Hours earlier…
Thump.
River’s bare hand closed around the pearl as it fell into her palm. She rolled it between her fingers for a few moments, taking in the iridescent gleam across its etched white surface.
Pearls like this one were always interesting to her; not just because of what they contained, but because against her skin, the complex web of notches and lines wrapped around them told just as much of a story. For this particular pearl that story was a long one. Its entire surface was covered in markings, densely intertwined.
She wasn’t sure what tasty bits of data it was hiding, but evidently there was a lot. The fact that she’d almost – almost – been caught stealing it from one of the most secure vaults in the capital was even more of a testament to that. It was the sort of thing that really made her want to crack that oyster and dig through the insides. Actually, that was… a surprisingly cohesive metaphor, in context. Nice.
That didn’t really matter now, though. That was old news! All that mattered was that she held the pearl, and nobody else did, and now all she had to do was face the grand task of deciding what to do with it.
Instead of doing that, River looked up. Below her clifftop vantage the rocky beach stretched away to the south, waves crashing against the shore. In a sudden gust of salty wind, the tough, dry grass all around brushed against her legs, but unconsciously she fended off the chill with her inner warmth. She kicked her heels against the cliffside and a pleasant hum of energy tingled beneath her skin.
Without looking she flicked the pearl upward again, right between her eyes, before snatching it out of the air. It was heavier than its size betrayed, its balance fairly strange for such a boring-looking object.
Thump.
Another gust swept locks of golden hair into her face, but she brushed them aside, looking out over the sea. It was probably best to settle in for the day; the sun was approaching the horizon, the long, soft clouds burning in bright colours. Too risky to keep flying through the night if she set off now, when her senses would be deadened and the Court would find it that much easier to track her down.
For now, she had plenty of time, that was for sure; nobody would find her out here in the wilderness for some time yet. And anyway, the evening was starting to shape up quite nicely. A little me-time won’t hurt a thing.
River returned to the small clearing where she’d set up camp, some distance from where her ship was hidden at the edge of the forest. She checked over the stew she had cooking over an open flame– ingredients she’d picked up along her travels. Lords, was she looking forward to it. The smell was already heavenly.
Cooking might not have been strictly necessary for her, but it kept her occupied nonetheless. The daring escapes and thrilling chases, unfortunately, grew a little dull sometimes. She was a modern immortal; secluding herself in ominous lairs surrounded by cadres of fanatical followers wasn’t exactly her scene. Neither was wandering around on the run for the rest of her life. A girl needed hobbies.
She laid down in the grass of the clearing, legs dangling precariously off the edge, the pearl still clutched in her ungloved hand.
“Hm. Hmmm hum hum. Maybe I should just head north for a while, find a nice valley with a lake or something to lay low for a few weeks,” she considered aloud. “Always enjoy some peace and quiet like that. Y’know, clear mountain water, fish, birds, the works. Oh, maybe a waterfall. That’d be pretty nice, yeah?”
No response.
“Maybe I could just find some nice family to stay with. I’m sure lotsa folks would be just thrilled to have me. Oh, or, I could just make a bunch of copies of you, mail them out to everybody I can think of and let the Court deal with the clean-up. Wouldn’t that be a riot… not exactly original, though. And I get a feeling Em wouldn’t appreciate it.”
After a moment’s pause, she raised the pearl above her head, watching its silhouette against the deep blue sky. “Or maybe,” she said wistfully, “I should just fling you out into the ocean, as far as I can. Never bother with whatever you’re hiding. Let Marcie spend a decade of his precious time dredging you out, if you're really that important to him.”
It stayed silent as she lowered her arm once more to her side.
Nah, don’t think so, she thought to herself. Emelde would still want to see it before anyone else, whether she’d ever admit that or not. Then again, the last time River had stopped by, she’d made it quite clear that she was looking forward to being rid of her for a while. Might as well respect that!
She leaned back and stretched her arms out, feeling the flat rock (only a little uncomfortable) and the thin layer of topsoil beneath her back. A single seabird flew briskly over her head, high in the sky, carried inland on the wind.
She sighed. “Probably about time to check on dinner again, then.”
But when she sat up to see the beach again, there was something else there, in the corner of her vision. It was indistinct at first, but as she looked closer, she could tell that it was real: far down the coastline, a cloud of sand was hanging in the air, slowly dissipating on the wind and falling back to the ground. A frown crossed her face.
Before her eyes, another burst of sand was thrown into the air like the beach itself had just exploded, raining down over the treetops at the edge of the beach. Then another. No smoke, no signs of a conflict. Just… a miniature sandstorm.
On a beach. In a temperate forest. In the middle of nowhere. The wind wasn’t even particularly strong.
River leaned low over the edge of the cliff and fumbled at her hip for a moment, before finding her binoculars and raising them to her face. It was an unassuming bit of coastline, nothing else unusual in sight, except– there.
There was a person down on that beach. A woman with dark skin and a silver hair and a long, plain grey dress, staggering across the sandy slope toward the waterline. She looked filthy, even from a distance, but weirdly elegant in her stride– not that River was one to make her judgements on appearances. Looks were deceiving. Maybe more often than not.
And the look on her face… from what she could make out, in spite of her peculiar actions, it was blank. Expressionless, calm, almost empty. It was unsettling.
As River watched, she strode into the ocean and disappeared beneath the waves.
...Huh.
Taken aback, she stood up, staring down at the shore, unsure of what she’d just seen. She watched for several minutes, but nothing else stirred.
And then the stranger burst from beneath the waves, crawling to shore with something shiny clutched in her hand, hacking up an ocean of seawater like she’d drowned and come back from the dead, and yet, somehow, she was fine.
She couldn’t believe it, but there wasn’t really an alternative. People didn’t just walk around underwater like that. Most people, at least.
She was immortal too.
Then who the hell was she?
River groaned, because she didn’t have an answer to that, but she just knew she’d never let herself live it down if she didn’t find out.
She tucked the pearl into its safe pocket on her jacket, nestled with her other accoutrements, and without a second thought she broke down camp. The fire was doused in an instant, the stew mournfully left behind– but there were more interesting things than dinner. Her heart was racing. Much more interesting indeed.
River careened down the hill, through the dense woodland toward the beach; she crashed through branches and thicket as she ran, slowing her down, but she didn’t want to lose the stranger. Not when she was so close. When she reached the beach she stepped out onto the sand and took on a calmer pace as she approached. No need to alarm her with her presence.
But when she arrived at the stretch of beach she’d seen, where the sand was pockmarked and scattered across the grass and the water, there was nothing to be found.
She wasn’t on the beach, and River couldn’t sense her heat through the forest, however far she may have gotten already. She was already gone. Unexpected, to be sure, but not disastrous. There were no disasters for River Mercier.
As the sun set, the gentle light fading and the shadows stretching long into the dark between the trees, she looked over a map of the area. If she couldn’t find the stranger on foot, after all, she’d have to figure out her destination. There was a path worn through the underbrush at the edge of the beach; maybe that was a start.
We’re too far north to be headed to the strait, and too far south to reach the mountains on foot… as far as I know, there ain’t many settlers out that direction, except…
Out here, so far from the heart of civilization… if this stranger had a destination in mind at all, there was only one place it could be.
Vermiles.
Before long River was on the move again.
She sailed her ship low, just above the treeline, deftly sweeping the wheel back and forth to avoid colliding with any unusually tall trunks. It was small, and not well armed, but what it lacked in defense it made up for with manoeuvrability. She could handle herself just fine; Seremina’s job was to get her where she had to go.
(And, often, to provide a little coziness during her days in the wild. Or to entertain guests, sometimes. Or just to show off with. But now wasn’t the time for any of that!)
River fumbled with a map and chart with her right hand while her left firmly clutched the wheel, looking back and forth whenever she could spare the time between her route on paper and the horizon, steeped in twilight. In theory, she could navigate just fine by only the magnetic field of the planet, marking her progress by the passage of the ley lines, but she’d be able to see the glow of the city before she’d be able to feel it.
That kind of thing stood out, in the dark, where there was nothing but peaceful trees, empty fields and – of course – a little airship shooting across the countryside.
Actually, no, scratch that. Two airships. Fantastic. Perfect. Just downright awesome.
Through her tinted goggles she just barely caught sight of it; a string of golden lights to the north, flying parallel to her path. They looked almost like a row of distant, tiny fires against the slate-dark evening sky, but in that silhouette there was no mistaking the sleek lines and raised sails. She kept her own lamps dimmed, but if she could see them following her so clearly, she had no doubt they’d noticed her.
“Alright, cool, cool,” she muttered to nobody in particular, turning back to the controls in earnest. “I can probably stay ahead, right? Probably. Even if the old girl’s been in need of a little facelift recently. No way those losers catch me out here.”
She was probably fine. Just so long as she stayed ahead of them.
And she’d been so far off their radar, too, just a few hours ago. She’d spent so much time building up the lead. So much for that. She’d improvise.
If her hunch was right, though – as they usually were – the detour would be worth it. River Mercier had no idea who the stranger she was chasing after was, and River Mercier knew everybody– one way or another, at least. Some were more enemies than acquaintances, to be sure. But given how awful Marcie was at keeping secrets, she couldn’t imagine that he’d managed to keep a whole person secret from her under his thumb.
Which meant she wasn’t just another piece in whatever game they were intent on playing; she was somebody actually, really, truly new.
The Court ship kept its distance from River while they flew, locked in step, but its lights weren’t falling behind either. They didn’t want to make the first move; presumably because they knew they’d lose to her. They wouldn’t have the liberty to be so leisurely about it for long.
The brick-red roofs and wispy chimneys and electric lights of Vermiles rose like beacons from the jagged treeline ahead, and River couldn’t help but pump a fist in the air. They weren’t more than a few minutes out; as if conceding to her impending victory, the larger ship started banking towards her, bright sails billowing. She just pushed the throttle harder.
She stared forward as the distance closed, not just between herself and the city, but between their two ships as well. Three klicks out. Two. So close she could taste the woodsmoke on the air.
Just as the Court’s ship started running parallel to her, the scarlet stripes along its hull gleaming, she pulled out all the stops, pushed the throttle the last bit she needed and cut in front, arcing past the bow with metres to spare.
River could fly circles around them with closed eyes and a missing sail. It was almost enough to make her weep, with some combination of pity and vindictive pride. Those chumps are fast, but they wouldn’t know talent if it kicked their asses.
Which it did, incidentally. On the regular.
As the Court kept flying on its course, unable to turn in time to intercept her again – they had to be aiming for the Vermiles airstrip, realizing that the city was her destination and aiming to get ahead however they could – she curved away from the pastures ringing the city limits, cutting even lower over the treeline until she could hardly see the rooftops anymore. She’d have to land somewhere.
She set Seremina down – effortlessly, gracefully, as if that ever needed to be said! – in a long, pitch-dark strip of grassland between two copses of trees, tore off her sailing goggles and rushed outside, just barely remembering to unfurl the camouflage canopy before bolting into the woods on foot towards town.
Everything went into running. Her scarves billowed behind her, her boots kicking up showers of evening dew already clinging to the tall grass.
Marcel and his buddies probably weren’t even aware of the stranger’s existence yet; they’d been hunting down River, not her. That was good. That meant she might be able to find her before they even noticed, swoop in, sweep her off her feet, and the two of them would figure out what to do next together. That was her specialty.
And even if they did find her first– well, River could always go for a dramatic showdown. She’d be able to win over this stranger, keep her out of the Court’s grasp, one way or another; she was certain of that.
So long as nothing went terribly wrong, of course.
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