Chapter 42 – Firefly and the Night Sky

The Rosa Dominae guildhall was an old building. Once a large, traditional manor built around a central courtyard, it was now the administrative hub of the new Firozzi Famiglia’s adventurer’s guild. Encircling the lush garden on the first floor were the armory, dining hall, and reception areas. Offices and personal rooms made up the second and third floors, none of which saw as much traffic as the bar downstairs. Jutting out over the courtyard were a handful of balconies decorated with sparsely used benches and tables, just high enough up that the plants wouldn’t try to bite your toes off if you fell asleep.

Tonight, Palmira was headed to ‘her’ balcony, the one she always took her lessons with Morte on. Just down the hall from her room, after nearly a month of lessons the balcony had become a private place for her to relax and get away from the chaos that filled the bar below.

Which made her all the more annoyed to find someone had already stolen her favorite spot.

There was a bug-person—a Böceği—lounging on one of the openbacked couches, nursing a bubbling Cordiali white in one hand and a book in the other. The Böceği were one of the bug-people of the east, like the Örümcek, though she barely knew the difference between them. Something about the number of limbs maybe?

The one sitting in her spot had a carapace that was a dull brown, broken up by red stripes around his neck and wrists. He was dressed simply in a black and brown tunic which barely hid a collection of worn scars which cracked across his carapace. One and a half antennae twitched atop his head as he noticed her arrival.

“Oh? Is someone there?” his eyes darted over to her, the yellow-green glow lighting up the balcony. Compared to Asu Rana his voice had less of an accent than she’d expected. “You’re… Palmira, right? What brings you up here so late at night?”

“This is…” she wanted him to leave, but she also didn’t want to tell him why she wanted him to leave. Even in her head the reason sounded petty. “I’m here to study.”

He cocked his head, before shrugging and closing the beacons he called eyes, spots dancing across her vision from the sudden darkness. “Then pull up a chair. I won’t bother you.”

With that he turned back to his book, leaving her to decide whether leaving or staying would be more awkward.

Grimacing, she gingerly stepped onto the balcony, settling down on the bench furthest from him. Placing Morte against the wall she laid out sheets of parchment across her lap, hand drawn star charts interspersed by notes and doodles. She shuffled through them until she reached a half-finished recreation of ‘The Maiden’ constellation. Setting it on the table along with an ink pot and quill, she began to get to work.

Morte was clear that she’d have to make these herself. Every Cosmologist needed to know the stars by heart, and the fastest way to memorize their positions and names was to write them down herself.

Craning her neck Palmira squinted at the night sky, eyes roving over the stars she could currently see. The light pollution of Firozzi wasn’t half as bad as Iscrimo, but it was still worse than the countryside, and these maps needed to be accurate if she didn’t want to have to suffer through another one of Morte’s remedial sessions.

Taking a deep breath to center herself, she tried to ignore the person next to her as she grasped at the nebulous ‘cosmic’ magic she’d begun developing. Unlike her fire, which simply needed fuel and direction, this was something much more abstract, and so took much more effort to work with. But ever so slowly she was able to wrangle it up towards her eyes, her vision changing as stellar dust ignited in her irises.

Everything around her vanished, from the roof over her head to the earth beneath her feet. Only the stars remained, as the relatively dim night sky was suddenly replaced by a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree tapestry light.

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This was the only spell Morte had taught her so far that she could get to consistently work, though from how he described it it was the most basic of the basics. That didn’t stop her from struggling, unfortunately, as the division between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ wasn’t something she was good at keeping separated yet. Still, so long as there weren’t any distractions she could—

“What are you doing?”

The cosmic power slipped from her grasp, and she let out a pained hiss as the world suddenly snapped back to normal human vision.

“What?” she snapped, rubbing at her eyes. Goddess alive, it felt like someone had thrown pepper in her eyes. “I thought you said you wouldn’t bother me!”

“You’re eyes were glowing, it was creepy.”

Palmira was so blown away by the blatant hypocrisy that she couldn’t even call him out on it.

“…They’re supposed to do that,” she settled on. She heard Morte snickering in the back of her mind and debated chucking pepper in his eyes to see if he could feel that. “Now, please, be quiet. I need to focus.”

The Böceği (what even was his name? Damnit it was too late to ask now) blinked his eyes, once more blinding her. Then he nodded and took another sip of wine. “Sorry about that. I just tend to speak my mind about these things, you know.”

“It would be better if you didn’t.”

“I’m aware.”

Palmira didn’t know what to say to that.

Turning away, she decided not to say anything. Pulling up the cosmic power once again, she slowly and carefully molded it back into her eyes, the world once more falling away as—

The door to the balcony slammed open, and she let out a scream of frustration as she was hit by the backlash of the spell again.

“Hey, Creepy Girl, Firefly!” Matthias the dwarf bellowed, “We were wondering where you two were!”

“Signor Matthias,” she scowled around her tears, slamming her hands on her star charts. “Can you please not do that! I’m trying to study!”

“Sorry about that girly!” he laughed unrepentantly, before presumably noticing the murder burning in her eyes. “Uh. Ahem. I mean, sorry kid, really. But this is important!”

“So is this!” she snapped, holding her unfinished paper up to his face. He went cross-eyed trying to keep track of it. “If I can memorize all these charts I might be able to streamline my divination, but I still have so much to get through but the tournament is in two days and none of you people will let me practice in peace!”

Matthias took a step back, dislodging a few sparks as he ran a hand through his grey beard. “You sound stressed.”

“No, you think?”

“But that’s why I came to get you!” he grinned, throwing an arm around her shoulder. She was unfortunately short enough that he only had to reach a little bit. “Tomorrow’s when All Saint’s Day begins, so this eve we’re pregaming! The guildmaster’s even offered everyone a free drink, on the house!”

“I don’t drink, Matthias,” she groaned. She didn’t have anything particularly against alcohol, but watching the rest of the guild make fools of themselves every day didn’t put her in the mood to get drunk herself.

“You don’t have to! Come on, you know Bettina likes you, I bet she’d let you trade it in for a cake or something. Besides, everyone is there!”

Her stomach growled at the thought. As far as treats go, that was far more tempting. Still… “He’s not down there!” she pointed at the Böceği watching them.

“That’s because he doesn’t like us,” the dwarf stage-whispered to her.

“It’s because I don’t like them,” the bug-man agreed, taking another sip of wine.

“Offer’s still open Endrit!”

“I’d rather not.”

Matthias sighed. “Look, Palmira, there’s a party going on downstairs with free drinks and good company. Er, decent company. I’m not gonna force you to come join us if you really don’t want to, but you aren’t doing anyone any good stressing alone up here. The others are already down there waiting for you.”

She grimaced, glancing down at the charts in her hands. “But what about the tournament? I don’t feel the least bit ready for it.” Not to mention Tintinnia still hadn’t returned Malocchio.

“You probably aren’t,” he admitted freely, slamming a hand against her back. “But nobody’s ready for their first, not even me! Besides, we’ve got two days until the tournament—if you aren’t ready by now you aren’t ever going to be. So don’t lose sleep on it and relax a little. Trust me, that’ll do you better than any amount of last-minute studying would.”

Palmira bit her lip, torn.

“…Bah, go on,” Morte spoke up at last, reluctant yet firm. “He’s not wrong, even if you do need to study more.”

“Morte?”

“I said go on! Live a little! Get drunk, eat some sweets, do something you’ll regret in the morning! The stars will still be here tomorrow.”

Palmira closed her eyes. She’d probably regret this, but…

“Fine,” she sighed, wincing as Matthias let out a victorious laugh. “But if you were lying about the free cake I’m leaving!”