Annalise's departure

(Set after The Loneliness of He Who Dwells in the Dark and New arrival in the city, but before the Uthra'malian arc)

Clerxha grinned, We’re going home today! Well… Lise is going home. But I get to see Ely. It’s been so long… And it’s been so long since Lise and I finally met up in the Dark City. She walked through the brick wall of her apartment and into her living room. “I hope I can help him.” she says in a barely audible voice.
“H-help who, sis?” The voice of Annalise deGreis came from the adjacent room. The dark-haired girl was sitting on the kitchen table, slicing the air with her blade. Annalise slid off of the table, her feet touching the floor without a sound. “I-if you mean Elyon, h-he’ll be fine.” she said with a grin.
“I still don’t trust them though, Lise. The sooner we go, the sooner I’ll calm down. It’s been long enough already.” Clerxha sighed, putting her hair down and pinning it to the side.
Annalise tilted her head to the side, a quirk she had picked up from Clerxha. “What are you d-doing, pinning your hair like that?” she inquired. Sure, Clerxha had proven not to be as uptight and shy as Annalise remembered, but the freckle-faced girl still had her own unusual way of doing things.
Clerxha shrugged. “It’d be nice if Elyon remembered me, right? So might as well look somewhat like I used to.”
Annalise laughed- her sister seemed to have logical reasons for most things. “Well, it did take me a while to find you.” She eyed the flashy pin, which was decorated with sapphires of varying sizes that formed into the shape of a flower. “That pin isn’t very-” There was a click, and the pin opened up into a senbon-tipped fan. “O-oh. N-never mind, sis.”
Clerxha closed the fan and repinned her hair. “It’s fine, Lise. So, let me go over the rough outline of how we’re going to get back.” She took out her black leather-bound book that was practically her life story. She flipped through pages- bloodstained, ripped, and dog-eared- until she found the one she was searching for. She handed it to her pale-skinned sister. “Go on, Lise. Read it.”
Annalise took the book hesitantly. The page was filled with numerous calculations and runes that the wandering geologist could not even begin to comprehend. The following page was more understandable. It gave an explanation as to how she calculated it and how the portal would work. In essence, the portal would use the coordinates of the deGreis household to create a portal on the outskirts of the city. The portal would only reappear when a nobody wanted it to.
“Wow, sis. Th-that’s amazing. Only one problem-”
“You don’t have anything to protect you while going through a portal. Done and done.” She pointed to an unweighted cloak- the first one she had when she had arrived.  “Go ahead, Lise. Take it. I can’t exactly use it anymore, and it was a little bit too long for me anyway. It’ll probably be a good fit on you.”
Annalise picked up the cloak and pulled it on. It was a bit loose due to her thin frame, but otherwise the cloak fit. She zipped it up, and grinned. “Thank you, sis.”
Clerxha smiled. “Knew it.” She put her book away, slipping it beneath her modified cloak. “C’mon, Lise. Let’s get going.”

It took Clerxha a total of twenty four minutes to create the portal. “Let’s go!” She exclaimed cheerfully, dragging Annalise into the portal with her. By the time they finally emerged from the void that connected the two ends of the portal, it had been a total of forty-seven minutes. It was shorter than Clerxha had anticipated, so she grinned as she looked around.
They were in a slum-like area just outside of a medium city in the country of Wyrnsbain. The sun was bright in the sky, and it was a warm day. It almost seemed like summer, the polar opposite of the brisk winter weather they had just left.
“Sis, we should get going,” Annalise said as she glanced around suspiciously. “Th-these parts aren’t the best. Follow me.”
The pale girl led the way through a maze of winding cobblestone streets. Despite not having been in the city in over a year, she navigated the labyrinth with ease. Her ease in the shadowy alleyways was an unforeseen godsend; they managed to avoid two gangs that preyed on girls who appeared weak- a good thing for the gangs.
The sun was directly overhead when Annalise finally stopped. They had arrived at the steampunk-esque city’s heart. “We live a block away, but I should let you know, i-it’s very different since you last lived with us. Mom and Dad g-got really high-paying jobs, and-”
“Wait a second. You’re rich?” Clerxha stared at the disheveled girl in astonishment. She hardly acted like it.
Annalise nodded. “I spent all the money they gave me on my education and gymnastics. I really missed the small-town life… where I could practice with the earth in solitude.” She turned around and continued walking. “Let’s go. I think Ely will be home…”

The home was an apartment, like Clerxha’s, but quintupled in size and another story tall. Annalise knocked on the door three times, her hand shaky.
The door creaked open, and a light-haired, pale-skinned, gaunt young man appeared at the door. “Anna…? You’re alive?”
Annalise tilted her head to the side. “Yes, I’m alive, you numbskull. Will you let your sisters in, or are you just going to stand there in disbelief?”
Clerxha wasn’t really shocked by the sudden turn of behavior; Annalise and Elyon always had an unstable relationship.
“Sisters, plural?”
Clerxha stepped out from behind Annalise. “Hiya, Elyon. Nice ta see ya again.” she grinned. “Lise said that you had been poisoned… I was really worried.” She hugged the tall boy, and as she did so, she used her healing magic to scan his body for trace amounts of poison. Much to her chagrin, there were more than just trace amounts; all of his organs were strained.
“Elyon, how long was I away?”
“Four months, Anna. I thought you were dead when they sent me mail saying you never showed up to lecture at the geology conference- you love those things to death, not that I’d ever understand why you can speak at those but not to strangers.” He pried himself out of Cler’s strangle-like hug. He looked at the freckle-faced girl seriously, as if he were scrutinizing both her appearance and soul. “And you haven’t changed much. Personality, yes. You’ve done a full one-eighty there. Your appearance is the exact same. Like you haven’t aged a day.” He stepped to the side so that the girls could finally enter the building.
Clerxha frowned. Her adopted brother was always too intelligent for his own good. She walked inside. “I can tell you’re still poisoned,” she whispered. The unspoken truth was that if she didn’t heal him immediately, he would only live for a few more weeks at best, and it showed on her face. “It’s a variant of a cytoxin, and it’s doing its purpose- killing your cells. Let me heal it.” The serious tone of her voice was pure business, not the cheerful façade she’d normally put on for a reunion.
Annalise blinked. She’d known that Clerxha was a strong enemy and good at healing, but she never knew that the girl was proficient in understanding poisons.
“And how would you know,” Elyon responded apprehensively. “When you left here five years ago, you tried your best to act like pacifist. Why would you know about poisons?”
Clerxha smirked, “Like you would believe me if I were to tell you the truth.”  She clapped her hands together. “Well, if you want me out of your life- because I know you always felt that way- let me heal you, pay my respects to Mom and Dad, and I’ll head back to the Dar- the city where I’m currently living.”
Elyon took a step back. “Why would you say that?”
Annalise bit back an exclamation of distress. “We’re all intelligent here. Stop it.” Tensions never flared this much when her parents were alive. Their death had changed her brother for the worse. All the sounds ceased. At the very least, Annalise’s motherly attitude at home hadn’t changed one bit. “Elyon, take a seat. I’m having you healed, even if it means having to knock you out for an hour… It’s my last promise to our parents.”
His gray eyes watched her warily.. “Fine, Anna. Just get it over with.” He plopped down on a plush couch.
“Ouch; harsh, much?” Clerxha responded, sitting next to her brother. “Just stay still and don’t move. I’m going to transfer the poison out of your body.” What she didn’t add is the fact that she would be slowly transferring it into her own and neutralizing it with her own biofeedback.
The process took over three-quarters of an hour, and by the end of it, Clerxha was more exhausted than ever before. “Thanks, Cler,” Elyon said uncharacteristically, and he repeated it again to make sure the girl was listening.
“No problem; you’re my brother, after all.” She replied with a wry smile. She pulled herself up to standing. “Now, I’m off to kill the people that did that to-”
“Sissy, there’s no way in hell you’re doing that. You came with me to get me back safely. Not to enact revenge on some assholes that poisoned the water supply.”
“They started it by attacking me four years ago. If I end it, I know that I won’t have to worry. And you know I hate worrying.” Cler pulled up the hood to her cloak. “It’s a statement—mess with my loved ones and you will never see the light of day again.” It wasn’t like her usual personality at all, but the brunette’s blood was at a boiling point. They had wanted to kill her brother slowly and painfully. That realization caused her normally reasonable temper to snap.
“Clerxha! Don’t. You’ve healed me already. Don’t throw away your life for revenge.” He said it with conviction, but if one were to look deep into his eyes, they would be able to tell that he wanted revenge the most out of anyone. Clerxha noticed it.
“Damn, I think that’s the most logical thing I’ve heard you say in a while,” Annalise commented cheekily. “But seriously, Sis. It’s not worth it. We can take care of ourselves.”
“You saved me. I saved you. You saved me again. Now it’s time to return the final favor.”

Barging into the headquarters of a nefarious gang may not have been one of the smartest ideas Clerxha had ever come up with. In truth, it was probably the worst. But her blood was boiling, and nothing Annalise or Elyon had said would stop her. She’d already left a note for the police, so they’d be arriving in a few hours.
But with over eighty percent of the gang’s present members dead or incapacitated, there were only six people standing, and two of them were the bosses that called for her family’s water to be poisoned. She swung her arm down again, taking out a third of the remaining men with senbon. They fired pistols, and Clerxha’s intangibility resulted in the bullets going straight through her body. Another swing of her arm, and the only people still conscious were the two bosses.
There was a scuffle outside, and shouting. But the girl ignored it.
“Let me tell you a story,” Clerxha began, her pent up rage starting to fizzle away to nothingness. “Once, not-so-long ago, there was a girl who escaped from a lab. She traveled for half a year, not talking to anyone, because there were bandits like yourselves that wanted to kill her and anyone she came in contact with. Why? She bested them time and time again after they made the mistake of trying to kill her. And they finally gave up once she settled down and moved in with a family. But then, time passed, and that same group of idiotic bandits-” Clerxha gave a pointed look to the two bosses, “-decided to kill her adoptive mother and father. And now. This girl is going to make sure you don’t see the light of day again.”
She took aim at the men just as Elyon barged into the hideout. “Cler! I’m here to-”
Annalise was less than five feet behind him. “I couldn’t stop-” she shouted at the same time as her biological brother.
“This girl is going to see the rest of her family die before her very eyes.” The bosses turned their guns on Annalise and Elyon, knowing full well that their bullets would just pass through Clerxha.
Two guns fired in rapid succession. A total of three bullets. One miss. Two misses.
A groan of pain escaped from Elyon. He was bleeding from the left side of his abdomen.
There was a simultaneous scream of “NO!” from the two girls. Annalise extended her bo staff and used it like a javelin, hitting one of the men in the temple and causing him to collapse. She turned to the other man and used several granite paperweights from a nearby table to knock the other man unconscious. Clerxha ran to Elyon, and immediately started healing his wound. It began to close up just as blood began to flow profusely.
Clerxha muttered a curse under her breath before saying, “You’ll be okay, Ely. I promise.”
Annalise grabbed her staff and returned to her brother’s side. “Y-you better not die on me…” her voice was higher-pitched than usual.
“Lise, he’s fine for now. I can’t get the bullet out here, and I’d rather not go to a hospital…”
“U-use the portals. You c-can do that, right, Sis?” She squatted next to her brother. “There’s no way I’m losing you, idiot.”
“How are you healing me? And what’s a po-” Clerxha had nodded and opened up a dark corridor. “Oh, that…” he was lightheaded from the loss of blood, not that it was a surprise.
“Lise, do you think you can manage going through another portal without a cloak..? Mine weighs over fifty pounds…”
“Cler, give me your cloak.” Elyon gave a weak smile. “That way I can split it with you.”
“It’s the best option, Sis,” Annalise added. “You can self-heal… We’ll support you, Ely.”
It was amazing how simply a vital wound repaired their fractured family relationship. The two petite girls supported Elyon as they traveled across town through the portal. It only took a minute or two, but it was taxing on all of them.
Elyon slumped onto the nearest object, which happened to be the couch. “Any chance you could knock me out for this?”
Clerxha frowned. “In all honesty, I’d prefer not to… I can halt the nerve signals using acupuncture… but it wears off.”
“Do it anyway. Where’s-”
“Sis, I have bandages and a pair of tweezers. And I’ve already sanitized them. I’ll get a glass filled with peroxide in just a second,” Annalise said, depositing said items on the end table. She then left, and returned with the glass.
“-Anna,” Elyon finished lamely. “Let’s get this over with. It sucks when you have a bullet in your stomach.” He forced out a laugh, but it was pitiful.
“Sis, do it.” The girl who had once been afraid of blood aided as Clerxha removed the bullet. It was a nice job, for never having removed a bullet before.
Elyon had actually passed out halfway through having the bullet removed, and he hadn’t even lost too much blood. The brass bullet was at the bottom of the glass, and the bandages had all been used.
“Done. I don’t want to accelerate his healing too much. It’s really not healthy…” Clerxha smirked at the lack of logic in her statement- she always would heal her own wounds. “I don’t want it to be too suspicious either. It’ll take about a month for him to get back to normal… He might have trouble breathing at times too, but it’s all I could do… at the time. And it’s my fault that I didn’t heal him immediately…”
“It’s enough, sis. It’s enough. He’s alive, and that’s what matters.”

They spent a few weeks in Pasmonde- the city in which the deGreis family resided. Annalise had showed  her sister where their parents were buried, and the freckle-faced girl spent most of her time there.  
“Where’s sis?” A cooking Annalise asked Elyon, who was walking around despite Clerxha’s express orders.
“Where else? I think she’s trying to make up missed time. After all, it’s been nearly five years…” Elyon said, his abrasive tone returning.
“It is almost dinner time,” Annalise commented as she cooked. “P-plus she did want to talk to them originally… Th-that and repair connections with all of us. We all separated on a pretty sore note…”
“Sure… I have something to tell both of you anyway.”
Annalise stared at her brother, a look of confusion on her pale face. “Th-that is different, for you to w-want to tell us something.”
The door to the large apartment slammed shut. “I’m back, ya’ll.” Clerxha darted into the kitchen. “Sorry Lise, I was gonna cook today!”
The dark-haired girl waved it off dismissively.
There was a cough from Elyon. “I’ve decided. I’m going to use up my time and travel. It’s Wyrnsbain’s best season, and I figured I might as well take advantage of it. It’s not like I can do major engineering work anymore. Maybe after a while, I’ll become a representative, but I can’t stay here-” he waved at the house that surrounded them, “-anymore. Cler, can you take Anna back with you? If she wants to go, that is.
“Because her ability to control the earth would probably be of more use in a society that doesn’t shun magic- ” There was a gasp of surprise from the dark-haired girl. “Yes, I know you can use magic, Anna. Why else would I never look at you when you’re around and something bad happened? And Cler, do you think I wouldn’t notice the fact that footsteps the same size as yours would show up and pace around the farm whenever you were nowhere to be found?
He sighed. “I’m not stupid. I know that you were gone for longer than four months. I can see it in how you’ve grown, Anna. Wherever you were, it was good for you. Both of you.”
There was no response, just a big group hug from the two girls. Annalise was crying. It was difficult to tell if it was happiness or sadness.
“You’re the b-best brother in the world,” Annalise sniffed, wiping her eyes. “B-but you are s-stupid- I’m staying here.”
“Knew i- wait, what?!”
“I knew it. But if you ever need me, you know where to look.” Clerxha said as she hugged her siblings. “Keep the cloak. Just in case.”

Leaving wasn’t sad in the least. Okay, fine, Annalise was crying, but there was a smile on her face. She had at least reconciled with her brother, and everything seemed normal. They waved goodbye on a blistering hot summer day- the heavy black cloaks weren’t helping one bit.
The slum streets were clear, with everyone trying to get the most shade possible from the bright sun.
“I’ll visit again. See ya around, Ely, Lise.” Clerxha smiled before walking into the portal.
“You know I don’t hate you, right?” Elyon said as she walked closer to the portal, “I just wish that you’d let us fight for ourselves every once in a while. And don’t worry about us.”
“I-I’ll miss you,” Annalise responded. After a quick hug, she finally said, “Stay safe, Sis. Let them know why I stayed. Besides, I don’t belong there.” With a wave and smile, she turned around and began walking away from the portal.
“Bye, Cler,” Elyon said as he waved goodbye. “Mom and Dad would be proud.”
The portal closed as the siblings parted their respective ways.

A month later, Annalise found herself in the middle of a seemingly deserted city. “Come on, Ely. We’re almost there.” She wiped her hands on her long skirt before raising a hand to block out the sun.
“Why are we here again?” he asked, groaning.
“Because. I’m going to find out as much as I can about that world. It’s far away, and different. But people we care about are there.”
Elyon groaned, “You’ve got a life again, so why do you keep chasing after Cler?”
There was a shuffling sound behind the siblings.
“Are you talking about a person named Clerxha?”
“Who are you?” Elyon growled, un-holstering his gun.
“That remains to be seen,” the man replied, stepping out of the shadows. “What do you know about this place?”
“Answer our question first,” Annalise responded levelly, shifting the staff she had been using as a walking stick.
“A person who knew her.” he extended a mechanical hand in greeting. “She ran away before anyone could help her.”
The girl narrowed her eyes, trying to find a way to play the situation to her advantage. “I-I had been told that she once spent time in this city. I w-was hoping that I could maybe learn more about her. She seemed so… strange.”
The man nodded, “Well then, please follow me.”
Annalise shrugged before turning to walk alongside the man. “Come on, Ely, what’s the worst that could happen?”
She may have closed the portal to her past, but the rest of her story was just beginning.