⚫ When I Dive ⚫ - LU: Jun 23 [crits welcome]

[alliant]

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Chapter Four: Poop, Blood, and Other Substances

I cough sharply as I take a deep, accidental whiff of the manure I'm shoveling into the garden. In a huge fit of irony, it's the same manure I hid out in while I waited for Matron to leave after the staircase. Behind me, I'm all too aware of Indigo, his huge, brawny form rising up over the huge stalks of sunflower on the horizon. Dark hair sweeps across his face, blocking his eyes entirely from view. He makes no movements, just pushing and pulling on the hoe as he destroys the dirt beneath his feet. What I assume are his eyes never leave my face, not for the entire time he’s there.

Matron makes her rounds among us, checking up that everyone is doing their proper jobs. Mona isn’t here today, all she asked was for me to cover for her as she went and did something by herself. Before Tyerel’s reveal, I’d do it gladly with no questioning. After all, she covers for me all the time, especially when I go on Wardrobe missions. But now… now I’m skeptical. It’d be easy enough to follow her tracks, she never properly hides them in the dusty orphanage-mansion, and I owe her nothing. All I have to do is get out of shoveling this freakin’ manure and I’m golden.

I scan everywhere, looking for something, anything, that’ll get me out of this. My gaze lands on Larse, with the huge scar marring his face and his carrot hair blowing gently in the wind. Sunlight glances off his shining dark blue eyes, with tiny green dots around the centers. He’s the perfect, innocent target. And he feels almost no pain. This’ll be like a walk in the park. I pretend to stretch, yawning, and wind the shovel back. It flies through the air perfectly and cuts through his shoulder like it’s made of cheese. Well, rat tails. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Regret and guilt course through me as I watch him fall in slow motion, his tunic staining red as he goes down. Immediately, Matron drops everything she’s doing and rushes over, anger flushing to her cheeks. She doesn’t care if a kid bleeds out, but if it’s the kid with the scar, people will start to talk. We all have our ways out of things. I can cry on command. Larse has his face. Mona is “an asset” with her Atomagic and lungs. Indigo- what is Indigo’s thing, anyways? How has he not been killed accidently yet?

“Larse. Pain?” Matron asks, her face redder than an overripe tomato. He staggers to his feet and my stomach lurches at the sight of his shoulder. It’s completely soaked through, and looks like his tunic was dyed with cranberry for the Fête de Corday. Larse grabs a handful of Matron’s apron to steady himself, and rips a huge sheet from his tunic, revealing the shoulder itself. It’s raw and red and the shine of muscle just gleams from below. He shakes his head to Matron’s question, and just replies, “Nah.” The smaller children are all gathered around, wide-eyed, mouths frozen in shock. A young, little boy by the name of Rel’s crowded especially close, a bandage still wrapped around his knee. He hyperextended it trying to run from Indigo’s antics a few weeks ago and all we could hear were his cries. That boy’s going to need to toughen up if he’s going to survive life in a war orphanage, and eventually, in direct war with the Valyn.

“Who did it, Larse?” The sharp demand by Matron makes me freeze. If Larse doesn’t rat me out or didn’t see me, Matron’ll have to take him up to get medical care, and that’ll give me an oppurtunity to bribe the kids who rat and get off to find Mona. I snitched a few extra glazed rolls from the kitchen this morning just in case. As it turns out, the tattling younger children adore glazed rolls. We riskier tenants refer to as “The Tattlers”, “Snitches”, or, my personal favorite, “Bribees”.
Larse opens his mouth, and then falls. His knees give out from under him and he tumbles down. As Matron extends a hand to help, his he locks eyes with me and raises an eyebrow. I give him a single desperate look, which I hope translates extactly how much I need to get away, and the greens of his eyes seem to flash.

Matron assists him up and repeats her question. I’m the only one who spots him glance to Indigo for a fraction of a second. I’m the only one who sees Indigo’s tiny nod and the glimpse of his pearly white teeth. I’m the only one who seems him carefully lay the hoe down inconspicuously yet quickly at an angle that makes it look as if it belongs to the small girl next to him, who’s quavering in fear of his enourmous frame. I’m the only one who seems his muscles tense up, his heels leave the ground as he leans forwards, and his gaze land on one of the massive trees surrounding the garden. “Indigo.” Larse says quietly, dropping his head and tilting his shoulder just barely towards Indigo. He leans his head back just a tad, too, so his scar is fully visible in the sunlight. Matron’s furious gaze lands on Indigo, and the second it does, he runs.

I’ve never seen a human being run so fast. He sprints like a gazelle despite his massive form and in seconds he’s in the tree. Larse locks eyes on me, and grabs for something in a pocket of his tunic. He comes out holding two things: a roll of swab bandage and a handful of glazed rolls. Pressing the swab gently to his shoulder, he moves carefully among the children as they gape at him, passing the pasties to the Bribees. His lips form one word: LATER. I shoot him an eternally grateful glance and, with one last pang of regret, tear towards the building at high speed. I have to find Mona. I also have to mentally prepare myself for whatever Larse wants. He’s notorious for asking enourmous prices for his work. Then again, I did chuck a shovel into the man’s shoulder. He has that right.

[alliant]

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I slip away into the orphanage and the first thing I see, the very first thing, is a footprint, pressed into the dust, missing the second toe. Mona lost it in a fight with an older tenant when she was seven, according to legend. They hated each other because Mona always, always managed to shirk chores and such for Atomagic practice and the boy, who has since been moved, was just ticked off about it. They had small battles of pranking and wit for months, with Mona usually coming out on top, but he got fed up and tricked her into an Oldworld bear trap. They got her foot out and she has some gnarly scars around her ankles, but they couldn’t save her toe. There’s no way that these footprints aren’t hers.

I creep along where I know she went, just following the prints, until it strikes me. The prints are leading to the Shaft. Mona’s going to the shaft. And with her Atomagic, toxicity doesn’t affect her at all. She’s going to steal J.

[alliant]

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My feet stumble against the rocky, uneven ground as I sprint. Gnarled roots and massive dirt clumps try to stop me from reaching the Shaft, grabbing at my ankles and pulling me down. Luckily, one thing I did inherit from my mother, however otherwise useless she might've been, is a great sense of balance. I only actually hit the ground once. The root seemed to rise up from the ground all by itself, wrapping itself tightly around my foot. I let out the smallest shriek before my mouth was muffled by the dusty ground. Faceplant. At least it wasn't in manure. That was the absolute WORST. I'm going to KILL Tyerel. And Mona. And probably Matron.

The tall, well-weathered form of the Shaft rises in the distance. Its tallest spires, one on either side of the prismatic structure, rise up to the heavy cloud layer that blankets the sky tonight. Angry red smoke and sand swirls in a massive tornado on the horizon, but it'll be ages before it's here and we have to worry about it. I break into a dead sprint at the Shaft, my feet pounding into the ground, and I'm there within minutes. The door, which is usually padlocked to oblivion, hangs from its hinges at an off ward angle. I lean forward just a bit to inspect it, and something catches my eye. A lingering, glimmering trace of golden shimmer. The same shimmer that comes from recently-used Atomagic. Mona.

[alliant]

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I bite my lip. My hand shivers as it extends toward the lock, the telltale shimmer of Atomagic. Unless there's something I've missed recently, Mona is the only Atomagic user in this half of Edmund, much less the orphanage area. It has to be her. Mona. I can't believe she'd do this to me, though. She knows how hard I've worked to track down the location of J, how much I've risked. Including her own life. The thought runs through my head and my teeth drive harder into my lip. I extract them and take a deep breath. No. That was an accident; that wasn't anything, was it? There's no way that could be the driving force of this choice. But- could it? I've trusted Mona for so long, grown so close to her- something inside me hardens.

When I was a little younger, Indigo used to taunt me, jeering as I brought out the laundry, teasing when I tripped in the garden. Showing up in my locked room with no explanation one time. I try to suppress the shudder that runs down my spine. Something had seemed off all day before then, just little things but enough to throw me completely off balance. Looking back, I know it was Indigo the whole time, exploiting my sensitivity to change in my environment. Moving things a few inches to the side. Adding small markings where he knew only I'd notice them. My room had seemed different that night, too. Later, after he'd left, I'd found and removed the thin piece of purple plastic he'd affixed over my light. I'd been trying to fall asleep when the door had creaked open, the door that's supposed to be perpetually locked after dark. Mona had still been asleep, as had all of the people in my Bunk, even little Chakalia, the lightest sleeper. Indigo had slid in and pressed a cold finger to my lips before I could take a breath. I'd thrown a punch at his shoulder before he'd pinned me down, his breath hot on my neck. Heartless, he'd called me. How dare I try to hurt him, when all he wanted was to return something he thought belonged to me. My hairpin. He'd stolen it a few days before after having tripped me when I was fetching water from the river. I hadn't been able to sleep for the next week. Mona had called me crazy. Mona.

She was the only one I'd been able to trust, ever, since arriving in the war orphanages. She was the one who'd laughed with me when the bullies had been caught, she was the one who'd cried with me when we got injured, or when one of the littles was punished. That had been before we'd fallen to the other side of things. Before, we just cried. After, we cried and then we got revenge. But now- now Mona was destroying everything I'd worked for for the past year, putting shame to all of my efforts- I swallowed a hard lump, trying to push down the rage rising in a wave inside me. If I was going to survive the toxicity of the Shaft I was going to need to be able to slow my heart rate as much as possible. That'd normally be difficult for me. But angry? Almost impossible.

Indigo was wrong, I think to myself as I strengthen my grip on the broken lock, and wrench it open. He'd called me heartless. That's not right. I have a heart. My foot comes crashing down on the first of thousands of metal stairs. It's just one of stone.

[alliant]

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My hands tremble was they scrape the hard stone walls of the Shaft. Even with all my calculations, all my preparation, I hadn't ever accounted for the minuscule width of the Shaft. Perhaps J will be too large to wedge from wherever it's tucked and I'll have to find some way to remove it from the box. But I couldn't do that; it'd be much too toxic for me. For me, a normal. Not for Mona with her Atomagic. And all of the sudden I'm positive that's what she plans to do. It fits with everything I know about her, and though that's not too much from her life before the orphanage, I'm positive this would be what she's doing. That has to have been when they got her, before I came here. We were best friends in the orphanage, inseparable. No secrets kept other than my meetings with Tyerel. A bitter taste fills my mouth and I swallow hard. Of course, Mona also had meetings with Tyerel. It's the only reason he'd know Indigo's name, the only reason she'd know the location of J. I shudder. I can't believe she's done this to me.

No- I'm not shuddering from Mona, she may have invaded my mind but she has no good control over my body. No, this is something else, something much more physical than the harm she's caused me thus far. The Atomagic toxins. I didn't think they'd be hitting me already, only a few steps into the Shaft. If I'm going to make it to J and somehow get the thing from Mona, I'm going to need a better plan than simply strutting in and grabbing the thing from her hands. Before she was involved and I was angry it would've been an iffy risk anyway, going this far into the toxins. Now, with even less control over my emotions and therefore my breathing- this could very well be a suicide mission.

Atomagic toxins function on a breathe-in basis. The more toxins entering the lungs the more they clog them, impairing the victim's ability to breathe. Having fewer solid breaths means less oxygen to the brain, which in turn causes panic and fear to rise in the victim, resulting in even heavier dragging breaths and the inhalation of even more toxins. Mona's body is different from mine; it's built to filter Atomagic naturally, because the toxins surge through her anytime she's using her abilities. But for me, a normal, a REAL Edmund- I'll die before I reach the top of the lower stairwell.

Calm down, I tell myself. You've trained for this, you've practiced taking in less air in fewer breaths. Even before I knew anything about the existence of the metal or the location of J, the war orphanages had everyone learn at a young age the art of breathing slowly and deliberately in case of an attack by the Valyn's Atomagic users. Mona, predictably, had been exempt from this. Nope, I tell myself. Don't think about her, don't think about that nameless Atomagic user who's probably working for Tyerel or even the Valyn- nope. Focus on J. Focus on strategizing how to remove the crate once you reach the upper stairwell.

One of my fingers twitches, bordering on flexing beyond what my bone can bear. I grit my teeth and take in a long, deliberate breath. Breathing is key. If I don't let many more Atomagic toxins in then there's no way I can be further poisoned. My fingers clutch to my sides in tight fists. I can't let them touch the walls. I'm brought back to one of my first classes as a new little in the orphanage under Matron's reign, an instruction on what to do if you find yourself in an area heavy with Atomagic toxins. Don't panic, take deliberate, few breaths.I thought i'd forgotten the rest, but a vision of Matron's oily face looming down above me sparks in my peripheral vision. Her lips part to reveal her sharp teeth, almost like a shark's. Don't touch anything, she'd spat. My hand flies to my face to wipe up the imaginary saliva. Atomagic toxins stick to surfaces. If you let them seep into your skin it's as good as drinking the stuff. I gulp down the knot in the back of my throat and nod tightly, my lips pressed together, unwilling to let the poisoned air pass. Don't breathe. Don't touch anything. What's next, just stop existing as a material being altogether? No wonder we haven't beaten the Valyn yet, if as many of them are Atomagic users as the last statistic reported.

My feet drag along the stairs, the tip of my shoe stubbing the underside of each step before ascending to continue my rise. The tower's stone walls start to turn in color, from the mossy cobbled stone to whitewashed walls marking the start of a new level. I chance a glance down. I'm almost through the lower stairwell. The real toxins will start the second I pass onto the upper staircase. Everything I've endured as of now has been kiddie hour. My eye twitches and one of my hands flies to my face to settle the jumping nerve. Calm. Focused. You're going to get J, you're going to leave the toxic area, and then you're going to get the hell out of here. My foot settles onto the first step of the upper staircase and I start to scream.

[alliant]

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Chapter Five: Purple Is Her Color

I don't know where I am. A blindfold takes my vision, tied tightly behind my head. My hands move to the knot and immediately I can tell it's Mona's handiwork. It feels like one of the ones she made, a combination of a couple of the ones we learned together when we were younger. I have to bite back my anger. Getting mad at Mona won't help me until I figure out where I am and why I'm here. I feel around and ropes bite at my arms. I move my torso forward. So my arms are bound to my back but I'm not chained to anything. The floor feels like wood, with some dampness in it. We could be in far Edmund territory, then, in the swamplands, but the nearest patch is days from the orphanage, and I can't have been unconscious for days.

"You're awake." The voice comes from somewhere above me and I struggle to bring myself to my feet. It's not Mona, but I know it from somewhere, rough, worn-down- Indigo. It's Indigo. Hands brush my face and then the blindfold is lifted. I'm in a sort of shack, in the very corner of a small, damp room. Bottles of earthy-toned liquids and bundles of natural goods line the walls. I spot dried leaves and berries, dead red flowers, and more. Vines traverse the walls, strangling the small structure. "We weren't sure how sick you were. You've been out for two days."

Indigo looks awful. Dried blood lingers down the side of his face from a gash above his eyebrow, and one of his cheekbones is purpled by a bruise. His hair is mussed and sticks flat to his head. One of his arms hangs at his side. He turns and shouts something into the doorway of the hut, and then Mona and Larse appear. Mona seems the same as Indigo, haggard, with deep blue half-moons beneath her bloodshot eyes. I swallow the red-hot anger that swells up inside me. I shouldn't do anything until I know the situation. Larse, on the other hand, looks terrifying. He's just as beat up as the rest of them, but he doesn't look worn down, he looks alive. Something within him blazes with a fire lost in the other two. His eyes are bright, and though his shoulder is bandaged he has the best posture of the three, arms relaxed and back. He's fully in his element and it's horrifying.

"Illiya," Mona starts. Her voice is deeper, more serious than I've ever heard. "I can explain later, but what's most important right now is this." She holds out a package and I swallow hard. It's J. It's not very large, not nearly what I'd expected, and Mona seems to be drawing all of its Atomagic toxins into her so the other three of us can be in the same room. "We found it. Indigo and I. When he ran earlier, I found him halfway up the tower, unconscious. Larse stalled and made sure you made it to the tower as well. We weren't expecting you to have as bad a reaction as you did. We carried you for as long as we could. We're in swamp witch territory, near Ehrre, and we have to get moving."

"Why are you working with them? What's going on?" I demand. A crash comes from somewhere outside and Indigo flinches. "And what happened to you?" They all exchange a look and Mona clears her throat. "Illiya, we can explain later, but right now we have to go. People know where we are and we have to reach Larse's contact in Ehrre before dark." Another crash, this time closer to the hut. Indigo turns, knees tense. "Mona," he says, warning. "We have to go."

The door to the shack swings open, and it's illuminated by flame, but the light comes from a torch, and pitchforks cluster around it. Witch-hunters. When people with Atomagic first populated Edmund they were rejected, seen as inhuman freaks. Mona turns to us, the light dancing in her eyes. "Brace yourselves." And she drops J.