Green Scarf

If not for the rustle of wings and the whisper of scales across concrete, the dark grey room would have been utterly silent. An invisible line seemed to stretch across its width: on one side stood two human forms before a tangled, mismatched horde of strange creatures, and on the other, five wood-masked beings.

For his part, Clovis had hardly ever felt happier for his mask. The furrowed bear's face he wore suggested a permanent stern scowl; it showed none of the shock which had frozen him in his tracks. The last thing he had expected upon entering the room was to see every single Utsuyan free and facing him. And the last living person he had expected to see there was standing before them, so changed that she was almost, almost unrecognizable. Anyone who had spent less time with her might not have seen who she was.

And then, any slim chance they had at anonymity was shattered the moment Brendan spoke her name.

Kumari blinked a long, slow blink, but her face otherwise remained cool and impassive. Her hunting face, they had joked long ago, one which could stop an attacking Utsuyan in its tracks as it wondered what new predator this was. A killing face.

She was so often cold, even back then. Clovis wondered if that was why his surprise faded so quickly into betrayed acceptance. Perhaps he had always expected something like this to happen in the end.

The silence thinned and stretched to a snapping point, until the man Kumari stood beside suddenly burst out into rough laughter.

"Old friends of yours?" he guffawed. His voice was deeper than Brendan's, but the accent was the same open, r-rolling brogue. Like their Hand's white-haired Owl – like Kumari – he came from the Fearans' region of Saelis.

"You might say that," Kumari replied. It came out as a mutter; she hardly moved her lips to speak.

"Which ones?"

"The owl and the bear. Brendan and Clovis."

He snickered again.

"Pitiful. A middle-aged short-stack and a guy so faded he's practically a ghost."

Clovis heard Jaya shift behind him.

"What do we do?" she breathed.

"Wait," he returned in kind. The five of them against two humans was manageable. The five of them against two humans and thirty or more monsters, a third of which were around the size of a horse, was a fight he didn't want to pick, unless circumstances abruptly swung in their favor.

"Faded?" Brendan was saying, reaching up instinctively toward his mask and hood as though to make sure his distinctively white hair was concealed. "How'd you…"

His breath hitched.

"Fearan?"

The scarred man rewarded him with another sharp, bright smile. He pushed his left sleeve up past the shoulder to reveal a simple, circular knot-work marking, marred cruelly by another X-shaped scar.

Clovis knew relatively little about Fearan society, but even he understood the meaning of a broken mark. His hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

"Took you long enough. You've never felt someone who's breathed in so far beyond his own life, ha? Lorcan's the name…Lorcan Carey."

Half-remembered flashes of news in the papers and on screens ran through Clovis' mind. The Fearan clans calling out an alert and a bounty, people found dead of no natural causes in cities across worlds, mugshots of a man without the scar or the too-bright blue eye.

"Kumari, get away from him! He's a killer!" Brendan moved forward half a step, but the hiss of a scaly serpentine Utsuyan and the waver of the shotgun stopped him.

Kumari made no motion to obey.

"Aren't we all?" Lorcan asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Clovis growled. "Not that it'd mean anything to you, but I've not killed a man in my life, and Owl here probably wouldn't, even if he had to."

"Perhaps not directly, but you've caused plenty of deaths in your little crusade."

Kumari stirred, glancing at a wall clock set high above a side door.

"Lorcan, we should go."

"Hold your hair, I want to see their reactions when I tell them–"

"I set off the silent alarm almost five minutes ago."

Six sets of eyes fixed themselves on her. She met none of them.

Lorcan swore.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"Because I thought you remembered. The plan was that we would be gone four minutes ago, leaving whoever else had come to deal with the mess. I didn't expect…this."

She gestured with her shield at the Hand opposite her.

"We didn't expect you either, Invictus," Clovis said loudly, "and it's not been a pleasant surprise."

For the first time that night, Kumari's single eye looked Clovis firmly in the face.

"Stop fighting them," she said shortly, already turning toward the huge room's side entrance. "It's pointless. Lorcan, come on."

Clovis reached his sword out to the side and waved it slightly, signaling the others to retreat. The light shuffling footsteps he heard told him that some, at least, were complying.

"Oh, no," Lorcan said with a grin. "You need to stay here, see. Take responsibility for all those critters you've killed already. Here, a few friends for you…"

He lifted his left hand, and a large riding Utsuyan, all violet scales and leathery wings, detached itself from the horde. Other types came with it, smaller but no less intimidating for their variety of teeth, horns, and claws.

"Try not to die. I'd like us to meet again…without time being troublesome."

"Lorcan, what are you doing?" said Kumari, standing in front of an open side door. A few of the smaller varieties of Utsuyan – lanky, bounding imps and the beautiful feathered Tsorins – darted around her head and feet, escaping into the dim corridor beyond.

"Hold your horses, woman; I'm coming!"

The two vanished through the doorway, followed by a stream of Utsuyan and another call from Brendan.

"Kumari, wait-"

"Owl!" Clovis barked. "Stop! Let it go. It's not worth it."

"I hate to interrupt the moment," Baldo said, cocking his right-hand pistol, "but I think we've got bigger things to worry about."

The remaining Utsuyan, with the draconian mount at their center, had fanned out around them, hissing and growling with menace. Baldo had both revolvers trained on the largest beast, while Jaya had added more metal to her pole to form a blade at one end. Rowan ducked behind them and fiddled with the door handle, making a frustrated noise as she did so.

"It locked on its own!"

"Pick it open again, and get ready to run," Clovis ordered in low tones, hefting his sword and shield up. Brendan stood limply at his side, his eyes still fixed on the door through which Kumari had vanished. "Owl. Owl! Brendan! Snap out of it!"

The young man shook his head and adjusted his grip on his escrima sticks, but his motions lacked heart. Clovis nearly growled himself; the odds against them were bad enough without having to cover two of their group at once.

"Flutter, when you have the door, run ahead and check the rest. Owl, hold the door for us. Hawk, you go next, and I'll cover Roan."

"Keys in my coat pocket," Baldo said tersely. "Flutter—"

"Way ahead of you," Rowan said, jiggling her pick with one hand and holding up a ring of keys with the other. Baldo twitched minutely, as though to check his pockets, but his hands were full and he had Utsuyan in his sights.

The creatures were slowly edging toward them. One small, felid creature with white fur and vestigial wings darted forward. Baldo's left gun twitched; there was a noise like a puff of air, and the Utsuyan jerked and squealed, writhing on the cement floor. Dark blood sprayed from its side, turning into a fading mist moments after hitting the ground. The creature's screams shrank into pitiful mewls, and then it was silent.

The hammer on Baldo's gun clicked back as he cocked it, echoing ominously in the sudden stillness. An answering click sounded behind the group; Rowan threw the door open with an exultant shout.

"Now, go!" Clovis shouted, just as the Utsuyan screamed and fell on them almost as one. For a confused, chaotic length of time, Clovis concerned himself with survival rather than making sure his orders had been carried out. Claws caught at his shield; his sword swept through false flesh and bone in return. At his side, Jaya's self-constructed halberd spun and flashed in the weak night lighting of the warehouse room. Behind them both, only occasionally audible underneath the screeches and wails of attacking, wounded, and dying Utsuyan, Baldo's silenced pistols fired again and again.

This, Clovis thought distantly, must have been something like what his great-grandfathers felt all those years ago. Fighting Utsuyan in hordes, allies at their sides and back, wielding the same black obsidian-edged swords and round wood shields; primal and intense, pure survival backed by the knowledge that they were doing something for the world. The battle-fog threaded across his mind and senses sharpened his awareness of the enemy and dimmed that toward Jaya and Baldo, so that he was hardly aware that they called his name until suddenly there was only one Utsuyan left – the large, draconian mount – and all others were mere bodies, already decaying into mist.

"Clovis! There's no time; get out of there!"

The Teika man blinked quickly and backed toward the door, keeping his eyes and sword trained on the Utsuyan. It looked angry, but not particularly inclined to follow; one of its front legs was held off of the ground, blood dripping there to slowly become insubstantial, and it had lost half of a curving horn. Myriad cuts and scratches marred its body, and Clovis became suddenly aware of his own small wounds, stinging with sweat and aching deep in his limbs.

"Hawk, go on ahead. Roan, get ready to run with me…"

He heard Jaya obey, and the soft scraping clinks of Baldo reloading one of his revolvers. The Utsuyan across the room growled, curling in around its wounded limb and glaring poisonously at Clovis and Baldo.

"You going to shoot it?"

"No. The most vulnerable spot is the eye, and I'd rather not risk missing."

Clovis didn't bother replying, backing steadily through the door Baldo held open. The moment he was clear, the Virulk swung the heavy metal door shut and, as one, they wheeled around and ran.

They didn't hear the sirens until they were just outside the employee locker room; inside, they could also hear the voices of people in the alleyway, calling orders and confirmations.
Jaya stood by the door, popped open just a crack, and shook her head at them.

"They've surrounded it," she said quietly.

Baldo tucked his pistols away in their hip holsters and drew a short, narrow cardboard tube from the inside of his sleeveless longcoat. Clovis couldn't see his face due to the mask, but he could well imagine the Virulk's toothy grin.

"Lucky for us," Baldo whispered, crouching beside the doorframe and twisting the canister in his hands, "these guys generally aren't the sharpest knives on the rack."

In a quick series of motions, he reached up, wrenched the door open, and threw the canister outside. Panicked shouts rose; Baldo slammed the door, drew his pistol, and shot out a side window, the noise of shattering glass drowned out by the sudden, ringing blast which sounded just outside.

"Also lucky for us, I make an excellent flash bomb."

They were through the window and had bowled over the single poor officer who had maintained his post there before the smoke cleared.

-

Hours later, back in the safe, warm lamplight of his apartment and well away from warehouse windows and crazy getaway drivers (Rowan always had a very different concept of 'speed' than the rest of them; it came of being Rantish), Clovis idly picked at the gauze on his arms and struggled against a sigh. There was quite enough depression in the room without him adding to it, thanks solely to his flatmate and the oldest friend he still possessed. Brendan had gotten home, cleaned up and helped Clovis treat his numerous cuts, and then slouched onto the couch with his head in his hands, staring at the floor. He hadn't moved since.

Clovis opened his mouth to say something comforting, and then abruptly realized he had no words for it. He wasn't good with empty platitudes, preferring a simple policy of blunt honesty in all cases. Casting about for something to inspire him, Clovis caught sight of a bit of bright green. Coiled upon Brendan's pillow, and not around his neck for once, was that long, old green scarf.

He had walked over, reaching toward it almost unthinkingly, when Brendan finally spoke.

"Leave it."

Brendan never lifted his face or eyes to meet Clovis' own, but the Teika knew he was being watched nonetheless.

"Brendan. Think for a moment. You saw all that tonight. Wherever she went, she's not your friend anymore. Not even our friend. She's gone."

"…She's alive."

"As an enemy. Brendan, you've got to face reality. She's not coming back. Not now, not ever."

Clovis gazed sadly at the bowed white head before him.

"I…truly am sorry," he said, scooping the loops of scarf up in a broad fist; it was time for the thing to go.

Faster than he expected, one of Brendan's pale, narrow hands shot out, grasping Clovis' wrist and holding it there with unanticipated strength.

"Leave. It."

Already fatigued by a long day and night, Clovis noticed the drain immediately. Spots appeared before his eyes and his vision swam; he felt himself sway in place, like a precariously balanced stone shifting under a moaning wind or over a wide river, about to drop.

"Brendan," he managed to mutter, "you're…"

The hand vanished, taking the draining sensation with it, though Clovis still felt unsteady and utterly exhausted.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"Yes, you did," Clovis mumbled back. "You can't 'less you do."

"I…I'm sorry," Brendan repeated uselessly, standing up at last. He was steadying Clovis, perhaps a little awkwardly given how much taller he was than the Teika. "Here, I'll give it back."

Clovis managed to brush Brendan's hands away, though clumsily.

"No. You need it more. Not taking 'medicine,' again? Buy those plants for a reason…"

He was nearly falling asleep standing up; he couldn't tell if Brendan had answered his question, or even if the scarf was still in his hand (though he suspected not, in both matters). Instead, all he noticed was Brendan steering him across the room, through a door, and onto a small bed in the apartment's single bedroom. It was dark and warm, and Clovis couldn't even muster the energy to be annoyed at his intervention being thwarted so.

"It's not yours to take, Clovis," came Brendan's voice, the words muddled and vague in meaning, as though he dreamed them. "And you can't change it, either. Please, trust me on that."

Then he knew nothing more until late in the morning, when he wandered out droopy-eyed to see Brendan fast asleep on the couch with the scarf bunched in his hands and draped over his shoulders like a child's security blanket. The Fearan was a heavy sleeper; Clovis knew how simple a matter removing that scarf could be.

Instead, he shook his head, sighed, and stumbled toward the kitchen area, scooting a potted plant a little closer to the couch as he passed by. The young man needed to start breathing in a bit more living energy each day if he was to recover, after all, and a reminder of that wouldn't be amiss. Between a general lack of improvement and last night's episode, Clovis had a feeling that Brendan had been neglecting his own health in favor of the plants' once again.

As to the scarf, he grudgingly had to admit that Brendan had been right; even if Clovis relieved him of the physical link to his past, the bond behind it would remain.

That truly wasn't something he could change.