hellonspectacles | Once more into the breach, dear friends

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Once more into the breach, dear friends

It is nighttime, or what passes for nighttime in space, and the ship Mount Ida is quiet.

It isn’t a particularly large vessel. There are berths for a dozen crew members and private rooms for the ship’s two officers, a mess hall, a med bay, an armory, a brig. Nothing about it is particularly luxurious—Blood of Eden doesn’t go in for luxury, and the members of Troia Cell are no different—but everything is functional and well maintained. The ship hums faintly with the sound of engines and life support and electric lights, a but most of the crew don’t notice it anymore.

Near the officer’s cabins is another berth, occupied (or so it seems) by a single person. It contains a bed, and a sink, and a table on which, strangely, sits the perfectly formed skeleton of a human hand. The door is locked from the outside and a crew member stands guard. Are these precautions to keep the person inside from escaping, or to protect them from coming to harm? No one is sure anymore.

The crew member, Sergeant Hot Coals of Vengeance, is bored. Their shift is almost over, they need a piss, and they’re not even sure what the point of this assignment is anyway. Sure, the room’s occupant might be a zombie lover, and she might be a little weird. And sure, she did dislocate Lieutenant Pash’s arm when they tried to take that gross little bag of bones from her, but that was months ago. These days, she’s polite, and she spends long hours in secret meetings with the Commander, and she always asks for an escort when she needs to leave the room.

Coals really needs to piss. They peek through the little window in the door.

Inside, Camilla Hect is curled up on a narrow bed, breathing steadily. She’s asleep, and anyway, the door is locked. What’s the worst that could happen if they stepped away for a few minutes?

Coals leaves their post, and Camilla sleeps on—or so it seems.

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Prove it. Natsuno thinks about it, wondering how he can possibly do that without sounding like a creep, a madman or both. Pal doesn't seem to be around, but if this is another memory there's little chance his friend would vouch from him.

This means that his only option is an admission so ridiculous, so outrageous it can't be denied or ignored.

"I met Palamedes in a pocket dimension. People from many different worlds were trapped there, and we were trying to find a way out. That place exists outside time, so he may not remember it, but it's the truth. I can show you."

His phone is still in his pocket. It will die out eventually soon without a charger, but for now it'll do.

"I need to take it out, it's not a weapon so please don't attack me."

Natsuno messes with the phone for a moment and slides it across the floor towards Cam. It plays a certain video tutorial with Natsuno's voice clearly heard behind the camera.

The story matches Palamedes’ own, but no recognition shows on Camilla’s face. Without allowing her eyes to leave his face, she crouches down and picks up the phone.

She might not show it, but Natsuno is earning a lot of Camilla Hect brownie points for being so calm and careful about all this.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room comes from the palm-sized device in Camilla’s hand. Once or twice, she nearly seems to smile, but otherwise, she doesn’t react. As the video ends, she takes a slow, deep breath. Then she gets up off the bed and walks across the room to hand the phone to Natsuno. Up close, Natsuno might notice that somehow Camilla has Pal’s stone-grey eyes.

He also might notice that the eyes are a bottomless well of longing. Camilla Hect has not heard her necromancer’s voice in nearly a year. Technically, she never will again.

“Thank you,” she says. “The Warden told me about the Serena Eterna. He has been trying to bring you here. I told him it was impossible, but he only ever takes that kind of thing as a challenge.” A beat. “You probably want to speak with him.”

His eyes widen at her admission - the first hint of emotion Natsuno showed since the conversation started.

"He - what?"

So it's not another memory? This is Pal's actual reality, did he manage to escape the captain's clutches and even break someone else through -

"...yes. I'd really like to speak to him."

Camilla watches him for another long moment, sizing him up and weighing his worthiness with grey eyes that do not belong to her.

Then she points to the chair at the desk in the corner. “You might want to sit down.” Without waiting to see if he complies, she closes her eyes. Technically, it isn’t necessary for the transference to happen, but it makes it easier, somehow. More like going to sleep.

Or waking up.

Palamedes opens Camilla’s eyes. He rubs them, and blinks a few times. How odd it still is to be able to see clearly without a barrier of glass. As his gaze swims into focus, his lips part in awe.

“Well, fuck me sideways it worked. Hullo Yuuki, sorry for not sending a note ahead.”

Natsuno glances back at the door, wondering when the guard will be back, but figures voices carry anyway so he might as well have this conversation in a chair instead of on the floor.

He sits down as Camilla turns to look at him. Wait, why are her eyes brown, weren't they gray a second ago -

Well fuck me sideways.

Even before Camilla's voice calls his name, Natsuno knows who speaks through her mouth. The inflection, the happy greeting like nothing freaky is going on - that's Palamedes Sextus alright.

He has so many questions, but what comes out is:

"Why are you possessing your cavalier?"

"Thermodynamics."

Palamedes pauses for a reaction. Presumably, he doesn't get one.

"There usually isn't much left after a thanergenic explosion originating from inside a necromancer's body. One's cells are vaporized instantly. Well, most of them." He gestures at the skeleton hand resting on the desk behind Natsuno.

"Cam and I tried to make do with my bones, but it just wasn't working. We needed a better way to communicate, you see."

There's indeed no reaction except for a flat stare. Natsuno frowns a little as Pal proceeds to explain... well, very little, but he's able to connect some dots.

The thanergenic explosion is what Pal used against the murderer back at Canaan House. Which means this point in time is beyond what Pal remembered back on the Eterna. He glances at the skeletal hand, half expecting it to start moving.

"...right. A hand can write, but you need eyes and ears to make it mean anything." He looks back at Camilla's body. She's the one who suggested he talk to Pal, so she must know what's happening, and yet...

"So you take turns? Did she choose to step back so we can speak?"

“Cam is always in charge. She wouldn’t have it any other way.” Deep inside his guilty heart, Palamedes Sextus knows this isn’t entirely true. Camilla would give up her body and soul for him with barely a pause. As it is, he knows that every moment he spends in her body is another moment that he is chipping away at her very being.

But for now, she is in charge. Pal insists upon it. And it terrifies him, knowing that.

“So yes, essentially. As part of the agreement, my time is always limited. We leave notes.” Again, a gesture to the desk. “It isn’t a perfect system, but it works.”

Unaware of Pal's guilt or the true bond between a necromancer and their cavalier, Natsuno merely nods.

He has so many questions: how did Pal do it, where are the rest of their friends, what the hell is going on... but that will have to wait.

"I won't waste the time you have, then. What do I need to know about our situation here?"

What a relief it is to speak to someone face-to-face who knows him, and to have that person be cool, unflappable Natsuno Yuuki. The bond between the two of them has always been built on action more than emotion; they trust one another because of what they have seen of each other, not because of the secrets in their hearts. And frankly, given that there is a whole world of emotion that Pal would prefer not to think about, he’s relieved, too, by the characteristic way that Natsuno cuts to the point.

“Right.” Palamedes sits on the bed, still but vibrating with energy. “After everything went sideways at Canaan House,” Natsuno might not know all the details, but Pal thinks he knows enough that he can cleanly skip over those messy bits, “she and two other survivors were picked up by a group called Blood of Eden. Anti-Empire terrorists. They aren’t fans of necromancy, to put it mildly.” His eyes darken for a moment; whatever truce they have struck, he won’t forget what these people did to Camilla before he returned to her. “Eventually, I found my way to them. How is…complicated. But the important bit is that no one else knows about me.”

“Within the last couple of months, we have begun to enter negotiations with the cell in charge of this ship. BoE’s view of necromancers may be superstitious and sordid, but,” a careful pause, “that doesn’t mean they are wrong about everything.”

So Palamedes found a way to bring his soul back from wheverver the hell it went after that explosion, realized there wasn't enough room in what was left of his body and decided to possess Camilla instead. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of insane stunt his friend would pull.

"So after Canaan House, you decided to rebel against the Empire," he observes. Natsuno couldn't care less about space politics, but it's important to figure out where he stands in this strange new universe. "And these Blood of Eden guys think it's just Camilla. How are you gonna explain me? I'm not a necromancer, but I'm not exactly normal."

“No.”

Leave it to Natsuno to get straight to the point. In the broad sense, Pal knows rebellion is a reasonable word for what he’s doing. But Palamedes Sextus is Sixth to the tips of Camilla’s distal phalanges, and in this, above all things, he insists on precision.

The trouble is, it isn’t a very precise situation.

“Well, yes. Sort of. But it’s legal. The Sixth has something called a break clause written into its administrative documents. For millennia it’s been considered an antiquated footnote; I need to check, but I’m pretty sure the last paper that even cited it was published twelve hundred years ago. But these people,” he jabs his finger towards the door, “know about it. Isn’t that remarkable?”

Pal thinks he can feel Natusno waiting for him to get to the point, or maybe it’s that he can perfectly imagine Cam standing beside, lifting a pointed eyebrow when he’s gone on too long. “I think we can pass you off as a non-adept if we’re careful. In two days we’re landing on a planet that’s BoE territory. We can say you’re a stowaway.”

“And then I convince them to take us to the Sixth.”

"Remarkable, right," Natsuno says. The empty look in his eyes is the only hint he wishes Pal would get to the point and have the legal arguments to the other Houses who might care about it.

This is not how he wanted his escape from the Serena Eterna to go. He doesn't want to be at the mercy of some unknown group, doesn't want to get involved in their magical space conflict. He doesn't want to go to the Sixth either - to stay on yet another ship.

But this is the situation, and Natsuno will deal with it like always. First, pass the next two days without getting murdered.

"Alright. So I'm a totally ordinary kid. I've been through some shit and that's why I'm alone and refuse to give anything beyond my name. I don't know Camilla Hect and I'll cooporate so the armed terrorists don't have a reason to shoot me."

"That's the gist." Palamedes exhales and rubs the bridge of his nose. He suddenly looks uncertain, almost sheepish. It’s an expression that Camilla Hect’s fact wears awkwardly. “Look, the situation here…it isn’t good. I’m keenly aware that I’ve pulled you into it without so much as a by-your-leave, and that you have no reason to care about the people here. But they’re my people, Yuuki. I had to do something.” He sits down heavily on the bed.

“But if we’re being entirely honest, I’m dreadfully glad to see you.”

Trust Palamedes to put the issue into words so accurately.

"I'm not gonna pretend I want to be in this situation, or that I'm happy about leaving the others behind." Clarke, Rita, Jade. "But you're my friend and I'm going to help you."

Sometimes it's really as simple as that.

"And I'm glad to see you, too."

And suddenly, the question Palamedes is dying to ask is on the tip of his tongue.

How is she?

He's worried about all of them, of course. Jade, and Rita, and Ari, and Security, and Valdis, and Wayne. Even people like Skulduggery and Ava, who probably wouldn't want to be worried over by the likes of him. But first and foremost, he worries for Clarke Griffin--and he misses her, desperately.

But he can't ask now. He's afraid of the answer. More than that, he's afraid that once he starts asking after her, he won't be able to stop, and Camilla's soul will get eaten away while he forces Natsuno to answer inane questions like Did Clarke have mashed potatoes for breakfast again? or Which of you won your last arcade tournament?

He can't do this now, no matter how much longing claws at his throat. So he just offers Natsuno his hand to shake.

“Thanks, friend. I can’t stay much longer, but,” a tiny quirk of a smile, “I promise Cam won’t try to kill you again. Try to get some sleep?”

He takes the hand and shakes it, warmly.

"I don't need to sleep." A small, crooked grin. "But I can pretend, since I'm a miserable stowaway and all. I'll tell Camilla what we talked about."

Remarkably, the plan goes off without a hitch. Despite Natsuno’s healing abilities, which they must take great pains to hide, he makes for a good stowaway-turn-Blood of Eden recruit. He’s seething with anger, and he doesn’t say much, and his eyes speak of pain that most of the ship’s crew recognizes and all know better than to ask about. Maybe a few members of Blood of Eden are puzzled as to why a former refugee has become the Sixth’s closest confidant, but even that doesn’t raise too many questions.

When the Blood of Eden ship hails the Sixth House station, it’s Archivist Juno Zeta who speaks over the intercom, and Archivist Juno Zeta who allows them to dock when they reveal that they have the Sixth’s presumed-dead cavalier primary on board. There’s an awed crowd waiting when Camilla and Natsuno step out of the airlock (Palamedes-as-Camilla had insisted that Natsuno be the only BoE representative to accompany him on his first visit), and Zeta pushes through it and guides them back to her office as quickly as she can.

For the time being, dark sunglasses remain on Camilla’s face, hiding her grey eyes from view.

The moment the door is shut, Zeta pulls Camilla into a tight hug. “My dear girl, you are a sight for sore eyes.”

Hiding his abilities is a pain, but the rest is easy. Natsuno wears his anger like a familiar old coat and sees its reflection in every Blood of Eden member's eyes. The sheer scale is incomparable, but the core of the story never changes.

All you wanted was to mind your own business, but those who cheat death had other plans. They came to your home, drained it out of life and gave you a choice: submit or die. So you took a third option, and you will destroy them.

Natsuno's loyalty is with Palamedes, but boy does he get it.

He keeps his mouth shut when they reach the sixth, when Pal insists he come with and when Archivist Juno Zeta leads them through the crowd. All eyes are on Camilla, of course, but if anyone's gaze lingers on Natsuno, he's determined to give nothing away.

He hangs at the back of the office as Zeta hugs the cavalier. Until Natsuno is spoken to directly, he'll stay out of the way.

Camilla isn’t very big on hugs as a general rule, but when Zeta pulls her close, she clings to her, her heart hammering hard in her chest. She’s doubly glad that the sunglasses hide her eyes, if only to stop the older woman from discovering that her eyes are wet.

“Archivist,” she says with careful formality that hides the swell of emotion in her chest. “It’s an honor to speak with you—“

“Oh, don’t ‘it’s an honor’ me. Tell me how you are, and tell me what’s happening. That ship out there, it’s a Cohort ship, but those aren’t Cohort soldiers. Who are they, and—“ her gaze settles on Natsuno with a searching intensity that he might recognize from Palamedes— “tell me who your friend is.”

Camilla starts with the last request. “This is Natsuno Yuuki,” she says, and when Zeta looks puzzled, she adds, “A representative of Blood of Eden.”

“Blood of Eden? My girl—“

“He knew the Master Warden.”

Zeta’s eyes go wide.

Natsuno bows. Though he rarely bothers, he is perfectly capable of being polite. Juno Zeta may wave Camilla's attempts at etiquette, but he is a complete stranger and this authority figure is owed respect.

"Hello, Archivist. How I know the Master Warden is a long story." Know, not knew. Natsuno doesn't elaborate for now - if the Archivist is anything like Pal, she will know when to wait and when to ask the right question. "But I would like to make one thing clear. I don't really care about 'representing' Blood of Eden. I'm here because Palamedes is my friend."

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Once more into the breach, dear friends

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feel free to skip to the sixth the next tag!

Sixth House Time!

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