{☾} They all knew Miletos was going to be bad, but was bad the word for this? The Lopt Sect had full control of the place, as if worse than Yied. Rather, this seemed like their new Yied. If it had been their stronghold before, this place was now. It made being left in charge of Chronos much more difficult, and even though they had saved the civilians from the earlier attackers, there had been no intel on Sect reinforcements. Sety couldn’t help the disappointment and aggravation that followed the lack of preparedness, and currently, the army was mostly scattered.
Normally, Sety would have had no problem fighting them off. He had been left to Chronos’ defense after several people who knew him well could tell he was feeling off and shouldn’t have been sent out for the scouting and cleaning up of the remaining scattered enemies, and at the time, he also believed that was best. Now, he wished they had agreed on someone who could presently handle the job better. He’d already been suffering heavier pains and aches since arriving in Miletos due to the dark mages that had been in Thracia, but the last heavy lot of them had been too much.
But this? This was too much. More of them than he could handle in this state. He didn’t have enough of the Liberation Army’s men for this, and he certainly couldn’t make up for that right now on his own. Granted, he had attempted to keep fighting, worn down as he was, until one of the foul mages had approached him, an injured - bruised and scraped everywhere - child in their arms, seemingly closer to the age of thirteen. He had considered attacking the man much more carefully to avoid the child, but that stopped when he was urged to surrender.
“Why... should I surrender?”
The mage was clearly noting his exhaustion and occasional wincing, but the smug change in his expression left the Silesian’s grimace turning to a softly appeared shock. “Trade places with him.” He gestured mildly to the boy who wildly shook his head. “We’ll stop this child hunt and let these people go if you take their place as a hostage against the Liberation Army.”
There was a pause, and after a few seconds he stiffened as he realize there were other dark mages with their attention on him. The way they were positioned, even if he were to fight the one in front of him and go for the ones diagonal at the same time, he would still be hit with at least two Fenrir users stationed in different areas of the mountain from behind. Even if he faked it and the kid was released, if one of these guys had Hel and he wasn’t aware soon enough, he would have been a lot more sorry for attacking than giving in.
His eyes narrowed on the mage. “...I don’t believe you. You would take a single person over all these so-called sacrifices?” The smug look directed at him became more of a smirk - a perfectly knowing smirk, and the calm demeanor he’d retained until then had been switched with a more genuine shock, a light expression of confusion filling his face. “...How did you find out who I am?”
As the man gained more confidence in his words, Sety could have sworn he sensed - felt - some of the others were lightly preparing their own magic if need be. If they knew who he was... they knew he was a legitimate threat. “There were rumors in Manster. People talking about someone who had the same name as the former Crusader Sety, whispers of a foreign prince with unusually powerful wind magic on his side; whispers claiming you were the one with that name and power who killed Lord Berdo some months ago. Strong as you were, we did have men watching; reporting. Our higher lords believe you’re better under our watch than actively as our enemy. If they play things out right, it would be better... to have your power on our side than against us. Besides, you’ve caused us a fair share of trouble. You can sum it up to saying that you’re worth more than those screaming kids as long as we even so much as have you. You’re also worth more alive than dead.”
It hurt to watch the growing child nearing his teen years. This kid was hardly younger than Fee... and part of him wouldn’t stop projecting the situation as if it was her instead. If it had been him in that situation as some helpless kid, wouldn’t he be scared too? Being in the body of a helpless child who saw the world through their own eyes fearing death...
This entire riot actually would stop then, wouldn’t it? He didn’t believe they would never go after these people again... but if they had time to run away and warn Celice of what happened, they would also have a better chance of surviving. No less a matter was that this was essentially what they were fighting for. To stop these things. Holding them off for any period of time could change the balance in this. Worse, if he still said no, he was only dooming all of these people and potentially himself at the same time anyway. While one could normally not blame a person for choosing themselves, he knew better than to think the others wouldn’t also give in for now.
After a pause that felt like more than five minutes - surely it wasn’t, or they would have spoken up by then for an answer - his voice lowered unintentionally as if in sync with the hand that gripped his opposite arm in hopes of settling down the trembling he now had to try to control. “If you’re saying getting me out of this instead of them is acceptable... fine. I’m not making any promises until you all lower your casting hands and stop attacking the Liberation Army.” He waited, but they seemed to be doing just that. He couldn’t help how much it bothered him how serious they were; how much value had been put on him that they would rather have him than another infamously bloody child hunt. Just another reason to lament having too much power...
After giving it a bit of time, he removed his Lightning tome and let it drop from his hand, kicking it away from himself. “That’s dangerous to you, right? Would you prefer I drop everything?” A moment’s hesitation, the mage seeming to calculate if he was feigning it and planned something involving him somehow having enough comrades to back himself and attack, but he eventually slowly nodded. “The kid first. I’ll drop the rest when he’s far enough away from you.” Despite the mage doing so after waiting a couple seconds, Sety also hesitated, both of them quite clearly distrusting as neither had taken their eyes off the other as he tossed his Recover staff, perfectly aimed the Elwind tome to carefully land on the Lightning tome out of peripheral vision, then dropped the Holsety tome behind him. “Is this enough?”
A slight nod as the mage thought out an answer. “I suppose it should be sufficient. Step away from the equipment and move to the nearest group of our men.”
He tensed much worse this time, and it took longer for him to react than he would have preferred. While he did wish to have some level of caution, there was quite a line right now between caution and anxiety. Between caution and fear. He had never been that close to them before, much less willingly, and even more less so to a group of them. It was almost relieving when he’d managed to force himself to move, nothing but utter willpower and pushing it all out of his mind helping him with this.
Eventually the lot of them seemed satisfied, and the one who had been previously holding the boy followed after Sety, stopping in front of the group and holding up a Hel tome, the disgust Sety receiving from his sickening grin leaving uncomfortable knots in his stomach that caused him to involuntarily back up into one of the other mages who held him in place just below his shoulders. (It bothered him. Too close to his shoulders. Shoulders were too close to the mark on his skin that made up much of his pride.) “Being a hostage isn’t all you’re doing. While it’s too late to decide otherwise, I don’t think you would change your mind anyway. You’re... strong, right?”
A sharper look mixed itself in with a nearly emotionless and dead look in the prince’s eyes, but they met evenly with his captor’s. “We’ll see which one breaks first. Me or that tome.” {☽}
