Chapter 90: Talking To Shadows

Subject: Inis Location: Otemrest Borderlands - Atumen Village

Finally, Mertalo had acknowledged it. Inis had finally gotten through. She smiled in relief.

"Why are you smiling?" he asked, a little disturbed by her affect.

Inis had been trying all this time to convince him, the satisfaction had momentarily distracted her.

"Oh Pulse... What am I smiling about? This is horrifying..."

Mertalo took a deep breath and stepped closer to her. She pressed a hand to one of the pages, shaking slightly.

"I think I get it. It's gonna be okay, girl. Somehow, it'll be okay."

He put a hand on her shoulder. She slid back, and he waited. Then he kneeled down before her, concern written on his face.

"What do... what's that mean? There's more. I should keep reading. Not all of it is here, it decayed before I could transcribe it, but I should..."

Her voice came out shaky and emotional. The snot was stuffing up her nose and the tears were blotting out her vision before she knew it.

"There will be time for that later, won't there?" he suggested.

Mertalo was right.

Her eyes wide, she stared at the first person to comfort her in a long time. He seemed a little old to be her father's age, but this was because she gathered he was a lot older than he let on. His looks bore the same weathering as most adults, unable to sustain the increasing vira cost of prolonging one's life.

That was the "secret" of longevity. If you weren't killed by any number of things, vira deprivation would end you. As your aged, it became less efficient. More and more vira is required to sustain bodily functions, and, eventually, you die anyway.

He was not her father, but he was wise. Wisdom was comforting. His wisdom would suffice.

Inistra looked down. Her hands were shaking. She swung around and reached for the case housing the ARC syringe. She would need power if she was going to stop this. More power than time could tempt.

"No," he stated, placing a firm hand on hers.

She tried again, but again he stopped her. Even if he was more muscular, she could kill him in an instant.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What are you doing?"

His gaze was stern. Knowing.

"I need to stop them."

"What you need to do is find someone who can help you. If your mind is set on fighting, set your eyes on winning that fight. You go back now, you'll die. You aren't thinking clearly."

He was strangely insistent that she not use the syringe. It didn't matter why. This impediment had bought her enough time to settle down.

"No, I'm not. But there's no one I can go to."

"That's never true, girl. You're resourceful. Don't douse the lights in a room you haven't even entered yet."

He said those last words like he was quoting a close friend. A melancholic memory.

"You're right."

Her determined face seemed to comfort him some.

"Rest up. I'll keep watch and not open the door without waking you. Unless you would rather me sleep in the carriage."

"No. I'll sleep. Wake me when you get tired and we'll switch.

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Subject: Mertalo Location: Otemrest Borderlands - Atumen Village

Mertalo noticed that Inis had fallen asleep beside that long tool she'd jabbed into her arm. She was was rustling in her sleep, uneasy but resting nonetheless.

When she fell into a deeper sleep, he quietly crept up to her bedside and watched her. She was a troubled girl. It was apparent this device was no good for her. He would hide it, and figure out what to tell her in the morning. Maybe he could claim there was a robber in the night.

Suddenly, Inis sat up in bed and shot him a blank stare. At first, he thought she was still asleep, but then he thought twice. He'd seen those cold eyes once before.

"You were right to worry for her health," that same, emotionless voice stated.

Suspicions confirmed, he remained silent. She was relapsing into whatever protective shell this wrathful persona provided.

"She is still fast asleep, in me, but she will rest more efficiently without me in control, so we should make this short. It is apparent you need something more than I gave you before."

"What do you mean?" he asked, having at least some idea of what Inis was saying.

She was unwell, troubled by unknowable tragedies. Somewhere along the way, her personality must have become distorted.

"We will protect you for as long as you stay with us. For as long as you are committed to keeping us safe. I called you are tool. While true, I understand now this is not something you normally call a living thing. It was my error."

Inis wasn't even looking at him right now. It was more like she was staring at the rotting boards in the wall behind him. She could have been deep in thought.

"I am always looking out for my customers," he sidestepped.

"She is not ill," Inis said flatly.

"I never said you-- I never said she was," Mertalo played along.

This identity of Inis's was frustrated by how the conversation was playing out. It didn't look like she knew how to act right now.

"Whatever you say. I'm not here to convince you of that. I'm here to tell you that you were right to talk her back from picking up the needle. It is too soon to use that thing again. Eventually, yes, she will need it if we are to get stronger together. Right now, if she used it I think we'd both die. Or, she might die and surrender her body to me. I don't want that."

"I would die?"

Was this some kind of bizarre threat?

"Not you, you dense saddle-hand. Her and I. We are inextricably linked at this stage. Well, I suppose our resulting madness might kill you in the process before we die together, but we could just as well die instantaneously, no harm done to you or anyone else."

Mertalo didn't follow. He decided to move on.

"I only meant to store it safely until... What do you want from me?"

"I want you to watch over her. I want you to convince her that the power she used when she last injected herself was more than she could handle. The way you just tried to go about it was ill-conceived. You want to know how I know that? It is because I know her better than I know myself. You would have had to lie to her if you wanted to hide the tool. A lie like that would only push her deeper into paranoia, and it might have broken her trust for decades."

Inis looked at her fingers, bending them awkwardly. She might have been counting.

"Ten years. A year is three seasons. First is Renewal, next is Bounty, ending with Calm," Inis rambled. "Time passes? I don't understand what the phrases I'm recalling mean, but time is a bridge I've yet to burn."

The worried man couldn't find the right words to use in this moment. He almost thought Inis was playing with him.

"E-Excuse me?"

Inis twitched slightly, looked down, and thought deeply to herself.

"The word is 'cross', isn't it... You are born to think a certain way, and then you grow up and life forces you to find alternatives. My nature is to protect myself from what I don't understand. Kill an enemy before it kills me. There is only kill and die, and a muddled mess of subtle directives guiding my decisions. Here I saw a familiar pattern, a linked phrasing, and I jumped to conclusions. 'Time is a bridge I've yet to cross', is what I'm meant to say."

This rambling was not trauma. It was no drug withdrawal he'd ever seen. This emotionally deprived discourse dashed the best part of a century's wisdom. Put plainly, in the hundred or so years Mertalo had been alive, he'd never seen a person act like this. As with much of sapient behavioral novelty, this new memory was terrifying.

And she kept talking, as if what she'd already said wasn't enough.

"Convince her that the scientific, stable approach, is to take time to understand the effects of the ARC injections. At the very least, she will understand the burden the injections place on her body. Appeal to reason and you'll win arguments with her. She is stubborn, but her intellectual self-doubt is the double-edged blade you must exploit."

He repeated the words Inis was saying once over with a soundless voice. His lips were moving, so Inis could see he was trying to remember. Mertalo didn't know why he was making a show of it like this. Why was she behaving like this?

"I know you can do it, just like I know we can protect you and the world if the Guild turns out to be as bad as you think it is. Have a calm and peaceful night. Don't wake us up, we need our rest."

"I never planned on it."

"I know. But you should sleep too. I can keep watch while she sleeps. And remember-"

"Don't tell Inis," Mertalo interrupted.

For some reason, Inis didn't want him to reconcile this side of her with her normal identity. She had things she didn't want to face, he supposed.

"You're catching on."