Rheagn's Fairy Circle

Heat pulsed through her body, bright light searing into her eyes as they fluttered open. The female raised an arm to shade them but quickly realized both pairs of her wrists were bound. She swiftly sat up, inspecting the binding at her wrists and found her ankles bound as well. With a growl, she tugged with her teeth at the green colored material around her top set of wrists. 

But quickly she pulled her mouth away in curious surprise. Her tongue was left tasting of fish, salt, and perhaps a sort of plant, adding a little sweetness to the ensemble. It seemed as though this binding was just as resistant as the netting had been. She’d never really tasted the netting, though. 

Then she realized she was sat upon a metal disc. Hovering in the air.

Fascinated, she squirmed to the edge of the disc and hung her head over so her hair hung down to the floor. The metal design was the same as it was on the topside, spiraling inward towards a fist sized circle in the center. Except… a green slug? What was that thing?

Squirming to hang off the edge more, she ducked her head farther beneath the disc. She tried to reach with her top set of plant-bound hands but quickly realized how unstable she was. She sat up and secured a firm grip using her second set of bound hands on a spiraled edge. Then she hooked the tops of her feet on the edge behind her. With a drop and a swing, she was almost entirely underneath the disc. She stretched her top set of hands out towards the unidentified green object, brushing it with her fingertips.

But before she knew it, her feet were slipping from the edge and there was only a short fall before her body was slamming onto the unforgiving canyon floor. The female let out a low growl of frustration.

And not far, the rumble of a deep chuckle echoed her. 

Snapping her head up towards the sound, she found the Ronin perched at the edge of a stream only a few steps away. His hands were busy, cleaning off the mesh of green netting, but those dark eyes… 

Were on her. Watching.

Those eyes were as black as the fabric he wore as they pierced her. He was still dressed from top of the neck to his feet in dark fabric, but his uncovered face jarred her. Tanned skin glowed in the sunlight and brown hair sprouted and spiked haphazardly around his face. His features were slim, with a straight nose which slanted at the same angle as his jawline. Her eyes flitted from his sharp jaw to the pointed tip of each ear and the two rings – of what appeared to be some viridian colored crystal – around the edge of his left ear.

The word handsome came to mind but she wasn’t entirely sure she knew the word’s meaning. The Ronin only looked back to his netting, scrubbing and dipping into the rushing stream.

“Did you have a nice sleep?” asked the Ronin. He spoke without looking at her.

The female only replied with a growl before sitting up and going back to her wrist binding with her teeth. 

“I wouldn’t waste your energy. You’ll have as much luck with that as you did with this netting.” The Ronin held the netting up from the stream for emphasis. “This material nullifies your strength. The harder you tug, the weaker it makes you. It’s a losing battle in itself.”

She went to bring out her needles, intent on ripping the binding apart. Surely there was a way to get this off. But before they were even out, the needles hit something solid, leaving a loud ting sound ringing through the canyon. Looking down in surprise, she found herself wearing a crimson breastplate, which covered the length of her entire torso and up her neck slightly. The Ronin had thought of everything.

A shriek of frustration left her lips. The armor, this damned twine. She was trapped. Entirely trapped. Her body began to thrash on instinct. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

The Ronin was in front of her in moments, his brow creased deep with concern.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” The Ronin’s eyes were scanning her frantically, trying to find the problem. 

The female couldn’t reply. She was writhing against a great force building within her, prickling against her skin like it was clawing for escape. Everything raged within and the force became so unbearable she was screaming. She wanted to claw at her skin, needed her skin to be taken off. Where was the Ronin’s net when one really needed it?

Suddenly, her body was laid out on the cold canyon floor and both pairs of arms were over her head, her torso open and entirely vulnerable. Her thrashing was halted by the Ronin on top of her, pinning her hips and legs down. He was also the one pinning her arms above her head. She let out the most vicious combo between a war cry and a growl. 

The Ronin didn’t even flinch. He was focused intently on her.

“Breathe. You need to take a breath.” His voice was calm but firm. Insistent. But he didn’t let up, so neither did she. She continued her onslaught of flailing against the Ronin, her throat practically raw from screaming. But as the Ronin kept her restrained, it seemed to only aggravate her more; only added to the unbearable force.

“The easiest way to calm your system is to breathe,” the Ronin remained with his calm tone, entirely unfazed by her fight against him. “I know what you’re feeling and I know it feels unbearable, but you have to focus on your breathing. Kitt, look at me.”

Suddenly everything stopped. 

The Ronin was left staring at her wide eyed, as if surprised by what he’d just said. The female stopped her assault upon him; even the force which had been building within halted all together. Everything around them was gone and suddenly, she felt as if they were free falling.

Falling through the atmosphere, constellations and colorful celestial bodies shooting by them. Pain seared down the female’s spine and radiated throughout her entire body like birds scratching at her insides. Her back arched on instinct and she cried out in pain. The Ronin held onto her, but the pain only continued, latching onto her limbs. Every muscle in her body seemed to be fighting itself, so much tension pressing into her. They were a crashing meteor and she was burning up…

Then, there was air. Pure and sweet. The armor piece constraining her was suddenly gone and with it, came deep breaths and relief prickling through her body. As if with every exhale, the air carried a small piece of the pain with it. She was finally breathing and…

And the Ronin was there too, hands cupping her face to meet his eyes. His hands were rough against her cheeks, covered in callouses.

“There ya go. Deep breaths, now.” He was coaxing her, matching her breaths with his own deep inhales and long exhales. They remained there, breathing, for a long while.

Slowly, as she began to catch her breath, the Ronin moved his hands from her face to her top wrist bindings. There was a small burst of warmth around her wrists; nothing near the searing pain she’d felt just a moment earlier. Then, the same on her second wrist bindings; more warmth before he was on to her ankles. 

But before that final flash of warmth, the Ronin paused and met her eyes once more. 

“I will free you from your bindings, but only if you agree to this arrangement. A peaceful alliance,” the Ronin’s tone was deadly. “I’ve seen your skills. Know how you’ll attack. However, I can assure you, no matter how fast you are, no matter how much rage flows through your blood, I would be the one to prevail. This, I know.”

“But if we work together. I can show you my ways and you show me yours. I could not know exactly what will prevail, but what I do know is we’ll stay alive a lot longer if we stay together. This land can be quite unforgiving to,” he paused a moment as if to think of the word he wanted to use next, “newcomers, such as yourself. Though this may come as a surprise to you, I’m not the biggest threat you’ll find around here.”

His words only hung in the air between them. The Ronin had even ended his last line with a slightly upturned mouth, in an attempt to smile. But even that small smile had been long gone before she spurred her reply. 

“Who are you?” The female felt entirely overwhelmed. Between that attack from within, this proposed arrangement, and the Ronin triggering some vision of…

She wasn’t entirely sure what that vision had been nor if the pain had triggered the vision or if the Ronin had. He had called her something. A name, perhaps?

“My name is Li,” he replied. He tried another one of those small smiles but it vanished as quickly as the first one had. “Do you have a name?”

“You called me a name already. What was it?” She was demanding in her question.

Suddenly, Li appeared rather uncomfortable. Perhaps, embarrassed? Then, he pointed to a wrap of seaweed just above her ankle.

“Do you remember a marking on your leg here?” he asked. “Or remember getting the marking at all?

Reading the confusion on her face, the Ronin gently pulled the seaweed wrap down, revealing a small, black marking. She leaned forward swiftly in fascination and inspected the marking closely. Li backed away but only slightly. Giving her just enough space to observe the marking herself.

Sure enough, just as he’d said, there was a small word marked into her skin. ‘KITT’.

When she tried to wipe it off, there was no luck. She continued to rub at the spot, even began clawing at it. She needed this marking to go away.

Li’s hand was there though, causing her pause.

“It’s not going to come off like that. This ink,” he used his fingers to gently stretch and pinch the skin around the marking, “is embedded into your flesh. So deep, only Aeona herself could remove the ink entirely. However, Aeona’s gift of time can cause it to fade slowly. But there’s no removing the marking as of right now.”

“Where is that netting.” She wasn’t asking, but commanding him to tell her.

Li only stared at her, knowingly.

“We’re not skinning your leg over one small tattoo,” he said, that small smile appearing once more. He pulled the seaweed wrap back over the marking and tightened the knot around her ankle. “Look, we can just ignore it. Call you something different. Anything you want.”

The female thought for a moment. What would her name even be? When thinking of names to give herself, all she could think of were the two she’d already heard herself be called. One by the now-dead male, though she’d felt flush with rage when he’d called her ‘Bluey’, and now one by the Ronin. And though the marking bothered her immensely, if there was truly nothing to be done then why not embrace the better of the two.

“Kitt is… fine.”

Li seemed slightly apprehensive but he only nodded. “And we have an agreement? A peaceful alliance?”

Kitt took another moment. She had no desire to kill this male – not as there had been for that group of males she’d taken down. Though, she had no more desire to aid him with any endeavors either. Unless, maybe, there was something in it for her.

“Yes. But I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me anything.”

“Well, I’d slightly disagree with you there. Though, I wouldn’t necessarily say you owe me, I was the one who saved you from Jakul.” A growl rippled towards him with the mention of ‘saving’. Li only put his hands up in surrender. “But if that’s the way you see it and we can agree on peace, then I’ll take it. My people were never big on keeping score anyways.”

Then, there was a flash of warmth around her ankles but this time, Kitt was able to watch how the Ronin had been taking off these knots. He’d been burning them off. He seemed to be harnessing energy from a stone strapped to the back of his left hand, carved with a rune she didn’t know. The rune glowed brilliant red as Li added sparks to the knots using just the touch of his finger. The spark stayed on the ties like a track, zipping around her ankles and consuming the plant binding entirely. 

But with her limbs now freed, Kitt rolled back and got to her feet as quickly as she could. She desperately needed space from the Ronin. 

He only disregarded her, stepping over to the discarded piece of armor. He’d thrown the crimson piece a decent stretch away from them after he’d taken it off.

Kitt watched him, untrusting. She didn’t want him to stick the piece on her again, unknowingly. She didn’t like how trapped she’d felt, how her needles couldn’t breathe. With that thought, she brought her needles out fully, their sharp points turned downwards at the canyon floor.

She inhaled deep, finally feeling like she could take a full breath. The air was arid, so dry she almost choked out her exhale. There was a longing inside of her, which grew with every breath. But when she tried to go deeper, tried to feel into why that feeling was stirring inside, there was nothing. Everything in her mind, every thought which ran wild before went blank. Just as it had before the fight. It was as if depending on where her thoughts explored, she would find gaps. Voids within her mind, where no thought could exist. She didn’t want to wonder why or how these voids existed inside her mind. A small part of her feared those moments of vacancy. Those void states were like stepping into a freefall, where she had no control and was entirely consumed by the nothingness.

Kitt was snapped back to reality by the Ronin, standing only a pace away and holding the crimson armor piece up to her. As if in question.

She snapped her teeth at him and brought her needles up, so the points were only breaths away from the Ronin’s throat. 

“You will not,” she growled at him. But Li kept the piece up, still in question to her.

“You may not like it now, but trust me, you’ll want it where we’re going,” he said. He took a small step towards her, careful of her needles. She brought those points closer to his flesh, a hair away from ripping him open.

“I don’t need armor,” she insisted between bared teeth.

Finally putting the piece down, Li only returned to his spot by the stream.

“Have it your way. I’ll only offer it up once.” He crouched down to where he’d left his things and after a strange moment of staring at the piece, he slid it into a black leather pack. “You can have those things out but don’t go pointing them at me. A peaceful alliance, remember?”

Kitt brought her needles to point back down, a twinge of disgust in her chest as she obeyed. She wanted to be the one in control, but Li had made it quite obvious, she was not the leader of their alliance. She wanted to mend that. Take back some control over this situation.

But before she could say anything, there was leather flying towards her. She caught the object with ease and examined what Li had thrown at her. It was a pack just like his, but this one was smaller and had an orange hue to the leather; whereas the Ronin’s was a much darker leather, blending in with his shadow illusion.

“You might find yourself wanting to keep items or weapons or food with you as we travel. We’ll get frustrated with each other much faster if we share a pack of belongings,” Li said as he strapped his own pack to his shoulders. “I’ve put a couple of items in there to start you out, but use or toss things at your will. We’re going to be traveling as often as we can and heavy packs only slow us down.”

Li was making his way to the floating metal disc as he spoke. With a click on the underside of the mechanism, the large disc began to spin in place. As it spun, the disc became smaller and smaller, before coming to a rest on the canyon floor. The disc now shrunken to the size of her fist, Li retrieved it and reached back to slide the mechanism inside of his pack.

“This is only when heavy loads are absolutely necessary. The bigger the load, the more vulnerable you seem to any passerby,” Li explained.

Kitt nodded and took the opportunity to look inside her new pack. She found a few jerky strips and one crushed ivory lily. Tas the lilies she’d seen on the Ronin’s hip. She was tempted to throw it out but then, she remembered Li had used the lilies as a weapon, putting her to sleep with a whiff of that honey sweet scent. 

Li went to the rock wall closest to him, which was now adorned with the netting, and carefully took the green material from the rock and began folding it. He must’ve hung up his netting on one of the canyon walls whilst she’d been having her moment, because she did not remember the netting hanging there before now. He’d been soaking it the entire time they spoke and he’d no doubt been washing it long before she’d awoken. Yet somehow, the netting was completely dry.

Reading her confusion, Li explained further.

“This material is native to my home lands. More like islands, actually. Anyways, we would call it sea twine because it looked a lot like seaweed but acted more like twine. Even with those two similarities, this material is so unique it’s like Morje designed it just for  herself when she roamed these stars.” Li was smiling as he finished folding the net and clipped it to his belt. “The material dries faster than any material or fabric in this world. And though we called it twine, the material is actually quite soft. I always imagined Morje sewing herself dresses from spools and spools of this stuff. She could swim comfortably for however long she wanted in her vast sea of stars. But when she was ready to be dry, it could be in an instant.”

“If the twine is ‘actually quite soft’, then how did you skin a male with a netting made entirely of said material?” Kitt asked. It was the most she’d said since… 

Another feeling of falling. Another void stretching within her mind.

“A magician can’t reveal all of his tricks to his apprentice. Especially not on the first day,” Li answered, entirely unaware of the blank state she’d entered. “Anyways, we need to get moving. I want eyes on their doorstep by sunset.”

In a blink, her mind was back to the present moment. And she was wondering where they were going and what the Ronin was talking about.

“You never told me where we were going. Or what we’re doing when we get there,” Kitt snapped. This peaceful alliance was only going to last for so long if he continued to leave out information. Like she was some sort of pet.

“Right. Apologies,” Li sighed. “I enjoy traveling with others but in earnest, there are few people who can travel and tolerate me at the same time. Trust me now when I say I’m working on it.”

“But,” Li gestured, “I saw how you took down those pirates. Watched you enjoy it. That was only twenty or so males. All pirates in their own right. Now imagine with me, how you’d feel entering an entire base of pirates? Pirates we will no doubt be catching by surprise and will be very violent at the sight of us.”

A wide grin split Kitt’s face in half. Perhaps teaming up with the Ronin wouldn’t be as bad as she’d thought.