Madalena deWinter
The Dark Paladin of Chaos
Arkania
Astride the Jutren Belt
No Scheduled Appointment
The foot was still not rotting. That was… Annoying.
Madalena deWinter sat in the pilot's chair of the Nutcracker, turning the severed limb over in her gloved hands like a puzzle box. It had been five days since she'd… acquired it. The incident had been small enough to escape the attention of the galaxy at large, since dimensional manipulation mishaps rarely produced newsworthy casualties, but it had produced this, a perfectly healthy humanoid foot, unattached, uncorrupted, and somehow alive in a way she didn't understand.
She had expected decay. She had expected smell. She had even expected, perhaps, a faintly unpleasant squishiness. But instead, the thing had remained stubbornly pristine, as though preserved by an invisible stasis field.
Which meant one of two things, either Madalena had stumbled upon something fascinating, or she had done something very wrong. She was much more inclined to go with the latter, since despite her unlocking her ability to rip openings between dimensions, she was still no closer to being able to claim she had any sort of control over it.
Either way though, she was absolutely not telling her twin sister. Her twin sister would first ask too many questions, then have too many opinions, and then insist on helping. Madalena wasn't even sure at what point her sister would demand to see the foot. But this was Madalena's mistake, and Madalena's to solve. Besides, it wasn't like Madalena made too many mistakes, so why not celebrate this one?
So she had reached for the grapevine. Whisper-chains among scholars, old intelligence networks from her Wild Hunt days, a few favours called in from archivists who still owed her more than they'd like to admit. And all the threads led to a single, quietly glowing name
Delvin jeth
. Arkanian. Geneticist. Brilliant. Reclusive. Dark-sided enough to not be squeamish, but not so dark that he'd try to steal her ship and graft the foot onto himself for "research."
Supposedly.
Madalena eased her ship down toward the coordinates of his laboratory, a glass-and-stone research complex half-buried in Arkania's frostbitten tundra. Ice crystals traced faint constellations across the viewport as she descended through the cold air, engines humming in steady, polite defiance of the wind.
"You better impress him," she told the foot.
It did not respond.
The landing skids hissed as they met the ground. She stood, wrapped the limb in her wompa fur coat, and strode down the ramp with her usual calm, disciplined grace, though her glowing green eyes shone with the private delight of someone about to place a very peculiar problem at a very brilliant man's feet.
The entrance to the lab loomed ahead, secure, sterile, and inconveniently locked.
Madalena cleared her throat.
"Delvin Jeth," she called, voice ringing across the snow-dusted threshold, "I know you don't have me on your schedule, but I've brought you something interesting. And possibly impossible!"
Astride the Jutren Belt
No Scheduled Appointment
The foot was still not rotting. That was… Annoying.
Madalena deWinter sat in the pilot's chair of the Nutcracker, turning the severed limb over in her gloved hands like a puzzle box. It had been five days since she'd… acquired it. The incident had been small enough to escape the attention of the galaxy at large, since dimensional manipulation mishaps rarely produced newsworthy casualties, but it had produced this, a perfectly healthy humanoid foot, unattached, uncorrupted, and somehow alive in a way she didn't understand.
She had expected decay. She had expected smell. She had even expected, perhaps, a faintly unpleasant squishiness. But instead, the thing had remained stubbornly pristine, as though preserved by an invisible stasis field.
Which meant one of two things, either Madalena had stumbled upon something fascinating, or she had done something very wrong. She was much more inclined to go with the latter, since despite her unlocking her ability to rip openings between dimensions, she was still no closer to being able to claim she had any sort of control over it.
Either way though, she was absolutely not telling her twin sister. Her twin sister would first ask too many questions, then have too many opinions, and then insist on helping. Madalena wasn't even sure at what point her sister would demand to see the foot. But this was Madalena's mistake, and Madalena's to solve. Besides, it wasn't like Madalena made too many mistakes, so why not celebrate this one?
So she had reached for the grapevine. Whisper-chains among scholars, old intelligence networks from her Wild Hunt days, a few favours called in from archivists who still owed her more than they'd like to admit. And all the threads led to a single, quietly glowing name
Delvin jeth
. Arkanian. Geneticist. Brilliant. Reclusive. Dark-sided enough to not be squeamish, but not so dark that he'd try to steal her ship and graft the foot onto himself for "research."Supposedly.
Madalena eased her ship down toward the coordinates of his laboratory, a glass-and-stone research complex half-buried in Arkania's frostbitten tundra. Ice crystals traced faint constellations across the viewport as she descended through the cold air, engines humming in steady, polite defiance of the wind.
"You better impress him," she told the foot.
It did not respond.
The landing skids hissed as they met the ground. She stood, wrapped the limb in her wompa fur coat, and strode down the ramp with her usual calm, disciplined grace, though her glowing green eyes shone with the private delight of someone about to place a very peculiar problem at a very brilliant man's feet.
The entrance to the lab loomed ahead, secure, sterile, and inconveniently locked.
Madalena cleared her throat.
"Delvin Jeth," she called, voice ringing across the snow-dusted threshold, "I know you don't have me on your schedule, but I've brought you something interesting. And possibly impossible!"
