Mending Fences, Building an Army... and a Shock
Felonca looked glumly off into the early spring mist as the talking voices filled her ears as she stood on top of the palace battlements. It’d been two months since the ambassadors from Han and Bei had been placated, and her heart rudely torn. Yet some wounds still stood rather raw, no matter how much she threw herself into training the new army that come spring proper, would march on Langya to destroy the threat of Prince Hu once and for all.
Damn you voice carrying so far, she thought rather hotly to herself on hearing Nayu’s voice couple with Won Wei’s in conversation. It made things hard... there were still feelings, but she was becoming better and keeping them aside, out of the way. Things weren’t cold between her and her former love interest, but neither were they warm. She’d described the situation to Meiji as “tepid.”
Both of us keep testing the water, to make sure things are okay... but we’re still both a little afraid to jump in.
The mist was extremely thick, she could see them until the two were almost directly upon her... which fortunately gave her time to cover her sadness with a studious stare off into space.
“Ah! Wa-Feng Felonca!” Won Wei greeted her with a bow and a smile, “or should I say, Shang Wa-Feng! A pleasure to see you again and well!”
“And you, Master Won Wei,” Felonca replied, a fake smile on her lips. She sighed with relief when she thought she saw Won Wei’s smile remain steady, yet she quickly felt something deep behind his gaze... some kind of emotion barely being held back. What, she couldn’t tell.
Great... he knows about the unhappiness between me and Nayu, Felonca wanted to groan.
That might complicate things... but how did he find out? Nayu wouldn’t tell anyone, and I only spoke to it with my immediate fam.... Meiji!
She made a mental note to strangle her cousin when she got the chance.
“Felonca,” Nayu bowed, a smile on his own lips, yet Felonca could see his eyes... and they held just as much worry and tenseness as a harried mother.
He’s still concerned on how I react when he arrives, she realized. A tiny, ever-receding part of her was gleeful at this... but as each day went by, it shrank even more. Now, she tried to put on a real smile... if only to try to assuage him. She bowed in return, and was relieved to see the temporary nervous look in Nayu’s eye faded somewhat... nonetheless, she rather anxiously rubbed a hand over the ring on her finger.
Her father had found it several months before amongst the piles of tomes and junk the scholars had teleported to Xianfung in the last minutes of the old capital city. It was a silver ring, with insets for three stones, yet all that remained was a single ruby in the center, small yet glowing with brilliant light. Felonxi had handed it to her, and she’d worn it ever since. She’d wanted at times to ask Nayu what it did, but she’d always been concerned old, inappropriate feelings might arise... or she might be rebuffed.
“Nayu,” she bowed in return. At first it’d be hard even to use his first name... the urge was there to distance herself from him, but she knew that wouldn’t help him, or herself, in this entire mess. For a moment, silence hung in the air.
“How goes the training, Felonca?” Nayu cut through the unspoken tenseness. For a second, she saw the words
“How are the troops from Han?” form in his mind and on his lips, but they remained unspoken.
There are still some wounds... she realized.
I should show I’m not afraid of the subject... we’re going to be working together, after all...
And the past is the past.
“Well, the infantry sent north from Bei have proven well trained and steady. Father was especially impressed by their ability to switch formation quickly under stress. And, to a certain extent, forty-thousand troops is always a boon,” she grinned. “As for Han,” she plunged into the unspoken subject, “The rumors about their cavalry are true... the finest I have ever seen.”
“Ah... excellent,” Nayu replied with only a slight halt in his speech. The halt said more than hours of dialogue, and Felonca forced another smile on her lips.
Let him know its alright. Though one small bit of evilness came into her mind, one she couldn’t resist.
“And you’ll be pleased to know that Prince Royukgan himself has recovered sufficiently that he will be arriving soon to take command of the Han cavalry himself,” she smiled only slightly. Nayu played the game well, and she saw only a slight tinge of disappointment in his eyes.
“Excellent,” he pronounced, even though she knew he probably wanted to growl instead. “Won Wei has just returned from looking about for that tappask what-not the Military Governor spoke of just before he died. I am assuming that since he was gone for the last two months, you would probably want to hear what he found as well.”
“Of course,” Felonca replied.
“What exactly is this tarrask?” Nayu asked a few minutes later. After the three had moved to a secluded section of the wall, Won Wei’s thin veneer had fallen away, and the fear underneath had roared forth.
Won Wei tends to overreact a bit... shouldn’t be too bad.... Nayu tried to wrap his tongue around the word, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t quite master how it was pronounced. “Terrask? Tarresk?”
Why can’t creatures have simple names... Wang-Liang, for example. Nice... rolls off the tongue...
“Tarrasque,” the wide eyed scholar corrected him, his voice low and frightened, as if speaking the very name of the creature might cause it to appear. “It is an utter abomination of life, a great and powerful spiritual demon from the Abyss that hunts and destroys all life.”
“So its undead then?” Felonca asked with a raised eyebrow. “It shouldn’t be too bad then. We’ve dealt with undead things before...” Her statement ground to a halt. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“
Its not that simple!” the scholar hissed. “It is neither living, nor dead, nor undead. It is a beast of nightmares!”
“So it takes over your mind? Well, I have Kongxi’s headband, so that shouldn’t be a...”
“No!” Won Wei cut Nayu off, exasperation now showing in the young man’s eyes alongside the fear. “It is more powerful than the greatest dragon, and can slay an entire city in one day!”
WHAT?! Nayu felt his jaw drop.
“Imagine, if you will, a creature so great in size that its shadow stretches for miles, with fangs so large they can impale the mightiest horse! A beast so foul that it kills the vegetation around it, spreading sickness and death where it walks!” The fear came back into Won Wei’s eyes, fear that now Nayu understood.
“It eats anything and everything that it comes across... people, livestock, giants, ogres, dragons even if it can get its hands on them! To make matters worse...”
Felonca spat out a series of sharp curses on the ancestors and whoever sired the tarrasque, as Nayu stared at Won Wei, his jaw still wide open.
A beast THAT LARGE? That can do all of that? HU IS SUMMONING THIS?!
“How can we kill this thing?” Nayu finally asked, regaining control of his lips and cutting off Won Wei’s list of doom before it was fully started.
If we can kill something like that?! Good gods in the Heavens... we need a plan. Calm down. Think! His imagination ran wild, conjuring up the image of a towering beast miles away, yet so large he could feel its eyes peering at him. The image made him shudder involuntarily.
“It reflects a great deal of magic that is cast on it,” Won Wei continued, unabated, “spells come flying back towards the one who used them! Normal weapons hardly touch it, and even when it is hurt, it heals so quickly that few can really cause it any harm!”
“Has anyone killed it?” Nayu raised his hands in exasperation.
Won Wei’s rambling now... dammit!
“I...I found one record,” the scholar replied quickly, “but it said that the beast arose again after it was slain, and proceeded to begin to eat yet again! Fire did not stop it, poisoning the water for miles around did not stop it, they even say the great Kongxi himself tried to put one to sleep, to no avail!”
“What the hell kills this thing?!”
Something must kill it... otherwise from the way Won Wei speaks, it would still be wandering around even now...
“I... I don’t know, Master Wakabayashi,” Won Wei bowed in confession. “All the records say that after years of laying waste, the beast merely wanders off to lands unknown, until it is summoned again!”
“Good gods in the Abyss!” Felonca swore again. “So you’re telling me that Hu is summoning a beast far beyond anything this entire Empire has seen since... since Kongxi himself walked in this world?!”
“We didn’t get the right tomes... we didn’t get the right tomes...” Nayu repeated aloud to himself, panic flooding his own mind.
Kongxi himself couldn’t kill this thing... how the hell are we supposed to do it?! Think!! THINK!!
“Okay... okay okay okay...” Nayu raised his hands, and started to pace, wracking his brain for ideas.
This thing is huge, this thing is mean... huge, mean things usually mean that an awesome amount of magic is required to summon it. Awesome magic means...
He suddenly stopped.
“Where is Hu summoning this... thing?” Nayu asked, ideas coming together.
“We... I... don’t know...” Won Wei whispered fearfully. “He controls the entire northern border, and supposedly now has allies among the barbarians across the Desert Wall! He could be summoning this creature from anywhere in that...”
Nayu closed his eyes.
“If we can find where he’s doing this, I think I know how we can stop it...”
=======================================================
That’s right... I tossed a tarrasque at them.
Yes, I am
evil....
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
