Back at the Garden, Night had finally taken over the day as the spoked moon cast its pale glow on the Fire Garden.
Tonight the familiar uniforms of the Firekeepers were nowhere to be found. There were no lilac lanterns to light the streets tonight. The entirety of The Garden seemed to lack a certain glow and luster.
The protectors of the Garden, although ridiculed in public, still held influence in the eyes of the small when it came to their protection.
Not everyone thought of their fight as simple or trivial.
In the residential area the Women and children avoided the streets and closed their doors tight.
In a small house a mother brushed the hair of her young son as she read him a bed-time story.
His eyes were so pure and full of innocence, innocence she felt from the moment she held his tiny body in her hands. 'You've grown so much my little Rubio…You look just like your father. So handsome'
As she stroked his hair she closed the book and reached for the lantern she had placed down. " I love you Rubio, my little firekeeper."
Rubio stared at his mother's smile and felt a deep warmth in his belly as he tucked himself in tighter.
Watching his mother leave the room, Rubio remembered something and decided to ask purely of innocence. " Mommy, why can't I play by myself anymore? Do I really have to stay at home? My friends will miss me. I don't want to be like Enzio who stays at home all the time!"
Rubio's mother paused, the flames in the lantern dancing wildly casting malicious shadows on the walls. She didn't turn to face her son. She closed her eyes and her lips trembled slightly as she bit into them. She bit hard, so hard that blood pooled around her teeth before dripping down her chin onto her night gown.
" Mommy?" Rubio asked, feeling something was wrong.
The shadows continued to dance, wilder and wilder. " Sorry sweetie, don't worry. Daddy's gone to help Mr Juraman. So he wants us to stay inside and stay together for a few nights. I promise you will play soon."
Rubio stared at his mother's back, his young mind pondering what she said. A glimmer of acknowledgement flickered in his eyes as he smiled and said. " Okay! But you have to play with me instead."
There was no response for a while.
" Hmm? Mommy? Why are you shaking? Are you cold?" Rubio stared at his mother frozen at his door.
She was holding in tears. Tears that wanted to flow endlessly but could not in front of her son. She knew where her husband had gone most likely. Because she wasn't the first wife to have her love sent into that horrid place of silence.
She shook her head and steadied her hands. " No sweetie, everything is alright. Go to sleep now. I love you."
She did not wait for Rubio to respond. She exited the room and closed the door behind her. Her breaths were quick and shallow.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
She slid down the wooden door and landed on the floor with a thunk. She couldn't feel the pain at that moment. She held her head down and clasped her hands in front of her.
Blurry images of a man that looked like a grown up version of Rubio flashed in her mind. He held her close, his words felt like glass in her ears.
He said to her, " I don't know if I will be home tomorrow. I have to go to Outpost #1 with Farod and the other firekeepers. Stay inside. This place is no longer safe…If I make it back. I am going to take you somewhere else. I'll do what I can to keep us alive and well. I love you, Sinnah, You are my darling moon and sun. And when I look up at the sky, day or night. I see you…I think of you, I will come home to you."
Sinnah felt droplets of water trickle down her face like rivers each tear a declaration of her love for her husband. " Rohan…Please come back…Please…Don't leave me here alone in this wild place. Please…"
Rubio removed his ear which was pressed against the doorframe and turned around to his window.
Outside, the crooked moon looked down upon him with a beautiful smile. He stared back at it in a daze and frowned. "Dad, are you okay?"
Similar prayers were being prayed on this quiet night. Prayers for health, Prayers of safety, Prayers of forgiveness. The heavens accepted all accounts on this night but it was still silent.
However not everything was silent. In the industrial districts machines still churned endlessly with the support of men who were away from their homes.
" Why are we working late tonight?" Someone asked.
" This is the last big shipment that Lady Vivian wants us to complete and then we are free for the next week. Paid." A friend replied.
" Paid?" another chimed in.
" Yes paid and we are getting an overtime bonus for working late into the night." They continued.
" That's crazy! Normally the firekeepers would have shut the furnaces down because they're like a cryptid beacon or something."
They all looked around and saw no cryptids coming their way. And they all laughed aloud.
" I guess they were worried for nothing. I tell you those firekeepers are really useless under that Juaraman fellow. Lady Vivian would have everything in tip top shape. Maybe we could even become firekeepers without being karma masters."
" You and your dreams!"
More and more carriages were loaded with supplies and shipped out towards the distant Outpost number 16. A cloaked figure watched this with steely eyes.
He looked towards a group of men who were lazily lifting boxes onto a carriage and chatting away. Their figures illuminated by the soft glow of the lanterns on their waists.
Without much hindrance he snuck his way into a gap between boxes. Seeing that his coast was clear he removed his hood and remained hidden behind a few crates.
" Vivian, What are you doing behind our backs?" If James was here he would recognize the face as the young man who was laying in the sun earlier that day.
The carriage quickly rattled off into the distance carrying its load and one extra passenger in the rear.
"Outpost #16…a little brother has to check in on his big sister every once in a while." The young man quickly settled into his hiding spot and closed his eyes.
Meanwhile near the Kiln, a woman was standing at the base of the steps. Next to her was a tall figure covered in a cloak. From beneath the cloak stag like horns protruded from holes near the skull.
The woman who was dressed in a suit of armor. Embroidered in gold on the breastplate of the armor was 'VVV'. Draped across her shoulders was a coat made of thick white fur which looked to be skinned off a cryptid. Her brown hair was also neatly tied into a pony tail. Her emerald eyes glanced around her. They were so pristinely green it was almost hard to perceive it as naturally occurring.
Resting on her shoulder was a great sword. She flicked her coat to reveal the pommel of the sword which said the name. 'Vivian'
The sword had no sheath, and was covered in a layer of rust. Her forearm remained around the blade handle as she kept it angled towards the sky. She breathed in the cold night air and gave a deep exhale. Mist briefly clouded the expression on her face before being pulled away from her lips with the wind.
Vivian was around 5'11 and stood shoulder to shoulder with a figure which was nearly half a man taller than her. She was stocky and her arms were covered in numerous scars. Her emerald eyes glanced upwards at the cloak standing next to her.
" I've fulfilled my end of the bargain. Juraman and his firekeepers are gone from the Garden."
The figure unstably shifted its stance like a deer standing on its hind legs. Soon a withered hand outstretched from the darkness beneath the cloak.
The hand was covered in a sparse layer of black and dark brown fur, the fingers were elongated and each finger could stretch along the length of a human head. The fingernails which gleamed like blades were black and purple. The arm followed the same withered trend and the bones and tendons were exposed under the taught dark brown skin.
They raised their fingers and pointed upwards towards the entrance of the kiln and there was a hefty gargle as if they were struggling to say words.
" Open…Then...Complete"
Vivian looked away and spat on the floor. Ptoey*
" Lets go."
Vivian soon made her way up the steps of the Kiln followed by a figure cloaked in black in the dead of night, uninterrupted.
However, even after observing her surroundings. Vivian failed to notice a crucial detail. A wooden ear hidden from plain sight tucked neatly between the cobblestone.
Relen, who was in the lodge, listened to their conversation and frowned. '"Hmm. Vivian. What are you planning?"
" What do I do?" Relen asked aloud in the kitchen of the empty Lodge as his brows furrowed in contemplation.
Xchitzo cat rubbed its eyes lazily and meowed. "Whatever you can do, my cat."
At the lake~
In his mind James could see that colossal figure standing next to Uquinn in that dark space beneath the kiln. He also remembered how cold and professional they were while speaking to each other. If it was never said to him he would have no idea. 'I see…we all do have daddy issues.'
James was unable to find words to soothe Uquinn. He was also unsure if she even needed them. He didn't ask anymore, he nodded to her and turned his attention to Ethan and recounted their experience at the lake.
Ethan at the end of James' recollection shifted his posture. " Based on what you're saying it seems like we might have to constantly surround ourselves with karma to get to the bottom of that lake and the training might be to increase the time were able to maintain that state. "
" I also had to get creative with my task. " Ethan pulled out his axe which was chipped at the tip.
He rubbed the jagged edge of his axe and sighed. " I thought I could cut the wood easily being a rank 1 karma master but my axe almost broke on the first swing. I spent a few seconds confused but then I remembered something that my father once talked about."
Ethan's blue karma enveloped him and extended from his hands to his weapon. " He was pretty drunk that night and he was telling me and my younger brother stories about how Karma is the most useful thing to ever exist and that karma masters who are unable to use their karma effectively are basically worthless."
Ethan paused for a second. " I don't think the same but anyway. We didn't really understand what he was rambling about, but we asked him to show us what he meant. He plucked a flower from one of the plants around the house and held it up."
Ethan in character also held up his axe mimicking what his father did in those moments. " He enveloped the flower in his karma and tossed it at a roach that was scurrying across the room."
Ethan swung his axe forward and a gust of wind blew in James and Uquinn's faces.
" By the time my brother and I realized the roach was cut in half, the flower was already stuck in the wood. He told us to go and touch it and we did. The flower petals were soft but we still didn't understand why or how it could cut a roach in half. He never got to explain it to us before he fell asleep."
Uquinn and James listened silently and nodded every few seconds already having a faint idea of where this was headed.
" So I decided to try that with my axe and as you can see it worked. However it's a bit unstable and extremely tiring. "
James and Uquinn looked at the karma enveloping the axe; it was volatile and rough almost as if the axe was resisting being coated with the karma.
Ethan smirked and brought the axe down on a scattered piece of wood in front of him. They all watched as the wood was chopped like butter. There was no resistance while his axe passed through it into the dirt. " That's how I was able to cut those trees down."
Uquinn nodded. " This must also be something that Ziggy wants us to learn while we're here."
The boys nodded at her assessment.
James, not feeling tired, decided to stay up. " I'm not tired you two get some rest we can rotate whenever one of you wakes up."
" Alright." They replied in unison. Neither Uquinn nor Ethan stood on ceremony. Both were tired and their karma lakes were almost empty. They needed rest.
James' whose karma lake was still half full, decided to use his free time and experiment with what Ethan found out. He picked up numerous sticks and rocks and attempted to envelop them in his karma.
James concentrated and imagined that the rock he was currently holding wasn't separate from his body and was an extension of his fingers. His karma stretched and shifted as it slowly spread from his palm to the rock.
As he did he suddenly felt an unnatural resistance, as if something was pushing back against his karma making it more unstable. He continued to spread his karma around the rock until it seemed to reach its limit.
Snap! It snapped back to his body.
'So objects resist being coated with karma? Like magnets they push each other apart.'
James continued to repeat his experiment. He tried to use larger rocks and smaller rocks. Sticks that were long and some that were thick.
'The more surface area to cover the harder it is to maintain and the more tiring it is to keep it up.'
He continued to repeat this action over and over until he was able to hold it for two seconds before it popped. James glanced at his karma lake which was now almost empty and stopped practicing.
The night was uneventful. James sat alone in the dark tending to the flame watching the treeline for anything that wanted to make themselves known but could not find anything. He even attempted to figure out where he was being watched from but that was also uneventful.
James a few hours before dawn was tapped on his shoulder by Ethan who gave him a nod and yawned. "Anything?"
"No." James stood up and walked over to the tarp and found a comfortable patch of the blanket to lay on. He stared up at the night sky filled with dazzling colors and the crooked moon and sighed. " Why do I feel like something isn't right?"
James felt a sinking feeling at the base of his stomach. He did his best to ignore the feeling and closed his eyes. However he wouldn't sleep at all that night.
In his mind he couldn't help but think about his old life. Going to college. Being with Gasper and Hazel and remembering the good times that he had with them. ' I wonder if we're looking at the same sky? You and I? How do you feel? Do you miss me? Do you think I am a bad guy for being too scared of real life?"