In the five minutes since Vtraní had swept into the apartnt building Qoréa had tucked herself away in—her own apartnt, which would have seed an impressively terrible place to hide out except Vtraní was, sohow or other, the first person to reach her—the woman had been a massive pain in their ass.
First, she had attacked them. All Vtraní had been doing was raising their fist, intent to knock on the door and see if they could do this the easy way. Was this wishful thinking on their part? Yes. The woman’s fate was sealed, and whether she died by their hand or whover Fräthk ordered to extinguish her existence, she was already dead. There would be no redemption, no salvation, no last-ditch effort of begging and promising their owner—because in no world was Fräthk anything other than their owner, despite what so among their numbers may claim—anything they desired, if only she were allowed another chance.
Maybe, had the situation with the Baalphorian man not resulted in Porsq slipping free of Fräthk’s grasp, the woman may have been able to save herself. Perhaps, if the preteen were found, she would be offered a reprieve.
Vtraní was not inclined to give the woman one. Qoréa was not a good person—few of them were, their lives and bare freedoms dependent on doing what was asked of them and never causing too much of a fuss—but where so many of them would wish for a different life, the woman was perfectly happy to live this life—or, she would be, if only Fräthk would turn their middling, conniving affection her way once more.
So people, such as Qoréa, Hwris, and Prex, loved this life and always had. Others were the sort who had been deford by the things required of them—people who had fought for so long before finally giving in. Still more were like Vtraní themself: people who would do what was asked of them, never being able to find joy in their cruel existence but accepting the lot they had been given nonetheless. So people, with abilities neither impressive nor useless, could push back and find death. Vtraní had learned long ago that there was little they could do that would lead Fräthk or their master to snuff out their life—no, instead, if they pushed the rules too profoundly, they would be left a shell, shifted about for their power whenever it was needed.
Behind him, Qoréa was spitting insults at them—mostly, she seed to find issue with their lack of gender, which, rude. There were very few things Vtraní felt strongly about, and their lack of attachnt to any gender was high on the list. Really, had they lived a kinder life, Vtraní thought their identity would be more fluid—a shifting of their person and expression into whatever felt right in that mont. Life had not been kind, and their shell of a soul deserved the shell of a body—a thing of nothingness, unbound.
Regardless, the woman was rude, and with a snap of aether, she was silent, her eyes blades of ice when they turned back to her. The insults were better than the fake sobbing, at the very least.
Attacking them at the doorway had beco sobbing and begging. Then, the woman had attacked them again. As she hadn’t known it was them at the door when she first attacked, Qoréa had used her abilities against them—or tried to. Unfortunately for her, such things were useless against them. Hence, during her second round of attacks, the woman had simply attempted to fight them off with fists. Perhaps, had she the sense to grab her willbrand before attacking them the first ti, she may have had so success. The woman, however, was an idiot—a sadistic idiot.
If Hwris were a monster in power and conniving intelligence, Prex an imbecile with too much power and predilections that Vtraní would quite enjoy slicing each of their appendages off in recompense for, Qoréa was soone with no sense and not nearly enough power to back up her lack of forethought.
Seriously, who knows they are being targeted by nurous mbers of Fräthk’s loyal and doesn’t keep her willbrand on her person? Soone with too few working brain cells, surely.
After easily taking the woman down—Vtraní might be on the wiry side of things, but they were still taller and wider than Qoréa’s own small, if still fit, form. Having seen the Baalphorian man in person, Vtraní was curious as to how the woman had managed to get him to cooperate so easily. While the woman’s ability to manipulate those she touched was impressive—had their own powers not been what they were, Vtraní would have struggled to resist her pull—the man had both a Censor to aid in resisting her and should have been able to at least try to put up a fight.
As mysterious as Censors were, it was impossible to say whether the Baalphorians Qoréa had previously experinted on had sothing strange about them, which had aided in their resisting her abilities for short bursts of ti. Still, sothing about the situation seed odd.
When they found Anarch and Curtisal, Vtraní would need to ask the latter if he had access to a recording of the Baalphorian man being taken. Perhaps, were they able to see what happened—
A wad of spit splattered to the floor in front of Vtraní. Rude.
“Perhaps,” they said, stepping forward and reaching a barrier around themself, lest her aim improve, “rather than killing you, I should leave you here? Let soone else find you, so they can torture you? Soone whose loved ones have died in this conflict your actions gave birth to, perhaps?” Another step, another. With each step, Vtraní rattled off the na of yet another person who was now fuming, wishing for revenge for the death of soone they cared for.
While the Baalphorians in the city seemingly hadn’t killed any of their group’s mbers yet—although they had killed and disard a handful of Drinarna who were associated with their group, one of whom may have been involved with a lower mber of their organization—there were plenty of bodies laying across the city’s foundation due to Qoréa’s actions. Perhaps, had the Baalphorian man not been the sort to attempt escape, the Baalphorians he knew not the sort to fearlessly seek to save him, the woman’s kidnapping might have been useful.
Oh, it still would have started chaos within the city, but currently, too many of Fräthk’s most loyal were having to deal with the missing Porsq, while more were seeking out the Baalphorians wandering the city, hoping to either eliminate them or remove them from the city. Given what was being reported of their movents by group mbers, watching them from afar, they seed to be powerful. The last thing anyone wanted was a foreign nation demanding revenge for a handful of valuable citizens being killed in a gang conflict—especially as the group must surely be relating that nurous Drinarna had attacked them back to the clones at the least.
It was a ss, and soone needed to pay. For the mont, that was Qoréa, and a quick death was the best she could hope for. Vtraní didn’t like the sadistic woman, who enjoyed pressing her abilities into people and making them consent to all manner of things. Torture. Sex. They’d even heard she’d once used her abilities to make a man prepare himself for her consumption, plunging needles into his flesh to plump himself with marinade before forcing him to lay on a sizzling grill. Vtraní had no idea whether this story was true or not, but the woman had never denied the accusations that she did anything of the sort.
Soone who was willing to allow themself to be seen as so monstrous was a monster, regardless of the cris they had actually committed.
All this was to say, Vtraní would kill the woman, but they had no desire to do more than get answers, kill her, and move on with their day. They had more important things to do and people to find. Torture was not on the agenda.
“FINE!” the woman yelled, after Vtraní had pulled out their buzzing xphern and confird that two mbers of a triad had been killed in a conflict happening across the city. They weren’t mbers of Fräthk’s group, but rather, the three had been leaders of another group. Their remaining mber, if they survived the conflict, would not take their partners’ deaths for anything but what they were: a tragedy that was the result of Qoréa’s actions and the too short leash Fräthk had kept her on.
It was sad, in a way, listening to Qoréa beg them to offer her corpse up to the remaining triad mber, if only so they might not take their anger and grief out on Fräthk. Stupid woman, to love Fräthk so much when their owner was a deranged monster, oozing rot and decay with every breath, their master an infestation of ruin. Once, Fräthk had been slightly more sane, slightly more reasonable. Those days were gone, nothing but desperation lingering in their every word.
“She’s coming,” Fräthk had muttered to themself, several months ago. “There’s no stopping her. Too many strings. One can be pulled, and maybe she won’t—but no. He’ll co—everything is already set. Make them not co? Could do that, but… too many variables. It’s too soon. Not the right ti. Maybe would have been better if that brat hadn’t slipped away. We were so close—so close, we could taste it. Oh, it would have been delicious. Our child, so sweet and perfect. A perfect ho for our master—how could they not be when they slipped away? What other sort of being could slip and slide like that? They’re still here, you know? Hiding in the city. They have to be. There’s no escape from this place when they’re like that, you know? The city won’t let them slip free of its bounds.”
Fräthk hadn’t looked their way, but even if they had, Vtraní had thought them speaking to soone else. Who, they had no idea, but Fräthk had almost seed to have forgotten they were there, co to give them a report on a mission they’d been helping to clean up—one of Qoréa’s missions, now that they thought of it. The woman should have been taken out then, but while Vtraní had related the situation to Fräthk, it were as though they weren’t listening.
Instead, Vtraní had stood there listening to their owner rant like a crazed jur’tavá. Around and around they went, whispering of aether-blessed beings and how the future was set but not, and how did things wind up this way, they weren’t supposed to wind up this way. Oddly, through all their listening to Fräthk rant and ramble over the years, this had been the strangest. Usually, when they paced in circles, their hands digging through their hair, Fräthk seed to be talking to their master—although Vtraní had no idea how they were speaking with them. Perhaps they were simply ruminating on previous conversations, or working through how to relate bad news to them? Unknown—Vtraní knew Fräthk was beholden to soone, but had no idea who that person was.
Regardless, what had stood out to them about this particular session of ranting was how, for one, every ti they attempted to leave, Fräthk would stop their ranting and demand they stay—not sothing that had happened at any ti before or since this mont, despite hundreds of rants existing within the space of ti before this ti, a handful having co to pass since. The other thing that had been strange was how it felt as though whatever manic energy Fräthk had held within themself had been… wrong.
Vtraní wasn’t sure how to explain it, unaware of the aether as they generally were, but usually, Fräthk’s rants seed to be feeding on the aether, leaving it lighter than usual. This ti, however, the aether had seed a heavy thing, condensed within Fräthk’s new office—the previous one had been blown up several hours earlier, and Fräthk had proceeded to kill off a rival group leader, all because they wanted their office.
They were insane, and the leader of their overall family sohow never saw need to step in and force them to behave. Sotis, Vtraní wondered if the head of their organization was beholden to so unseen master as well, but it was, as many things were, a rely passing thought, just as it was a passing thought that Qoréa truly was an idiot for loving such a monster.
Sadistic idiot for increasingly unhinged maniac. What a love story that would be—would never be, not again. The day that Fräthk and Qoréa could be together had vanished along with the person the woman had once been, and no amount of begging and promises that she was still the sa person inside would ever change Fräthk’s opinion of Qoréa—of the woman Fräthk had, decades ago, considered soone they could be with, back when they had still lived within the body and fabricated identity of a man.
Choosing to be the person one wanted to be was freeing and confining all at once, Vtraní supposed. Qoréa was free to be whover she wanted, but Fräthk didn’t want that person. All Qoréa wanted was Fräthk back, and she was unable to understand why this person who had no preference about their partner’s gender had barely wanted to even see her since she had ceased pretending her biological body matched her soul.
It was odd, but Vtraní wasn’t about to go ask Fräthk about the why of their disregard for Qoréa. What they were going to do? Promise to tell Fräthk she had cooperated, so their last mory of the woman the man they had maybe loved beca would be a good one.
Vtraní doubted Fräthk would care, but if the woman were going to give them answers for their promise, it was easy enough to give.
“Tell about how you kidnapped the Baalphorian,” they demanded, staring down at the woman and listening to her short explanation before snapping her neck—they had places to be and answers to get.
Hopefully, Anarch’s little friend had access to the museum’s caras.
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