Weaves of Ashes

Chapter 327: Chapter 322: The Escort

Location:Nexus Mission — Transit World

Date/Time:Late Cinderfall, 9939 AZI

Realm:Off-World (Nexus)

The creature’s name was, according to the mission briefing, Thornback Mire Basilisk, juvenile, female, approximately four months post-hatching, temperament: docile.

The mission briefing was a liar.

”It BIT me,” Jayde said, examining the crescent of tooth marks on her forearm with the clinical detachment of someone who had been bitten by significantly more dangerous things and found the experience less offensive. ”Again.”

The Thornback Mire Basilisk — four months old, approximately the size of a large dog, covered in mottled grey-green scales that shifted colour depending on its mood (currently an aggressive orange), with a ridge of thorns along its spine that it could raise and flatten at will (currently raised, because everything was currently hostile) — sat in the centre of the transport cage and GLARED at her with eyes like wet copper pennies.

It had been glaring at Jayde specifically since the moment the mission began. Not Eden. Not Reiko. Not Takara. Jayde. As though the creature had reached into whatever passed for a basilisk’s long-term memory, consulted an ancestral grudge list compiled across four months of bitter existence, and decided that this particular human was the source of every injustice the universe had ever produced.

”It’s not personal,” Eden said from behind a notebook that she hadn’t looked up from in twenty minutes. Her blue eyes were focused on the creature with the particular intensity of a woman who was running cellular analysis in her head and finding the results more interesting than the comedy playing out in front of her. ”Thornback juveniles imprint on the first handler they see after hatching and develop a defensive hostility response toward anyone who isn’t that handler. You smell wrong to her.”

”I smell wrong.”

”Biochemically. Your essence signature is Inferno-dominant with Torrent undertones. Thornbacks are Verdant-aligned. To her senses, you’re essentially a forest fire with opinions.”

A forest fire with opinions. Filed under: accurate descriptions I didn’t need.

(She thinks I’m a FIRE. I’m not a fire. I’m a perfectly nice person who happens to be carrying her across a dimension she doesn’t want to be in.)

[She bit me too,] Reiko said through the bond. His silver eyes held the particular wounded dignity of a young predator who was already twice the size of this creature and found the experience of being bitten by what amounted to an ornamental lizard deeply, cosmically inappropriate. [I am a primordial shadowbeast. I have fought creatures that would make this — this THING — look like a garden pest. And it BIT me. On the NOSE.]

Takara, from Jayde’s shoulder, watched.

He had lived for five thousand years. He had served queens whose names were written in stars. He had fought in wars that reshaped continents and survived betrayals that reshaped civilisations. He had maintained his dignity through imprisonment, through diminishment, through being reduced to a form that weighed less than a modest lunch.

And in five thousand years, he had never seen anything quite as satisfying as a lion-sized shadowbeast nursing a bitten nose while a four-month-old reptile with an attitude problem hissed at him from a cage.

He would deny finding it amusing. He would deny it with every fibre of his being, across every lifetime, until the stars went dark.

He was, however, purring.

”We need to move,” Jayde said. ”The delivery point is six hours east, and she won’t walk.”

”She won’t walk because you’re leading,” Eden said, still not looking up. ”Put me in front. My essence signature is closer to Verdant-neutral. She might follow someone who doesn’t smell like her natural predator.”

”I am NOT her natural predator.”

”You are literally an apex Inferno-tempered cultivator carrying two combat beasts and a weapon. To a four-month-old Verdant creature, you are the thing her instincts tell her eats everything she loves.”

Jayde looked at the basilisk. The basilisk looked at Jayde. The copper-penny eyes narrowed. The thorn ridge flattened — not in submission, but in the particular way that a creature flattened its defensive spines when it was preparing to bite again.

”Fine,” Jayde said. ”Eden leads.”

***

Eden led.

The basilisk, removed from the transport cage with the careful handling of someone who understood that four months of post-hatching hostility didn’t make a creature evil, just terrified, consented to walk approximately two feet behind Eden’s heels. Not beside. Behind. In the precise footsteps. With the focused determination of a small reptile who had identified one being in this entire horrible dimension who didn’t smell like death and was refusing to let that being out of biting range.

She would not, however, eat.

Eden offered the nutrient paste specified in the mission briefing. The basilisk sniffed it, looked at Eden with an expression of betrayal so profound that it bordered on philosophical, and turned her back.

Eden offered fresh vegetation. The basilisk ate two leaves, spat them out, and hissed.

Eden offered water. The basilisk knocked the container over with her tail — which Jayde was beginning to suspect was not accidental — and sat in the resulting puddle with the grim satisfaction of a creature who had decided that if she was going to be miserable, the ground could be miserable too.

”She’s not eating because she’s stressed,” Eden said. Her blue eyes had shifted from clinical to concerned — the healer’s instinct, the same one that had driven her through years of healing everything she touched, now directed at a four-month-old reptile with social problems. ”The dimensional transit disrupted her sense of place. Thornbacks are deeply territorial — they need to feel connected to the ground they’re standing on before they’ll eat. This ground feels wrong to her.”

”All ground feels wrong to her. She’s from a DIFFERENT WORLD.”

”Which is why she’s stressed.”

[Perhaps,] Reiko said, with the stiff formality of a primordial who was about to suggest something that offended his dignity but was tactically sound, [I could... carry her.]

Jayde looked at him. The lion-sized shadowbeast, mercury rune hidden, silver eyes carrying the particular expression of someone who had just volunteered for something he was already regretting.

[My fur is warm. Shadowbeast body temperature runs higher than ambient. If the creature requires comfort—]

”You want to carry the thing that bit you on the nose.”

[I am OFFERING. Strategically. To expedite the mission. Not because I—]

The basilisk had already moved. The moment Reiko stopped walking, the juvenile had tilted her head — the thorn ridge flattening fully for the first time since the mission began — and examined the shadowbeast with the cautious interest of a creature encountering something warm in a world that had been cold.

She walked to Reiko. Sniffed his front leg. The copper-penny eyes blinked once.

Then she climbed onto his back.

Reiko went very still. The basilisk — four months old, mottled grey-green, thorn ridge down, attitude temporarily suspended — curled into the warm fur between Reiko’s shoulder blades and closed her eyes.

She began to eat.

Not the nutrient paste. Not the vegetation. She was eating the ambient essence that Reiko’s body radiated — the shadowbeast’s natural essence output, which ran warm and deep and apparently tasted, to a stressed Verdant juvenile, like home.

[She is eating my ESSENCE,] Reiko said. His silver eyes were wide. His body was absolutely rigid — the posture of a powerful predator who had just become furniture and was processing the indignity. [She is SITTING on me and EATING my essence. I am not a — I am a primordial. I am a creature of POWER. I am not a HEATING PAD for a four-month-old LIZARD with—]

Takara’s silence from Jayde’s shoulder reached a frequency that was, for the first time in the entire mission, audible. A sound. Small. Mechanical.

Takara was purring. With laughter.

[Do not,] Reiko said, [say a single word.]

Takara said nothing. The purring intensified.

***

They made the delivery point by sunset.

Six hours of walking, with a basilisk riding a shadowbeast who would deny the arrangement had ever occurred under penalty of death, led by a woman whose essence signature was Verdant-neutral enough to not terrify the cargo, followed by a woman whose essence signature was apparently a war crime against Thornback sensibilities, with a kitten on her shoulder who had spent the entire journey in a state of profound and silent hilarity.

The destination was a Nexus-affiliated breeding sanctuary — a pocket world maintained specifically for species recovery, staffed by handlers whose entire purpose was receiving traumatised juvenile creatures from transit missions and pretending the transit hadn’t been a complete disaster.

The head handler — a woman with the particular calm of someone who had seen everything and was no longer impressed by any of it — accepted the basilisk with professional efficiency.

”Any issues during transit?”

”She wouldn’t eat,” Jayde said.

”She bit everyone,” Eden added.

”She bit ME,” Jayde clarified. ”Specifically. Multiple times. Eden was apparently exempt because she doesn’t smell like a forest fire.”

The handler looked at Jayde. Looked at the basilisk, who was being transferred from Reiko’s back — reluctantly, with the specific resistance of a creature who had found the first comfortable surface in her four months of existence and did not appreciate being relocated — to a warming pad. Looked at Reiko, whose silver eyes held the traumatised dignity of a predator who had carried prey and would never speak of it.

”Inferno-tempered?” the handler asked.

”Yes.”

”That explains it. Thornbacks HATE Inferno signatures. She would have bitten you on sight.”

”She did.”

”And kept biting.”

”Yes.”

”Standard Thornback response. Nothing personal. They just really, really hate fire.”

The basilisk, settled on her warming pad, turned her copper-penny eyes to Jayde. Opened her mouth. Closed it. The gesture that, in basilisk body language, apparently meant exactly what it looked like: I would bite you one more time if I could reach.

”Charming,” Jayde said.

The handler smiled. ”She’ll be fine. Thornbacks are resilient once they’re grounded. Give her three days on native soil, and she’ll forget you ever existed.”

”Good.”

The basilisk hissed.

”Mutual,” Jayde said.

***

They walked back through the Nexus gate in the kind of comfortable silence that existed between people who had shared an experience too absurd to process immediately and were saving the processing for later.

Eden’s notebook was full. Three pages of Thornback juvenile behavioural analysis, essence absorption patterns, and stress response mechanisms that she would turn into a paper nobody at the Academy would understand, and a certain kind of scientist would have killed for.

Reiko walked with his head high and his silver eyes fixed forward, and the particular rigidity of a being who was going to pretend the last six hours hadn’t happened until the heat death of the universe.

Takara rode Jayde’s shoulder. Still. Composed. The three ribbons catching the gate’s light.

”Reiko,” Jayde said.

[No.]

”You were very—”

[No.]

”She liked you.”

[I am going to pretend you didn’t say that. I am going to pretend this entire mission didn’t happen. I am a primordial shadowbeast with the potential to evolve beyond anything this realm has seen, and I will NOT be remembered as a lizard’s MATTRESS.]

(He’s blushing. Can shadowbeasts blush? He’s blushing.)

Shadowbeasts do not blush. The mercury rune is fluctuating slightly due to essence expenditure.

(He’s BLUSHING.)

Eden looked up from her notebook. Blue eyes bright. The ghost of a smile — the Dr. Eba smile, the one that had survived ninety years and a time machine and death itself and still appeared when the universe was being absurd.

”For what it’s worth,” Eden said, ”she had excellent taste. You’re very warm.”

[I am going to my soul space. Do not speak to me for the rest of the day.]

Reiko vanished into the bond. The sulking that followed was, through the mental link, both audible and spectacular.

Jayde looked at Eden. Eden looked at Jayde.

They laughed.

Not the careful, measured laughter of two people maintaining covers and navigating secrets and carrying the weight of past lives and present dangers. The laughter of friends. The simple, stupid, irreplaceable laughter of two people who had just spent six hours transporting a four-month-old lizard that hated everyone and somehow, impossibly, the day had been perfect.

Takara purred.

The merits were deposited.

The mission was done.