Paul

Paul wasn’t sure whether to ‘feed the fire.’

On the one hand, things were getting a tad crazy. Gaps in screen paneling, missing roof tiles, sparsely decorated rooms, dark hallways, and bald patches of wood flooring among the tatami mats all evidenced a shattered routine. More flying scarves than ever crowded the air—not busy commuters, but chaotic traffic. A flash-economy trading on surface stories, metal bark, and glass leaves sprouted overnight in a place where, the day before, they hadn’t known the meaning of ‘scarcity.’

Biwa and her supporters endeavored to buy or confiscate all the pieces of Paul’s tree, ironically inflating the remaining fragments’ value exponentially.

On the other hand, Paul liked some of the changes. The Tsukumogami read Paul’s favorite books, prompting a few unexpected conversations about choose-your-adventure stories. They seemed so lively—as if waking for the first time in years—so excited by their visitors and the new/old idea of commerce they were either very good or very bad at. Maybe inspiring a few people to visit the surface wasn’t such a terrible thing.

Somehow, at least in part, this was his responsibility.

Paul tried to understand what he’d done. To him, a tree was a tree. To people who’d never been to the surface, who’d heard of trees in fairytales or not at all, it symbolized life without fear—but also something else. Genesis.

With his innocent intentions, Paul hadn’t made the connection at first, but he’d heard of Genesis. One of The Thirteen. A race of plant shapeshifters. Worse, one of The Alliance of Seven. The Tsukumogami had certainly suffered at their hands.

Depending on who held them, the pieces of Paul’s metal tree were contraband, graffiti, enemy propaganda, symbol of hope, or all the above.

Perhaps he’d best leave well enough alone. Considering how little he understood the Tsukumogami, people in general, and politics in particular, any help Paul offered might have the opposite effect. Wendi focused on not making things worse while Daniel trained feverishly. Kenta attempted to speak with the House, and Lea remained a mystery. Paul wasn’t sure how long Rana would watch Cassie; nobody could stay awake forever.

:Paul,: Lea sent, startling him from his navel-gazing.

:Lea!: he replied. :What are you doing?: She stood at a distance, motioning for him to follow. Paul couldn’t help noticing she lacked her usual mob of Tsukumogami except for the mandatory presence of Momen the bodyguard as a veil.

:We need to talk.:

He could hardly contain his curiosity about what she wanted. Lea led him through several rooms to a corner of the quarry distant from where Daniel trained. Once boulders and stalagmites obscured the House from sight, Lea stopped and addressed their bodyguards, :May we have some privacy?:

After a brief, confused exchange with one another, Ittan-Momen said, “This word… we don’t have it in our language.”

Shocked and a little irked, Lea explained, :It means ‘to be alone.’:

“That sounds terrible!” Momen said with genuine concern, “Do you need help with your Privacy?—We are at your service.”

“We’re here for you,” Gorou added, putting a straw scarecrow hand on Paul’s shoulder. “You surfacers aren’t the abominable slavers we’ve heard tell of. I’ve watched, and you’ve done nothing wrong in all your time here except in ignorance of our ways.”

Paul was touched, but Lea insisted on getting this over with. :I have something I would like to discuss with Paul and no one else.:

“What if either of us could contribute to the conversation?” Gorou said. “If there’s even a possibility we could assist, isn’t it worth having us here?”

:I believe Paul and I will be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion on our own,: Lea sent, teeth grinding in suppressed frustration—the Tsukumogami weren’t taking the hints, and hints were all she could safely give with her Charm always on. :I would prefer if the two of you would remove yourselves for the duration of our exchange and stand out of sight behind that rock so I may have the covering off my face and speak eye-to-eye with my friend.:

“What will the two of us do by ourselves over there?” Momen asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever had Privacy before…” The bolt of cloth sounded nervous.

In her nicest possible tone, Lea told them, :Perhaps it would be best if the two of you kept watch for stray Tsukumogami headed our way and, in that case, return to cover my face so that your wards are not executed for aggressing the public.:

With all ambiguity thoroughly eradicated, Momen and Gorou gave their reluctant compliance. Then, as he turned to go, Gorou said to Paul, “You are inorganic like us. How do you understand them so well?”

Paul blurted an honest answer without hesitation, “Lots of television.”

When Momen finally unwrapped herself and flew away, Lea sucked in a loud breath and felt her face. “I can breathe again!”

As if going two days without seeing her made Paul forgetful, Lea’s beauty struck him. It wasn’t simply a well-formed body, a symmetry of the features, golden hair, black pearl eyes, the whiteness of her teeth, the fullness of her lips, the thickness of her lashes, or the warmth in her cheeks. Yes, it was all of these but, even more, he felt years of cultivated affection. Seeing her imparted a compressed positive jolt of every nice thing she’d ever done for him, every clever thing she’d said, every delighted laugh she’d let slip, and every smile she’d flashed his way.

After releasing her air in an equally loud sigh, she peered into Paul’s slotted visor with a sudden and deadly-serious expression. He wondered what Lea had to say she didn’t want the others to hear. With a slash of her sword medallion, Lea opened her Pwyll’s Pouch and withdrew a shard of metal from her private pocket dimension.

“This is all I have left of my father—at least, my only father who counted,” she said, and dropped it in Paul’s open palm.

Paul wasn’t stunned. He was mentally and emotionally annihilated. His mind crashed, unable to process words as his gut intuited exactly what Lea wanted from him and precisely how bad this conversation was about to go.

When the wheels did turn, Paul appreciated the enormous amount of trust Lea had placed in him. Trust he’d keep this conversation private, trust he’d treat her father’s remains with respect, trust he’d be on her side no matter what, trust that he wouldn’t laugh or criticize, trust that he could help.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She’d just trusted him with her heart.

With iron in her face and steel in her eyes, she said, “I am lending him to you until we find John Henry Hammer and Gaja Behemoth’s killer. I will not rest nor bury them until this Chimera lies dead and cold. Are you with me?”

Paul’s Actualizations were utterly futile. There was no simple way to ease her down, no gentle way to put it, no phrasing or direction from which to soften the blow. Just the brutal, painful truth.

“I can’t do it.”

Lea broke. She reeled as if he’d hit her, eyes watering, and spoke in an absent tone, “I didn’t mean we should go after them now, not really. We’re young and weak; I know that. We’re not ready to fight some freakshow three-in-one monster to the death and expect to come out all sunshine and rainbows.

“But, see, I was thinking that if we got close enough, Cassie could Listen to them and find their weaknesses. Then, maybe, we could shop the information around and talk someone else into fighting them for us. I know it’s dangerous and stupid, and we’re supposed to be finding the T.O., but I guess I want to know you’re with me on this?”

He’d never heard her talk like this—bargaining, borderline hysterical. His heart bled to see her this way, everything made worse by his being completely useless.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.”

She shuddered, again suffering as if from physical blows, crying harder than before, but anger arose in her now. “You won’t even try? Don’t you care?” She spat darts at him in a spur-of-the-moment attempt to guilt him into giving in.

Paul felt Lea’s unchecked power upon him. Somewhere in the depths of his mind, he knew she’d subconsciously unleashed her magic into her words and body, but this was a tiny, shrinking voice of reason. There, but insignificant. Instead, he focused on the sight of her, the sound of her voice, the vital need she’d expressed, and his craving to fulfill that need.

“Please,” she sobbed, “Please help me.”

Pain. Sharp, twisting pain. His empathy caused him physical agony. He would move mountains for her. He would break his arm for her. He would murder for her smile.

“I can’t.” He heard himself speak, his voice a vile traitor.

Lea saw red and spoke in a cold rage, placing the whole of her power into a command, “You will use your Pathfinding to track the Chimera.”

He didn’t feel her magic slam against his Will. There was only Lea. Nothing could stop him from obeying.

Except, he literally couldn’t. Not any more than he could flap his arms and fly, turn his metal and glass and light to bone and flesh and blood, or become a different person. She may as well have asked him to cartwheel her to the moon—he couldn’t obey or disobey because her command was utter nonsense.

But Lea’s magic was clever. It didn’t fizzle, wasting all her energy for the day. Instead, it rerouted into her main ability—Charm. Paul’s feelings were amplified magnitudes beyond the pale, all his obedience and empathy spent on a fruitless Command. What remained in Paul’s heart? What had he, as a reasonable and moral person, suppressed to the point it hardly influenced his daily interactions?

Desire.

Paul felt a burning heat blossoming, more than yearning, more than craving, a need urgent as breathing—to take what he wanted. There was only Lea. He reached, almost close enough to touch.

She must have seen the change in his bearing and the failure of her working from his lack of an answer. The moment his arm moved, Lea understood what was happening—if not what went wrong. Shock wiped away rage, red fading. Tears ceased as she cut the magic, which withered to nothing, and she slouched in exhaustion from the ordeal.

Reason, clarity, and multiple sources of guilt flooded Paul as his awareness expanded to include himself. Neither spoke, each as frightened by themselves as the other. They wouldn’t look at one another for fear of what they might find. Eventually, though, they had to.

“I-I’m so sorry,” Lea said, breathing hard. “I did it again. I’d have gone over the edge if… I’m the worst.”

“No. I mean, I almost…” He didn’t even want to think about what he might’ve done, especially with those Actualizations—he never let himself think about dangerous things with people nearby.

“I… How? I do not understand.” Lea composed herself. “Why did nothing work on you?—I mean, could you please tell me?” She’d expended so much power nothing remained in her words but the sound of her voice.

Paul decided his lie had gone far enough.

He told her everything from when they’d first found the T.O.’s flag in that abandoned campsite. Lea listened to his story, quiet, not commenting, eyes growing wider as the ramifications dawned on her. When he caught up to the present, Paul reflected on how terrible everything sounded while Lea took a moment of silence.

“No wonder it got this bad—” She shook her head in disbelief. Yes, Paul thought, Now she understands how everything has been my fault. “—We do not talk to each other,” she finished her sentence. What? He couldn’t have heard her right. “Too many secrets, too much going behind each other’s backs. I understand why you did not tell everyone when you lost your Pathfinding. We still cannot. Kenta will be devastated.

“I have to tell you, Paul. I sold our library to the Tsukumogami for my personal gain. I would have had you take us to a dangerous monster without telling the others. I told myself it was a detour, but I nearly put the whole group in danger—for what?”

“For love,” Paul said, and she looked at him, surprised. He wished he could cry. “They say love makes you do crazy things. You loved them, John and Gaja. You have to do something to honor their memory, or you’ll never be able to let them rest in peace, even though they wouldn’t want you risking your life to avenge them. Yes, Lea, I am on your side. I’ll do anything I can to find and kill this Monster.”

“Except, you cannot, can you?” She wiped away a lingering tear. “Not now, that is. You really lost all your old abilities? Candles too?”

“Candles too.” Paul nodded.

“Though Cassie is holding your connection, your Yang ‘spark’ for you? I doubt she knows.” Lea considered. He nodded again. “Now you have awakened and practiced with your Yin magic, can you not retake the candle from Cassie—As Pharos said?”

An uncomfortable image of Paul kissing Cassie if she were Sleeping Beauty popped unbidden into his mind. It would be perverse to make an attempt during her fever coma.

“No. Even if my body didn’t flip to wax, and I didn’t lose my Yin, and I didn’t relapse to the person I was before, and with Cassie recovered and willing, there’s another reason why I can’t. Pharos has a twisted sense of humor.”

He didn’t explain. He wasn’t sure he was ready to show anyone his discovery.

She seemed to accept that, especially with so much else on her mind. “So, Paul. You have… feelings for me?”

There it was. The big question. “I think we all do. That says as much about you and your magic as us.” It was awkward explaining everything at once like this, but his self-awareness choked a laugh out of him. “I’ve had a crush on you since I was eight, and you first invited me to play a game, but I never once thought it’d work out.”

“That is a shame,” Lea said, startling him. “I mean, it is all such a shame. We lost our parents, our guidance, at ten. We never got ‘the talk,’ you know. We had Mary, but she could never tell us what we needed to know about ourselves and each other. To be honest, and I know it sounds awful, but I didn’t think we were… compatible.”

He understood what she meant. They were so different physically; she didn’t know other inorganics for reference and had never heard of an organic/inorganic marriage—the thought there could be something between them hadn’t occurred to her. Perhaps none of the girls imagined him capable of romance. This put his whole history in a new light, especially Cassie’s kiss on the cheek when they traded Lifeforce. His silence had doomed his prospects.

Lea continued, shedding tears, “The worst part is if you’d asked me last year, I’d have said yes. Rana would’ve worried, but I felt ‘in control’ then, and I’d have risked it for the chance to have a date like a normal girl. Now, I’m barely holding on. I can’t risk touching you, let alone kissing you.”

“It’s alright,” Paul said, though he didn’t feel that way. “Do you see any lips on this mask? I might’ve been compatible before, but not this body. Lea, I want to show you something. I haven’t told anyone else.”

He turned his back to her and raised a sheet of metal from the ground. Its polished surface gleamed like a mirror. Paul reached for his hand and pulled it off. Except, it wasn’t his hand, but a gauntlet. His real hand underneath, his naked body, was glass and burning light. The grains of sand beneath him sizzled and melted. The metal sheet glowed with heat while his shadow protected Lea from the intense radiance.

Shielding her eyes, Lea saw him in the metal mirror through the gaps of her fingers. She gasped with understanding.

Paul nodded. “The armor isn’t protecting me. It contains me. I’ve become like Daniel, in a way.”

And in his heart, he knew, as Lea must’ve realized—to regain his Yang magic from Cassie, he’d have to kill her.