.Umbral Era
The air in the house is different today. Still cold, still foreign and dark, but there’s a hum of activity. Servant’s feet drum a steady, swift beat against the deep blue carpets as they make for rooms or studies or labs with instruments or papers or files or books. Men in long, white coats clink vials together, against metal, into mouths that shake and tremble. The screaming barely reaches Saint’s ears, though.
The Miqo’te is beneath the house, surrounded by metal walls and floors that send a dull vibration with each step. His jacket isn’t enough to shield him from that foreign cold down here, his breath a cloud that rushes past as he makes for an open door.
He’d been summoned. Like a dog. With cryptically vague instructions, as he always was, but this air, this house, the room he now paused in the threshold of…
Like James was readying for something. Moving all the chess pieces into place for a game only he knew they were playing.
Saint squared his shoulders and walked to the metal table in the center of the too dark and too quiet room. Woolf stood at one short end of the long table, carefully eyeing him with his naturally narrowed and unflinching gaze. They hadn’t spoken since he’d forced Saint into the ring on the opposite side of the basement and brought the Miqo’te’s natural instincts back to the forefront.
Good. Saint hadn’t forgiven him. Likely never would.
Bastard.
“Ah, good,” came a purr which caused Saint to snap to attention. James had come in behind him. How long had he been there? “So you do still come when called.” Closer now, the Hyur’s steps near silent.
Metal against metal clangs into the room to his right and it takes everything Saint has not to snap his attention to it’s source, to see what it is James had brought with him. Instead, his instincts stay locked on those too quiet steps, their trajectory.
Screeching finally causes him to flinch as James takes whatever he’d set down and starts dragging it with him along the table’s surface. It stops when James stops opposite of Woolf and Saint’s ears unpin from where they’d snapped against his head. Woolf was smirking.
Saint settled his attention on his father and the familiar blackened helmet that rested under his thin, pale hand. “It’s time to suit up, boy. Somethings coming, and I won’t have you wearing anything less than the best.”
Teal, almost deep green eyes shift from that helmet to James and back. No wonder his new commission hadn’t seen any progress in weeks. “And if I refuse?” He already knew the answer, but it was a game at this point to ask.
“Then I retract my offer.” The helmet was thrust from beneath James’ palm, where it once again slid across the table on an almost unnatural wind, making more unholy noise as it did so. Still upright, still staring at Saint with blackened slits that had once earned him a title, it stopped within arms reach. “So do as I say, and suit up.”
The curl on the Hyur’s lips cause his own to twitch, ready to bare teeth and snarl for the vice Saint had found himself in. False gods, he was so stupid. Instead, he grabbed the helmet off the table and turned for the door.
“My son,” James cooed, “always the diligent fighter... Your sister would be so proud.”
Saint slowed to a stop, slowly glanced over his shoulder. He knew as he met James’ smug expression which sister he’d meant. Knew wrath had hardened every line of his face thinking about the body they had never found. “Do not speak of her again, Bekker, or I will let the beast you’ve created rear it’s ugly head.” This time he let himself sneer, then walked from the room.
He could’ve sworn he glanced Woolf, pale as death as he did.
