Ranger of the North wrote:Ooh, I really liked that chapter; the suspense... the emotion... LOVE IT. <3
Hahaha. And yes, real Rico XP
A:N Yay! I enjoyed writing the chapter! Emotions and suspense are two of my favorite things to write.
It's been FOREVER, but here's Chapter ThreeAiden stood, dumbfounded at the girl standing before him. He stared at her hand with the sort of look that could very easily be mistaken for confusion. She chuckled lightly upon noticing his expression.
“Errrrr… do you know how to shake hands?”
“Oh!”
Aiden spluttered awkwardly and then took her hand. He was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that his palms were still tear-streaked and clammy, and her pulled his hands way from hers, awkwardly wiping them on his pajama pants.
I must look ridiculous.
“So, uh, what’s your name?”
“Dulcie. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
The conversation ended awkwardly, and Aiden shuffled his feet while staring at his feet.
“Why did you stay, by the way? Everybody else left.”
“Rico asked my brother and I to introduce you to The Ravens. He figured it’d be a good idea for two people who were in… a similar situation, and clearly remember the feeling of being new, and were close in age to introduce you. I’m not sure if that sentence made much sense,”
“You have a brother?”
“Oh, yeah! His name is Pollux, we’re twins. I think you’ll like him. Sorry, am I rambling?”
“You’re fine, don’t worry.”
Dulcie smiled warmly, but there was a tinge of awkwardness there, too. She averted her gaze, gave Aiden a trembling smile, and it was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one in the room feeling a bit awkward.
After a bit, the silence started to nag Aiden and he said the first thing his mind conjured up.
“So… how often do new people arrive? From what I can see, this place doesn’t look like it could come close to holding a full fighting force, or even half of one.”
Dulcie cringed. “Agh. Don’t remind me. We don’t get new members a lot. We got more back in the beginning, with new members bringing in relatives and friends, but eventually, every relative and friend was brought in, and it’s not like we can just waltz up to anybody on the street and suggest they join us. We have enough room, though. We have dorms, not individual rooms.”
Aiden nodded in understanding, when another thought hit him.
“What if you run out of room?”
“Doubt it. We have a lot of room left. If we ever run out, we’ll make new rooms. As for hollowing them out into the shape and size we want… I honestly don’t know, sorry. I think there’s something magical or whatever involved. A wizard did it, I don’t know. Pollux should be here soon”
The awkward silence returned, and Aiden stared at his feet, acting as if he were admiring the dirty floor.
Somebody save me, somebody save me.
His pleas were answered, and the door opened with an audible shriek of old hinges.
Dulcie seemed just as glad as Aiden to be brought out of the awkward air, and cheerfully started to talk again.
“Speak of the de- dammit, you’re not Pollux.”
Rico closed the door, which shrieked so loudly a banshee would be jealous, and chuckled good-naturedly.
“Well, no, I’m pretty sure that I’m not.”
Dulcie rolled her eyes, her blush vivid on her pale skin.
“Anyways, Pollux got a bit held up with one of his projects. He’ll be here pretty quickly though. Dulcie, could you try being a bit nicer to Curtis?”
“He’s an arse and you know it.”
“He is impulsive and he sometimes says things without thinking, but he’s a member of the Ravens and you should try to get along with him. We don’t have time for infighting, alright?”
Dulcie nodded, pursing her lips, clearly holding back another comment.
Rico turned and left, shutting the door behind him.
Dulcie resumed her intense staring contest with the floor, wrapping her arms around her body and shifting back and forth.
The door opened again, this time slower. The shriek was less intense, but longer.
As soon as Aiden saw the face of the person who had opened the door, he knew it was Pollux. The boy looked around their age, and had very similar facial structure to Dulcie, with high cheekbones and a sharp chin. His eyes were the colour of polished jade, and his light ginger hair was neatly combed and parted. His freckles were more prominent than Dulcie’s, but there were less of them.
He seemed to be out of breath, panting as he braced himself against the wall. His long, dark blue jacket was slipping off his shoulders, and one of the shoulders of his shirt was tugged down. His jeans were torn, and one of his black boots was half off. He clutched a large, black, overstuffed briefcase to his chest, pinning it there as if the papers were about to fly out. That wasn’t as unlikely as it seemed, Aiden noted, as the boy- Pollux, scrambled to grab a paper that had just fallen.
“I’m sorry I’m so late getting here. I was in the aviary, just measuring the wingspan of the ravens there, and they attacked me! Can you imagine that.”
“Quite well, actually.”
“Oh, and the average wingspan was way bigger than it should’ve been. I really think that there’s something different about these birds, Dulcie!”
“Yeah yeah, talk to the newbie like you’re supposed to.”
A sheepish look crossed Pollux’s face and he dropped to his knees to stuff his papers back into his briefcase and then spent a solid minute zipping it back up.
“I’m sorry for the odd entrance,” Pollux said, extending his hand in greeting. “I’m Pollux, glad to meet you.”
Aiden nodded politely and shook Pollux’s hand, silently thanking himself for not stalling awkwardly.
Pollux sat down, discretely tugging up his light blue shirt and smoothing his jacket out, and pulled his boot back on.
“Alright. So, fire away with any questions you’ve got.”
“Okay, I’ve got a few. First off - Rico seems really young to be leader. As in, young enough to be my brother.”
Although he didn’t phrase it as a question exactly, Pollux still responded.
“His father was the leader of The Ravens, but he died abruptly. Rico wanted to make Bryson, the second-in-command at the time, the leader, the rule we have is that the current leader’s eldest child takes over, or the second-in command if there isn't an eldest child, or they’re too young. For the first little bit, Bryson did pretty much ran The Ravens, while coaching Rico through his loss and being a leader, but about… ten months ago? Rico took over the position. Bryson is still a big part in all of Rico’s decisions.”
Aiden nodded slowly. That makes sense.
It only took a moment for his next question to strike him.
“What would happen if somebody reported me missing? The Catago would figure out where The Ravens have gone, right?”
Dulcie shook her head.
“Nope. We’ve got double agents here, people who feign working with The Catago in order to get access to the files and delete Ravens from them.”
Something about Dulcie’s statement nagged Aiden. It was all clean and orderly, but there was something… off about it that Aiden couldn't quite place.
He shrugged it off and moved on.
“How do the ravens track people down? They shouldn’t be able to just find anybody without knowing exactly where they are and who they are.”
Pollux’s eyes lit up at Aiden’s comment.
“I have reason to believe that there’s something different about the ravens here. In fact, they may not even be ravens. They fly longer without flapping their wings, fly faster, have longer wingspans, have extremely high intelligence… but unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how they’re able to track people down.”
Dulcie patted her brother on the shoulder.
“Shush. Don’t bore the newbie to death.”
Pollux blushed and averted his gaze, mumbling something that Aiden didn’t quite catch.
Dulcie leaned forward.
“Do you mind if we ask you a couple questions, so long as you don’t have any more to ask?”
“I don’t. Ask away.”
Dulcie looked uncomfortable as she asked her question.
“So… you were in an orphanage before here, yeah? Since when?”
Aiden inhaled sharply.
“I dunno… since I was two?”
Dulcie nodded slowly.
“Okay… why weren’t you adopted? Little kids get adopted faster, don’t they.”
Aiden shrugged.
“I guess orphanage isn’t actually the right word. Our caretaker, Ada, pretty much just takes in kids and raises them.”
“Oh.” Dulcie nodded, understanding. “So it’s more like she adopts you?”
“I guess so.”
There was a brief, awkward pause before Dulcie spoke again.
“I’m sorry about Curtis. He’s not all bad, he just… says stuff without thinking it through properly.”
Pollux bolted upright from his relaxed position.
“Now that I’m thinking about it, Dulcie and Curtis are similar. They’re both impulsive, they both say things that they don’t mean, they both-”
Dulcie clamped a hand over her brother’s mouth.
“Okay, that’s enough about the similarities between me and that douche. He’s okay, but not that okay.”
The door swung open with another loud squeal, and Aiden flinched as Rico entered the room, leaving the door open.
“Hey. Wrapped up your questions yet?”
The trio nodded.
Rico smiled.
“Good. Have you told Aiden about our tradition yet?”
Pollux shook his head.
“Nope. Sorry, were we supposed to?
Rico shrugged.
“Doesn’t really matter either way, don’t worry about it. Anyway, Aiden, what I usually do is take each member out to get some new clothes, food, and anything relatively cheap that they want.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“Why?”
Immediately after speaking, he recoiled. That must’ve sounded rude. Rico was doing something nice and now he’d screwed it up. He opened his mouth to apologise, but Rico cut him off.
“No. It’s alright, I understand your confusion. The reason…”
Rico faltered, trailing off as if he didn’t want to finish his sentence.
“I don’t know how much longer all this will go on for. I don’t know when you, or when any of us will get the chance to do normal things again. I take new members out for one last normal day. It’s the last one they’ll be having for who knows how long.”
Aiden gulped.
“Okay. Do we go now?”
Rico nodded, and motioned for Aiden to stand.
“We’ll get food from somewhere, then you can get clothes and a haircut if you want?”
Aiden nodded, walking beside Rico out of the room, turning to wave goodbye at Pollux and Dulcie as the door closed.
“That’d be great, thanks.”
“Then come on, we can use the ladder this time.”
The restaurant they eventually decided to go to was nothing special, although the rice and chicken that Aiden got was pretty good. The two walked in silence for a short while until they reached a barber’s shop.
Aiden got his hair cut a bit shorter than it was before. It had been long and tangled earlier, but he was used to it being long, so he kept it chin length. It took a few washes to get all the grime and tangles out, but once the barber was done, it was still naturally curly, bouncing back in place whenever he pressed a lock down.
He bought eight simple shirts and pants, two pairs of shoes, three pajama sets, and three jackets. Aiden planned to do his laundry every week, and he figured that those clothes would be enough for a while, at least until he started to outgrow them or had to do his laundry less often for whatever reason.
Aiden still wasn’t… the most comfortable with the man walking beside him, and he hid his face behind his bag of clothes.
Eventually, the awkward silence started getting to him, and he cleared his throat.
“So, do you-”
He never got to finish his sentence, as somebody zipped out of the crowd and bowled into Rico, knocking him over.
Aiden leapt back in shock as Rico struggled to his feet, trying to push the other an off him while also avoiding the knife they held.
The blade the other man held was short, broad, and jagged, the grip being simple, black leather. The knife’s crossguard was long, thick, and completely straight, so that it didn’t slip at all.
There were a hodgepodge of deep black symbols crudely
etched into the side of the blade, as if scratched into the metal by a piece of charcoal.
And Rico was currently avoiding being skewered by the razor-sharp tip of that decorated blade.
Aiden hovered off to the side, pulling his collar up and over his mouth. He had no idea what to do - hide? Help? Run?
Eventually, the world took pity on them and Rico got the upper hand, throwing the other man to the ground and stepping on his chest.
With a huff of what seemed less like exhaustion and more like annoyance, Rico leant down and picked up the knife.
“Hmm. Nice weapon, poor user.”
“H-hey! That’s a family heirloom! Give that back!”
“A family heirloom that you just tried to kill me with. I’ll be keeping it, thanks.”
The man pulled himself to his feet and glowered after them as Rico and Aiden speed walked down the street, though he couldn’t chase after them thanks to his weakened state.
“Will he be a problem?” Aiden asked, his voice trembling and going up and down octaves.
Rico shook his head and smiled.
“Nah. He was just some lowly Catago operative who wanted to get in with his leader by killing me. I’ve faced tons of guys like that, and none of them have ever been problems.”
“Oh, okay. That’s good, then?”
They walked in silence for a few more moments as a dark thought struck Aiden.
“Uh… will one of them attack me?”
“No! Of course not. Not yet, at least. You’ll be properly trained before you go out into the field. Don’t worry, you won’t run into one of them yet.”
“What’s training like?”
“It depends on the instructor and the class. You’ll see. Anyway, here we are.”
Rico swung open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door and made his way to the center of the mosaic, lifting up the tile to reveal the drop down.
Down he went, and Aiden quickly followed, shutting the tile behind him.
“Your first class is right now. Down that hallway, at the very end.”
With a thankful nod, Aiden set his stuff by the wall to move later, and made his way down the hall.
What will training be like?
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