PART 1 - Artix
Sometimes, Artix gets really tired of running.
It is not sunrise or sunset, or dawn or dusk, or any such poetic time when the cloaked figure arrives in Falconreach. It is, in fact, noon and the sun is high in the sky and the traveller is hardly the first or last to arrive. It is, essentially, the beginning of rush hour.
The cloak is big and heavy and covers and disguises every part of the person's body, casting their face entirely into shadow.
Guardian Jenni is, of course, completely unfazed by the admittedly impressive figure the stranger cut. Sure they looked pretty intimidating but this is Falconreach and she is a guardian. They got more than their fair share of odd or unusual travellers passing through.
"Hail, stranger!" she calls, the long used greeting easy enough to use.
The cloaked figure, who had been looking up at the walls surrounding the town, almost seems to start at being addressed.
"…hello," the answer is barely a mumble and the voice hard to make out.
"Welcome to Falconreach, the town connected to all of Lore!"
"I…uh…thank you,"
"You ever been here before?" a minute shake visible through the shuffle of fabric "Well, since you're new in town, try talking to Twilly – he's the red moglin who hangs about in the centre of town – he likes to help out,"
No reply, but the stranger hasn't moved. Her co-worker looks over and seems to pick up on something, before calling over.
"Hey! You with that over cloaked guy that showed up? 'Cause if you're looking for him, he went away up that way," the other guardian gestures towards the path leading up and around the wall "hangs around in a clearing over there,"
The stranger seems uneasy now.
"Other cloaked guy?"
"A stranger who showed up a while ago," Jenni says. "Always cloaked, never really seems to move, just hangs around in that clearing offering to sell stuff,"
"Oh. No, I…I am not with him, I do not think. I am just passing through," the voice sounds clearer now, and if Jenni had to guess she'd say the cloaked stranger is a young man, but this is Lore and to make a guess on a stranger's identity almost always ends badly.
"You might not be passing through," she jests, leaning on her sword and grinning "The people in Falconreach're from all over. People tend to come to visit and end up never leaving. Who knows, you could be one of our new citizens in a week or so!"
That seems to make the masked figure laugh.
"No, I do not think so," the stranger reaches up to his hood and pulls it back, revealing a head of deep brown hair and eyes of the same, an almost genuine smile tugging at his lips. (But Jenni is a guardian and can see the sadness to it, can hear it in his words when he speaks them next)
"I have been travelling for a long while; I do not think I will be settling down any time soon,"
"You never know," she says, holding out a hand. "Welcome, again, to Falconreach. I'm Guardian Jenni, enjoy your stay,"
"Artix von Krieger," he says, returning the gesture and giving a firm shake. "I will endeavour to do so,"
As he steps through the gate, cloak hiding his entire body and keeping a secret he has kept for a long, long time safe, Artix looks up at the clear blue of the sky, hears the birds singing and the people of the town talking and laughing and all around feels good.
'The town connected to all of Lore', huh? It is a beautiful place, and if circumstances were different, he thinks he would like to live here.
No, he will not stay long. He decides it there and then. Falconreach is beautiful and just feels like a nice place, he will stay an even shorter time than he would normally.
He does not want to see Falconreach go the same way as the other places he stayed in for too long.
The whistle of a blade through the air and then…
THUNK!
A log split cleanly down the middle fell to the ground, followed only moments after by another, the repeated whistle-THUNK-whistle-THUNK the only sound beyond the chirping of distant birds.
And then that sound ended too, as the young boy holding the axe rested for a moment, wiping his brow. He replaced the log, lifted the axe again and…
"HELP! Someone, please, help me! Brother…!"
The axe slammed into the side of the wood next to the log. The boy's head snapped up, turning towards where the cry had come from.
"That is coming from the river!" he realised, pulling the axe free and turning to run.
"I AM COMING!"
The boy almost froze when he reached the river bank, eyes locking on to the girl in the middle of the river, clinging tightly to a rock and trying not to be swept away by the current.
"Try to hold on, I will go get help!" he called across. Her eyes snapped up to him for a moment, arms tightening around the rock but slipping ever so slowly.
"Help! I can't hold on! Please, help me!"
The boy faltered for a moment, torn between running for help and simply helping. Town was not so far but…by the time he returned, there would be no-one to help. His decision was made.
Feet planted as firmly as he could manage, he reached out and tried to grab her hand.
But his grip was not sure enough, and he slipped. Darkness met him the moment he hit the water, the girl just barely managing to find and cling to his hand before the water swept them both away.
Somehow, before he even knew it, two weeks had passed. Honestly, he could see what Jenni meant when she said that people visited and ended up never leaving.
Falconreach was…, well, it was Falconreach and he could not think of a better way to put it. It just had a good atmosphere to it.
Artix felt more at home than he had in years.
It was terrifying.
Just the day before, he had caught himself toying with the idea of never leaving. He liked Falconreach, he was friendly with the citizens, what harm could it do to settle down here? He could find a house, or talk to Serenity about permanently renting a room, give Ash some help with his training to someday become a knight. He could stop by Yulgar's forge to chat with him and Konnan and could see about learning about pets from Grams and play with Aria. What harm could it honestly do to finally stop running?
All the harm in the world. That's what it could do.
With a final heave, he pulled the bed into place and looked at his handiwork. He had propped the chair up under the door handle, preventing anyone from entering. Putting the bed in front of the chair to reinforce the barricade was simply a safety measure.
Turning around to put his back to the door, Artix took a deep breath and then reach up and undid his cloak. It fell to the floor with a thump, settling heavily.
He stepped forwards out of the pool of fabric it had made, and then curled his hands around the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over, curling around his forearms. He kept his eyes shut throughout it, and then felt the feeling of blood rushing to a body part that had been asleep.
He opened his eyes, stared straight into the mirror that hung on the wall beside the wardrobe and let his wings unfurl.
The light to show the way out was just ahead of them and he strode ahead without falter. He had promised to get her home to her brother as soon as possible, and could not delay on that at all.
"Artix?" Vayle's voice was small. "Are you sure that it's safe to leave it there?"
"What?" he turned around to face her. "What do you mean?"
"That…that orb thing. The one you said was dangerous," she said, looking back over her shoulder to where the blue glow still emanated from the ruins of the old guardian tower. "If it's powerful…is it safe to leave it there, where anyone could find it? Shouldn't we take it back with us to see if the adults know what to do?"
He closed his eyes and thought about it. That orb was…dark was the only word for it, and it's whispers still seemed to echo around his mind. Whispers of power if he accepted it…no. he would not listen to the orb. He would become a force of good, he was sure of it. Perhaps he would seek out training in a class that used light?
But Vayle was right, it was dangerous and powerful and with all of the kinds of things that had begun prowling the woods lately, leaving it there would not be safe.
"You are right," he said, opening his eyes and exhaling. "Wait here, I will go and get it,"
He handed the axe to her, in case of any monsters arriving, and headed back into the tower.
He stared into the mirror, at the draconic appendages that curled up to the halfway up the height of his head and halfway down the length of his upper arms, black in their colour entirely but for a faint hint of gold towards their tips.
These were his reminder. His warning.
He could never stop anywhere too long, or they would find him. He would find him, and drag him kicking and screaming back to the Necropolis to be used as nothing more than a power source. The undead would come marching through, bringing death and destruction in their wake and stopping at nothing until they grabbed him. The screams and shrieks that only he could hear would fill the air.
He forced himself to remember the times he had stopped too long before. To remember the towns and villages that had fallen to undead assaults coming fo him because he had stayed too long.
He wanted to help the undead that had been enslaved, to free them, but he had to keep running. He freed the ones he could, but it would be pointless if he was caught.
Because then Noxus would get the power he wanted and would build an army and Artix would be unable to stop him.
He stared at the wings that were the reminder of his foolishness as a child – a girl's voice that he tried to block out rang in his mind as he thought of the day he gained them – and then nodded his head, resolute.
He would leave the next day. He would not risk endangering Falconreach.
The orb sat where he and Vayle had left it, looking deceivingly innocent.
He crouched down and picked it up.
The air felt like it had burst out of his lungs the moment that his fingers brushed the surface. The world around him went dark and the whispers were surrounding him but…NO! He would NOT give in. He WOULD NOT!
The darkness disappeared and the tower returned, and no time at all seemed to have passed. Something on his back was itching like crazy…he reached behind himself to try and reach the scratch almost absentmindedly and stopped short when he hit something sticking out of it. Something sticking out of a tear in his shirt.
Something seemed to drop into the pit of his stomach when he remembered a certain new addition to Vayle after she had touched the orb. Wings.
He stood back up, almost shakily, and noticed that the orb was gone.
No…not gone. Not visible, but not gone. But where?
"I guess this makes both of us," he said to Vayle when he left the tower. She had gasped, but hadn't asked further. She'd gotten a pair from the orb after all, so she couldn't question his.
"What about the orb?" she asked.
"It disappeared as soon as I touched it. I do not think we will be bringing it back with us," he said.
They headed home. He never took the axe back.
The sun was as bright and shining as it had been when he arrived when he left. His cloak was on and he could feel his wings shifting beneath it and thought – not for the first time- how glad he was that the cloak was heavy and thick enough to hide such movements.
"Do you have to go?" Ash asked, looking barely moments away from pouting.
Hood down, Artix laughed.
"Do not worry, I will come and visit again someday," he reassured the younger.
Then he pulled his hood up over his head, turned and left.
The very next day, a frantic adventurer would come barrelling through looking for Twilly and talking about a dragon box.
A week later, a paladin would arrive.
This story came about because of seeing an imagine-dragonfable post about Artix being bearer of the darkness orb instead of Vayle within a few days of completing the Doomwood Saga in AQW. And also because I really wanted to write this AU.