The shadows were deep. Deeper than in the city, which the shadow within the shadows was perfectly fine with. It wasn't what she was used to, but that didn't matter to her. It only meant that if she needed to, they would protect her more than she was used to.
Not that she needed that level of protection.
There was a fire in the distance, which the shadow hoped was giving light to the one it sought. If not, then the shadow felt concerned about searching much longer for the one she needed to speak to. Not because of any vital information that needed to be passed along, but rather a check to make sure that person wasn't trying to weasel their way out of what they had agreed to. If they were, then the shadow's blade would prove much more substantial than the shadows surrounding the fire in the night.
As the shadow approached the fire, she could see a figure sitting at the fire, one that was familiar to the shadow. The one she was looking for.
Rather than approaching the fire, she did what she usually did. What she was accustomed to. Approaching within the shadows to prevent anyone from seeing her. The shadows were her sanctuary. What kept her safe from those who would do her harm.
She couldn't be sure if this person would want to harm her, but she wasn't going to take that chance. Not when she also needed to be certain that this person wasn't going to be like that. Besides, even if this person wasn't, then she could still kill them if it proved necessary much more easily this way. Especially if this person tried to make the mistake of trying to run.
It wasn't like this person would be able to get very far, but it would make this task much more tedious than it already was. The shadow wasn't looking for a chase nor was she wanting to stay away from the cities she was used to, even if the shadows outside the cities were much more inviting. It was where her life was and she had already been gone away from that life for too long.
The shadow was surprised at the ease with which she approached the person by the fire. Typically those she had to hunt down were much more vigilant, yet this person hardly reacted when the shadow accidentally broke a twig. Either this person was much more dangerous than the shadow had given them credit for or they were much too relaxed for the shadows tastes.
Even if they weren't trying to run, they should be at least more alert at night. Especially with the bandits around here who would love to capture a lone traveler and turn them into a slave. It wasn't that hard to do.
Although, if this person was made into a slave, it wouldn't save them as that would be a form of running away that the shadow wouldn't tolerate. Not that the shadow would let any of those who she'd recruited know about that fact. If they were careless enough to let themselves get caught and turned into a slave, then that was their problem and their responsibility. The shadow was merely the one who would deliver swift retribution on them regardless of the reason.
Yet, when the shadow neared the fire, there wasn't any sound she'd made that should have alerted the person at the fire, but the person stirred, as if they were suddenly awake when the shadow couldn't have been sure if they were asleep at that point or not. It was possible that they had fallen asleep from pure fatigue, but somehow the shadow didn't believe that. If anything, it felt like she was walking into a trap. That this person was much more dangerous than the shadow had initially expected, yet somehow the shadow didn't feel any danger right then. Her finely honed instincts weren't screaming at her to eliminate this person like they did sometimes.
Instead, they were eerily quiet. As if they weren't concerned about what was about to happen. As if there wasn't any danger with being caught off guard like she was right then.
"Are you going to wait out there or are you going to come into the light?" the person asked, looking directly at the shadow, as if that person could see the shadow as if it was midday and the shadow was standing without anything to hide her.
The shadow had never encountered this situation, but she wasn't going to let this person know that she was unnerved in the slightest. That would only give this person more leverage in the current situation than they already had.
So, abandoning stealth, the shadow started walking as if she was merely on a stroll in the dead of night through the oak trees surrounding them. "You're a hard one to find."
The person at the fire shrugged, as if she wasn't concerned with what the shadow might say or do. Another abnormality in the situation that the shadow didn't like. Though, it almost felt like it was merely a night that was going to be abnormal, even if it didn't turn out like the shadow had thought it was.
"What can I say? I was stuck at the Marquis Denshia's castle for a while because my friends were checking something up on Stone Mountain while I had to babysit his daughter."
The shadow was a little surprised at the candor she heard in the person's voice. Almost as if this person didn't think there was anything to hide. As if this person wasn't afraid of death.
Assuming they realized that death was knocking on her door right then, that is.
"You realize that I need to be able to contact you if we decide to move forward with saving this country, right?" the shadow asked, not seeing a point to dancing around the reason she was here. Especially since this person was already aware of her presence, despite having always made sure to keep the upper hand in any confrontation in the past.
"Hey, you guys know where the marquis is. Not to mention you guys seem to know what's going on inside his castle, so you should know when I'm stuck there," the person retorted, as if they didn't realize that they were flirting with death before them. Which the shadow somehow sensed that they were well aware of that fact, but clearly did it anyway.
"If that's the case, then why didn't you let us know when you planned on leaving the marquis' protection? You must realize that we don't like to find when the birds under our watch try to fly the coop, don't you?"
The figure snorted, as if she found the whole line of questioning amusing. "If you really thought that, then I'm sure you'd already have pulled some weapon out rather than wasting time to try and talk. Which means you don't believe I was trying to run."
The person by the fire moved a little and for the first time the shadow saw stones in the pack the person she came to meet had with her. Stone that the shadow knew she hadn't seen before. These seemed to almost sparkle in a way stones shouldn't in the firelight. Not without being gemstones, that is, which these clearly weren't. What secret these stones held, the shadow couldn't say. Only that they weren't anything she had ever seen before.
"Well, maybe we were negligent in informing you of some of the finer points of our arrangement then," the shadow allowed. It was possible that this person just didn't know any better, especially since the shadow had barely been able to learn this person existed and hadn't been able to find out anything about this person beyond that. Aside from this person's search for a friend that had been taken by the Lost. Which was the only thing that the shadow had been able to learn about. Although, from what the shadow had been able to learn, the friend that this person had been looking for had likely been a slave that disappeared without a trace herself months ago. Which merely made this individual that much more perplexing.
Who was this girl? Where did she and her friends come from? How had they been able to master wild magic when no one else had even been heard of doing so? Not to mention how the twigs she traveled with seemed to act differently than how typical twigs acted. It wasn't anything that the shadow could put her finger on, but it was there and it made her want to kill them simply because she didn't like things she didn't understand. Those were often the most dangerous things of all. Yet, the shadow allowed them to be a discomfort to her simply because they were enough of an anomaly that they could be used to further the goals that the 'friends' of the shadow were aiming for. Goals that these people didn't need to know about at all.
"What we need to do now is have you meet with us every few months so we can let you know when we're ready for you to kill the queen so we can finally start healing this country from within," the shadow said, wondering if this person was really capable of pulling this task off. Naturally, the shadow knew the queen's guards wouldn't suspect someone as unassuming as this girl before the shadow, but at the same time, that's part of what made her such a perfect tool to use in the first place.
The person by the fire nodded, not showing any reaction, which merely made the shadow more on edge. She couldn't help but wonder if she'd need to kill this person eventually, even if she did what she was supposed to do. If only to keep her from remaining an abnormality in this world. Something that was throwing the shadow off from how she normally was.
The shadow was about to leave, when she realized that she'd forgotten to set up a place to meet. A lapse that she couldn't help but attribute to the girl by the fire. The person who seemed to throw the shadow off of her game in more ways than one. Not to mention the previous encounters she'd had with this girl had also added to that sense of unease.
"Meet me in the location we met in three months. We'll see if we're ready to move forward then or not. If not, we'll set up another time to meet in addition to anything else we may need you and your friends to do for us," the shadow said before turning away, not waiting to see what the reaction would be. It didn't matter because the shadow knew the girl would be dead eventually anyway. Whether or not she was willing to cooperate with them when it came time to remove the queen out of their way. "Don't make us come to you again. You won't like what the consequences will be if we do."
_
Beth wasn't sure what that interaction had been with. She hadn't forgotten about the figure she'd met with before, but she certainly hadn't expected to meet with her out here. Though, she supposed that she had been out of contact with them for a while. Even if she was spending most of that time with Kystia as her 'bodyguard' learning how to read and write the language of this country as well as the etiquette of this country which also included dances that likely were for formal occasions that Beth hadn't encountered just yet and couldn't see a reason why she would have to really know those, given she and her friends weren't planning on attending anything formal at all, let alone allowing themselves time to engage in such things.
However, this meeting felt almost ominous. Beth wasn't sure how as she couldn't quite put her finger on it, just that the figure that she knew had electric blue eyes and red hair was out for blood. In one form or another. Which made Beth wonder if she shouldn't have tried her luck when she'd first encountered the figure and tried to stop her from being a threat to her and her friends.
Idly, Beth wondered if maybe that figure was the one who was supposed to kill her according to the dream that Charlie had, though Beth quickly pushed the thought out of her mind. She didn't have time to deal with that sort of thing, especially given how she didn't know much more about Charlie's dream other than how she was supposed to die in the dream.
She'd mostly dismissed the idea of Charlie's dream predicting her death, but after this encounter, she couldn't help but wonder if there was some truth to the dream that she hadn't considered before. After all, Charlie was trying to figure out how to change it, so Beth supposed that it wasn't something that was set. Not that Beth believed in predestination. After all, if predestination was real, then nothing they did mattered since it would end up turning out the same way anyway. Making all their choices and efforts meaningless. Not that that was the reason Beth didn't believe in it.
Instead, Beth believed that they all had choices they could make that would influence the outcome and very little was ever set in stone before it even happened. What was predestined were things like the fact that eventually everything living would die, simply because that's the way life worked: eventually it had to end in order to bring new life into being.
Not that it really applied to this situation. All she could say was that the person who liked to drape themselves in shadows was a killer. Beth wasn't sure how many that person had killed, but she was confident that she was potentially next if she didn't find a way out of this situation and fast. Even if it meant killing her first.
Returning through the gates might be a potential solution, but Beth hardly expected it to be a permanent solution. Especially with how once enough people became aware of the gates, it would likely only be a matter of time before that figure realized that Beth could have escaped through the gates and decide to try and hunt her through them. Maybe it wouldn't be something that would happen, but Beth was pretty sure this killer wasn't someone who would easily let things go. Even if Beth was old by the time the killer found her, she wouldn't cease to be on the hunt for Beth.
Besides, there was also the possibility that Beth would endanger her whole family by trying to avoid this killer that way. Which wasn't a possibility that Beth could accept, even if she was truly scared of this person.
Yawning, Beth started to get up and put out the dying fire. She'd kept the fire going to keep any dangers from her, or at least the kind that weren't human. She hadn't encountered any dangerous wild animals on this world, but that didn't mean that there weren't any. While she was aware that it might attract those who might want to sell her as a slave, she'd used her magic to set up a kind of magical alarm if anything crossed it. Which was how she was able to wake up when the killer got close enough.
While she'd prefer to sleep a little more, she also knew that she probably should get going. She didn't want the killer to come back and decide to kill Beth out of hand, even if that girl thought that Beth still had uses that she could exploit. Uses that Beth was starting to think weren't on the up and up as much as she had initially thought. Not with how willing this person was to kill from what Beth could sense from her.
So, Beth after making sure the fire was out, Beth gathered her things and started walking into the night, Flare with her boundless energy trotting after her. She had avoided doing that up to this point, because it would be easy to injure herself on things she couldn't see in the dark, but putting distance between herself and where she'd had that encounter was what she was focused on right then. If only because she was confident that she would have nightmares if she went back to sleep and didn't do anything to make her mind think about something else for a time. Even if that meant that she was stumbling around in the dark, that was fine with her.
While Jenn had wanted to take care of the memorial as quickly as possible, she was surprised to learn that it took three days before they were ready for the memorial. Partly because it took them a day to find a location to bury Jianopra that was suitable and two days to dig a hole deep enough to bury her body in.
Jenn had considered cremation, but after talking with her advisors, she learned that cremation wasn't a thing that they'd even heard of. Making Jenn rethink that idea. If only so she didn't have to explain something that had been common knowledge on Earth.
It was something that got old rather quickly for Jenn.
At the memorial service, only a few people were invited, and Jenn only informed a few people of it happening. She wasn't sure if she should make it a public event, but looking around, she supposed that she'd made the right call. Maybe if it was her death, it would be a public spectacle, but for one of her stand-ins, just friends that knew Jianopra best seemed to make it more meaningful somehow. Jenn wasn't sure if she'd be able to explain how, just that it felt like they were being more respectful to Jianopra that way.
Though, rather than being able to lower Jianopra's body slowly into the ground, they didn't have a coffin, nor the means to lower it anyway, so they could only ceremoniously drop her body into the hole before a few of them started shoveling dirt on top of Jianopra's body. Jenn wished they could have done it a little more respectfully, but she wasn't sure how given the circumstances. Especially given the limited technology these people had. Maybe they could have made a coffin in the two days that it took to dig the hole, but Jenn wasn't sure if it would have survived being dropped like that, so she had to accept this was the best they could do. Even if she felt they should have done at least a little more than they had.