Sephira and Rey'na recover the portal stones in Rynmere, and more importantly, she had an earth Defier to hunt down with impunity. She could fulfill neither of those obligations from the inside of a Rharnian prison cell. Max glanced sideways, remembering she wasn't the only one in the room.

"Great," the marked woman growled with a roll of her eyes. "Stuck in a room with a child. What are you? Like, twelve?" She looked toward the boy further down on the bench, drawing a knee up so she could rest her elbow upon it. Her chains hissed along the floor. "Steal a piece of bread or something?" She didn't mean for her comments to come across as condescending as they probably did, not that she cared much for the kid's feelings. Her eyes glanced down to appreciate the layer of blood spread across her gloved knuckles. By the looks of them, she must've given some men a rather memorable beating.

[Finnegan O'Connor]

Keep to the law.

16th Vhalar, 718

Inevitably, her angry eyes turned toward him, roved over him as though calculating if he needed a taste of her medicine too. Finn looked back, his dull gaze fell onto bloodied hands and traced the injuries on her face before seeking refuge on the floor. Not a stranger to fistfights... , he thought, though perhaps there’d been a shiv or dagger involved too judging by her looks. Yet there was something else about her, something strangely familiar and when she started to speak, or growl rather, he listened close and tried to remember where he’d heard that voice before…

“I’m not a thief,” he bit back. Not anymore, he added in the privacy of his mind. His weariness was forgotten in an instant as he could scarcely imagine a worse insult to his pride and to all his efforts of being better. But the damage had already been done and his shoulders drooped at accusations. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he applied himself and worked his good, honest job from dawn till dusk, some curse had been placed on him, marking him for life as a thief, a low-live, a disposable pawn in a game that exceeded his understanding. And that wasn't even the worst of her brutally honest questions. He combed a hand through his hair. Did he really look like twelve?

"I’m fourteen," he grumbled. He rolled his shoulders back and pushed himself off the wall. What was it about her that tickled his memory? He'd encountered his fair share of crazy people over the years. Maybe he'd run into her before? But where? When? Why? He squinted at her as he crossed his armsover his chest. "I'm only here because I didn't register." No need to make any bones about it anymore. The whole reason he'd conveniently ignored a part of fine Rharnian law was because he feared he might Vuda's bloodhounds, but they'd found him anyway, and now they were gone. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard Zipper's know-it-all voice reminding him to never tell anyone about his special gift. As if that was ever possible...

His jaw slackened and his play at maturity was dropped in an instant. "I know who you are! You're Mad Max, from Etzos! You and Zipper used to-" He barely shut up in time. Best not remind the seething woman of everything that had occured between her and Zipper. The two hadn't exactly gotten along and once she found out that the same blood flowed through his veins... His eyes darted all over here as he remembered one of Zipper's early lectures. Don't be a worthless loser like Max, she'd said, or something to that tune. He feared she was right again. The woman before him was only a shadow of the nimble, resourceful girl he'd known in the orphanage. He'd fancied her at one point, but Zipper had made sure to beat that out of him. Someone like Max wouldn't be interested in scamps like him anyway, she'd said, and if he ever tried to get close to her, he'd be consorting with the enemy.

Finn deposited himself back on the stiff little bench and cautiously settled his gaze on Maxine again. "You look starved. What the hell happened?"

[Sephira]

Arrested? Seriously? Was that woman just allergic to keeping a low profile?

Sephira grumbled under her breath as she made her way through the Sky Quarter of Rharne. It had hard not to enjoy the beautiful city while they were passing through although Max’s escapades had certainly put a damper on things at this point. The buildings of the Glass Quarter had glittered and gleamed with exquisite beauty although Sephira had prefered the homely atmosphere of the Earth Quarter. It felt comfortable down there with the normal workaday people, almost like being home in Scalvoris Town.

The mage moved upwards toward the daunting Sky Quarter that was apparently the seat of Rharne’s government, military and patron Immortal. The woman was wearing her leather armor beneath a fitted lengthy black coat. She kept her eyes to the ground for fear of startling onlookers with her solid onyx black eyes. Ever since straining her Attunement Spark in the Vault, Sephira had borne the strange new mutation. It seemed to be nothing more than an aesthetic alteration of her body, although she had noticed that she was now rather resistant to bright flashes of light that might otherwise stun or blind others. The mage had tried to take the change in stride after her initial horror at its discovery. Black eyes certainly unnerved people and outwardly marked her as something not quite human anymore but she was still Sephira inside.

A woman walking nearby, dressed in a rich violet robe gasped softly at the woman’s appearance when she accidently cast her a momentary glance. Sephira turned away, grimacing at the response, continuing in her endless climb up towards the headquarters of the local military; Skywatch Keep.

The home of the Lightning Knights rose like a pinnacle of azure steel in the distance. Upon it’s spires hung flags displaying the sigil of their order, a winged shield surrounded by olive branches. The building was impressive, but more importantly it felt somewhat familiar to the Element. Soldiers moved about in armor with weapons sheathed at their sides. She stepped down the causeway, approaching a cluster of Knights guarding the entrance. The mage nervously shifted her weight as her hand slid down to touch Wyvern’s hilt simply out of comfort. The saber was peacebonded, a silver ribbon tying it down to it’s sheath in a gesture of goodwill that she would not draw it within the borders of the city.

When asked why she was there the woman quickly explained that she was there to see someone recently apprehended and incarcerated at the keep. The guards looked at each other before ushering her inside and one of them guided her back to the holding cells.

“You have five bits, say what you need to say, then knock twice and the hall guard will let you out.” the Knight stated as he roughly pulling forth a jangling a ring of keys before locating the key that would open the padlocked door. The entrance creaked open, revealing a tiny room with a mere slit of a window that allowed the barest of breezes inside. There was an old man at a weather worn desk and two individuals seated on a bench. One was a boy who must have been no older than fifteen. He was leaned over, speaking quietly with the woman that Sephira was there to retrieve.

The Special Assistant didn’t utter a word as she stepped inside until the door clanged shut behind her, that was when the visage of calm hit the floor.

“What the hell is wrong with you Max?! You couldn't be bothered to stay out of trouble just this once?” she hissed seethingly, crossing her arms in irritation before waiting for Maxine to explain herself.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

Maxine glanced about the room with a scowl. She gave her ankle chains a testing jerk. As she expected, they held tight. No rusty, weak links. No loose bolts. Rharne had put her very squarely into their custody, and judging by the ache in her body, it wasn't at all gentle. She probably deserved the level of force they used. Even she knew that. The back of her skull rested back against the wall. The foot still on the floor began to bounce again. Once again she was trapped. The understanding might not have been so anxiety-inducing this time if she felt like she really had control over what transpired to put her here.

"Whatever," Max mused, tilting her head to find the young prisoner further along the bench beside her. "Twelve. Fourteen. Same thing." She rolled her head back to stare up at the ceiling. The boy's expected babbling ensued thereafter. Those new to chains and the slam of the gavel had the tendency to do it. They downplayed their crimes. They told everyone and anyone, unsolicited half the time, the "truth". Oh, the stories were always rich. Max's favorite tended to be the ones in which they swore they didn't do it. Failure to register for...whatever it was, was far less entertaining. "Sure, kid. If you say so."

Her caramel eyes shifted to the old man sitting at the desk. His quill scrawled furiously against the parchment he laid upon his ancient desk. Now and then his tongue would slash out, the tip of the quill would be hastily dunked in ink, and he'd quietly mouth the words he was scribbling. She glanced from him to the closed door, and then toward the rest of the guardless room. Perhaps there was opportunity here after all. The marked woman looked down at her chains again, mentally trying to measure just how far she could stretch from the bench. That's when she heard the boy announce her name. And then another name she'd long since forgotten.

"Me and Zipper used to nothing," she retorted icily, her entire attention snapping to the boy. Her eyes narrowed, studying him. Then a short laugh burst from her. "Shit. You're the other one." Vague memories painted the image of a boy in the Etzos orphanage she was stuck in for a couple arcs. He was perhaps the only person one of her brutal playmates, Zipper, ever truly cared about: her little brother. "Little far from home aren't you, Finnegan? Stopped hiding behind your sibling's skirts I see. Where is that twat of a sister of yours anyways? Shouldn't she be swooping in to save the trial right about now?"

"QUIET!" the old clerk nagged with a shake of his fist from his seat. "If I have to tell you two again, I'll get one of the guards to come box your ears!"
"You have no idea how badly I want you to do that," the marked woman replied with a blank expression. "Go on. Summon one." The clerk grumbled and cursed under his breath but went back to his work. She turned her attention back to Finnegan when he voiced the most complicated question one could likely ask her right then. She turned her head away from him altogether to stare straight ahead, guarding her expression. Her eyes darkened.

What happened to Max? Isn't that something everyone wants to know.

Footsteps in the hallway both snatched her focus and gave her the desired out. Her stare moved to settle on the door. The footsteps echoed louder, closer. Someone, likely more soldiers were coming. The ex-convict toggled her enhanced hearing sense on. Immediately, her world erupted with new auditory details. She could clearly hear the scratch of that stupid quill on the old man's paper. A rat scampered somewhere nearby, its small claws raking against the floor. When she focused past all that into the hallway, she could make out out small details of what was coming. The rattle of swords in hilts. The gentle flap of clothing as people walked. Even their breaths. Maxine leaned back when the murmurs reached her ears and toggled the sense off again.

"Oh, here we fucking go," Maxine whispered before the door swung open. She didn't need to have been eyeing the opening to know whose shadow was about to loom over her. Just as the Special Assistant did, she said nothing until the guards left and the heavy door slammed shut. As soon as they did, the calm facade she wore shattered and the berating began.

Another million nel question, this one asked by Blackwood.

"I'm just as shocked as you are," Maxine began, sarcasm saturating her every word. "A criminal, sentenced to Slags Deep for sixty-eight arcs for a list of crimes so long it ended with 'and so forth'...got into trouble?" She turned her whole body on the bench to face Sephira now, eyes wide with a false sense of bewilderment. "Why, Special Assistant Blackwood, how could anyone have seen this coming?" She dropped the act as quickly as she put it on, finishing it with a massive eye roll. "You picked a layover in a city filled with booze and violence. Even Twelve over here could've predicted this." She picked up and dropped a handful of chains for effect.

Max could've sat there and told the ugly truth. She could've simultaneously answered both Sephira and Finnegan's questions in one fell swoop. Those truths were ones she was not ready to face. She didn't even fully grasp them yet. She preferred ire to pity. The damage that had been done to-trial and during her incarceration had been done. There was no going back. The why didn't matter in the end. It didn't change where they were standing now.

[Finnegan O'Connor]

Keep to the law.

16th Vhalar, 718

Memories of a scrawny, haughty girl flooded his mind. The only girl stoopid enough to question Fiona's reign. Always on edge, always getting into trouble, always covered in bruises and cuts and dirt. Some of it must've rubbed off on him. Not all of it though. Not even his dear sister on her period was as ill-tempered as the loudmouth girl playing at a killer. She had no right to be alive and less still to be looking so disheveled and underfed. Surely she was crafty enough to steal food if she couldn't afford it? The kind of misfortune she'd endured (or brought on to herself, more like) to reduce her to this feeble shadow of her former, wiry, nifty self exceeded the scope of his imagination and he thought it better not to dwell on it, lest her bad luck would rub off on him some more.

A hawkish frown marred his brow. “Don't call ‘er that,“ he grumbled. “An’ don't think I can't care for meself.“

The chain clasped to his ankle rattled as he shifted on the bench and rested his elbows on his knees.

“She don't wear skirts anyway,” he mumbled. Fiona in a skirt was a kind of nightmare he hadn't even dared to imagine yet and he quickly discarded the imagery from his mind. The old coot safely tucked away behind his desk threatened to enforce silence and was met by obedience from one prisoner and venom from the other. An arc ago he might have pressed his luck but not now, not without a sister in the guards to bail him out, nor since he'd mended his ways and-

The door swung open. A tall shadow loomed over them and for the briefest of moments he thought Bertha had somehow caught wind of his arrest and had come to lecture him on his ways.

But one glance at the woman who'd come barging in like a whirlwind nearly made him wish it was Bertha. He recoiled at her anger and then recoiled some more when he caught a glimpse of her dark eyes.

Mutant.

Not just any kind. Not the sort that had roamed Etzos’ streets for a while, those were far more obviously altered. Either she was a special breed of Biqaj or, most likely, magic had taken its toll. At least the blade she carried was bonded, which earned an approving blood from the clerk despite his clear annoyance at the ruckus.

Loudmouth hadn't changed a bit and Finn was entirely certain she had only herself to blame for her circumstance given the slip of the tongue that the clerk jumped on like a fox on a hare.

“Sixty arcs in Slags Deep?” the clerk said with a quiver of excitement in his voice. Oh he'd heard of the fabled prison alright. He practically dreamed off it. The finest system in existence by some distance. No pathetic chains. No spacious cells where prisoners wasted away without any benefit to society. Seven Gates to keep the scum away from hardworking, law-abiding citizens. “I do not believe they release their prisoners unless the time has been served… Maxine.” He read her name from the paper he'd been scribbling on, listing her sins. No wonder it took him so long to write. “If they're missing a prisoner, I'm sure they'd like to know.”

His gaze turned to Blackwood then as he politely reminded her that she could just as easily be removed from the holding room unless she managed to temper her volume and foul mood in equal measure. Whatever business the two women had left to attend to didn't hinder the remaining proceedings regarding the boy who was next to draw his ire.

“O'Connor…” he muttered. “Quaint.” He looked up then, searched the boys face but found nothing of recognition on it. “Do you contend the charges levied against you?“

Finn shrugged. He knew this song and dance too well. Ten trials for never having mentioned his gift to the authorities that he'd ask desperately tried to avoid. They might add on some more for having used a fake name, though he was more concerned about his employers judgement on that than whatever the knights thought of it.

“-Then you'll be transferred to Rharne prison and held there until further notice. Your number will b-”

His eyes widened. “Until further notice? What's that mean? ”

“That's what it says here,” the clerk snipped back. “please don't interrup-”

Finn jumped up and was only restrained from flying into the men's desk by the hissing chain on his ankle. “What for like?! You don't have the right to- Is ten trials is all it should be!”

“It says until further notice, signed by the Marshall from Storm's edge. I'd simmer down if I were you.”

“But it ain't right! “ he squeaked.

The clerk attempted to suppress a twitch on his face before resuming. “You'll be fetched in a moment and given a tag with a number on it. You'll then be transported to the prison and upon arrival your belongings shall be deposited and you'll receive new garbs. I've put you down for small. Your tag must be when around the neck and be visible at all times. Without it you cannot be released once your time is serve-”

“An’ when’s that?”

“Until further notice.” the clipped answer came.

[Sephira]

Had she really been all that surprised to find Max warming the bench in the local jail? No, not really if she was quite honest with herself. However Sephira had hoped for the ex-convict to at least attempt to keep her nose clean during their journey to Rynmere. Maybe this was just part of Max’s way to make her life difficult after Sephira arrested her during the riot.

The topic was still a sore one for her. It had been a hard thing to clap irons on someone that she had considered an ally and perhaps even possibly a friend. The Special Assistant had been a fresh recruit to the Scalvoris military when she and Max had first met in the depths of that underground amphitheater after the cult kidnapping. Out of all the dozens of women captured there, she and Max had been some of only a few that had fought back. They had always never been ones to back down when danger presented itself. Back then they’d had perhaps had more in common than they did now. Ever since the riot and the arrest there had been a quickly widening gulf growing between them.

Sephira could only sigh as she pinched her fingers tightly to her forehead in irritation.

“Believe me, if we could have avoided this drunkards paradise then I would have been all for it.” The woman rebuked while casting a wary glance toward the elderly clerk. She would need to figure out how to get him out of here if she was to dig her team member out of this mess.

Lowering her hands from her head, the Element’s eyes eventually flickered toward the boy sitting next to Maxine.

“Making friends I see.” she grumbled irritably before allowing her arms to fall down limply at her sides.

The clerk then snapped his eyes up to the Element and remarked that she could be removed from the room if she didn’t keep quiet. Onyx eyes narrowed at the man just as the mage slipped her gloved fingers into her leather coat. The drew forth an envelope made from thick velvety paper with the sigil of Rharne stamped on the face of it. Sephira delicately slid the contents out before tossing them idly onto the table in front of the clerk. The parchment contained the personal stamp of the Lightning Cathedral along with the signature of the Matriarch of the Thunder Priestess. The letter had been sent along with her after Kura had seen it delivered to Sephira before they headed through the Eclipse Portal. It contained a document sanctioned by Ilaren herself granting Sephira all the the rights and privileges of a high priestess during her stay in Rharne.

The clerk was too busy dealing out punishment to the young lad to immediately notice the document laid in front of him. Once he turned back after basically sentencing the poor boy to life in prison a soft gasp escaped his throat.

“Give us the room, if you would be so kind.” The soldier hissed.

With creased brows and a wrinkled nose the man shuddered to his feet. He look at Sephira with ire glittering in his beady little eyes.

“I’ll be reporting this to the Commander.” he swore irritably.

“Please do.” The woman replied as he shuffled past her, Sephira replaced the envelope in her jacket pocket before looking slyly back toward the door as the clerk vanished through. It closed with a click as the lock slid back into place.

The Rupturer snapped her head back around toward the pair.

“On your feet, we won’t have long.” The words were barked out, sounding less like a request and more like an order.

Now they had privacy but she needed to get them out of those chains. Sephira doubted that the letter would give her leave to free a criminal, but hopefully she could come up with a way to get Max out. There was a brief thought to the boy, he was pretty young and soon to be headed to Rharne’s infamous desert prison. It was no Slags Deep but it was not exactly a luxury hotel either. Within a trill she had made up her mind to free him as well if she could.

The mage had shattered non-living material before with a portal, perhaps she could do the same now. Sephira stepped forward before dropping to a knee in front of the pair, she reached out to take hold of their chains, where they fell down to an iron loop embedded in the floor.

“Keep the links straight.” she muttered just as she funneled ether into her Rupturing Spark. It awoke with a voracious glee.

Before she began casting her magic the Rupturer glanced up at the boy with a smirk, hoping to keep him at ease to prepare him for what came next. “Kids are supposed to like magic right?”

Sephira then shunted a short but potent flare of ether through her Spark, concentrating on opening a very precise and very small portal just around the links of the chain. It was a rarity for her to create a porthole rather than a fully sized portal, perhaps that was why it didn’t quite go as planned.

Her Spark shuddered, flaring in her chest with excitement at being used. But it wanted so more more than to create a tiny insignificant little portal. It was not some toy for her to take off a shelf when it suited her, it was a being that transcended the laws of this world. Sephira felt her breath catch in her throat as there was a flare of crimson radiance that spilled from her hands and into the links of the chain itself. Splintered cracks of light spread outwards through the chain and the fabric of reality wavered within the metal. Suddenly the chain fell away from Finn and Maxine like it was made of nothing more than air. It even fell straight through Sephira’s hands before the cracks of light vanished at the chain clattered uselessly to the floor.

A look mixed with surprise, fear and fascination spilled across the mage’s features.

“Not exactly why I was going for...but I won’t complain about the results.” she murmured with a satisfied twitch of her lips.

Dialogue|Thoughts

[Max]

Baby O'Connor was still as loyal to his sister as ever. Some things truly didn't change. By the looks of him, he was still battling to carve his own way in the world. Like the rest of them, he was only beginning to discover who he was. The gap for triumph and error was shorter for the boy. He had time to change his path, make more rewarding choices. Maxine only have a couple years on him, but fate and fury had widened the gap for her. She marked herself a murderer among other things. In Scalvoris she was not the woman who fought the cultists. She was the one who started the riot and slew Elements warrantlessly in the streets. If they remembered her at all, it was that she was another soul deserving none other than the infamous Level Seven treatment. Even if she managed to help Sephira and Rey'na recover the Portal Stone, she would not be a name remembered for helping save Scalvoris. The immortality of heroism was not for a woman of her standing to enjoy. Even the clerk, a stranger to her rap sheet, was all too eager to throw her right back into that hell pit.

"If you were some sort of expert on how any shit worked, they'd have given you a work space that wasn't in the fucking prisoner holding room," Max snapped at the clerk. She adjusted her jaw and smirked. "Fucking write to inform them if you want but, trust me, they know." For a trill she wondered over whether the Warden had found someone to replace the Level Seven Junior Warden she cut down on her way out. A whole new crew of green guards would be a nightmare. If she got thrown down there again, a squad lacking cohesion and experience would only make her second attempt at escape that much quicker.

The ex-convict put thoughts of that wretched place out of her mind for the moment, focusing on the situation at hand instead. Finn had caught time it would seem. Perhaps real time. As much as she hated to admit it, the idea of the boy staying in chains made her much more uncomfortable in the shackles she wore. It had been a long time since she'd run into her fellow orphan. Where he'd been and what he'd done since remained a mystery to her. Max vividly remembered the scrawny, doe-eyed boy ducking nervously behind Zipper wherever the Orphan Warden went. That boy did not deserve the restraints he wore now. She clenched her fists. Just as trapped, there wasn't much she could do help him now. If helping him was something she actually wanted to do.

The clerk's administrative threat to the Special Assistant commanded Maxine's undivided attention. Her venomous glare settled on him at the same time the Element's onyx eyes narrowed. The problem was clear. He was starting to get far too comfortable in that chair, grown fearless of the detained offenders he chided safely beyond their reach. Max began to wrap the chain between her hands around one of her wrists, tightening the length of links. In her mind she'd already slipped her hands over the back of his head and looped the chains around his throat. Sephira unknowingly liberated the clerk from the fate Max wished right then to patiently do unto him. Outdone, the clerk begrudgingly vacated further beyond Maxine's reach. The ex-convict's murderous stare followed him out the door until he slammed it behind him.

"Nicely done, Blackwood," she commented as she unwrapped the chain from her wrist. She came to a stand thereafter, brow furrowed as she began to piece together just what exactly the Special Assistant was doing. It didn't take long, and her suspicions were confirmed the trill the woman took a hold of her restraints.

Shit.

"Well, well, well," she murmured with a half-hearted laugh. "Looks like I've finally corrupted the Special Assistant. The Elements would be disappointed in their golden child, but I have to admit, I like when you take shackles off me far more than when you put them on." She doubted an irony this severe was lost on Sephira. She cringed away from the Element's palms, anticipating the magic to come with no ideas as to how it might manifest. It took but a couple trills, and like they were never there at all, Maxine felt the weight of her restrains vanish with the sound of them hitting the ground.

She rolled her wrists a couple times and let the relief of freedom wash over her. It was a tainted feeling. This liberation was different. This time the repercussions were sullied to someone else. She pursed her lips and glanced toward Finn. The Rupturing trick had rendered him free as well. With luck, Sephira's choices to-trial would mean the boy would never have to endure what Maxine did. Allowing him to escape that fate was more worthwhile than the recovery of an unbroken teammate, who was likely starting to feel more like an ungovernable ward than the valuable asset Kura had hyped her up to be.

"I like the new trick," she admitted as she rounded toward the clerk's desk. "Almost makes up for last time." She looked down at the scribbled parchment filling the work space. The letters meant nothing to her, but she'd seen administrators spell out her name enough to know what it looked like on a page. She scooped the paper up, folded it up, and shoved it in one of her pockets. "This was a stupid thing for you to do though, mission or not. Whatever power was in that letter you gave that asshole, you might've just signed it right the fuck away." If the both of them were compromised for this, the only remaining member of their party outside these walls was Rey'na. Her expression darkened at the thought. If the Portal Stone recovery rested on her shoulders alone, Scalvoris was doomed.

"Finn," Max turned to him as she took a throwing dagger off her belt, gesturing with it from his chest to the Special Assistant. "You're in her debt. Until we're all out of here, you do everything you're told. Everything. I'll kill you myself. I mean it. I'm not afraid of your sister." They freed him. As much as she hated to admit it, that meant that they were responsible for him on some level. At least until they hit the street. She gave the dagger in her hand a playful twirl and paced back toward Sephira.

"Now it's my turn to fix your mistake," Max sighed with a determined expression. She looked to the weapon in her hand and then to the Special Assistant with a shrug. "I found a loose screw in the bench. You were angry. Angry made you careless. When you were yelling at me, you got too close. I forced you to take these shackles off us. You were scared for your life." She moved past the Element toward the door, toggling her enhanced hearing on in hopes she could detect anyone coming down the hallway long before they arrived. "We could stage a hostage situation. With a knife to your throat, they'll let me walk us right out the front doors. Something that public and bold would keep the heat off you. That's all I've got." She planted her back against a wall adjacent to the door and looked between Finn and Sephira. "Any objections?"

[Finnegan O'Connor]

Keep to the law.

16th Vhalar, 718

Confusion crept onto his face as he flicked his gaze from Max to Blackwood, and back to Max again. “I have so many objections,” said Finn. He opened and closed his mouth a few more times, wasting precious trills before he finally relented. “Too many to go through.” He glanced down at the gleaming, razor-sharp tip of one of the objections Max had freed from her belt. “Questions too,” he added. Many questions. What kind of utterly incompetent dick had left a wildly kicking and screaming woman with her knifes still attached to her belt? What did Max mean when she’d said The Elements? Certainly her dark-eyed friend, correction: acquaintance, was a mage, but was she a defier too? If that were the case, he should’ve sensed something, shouldn’t he? But then he reminded himself he hadn’t been capable of reaching either of his sparks here. Wards, he thought to himself. Or maybe something else…

His eyes narrowed to mere slits, smaller even than the tiny crack between the aging stone that let a thin ray of light into the holding room.

How? How had Blackwood summoned her magic as easily as taking a breath while he had been mercilessly cut off from his sparks? It seemed careless of the Lightning Twats to not shield against the most suitable magic for prison breaks: rupturing. He didn’t need attunement to recognize that particular magic. Zipper had made certain of that when she’d lectured him for the gazillionth time how Robin had raped, her words, not his, the absolute worst possible magic into him after which she tended to rattle off the entire list of all possible magics including their trademark signs.

He supposed it’d been educational in a way.

Knowing just how vicious Maxine could get, he still decided against keeping an eye on her and instead trained his gaze firmly on the special assistant. She couldn’t be trusted. The way she’d freed him. Had she winked at him just before she’d removed his chain? Did she know he was a mage to? Or maybe she was just trying to get a rise out of him?

“Hang on,” he piped up just before Max could, as was her style, kick the door of its hinges and cause an unparalleled ruckus. He figured it wouldn’t do much to stop them, but he put himself between the two irritable women and the exit anyway. “What do I do? Stroll after you two? Jump out a window? Provide commentary as we casually walk through entire fucking keep stuffed to the brim with big dicks in armour?” His chest heaved from how fast he’d blurted those words out, knowing all too well how limited his time and their patience was.

“It might work better if you take me,” he breathed. “Hostage, I mean. Two crazy women on their period taking a-" He stopped there before either of them decided they'd kick the door and him in. "Point being,” his eyes turned firmly to Max now. “No one in their right mind wants to be responsible for the death of a kid, wouldn’t you agree? ”

[Sephira]

A frown creased her face when Max mentioned the letter. Maybe it had been foolish to give up one of her best bargaining chips to get the convict out of her predicament. To Sephira it had been worth it in order to keep her team intact. They weren't even in Rynmere yet and already the mission was in jeopardy.

However Max’s plan for remedying the issue was something that elicited an eye roll from the Special Assistant.

“A loose screw...seriously.” The dark eyed mage looked at the ex-convict with a flat unamused expression. Did she even look like someone who might be caught off guard by a carpentry implement? Sephira scoffed before reached to her side with a gloved hand to remove the ribbon tied around her saber’s hilt.

There was a subtle hiss of metal against the sheath as she drew Wyvern, it’s polished brass hilt gleamed in the glow of the oil lantern that illuminated the cell. There was a slender dragon that was woven into the basket hilt with sweeping extended wings. The last time Max had been given a close look at the sword was when the soldier had been holding it to her during the riot...right before her arrest.

“Luckily for you this room is at least marginally warded against my magic. I can’t just portal us out. But if we are going with your plan.” she hefted the blade before flipping around in a smooth motion so the hilt was facing Maxine.

“We can at least make it look good.”


There was a strange moment that passed between the pair. Perhaps it was a brief instance of shared irony, or maybe it was nothing at all. Rather than worrying about it Sephira refocused her eyes to settle on the door that was their exit from the cell.

“Down this hall there is a door that leads to a suite of offices on the second floor. I saw them as I came into the Keep. I doubt they are warded. We can get inside, barricade the door and I’ll hopefully be able to rupture us out.” The soldier was a fairly decent tactician but being trapped in a building she wasn't terribly familiar with was not helping. Using the clerical offices on the second floor would be their best option from where she was standing.

Sephira pushed her fingers to her temples as if she was trying to push away a headache before she continued. “There are less eyes that will see us on the way there, so we can minimize the chance of you two being recaptured. Hopefully we can get out without too much attention on us.”

False confidence went a long way when it came to leadership, at least from what Sephira had learned. What they were about to do was risky and perhaps needlessly so. But at the moment it was the best that the trio had.

At that moment Finn interjected and Sephira turned toward him with a subtly quirked brow. He was an oddity for someone so young, and clearly quite accustomed to hanging around strange women going by his...choice of language.

“Hopefully you can act better that I can.” Sephira commented dryly, confirming that he would be playing a part. Acting was far from the Element's forte, so Finn would likely be forced to carry the show along with Maxine.

Dialogue|Thoughts