Prompt#334 –Bittersweet - Room for Improvement - Tekia – Exalted/the Avengers

[tekia.livejournal.com]

Title: Room for Improvement
Fandom: Exalted/Iron Man
Prompt: Bittersweet
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Summary: After falling into a trap, the first order of business it to find out where you are. But, if where you are makes no sense, then what are you supposed to do? Traveling to the future is easy, just fall asleep, right? Waking up to a whole different world is harder. Luckily, Tony Stark can adapt to any environment.

The road led out of the forest and toward a small hamlet peeking out of the forest and open plains beyond that. He blinked in the sudden bright light shining down at him, unbroken by leaf coverage. From where he stood, he could see people moving about the small settlement and dozens of sheep with their guard dogs trotting along the perimeter.
He took a step back, falling back into the shadows offered by the trees, hesitating here in ways he had never done in his own world. He had learned that, while in his time, he was regarded with a mixture of awe and fear, the fact that he had been known before he became a superhero worked in his favor and the awe outweighed the fear.
In this world, as a Solar, people feared him on principle alone. He was, for lack of a better word, a demon to these people. He couldn’t trust them to let him be if they knew anything about him.
People were suddenly something to fear. Instead of running toward people and civilization, he felt the overwhelming urge to flee. He felt like a coward, but couldn’t bring himself to care. Then he shook his head and walked out into the sunlight and toward the settlement.
Before he got too close, he was spotted and a call went out to gather the small number of people to gawk at him as he approached. And when he got close enough to see clearly, he saw that the people weren’t human, and that felt like a great relief. Who would have ever thought he would be glad to encounter a settlement of beast-men over humans?
He held his hand up in greeting and froze when he realized they had their weapons out and trained on him. There were two archers, on sitting on a low roof, the other crouching behind a roll of hay. The rest all had swords drawn and were eyeing him with wary caution.
They probably thought he was a Dragon Blooded. It was the armor; White Song had warned him about that time and again, but he was stubborn and clung to his armor. It was his last link home. He tried a charming smile.
“Hello. I’m a bit lost.”
“You’re very lost, Stranger,” one man said, walking forward on cloven hooves, his lower legs thick with grey wool. He held his sword like it was a toy, small compared to his mass, and towered over Tony. On his head, two thick spiral horns, not unlike Loki’s helmet, curled over his long pointed ears.
Ram. Sheep boy. Man.
“Yeah, I was traveling with a woman. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Yay high,” he said, holding his hand up. Nobody moved. Tony’s eyes shot from side to side, touching on every unwelcoming face presented to him. “Goes by White Song?”
The leader’s ear flicked at her name, but his expression didn’t change. Tony turned up the intensity of his grin. “So you’ve heard of her. Great, she should be along any minute now, and we’ll be on our way.”
The sheep man lowered his sword. “Where is she?”
Tony shrugged. “She was right behind me. I don’t know what’s taking her so long.”
The man opened his mouth to respond, but froze, his dark eyes going wide and his ears perking up. As one, the whole group of people turned to look at the far distance, their whole bodies tense and trembling with repressed energy.
Tony turned to look, but saw nothing but the trees. He studied the tree line, trying to see what they had heard. Then his Essence sort of pinged at him and he slammed his faceplate down. “JARVIS, what have we got?”
“White Song has arrived, Sir.”
Just as he said that, a massive tiger leaped out of the trees, snarling and tail whipping behind it. Over the orange fur, familiar tattoos nearly glowed in the day light. As it raced toward the hamlet, the sheep scattered, bleating pitifully. A few of the beast men retreated, but the leader stood firm. He bared his teeth and nearly snarled, if a sheep could snarl, “You brought the Hunt here!?”
As the tiger reached them, it changed from running on four feet to two and changed into White Song, her tattoos reforming around her as if they were liquid, and her cloths slipping into place as her fur disappeared. She bowed her head. “Sorry, they’re good, this Hunt. I’ll take my friend, and we’ll lead them away.”
The leader nodded once, sharply. He turned to retreat into his village, but there was another sheep person standing in his way. A woman, a full head shorter than the man. She had her arms folded over her ample chest and her hair was as thick and curly as a sheep’s. The man stiffened, and Tony couldn’t see their expressions, but they seemed to have a silent conversation. Then he turned back to them.
“As the debt of honor owed to you for deeds done in the past, we will help you escape the scent of the Hunt. Follow me.”
Immediately, White Song began following him, but Tony caught her by her arm. She turned to look at him, one golden brow arched in question.
“Can we trust him?”
She smiled. “He owes me the life of his wife and child. They belong to me, and he will please me however I see fit.”
“What happened?”
“We’re far away from civilization. This far away from the tightly woven threads of order, the wyld picks at the threads, weakening it and putting tears into the tapestries. They roam freely out here, feasting on the emotions and woes of mortals. I saved the two of them from such a fate. Their laws dictate that they belong to me until such a time they can repay the debt. We can trust them.”
The sheep man lead them into the village and then into a hut set deep in the ground. They shoved a table out of the way and, oh joy, another underground tunnel. Tony took a deep, bracing breath and followed White Song down into the darkness again. JARVIS helpfully turned on the night vision as the trapdoor slid closed behind them.
Swallowing the panic and fear that was raising up in the back of his throat, Tony forced one foot in front of the other, following White Song as she easily walked through the darkness. He reached out and touched his bare hand to her waist. She slowed in her trek to let him keep on touching her.
“Iron Dust said that they had one of his kind with them.” He could see how her lips twisted in derision. “I guess he wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t lose them, which means the astrologer has us well in his sights. No matter where we run, they will follow. We can only hide for a bit before they catch up with us.”
“What about Iron Dust?”
She shook her head. “We can only hope he has a plan ready once we meet up with him.”
“How can they keep tabs on us like that? Surely there’s some way to lose them.”
White Song paused when they came upon a fork in the tunnel. She sniffed the air one direction, and then the other before picking the second tunnel. “Our fates are written in the stars. Well, our pasts and our present. Who and what we are, are all displayed in heaven for those that know how to read it.”
“And he makes a living reading the stars.”
“It’s more than that. He’s of the same race as Iron Dust. They are born of the stars. They walk among the stars in ways we could never understand.”
There was a noise behind them, and Tony spun on his heel to peer down into the darkness. The readouts on his HUD said there was nothing there, but his Essence was warning him otherwise. His hand tightened on her hip. “There’s something there.”
“Worry not. It’s only earth elementals. They’ll let us pass if we don’t bother them.”
He pressed closer to her, unintentionally urging her to move faster. She elbowed him softly in the ribs as she paused at another fork in the tunnel. Tony pointed toward their left. “That way?”
She shook her head. “We can’t go above ground just yet. This way.” She went the opposite direction, downward and to the right. Tony followed, his body reminding him that he didn’t like this at all by breaking out in a cold sweat under the suit. When his hand dropped from White Song’s hip, she reached out and held his hand, her long fingers firmly grasping his cold ones. “Not much longer, dear,” she murmured.
His tongue was thick in his mouth, and he let silence fall between them as she led them deeper into the dark cave. The walls were wet, and the sound of water dripping from the ceiling was near enough to drive him insane. Twice now had White Song drug him underground against his better judgment, and Tony wasn’t sure he was going to trust her to lead him anywhere anymore. If they ever split up again, he was pairing with Iron Dust.
Quite abruptly, they came upon a ladder leading up to the ceiling. White Song dropped his hand to reach up for the first rung. Tony followed hotly on her heel, eager to get out of the darkness. She softly knocked on the trapdoor over their head, and when there was no response, she shoved the thing open, spilling dirt and debris down on Tony’s upturned faceplate.
She scrambled out, looked about, and then motioned for Tony to emerge. She held the door for him and then slid it soundlessly back into place as JARVIS cancelled the night vision. Tony gasped in awe, slowly pulling the faceplate up so that he could gaze at the beauty surrounding them with his own eyes.
There were seven tall trees surrounding them, their trunks so wide that five men couldn’t stretch their arms around the base, and so tall that the first branches were well beyond any human’s reach. But the leaves of the trees were not unlike those of a willow’s limbs, reaching all the way down to the ground to sway in the breeze of the early afternoon. They were an eerie glowing pale green color, contrasting with the thick muted green of the trunks. Tiny bugs that lit up wove through the limbs of the trees, like fireflies in a fairytale, a bittersweet sorrow filling his chest.
White Song stood at his shoulder and watched the bugs a moment with him. “They’re spirits,” she said, her voice soft. “Local legend says there was a massive battle here, between creatures of the Wyld and mortals.” She gestured to the trees. “It is said that the trees mark the graves of great Solars that had fallen in that battle. When they died, the locals honored them by marking their resting places with trees that grew into these magical things. From all over the region, spirits of all sorts are drawn here, remembering those that died to save Creation from falling into Chaos.”
“They’re beautiful.”
She nodded and clasped her hands before her. She bowed her head and murmured softly under her breath. Finished with her prayer, she pulled him away. “I can feel Iron Dust nearby. Let us be on our way.”
“Is this the Den of the Green Tiger?”
White Song glanced at one tree, drawing Tony’s attention to it. “It is all local legend, but they were your brothers, Iron Man. It is your brethren that lay there under those trees. Green Tiger was a great warrior, legend says, leading many a battle against the Wyld and even against Primordials. He lays there.”
As White Song walked away, Tony stared at the silent graves and wondered what he should do. If he had learned anything being in this world, it was that magic and spirits and all that stuff were powerful. He didn’t want to just walk away, nor did had he ever been a religious man, but something inside him demanded that he offer something to those that had come before him. He felt their presence in a way he had never felt before. He had stood over his parent’s graves and felt nothing. He had seen people die, and felt nothing once their lives had been snuffed out.
These long dead souls called to him, though. They were still there, watching, listening. He glanced up at the blue sky over head, and knew that he had to offer something. He folded his hands as he had seen White Song do and bowed his head. “Thank you,” he said, searching for the right words. There was nothing in him, he thought, a little brokenly. He had nothing to offer someone who had lived such a life that hundreds of years later people still talked of it. He dropped his hands to his sides. “May the Sun bless you.”
It would have to do, he thought as he turned away and followed White Song as she poked through the underbrush.