Ladies of the Mist

The women strode forth from the encompassing mist and into the open air of the cliffside bringing along with them a feeling of caution to arise across Parc's body as he glimpsed to the woman carrying the spear. Feeling that she was exuding a aura of danger on par with, perhaps even more so than Esdeath at her weakest.

With narrowed eyes, Parc took in the appearance of the leader of the two, a thin, black haired woman with red tips who stood a good head, head and a half shorter than Parc giving her a particularly young looking form but also looked to be on the more mature side, possibly in her middle ages or at the end of her thirties. Her expression was stern, her glistening silver eyes cautious as she too observed Parc, noting his ready posture and hand lingering close to a hilt on his belt.

The other girl was just a bit shorter than the black-haired woman with a blue shaded head of wavy hair and lavender eyes. Most interestingly were the two large brown animal ears peaking out off the top of her head. Like her leader she held in her hands a weapon but unlike the leader hers looked to be more rope like in structure, 'a whip,' Parc guessed, catching a glint of jagged, arrow shaped metal on the end of the rope.

Both the woman had a single similarity in that their clothing was worn out from months, maybe even years of wear leaving it the clothing with scars, tears and poorly threaded stitches looking to be made with thin vines.

Returning his eyes back to the black and red haired woman he squinted once again, her features were soft and familiar to him. 'How do I know you?' he questioned locking eyes with the woman, catching the shimmer of silver as the sun to his back reflected off of them.

The gears of Parc's mind ground to a halt and involuntarily muttered, "silver eyes?" which it seemed the woman had heard as her expression grew ever more serious and prepped her spear, pointing the tip towards Parc while her younger by many years, partner also unfurled her whip and got ready to strike.

"Who are you!? How did you get onto this island!?" she shouted while Parc was still filtering her face through the list of faces he knew. Mentally hearing a rapid ticking noise that soon came to slow down as the wheel landed on a familiar character who happened to look about the same age as the blue haired faunus girl behind her, just years older and related.

'Summer Rose,' he guessed, surprised that the woman thought to be dead throughout the series was now stood before him dressed in rags of a skirted dress and a dark look to her eyes. Pulling his hand away from his dagger Parc rose both his hands up, palms facing the once-dead Rose and her compatriot as a show of non-hostility.

"I'm not here to fight. I just got here myself not long ago so I'm going to ask you to lower that spear and we can talk peacefully."

Summer sneered at him, spear gripped tighter, "last time I tried to 'peacefully' talk to a stranger I ended up trapped on an island. So I'm going to ask you again, who are you, and how did you get here?"

"Can't tell you how I got here because I don't really know that myself," he lied, "your friend there caught me not moments after I arrived." Parc lowered his hands down to his hips, pulling his right away when Summer grew tense from its closeness to his blade.

"You still haven't named yourself."

"That I haven't. It's Parc Evans ma'am. Can I get yours and your friends names then?"

The faunus girl glanced to Summer who only cast her a quick sidelong look, not keeping her gaze broken from Parc in case he tried something.

"Summer." She spoke and bobbed her head to the blue haired girl and named her, "that's Ferry. And she told me you got here in a shimmer of light. You're semblance I'm guessing?"

Parc began to chuckle and shook his head, denying the notion, "sorry, but I don't have a semblance, not yet at least."

"Liar. Don't bullshit me. If that teleportation wasn't your semblance then how do you explain that wing?" she lowered her posture, ready to lunge.

He understood where she was coming from, it wasn't every day someone just up and grew and ungrew a wing. "Also, not my semblance." He could see Summer growing more cautious at his repeated apparent 'lies' at least they were in her eyes that was, "listen, that's just something I can do. And If you give me a chance, I can prove it to you."

"And how are you going to do that?"

Parc slowly lowered his hand to his dagger and gripped the hilt.

"Keep your hand away from that dagger!"

"I'm not going to attack but I need to take it out to show you." He kept his hand still and waited until Summer gave a short nod. "Cool," he removed the dagger from its sheath and showed it to Summer before lifting his other hand up and pressed the edge of it into the back of his hand, slicing a thin line down it drawing out a trail of blood to drip down and dye droplets of red on the ground by his feet.

"What are you doing!?" she shouted, shocked.

"Aura, if I had an aura I wouldn't have been able to draw blood so easily. And without aura, I can't have a semblance." He explained, realization quickly coming to pass by Summer, her grip loosening for a moment before just as quickly tightening when she said.

"For all I know your aura's just broken."

"From what I know about aura, I wouldn't be awake or so healthy with it gone. Now please just put the spear away, look, I'll even give you my dagger if that's what you want," Parc threw the last blade of his Nephilim's Respite to Summer and Ferry getting it to stick halfway to the hilt in the ground at the centre between the three of them and returned his hands to the air. "There, I'm unarmed. So what do you say, peace?"

Hesitant, Summer's gaze lingered for a spell on the disarmed dagger. Should she trust him? But when had that ever lead her to fortune. She trusted Ozpin and she was abandoned and forgotten. She trusted a stranger but they stabbed her in the back and crashed the ship she was aboard leaving her stuck on this mist-shrouded island. Trust was by far one of the last things she would hold for such a strange man. But still, this man was a difference, a new factor to the island, perhaps one that would lead to her finally being returned to her home, to her daughters. And that thought just brought about a searing pain to her heart and made her think.

'What are they like now? Will they even still remember me?'

Her breath trembled and she began to lower her stance, nodding to Ferry to follow after her but keep her weapon on the ready.

Seeing them soften their stances, Parc siged a relieved sigh and began to make way towards his dagger to pluck it out of the earth but paused when a flurry of white petals rushed forwards and encompassed his dagger before dissipating revealing only a slit in the ground where it once was while Summer was now holding a hooked black and white hued blade in her off hand.

"You'll get this back when I trust you," Summer spun the blade around in her palm and jabbed it into her belt.

Parc paused for a moment, his eyes grown a darker shade that put Summer on edge, "be careful with that. It's the only thing I have left of my mother. I'd really hate to lose it."

"You're mother?" Summer gulped, a wave of guilt and memories filling her. She knew how painful it was to lose a precious gift from a loved one, she was not going to be the one to take one's sacred memory away. "Don't… don't worry, I'll take good care of."

"That's all I ask ma'am."

"Summer," Ferry spoke for the first time since Parc had seen her, her voice run melodically against his ears as she continued speaking. Her own large horse like ears spinning like radars pulling her head along with them, "I can hear a group of shamblers coming. Ten maybe twenty."

"Mmm," Summer hummed and nodded in affirmation and spun on the spot to face the forest, casting Parc a short, over the shoulders look, "follow us, we've got a safehouse set up where we can properly talk. Keep close, the fog can be disorienting. Ferry, keep an eye on him, alright?"

"Will do."

That was more than he could hope for. Cracking his neck, Parc grunted and followed behind them, making sure to follow Summers orders and kept as close as he could without getting Summer gripping her spear until her fists turned white.

As they walked Parc 'involuntarily' found himself wandering over their backs, finding that Ferry had hers on full display letting him catch a glimpse at her lithe, skeletal form, one where her bones were on the verge of breaking through her skin from malnourishment from the likely lacking sources of a variety of foodstuffs growing in this strange mist. Sadly enough when he looked to Summer she was in much the same state with her likely once plump form having come to borderline anorexic.

He'd have to treat them once they got off the island and get them into better shape.

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Added Danmachi to the possible world poll.

Favourite Possible Worlds https://poll.ly/#/2MJa4lNB

Also got a very long term poll on my patreon and discord for Fate servants. Won't be doing it any time soon, but its there.