tofi's trail

Farka was one of the larger towns at the edge of the common realm of the Clover Kingdom. It was a port town which lay close to the border shared between Clover Kingdom and Heart Kingdom, and as a result a lot of foreigners frequented the city. Due to its close proximity to the forsaken realm, it was not uncommon to see people from that lower realm come to try to make a living in the constantly growing town. It was also close enough to the forsaken realm that people from the noble realm would consider it just another part of it, although it wasn’t drawn within those lines on any map depicting their country.

But it was a dirty town, with slums rampant with violence where those who were unable to make it lived, cowed by fear and poverty, with poor-houses and workhouses and brothels filled to the brim hidden behind the well-maintained houses of the areas most frequented by visitors. The majority of the people living in Farka could not make a living wage, and the filth was ground deep into their skin and posture.

Jack hated this town with all of his being. He hated this town, but he didn’t dislike the view from the top of the tallest roof. It belonged to the church located close to the port, because commerce and faith was the only thing that kept the town from collapsing beneath the heavy yoke of despair. Even on top of that roof, you could feel the smell of salt water and dirt, and hear the cries of the seagulls. He hated this town that he was born and raised in, he hated the people in it, but when he climbed up on top of the bell-tower, the slanted roof’s tiles rough underneath his feet, he could see far off in the distance, and he could imagine just leaving it all behind. All he had to do was bear with it for a while longer, and once he had gone through the grimoire acceptance ceremony in the spring, he would leave for the royal capital, to try to get into the magic knights. If he had been born a few months earlier, he would have already been out of here.

If he did become a magic knight, no one from this stupid town would be able to look down on him or boss him around, or spit at him and call him a son of a whore or a foreigner’s bastard. Even if it was true, it still pissed him off.

Not that his mother was any better than the rest. Different, but no better.

He climbed off the roof and dropped off the crates stacked by a wall where they stood awaiting the sailors to sober up and move them onto the ship that would transport them to God knows where, and followed the sound of his mother’s voice calling his name. Even before he saw her he could tell that she was in that sort of mood again; erratic and wild-eyed, with a manic glint in her eye which he knew he had inherited from her. “Jack! Jack, Jack darling, come come, mommy needs your help, won’t you help mommy out?” Her hands touched his face and her fingers curled in his hair. She didn’t wait for a reply, kneeling instead to get to his level— though by now it put her below his line of sight, as he had started to grow taller and was shooting up like weed; he grew out of his clothes faster than they could be let out. “Jack dear, sweetie, mommy needs you to get another one,” his mother was saying, clasping his hands in hers. “You will do this for mommy right? Of course you will darling, mommy know you will, because mommy has the best son in the whole kingdom, in the whole world, the kindest son a mommy could ask for.” That was debatable, particularly considering what she was asking of him, but he had committed far too many of these crimes for it to have any sort of effect on him any more.

Still, he would comply. He always did.

The woman he chose this time was mostly a stranger to him. He knew that she lived in the same slum district as he did, he knew that she had a younger sister, and he knew that she was a prostitute. His mother was acquainted with her, he supposed, but she had never complained about his chosen targets yet, not even when he killed one of her closest friends.

Nobody cared if a prostitute was murdered. It happened all the time, and the only ones who actually cared were the prostitutes themselves— and yet they could not simply quit, they needed the work, because there was nothing else for them.

So they were ripe for the taking, so to speak, and Jack was very handy with a knife, always had been. He just knew instinctively how to cut to instantly kill, just instinctively knew where to put the knife to cut out body parts with the least amount of damage. If he wanted to he could cut out most body parts without killing the victim, but that wasn’t exactly an option. He didn’t want to get caught, after all.

Jack wrapped the woman’s warm liver in paper he had stolen from the butcher’s shop, and he slipped away into the darkness, through alleys and into the slum. When he returned to their tiny little room which stank of smoke and garbage just as much as the rest of the area did, Jack’s mother lavished him in praise and kisses, and he watched with contempt hidden by a mask of a sharply indifferent smile which grew more and more similar to a sneer each year, as she cooked the liver. He chewed on some scraps of stolen pigsmeat as she downed the entire liver, and his contempt merged with the disgust that she made him feel nearly constantly. He really did hate this town and the people in it.

...

Early in the morning he joined a group of other boys and girls, and while gossipping about various things, including the decapitation murders that nobody knew the real story behind, they set out to cause a disturbance to make it easier to steal from some noble target. None of them knew why there was a noble in town, but they could see the way the man looked at the mismatched cobblestones, the worn people, and they could see the distaste and contempt. They all wanted to put the nobleman in his place for looking down on them for simply existing within his line of vision, for the way he and everyone like him stepped on people like them, as if they were worth less than their navel fuzz. Not that they probably weren’t, considering the value of the nobles’ clothes, but still it pissed him and his friends off.

So they caused a distraction, a riot that didn’t only involve them, because it wasn’t only the street rats who hated the nobles, and they slipped sticky fingers into pockets and pouches, palming valuables off of the nobleman and his entourage, and they split the proceeds of the theft between them after selling them to a broker inside the black market hidden away in the slums. They got a lot more than they usually did from any purse, and judging by the look on the broker’s face, it was because of the medallion that had come off of the nobleman. It was heavy and shiny and golden, and etched into it was a large bird of the hunt of some sort, its wings spread along the edge; they nearly touched the tips together, and they framed a cross resting on top of a crown. They had probably been cheated out of a fortune, but Jack didn’t mind entirely, because he had never had as much coin ever than he did right then, and he would finally have enough. He stashed it away in a hiding place so that his mother wouldn’t get hold of it, and so that he wouldn’t get accused of stealing it. Which he hadn’t! He had unlawfully earned that money, unfair and unsquare. But he needed that money for himself.

His mother was in a good mood when he returned, and since he was in a good mood as well, he wasn’t as bothered as he might have been by her enthusiasm. He could do without her trying to coax him into taking clients, though. Not that he didn’t, but today was a good day that he didn’t want to ruin. He listened to her and whatever man she was getting fucked by go at it from a corner in their room while he nibbled on a piece of stale bread, and he thought about what he could do with the money; he would save it, obviously, so that he could get to the royal capital once the magic knights entrance exams came along. But it was fun to imagine. It would probably be terrible to be among all those stuck-up nobles, but as long as he got out of Farka, he didn’t mind; he would do the most of the situation and he would make a place for himself.

And if becoming a magic knight failed, he sure as Hell wasn’t coming back to Farka.

He wasn’t even going to tell his mother that he was going to aim to become a magic knight; he had never told her of that idea, because unlike some slum kids, he wasn’t a total moron. The slum brat son of a whore and a random foreign man wasn’t ever going to get into the magic knights, everybody knew that. There were too many things working against him for that to ever happen. He might as well have had a better chance had he actually been born in the forsaken realm instead of among the Fraka dregs.

...

His mother was in a good mood for the next few days but eventually her mood waned, and Jack could tell that she was growing more and more distraught. She kept on picking up the little looking-glass with its cracked surface, and the handle that had fallen off and the edges that had chipped, and she kept sighing, wringing her hands, and asked him over and over again to search her face.

...

She believed that if she ate the right body part of a beautiful young woman, she would stay youthful and beautiful no matter how she grew older. She did not remember which body-part, exactly, but she claimed to have been told if this piece of ancient magic from a witch.

Jack’s mother wasn’t all that old, she had birthed him at a young age and still looked fairly young and pretty though worn by her hard life, and she was certainly popular, but she was plagued by a lack of self-esteem and a desire to be better, to be prettier, to be younger. He knew she would crack one day and he felt like he was walking on glass, careful not to say anything to tip the scale.

...

So he was prepared when she rounded on him after he had just returned with his meager earnings from a client he had seen behind the ramshackle shed that housed them and other broken families, and he didn’t even flinch when she grabbed him and slammed him into the wall. The wall shook far more than he did, though his body was just as thin and brittle. “Jack, Jack darling, honey, my sweet boy, it’s not working, my little baby, it’s not working.” Her voice, soft and full of endearments, was not matching the look of maniacal distress she wore on her pretty face, or with the touches that would leave bruises on his already damaged skin. “I don’t understand why it won’t work, Jack, Jack, my sweet, Jack, why isn’t it working? It should work, she said it would work, and still it’s not. Jack can you understand? Should I try another? Something else this time? Jack dear, go get another for mommy? That’s a good boy, a good boy, let’s try something else this time, something should work, something, something should, something-”

...

Her ramblings echoed through his mind as he searched out an appropriate target, and they still echoed through his mind as he cut her throat, as he carved out her pretty blue eyes, and moved down to pull her dress up to her chin and cut open her stomach to remove more of her intestines. Her ramblings only stopped when she quieted after gushing praise over him. Praise that he didn’t need nor want.

This was how his life had been for as long as he could remember. His mother’s frail mentality, his own weakness for listening when she asked him to kill for her. But he was fifteen, and the end was in sight. He just needed to withstand it a few more months, that was all.

...

And withstand he did, though he would murder and disembowel many more women for his mother’s sake. If he didn’t, she would become unbearable, and he would probably miss his chance to run away from this hell hole of a town at world’s end.

The tome was heavy in his hands as he turned its pages, took in the information. It was both ironic and suitable, that he’d get a grimoire with spells that could cut. There were already a lot of possibilities, in the few spells etched onto its pages.

He was practicing his spells in their room when his mother was away, or when she was asleep. He was concerned that maybe somebody would suspect him of being the so-called Disemboweler of Farka, the East End Prostitute Killer, if he let the wrong person see what he was capable of.

It was a day like any other, except the day he had decided to leave was nearing. He was tense as a result, and maybe it meant that it wasn’t really that normal of a day. Jack was practicing his magic, slicing apart some insects that he had caught down the river a distance away after seeing a customer in that area, and his mother was out searching for customers for herself. He had murdered for her only yesterday, she should have been in a good mood when she returned.

But she wasn’t. Instead she was more erratic than ever, nails clawing deep cuts into Jack’s skin and burning holes with her heated fingertips in his clothes. His mother’s magic was very weak, and the most she could do was create heat- though the warmth of her skin was one of the reasons why she was so very popular during the harsh winters that they faced down by the coast. But sometimes when she was especially distraught she could cause such heat that it might scar. Her current heat was more intense than it had ever been, and it made Jack reel backward, out of her touch. It only upset her further, her voice getting louder and her words growing harsher. Threats to turn him in to the authorities mixed with endearments, and as he tried to calm her, tried to persuade her, he came to realize that she had finally reached her breaking point. He didn’t know what had happened and she was clearly not about to explain it to him. Maybe he could have fixed it otherwise.

He only intended to give her a small cut, because when she normally hurt herself she would instantly be distracted and focus on patching herself up. But his heart rate was elevated and the heat emanating off her skin was unbearably painful and she was shaking him, and the cut went wide. It left a large bleeding gash across her face, and she let out a shriek and fell back, away from him. She pressed her hands to her face, as if she could press the edges of the wound together and it would heal. She burned her own face with her touch, her fingers too hot for even her to be able to withstand. Her screams had started to attract a few onlookers; usually, little yelling could be heard from this small family of two, and their neighbours took note of the change. Jack stood pressed against the wall, the smile he usually wore unable to make way onto his face, and his mother sat sobbing, screaming, on the floor. Still desperately clutching her face.

She was taken to the church, the only place anyone could think of that might help. Healing magic was rare within their community. Jack stayed in their room, sitting on the floor with his head tipped back.

He was still sitting there when the door opened, and his mother tumbled over to him, falling into his arms. Her face was wrapped in stained bandages that were falling off, revealing blisters, an ugly scar from the cut and the burns tearing across her skin. She was sobbing into his clothes, grasping it with shivering hands. “Why did you do that, Jack, Jack, honey you’re supposed to be a good boy, you’ve always been such a good boy to mommy, Jack mommy can’t live like this, you know mommy can’t live like this.” He wrapped his arms around the mother he had never been able to love, feeling oddly protective of her in her vulnerable state. “Yeah, I know,” he mumbled into her dirty hair. “You’ll forgive mommy, right? Mommy will forgive you Jack so you have to be a good boy again and help mommy. Mommy needs you to be a really good boy, because mommy can’t take this any more. Mommy is sorry, but mommy needs to let go. Mommy can’t do this anymore. Jack, honey, sweetie, Jack, you’ll manage without mommy, right? Mommy can’t manage without her baby’s help.”

“Yeah, mom, I’ll manage,” he assured her. He searched among his spells for something, and his gaze landed on a page as they stopped flipping. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right. You just rest now, mom.” The spell was unfamiliar, but he had practice with all sorts of knives, and the glowing green knife made out of magic was slim as a needle. It pierced the skin at the back of her head without drawing any blood, and it pierced the bone of her skull and buried in her brain. He kept the knife there for several heartbeats, then let it retract and dissipate. It left behind a tiny wound, hidden among strands of thick dark hair. There were traces of mana around the wound, but there was so little of it that within a few hours, it would have dissipated entirely. When the morning arrived, stinging his eyes with its sharp light, she had been laying dead in his arms for nearly twelve hours, and it wasn’t until after the rooster’s cries that a nun, after the people at the church belatedly had realized that the woman was missing, appeared in the doorway and found them there on the floor.

...

He left the city a few days later. He had nothing keeping him there any longer, and if he left now, he would be sure not to be late to the magic knights entrance exam. He left behind a grave, decorated with a few measly flowers.

...

It was a long trip, but eventually he was there, in the city he had wanted to go to since the first time he had heard of it. The magic knights entrance exam was still a ways away, so he found work at a butcher’s shop until the time came for it. There, he managed well as an apprentice. He had been promised a continued position there, if he were to fail the exam. It felt good to have a fall-back option, and staying in town would give him opportunities to try again. When he entered the venue in which the exam was held, there were already many people in there. High up above, seven people were seated, and behind each of them stood one or two people. A ginger woman in a red cape and two other tall gingers behind her; a woman with dark curls in a blue cape with another woman behind her; a man in a pink cape with a woman and a man behind him; a white-haired man in a fur-lined cape with another white-haired but much younger man behind him- he was probably the youngest person up on the balcony, and couldn’t be much older than Jack; a woman in a green cape with no people behind her- was what he thought, but he could see the top of a head somewhere behind the rail; a large man in a purple cape with another two men, one large and one slender, behind him; and a man with a blue-grey cape and two men behind him. The man in the blue-gray cape stood, and introduced himself as the head examiner; his name was Julius Novachrono and he was captain of the Grey Deer. Nobility, probably, or at least fancy enough to have a last name.

...

After a series of tests, Jack ended up getting into the squad lead by the woman in the green cape; the Green Mantis. The woman was brash and, in Jack’s opinion, very likeable. The person with her, the tiny person he had been unable to see at first, was the vice captain, and a woman of far more power than her stature indicated. The captain, too, was short in comparison to Jack, but when faced with the other new members of the squad, she seemed to be above average height.

...

Being sent out on missions was fun, particularly if they involved fighting. Being a member of the magic knights was far different from being a slum rat disemboweler, and he enjoyed it far more. He got to cut up as many enemies as he liked, and he got praised for it.

...

It was when he, together with a few other members of the Green Mantis, were sent on a mission with some members of another squad, that his life took another sudden turn.

...

The members of the Silver Eagle were all stuck up little noble snobs, just like the people he used to pickpocket growing up, whereas the Green Mantis was a bit of a mixed bag. All of them were seriously tiny; and Jack couldn’t help but comment on how they shouldn’t be blowing up their egos from such short heights. He was not well-liked for his comment, or for the other comments that he made following that one. But he didn’t really care.

It was the sharp eyes, a purple blue, that drew his attention. Sharp eyes and a mop of pale white hair. It was the boy he had seen on the balcony behind the captain of the Silver Eagles during the entrance exam. There was something about those eyes that drew him in. Something dark and sharp, like a blade against skin and the taste of blood.

Inside the dungeon, the group split up, and Jack ended up with Young Master Sharp Eyes and another Mantis. The Mantis, a more senior member, was caught up by the magical propensities in the copper decorations lining the walls, and she was particularly captivated by the detailed beast depicted on the door they eventually got stuck at. “Leave this to me,” she had said when it turned out that the door was locked. He was pretty sure she just wanted to examine the door in peace before Jack ended up slicing it apart.

But he let her at it for a while, and he focused on the Eagle. He was pretty. Far too pretty for a man, but his voice indicated that he should be one. Probably. You never knew; Jack’s captain was born a man but didn’t see herself as one. “Hey, Sharp Eyes,” Jack called. Initially, the boy didn’t recognize him, but when he seemed to realize that the female Mantis wasn’t acknowledging Jack, he eventually turned only his gaze toward him. “What?”

“What’s your name?” It was a simple question, but apparently, it wasn’t one that dignified an answer, because the boy’s retort was, “None of your business.”

Jack barked out a laugh. It was easy to shove the pretty little noble against a wall. “Alright, Little Lord None Of Your Business, that sounds like the most noble of names.” He caged the nobleman against the wall, and the boy turned his gaze up, up. Man, he was short. Adorable. And- And his cheeks were slightly flushed. Intrigued, Jack slipped a hand across the other boy’s shoulder, pressed his thumb to his throat. The noble stood still, staring up at him, refusing to avert his gaze. Jack scraped his nails across his skin. The boy let out a sharp breath. Jack scraped a little harder, enough to leave red marks in his pale skin. Nearly soundlessly, the boy shuddered under his touch. “Oh.” Really interesting.

Jack leaned in close to the little lord’s ear. “You like that,” he remarked. “Pain.” The young man shook his head, and sucked in another breath as Jack’s nails scraped across his skin again. The sounds that he was making-... “Don’t be ridiculous, commoner.” A smile slashed across Jack’s face. “You know I’m not. Or maybe you don’t? Wanna figure it out? I won’t tell. Such a pretty little bird, I’d enjoy helping you figure yourself out.” He heard the boy’s lips part, saw it, wanted to press his lips to his— they looked so soft and kissable.

The sound of skin slapping against skin startled them both, and Jack pulled away, albeit reluctantly. The little lord’s face was flushed, and he pulled his arms around himself to appear collected and calm. Amusing guy. Jack was going to enjoy him. His fellow Mantis had not noticed what Jack had been up to. She had clapped her hands together when realization dawned upon her, and she spun around to face them just after Jack had pulled away. “So this gryphon!” she exclaimed. “To get past it, I think we can combine my copper and Nozel’s mercury!” The noble, Nozel apparently, scoffed. “Very well. But only because I want to get away from you filthy commoners as soon as possible.”

“Keep talking like that and you might get your tongue snipped off.” She made a scissoring motion with her fingers. Nozel rolled his eyes at her, and Jack laughed. Unfortunately, they had reunited with the other half of the knights soon after.

But that had been his first real encounter with Nozel Silva. It was not the last. They got more and more physical, as Jack tested the waters with the nobleman while nobody was looking — scrapes of teeth, digging nails, shallow cuts — and he was more and more fascinated by the way his body reacted and by the noises that he made. Such tiny little chirps, so delicious and cute. He wanted to devour him, and he wondered if his mother had started out just wondering what somebody that you cared about tasted like. Not that he would go down the same path as his mother; he wanted to cut this man, and he got to do it too, but only in serious fights did he actually want to kill him.

...

They met many times after that, they grappled bodily and verbally, Jack pulled Nozel close, pressed him up against walls, against tables, into beds. He tied ropes, belts, strings, against his skin, over, under clothes. Carved cuts into his skin, burned him with candle wax. He touched him everywhere, every slip of skin, every strand of hair, he seeped up every little sound that he made. He greatly enjoyed kissing him, nibbling, biting at his lips.

He was so pretty, be it spread out underneath him or completely pulled together.

Jack enjoyed every moment of it. Of him.

...

“What’re these?” Jack had asked once, when he spotted a golden medal depicting an eagle with its wings spread. He recognized it, though it was years since he had seen it. He had stolen a coin like that in what felt like a different lifetime, though it was only three years since then. Nozel looked up from the mission report he was working on, to look at the medal Jack was rolling between his fingers. It seemed a lot smaller, now that he was older and had grown even more. “Ah, that. It’s a token given to those doing work in the Silva name. They are used to prove the authenticity of their task.” Jack whistled, and he wondered what had happened to the coin that had provided the funds for his trip to become a magic knight. “What if they’re lost?” Nozel huffed. “Nobody would dare. Now put that down, it is not for the likes of you.” A few heartbeats after Nozel’s words faded, a smile cut across Jack’s face. “Oh yeah?” He twisted the medal between his fingers. “Five minutes to prove you wrong.” His predatory smile didn’t fade with the cold look that Nozel directed at him. Nozel claimed to not regret taking him up on that challenge, but it seemed like there was a mix of both, judging by the messy state he was in once Jack’s five minutes was up.

...

In bed, he stained sheets with drops of blood and swallowed moans of mixed pain and pleasure.

...

“Are you trying to strangle me, little bird?” Nozel peered down at his body at Jack, one of his elegant little eyebrows arched. He shifted his legs, wrapped around Jack’s shoulders and neck, closer to Jack’s skin. “Perhaps I am. You’re certainly enough of a menace for it to be reasonable. Jack hummed into Nozel’s skin, and his grin widened when he heard, when he felt, how Nozel shuddered at the sensation. He felt his cock press against his collarbone. “So sensitive, Princess,” he remarked with amusement, and he slipped his fingers across his skin, nails lightly scratching against it. Nozel’s legs tensed and tightened further, his breath came out in shivers and chirps. Jack nibbled at his skin, not really getting much reach. Or air, at intervals. Jack laughed, but didn’t explain himself to Nozel when a confused frown was aimed his way. Nozel winced when Jack’s teeth buried in his skin. But man, seriously, his little bird was just too fucking cute.

...

In an office he pressed lips behind an ear, then slipped his tongue across the tender skin.

...

The water rippled around them, splashed all over the floor when Jack pulled him into the tub. Nozel hissed as soap got into his wounds, and his body shook as he kept the pain at bay. Once he got used to the sensation he shifted over to the opposite side of the tub from Jack, he crossed his arms over his scratched-up chest, and glared past ruffled bangs. Jack’s little bird was so pretty, wearing such a startled, disgruntled look. Jack snatched the healing tool off the table by the tub, tossed it at Nozel, and when the older man snatched the egg out of the air Jack pushed forward, loomed over him and caught his lips in a bruising kiss. He felt the warmth from the water share space with the warmth from the barrier of the healing tool, laughed at the slip of fingers that had accidentally activated the magic, and kissed him again. “You’re unbelievable,” Nozel remarked when he noticed how hard Jack was, even though it was not even quarter of an hour since they had last fucked, and despite how they had been at it for a few hours already. Jack grinned, slipped a hand down the man’s chest, wrapped a hand around his cock. Nozel let out a little chirp. “I think you’ll manage, little bird.” He always managed beautifully.

...

In bed, he brushed lips against a shoulder and he murmured words to catch his little bird’s attention, but he lied and didn’t voice his feelings.

...

But.

...

He messed up. He messed up badly.

Because he never had intended to truly fall in love with the man, had never intended to have his relationship with him lead to his death, had never intended to make him hate him intentionally, as a way to protect him even though he realized how fucked up of him that was.

He had messed up and it had led to his own demise.

He had messed up and it led to his beloved little bird’s misery.

Chokehold 3: Born of Blood