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Chapter 16: The Wheel of Change

As Craft stared up at the sky, watching the clouds move, they parted to show a… wow… “That’s one big-ass tree,” he blurted out. He leaned backwards just to look up, but even then, he couldn’t find its top. Forget skyscrapers; it was a citadel of nature. It might even be touching outer space.

Nightshade snorted. “Oh, that’s The Tree, alright!” she said, pronouncing the The rather pointedly. She threw her arms up, parenthesizing the tree with her hands and curtsying with a smile. “Welcome to World’s Origin!”

He chuckled and relaxed. After all that had happened, he was finally getting a semblance of an introduction to this world.

From down the road, the trotting of horse hooves caught their attention. If only they were horses.

It was a canvas-covered four-wheeler, just about what anyone would expect to see in a time before gasoline, but instead of horses, there was a team of wooden dummies pulling it along: honest-to-God faceless mannequins with an awkward gait. They were a physicalized rendition of a cheap 3D model trained to walk via a simulation written by some third-year computer science undergrads.

Goddamned mannequins again. His right foot shuffled backwards out of reflex, and he reached for a gun that wasn’t there. Again? He sighed and bowed his head. He shouldn’t be reflexively pulling out weapons in this world; it was impolite, and he wanted to be rid of any reminders of his past. Untraining himself would take a while.

He steadied himself, but it didn’t change how spooky the mannequins were. If he’d actually had a gun, he might have shot them by now; nine times out of ten, they had a heart made of plastic explosives.

Nightshade leaned in. “Don’t worry, that nightmare accelerant can only be found in World’s Origin.”

“Is that a good thing?”

She chuckled. “The owner’s a decent guy, I swear!”

He still had his doubts, but because it’s her, he’d let it go for now.

She continued, “I’ll go ask him to bring you to Lady Solace. She’ll make you not homeless by the end of the day.”

He took note of that ‘Solace’ name. She sounded like the highest authority here, and it was always a good thing to butter up or else get toasted down the line.

The carriage was close. Nightshade turned her attention squarely towards the driver seated in front: a gracefully aging man draped in a dark green cloak. His blonde hair was mixed with silver locks, but what stood out to Craft were his dagger-like ears. Whether or not he was actually an android with ear-antennas remained to be seen.

The carriage came to a stop on their side of the chalk line. “Hey! How’s the garden, ’Shade? I got the ice you wanted,” the man greeted as he hopped off and went around to the back of the carriage. He had a little more spring in his step than Craft expected. “And who’s this? Howdy! You a visitor? Been a while since we had any!”

He sounded like he owned a ranch on the other side of town. Craft thought he might not be an android, after all.

The man had begun to unlatch the tailgate. He had to be careful; there was a weird trick to doing this, or else the screws keeping the latch in place would pop off like bullets.

“It’s all healed! Don’t worry!” Nightshade said. “Oh, and this guy’s a new summons, actually. Hey, can you do me a favor” —

“Wha” — the man fumbled the latch as he spun around in shock. Without his attention, the latch’s screws forgot all about friction, popping off and shooting into the wilderness, and the tailgate flew right open. Crates spilled out the back, ice and mist beginning to spill out as the crates’ lids hinged open.

But the crates and their contents paused, levitating just inches off the ground. Nightshade gestured her hands in circles, manipulating the ice to go in the crates, and the crates to float down and behave on the ground. “Damn it, Dane!”

The man spun around towards her, half-complained — spun around again, groaned at the tailgate — spun around again, but only halfway this time, unable to decide whether to be annoyed or surprised. He shook his head with a sigh.

Nightshade took a step towards the crates, pointing at them awkwardly. “I-I’ll just go check the — er” —

Dane nodded readily. “Yeah, yeah, sure.” He sighed. No, yeah, it was sort of his fault not paying attention, after all.

Craft approached him. “You okay, there?”

The man looked at him, oddly freezing for a second, but when the worst that Craft did was give him a weird look, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry, name’s Dane.” He put out a hand, and Craft shook it firmly.

“Craft,” he said. Dane seemed like a mostly okay guy, but with the man’s personality, he ought to be careful about any invitations to the local bar. Alcohol, after all, was any agent’s worst nemesis, causing them to reveal mission details in a drunken expositionary rampage — but he had no such missions in this world. Now, it was just a matter of being comfortable, and he’d like to improve his view of the man from “mostly okay” to “totally fine” before hitting up an ethanol refuelling station.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Dane continued, “Sorry ’bout a while ago. Conditioned reflex from the last summons some years back. Shot me to pieces within two seconds of opening his eyes, that sucker.”

Craft jerked back. “That happens?”

Dane laughed. “Hah! I’m just the unluckiest bastard alive. Couple o’ angels dragged him back into the summoning circle. ’pparently, he was supposed to go straight to the [down_realm].” He shrugged. “Makes sense for the guy, I guess.”

That summoning circle sure has a lot of problems, huh? “Sounds rough,” Craft said. There was that mention of the [down_realm] again, but he figured he could just ask about it some other time. Rather than that, this guy seemed oddly agreeable about getting shot. “You don’t sound mad about it.”

Dane waved it off with a hand. “Nah, ain’t my first time. As a greeting, though, definitely my first.”

“Okay, okay, I’m all done!” Nightshade chimed in. “Dane, Dane, do me a favor and let Craft here meet Lady Solace so he can get a house already.”

“Oh, Solace? Yeah, that makes sense,” Dane said. He faced Craft. “She’ll chew through the residence application for ya.”

“Who’s that again?” Craft asked.

Night faced Craft. “Oh, right. She’s something like the town’s manager. We don’t actually have a position like that, but it just ended up that way somehow.”

“I’m tellin’ you, ’Shade, don’t question it,” Dane said. “If the lady likes paperwork, we’ll give ’er all the paperwork we have.”

She put her palms on her cheeks, shaking her head. “I-I just don’t get it. How does anyone like doing that stuff?”

“Hey, now, only weirdos have the right to call other people weirdos.” Dane laughed.

Nightshade groaned. “Dane, damn it!”

Craft chuckled. It was a wonder to him how Nightshade could get along with anyone just like that — wearing the exact same face in front of him as she did in front of others, that is.

After he helped Dane put his merch back together, Craft hoisted himself up onto the carriage to sit beside him.

Nightshade stayed standing beside the carriage. He looked at her with some curiosity. “You’re not coming?” he asked.

— One corner of her lips pulled down ever so slightly, and it took her a split second too long to reply.

She smiled. “Nope, I’ve gotta get the ice inside before it melts. Come around soon, though!”

“Sure thing,” he said, but the dissonance in what she’d said and the face she’d made still bothered him.

He let it go at that. He wouldn’t pry all at once.

As Craft waved goodbye, Dane brought the carriage around to face the road. Nightshade waved back. “Don’t pop off a wheel!” she shouted after them.

“Shuttup!” Dane shouted back. “Last time you said that, it actually happened!”

Dane sighed. Craft stared him. He groaned. “It was one time.” He shook his head and looked forwards, but Craft was still staring at him. He sighed. “Look, buddy…”

Craft shrugged. “I’ll just trust you a little bit.”

“Come on, put a little more faith in me, will ya?” Dane chuckled. “Hey, after you get the new house sorted out, you wanna grab a drink” —

“No thanks.”

***

Not long after the carriage had started, Dane shot side-glances at Craft.

“Can I help you?” Craft said.

“So? How are you and ’Shade getting along?” Dane asked with a grin.

Craft shifted away, giving him a raised eyebrow. Dane was smiling — genially rather than teasingly. Had it been a genuine question?

“Getting along,” he replied.

“Huh? That all?” He sounded taken aback.

Craft shrugged. “Were you expecting something else?”

“Y’know, like…”

“Like?”

Dane raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “The thing all men want.”

Craft shifted even further away. He wasn’t an innocent man in all interpretations of the word, but he wasn’t the type to be attracted to women just because they were women; that would’ve been a fatal weakness for any agent.

In the first place, he couldn’t see Nightshade in that light. Towards her, he had that feeling one would get from watching a cat play with a ball of yarn. Really, she was too kind.

Dane didn’t relent, though. He was still looking at Craft with the eyes of a man waiting for his trap to go off.

Craft didn’t fall for traps. “And what’s that thing?” he asked.

Dane clicked his tongue. “Let me win, darn it.” He chuckled. “A nice, long trauma-dumping session, that’s what!”

Yeah — how about no? Craft shook his head. Venting wasn’t a good idea. He was already in the habit of recycling his old thoughts over and over; what more if he’d started spouting them out? It’d be an infinite loop too, just externalized.

“Nah?” Dane continued. “Well, that’s fine, too. She’s a pretty experienced listener, though, no kidding. Talked to her a little bit myself when I first got here.” He showed a thumbs up. “Ten outta ten. Makes sense they’d call her a witch who could melt an assassin’s heart! Haha!”

That struck a little too close to reality.

He got thinking more about Nightshade. They’d established an alright relationship, even respecting each other’s secrets — so what’s this uncomfortable feeling in my chest?

He had a long ride ahead of him. Since the past hour, his willpower had eroded. When silence comes, postponed thoughts continue; as the wheels on the carriage turned, so did those thoughts churn.

He didn’t want to think about Nightshade, but she’s what he thought about now.

A decent friendship with her was the right idea. He knew he needed someone who could accept his preference for solitude — an irony, saying he needed someone else to accept that he didn’t need others for now, but it was his reality.

Others vouched for her, and he had experienced her personality himself. He had a chance to grasp for that friendship; why didn’t he just go for it? If he’d just taken a pause, measured his words, and talked to her properly, she’d have better understood what he wanted, and even his ironic need would be fulfilled.

On some level…no. Amacus was right.

He wouldn’t sugarcoat it; this was a tactical loss, but even then, not a strategic defeat. Everyone was still alive, and tomorrow would come. For now, he just needed to get into town, get a house, go to sleep, and wake up and run back to the temple and properly explain himself: “Sorry, I was standoffish. Thinking about it now, I wasn’t able to thank you properly yesterday” — or something along those lines.

He wanted to hurry and deliver those words, but he’d only be able to do so tomorrow. Suddenly, the carriage was too slow. Suddenly, he was cursed by the kind of eagerness that needed to be beaten down.

There was no use rushing straight unto tomorrow. Whether it was waiting for better intelligence to surface or waiting for his prey, waiting had always been an integral part of his life. Anxiety and excitement both destroyed the experience of waiting, leading him to poorer decisions that had to be made now and not tomorrow.

Waiting should just be waiting. Tomorrow would come, and he would patch things up. That’s all it was.

His gaze traced the ground, and he noticed the star on the back of his hand. Amacus had given it to him so he could contact her. He had to patch things up with her too.

Three days. He’d take pause in these three days she’d given him, and he’d come up with the right words to tell her by the end of it.

In three days, things would change, and the mistakes he suffered now wouldn’t matter by then.

He just had to ‘fix’ himself, and it’d all turn out fine.

… How?