“Once we’re done, we’re heading straight to the clanhold. While we are supposed to return to the outpost, strays from this horde of topiary horrors could annihilate us, and they are likelier to scatter towards the outpost than towards the clanhold. Young Miss’s safety is paramount, and for her sake I believe heading home is safer, even if it is an act of insubordination.” Darin spun empty sophistry to justify his play for contribution.
Returning Young Miss to her parents would earn him greater merit than finding her and letting someone else act the heroic savior. His henchmen did not expose him. If their leader received a reward, they, as his followers, would also get something.
Meanwhile, Spring listened to Darin’s speech, profiling the opportunistic healer.
Thank Bloom we’re not heading for the outpost. The return trip to the Searing Flame mountain will take days, and I should have enough time to eliminate the threat. Killing him in just a handful of hours would have raised suspicion.
Spring thought they would depart immediately, however the hunters returned to rummaging through the bodies. They are taking longer than expected. I’ve been on this stretcher for forty-five minutes now. This isn’t bad. After these people are done pilfering, not even the most experienced tracker will be able to read what had happened last night, but if they take any longer, another group might join us, and the greater the number of moving parts, the greater the difficulty of controlling the situation.
Spring considered the pros and cons of this procrastination, and reached a decision.
I should prod them to hurry.
“Ugh,” Spring shifted her head and opened her eyes, then returned to sleep.
“All right. We’re done. Let’s pack up and head back.” Darin acted on cue, and after several moments Spring felt the blood in her pitcher slosh as two hunters lifted her. Then, her slow and bumpy return to the Searing Flame clan began.
Darin Honne will probably try to help heal me and get as much information as he can. For my plan to work, I must convince him I’m suffering from memory loss and a severe hemophobia. I have already planted the seed, but I must reinforce it. Trembling, rapid breathing, flinching, and placing my hand at my chest whenever blood is mentioned or when I see it should do the trick.
I must insist on it. They will discover me, if anyone smells my blood. Humans still don’t know about the blighted or inverse florists as they called us at first. So, they have no reason to single me out, but taking precautions and establishing healthy habits never hurts.
During their trek, Spring focused on refining her story. She searched for faults in the play she and Thorn’s group enacted for the sake of deceiving any form of lie detection and to reinforce Spring’s memory.
The latter was redundant, Spring’s mind was nimble, full of schemes and experience. She could invent a scene and use the figment as a reference to pass most mundane interrogation methods. Luckily, even the simplest lie detection method, the wooden nose, was a third level graft. The graft was difficult to feed, painful to implant, and yielded dubious results. Only the desperate and the destitute would use it over higher level grafts, but Spring did not wish to take a needless risk.
Finally, after seven hours of her gut sloshing back and forth, Darin called for a break. As expected, the healer was right next to Spring when they laid her stretcher down. Spring gazed through him with a hollow, broken look. Fear and depression oozed out of her, much like they should from a person who had no past and found herself surrounded by strangers.
“How are you feeling, Young Miss?”
“My head hurts. I’m hungry. Bring me food,” Spring whispered, yet voiced the last sentence as an order. She scrunched her brows, focusing her gaze into the distance, emulating a confused, pondering appearance.
“Here, you can have my rations,” Darin offered, and Spring took his food without hesitation. She dove into it savagely and saw Darin stare at her blankly before regaining his wits a moment later.
“Young Miss, what happened?” he asked.
Spring chewed her food before answering, something she believed all good families instilled in their children. “You found me and pulled me out of that stinking pile.”
Darin nodded. “Yes, we did. But I’m asking about before. What happened during the topiary horrors’ attack?”
Spring shuddered and shrank away. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you know why they attacked you?”
Spring shook her head without hesitation, her eyes slightly unfocused. Inside, however, she felt like cursing. That’s the one question which could destroy my cover story. Luckily, real investigators would never ask it. Wildling movements are erratic. There’s little chance humans would know the logic behind them.
“Did anyone run away?” Darin asked, but Spring did not answer, choosing to keep staring into space.
“It’s difficult to tell based on the tracks. If someone had punched through, they would have left a trail of corpses.” However, spring kept ignoring him.
“Young Miss?” Darin said, but Spring snapped.
“Why do you keep calling me that? I’m hungry, let me eat! I want to clean myself; My clothes stink and whenever I move, my dress sticks to me. I want to sleep properly.” Spring spun another thread of deception, then buried it with a barrage of shouts she believed should come from an entitled, spoiled child of a rich clan.
“I’m sorry, Young Miss—”
“Stop calling me that,” Spring screamed hysterically and Darin took two steps back, giving her space.
“Please, eat. I will find a place where you can wash up.” He bit his tongue before uttering the honorific. Then he turned around and went to search for the stream, which he knew was nearby.
That should be enough to establish my personality and illness. I made reasonable and unreasonable demands, hopefully imitating the overbearing nature Jasmine Searing should have ingrained into her bones when addressing her lessers. He will form his own conclusions, while I must stay vague and not focus on anything, lest I appear artificial. At most, I can nudge him in the right direction when needed.
Now, the biggest problem I have will be convincing family, friends, and acquaintances. I stand no chance at imitating Jasmine Searing’s persona, let alone regaining her memories without fourth or higher level grafts, and the brain I carry will decompose by then. So, I must invent a passable new identity. One which fits my circumstances.
Thinking of her problems, Jasmine glanced at the one-eyed man. The hunter who had carried him left him sitting, leaning against a tree, still unconscious. While a human’s eyes would turn sharp upon seeing the potential threat, Jasmine’s remained empty. She needed conscious effort to paint her eyes, voice, and face with human emotions. Until she willed it, her grafts would remain relaxed and neutral.
Skitt’s head was wrapped up. He had lost his eyepatch, revealing a hole most humans found disturbing. Caked blood had turned his hair into a matted clump, and his chest was bandaged in a proficient, albeit rushed manner.
Darin doesn’t care much about him. He just provided him with the basic aid, but there’s little else he could do. That human is old. He had suffered heavy trauma to the head, and, based on the shape of his bandaged torso, some of his ribs are broken.
His recovery seems unlikely, unless they use an advanced healing graft on him. And that’s impossible, unless he is someone important. Healing a common protected uses up the same amount of healing energies as healing a fifth level florist. All clans treasure their stock of life-saving supplies.
Now, how should I do it? Suffocation and poisoning would leave the least marks on him, perhaps further pressing his broken ribs to puncture something? I have to examine him first to find the correct approach, but there’s no reason Jasmine Searing would waste time on some random nobody.
For a moment, Jasmine wondered whether Skitt was really an irrelevant hunter, but then she recalled Thorn had taken care of all the survivors. Important people were not buried beneath wildling corpses.
“You-ng lady,” Darin called, correcting himself at the last moment. “We have found a stream where you can wash up. Please, follow me.”
The healer then gestured for the rest to follow him.
“Not you, Maar,” Darin stopped the big man, gesturing with his palm. “Someone has to stay behind and mind old Skitt.”
Spring noticed Maar’s dissatisfied look and noted it for the future. There’s some sort of rift between them, which I might be able to use. And he’s leaving only a single guard with the problem, leading them away like this may be the best way to remove the threat. Maybe I could somehow bribe Maar into— No, that is stupid for a bunch of reasons. Why would the Young Miss want to kill an old servant? What if Maar betrays my trust? What if they are cousins or friends?
Spring followed Darin and one other, whose name she had not yet caught. Five paces behind her walked Terr and Jinn.
Let’s see how they react to this.
“Once we’re done, we’re heading straight to the clanhold. While we are supposed to return to the outpost, strays from this horde of topiary horrors could annihilate us, and they are likelier to scatter towards the outpost than towards the clanhold. Young Miss’s safety is paramount, and for her sake I believe heading home is safer, even if it is an act of insubordination.” Darin spun empty sophistry to justify his play for contribution.
Returning Young Miss to her parents would earn him greater merit than finding her and letting someone else act the heroic savior. His henchmen did not expose him. If their leader received a reward, they, as his followers, would also get something.
Meanwhile, Spring listened to Darin’s speech, profiling the opportunistic healer.
Thank Bloom we’re not heading for the outpost. The return trip to the Searing Flame mountain will take days, and I should have enough time to eliminate the threat. Killing him in just a handful of hours would have raised suspicion.
Spring thought they would depart immediately, however the hunters returned to rummaging through the bodies. They are taking longer than expected. I’ve been on this stretcher for forty-five minutes now. This isn’t bad. After these people are done pilfering, not even the most experienced tracker will be able to read what had happened last night, but if they take any longer, another group might join us, and the greater the number of moving parts, the greater the difficulty of controlling the situation.
Spring considered the pros and cons of this procrastination, and reached a decision.
I should prod them to hurry.
“Ugh,” Spring shifted her head and opened her eyes, then returned to sleep.
“All right. We’re done. Let’s pack up and head back.” Darin acted on cue, and after several moments Spring felt the blood in her pitcher slosh as two hunters lifted her. Then, her slow and bumpy return to the Searing Flame clan began.
Darin Honne will probably try to help heal me and get as much information as he can. For my plan to work, I must convince him I’m suffering from memory loss and a severe hemophobia. I have already planted the seed, but I must reinforce it. Trembling, rapid breathing, flinching, and placing my hand at my chest whenever blood is mentioned or when I see it should do the trick.
I must insist on it. They will discover me, if anyone smells my blood. Humans still don’t know about the blighted or inverse florists as they called us at first. So, they have no reason to single me out, but taking precautions and establishing healthy habits never hurts.
During their trek, Spring focused on refining her story. She searched for faults in the play she and Thorn’s group enacted for the sake of deceiving any form of lie detection and to reinforce Spring’s memory.
The latter was redundant, Spring’s mind was nimble, full of schemes and experience. She could invent a scene and use the figment as a reference to pass most mundane interrogation methods. Luckily, even the simplest lie detection method, the wooden nose, was a third level graft. The graft was difficult to feed, painful to implant, and yielded dubious results. Only the desperate and the destitute would use it over higher level grafts, but Spring did not wish to take a needless risk.
Finally, after seven hours of her gut sloshing back and forth, Darin called for a break. As expected, the healer was right next to Spring when they laid her stretcher down. Spring gazed through him with a hollow, broken look. Fear and depression oozed out of her, much like they should from a person who had no past and found herself surrounded by strangers.
“How are you feeling, Young Miss?”
“My head hurts. I’m hungry. Bring me food,” Spring whispered, yet voiced the last sentence as an order. She scrunched her brows, focusing her gaze into the distance, emulating a confused, pondering appearance.
“Here, you can have my rations,” Darin offered, and Spring took his food without hesitation. She dove into it savagely and saw Darin stare at her blankly before regaining his wits a moment later.
“Young Miss, what happened?” he asked.
Spring chewed her food before answering, something she believed all good families instilled in their children. “You found me and pulled me out of that stinking pile.”
Darin nodded. “Yes, we did. But I’m asking about before. What happened during the topiary horrors’ attack?”
Spring shuddered and shrank away. “I don’t remember.”
“Do you know why they attacked you?”
Spring shook her head without hesitation, her eyes slightly unfocused. Inside, however, she felt like cursing. That’s the one question which could destroy my cover story. Luckily, real investigators would never ask it. Wildling movements are erratic. There’s little chance humans would know the logic behind them.
“Did anyone run away?” Darin asked, but Spring did not answer, choosing to keep staring into space.
“It’s difficult to tell based on the tracks. If someone had punched through, they would have left a trail of corpses.” However, spring kept ignoring him.
“Young Miss?” Darin said, but Spring snapped.
“Why do you keep calling me that? I’m hungry, let me eat! I want to clean myself; My clothes stink and whenever I move, my dress sticks to me. I want to sleep properly.” Spring spun another thread of deception, then buried it with a barrage of shouts she believed should come from an entitled, spoiled child of a rich clan.
“I’m sorry, Young Miss—”
“Stop calling me that,” Spring screamed hysterically and Darin took two steps back, giving her space.
“Please, eat. I will find a place where you can wash up.” He bit his tongue before uttering the honorific. Then he turned around and went to search for the stream, which he knew was nearby.
That should be enough to establish my personality and illness. I made reasonable and unreasonable demands, hopefully imitating the overbearing nature Jasmine Searing should have ingrained into her bones when addressing her lessers. He will form his own conclusions, while I must stay vague and not focus on anything, lest I appear artificial. At most, I can nudge him in the right direction when needed.
Now, the biggest problem I have will be convincing family, friends, and acquaintances. I stand no chance at imitating Jasmine Searing’s persona, let alone regaining her memories without fourth or higher level grafts, and the brain I carry will decompose by then. So, I must invent a passable new identity. One which fits my circumstances.
Thinking of her problems, Jasmine glanced at the one-eyed man. The hunter who had carried him left him sitting, leaning against a tree, still unconscious. While a human’s eyes would turn sharp upon seeing the potential threat, Jasmine’s remained empty. She needed conscious effort to paint her eyes, voice, and face with human emotions. Until she willed it, her grafts would remain relaxed and neutral.
Skitt’s head was wrapped up. He had lost his eyepatch, revealing a hole most humans found disturbing. Caked blood had turned his hair into a matted clump, and his chest was bandaged in a proficient, albeit rushed manner.
Darin doesn’t care much about him. He just provided him with the basic aid, but there’s little else he could do. That human is old. He had suffered heavy trauma to the head, and, based on the shape of his bandaged torso, some of his ribs are broken.
His recovery seems unlikely, unless they use an advanced healing graft on him. And that’s impossible, unless he is someone important. Healing a common protected uses up the same amount of healing energies as healing a fifth level florist. All clans treasure their stock of life-saving supplies.
Now, how should I do it? Suffocation and poisoning would leave the least marks on him, perhaps further pressing his broken ribs to puncture something? I have to examine him first to find the correct approach, but there’s no reason Jasmine Searing would waste time on some random nobody.
For a moment, Jasmine wondered whether Skitt was really an irrelevant hunter, but then she recalled Thorn had taken care of all the survivors. Important people were not buried beneath wildling corpses.
“You-ng lady,” Darin called, correcting himself at the last moment. “We have found a stream where you can wash up. Please, follow me.”
The healer then gestured for the rest to follow him.
“Not you, Maar,” Darin stopped the big man, gesturing with his palm. “Someone has to stay behind and mind old Skitt.”
Spring noticed Maar’s dissatisfied look and noted it for the future. There’s some sort of rift between them, which I might be able to use. And he’s leaving only a single guard with the problem, leading them away like this may be the best way to remove the threat. Maybe I could somehow bribe Maar into— No, that is stupid for a bunch of reasons. Why would the Young Miss want to kill an old servant? What if Maar betrays my trust? What if they are cousins or friends?
Spring followed Darin and one other, whose name she had not yet caught. Five paces behind her walked Terr and Jinn.
Let’s see how they react to this.
