Jane of Majoria, slumped against the foot of her bed, curiously reads the note that just materialised in her hand. Stamped with the insignia of the Voyager's Union, it hangs in her grasp for a minute before disintegrating into a white dust.
Jane of Majoria
'Why?' she thought. 'Why me?'
Her mind falls back to the question asked earlier in the week, when she first met Yuri and Yvelise - her… recruiters? companions? Feelings, intentions, all hard and intense. Back then, she took a simple tug on her left earring with an intent to inquire.
Yuri
Yvelise Talmach-Prosechtikós
'What are the chances of escaping this place by myself?'
A wordless feeling communicated her odds.
'Good, very good if you leave a day early.'
This must be her shot. But why now? Won't her family come hunt her down? The Union is a force of nature, yes, but Imperia doesn't lose when they go to war. Saints, her father would stop at nothing. Nobody can have his crown jewel.
His screaming wells back up in Jane's head, the bellowing voice of King Ezio Majoria. Her jaw muscles go taut as the buckling fear sets in, a pulsing flush filling her face. Just three days ago he stood in her quarters, the looming shadow of an everlasting wall with no gate through. Her whole headspace floods with the scene.
King Ezio Majoria
"Alessandra Lauretta Corona, how DARE you!" His voice rumbled with the rage of a cloudsea storm, ready to tear a hole in the path of her one shot at a journey. He never used the name Jane, the one given by her older sister Francesca- no, Friede. She's called Friede. Her father wasn't about to be insulted by the mere presence of a second Arthurian-sounding name in his family.
"You dare to compromise the integrity and security of your position in this family by not only ignoring any official communication protocols before leaving, but by joining the VOYAGER'S UNION?! You know of the political hell that their immunities provide - or Styx, maybe you don't, knowing how little you listen to city briefings."
Barely able to stand in his presence, her gaze flicked around the floor, digging for an answer satisfactory to his expectations.
"Father, I-"
"What, you did this 'for our benefit'? You want to 'better relations'? Your mother may let you squeeze out a pathetic excuse, but not me. Lauretta, you insolent baby, you haven't a shred of awareness when it comes to anything outside this room. Your abject refusal to listen never ceases to cause dire problems for this family. Whatever ideas you've... concocted in this chamber are to be laid to rest NOW."
Jane's gaze darted up in panic, finally looking him eye-to-eye. His stare like blaze-forged iron, she knew this glare by the searing fear she'd start to feel for what was coming after. He's about to impose something awful.
"No, please! Father, I promise I'll-"
"SILENCE. You have just under one year left here and I refuse to allow it to be wasted on the nonsense you're deluding yourself with. I've stationed a portion of the family guard outside your door and at the school exits. From now until the end of your education, you will be escorted to and from classes. Otherwise, you are confined to your chamber, unless there is an emergency, in which we shall fetch you from here."
Prison. This is the third time he'd locked her to this chamber, but never for more than a week. Jane stumbled back onto her desk, falling shorter and shorter beneath the eyes of the master of her fate.
"After, you'll be sent to Sirmium, where the Lavinia Scholastia has a private tutor waiting for you. Six years there would be enough for most to master statecraft, but knowing your defiance, we've made that eight to be safe."
Another edict written, junctions in her fate being pruned before her eyes.
How would she leave with the others now?
Will she ever be allowed answers to the endless 'why' questions scattered around the world that nobody else seems to see?
"Please, sir, no..." Tears slowly welled in her eyes, the first drop caught by her glasses.
Unmoving, Ezio spoke with a straight-edge certainty to his words. "You made your bed, now sleep in it. Your mother is distraught and has had to go and deal with the Union while we speak - your membership should be revoked by the end of the night."
As always, her tiny jump, her attempt out of the pit of royalty, was met with a slamming gravitic punch into the floor.
"Remember your duty, your future. For Imperia. For your mother. We will no longer accept failure."
Clearly still infuriated, King Ezio Majoria left the room with a battering slam of the door.
The hole in Jane's soul continued to eat her.
Jane snaps back to her senses, her jaw aching from the tension she now feels growing all across her body. She'd been replaying that lecture over and over, incapable of snapping out until she'd felt the whole thing again.
She glances her eyes up to the timepiece on her desk: 8:28.
"Shit!" as she scrambles to her feet, panic settling in.
'It'll take me ten at most to get there,' she thinks, her mind racing straight into the churning typhoon of emotions inside her. Short breaths turn to hyperventilating as she paces back and forth, hands shaking in the overwhelm. 'How the hell do I leave, men are everywhere, how do I leave, howdoIleavehowd-'
Her face flushed with tears, the pacing stops sharply as Jane's ætheric instincts call to her. She looks up to find herself standing in front of the stunning stained glass window in her living room, a shadow of a hanging rectangle behind it.
She glances behind her - 8:30. This is it. Do or die.
Jane's never done this before. How does one run away? Her mind is barraged with dramatisations of books she's read, always filled with that one simple word.
'Jump.'
She bolts across her living room, every bone in her body feels ready for the coming storm, while her deep seated rationale kicks in a moment too late - 'this is going to HURT.'
The window shatters into a million shards of brilliant colour - blue, red and gold glass flies around her in a brilliant scattering, each piece glimmering in the moonlight.
Before she realises it, she's fallen 15 feet and slammed her body into the roof below, fragments of her window all around her. Jane notices what must've been that hanging object in front of the window - a letter, hanging from a string. 'To be read later', she decides, as she picks it up and bolts for the balconies below her.
If she remembers correctly, there's a set of vines around the wall which lead to terrifyingly thin but verifiably navigable support beams beneath the main bridge into the school. Her memory is proven accurate as she scrambles along the ornate stone curves beneath the bridge above. She hears running towards the school - looks like the guard noticed fast.
Powered purely on adrenaline and fear, Jane bolts for the road where she expects the mark. An instinctual prediction tells her to head eastwards for a minute exactly, where she finds a Union sigil scored into the beige gravel path. Kicking it over to obscure the mark, she darts left to the edge of the island, where she's greeted by the cloud sea. Jumping into this would be suicide! She'd fall for a minute or two and then splat, gone. Surely the Voyager's Union didn't actually want her to jump jump...
She tugs her left earring. 'What are the chances I die today?'
'Low now, higher later.'
Good enough.
Jane hears the storming of metal armour behind her, glancing back to see a charge of four men closing in rapidly. Taking one last breath for good measure, she turns to face them and falls backwards, disappearing into the fluffy white puffs below.
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The fall through the cloud layer takes longer than expected - about thirty seconds - giving her brain ample time to catastrophise and her mouth enough time to decide that yeah, it probably wants to scream.
Eventually, the gentle but slipping hold of clouds falls away beneath her, and Jane plummets through the air, lungs and voice trying to make any noise possible, and finding nothing as time starts to move slow. The thick rolls of clouds above her grow distant as she plummets backwards. If this is it, then at least she dies trying.
A lurching whiplash slams into her spine as she stops abruptly mid-air, and the pull of the fall shifts sharply leftwards. She hears an "UFF" in-between the heart beats drumming in her ears.
Jane spins herself around and sees Isabella, the Union fixer clad in bronze plate, holding her as they stand on a sailboat on the tower of cloud up to High Majoria, winds battering around them. Red hair flows out in a braid from her white hood, and a grand sword rests over her back.
"I got you girl." Isabella speaks with a smooth, low Imperial accent that has mixed notes of Orukish, a warmth enveloping each of her words.
Isabella
Jane stammers and stumbles through her words. "Wh-what? Why? Why me? I'm just some drunk you pitied enough to help home one night."
Isabella rolls her eyes before straightening up. "Yeah, sure. And I saw life in your eyes that night. The life of a woman who is experiencing the future she always wanted. I'm not going to let you lose that. Plus, as I said last time, girls protect girls. Now if you want a professional answer, Vanessa assign-"
Jane cuts her ramble off with a diving hug, which she's surprised to be pushed back from. "Hug later, Jane - have you looked at yourself?" Isabella grabs her wrist and rolls her arm over - shards of glass are jammed deep into her flesh, through her clothes. Looking down, she finds more remnants, stuck in her chest and ribs. Waves of panic slosh into her head and the hyperventilating starts again as the reality of her injuries sets in.
A steadying hand. "Hey, you're alright. Breathe in fours and watch me closely." Isabella speaks with a golden confidence, dragging her open palm down Jane's arm and chest as warm red glow takes to her skin. She watches as the glass shards are pushed out like splinters and clink to the floor, the blood dripping down her black blouse coming to a halt. She feels her body calm, her heart beat a little slower as the worries fade away.
Winds continue to flap her clothes everywhere, the chill of the night setting in. Jane's body warms shortly after as Isabella embraces her. "Now is later!" She pulls back and smiles at her, the comfort of a campfire glowing in Isabella's gaze. "You are safe. Now, let's get you out of this freezing mess. Hold onto something!"
Isabella moves to the mast, and tugs firmly on the halyard, hoisting the sail back up and tying it down. A gust catches it not a moment after it fully unfurls, lurching the boom around as she falls back and lands seated at the stern. Jane skips out of time for a split second as the boom swings towards her face, the last-moment timeslip evading certain injury. The tack goes taut as Isabella's diving hand grabs the sheet line to finally hold the sail in place.
"Sorry... haven't been boating in a couple years." Isabella forms a winced smile at Jane, who waves her down as the wind starts to shove them down the cloud tower towards the centre port.
making small talk isn't on Jane's mind as they descend, Middle Majoria filling her upwards gaze. She's never gotten used to how gravity works at tower clouds - why people are pulled towards the tower instead of down towards the World Below like in other places. Another question she might be able to find an answer to, now that she's out.
Is she out? She's still running really, but it's calm now. Isabella is a flare of good in the world, her calm focus giving her something she's not felt in a very long time - confidence. She might actually get away, get free. Her father will chase, but now she's been given legs to run with.
Suddenly, a shock. 'Yuri. Yve. Fuck, are they implicated in this? Have I screwed them over?' Her head races through the laws she does remember, the punishments possible. She remembers her sister, Lady Friede, telling her about the law introduced after she ran away to Great Arthuria - The Francescan Clause.
Anyone found guilty of assisting the separation of members of the Royal Majoria Family is to be sentenced to death.
No! She can't let that happen - they gave her the chance to leave and now she's fucked this all up for them. Hell, Yvelise probably had a whole plan set up to get this working and now she's completely bodged it, oh Styx, it's all her fault...
"Isabella!" Jane shouts out through a rapidly onset flood of tears.
"Hm? Something the matter?"
"People I know are going to be headhunted an-and executed for this - fuck, that includes you. I need to find a s-"
"Shhh, shh. Yeah, Francescan Clause says I've gotta die now yah yah yah. Vanessa's working on that and has it in mind. Your other people Voyagers?"
"Ye-yeah, but… they'll hunt you."
"And we take well to dealing with hunters. Give her their names later and she'll make do."
A smirk forms across Isabella's face as a realisation comes to her. 'Jane's a noble kid, she doesn't know this life. Styx, she jumped out of a window! She'll learn in time - someone having your name on an arrowhead is a mark of your impact.'
Jane's vision rolls and shifts as the boat moves from vertical to horizontal, and the dinghy's shell rocks as it takes to the wobblier water in the centre lake. Isabella guides them to a spot on the jetty, lowers the halyard and ties them ashore.
As the two step ashore, Isabella immediately takes Jane by the hand and leads her forth in a bold stride. "We haven't the time to stroll - you need to get prepared."
The pair make for the elevator just outside the port that will take them to the series of vertical islands they'll walk down to arrive in Low Majoria. Isabella just wants her to be safe - this girl needs the Voyager's Union, and the Union protects their members.
In a stroke of poor form, a loss of focus, Isabella forgets to check her tail, and a thin blonde woman in a deep navy jacket steps out of an alley to follow.
Her gaze hidden by the lowered long brim of her hat, Inquisitor Emilia begins to tag along behind the pair. Jane's father, her commander, was very clear with his instructions - "Bring Princess Alessandra home alive - nobody else matters."
Inquisitor Emilia
"Alright, the door's around this corner" Isabella says, Jane in lockstep beside her as they weave through crowds along the road to the drop ropes - the Union's deployment method for voyages into the World Below. "We use this as a staff entrance pretty often, don't go telling people about it."
She jams a key in the lock and pushes the wooden door open with a creak, as a thud impacts in between their heads - a knife, stuck in the door that gently swings inwards. It flies out the door backwards, and the two follow its flight path, meeting the eyes of a woman standing in the middle of the road, the knife held in a throwing grasp, a dastardly grin across her face.
Jane gasps and seizes up with immediate recognition, and it doesn't take long for Isabella to spot the royal Majoria insignia on the woman's breast pocket.
"Now now, Princess," the words sliding out of Emilia's mouth like poisoned daggers out of a hidden belt; "you're not going anywhere other than back. On. Up. Father's orders." The blade disappears from her hand with a puff of smoke and lightning.
Isabella takes a cautious but stern step forward. "You think you can just grab her?"
"Oh yes, that's quite what I intend." Emilia strides forth to be about ten paces away, already taking her royal coat off to show a flowing white shirt and a pair of underarm slings on a leather harness, a pugio in each. "Step aside, mercenary - unless you want to cause more problems than your life is worth."
"I care not for the idle threats of pigs - Jane is with the Voyager's Union now, and so she's under our guard. You'd do well to remember who's neck of woods this is."
"Ah, well. That's a damn shame. I'm sure Princess Alessandra will send flowers to your funeral."
A sharpened dagger drawn, a cheap shot caught in the act. Emilia lunges for Isabella's neck as her bronze gauntlet darts up to block the incoming thrust.
"Go!" shouts Isabella, as a rose white flash forms a shield in front of her that shunts Emilia away, but Jane can't move. She's stuck in the door panicking, catastrophising. Her legs turn to orukin concrete as she goes pale in the face of violence.
'I caused this. I'm going to get her killed, and I'm going to be the only witness to her death. Fuck, WHY can't I do anything well. Maybe Father was right. Maybe the throne is my destiny. Maybe that way I won't keep fucking all of this up.'
As Jane's soul continues to devour itself, lost in an unstable sea of rage, distress and intense focus on her failings, she watches on as Isabella continues to throw up defences against the rapid and cheaty stabs flurried towards her by Emilia. Lightning crackles across Isabella as she's shocked by another dirty play - a wand hidden up Emilia's sleeve.
"Just bend over and let me by, plaything. The more you extend this, the slower I'll make your end."
“No.”
No matter what, she doesn't strike at Emilia. As Isabella continues to defend, an angelic glow starts to emanate from the gaps of her armour, parries and repositions continuing in a flowing sequence. She does not swing, instead absorbing each impact as best she can. A stalwart protector, the steel in her eyes shows her determination to defend - she cannot strike, she must not strike. It would cost the Union, cost her, cost the people of Imperia. Only if this defence fails may her final shield rise.
But she's getting tired, and her feet start to slide back. Her defence is running out.
Emilia sees her chance. A sharp slam of her heel into the ground creates a flash of smoke and lightning around the two, as she slams a dagger into Isabella's gut, giving it a goooood twist before yanking it out and darting ahead. She blitzes up to Jane and grabs her wrist with a tightening sharpness. "Princess Alessandra Lauretta Corona of Majoria, your escort has arrived." A disgusting chuckle leaves her mouth as she goes to yank Jane away.
That moment was all Isabella needed.
A rapid retching is all Isabella is allowed as the pugio leaves her abdomen. She feels her soul brimming, her bind at its full strength. It has been for a bit, which would explain the incredibly intense burning in every inch of her body. Her soul is on fire.
No time to waste, her eyes glow within the cloud of smoke as she mutters a simple but radiant call.
"Ichó Agios Kallistrate Prosechtikós, guide my hand."
"So it be, child. Your intent is true. We shall protect her."
Her hood falls back as she reaches both hands over her right shoulder for Clypeus Meus - "My Shield" - and she whispers the engraving in its blade under her breath.
"Do not draw me without reason, do not wield me without valour."
The blade ignites in bright red flame that trails into white, as she takes one leaping stride out of the cloud and swings down.
Emilia maintains her sinister stare up at Jane through her brow line for a couple of seconds until her legs give out, her body slumping to the floor. Her right arm, the one holding the wrist, falls to Jane's side before eventually losing grip and falling off, severed.
Isabella steps over the body on the floor. "I'm definitely dead now. At least I taught you a lesson - waste not your breath or time on the vile games of swine." She spits on Emilia's body as the sentence ends, mostly blood leaving her mouth.
Jane goes in for a hug in between the flood of tears running down her bone white face, before pulling back and throwing up at Isabella's feet.
"Alright, let's get you inside, Jane. You're safe now. You’re free."
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