Story: Relocation

It had taken hours, but finally the work was done. Everything, down to the last bit of metal was now safely inside the solid walls of a giant acorn. Dozens of portal trips, a false start at creating a small bit of nil space within a box, and a few small tasks for the Fae later, Sukasa's new home was secured without a trace. His old home was left immaculate - he had scrubbed down every wall, ceiling and floor both physically and magically to remove any trace that he and Ilsael had been there at all. He had even transplanted all of Ilsael's plants, even the ones he didn't know anything about.

All all that belonged to him was there...except one...

The boy made his way back to the Silverleaf Inn, trailed by a rather rowdy - but silent - Kerra child. He tried his best to ignor her, finally stopping to sigh as they neared the inn.

"You'll wake him, if you keep this up..." he mumbled, half asleep himself after all that work.

With a slight sniff, the Kerra grew smaller, shifting into the form of a normal house cat. Shaking his head, the young wizard continued on to the Inn.

Quietly, he made his way past the front desk, following a few hallways until he found the room Ilsael had rented for them. Slipping inside, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness within before slowly calling up a veil of flames to better his vision. Carefully, he began placing their backpacks and weapons into the box, closing it silently before strapping it to his back. Once the box was secured, he made his way over to the bed, staring down at the figure resting there for a long moment.

"I will protect you..." Ilsael had growled, slowly transforming into a massive bear...

While he did not doubt the mystic, he had just as strong of a desire to protect the Koada'dal, and while their spirits were one, they still were very different in their methods.

Wrapping a blanket tightly around the slumbering boy, Sukasa carefully lifted him up out of the bed, momentarily fighting for balance as he adjusted his hold on the larger boy. Once confident he had a good hold on Ilsael, the wizard began whispering the words of a portal spell, and the room about them slowly shifted.

Shimmering with magic, reality slowly settled into the familiar yet foreign surroundings of the new home, the sounds of the boys' large bath drifting into Sukasa's ears. Smiling to himself, he tooke several small steps to the bedside, gently laying the mystic down upon the waiting sheets.

Now everything that belonged to Sukasa was safe inside the walls of the acorn.



For a long moment, the boy stood next to their bed, looking about their new room with a sort of quiet reverie. Things were similar to what they were in Qeynos, however he'd had to shift a lot of things around due to the shape of the acorn. Hopefully it would be familiar enough that Ilsael wouldn't be too alarmed in the morning.

Moving away from the bed, he pulled off the worn work shirt, tossing it into the small basket the boys used for carrying their laundry. His hand reached up to touch where his collar bones met, still unused to the missing phoenix charm, almost expecting to feel it tap against his chest as it normally did when he undressed.

While the soft rains of Karana had washed away what was left of Apathy, some of the things he had learned during his time under Avarice's care remained. He would never be able to weild the powers of illusions and coercion, not even any parlor tricks, but he had learned how to paint emotion and thought into images - the unbreakable telepathy with Shelly had slowly developed his mind's eye into a moving canvas, his thoughts and memories had become almost as vibrant and realistic as the things that happened outside of his mind.

First, it had been Julian's hand, the knights fingers slowly rolling an odd stone in them. Slowly, Julian's hand had faded into a slender, more familiar hand, rolling the same stone in the same manner. The images shifted, over and over again, seemlessing shifting between the two hands until another memory arose...

...Shelly...Avarice, standing beside Sukasa, rolling the stone in her hand while nervously awaiting...something, he didn't have time to remember what...

...Julian's hand...Shelly's hand...again they morphed into each other, the stone remaining the same as the wizard watched the knight in the "safety" of the dwarven outpost...

Shaking his head, Sukasa tried to again push the images that assaulted his mind away, tired of their presence. He spent little time with the Windrunners, his research in portals and folding space upon itself taking him to fairly obscure locations, compared to the Company's regular routes. He had always felt safe with them after everything that had occurred in Freeport...until now.

Without realising it, the wizard had begun to pace through the room, the strange house cat trailing in his wake, trying her best to help him sort through the images and emotions that assaulted him even in the safety of his new home.

...the realisation had struck him like a ton of bricks, crashing through his psyche like a bull in a china shop. Everything else in the small confines of the room vanished as he stared at the stone. His terror seeped unrestrained from his mind into his soul, and onto Ilsael. The mystic frowned at the smaller boy, a puzzled but concerned expression crossing his face.

In his mind, he saw Avarice's beautiful but dangerous smirk fading into the interchanging image of Julian and Shelly's hands holding the stone. He was broadcasting it, trying so hard to make Ilsael see, but the events surrounding the collapse of the Company's manufacturing building had the mystic's attention stretched thin.

While his eyes remained on Julian, Ilsael gently guided the wizard's head to rest against his chest, holding the boy protectively as he whispered to him.

"What's wrong?" the elder boy questioned, his eyes following Sukasa's before adding, "The thoughtstone?"

The wizard continued to stare at the stone that rolled in Julian's hand, knowning few - if anyone else - there would know that motion. His panicked mind raced swiftly, remembering melting with current thoughts. The air around the boys shimmered, as if a portal wished to open; flashes of the Faydark, then the runic stone within Teren's Grasp and the walls of their Qeynosian home appeared faintly in the unstable magic as the wizard questioned what to do next.

Any and all instincts screamed at him to take Ilsael away from Julian, to someplace safer until something was done about the puppet.

"Sukasa, it's all right..." the mystic began.

As Julian slid the stone back into his pocket, Sukasa faintly shook his head, whispering his reply, "She...Avarice's stone...he's p-playing with it..."

"Is there anything," Julian began, pausing to look at the two boys before finishing, "anyone needs?"



The wizard sat down heavily on the edge of his side of the bed. Ilsael stirred slightly, reaching towards him. Absently, the boy reached out and slipped his hand into the mystic's, and the mystic quickly settled back into his sleep. He didn't want to trouble Ilsael any more tonight with what had happened - he barely had kept the mystic from marching them both back to the outpost to explain everything.

"Yeah," he whispered into the darkness, "I need answers...real answers...the truth..."

He had promised Sugan that he would stay away from the Darkness, and now it was creeping its way back upon them in the form of a knight. The boy wondered what Sugan was thinking, if she was watching the man who was once her squire...why had she let it happen at all?

Maybe it had been a test that Julian had failed, maybe that's why he'd gone back to Avarice's arms.

Though hidden, Sukasa could still see Julian's fingers moving over the stone, and as it shifted into Shelly's hand, he finally whispered to Ilsael, "It is! I know it is. Its worn...just like it...its Her stone! I...remember her holding it, just like he was, the same motion...tracing the same places..."

No sooner than the words had left his mouth, the images played over in his mind's eye again, rapidly shifting between the two different hands, and for a moment, he could imagine Avarice standing on a balcony above Julian, carefully working puppet strings while idly tracing her fingers along the stone.

The air about them shifted more rapidly, trying to keep pace with the flurry of subconcious thoughts that were formulating within the wizard's head; his studies of portals and folding space had made their use almost natural, like breathing, and the boy did not notice what was being created about them though Ilsael frowned at what had been whispered, and what was happening around them.

"I wonder why he would have it?" Ilsael mused quietly.

Without hesitation, Sukasa replied, "...he's still Hers..."

Shuddering slightly, he pulled himself away from the memories, trying desperately to focus on the room he was in now. Though he knew Apathy had been washed away by Karana's healing rain, he wondered exactly how much of his mind was still twisted by Avarice's deadly touch. Part of him wondered if he'd simply lost his mind at some point, and that the way he thought was a result of that and not remnants of her influance over him.

Curling up onto the bed beside Ilsael, still a good distance away from the mystic, but still able to hold his hand, the boy began to rock back and forth slightly as he faintly whispered over and over again.

"I belong to Karana, not Avarice...I'm not Hers..."

Ilsael had been staring at Julian for some time as well, the faint flutterings of energy along his blue tattoos suggested that the mystic was looking into Julian rather than at him. Finally, the elder boy whispered, "His spirit is very damaged..."

The boys watched the knight in silence, Sukasa's fear growing steadily as the same images tumbled in his mind's eye, overlaying reality with their horrors. Ilsael, on the other hand, studied Julian somberly, quietly gauging the knight with his typical calm.

"He won't harm you.. I will protect you," he whispered, his form rippling beneath Sukasa as the mystic transformed into a very large bear. With a possessive whuff, he sat down beside the wizard, the younger boy clinging to the familiar beast. It was childish, but the great ursine form comforted the boy, the strong flesh much more commanding than that of the Koada'dal...

Strong arms finally found their way about the painfully thin boy, pulling him down and across the bed into a tight hug. At first, the mystic had questioned his beloved's words, unable to believe that Julian would return to Avarice for anything but after the boy had teleported them away from the meeting, he knew Sukasa had been telling the truth. Whether willingly or forced, Julian had somehow returned to Avarice and was not the same man he had been before the warehouse collapsed.

Even as the great bear, the mystic knew he woudn't withstand Julian for long, especially if the knight was guided and aided by the Lady Shadow; he still would have stood between the two, even if horribly overpowered - he would fight unto death for Sukasa, and knew that the wizard would do no less for him, even without the boy's reckless teleportation.

Ilsael's grey-blue eyes stared down at the top of Sukasa's head, the elder boy frowning slightly at the distant flashes of images he saw and the little bits of whispers he heard.

"...Karana...not Shelly..."