Battle Hymn of the Republic

“Those that can Dream,” Noble’s voice became more severe, “can unmake this land. Each time a human has walked the Elementalia Magicus, it has caused immense suffering. It was humans who bound the six, then sundered them, and it was humans that killed them, plunging our world into darkness. You. Your very being is an immense force of change. You could kill an artisan. Unmake their land, and their people, ending them in an instant.”

The audible sound of a racking slide echoed heavily in the narrow cave. Bjorn began to tremble as he drew his small sword, standing on one foot before something much greater than himself.

“Your hand could end the lives of thousands,” grimly accounted the centaur, “and by mine, they could be saved. I am an Artisan of the Elementalia, to spare you, by the lore, would be endangering too many people. Irresponsible. Risky.”

It was long, tense silence that followed, before Noble took a marksman’s breath… and lowered his rifle. “My fear tells me you are a danger, but my heart says otherwise.”

At that, he set the rifle aside, holstering it in a long, leather pouch at his hip. Bjorn stood resolute, but was still visibly shaking as he stared up at Noble, where Noble stared down at the two of them; thinking, contemplating. Another tense moment passed before the centaur finally came down to Willow, and pulled out a small water-skin. There wasn’t much in it, but he offered it to her, along with an armored gauntlet supporting her frame.

Bjorn fell on his little raven haunches, shocked.

“I need to know I can trust you,” demanded Noble, “You said you met others like me. Clever. Creative. How do I know that is true? Did they give you anything to identify yourself? A symbol, a token?”

Willow did her best to take a drink, but before long began coughing as she barely had the strength needed to swallow the tepid liquid. It barely satisfied her thirst, but was enough to dampen her voice box. With the help of Noble’s gauntlet she forced herself up further, pushing through the protests of her body until she was sitting and able to slump against the cool stone of the cave wall. Her fatigue demanded she sleep more, and it took a lot of mental fortitude to not pass out at this rather important moment. She sluggishly reached into the pocket of her pug pajama pants. After fishing for a second she withdrew a metal nut and let it drop to the ground in front of Noble.

“Copper-aluminum alloy. Scrap metal from her golem,” Willow’s voice sounded rough, and she sounded barely lucid amid the fever. “‘Bout as much o’a token you’d expect from her, aye?”

Her hand went back to fishing in a pocket before she froze and winced.

“Creative. His token… I ate it. Was… was a coin. Electrum…” Willow scrunched her face, urging her mind to try and collect details in its addled state, anything to prove she’d actually received it. Suddenly her eyes went wide and she lifted her arm. Fighting the bands of lead trying to weigh her arm down, Willow pointed at Bjorn with a tilted smile. “Bjorn. He sent Bjorn with me.”

Her arm dropped and her head rolled downward as her fatigue flared once more. Regret blossomed in Willow’s chest at the grand irony of this all. She had spent yesterday stronger than she’d probably ever been only to be rendered weakest when she really needed it; and she’d eaten the second token she needed to prove herself to gain foresight, but due to her lack of foresight she lacked the actual token.

”Ya really mucked this one up, didn’t ya Willow?” the teen thought, feeling as though she might cry if it didn’t require energy and water her body couldn’t spare.

That was it. That was all Willow Fairburn had to offer in the face of the accusations. From how Noble stiffened, it didn't seem entirely enough to persuade him. He stood up again to consider Willow's testimony. It was evident that he wanted to see something concrete; desperately needed it. If his initial hesitation was any indication, killing Willow was the last thing he wanted to do. Yet, Willow could never truly comprehend what sort of precedent her mentors had set in this land.

He turned again, this time with an intensity that caused the cave walls to misshapen, and the wind to rush in from the cave's entrance. The artisan spread his wings, causing greater distortion in the walls.

In the face of this, Bjorn stood, raising his blade at Noble. Their faceless visages locked.

"Your master pressed you to her service?" spoke an ethereal voice of judgement from Noble's helm.

"The Master of the Show did," assented Bjorn, readying his mangled wing, "She helped free him from a fallen timber."

"You speak for her character?"

"Her judgement is poor, but she is no villain."

Noble clenched his fist.

"You would die for her?"

Bjorn took a breath, and braced himself, the sword ready.

"Someone will."

The artisan was ameliorated by this, lowering his wings and relaxing. Normalcy returned to the cave. Bjorn took a couple steps back as Noble approached again. As if proving his point, the odinkine lunged, and buried his knife into one of Noble's legs. Fresh blood oozed forth, but when Bjorn tried to withdraw it, he found it firmly planted. Instead of removing the blade, the centaur removed his helmet, revealing somber, if not relieved expression.

Past the stunned odinkine, Noble pressed and scooped the sickened Willow into his arms.

"I will trust you, Willow Metal-eater. Trust you as I did the night before. I will take you to my city, and you will receive the welcome I promised."

“See? No villain,” Willow mumbled as suddenly she was picked up and carried. If she were Drysi, or maybe less ill, she’d probably have blushed. Instead she just looked at Noble with unfocused eyes before quickly shifting away from the artisan to puke. After a few heaves and some shivering Willow settled back and wiped her mouth.

“S’rry ‘bout tha’. Think Ah got some on y’r shoes. Horse shoes? Hehe, snort,” chortled the teen. Momentary mirth passed, she looked towards Bjorn as a sullen look crossed her face. “An’ I’m sorry Ah called ya a bird, Bjorn. Can ya ride ‘ere with me? I don’ feel good.”

Bjorn hopped on one foot, and then another, staring up at the two. Noble still wore his sword like a sheath, but Willow seemed like she had taken to her fate. The odinkine made one hop back as the artisan lowered himself so he could hop up into Willow’s lap, clearing the vomit that was just off the side of her. It was nothing malicious, but Bjorn’s talons, as light as they were, felt like a twenty-point weight on her stomach, made worse as Noble came back to his full height and exited the cave, his two charges in two.

Outside, they were greeted by the orange glow of the forest, forever wrapped in autumnal colors. The sun was just getting over the hills, filling the forest with light. This place was much more like the world she knew, birds chirping, wind blowing, and the life of a normal world on a normal day. If it didn’t make the sickness worse, she may have had the chance to enjoy it before Noble braced his legs, before shooting off in a gallop, before launching himself into the sky. The sudden gravitational force pressed Bjorn into the Allomancer’s stomach, but before she could wretch again, her vision faded. The last thing she saw was the sinking ground, and the many islands.

That, and a city on the horizon, with a single, brilliant tower standing above the land.

Willow dreamed again, this time, she awoke standing next to Noble, still holding her unconscious body. They were standing in what looked like a courtyard flanked wrapped in green artistry and tall walls. He was speaking to someone, she was smaller, a young woman her age. Blonde hair flooded from under her hood, and she had a porcelain face and glassy eyes. Her four arms were brought forward in a modest stance, deep in thought.

Then, she noticed Willow, and the Allomancer could make out a pained look behind a pair of glasses on her cracked face.

“So, it’s true.”

Darkness took her again, and Willow did not dream again. Instead, she was subject to some of the worse waking flu-dreams she had ever known. With what little consciousness she had, she would wake to a purgatory-like rendition of reality, and then fall back into restless sleep. She dreamed she was locked into a bird cage at the top of great tree. Then, she dreamed she was being drowned in a pond built into a road. Weirder, she dreamed of a troll replacing all her clothes with rocks and dirt, burying her in the ground.

Finally… Suddenly… It stopped. And Willow awoke.

Next to her was Bjorn, sitting in a bowl filled with hay. He was fast asleep. Judging by the fresh light, it was probably morning, again. The Allomancer was in a room of fineries, silks and neatly carved furniture. Walls of oaken and banded stone surrounded her, and the floors were polished marble. Looking down, she would find silken sheets and soft, downy mattress supporting her, a firm pillow holding her tired head.

A fresh wind blew in, and looking to her right, she would find that the bed had been placed on a balcony, and she could see out into a wide yard, leading on into a street. She was in a city.

Mingling, and eventually taking over the ambience of words and languages of the passing small-folk was a whistling. Looking down, she’d see Noble, working with a group of much smaller centaurs. Except, instead of having the bottom-halves of horses, they had the bottom halves of dogs, of various breeds. Among them were the golems, spriggans and a few types of small-folk Willow hadn’t seen before, all working on a building project. As the whistling and humming continued, they broke into song, carrying on in their work in the growing sun.

“Willow Metal-eater,” heard Willow, a voice coming from the doorway as the song carried into its second verse, “so you’re awake.”

At the threshold of the room she awoke in, stood the young, four-armed woman she saw in her dreams. This time, her face was aetheric fire, flowing up under twin hoods of golden hair and fine cloth. She reached into a bag at her hip, and withdrew a cracked, porcelain face. When she placed it over the fire, it settled in, sealed the seams, and suddenly came to life in pseudo-human form.

“How do you feel?” asked the girl, putting on a pair of spectacles, “Better?”

“Ah beans, am I Frodo? Always fancied meself more of a Merry,” Willow mumbled to herself as the newcomer came in and started talking. She’d sat up in bed to begin taking stock of herself and her surroundings. While it wasn’t the same motif as Rivendell it still bore enough similarities that Willow was immediately intrigued; although she’d have preferred seeing some proper elves rather than corgitaurs. Regardless, someone was now talking to her, so Willow wiped the palms of her hands across her eyes and down her face. Aside from shaking off the last wisps of fitful sleep she actually did feel alright; not great, but leagues better than she had been. Amazing what a comfy bed and clean clothes could do.

“Vastly now that I caught a few winks, although I think pushing over two days without proper food; so that’s less than ideal,” Willow groaned the words slightly as she stretched, noting the super comfortable robe she was wearing. Seemed an odd bit of nightwear, but it might just win her over. Finally looking the arrival over, Willow cocked her head to the side and seemed momentarily puzzled. “Cle… You… are… Smart?”

A small smile spread on the girl’s face.

“Noble said you met my sister,” said she, bringing her hands forward to her waist, her head tilted to one side, “it seems that claim is true, if you know my name.”

Smart nodded her head respectfully and walked across the room, pulling a small chair from a sitting table to sit next to Willow’s bed. With two of her hands, she tugged her hood back, while using the other two to shape her layered robes to get more comfortable. On closer inspection, she was the spitting image of Clever, save for the crack that ran from the edge of her face to her eye. Unlike her sister, she had a warm expression, and seemed to be one of the first people in the strange land to be actually happy to see Willow.

It was then that Bjorn awoke, looking between the two. The odinkine looked very tired, and only smiled when he saw Willow, before drifting back off into upright sleep.

“You have been asleep for several days, Willow Metal-eater,” clarified Smart, “approximately fourteen. Two weeks I have watched over you.”

One of Smart’s hands reached out, and touched Willow on the sternum with a, perhaps, unwelcome degree of familiarity. From her chest burst a bright light, and in Smart’s open palm was a small flame. It fell off the side of her hand, and bounced along the floor. Each bounce revealed a limb, popping out from the glowing core, before it was revealed a small construct. Two arms, two legs bound by a glowing, radiating core, roughly the size of a spriggan.

“Thank you.”

The construct bowed, before leaving without a word. Smart’s eyes slowly turned back to Willow, and she spoke, almost with the same smile as before, “You must have many questions, but I imagine, as a human, you have had questions since you arrived.”

Willow’s post-sleep preening took a sudden pause as she processed what Smart had said. That was… a not insignificant amount of time. This was supposed to be a quick twenty minute adventure; in and out. Easy. Now however she legally qualified as a missing person; and she’d missed several of her shifts helping out at Miss Smith’s; and she’d slept through a chunk of her summer vacation! Her hands returned to her face, sliding downward and stretching her face.

“Just a couple,” Willow started. She took a deep breath in. “Where am I? Both in terms of city and realm. How did I get here? How do I get home? Why are you all named after concepts? Why do you hate humans? Speaking of humans, have you seen one named Manon? She looks like a clown most of the time. She might have been taken by spriggans to the Slumberer… Dreamer… whatever… she might not have been, I’m unsure.”

Another breath.

“That’s a lot of stuff. Answer in whatever order you prefer. Oh, and about that food?”

Smart turned her head to look at the door, and, as if commanded, another construct appeared with a tray. It hovered over the ground, its glowing body trailing a bright tail in its wake. Willow found the tray had a breakfast of sausages, eggs, and a cabbage salad. The construct bowed, before fluttering away.

Then, Smart took a breath.

"You are in Navipolis, Noble's own city, in the Elementalia Magicus. He brought you to me in his arms, and you've been sleeping in my bed for these past two weeks. I would show you the way to the gate so you can return home, but your appearance is unprecedented," the words came out evenly and quickly, as if Smart had practiced this answer before Willow asked, "That should answer your question about your Manon friend. As for your humanity, you will need to forgive Noble."

Noble, who was still outside working, whipped the small-folk he worked with into another song. Smart smiled, and continued, "He only knows the stories of the God Slayers. I am sure one of my kind has told you, a human's presence in this world has never been a quiet occasion, and has, to our knowledge, never ended well for this realm's denizens. Genocide. Erasure. Oblivion."

Her smile weakened, but she carried on, "We named ourselves from our guardian, the Sage. Of all the things he has done for us, the one thing he refused to do was name us, so we named ourselves. He is the one that described these qualities in us, and we took them as names: Creative, Clever, Noble, Smart, Diligence."

At that, she sighed and crossed all four of her arms, "Noble has told me of your friend, but she never came through the city. If she did, she did not stay long, but if the wild spriggans are actually responsible, then to a greater extent, so is Vengeance. She is likely at the Unwoken's forest, on the edge of the Yormundyaw Mountains."

Willow’s mother would be embarrassed by the way the teen tore into the food sitting in front of her. That said, she had never been a fan of cabbage, and the amount of it she was eating on this trip wasn’t changing that. Still, she listened with a keen ear as Smart spoke. Once more, she was starting to feel like this trip had been a bait and switch, and that Manon would be sitting in the dorm room when Willow got back from fighting Dagoth Ur.

“That all sounds…” Willow said amid chewing before swallowing to continue speaking. “Intense. For what it's worth though, I’m not in the god slaying business. Don’t even know how I’d go about doing that. I’m only trying to find my friend, and if someone is in the way of that then bap ‘em in the hams. But I don’t see how a fist cookie to voice box would make a realm break.”

“That said, and I’m sorry if this is rude, but it seems like things are already on a downturn even without human intervention. Clever and I got attack by a wraith, a group of spriggan and odinkine were killed by other wraiths that went on to harass Noble and myself, and Creative was stuck under a log. That’s a lot of stuff going on with me having only just shown up, and my friend would have only been a little ahead of me if she’s here at all.”