Greyashe EP 22


 

 

This is a summary of Greyashe Episode 22.

 

OP: OUTRUNNER

ED: Talim.

 

Chapters Covered: 43-45.

 

Gasping for air, Guy emerges from a lake located on the surface. He and Van had been floating for what seemed like eternity through the multi-layered pipe system that allowed rainwater to flow into Auysdin. The two are extremely fortunate that it wasn't raining during their escape, or they would have perished before they reached the surface. With one last burst of strength, Guy swims over to a riverbank and collapses with Van in tow. After a moment of catching his breath, he awakens the boy and congratulates him with a escape gone well, even noting that Van blacked out pretty close to the surface, so he had been awake for most of the escape. The boy smiles sheepishly, and then begins to vomit. Guy shakes his head, but doesn't take back what he said about Van's bravery. When he is able to, the boy asks what's next on their itinerary, realizing that Guy hadn't at all said where they'd go once they had escaped. Guy muses on this for a moment, and then tells Van about a friend of his who's somewhat close to the prison system. He planned for them to end up here, as his friend is located only a half hour or so from their location. Van already knows without his eye that this was not planned, but decides to let Guy have his moment. Guy tells Van that his friend may have a good idea of where Claire and Kani are, and even if the lead turns up cold, they can crash there for a few days and think of their next plan.

 

Meanwhile Claire awakens in a strange hut. The aroma of unfamiliar food had dragged her from her slumber, a slumber that she had been fighting in and out against for the last few days. Her memories are fogged, she remembers being underground, and that's about it. Worse yet, every time she tries to grasp at her memories, they recessed further away. A cloaked figure steps into the room, and nearly commands Claire to eat her food so that she can regain her strength. Too weak to object, she does so, having to ignore the throbbing pain in her leg. For some reason that she can't remember, it too had been broken. The stranger mentions that Claire's eyes have lost their 'magic', and after glancing in a mirror she sees her eyes are dead and empty. Oddly she feels just fine, and the scent from the stranger fills her with a nauseous nostalgia. This stranger was someone that she isn't a big fan of, but her flame seems to be all but deactivated, and will not come out on cue like it normally does. It's when she tries to breath fire that the memories all pour in. Lupine. Auysdin. Fire. Hot. Defeat. Fear.

 

Van.

 

The stranger comments that she should try walking around a little. If she can manage the pain there's a good chance she may be able to leave quickly. Claire asks who he is, and he simply replies that he is a 'Specter'.

 

Van and Guy walk up a hill that overlooks Guy's friend's house. Guy is exuberant, happy to see the sky again after not being able to for a few days. He coins the tired and true phrase that 'one doesn't know what they have until they lose it.' Van at first is exasperated with Guy's energy, but can't help a huge grin capturing his face. Although he had no idea if Kani and Claire are alive, the fact that the sun is shining and the clouds are moving slowly overhead is enough to bring him a sense of inner peace. The two head down the hill, running and halfway down rolling, a pure picturesque of two inmates that just escaped from jail.

 

A girl sits in the house at the bottom of the hill. She is on the 'Worldly Mage's web page (one of the national newspapers.) and is shocked out of her rotating chair when she reads that Das Supergefangnis is in a state of ruin because of a massive jailbreak. She squeals and slides back in her chair. Next she stares at a anklet on her leg, and without any warning, stands up and tries to walk a bit before the anklet makes a buzzing sound and she lands with a thud on the floor. With a slight curse she wonders if she'll be free now that Supergefangnis has fallen. This doesn't keep her down for long however, as she smiles sinfully whispering how this news gets her excited. Methodically her hand reaches down, down, down until it is between her panties and bare skin. There's a brief sensation of pleasure, until she suddenly jerks her head upward to find Guy and Van staring down at her. The boy is confused, while Guy smiles mischievously. Without missing a beat, the Girl asks Guy if he's ever heard of 'knocking'. Guy simply chides her for doing something so immoral in the first place, but then in the same breath admits that if he had known she would be doing that, he would have made a better effort of coming in quietly. Her attention shifts to Van who she calls 'fresh meat.' Guy quickly tells her to keep her hands off of him, and then introduces her as Dayta, admitting he doesn't remember her real name. She tells him not to worry about it, as her life as that other person before getting arrested already ended. Van is surprised to find that she is a prisoner too, in which Guy informs him that she's only 'kind of'  prisoner. She had been caught trying to hack into Ausydin's computer database. Instead of punishing her harshly, they put her on house arrest, and have her monitor the computer system for the jails. Guy warns Van about her, as the other reason why she's here is because she's a sexual deviant. However, if anyone knows where Kani and Clare are, she would. Each prisoner has to be checked in and out by the police, and Dayta has access to this database. She's taken a liking to Van though, and Guy has to ward her off several times. ( Apparently his innocence is a real turn on....)

 

Guy gives her 'food' in the shape of a Homo erotic comic book, featuring characters from the Soraverse.  Dayta takes the book and reads it, all the while typing with her feet. She spins around in the chair as she waits for the results. Van is finding it hard to keep his composure around her, as she spins with her legs up in the chair, and her midriff is showing, not to mention her soft red lips ash she mumbles. She spins around a bit, and finally is able to find something on Kani. She notes that Kani's on a list for execution, and Van begins to panic remembering that the guards who took her away said the same thing. Dayta surprises the boy by saying that Kani wasn't executed after all, but bought.

 

On this world, there re two men who have collections, but they're so big that the whole nation takes notice. One man collects people, places and evens. His name is Armus Pajari, and his immense wealth had allowed him to gather everything rare and unique in the world. He must have seen something in Kani, which caused him to buy her and add her to his collection. The other collector dabbles in magics all around the world. His name is Desmond Larter.

 

A spark.

 

Van holds his eye realizing that considering it's reaction to the name, he knows this man. He has no idea where he might know the man from, of why he'd know him but his eye tells him that they have met or something at one time. Van decides to keep this under wraps for now, figuring he could research it later. He quickly asks Dayta about Claire, but she refuses to help now that she's finished the dirty mag that guy gave her. He doesn't have any more, and Dayta abhors the idea of doing something for free......until she sees Van's crestfallen face. She then nearly jumps on top of him, squealing over his cute face, and decides to help him out. Guy warns Van that she is a sexual deviant, and that he may want to sleep with his door locked as long at they're at her place. She is unable to find anything on Claire, indicating that she must not have been in jail during their time in Ausdyin. This both worries Van and brings a sense of relief. She hadn't been put into prison, but then....where is she?

 

Claire has limped outside of the hut and using a tree as a support sits down at it's base. The pain in her leg throbs, but it's not enough to keep her from walking forth on her own. She quietly sits for a moment, allowing memories to direct her thoughts. She had been minding her own business that day in Greyashe when an older gentleman noticed how she was dressed and thought she was lost. Before she could get away, she was placed under Van's care, and just as suddenly found herself being protected by the boy.  As much as she'd rather not admit it, Claire finds that to her, Van is....essential for lack of a better word. His lack of restraint when it came to his very true feelings is in a sense refreshing. Being around those who would rather hide how they really feel than to be true had in turn changed how she portrays herself to others.

 

Limping back to the hut, the person who had found her asks if she found who she was looking for. Claire says she hasn't, and again asks her host for his identity. He states once again that he is a specter, and Claire probes for more. After a few moments of silence he states that he has met she and Van before, and that their meeting was the beginning of his end....although he doesn't blame them for what happened, in fact...he thanks them. He says that his traveling mate and he ran into Challengers who found out about their association with the Goddess Supporters. They trapped the two of them, and it looked bleak. Sadly his traveling mate betrayed him just so she could be saved, and he was tortured and beaten within an inch of his life. Nothing however could alleviate or even sway the pain that he felt from her betrayal. Karma works in strange ways however, as eventually the Challengers grew wary of her and in the end betrayed her, granting her death. He managed to escape with his life, and upon seeing Claire decided to step in. For if it hadn't been for Van's words perhaps he would have continued down the path of self ruin.  Claire starts to realize who he is, but he ends the conversation by stating that if she knows she cannot be true to him, she should never see him again.

 

Meanwhile Van stares out the window at the city in silence. Guy comes to him and asks what he wants to do now, figuring that since he can at least see magic, perhaps he can find out where Claire is on his own. Van concurs that it would be easy if they had been separated for only a day or two, or were relatively near each other, but it's hard since they've been separated for a while over a long distance. With this though, the boy quickly smiles and says that he hasn't given up hope. He knows that she'll go to the place where the wind blows it's coldest. Something had attracted her to Greyashe in the first place...something in the cold. He then stands up and claims that he has to go. Guy follows him, and the two head into town. Meanwhile Claire recalls how she had only been with Van for a few moments before realizing that with his red hair and bright eyes, his lineage couldn't have been in the winter boroughs known as the 'cold continent'. She limps back towards the door, and tells her host that she will be waiting where the southern wind from Greyashe is strongest.

 

Claire arrives first, and shivers a bit at the sudden whiff of cold air. The area is a tree on a hill overlooking a bridge and a river. Claire figures that the water going under the bridge must have come from Greyashe, explaining it's unnatural coldness.  She dangles her feet off the edge of the bank and winces at it's cold. She looks at her reflection in the water, and realizes that her hair is now slightly shorter than shoulder length. The host must have cut it before she woke up, and because of the pain in her leg and her worry about Van, she hadn't noticed. Her dead eyes scare her however, and she stops looking into the river....to see Van and Guy standing to her left. Van smiles weakly and apologizes for being late.

 

Claire stands the best she can and looks over at Van. The sun has started to set, the purple blaze in the sky giving him a light aura, like a guardian angel from heaven. Guy realizes that he's not needed for this moment, and walks past the both of them to the river. Van softly asks if she's okay, and she replies by asking him the same. After the two have confirmed that they are fine, she asks him why he's so battered, abashing him for being so reckless even though he's not a magician. Van pauses before answering, and asks her bluntly if this is why she didn't ask him for help back when they had become separated. Claire is surprised, but doesn't get the chance to answer as Van continues his offensive, asking her if he has to be a magician to worry about her, or if only magicians are allowed to be friends with her. Is it that he isn't a magician that she had abandoned him? His voice is steady but rising slowly, and Claire realizes that he is actually upset. Van is upset....with her.

 

She doesn't even know when he has walked over to her and grasped her shoulders. Had she become smaller? Or was he always this tall? He asks her again, why she didn't ask for his help when they were underground. He gives her a brief summary of what happened to him underground, going from Kani getting captured to meeting Guy, and the Jailbreak. Claire is speechless when she hears what the boy had been through over the last few days. She can barely mumble that she didn't ask him to come and save her. He releases her shoulders and to her surprise lifts a fist in the air, seemingly to hit her. Instead he punches the tree, and under his breath (but loud enough for her to hear) tells Claire that when they became friends, she lost any right she had to losing or taking her life herself. He doesn't need permission to save her, because as her friend he will. It's fine if she doesn't want his help, but she should never act as if he needs her permission to be by her side. To him, Claire is the important person who had changed his life. In some ways it's better, in some ways it's worse, but it's because of Claire that he's been able to change. Removing his hand from the tree he then turns away from her and with a wavering voice reminds her of her name 'Claire' he said it meant light, and he meant it. He then asks with a tearful smile if she'll continue to be his 'Claire'. Claire is crying too before she knows it and for the first time has a broad smile on her face, calling him stupid; as light is always there in some shape or form if one looks for it hard enough. Guy turns from his post and nods approvingly, and then speaks to Claire's host who had been hanging nearby, remarking how it's good when two people reunite. The host leaves wordlessly, leaving his blessings to the trio, and then asking himself what his 'Claire' is.

 

Back at Dayta's house the three (plus one) brainstorm how to attack Armus's mansion and save Kani. Claire hasn't budged on her stance on Kani being unneeded to the party. Guy is more than happy to fill her in on how Van feels about the witch, and Dayta becomes disappointed when she hears Van has a girlfriend. The boy becomes so flustered that he decides not to talk any more, which gets a hearty laugh from the group. Guy decides that sneaking in would be the best mode of action, as they can use Van's eyes to get around without being noticed....hopefully. Van questions that last 'hopefully', but Dayta reveals that there's usually a party going on in Armus's place so they should be able to get in and out undetected. She also points out that he has rare items, so he makes sure that his guards are equally as unique. Guy asks Claire (whom he had been using different forms of the word short on the whole evening.) what she can do, and after putting up with his verbal barrage of short jokes responds in a fiery rage that she is NOT short, nor is she a child. Guy instantly takes a liking to the small but fierce girl, and Van grins while pointing out to Claire that the golden hue has returned to her eyes. Dayta is speechless, wondering how Guy picked up a far seer AND the goddess killer as friends.

 

Meanwhile at a mansion far, far away a party is underway, just like it had been the day before that and the one before that. One girl however sits in a room alone staring out at the white moon. Her pale skin bathes in the moonlight as her purple eyes stare out into the dark sky.  Kani sadly turns away from the window and looks down at the black party dress that she's wearing. She is wearing eyeliner and well applied makeup, giving the already pretty girl an image of breathtaking beauty. Two heeled shoes sit on the floor, and as she puts her head on her knees she rests her hands on her bare feet. A man enters the room and asks if she will join him for one dance. Kani turns away and says nothing. He glances at her shoes on the floor, and without turning around she tells him that she doesn't do heels. He remarks on her beauty as she sits in the window sill, and in an angry huff she closes the blinds.