Young Writers Society

((TOMHAS))
((I miss him))

He drew his gaze up from the ground to meet Gaius' for a fleeting second. Silent. Thinking. Then his eyes fell again and he adjusted his grip on the tray. "I'm reliable," he replied. "Nothing more."

Reliable, useful, obedient, efficient, prompt. All things that anyone in power wanted in those below them. He took care to make himself a good tool, even in the knowledge that he was one; for now, he was largely reliant on others in this alien world with unknown politics and dangers and pitfalls. It was a safer game to play. Easier to stay hidden when he served another and kept the attention on them.

"Nothing more," Gaius repeated thoughtfully. He brought his shackled hands up to his knees and rested his chin on them. "Reliability isn't much if you have nothing else to offer. She'll be done with you soon enough unless you find something else useful about yourself." He paused. "Or you could let her use for you fizzle out and then pledge yourself to me." A small smile crossed his face, half-mocking. "But you're loyal to her, so of course that's a hopeless cause. Be on your way, my boy. I hope to see you again."

His shivers were already lessening as he piled another blanket on himself, and his chattering teeth were beginning to settle. Perhaps he could arrange for warm meals next.

His jaw clenched slightly but he didn't answer it. He wasn't going to let himself be baited into anything. He'd done what he came to do. He turned away, going back up the stairs, returning the empty tray to the kitchen and then returning to the empty chambers that had become his own.

He had no reason to serve Ash. He was no different than anyone else who'd tried using him and, ultimately, he would become the monster he always did. Maybe after Sashka inevitably cast him out he would seek asylum with the snake lord.

A beast among men.

He sighed, gaze flickering to the snow falling outside. He wanted to be home. On Earth. Far, far away from here. But there, he was a monster, and here, he was just a man. A man who wasn't hunted and already condemned.

((What are your thoughts on where to go next))

(Perhaps there are negotiations with Mattathias or Gaius escapes?)

((what if Matt were to end up defeating Sashka by force and Cornyx was one of the unlucky people who didn't get out fast enough. In the fight, the fact he's got powers is accidentally revealed, and rather than kill him when he's captured as one of Sashka's people, he ends up pulling him over to the Ash side one bit at a time))

(That sounds absolutely perfect. Skip to then?)

((Sure thing! I think it'd be best if you took that one, given that your fiction kids are managing all of this))

(Definitely)

A week later, the Keep of Ivan was once again under siege. Mattathias and his younger brother, along with their two generals, had stormed the Keep and burnt it to the ground, wiping out the guards and mercenaries in a matter of hours. Sashka now stood on the battlements with a knife to Gaius' throat, desperation in her eyes.

Gaius was far from worried. Sashka was at the end of her tether, and he was little more than a last-ditch effort to regain her family's honor. It wasn't going to happen. He would make a public example of her as soon as he was able, and then the Ivan line would be well and truly dead.

That would be the only House that would truly Fall at his hands.

Cornyx had awoken to the sound of the alarm. The chaos of soldiers donning their armor and armaments, racing to meet the incoming armies, to take up arms against the Ash armies.

He'd never been a proficient fighter. He'd learned to avoid conflict, to use others and turn them on each other, to keep down and stay back. Here, he'd never intended to engage in a war. Sashka offered him safety, more than anything else here did, and that was why he stayed with her.

But he'd never touched a sword in his life.

He'd come into this world on accident, on instinct, terrified of the people and the things that wanted him dead. He'd gone to find Sashka first, to get orders, but had never reached her, instead finding himself thrown amidst the chaos. Short skirmishes punctuated by his victory or flight, trying to make sense of it all through the memories that distorted the present.

Then there was fire.

Cornyx, although not particularly combative, was adept at snaking his way out of sticky situations. He'd managed to avoid most conflict and now found himself with the most significant of his problems: how to get out of the walls when everything was swarming in Ash soldiers. Their own people had been decimated. He stood in the corner, back pressed against the stones, his presence concealed from most angles by a charred wagon and rubble. Panting. The bitter taste of violence in his throat. The cold, creeping over his skin, wind frigid on his lips.

"Hey," the voice grunted, footsteps coming to a slowed stop. "Over here."

He saw their shadows playing over the snow. Heard the soles of their shoes in the mud and ice. Closer. Closer. In a few moments there'd be no escape.

Run.

His long legs were, by most standards, a disadvantage: his height stood out, he tended to knock into things, and his build had little density to speak of. But when it came to running, his strides could carry him faster than most. He leapt forward, bounding over the ash-streaked earth, breaths constricted and high in his chest.

Then there was another body striking his, sending them both hurtling into the frozen ground.

Silver streaked black irises, webbing over his dark eyes, and the cold around them went from bothersome to devouring. Burning in his chest, his breath, carried in his flesh through his blood. The creature lurking underneath human skin. Instinct over thought. Feathery scales, dark as a crow's, flashed over his right arm, fingers turning into draconian talons. Ice shot over the ground, freezing before the eyes of all who saw him, and his claws sank into his opponent's throat before he'd a chance to fully pin the young man. Warm crimson against his near-numb skin. Pupils slit and serpentine rather than human. He threw the other man to the ground, red running over the white snow, a snarl in his chest and frost on his skin.

"Retreat now and we can negotiate!" Sashka was yelling, pressing her blade to Gaius' throat. A bead of blood slipped down his neck, hot against the howling wind. Gaius kept his eyes fixed on his sons, but his fingers worked at the shackles around his wrists, twisting and sliding in an attempt to get them off. He was thinner than he had been when they'd been locked on, and he though the might be able to free himself if he was given enough time.

Stall, Gaius begged silently. Whether Mattathias or Regulus heard him, he didn't know, but the two men had their gazes trained on Sashka.

"You're outnumbered," Mattathias boomed. "Release him now and you will be allowed to live."

"Not a chance, snake! Any of your men come closer and I'll spill his precious blood!" Sashka's voice trembled slightly. Gaius smiled to himself as his hands became slippery with the stuff; fiddling with the shackles had opened the chafing wounds on his wrists. She couldn't kill him, and she knew it. That would be giving up her leverage.

Tick.

His weight jarred against his arm as he flipped the other man below him. The beast unveiled, the monster taking control, and there was a yell from the fellow's companion. Sharp and fearful and crying out for assistance. The cold crept over the welling crimson, ice solidifying on its surface.

Tock.

The silver receded, the feathers pulling back, immediate threat having been disposed with. His pale skin stained with scarlet. The cold of it so great that he couldn't feel his fingers. He stumbled back, every breath lancing through his lungs, the flashes of what had happened flickering through his mind.

The footsteps, the weight, the fear, the red.

Another force took him in the side, throwing him to the ground, and this time, his wrist was rammed into the ground. A swift fist weighted by a sword hilt into his skull. A flicker of white, and then it went dark.

((Gonna leave it to you as to where he wakes up))

She still hadn't budged ten minutes later. Gaius, his hands free, slid his fingers toward the other knife at her belt. Another minute.....

He was free moments later, stumbling away from Sashka as she clutched the knife embedded in her knee. Regulus darted up the stairs of the battlements to meet him, catching him as he fell.

"Didn't think you'd make me wait so long," Gaius said with a weary smile.

"We tried not to." Regulus hoisted him up. "Took us forever to get Tarr to...." Whatever Regulus said next was lost as Gaius sank into unconsciousness.

(Cornyx will wake up in a cell below Serpent Keep about a day later.)

((Sweet. I'd assume that word would've gotten up to Gaius about the whole ice-claws fiasco. I'm gonna have to spoof for dinner but I shouldn't be more than a half an hour, probably less. I'll also assume that his watch is gone since personal effects are usually taken?))

The cold was no less present when he awoke. Skull, pounding. Ground hard. His dark eyes flickered open, adjusting to the dimness, and the first thing he recognized was fear. Fear, when his eyes alighted on the vertical bars, crushing around his chest. Fear, because in an attempt to escape predators he'd trapped himself in an alien world and now he was in a cage.

He gasped, pushing himself to his knees. The cell was small, not so unlike the one Gaius had been in days before. Whether it was night or day was impossible to know. There was no food. The air was stale. Smelled of rats and piss. Still, his eyes were good in the dark, adjusting to the shadows they were made for, and he pressed himself against the wall. Was the cold ambient or was it his own? A mix of both? He wasn't dead, but his ice--that lapse of control, the blurred memory, the blood still dried underneath his fingernails. They'd seen it. The monster.

Lord, have mercy.

(Yup on both counts. Enjoy dinner!)

Sera had insisted that Gaius would not be well enough to leave his chambers for at least a week, but Gaius had no intention of sitting still. Not when there was such an anomaly being held in his own cells.

He slipped out dressed in his finest green cloak and well shaved a night after his return, leaning heavily on his snakehead cane as he descended the stairs into the dungeons. He couldn't help but shiver as the cold hit him; Sera said he had been lucky to keep his fingers. Gaius counted himself lucky to be alive, really. As did everyone else in the Keep. Tiberius had been overjoyed to see him, as had the rest of his family.

Gaius limped to the cell where the boy was being kept and stopped, tilting his head curiously. "How the tables turn, lad. Feeling well, I hope?"

Once a monster, always a monster.

He'd denied those words with such vehemence. Now, in a cage, again, staring back at his captor. Unsure of what fate befell a creature such as himself, whatever he even really was. Afraid that the little mercy he'd extended to the lord was pale in comparison to his loyalty to Sashka. Sashka. Was she alive down here?

Did it matter?

If it was possible, the chill grew in Gaius' presence, courtesy of the half-grown man in the back of the cage. He didn't answer, only met the other man's eyes for a fleeting moment before dropping them again. Why challenge him when he'd so plainly already won?