A Trade For Information | A Reaper Oneshot
I found my doc full of a few of oneshots I've written for SoB, and so I might post some of the less spoiler-y ones! This is one of them, so minor spoilers because this is a scene that happens later in Part 1. But I like it enough to give it to you guys too :)
Synopsis: Reaper, in her hunt for a village to search for a cure for Wolf's scars, comes across a strange visitor among a field of fight pillars.
[Continued under the cut]
Reaper crouched behind a crumbling pillar, peering around it and scanning the rolling plains pervaded by fight towers. She sighed, narrowing her eyes. Her search for a village had been nothing short of fruitless. All she'd found was more and more remains of fights long past, the towers groaning as they slowly started to fall apart, The Black slowly releasing parts of it to succumb to gravity. She glanced up, frowning at the multitude of floating rectangular pieces of oak planks and mashed cobblestone high above her head. She hoped they had a good amount of time left. She didn't want to risk getting hurt from them cracking her in the head.
She moved from behind her pillar, crouching as she quickly made her way behind another. She hadn't seen—or Sensed—anyone nearby, but it never hurt to still be careful. In fact, usually it kept her alive. Her iron sword and her armor all sat in her quick-tier, only one mental command from appearing in the physical realm. Some would have argued that leaving her armor on would have kept her more protected and ready for an attack. But she'd seen armored people attacked in the open more than those without it. Armor was a sign of resources and valuables, and people craved those more than they feared the possibility of the victim being well trained in combat.
Reaper continued on her way, ducking between pillars and squinting at the horizon in all directions. Some pillars were thicker than others, and closer to the ground between them were cobblestone or oak walls–hurried forms of protection that hadn't mattered in the end. In the back of her mind, she had already kept a mental note of where the direction back to Phoebe's forest and home was. She had always been good at directions. A trait that had helped her excel at disappearing from hunters and traveling as a Drifter.
Drifter. She'd never truly liked the title. It meant someone who drifted away from the small, corrupted hearts of the world. Someone who explored and never settled anywhere. Those people labeled her as an outcast when they had never welcomed her in the first place. In her eyes, they had no right to label her as anything.
Reaper sighed, shaking her head. She was wasting time thinking instead of looking for a village. Phoebe had told them there were no villages for miles, but there had to be one somewhere in this part of the Biome. It was the only way they could start looking for a cure for Wolf. Reaper had promised they would, and she didn't do that lightly. Promises were something she had seen broken too many times by everyone else, used as simply a means to get what they wanted from the people around them.
Reaper despised that. Wolf and Coder didn't deserve more deceit and betrayal after they'd been murdered and torn from their home. Her promise to them was one she'd sworn to herself that she'd keep.
The sun slowly arced across the sky as hours passed Reaper by. She'd set out from Phoebe’s home near dawn, because going out at night would've arguably been more dangerous, with all the monsters The Black Awakened. Reaper sighed, looking at the sun high overhead, shielding her eyes from the light. There were only twenty-one hours in the day, and currently it was hour eleven. As she was deciding whether or not to start the trek back home, Reaper froze as the distant sound of a strummed note echoed in the air.
Reaper spun around, her eyes scanning her surroundings. She paused as she saw a figure perched on one of the cobblestone walls twenty feet behind her. When did they get there? Reaper wondered. She hadn't Sensed them coming near. Maybe they weren't a threat? Her sensing usually only kicked in when she was in direct danger.
Regardless, Reaper stayed still, studying the figure. They had one leg horizontal on top of the wall, the other dangling freely over the side. Resting against them was a tall, thin wooden instrument with a bottom shaped like a pentagon. Spider strings lined the front of it, and it was at these that the figure plucked at carefully. The tune they played was idle and carefree, echoing to the sun above almost like a parrot soaring through the sky.
Slowly, Reaper crept closer, ducking behind another pillar. The figure was facing her, but hadn't made any move to talk to her. Reaper narrowed her eyes. The urge to summon her sword grew stronger, and she started to feel the chill at her shoulder as she held herself moments from doing so.
As she got closer, she saw the figure was not only a figure, but a woman—one who was dressed in long blue robes that held intricate, swirling red designs sewn into the hem and at the shoulders. The swirls carried from the shoulders and moved to the hem of the hood that covered her face. Sections of long dark hair draped down on either side of her head from underneath her hood, her head bowed as she continued playing her instrument. The carefree tone was still there, but it had quickened, almost as if the bird from before was in a hurry. The freeing joy turned to urgency, a need to reach their destination faster than before.
Reaper shook her head. Enough of this. “Hello?” she called, over the thrumming tune. In an instant, the woman's bandaged fingers held against the vibrating strings, silencing them. Reaper tensed at the sudden cut of noise, and the woman slowly raised her head. Reaper's eyes widened as she saw the woman wore a golden strip of cloth over her eyes, one that matched the golden sash around her waist.
The woman tilted her head toward where Reaper's voice had come from, before slowly, she smiled. “Ah, a visitor!” she said. She sounded oddly genuine about someone being here with her. “Welcome!”
“Who are you?” Reaper raised an eyebrow. She eyed the instrument resting against the woman's body. Reaper couldn't care enough to remember what it was called. “What…are you even doing?”
“Playing.” The woman shrugged. She tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “What are you doing?”
Reaper narrowed her eyes. “That's none of your business,” she said. The woman's lips quirked up in a smile.
“Of course not, dear,” she said. “You have yet to pay me for any of my business services.”
Reaper raised an eyebrow again. Business? She only heard of a few people who freely traveled, for a price. “Are you a Wanderer?” she asked. Part of her wanted to just turn and leave, but she had a feeling that wouldn't be wise. The blindfold this woman wore could be a trick. And Reaper didn't know enough about her to deem her safe or not.
“Am I a Wanderer?” The woman echoed the question thoughtfully, putting a hand to her chin. “Well, that is a good question indeed. To many I am many things. A scammer. A trickster. A messenger. An offer of peace. And many, many more.” She chuckled.
Reaper frowned, hesitating. Then, she asked, “What do you think of yourself as?” she asked. “What do you call yourself?”
“All the same things, in honest truth. I never said the many things I am in the eyes of all were any lie.”
It took Reaper a second to process the twisting sentence. She narrowed her eyes, but nodded. “Okay,” she said slowly. “But that’s not a name.”
“You never asked me for a name,” the woman said, holding up a finger. “You asked me what I called myself.”
“That’s what a name is. Something you call yourself.”
“The same could be said for a self-deprecating insult. Or perhaps a title.”
“What’s your title then?” Reaper took a small step back. This woman was merely dodging questions, and wasting Reaper’s time.
The woman however, still smiled. “There are quite a few of those as well. But the one people use the most is a trader of tales.”
“Tales?” Reaper frowned. “Who in their right mind would sit down and share stories when they could be killed?”
The trader fell silent, tilting her head as if the thought had never occurred to her. When she answered, she spoke slowly, her tone more serious. “Death, I believe, holds some of the most powerful stories. Those hold some of the most prominent concepts of this world: pain, suffering, loneliness.”
“So people share their problems with you,” Reaper stated. “Those aren’t really stories.”
“So what is a story, my question-filled friend?” The trader leaned forward against her instrument. Her smile had disappeared, and yet again she looked purely thoughtful. It was harder to tell if that was her only emotion, though, due to Reaper not being able to see her eyes. That unnerved her slightly. People’s eyes were the doorway to their true intentions, their true feelings. And now here she stood, talking with someone who had hid them from view.
The two stood in silence, and it took Reaper a few moments to realize the trader seemed to actually want an answer from her. Reaper shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. She took another step back, turning away. “Look, I have to go. Maybe you can find your answer from someone better.”
Reaper started to walk away, sighing and shaking her head. She didn’t know why she’d stood there and stayed with the strange woman, but it was distracting her from her current mission of finding a village.
“‘Better’?” The woman sounded almost amused. “I’m not sure if there’s any better than you, dear. Most would have tried to kill me before I’d gotten my second word out.”
“Oh, there’s a few better than me.” Reaper had spoken the words before she’d had time to think it through. She stopped in her tracks, turning towards her right, where in the distance the forest hiding Phoebe’s cottage lay. Phoebe was better than her. Wolf was better than her. Coder was better than her. All of them didn’t kill first and interrogate afterwards. They all sought for the better in the world. All Reaper did was hide from it.
Reaper heard the woman jump down from the wall, her sandaled feet hitting the grass with a soft thud. Reaper turned sharply, and the woman’s instrument disappeared into a burst of black wisps, replaced by a thick, tall staff via the same wisps a moment later. Reaper now saw the trader was as tall as she was.
“The ones suited best to tell stories are often the ones who refuse to share them,” the trader said. “These are the ones who, oftentimes, are in dire need of a listener.”
Reaper narrowed her eyes, sizing the woman up. “I don’t need one,” she said coldly. “I don’t have anything to give you. I am no one. My stories wouldn’t mean anything to you.”
“Well, no one is better than being someone.” The trader smiled. “Everyone is a someone. Being no one makes for a much more interesting story. Much better than the ones I’ve gotten from the settlers nearby. Perhaps that is because they are all merely someones.”
The trader turned and started to walk away, her staff thudding against the ground with her steps. She ran her hand along the cobblestone wall, feeling her way to move around it as she walked. Reaper’s eyes widened and she stepped forward after her. “Wait!” she called. “There’s settlers nearby? Where?”
The trader paused, looking back over her shoulder. “Now, why would a no one be searching for a settlement?” she mused. “Much more interesting, indeed…”
“Hey!” Reaper walked towards her, grabbing her attention again. Reaper tamped down her urge to summon her sword—it wasn’t going to help here. “If there’s a village nearby, I need to know. It’s…” She breathed deeply. “It’s important.”
The trader turned to face, raising an eyebrow above her blindfold. “I would like something in return,” she told Reaper. “I am a trader, after all.”
“Alright.” She nodded. “What do you want?”
The words, once more, had left her before she’d thought them through. But she didn’t care. This information was too important to leave behind.
The trader smiled at her. “Your answer,” she said simply, “of what a story is.”
Reaper stared at her incredulously, before she sighed, shaking her head. “I told you, I don’t know. Surely I can give you something better than that. I have iron? A sword?”
“All of which will corrode with time and age.” The trader shook her head. “Information is much more timeless. That is, if people know how to reach it. Maybe you are not quite there yet as I had hoped.”
Reaper frowned, shaking her head quickly. “Well, hang on! A story–a story is–” She stopped as the trader raised a hand to silence her. She lifted her head, and even though Reaper couldn’t see her eyes, she felt as if they were staring into her own.
“A fabricated answer is not what I wish from you,” she stated firmly. Then, her expression softened. “But, the answer is yet to come. For now, I simply ask for your task, No One. What do you need this settlement for?”
Reaper hesitated, before she steeled herself. “To help people I know,” she said. The trader nodded slightly, smiling in amusement.
“That is a rather vague answer.”
“You never said I had to be specific.”
“This is true,” the trader agreed, tilting her head aside, before she turned her head towards Reaper’s left. Reaper instantly knew the direction as north, due to the sun’s arc toward the west behind her. “The settlement is a few miles in that direction. Marking it is a large, lone oak tree at its beginning. The settlers title it Oakview. Remarkably creative, of course.”
Reaper nodded. She turned towards the north, shielding her eyes from the sun as she squinted in the distance. She didn’t see any trees yet; it seemed she had a way to go.
She looked over at the mysterious trader. “I…appreciate it,” she told her. The woman smiled underneath her hood.
“I have a feeling that you have more to you than you believe, No One,” she said. “But, next time we meet, I expect that answer from you. I think you will have it by then.”
Reaper frowned, opening her mouth to ask more questions, but the woman had already turned away, walking with her staff towards some distant mountains that continued on the other side of Phoebe’s forest. Reaper shook her head, quickly starting to make her way north.