Runesight

5 - Aulous

--- Aymiae, twenty-one years ago ---

The world passed behind the ship, steady and calm despite the way it still gnawed at Aymi's stomach, even after two months at sea hopping between islands. Raan would always track her down whenever the sea sickness got bad, he was nice to be around, he was like a little brother in some ways. She showed him how to 'act fancy' as he put it, how to write in a way that people would pay for, and how to barter for payments.

Raan was an eager student, and after some prodding he reluctantly revealed his three affinities to her, one being empathy, which a lot of men apparently thought was girly. Aymi understood why they would think that, but that didn't make them any less wrong. The imprint was based entirely on random chance.

Eventually as time steadily passed, Aymi spotted land in the distance. Finally.

She felt in her pocket and pulled out the package the strange Pitten had given her. She'd long since disappeared, leaving them to pick up a new fish person at the next port. Aymi had asked the new one about the package but he had no idea and tried to explain some politics of the sea cities instead.

Well, she was almost to her destination. She held it though, thinking as the land slowly became larger and the sailors around her started frantically preparing for port. The first few times she'd tried to help out the sailors, but that just got her yelled at by the captain.

Once the land was only an hour or so away, Aymi retreated to her cabin with the package, deciding this could be something sensitive. She tore at the paper and eventually came out with a small wooden box, intricately carved with scenes from myth. Gium shaping the magic of the world, the eight types he sorted them into, the uneven scrambling of the affinities that went with those.

It was beautiful. She took a moment to appreciate it, but she did notice a large dent in one side that partially ruined the experience. Humming, Aymi opened the box and stared at the thing inside. It was a black pendant, the shape was strange with two long spikes jutting out of the central mass, there was a third spike but someone had snapped it off. Considering Aymi had no idea what kind of metal this was, that could have been very easy or very difficult to do.

She picked it up hesitantly and nearly hurled it across the room when a voice spoke in her mind.

'Hello there, little tuvei. I am called the Whisper. By right of the laws of the go'lir, you have defeated me. I am now in your power.'

--

"Aymi, could you get me more planks for this part?" She perked up at her name, glancing toward Raan who knelt beside the half finished repair job, juggling nails in one hand while another held the hammer and a third supported -if weakly- the plank he was affixing to the hole.

The wall still had an enormous gap in it, but it was getting steadily smaller by the hour. His stack of planks was also decreasing and Aymi agreed that it wouldn't last through the rest of the wall "Of course." She stood up without hesitation from where she'd been stapling the picture frame back together and sorting through the various wood chips for a missing piece.

Aymi stretched a bit and nabbed her purse from the chair on her way out just in case they would let her pay for the wood this time. The men across the street were all pulling a different wall up, though that building hadn't had any remaining after the disaster. She waved at the overseer for that building and started down the ruined street where a couple of kids were already gathering piles of rocks for the men fixing the road.

As she passed through the quickly recovering town, Aymiae couldn't help but wonder if these attacks would just get worse over the next few years. True, she'd just been passing through with Raan, both of them were out of money at this point and surviving off odd jobs, monster slaying, and occasionally the generosity of the locals.