literature

Falling Feathers Chapter 20

Deviation Actions

Tennessee11741's avatar
Published:
379 Views

Literature Text

Falling Feathers
Chapter 20: When the End Comes
HWF

"You alright?" Kris asked, still in weapon form looking up at Sterling as he gasped for air.
"Fine, did we lose them?" he said looking over his shoulder into the dimly lit alleyway just touched with the last bits of sunlight.
"I think so," she sighed as Sterling stood up, a few streets to his right he caught a glimpse of Crovix running at full speed with Hace in hand from another member of Legion while shooting wavelength arrows toward her. The person she was being followed by was definitely Anna; anyone could recognize her white blonde hair even from this distance.
Anna carried a black cutlass that was her magical weapon, swinging and jabbing at Crovix as they ran, but never getting close enough to actually touch her. Crovix trip backwards as she turned to face her attacker and drove Hace into the ground and flipped over him, using her weapon as a type of vaulting stick before she fired another arrow at her.
Sterling jumped to his feet and ran toward them as Crovix used Hace as a double bladed sword and swung at Anna, cutting her shoulder open. She screamed as Crovix caught sight of Sterling, stopped one street over from her and began to run to the center of the city, she followed along on the parallel street and met after rounding the next building.
"It's been an hour!" Hace exclaimed angrily, "Why haven't we found our useless godparents?!"
"This is ridiculous," Sterling grumbled.
"Can't you just teleport to them?" Crovix panted.
"Only if I know where they are," he replied, "besides, Anna can teleport like me, and if she latches onto my teleportation she'll know where I'm going."
Both meisters sighed and listened hard in the dusk, searching for any sounds to indicate that someone was getting close. They could still hear Anna's sobs in pain from a few blocks away mostly because sound traveled so easily in this city. Now that the tourists had gone for the day the city was quiet so it would be easy to hear something far away, but they still heard nothing but the woman. And what they should have heard was Pike's muffled breathing coming from the building above them.
Pike leaned forward over the balcony, wringing his hands nervously and desperately wishing he had not killed his father in the first place, or even taken the position of viceroy in Legion, but now he had and there was nothing that could be done. He leaned farther over the railing and his chest bumped against a terracotta flower pot which fell toward the street below and smashed in front of Sterling.
Sterling jumped backward and gasped as Crovix looked up and took off down the street with the other meister following. Pike furrowed his brow; Sterling was more experienced as a swordsman and he could protect Crovix and his brother, so the logical thing to do was separate them. After they were separated another Legion member could take care of Hace.
"Sterling!!!" Pike screamed from the balcony, jumping over the railing and into the streets, wobbling slightly. "Don't you want to know why you are!!!!"
Sterling spun on his heels. "What do you know!?" he shouted furiously.
"Sterling, don't-!" Hace began, but he was already bolting toward Pike with Kris protesting.
Pike gasped and turned down another alley with Sterling coming up on him closely, his plan working a little too well, apparently Sterling was quicker than he'd expected.
Hace exclaimed in fear and instantly took human form, running after his brother with Crovix running after him.
Pike gasped, looking over his shoulder to see Sterling reaching out to grab him by the collar. He took a quick turn and leapt from the road onto one of the empty gondolas floating in the still water. Sterling was right behind reaching out to catch him, but Pike swung his sword and cut him down his leg from his knee to his ankle.
Sterling screamed and dropped Kris into the water as Pike leapt up on the other side. The meister fell into the gondola grabbing his wound and Kris broke the surface next to him, then climbed into the boat and took hold of his leg as well.
"It's okay, it's okay!" she exclaimed holding pressure on the open slice as Sterling looked up at Pike with teary eyes.
"Who am I?!" he shouted as Hace and Crovix rounded the corner and stopped at the edge of the cannel.
"It's him!" Pike cried fearfully pointing at Hace, "He's the one that's not one of us!"
Hace drew back in surprise and walked into Crovix who took his shoulders and steadied him.
"What about me?!" Sterling said quickly.
"You're who you thought you were, your name is Sterling and your mother is Freda Americt and your father is who you think he is! It's him who's different!" he said again pointing to Hace as if he was less than human. "He was stolen from Chrona and we used Freda's magic to switch your physical appearances!"
Hace's feelings bubbled close to the surface and he clenched his hands into fists. "I have no parents! So like hell I care where I came from! What I want to know is why you attacked us!" Hace exclaimed, beginning to shake, already knowing the answer.
"You know what I am now," Pike said, also shaking, "I can't run the risk of you telling anyone I've got witch blood… I have to kill you."
Sterling half breathed a sigh of relief in knowing his past before looking backward at his brother, now a completely different person without changing at all. He had different parents, he had been stolen as a child, he was different, but at the same time he was who he had always been.
Hace swayed slightly and broke away from Crovix. He jumped off the shore, across the cannel using the boats, and up onto the other side so quickly Pike did not have a chance to do anything. Hace's arms had turned into the blades of his bow form and he came at him ready for a fight.
"You're not going to kill anyone!" he shouted holding up an arm.
"I've killed two already, it's nothing new!"
"Hace!" Crovix exclaimed leaping down in the gondola.
"Don't move, Crovix," Hace instructed, and she stood still, awaiting his next order so she could rebuke it, but nothing followed this.
"Why?!"
Hace looked over his shoulder at her with a slight smile and Pike took advantage of this movement, charging forward the yard that was in-between them and jabbing toward his middle. Hace immediately spun back around swerved to the right to avoid him.
Pike held up his cutlass and blocked Hace's first attack and ducked under his second, then kicked his feet out from under him. Hace looked up and slashed at Pike's ankles so they spurted red and he too fell, the older then kicked out and hit Hace in the face so he rolled backwards. Pike shot up and stood over him, then picked up his sword, but Hace was somewhat quicker and slashed outward at his arms, succeeding in slicing a large gashing in his forearm.
Pike clung to his arm for a moment before collecting himself as if it had never happened and stepped on the end of Hace's cloak then drove his sword into Hace's shoulder. The younger screamed, as did Crovix who could not seem to move from her place in the rocking gondola.
"How can you want to take Legion from me?! You're not even one of us?!" Pike shouted, twisting the sword so Hace screamed louder and Sterling tried to jump to the next boat in the cannel but could not make it far enough with his leg. Kris jumped into the water and pulled him back up as Pike continued.
"Legion took me away from everything! Mutilated me and never gave me a chance to live! It's time it gave back, so don't try to take it!!"
"You got it th-through murder! It's not yours! You don't deserve it!!" Hace cried turning his arms back into human form and grabbing at the sword, cutting his palms up in a desperate attempt to escape.
Crovix's feet begin to move toward the edge of the boat but Kris grabbed her so she couldn't react with her instinct. Arguing was not helping his cause. If he had any hope of surviving he should be telling Pike what he wanted to hear. She could not think of a single person who would stand by their beliefs while a sword was twisted into their body.
"Well now you'll never get it!" Pike shouted raising his hand so a white beam of light began to form.
Hace's breathing quickened and he pulled himself upward so the sword was protruding from his back, his arm turned into the blade of his bow and he stabbed Pike in the stomach.
Pike almost instantly coughed up blood and fell backwards as Hace rolled over on his side, clawing at the sword until he managed to yank it out completely. He stood, holding his bleeding shoulder, looking hurt but somewhat accomplished.
"Is he dead?" Kris asked sitting up a little straighter as Sterling did the same, still holding his wound.
Hace stepped to the edge of the pavement with his back to the water and looked down at Pike for a long moment, then took his pulse and looked back at the other three.
"Yeah, he's dead," Hace sighed.
"You're sure this time?" Crovix asked, smiling compassionately.
He nodded and grinned at her, simply happy to have been accepted. He looked down into his dull reflection on the orangey grey colored water that mirrored the color of the sky, his blood ran between his fingers and down his chest, even dripping onto the sidewalk and into the golden water.
"We should probably get to a hospital," Sterling sighed but stopped suddenly and he looked like he was about to form words but they couldn't get out fast enough.
"Hace!" Crovix and Kris screamed and suddenly Hace was in pain so severe he could not relate it to anything he had previously felt. His inners were being twisted and cut, and he threw up, blood burst from his mouth and spattered into the water. Looking down he could see that it was not just blood from his mouth that was escaping his body, but it was also coming from his abdomen. Protruding from his stomach was Pike's sword, blood spewing from every corner of exposed flesh. He's been run through and he did not have much time left to live.
"I suppose this is payback," Pike smiled pulling the sword out and Hace tipped forward, his back arched and his eyes fixated on something that was not there, "Don't worry, your precious meister is next."
Hace looked like he was about fall forward into the cannel and Crovix jumped into the gondola below to catch him, but instead Hace's arms turned immediately into blades and he spun on Pike.
"Don't you dare touch her!" Hace screamed, blood running between his teeth as he lashed out in a scissor cut and sliced Pike in half at the middle. Pike's body did not move, but only for a moment, then fell backwards and broke apart. Unable to heal itself in this state his body began to deteriorate as if being burned and the ash like substance was swept up by the winds blowing through the streets and carried elsewhere.
Hace wobbled again and fell backward into the waters, too far from the gondola for Crovix to catch. She held her breath and dove beneath the orange water, grabbing him under the arms, and lifting him to the surface as Sterling and Kris made it to the other side and pulled him onto the pavement.
"Grab him, grab him," Crovix coughed, struggling to hoist him up and stay up as well.
"Hace! Hace…!" Sterling cried as Hace coughed up a mixture of blood and water and looked up at his brother.
Hace smiled slightly and looked around for Crovix, who pulled herself up next to him and took his head in her hands. Tears were blending with the water on her face so even she couldn't tell if she was actually crying. Her eyes gummed up and she wiped her face quickly; she couldn't cry now, not with Hace in this state.
"H-hey," he murmured helplessly, his eyes becoming cloudy and his mouth twitching with a smile.
"H-H-Hace," she chocked brushing the hair out of his eyes and pressing her forehead to his, "You can't die now…."
"It's alright… you guys are safe," Hace coughed as Sterling broke down in sobs and Kris clung to him, crying just as hard. "Hey!" he spoke looking at his brother, "Don't cry… 'kay? You're always saying I-… I'm not worth anything, right…? A-a-and certainly not tears."
Crovix was presently refusing to cry for someone whose last wish was to have no tears and lifted her head from his, then bent over again placing a cherished kiss on his forehead. "… Thank you…."
Hace smiled and closed his eyes. "I-I'm… h-happy to… help…" he sighed, his breath fading away and his eyes closing. A single, silver tear rolled down her cheek and landed on Hace's closed eye, an eye closed without hope that it would ever open again.
The three placed their hands on Hace's body gently as if trying to cling to his fleeting life as his pulse slowly beat to a halt.
Twilight seemed a little duller without him without their departed friend and brother. Crovix again pressed their foreheads together, Kris took Sterling's hand tightly and patted Crovix gently on the back, and Sterling pulled Hace's hands over his wound so he looked as if he was resting peacefully.
Suddenly a soft blue light broke away from Hace's body and Kris and Sterling looked up.
"Cro…" Sterling said touching her shoulder gently.
Crovix looked up and her eyes fell upon Hace's detached soul hovering just about a foot over his lifeless body. It stayed there for a moment before floating upward just like any innocent soul does, rather than stay in one place like a corrupt soul does seeing as it would be weighted down with sin. Crovix swallowed hard, reached out, and grabbed it. His soul was warm and smooth and she could hold it easily between two hands, but it did not move… Hace was dead.
Sorry it took me so long to get this up, Deviantart's been acting funny all night :( anyways! Sad chapter... tell me what you think!

Story&Art (c) *Tennessee11741
© 2011 - 2024 Tennessee11741
Comments6
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
RG111693's avatar
What are you going to do withot Hace? He's one of the main characters.