Saving Soul

Adair stirred, looking around in confusion. Then he remembered the events before, and sighed. He debated about whether he should sleep more or just get up. The depression fit had been slept off, but there was still guilt. There was always the guilt.

He noticed Voltaire nearby, strapped into a chair (strapped into a chair for a shot? Well, he did run off earlier...). One would think by his grim expression that he was going to get an execution shot instead. Adair couldn't help but chuckle a little. Voltaire was scared of the oddest things.

Ava heard the chuckle and looked over to him.

"Feeling better Fiery?" she asked, still concerned. She was always concerned after Chiaroscuro, even after the threat had long passed. He supposed it was her duty as a familiar.

"You won't be," added Voltaire, who would have turned to face him if he could. "You get to have the shot too."

"Volty, be nice," chided Ava.

Anja sighed in her little cave. She summoned Alfres again, he curled up next to her, and she curled as close as she could. Alfres was her oldest summon, her first. He was her warmth and protection when she was hurt and alone, as close to a comfort as she had ever had.

She could see the moon rising above the trees, and she could see her breath form little clouds of moisture when she exhaled. This area was well known for its moist days and freezing nights.

(craaaaap not sure how to get things back together. Might take a few posts)

"I am being nice. I'm warning him," Voltaire replied, sneering.

"It wouldn't be so bad if you didn't make such a big deal out of it," replied Adair, stepping out from under Ava's wing. It was clear he wasn't getting any more sleep. "If you haven't run off like some scared little kid this would already be over with."

He expected some smart comment in return, but Voltaire just sighed.

"Yeah, just putting off the inevitable," the Hunter remarked, as if to himself.

(Do as you wish, I'm just digging Anja into a hole of self hate and self pity.)

Anja closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Instead, her mind wandered to her parents. What could have been...

(ok)

Dr. Ignos walked, or rather slithered, into the room, red-and-yellow-filled syringe in his tail's grip. Voltaire stiffened and blew out fire lowly.

"It's okay Volty," Ava cooed, she and Adair coming up beside him. "We'll get it over quick, and then we can go do something fun."

Adair judged by the spooked look on Voltaire's face that he didn't believe a word of it.

"Heard abut your little escape earlier. Did you have fun?" said the basilisk doctor, amused. "There will be no more of that today though."

The snake-man's eyes flashed briefly, and Voltaire's body abruptly went rigid. During the brief paralysis Dr. Ignos slithered up and gave Voltaire the shot. Shortly after the basilisk had turned his back Voltaire's body released and he gulped in air.

"See? Not so bad," Ava tried to reassure.

"It'll get worse," Voltaire groaned.

"Ah, have you had this shot before?" asked Dr. Ignos, smirking. Voltaire remained silent on the subject.

Anja dreamed about her parents. Their faces blank since she couldn't remember. She dreamed about what happened, how her entire village had been destroyed. How she had been the only survivor because she had snuck out of the house to play.

Ava hung close, preening Voltaire's hair to try to calm him down. It only seemed to make the Hunter more antsy. This couldn't just be about the shot, Adair realized. That had already been done and over with. Dr. Ignos stood in the back, patiently waiting for results. He held a jar that Adair assumed the soul sample would go in.

"Goddammit, stop that!" Voltaire snapped at Ava, expression unusually fierce. "Do you want me to puke soul all over you two? Go the hell away!"

Puke soul? Voltaire had gotten this shot before. But where would he have gotten this kind of shot? Torture? Throwing up soul did not sound pleasant at all. It sounded a bit like Chiaroscuro, actually. No wonder Voltaire had been dreading it.

"Just...go the hell away..." Voltaire repeated, even though Adair and Ava had already backed up some. The Hunter suddenly seemed dazed, almost sad. "I'm a terrible person...I'm a horrible person...Just go away..."

"No you're not. You're a great person," Ava reassured, both she and Adair puzzled over Voltaire uncharacteristic self-pity. Was it an effect of the shot? It did affect the soul.

"...Just go...go..." Voltaire went on, before he leaned forward and started swallowing repeatedly. Suddenly he retched, and a large cloud of mostly black soul was spit out. Voltaire looked terribly pale, gulping over and over, gaze glued to the floor.

Adair couldn't help but stare in disbelief at the dark soul as it floated toward the ceiling. He knew Voltaire wasn't a bad person. He knew-

(ooc: O-O I want to know why his soul is black but he's so nice!! Its sounds like a good read)

Anja woke before the sun. She checked her ankle... The swelling hadn't receded and it was now an unhealthy color. It was definitely broken. She would need help to set it.

She looked to her still slumbering summon. Alfres wouldn't do, he wasn't smart enough to understand.

(ooc: Nice XD? I don't know if I would describe Voltaire as 'nice' exactly, but he's better than he thinks he is. The whole soul color thing will be explained better later in the thread.)

"Interesting," Dr. Ignos remarked, twisting the top of the jar he was holding. All the released soul was sucked in the vessel as if pulled by a strong current.

Voltaire coughed up a bit more of the dark vapor-like substance. He sneered, aqua-green eyes dilated and half-closed.

"See? Didn't I tell you?" the Hunter said in an distant and oddly childish tone. "I'm a bad person. I'm rotten. I was born to cause myself and others misfortune, just like they said."

"That's not true!" protested Ava. "Volty, you're good!"

"They?" Adair asked, anger rising as the meaning of Voltaire's words seeped in. "Who's they? Who told you that?"

Voltaire laughed hollowly.

"It doesn't even matter, does it? It doesn't even..."

"Of course it matters!" Adair snapped. "Who-"

He was unable to finish, as he struggled against rising Chiaroscuro. He did not need to be going Chiaroscuro twice today. Voltaire, rather than being alarmed like he usually would be, just seemed drowsily amused.

"Heh...Leave it to a Hero to...miss the point..." the Hunter trailed off, now slipping into slumber.

Dr. Ignos glanced at Adair, who was still trying to control himself, and seemed to be wondering if he would even need a shot to get a soul sample. That's what those black-and-white flames of Chiaroscuro really were: his soul spewing everywhere.

"Ava, you can go ahead and take Volty to the rest area. ," the doctor ordered coolly. "Fiery, sit in the chair when it becomes available. It will be your turn next."

(God, that was long. Next post will be fast-forwarded to later so I can actually set things up for Adair to meet Anja again. Blasted Voltaire for highjacking the thread XD.)

(okay. lol)

Anja debated on sending Alfres away. She would need him for protection, but she wanted a summon intelligent enough to help her set her ankle. She found her solution in the form of a small fissure in the cave wall.

She crawled over to it and lodged her foot in it, her ankle boot barely tall enough to protect her bare skin. She took a deep breath and pulled back, as hard as she could.

Her bones re-aligned with a sickening crack and she fainted from the extreme pain.
~~

(Okay, do your skipping)

Adair had been right, as he rested underneath Ava's wing. The shot had been a lot like Chiaroscuro. Then again, he was halfway into Chiaroscuro already by the time he got the injection, so maybe that was it. He could tell a difference, though. The response had made him feel physically ill, which never happened with actual Chiaroscuro. Actual Chiaroscuro made him spiritually ill.

He knew Voltaire was asleep under Ava's other wing. He had been asleep ever since the soul shot. He was restless in his sleep, as if tortured by an terrible secret. In a way he was, only it wasn't as terrible as Voltaire thought.

Dr. Ignos had explained it to them, as he was preparing to give Adair the shot. The darkness in the soul did not mean evil or sin any more than the white part represented good or purity. Those were the human stereotypes for black and white. Rather, the white was good luck a person had while the black was the bad luck. Granted, those with good luck were more likely to be good because things came to them more easily, while those with bad luck may have to take more desperate and controversial choices just to break even, but it did not set someone's personality to good or evil. Voltaire wasn't rotten. He just had particularly bad luck.

Adair sighed. He supposed it didn't help that he had been angry enough at the Hunter earlier to use that girl Anja as an instrument of revenge against him. That hadn't been fair or Heroic at all. And to think he had shrugged off the noble notions so easily after all he tried to do for her earlier, had even carried her because she-

Adair suddenly sat up, his gut clenching. She was hurt! She said she had sprained her ankle, but it had been starting to look worse than that as they approached the cave. He had planned to take a closer look at it once they were in the cave, but then Voltaire happened to be there and started to annoy the crap out of him and then he asked the girl to summon-

He stood up quickly, which alerted Ava. She gave a concerned warble.

"Hey, I'm going to walk around some to try to clear my head," he told her. "If 'Taire wakes up, tell him I don't hate him and that's he's not a bad person, just unlucky."

He left the area to go back to the forest.

Anja woke to Alfres licking her face and whining piteously. She groaned as she tried to sit up. Her entire body ached.

She lifted a hand to her face and felt that she was feverish, not surprising how long she went without setting the bone. She licked her dry lips and tasted blood. She had some dried on her lip where she must have bitten down when she set her leg.

Alfres whined again and Anja pet him reassuringly.

Adair hurried his walk through the woods. Thankfully the ground had dried some so he didn't have to worry about slipping on mud.

She was probably okay. She probably already left thanks to the scare he gave her with Chiaroscuro. He just wanted to check, that's all. If he didn't check then it would bug him all day and the day after, which would make it harder to rest and to fight. He still had his Hero's conscience.

Since there wasn't much wood nearby, Anja took the dagger from her belt and bound it to her ankle with some strips she ribbed out of her spare shirt. She made sure only to bind the sheath so she would still have use of the blade if she needed it. She leaned back against the wall with a sigh. "Alfres, come" She sighed.

When the beast came closer, she traced a rune on him, and he vanished. It would be easier to travel without him. If a demon didn't get her first that is. She closed her eyes, trying to think.

Adair was just making his way through the trees when he saw Anja. He was glad to see her standing, but he noticed that her ankle still looked bad and her face was kind of flushed. Now he was more concerned instead of less.

He wasn't sure how he should approach her. She was probably still scared of him, not that he would blame her. He felt the guilt again.

Slowly, Anja opened her eyes and started forward. Once she cleared the cave she had to hold her arms out for balance, but it did little good. She lost her footing on the uneven ground and fell into the gravel around the rocky structure. She hissed in pain as the rocks tore the skin on her palms and arms, her pants were luckily made of thick fabric.

Noble instinct kicked in, and he rushed out of the woods.

"Anja!" he called.

Anja groaned as she pushed herself up onto her elbows. She glared at Adair. "Come back to kill me, demon? Well go ahead. I'll make it easy for you" She snapped. She tried to force herself into an actual sitting position, but her leg wouldn't allow it, so she settled for being sprawled out on the gravel.

Adair stopped and sighed. "I'm not here to hurt you."

He expected this, but it still hurt to hear it. How was he suppose to explain himself? Sorry about leading you on and pretending to be something I'm not, at least anymore?

"How do I know you're not lying? You really were a hero, that's why you fooled me before- Hero's charm the living to their death with their words; that's how my parents died, at the blade of your brethren." Anja stated with complete hatred.

That caught Adair off-guard. He was expecting to be hated for pretending to be a Hero, not actually being one. Then again, if that actually happened to her parents...His expression grew more serious.

"Clearly whoever did that to your family were no Heroes," he stated.

"They were. I watched them do it too. I can never forget it." Anja stated bitterly. "All because there was a demon like you living among us. No one could tell but those stiffs in armour. They killed the demon, then had a feast to celebrate with the village." Anja looked away, tears forming in her eyes. "They slaughtered everyone there. For harbouring a demon. No one even knew"

Adair felt sick, because he couldn't just brand the offenders as imposters. He knew this kind of policy: if there was a demon in a village, chances were it wasn't the only one, or that the locals were demon supporters. Death wasn't the chief punishment, but torture often was. His own family had done that before, when they were suspicious of a village.

Adair sighed and sat down, hoping that would calm both her and him.

"My family is...extreme," he began, blue eyes looking away. "Their cost for being the perfect Hero...I couldn't handle it. So I ended up becoming a changeling instead, and now my family hunts me. Everything I was trained for...it wasn't what I thought it was."

Anja sniffled. "Wot's a changling?" She asked, her voice thick as she tried not to cry.

"A human who gives their heart to a demon, thereby gaining demon powers," Adair explained. "So we're not demons exactly, but we have the potential to become one if we push ourselves too far. We can pretend to be normal, but as you saw before there's really no point because the truth comes out eventually."