Teuila cracks her knuckles as we round a corner, asking, “Are you okay Dink? That, that sounded, grr. She made you cry. I heard it. Don’t deny it. I, I want to, grr.”
I quickly kiss Teuila as I clasp her hands. I lean my forehead against hers as our lips meet and stay locked for a long while. I don’t know all of what’s going on, but Teuila doesn’t deserve to lose the happiness this town has brought her over it. My wonderful Teuila. I gaze into her eyes, my own eyes wet with tears of mixed emotions, I try to portray only joy.
I start, “Te, something big is happening around us again. I don’t know what. This time there’s someone behind the scenes. I don’t know how much I can say without causing trouble for The Brook. I don’t want to do that. They’re good people, really good people. Can we buy some new nightclothes and just kind of enjoy our last eve here?” I accidentally mumble aloud, “I really want you to have an undamaged copy of that sexy as hell pajama top.”
Since my face is right next to Teuila’s, she overheard my mumbling, and she’s grinning like a lunatic. Oops. I mean, should I even bother getting embarrassed about it at this point? I’m certainly flushed as warm as the sun. But a long-sleeved, thick dark-silk, figure-flattering pajama top and cute matching bottoms. I mean. Come on. Right? Just, just leave me alone about it. Me. Hah. Oy vey. I’m being upset at me for pretending to be upset at me about enjoying Teuila’s amazing style and appearance. Ugh, this head of mine. I definitely need someone else inside of it, or things get weird.
Teuila slugs me playfully, lightly in the shoulder, and then gloms tightly onto my arm, pressing heavily against me. She puts no actual weight on me, despite wearing an enormous backpack upon her shoulders. That would be her perpetually weird bond with gravity. I wonder if maybe I have a weird bond with something? Some sort of power that I wouldn’t need to connect with Can’Z’aas to use? Hm. How would I go about finding out? I think I heard that the Sisters of the Mist are oracular. So if they have oracle sight or visions or clairvoyance or divination or other such powers, they might be able to tell me more about myself. Still, they’re over east by where Lil is heading, while we’re headed north by northwest. I guess that’ll have to wait.
Apparently Teuila had done some inventory shenanigans while I was unconscious. How long did I sleep for again? Ugh, what day is it? We’ve been here almost exactly a week, and someone mentioned the day of the week a while back, so it’s a Saturday. I think it’s not even noon yet. Teuila is a little less willing to access Can’Z’aasian powers than she was on our trip back to The Brook now. As I’d feared, the powers are painful to try to reach out and connect to. I don’t know if that’s just for me and Teuila though. Did I corrupt her by offering her that tether of my mana on the last day on Can’Z’aas? Ugh, I’d hate myself if I did. I guess we already covered that though. Wait. Wait. What did Harriet say?
A. Multi. Headed. Serpent. In a bog!? I begin to seethe with rage, quivering while tears rush down my face in streaks.
Teuila asks, “Dink? You went from happy to pissed. What’s going on?”
I ask, “Did Harriet really say what I think she said about Jaggedfen Bog?”
Teuila scratches her chin while looking thoughtful for a moment, “Oh. Oh! Holy spoot. No wonder you’re upset. Is, um. Is that a quest you want to take on at some point?”
While panting through the anger I respond, “I, I don’t know. Maybe after we reunite with Lil and the two Lus if we still haven’t found a way home. I, I know it would probably be better to get rid of it sooner rather than later, just, just there’s too many things to do, and we actually have to travel. We can’t just shoot ourselves around the continent from one end all the way to the other in a couple of hours. Plus, travel and mudcamping are hard-going here with the acid and mud just absolutely everywhere. Even the weird grass is a bit hard to walk on.”
Teuila is nodding along as I rant and ramble. She suddenly asks, “So, want to just put it on the back burner, and try to get back to enjoying our last couple days in The Brook?”
I nod, “That sounds good Te, hopefully we can find Dawn at dawn tomorrow. I’d prefer earlier, but I don’t want to waste all of our time scouring the countryside for someone that might not want to be found. Especially if we really only have this one more day.”
Suddenly self conscious, and potentially sad for some reason, I ask, “Is, is Tiago as mad with me as Harriet was?”
Teuila looks ponderous for a moment, “Hm, I don’t think so? There was, well, a lot of silence. After some hysterical laughter. I kinda think we broke him again. I’m pretty sure by the time we visit him again, if we ever do, he’ll be fine, and ready to make fun of us for saying we’re not dragon slayers.”
I chuckle while nodding, “That’s exactly one of the thoughts I had while cutting off Kozzurth’s head, hah. That Tiago would have a field day teasing me about my vehemence of not being a dragon slayer. That and he’d probably have a big ‘I told you so’ look ready for George. Maybe I should get that history of the dragons being driven off to the spine of the world from George at some point. Hm. I wish we had more time to learn about The Brook and everything in it. I don’t even know if there’s a library. It sounds like it’s probably the biggest city in all of Aasimovia, everything else is likely just small villages. Bluh.”
Teuila slugs me gently in the shoulder and drops her head forward to bonk mine, resting her forehead on mine. Te, bashfully, asks, “So, um, you thought I looked sexy in those pee-jays?”
My face steams the air between us. Critterkin shouldn’t have a concept of the word sexy, we don’t have the bits to be sexual or have sexualities or, or, the, the thing. I guess we could still feel physical attraction with some neurochemicals or something. Hm. I wonder if I could get my electrokinesis to shut down the neurological response that causes me to blush. Or toggle the one responsible for physical attraction. Teuila would probably call me no fun for my thought train jumping to this track. She’d say her nerd is sciencing out some feelings or something. Teuila pokes me lightly, still awaiting a response. Oh, right.
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
I mumble, “Friggin’ gods yes you meanie.”
Teuila’s elongated single laugh of glee rings clear through the air, “Heeeee.” I can’t help it as I smile wide to my ears and gingerly press my lips to hers.
After I’ve kissed her for only a fraction of a second, she snags me by the wrist and rockets off towards the shops. I imagine I look like a wet noodle waving through the air behind Teuila, or a streamer or something. Of course I’m actually sprinting to be able to keep up, touching the ground very rarely as I bound behind her while being dragged.
Sadly the pajamas that are ruined were made from literally the shop’s finest silk, so there’s nothing else like it. Ugh, that’s so unfair. Still, it doesn’t take Teuila too long to find something that elicits a low whistle of appreciation from me, causing me to blush. She’s so smug about it too. Oh well. We both get new pajamas, and these ones are almost as luxuriously smooth as the previous ones.
We’d both like to see Tiago before we leave the city, and we’re not sure if it’s better to visit during what might be considered the apothecary shop’s work day hours, or in the evening. We figure it’s best to split the difference. That means we’ve got several hours to kill, and no idea what to do with it. Maybe if I’m lucky, someone will be able to point out a library to me, and I’ll be able to learn some things before we move on. Ah, good, random strangers will give directions to the library.
There isn’t even a librarian, it’s sort of eerie. There are just two other patrons who appear as if they’ve just entered ahead of us, but I didn’t see them enter as we approached the library. It’s almost like they teleported in front of us. Teuila jogs to a shelf, picks up a random book, and plops down against the bookshelf to read it, entertaining herself. Hm, wait, these titles.
Marooned off V? The Weapon Too Dreadful? Reason? Nightfall? Runaround? Why do they sou—. Ah my head! Ow, oh gods that hurts. Ah, Luni mentioned I get migraines. Maybe I just forgot how bad they are. Holy hells and all the bells this sucks. Ow, ow. I stretch my jaw repeatedly, trying to relieve pressure from my right mandibular joint as I stroke my temple. Ugh, I think this is the fiction section anyway. I stumble away from this shelf, past Teuila.
I struggle to right myself before I cause any damage, barely succeeding as I grip my head in pain. I rub my brow down into my eyes with the palm of my hand, comforted slightly by its painful pressure. The self-induced mild discomfort is much nicer to focus on than the splitting headache that lances its way from my jaw up my cranium. The darkness behind my eyelids goes from orange to brown to black. Several thick fingers glowing and radiating with light fill the edges of my vision through closed eyes.
There are the two other patrons, they look like they could possibly be brother and sister. They’ve dark hair, and are quite lithe. Their movements betray little as they glide about. They whisper to one another while gazing my way. I’ve likely made a nuisance of myself while they’re trying to read. For some reason, their closeness, combined with their vague resemblance remind me of someone. Agh I can’t think of it now though, my head hurts too much. Alright, history section, good enough. Just grab the first thing that feels nice in my hand, any book, just something to distract me from the pain.
Why is the first half of this book blank? There’s so much empty space. Who writes a book and leaves this many empty pages? Especially before the writing even starts. Wait. Here it says something. “Eleven eleven, as far as I can tell, when I started existing.” Everything is just scribbles, scrawls, barely legible. It’s, it’s hardly a history, it might be someone’s diary though. Or perhaps a journal, or a memoir. Here’s some legible writing. “Took the job around eighty.” Wait. Flipping frantically through for more legible writing, I spy another phrase, “met the girls, surprised how that turned out.”
W—w—what? What is this? There’s a, there’s. Roman numerals on the cover. No way. No way no way no way. It’s a one of five. What in all the hells. No way. No freaking way. I don’t know whether to cry, to laugh hysterically, to shout eureka, or what. I, I don’t understand what’s happening. Agh my head! There’s a sound like air being displaced, like something coming out of my inventory. Basically something popping into reality from somewhere else, or from nothing, if I were duplicating things.
Someone standing over me states, “You can read it here all you like, but ye don’t seem to be a citizen. Only citizens can check them out-like.”
I look up, and a woman the perfect picture of an elderly librarian hovers near me. There, there was no librarian. There were only two other people in this building. The door hasn’t opened even once since Teuila and I entered. What the hell is going on?
I stutter, “This, this book, it, it’s, it belongs to —“
She interrupts me, “It belongs to The Brook. I won’t have ye stealing now, now will I? Ye look a might peak-ed, perhaps ye should see our miracle-worker. Up now, easy does it. No need for alarm, simply helping ye up. It’s alright, all quiet and peaceful in here-like. I’ll just shelve that for ye, alright me dearie?”
She retrieves the book, shelving it quietly, without show. The librarian begins to escort me to the door. The two people that I’d spotted earlier are nowhere to be found, but Teuila is sitting quietly as she reads some fiction or another. She alternates between humming and silence. I wave to Teuila, and she waves back absentmindedly for a moment. I can sense that behind me, she’s wrapping up a chapter or story, and preparing to follow me as she shelves the book. Actually, it looked like she finished the entire book. But, but that would mean. But I only just entered the library a minute ago.
The librarian seems to exchange a glance that conveys worry to Teuila, so Te slings one of my arms over her shoulders as I hold my head. The headache has been dying down over the last few seconds. We’ve walked a bit away from the library, and it has basically diminished to nothingness at this point. I’m utterly bewildered. What happened in the library again? I remember going there in the hopes of studying something, anything that might clue me in to the nature of magic or souls here on Rayileklia. I think that I thought there was no librarian, but I must have been mistaken, since one escorted me out.
Teuila interrupts my thought train, “Find anything good before your headache got too bad my Dink?”
Wait, wait, yes, yes I think I did. I stammer, “I, I think, there was a book, a tome.”
Teuila snerks, laughing as she responds, “Yeah babe, there were a lot, it was a library.”
I rattle my head as I ask, “Te, please be honest with me, was the librarian in there the whole time with us?”
Teuila pouts, “Why wouldn’t I be honest with you goober? Yes she w—. Wait. What? It’s like, it’s like my memories are fighting to say she was there, but that I know she wasn’t. What, ow, what’s going on? Ow. Oooog, oof my head.”
This, this is bad. This is really really bad. Something on Rayileklia can just edit our memories?! Fricklefrack, how the hell am I supposed to even trust that I know one thing from one moment to the next? Well, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. I mean, I definitely am. This is just one very very weird little coincidence. Maybe Mildred just has teleportation magic or something. Wait, who the hell is Mildred? Is that the librarian? How the crap do I know her name!? Wait, how do I know this hasn’t happened before? How do I know anything I remember is because I remember it and actually experienced it? Ugh, one thing’s for sure though that she got right, we need to go see Tiago as soon as possible.
I grab Teuila’s free wrist as she holds her head with her other hand, now suffering a headache along with me. She makes sure to reduce the gravity on herself and the backpack. I start sprinting to the apothecary.