Failed Duties [[Closed]]

[Eidolon]

[[Continued from Meeting of Families]]

Eido walked for a long time, her hand wrapped around the warm weight of the wallet in her jacket pocket. She meant to pause long enough to contact her brother, to find him, but shame and guilt overburdened the intention so that she only kept moving. The seams of her felt like they might split if she stopped. She was homesick for a world barred to her. Estranged from every duty she had dedicated her life to. Kōta urged her to live; but live for what? Even if she accepted the right, whenever she considered the possibility it fluttered her stomach with nausea. Because it always followed her, that shadow: what she was. What she would always be.

Shadows pooled around the yellow light spilled from streetlamps. Eido walked fast, like she had somewhere to be, chin tucked into her collar. A frown furrowed her brow. Her eyes kept low, breath tight in her chest.

Without her, Kōta could have started again long before now. It was her own lack of Custody legitimacy that forced them to live in shadows. A thousand streets like this. A thousand slums. Six years of exile.

He ought to be the one living.

Shame led her in circles. Eido kept walking.

She realised she was being followed with an abrupt prickle of awareness, when the residential areas began to recede to old warehouses. For a moment she was genuinely afraid it was the stranger from the bar, but the fear fizzled as irrational almost as quickly. She was neighbourhoods away by now. And whatever followed mirrored her footsteps too perfectly.

It wasn’t human.

Her eyes swept low, seeking somewhere with advantage. The options were poor, and when she realised the foolishness of her mistake her heart began to beat insistent and loud in her ears; more so for how silent she realised everything was around her. Without a pause she opted for the darkness of an alley mouth. Obscured for a few precious seconds, she slipped the jacket from her shoulders, unsheathed the small knife, and took a breath. It was unlikely to be enough to save her. But maybe that was fate. She found her peace.

She swept under the first lunge. Eido was fit and agile, and instinct still smoothed her movements. An old sense of calm flooded her with a welcome stillness. But it had been years since she’d trained. She held her own for a moment. But only a moment.

Her wrist slammed into the wall. Something pinged in a blaze of pain that made her cry out in surprise. She gripped the blade still. Just.