Episode: 5.14

--- Aiden ---

He held the door open to the bar, and let Ember go first as she continued to walk while reading, already a third of the way through the Arcanum.

(At this rate I’ll have to buy the rest of the series this weekend if I want to keep her busy around here.)

While some part of him was glad she’d agreed to let him teach her what little he knew about magic, rather than just sit around the bar depressed, it didn’t change the fact that he knew next to nothing about actually teaching magic, at least beyond explaining what he knew about the theory.

(Maybe I can ask Ashe about how she trains her men? The Arcane and Practitioners who work for her are usually pretty well trained once she gets ahold of them. Though, I’ll have to be careful about leaving her alone with Ember.)

He still hadn’t quite forgiven her for nearly pulling a gun on the kid, not that he doubted she had her reasons for thinking about it. It’s just that he doubted those reasons were valid enough to let her draw the gun should that side of the argument win out in her personal court of law and morality.

He rolled his neck, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out another cigarette and lighting it as he made his way to the bar. (Last thing I need is a repeat of that Sawyer job.)

As he took a seat at the bar proper, and Ember another one at one of the booths, he finally took note of the short haired brunette with dyed-pink highlights half flopped over the bar counter.

“So, how’s your day been Pet?”

A sapphire blue eye glared up at him from the crook of her arm.

He rolled his eyes. “I doubt it’s been that bad.”

Pet sat up with an indignant glare and began gesturing between the back room where Amelia’s Stitcher station had been set up, the stairs, his room, and the girls’ room, while throwing in the occasional gesture about carrying things around.

(“I spent all day moving Amelia’s Stitcher shit around because for some reason she’s been on a cleaning kick, I mean why would I need to move your crap into our room?”)

“I’m moving into your room, for the time being.” He answered, easily translating the mute woman’s gestures despite the fact that she insisted on using her own language of gestures and expressions, rather than using the proper sign language he and Amelia learned just to help her.

Pet’s eyes immediately brightened as whatever exhaustion that had been weighing her down evaporated. (“You mean-”)

“No. That is not happening.” He cut her off, before she could once more go into that fantasy of hers. “I’m sleeping on the couch, or on the floor.”

Pet gave him a disappointed growl, before throwing her arms up. (“Then why are you moving into our room?!”)

He merely pointed behind her.

Pet turned around with huff, before promptly freezing as her eyes fell on the twelve-year-old sitting in her booth. She glanced around the bar searching for whoever brought a kid to a bar, her eyes eventually drifting to Aiden, before gesturing back to Ember with a question in her eyes. (“Whose mini-bitch?”)

(That's a fairly rude question.)

“That’s Ember. Also, don’t call her that.” He scolded the immature woman before turning to the more mature Twelve-year-old, who’d looked up at the sound of her name. “Ember this is Pet.”

Ember watched Pet with a look that was both cautious and appraising as she nodded. “Uh-huh…”

Pet waved a hand in front of his face before making several more gestures. (“Yes, but who is Ember, and why is she here?!”)

He briefly glanced at Ember before using Pet to block the girl's line of sight as he spelled out A-N-N-A in the proper sign language that he knew the mute girl understood perfectly.

Pet blinked, something in her stance shifting as she glanced back at the girl who was quite obviously the daughter of one Anastasia O’Neil if you knew her.

(“And why is Anna’s daughter here?”) Pet gestured carefully.

He couldn’t help but let out a dry laugh as he brought his cigarette to his lips. “Apparently, she made me the kid’s godfather.”

Pet winced, before making several gestures. (“That woman has one twisted sense of irony…”)

He didn’t bother to disagree.

“Oh, you’re back.” Amelia’s voice called from the second floor, breaking him out of his ruminations before they could even begin.

Ember nodded, her eyes briefly glancing at the floor above the bar, to acknowledge the older woman.

“Aiden; everything go alright with Ashe?” the M.A.D. Stitcher asked as she made her way down the stairs.

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

Before he could answer, Pet leapt out of her seat and began gesturing between Amelia and started making a series of gestures that he didn’t bother figuring out, since they weren’t actually directed at him.

“Um, what’s wrong with her?” Ember asked, trying to be heard from her seat, but not heard by Pet or Amelia.

“Well, apparently Amelia forgot to tell Pet why she needed so much stuff moved around.” He explained reaching behind the bar to grab a beer, from the ice box beneath the counter.

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry, Pet ‘s fine with you staying here.” He started the moment he caught Ember’s downtrodden expression. “It’s just she’d have liked a heads-up about having a kid in the house, rather than having it dropped on her.”

Ember didn’t look like she quite believed him, but she nodded anyway. “If you say so…”

Unsure of what else to say, he ended up turning his attention back to the girls in time to watch Pet move up the stairs as Amelia made the rest of her way down.

“Everything alright?” He asked once Amelia was a little closer.

“Yeah.” Amelia nodded with a sigh. “Pet’s just a little peeved, you know how she gets around kids.”

(Terrified she’ll hurt them.)

“Yeah.” He nodded back, before downing half his beer in one go. “She’ll calm down in a little bit, just give her some space. She’s probably just putting all of her gear and… other stuff somewhere a kid can’t accidentally get into it.”

“I know…” Amelia sighed, before rubbing the back of her neck. “It just irks me that this slipped my mind while we were moving everything.”

He shrugged. “Eh, you were childproofing the place, and some of your stuff is pretty complex to take apart for transport, so no one can blame you for being distracted.”

“Right…” Amelia shook her head after a moment before turning to the newest member of their household, who had gotten bored with their drama and was once more hunched over her new book.

“So, what are you reading?” Amelia asked walking up to Ember as she tried once more to reach out to the young girl,  “Oh, the Arcane Arcanum! I remember this!”

Ember blinked. “You’re an Arcane?”

“What? No.” Amelia shook her head once the question registered. “One of my friends’ dad GM-ed a game of this for us a few years back. Felt we didn’t have a proper understanding of how to play RPGs and thought the old school stuff would make us better appreciate the genre.”

“Did it?” Ember asked curiously.

“Well, we did pick up a few tricks, and our game sessions afterwards were definitely a step up from before, but I’m pretty sure that was just Mr. Evans’s skill as a GM.”

Ember blinked a bit before chewing on her lip. “Were any of you Arcane?”

(I think Alyss was, but she’s not around anymore…)

He really should check in with his brother.

“No, a fair number of us tried, but none of us have that Deviancy.” Amelia answered with a half-truth. “Though, since half of us were M.A.D.s it was kind of expected.”

“You’re an M.A.D.?” Ember asked, half-hopefully.

Amelia grimaced, not having intended to let that slip. “Yeah…”

(Guess they’re both worried about prejudice against Deviants.)

“My school had me tested for that,” Ember admitted, just a little too quietly. “They said I was borderline but lacked the ‘mad place’ whatever that means.”

(That actually makes a bit of sense…) He thought before explaining that, “It’s the thing that makes M.A.D.s ‘spark out’.”

With a glance towards Amelia’s thoughtful expression, he decided to add something for the woman’s mental health. “While it’s not as strong in Arcane, it is part of the reason you lot and M.A.D.s both have such curious tendencies.”

Amelia blinked twice, before glancing at Ember and back to him with a questioning look. One he gave a subtle nod to, earning a soft smile from the M.A.D. as something in her shoulders shifted.

“Yeah, Arcane and M.A.D.s both tend to have a sort of underlining eccentric-ness that grows the stronger the more they mess with magic or tech respectively. That said, when we ‘spark out’ is also when we tend to push our tech beyond standard science as we understand it.” Amelia explained, taking over the (lecture/) conversation.

“Huh…” Ember stared at her book for a moment, occasionally glancing at Amelia as she did so, before finally turning to the older woman. “Do you, uh, do you think you could show me how to play the game?”

Amelia immediately brightened up with a smile, before taking a seat next to Ember. “Sure, we can probably even drag these two in if we let Aiden play a Malcontent from the later games.”

(Almost forgot about that.) He blinked.

“A Malcontent?” Ember asked, confusion evident in her tone.

“Yeah, the sequel series, while not as good for a history lesson, includes like seven other Deviancies to play as.” Amelia explained. “Whenever me and his siblings dragged him to one of our games, he always insisted on playing a fire-based Malcontent. Though he never bothered building with fire-resistance for when his blaster/bruiser accidentally set himself on fire.”

“Hold up,” he told her, trying to remember what his munchkin-esque reason for using a suicidal build in a game he hasn’t played in years was. “With the, what was it… ‘Sado-masochist’ and ‘Pyromaniac’ traits, that fire-damage-to-self tripled my overall damage output, and since Malcontent have a healing factor and that life-steal perk, it didn’t cause any permanent damage.”

Amelia gave him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, but you ticked your Malice counter twice as fast and went berserk twice as often, which when combined with that munchkin build made you three times harder to put down.”

He frowned. “If you’re not playing munchkin, you’re not playing right.” (Everybody knows that.)

Amelia sighed shaking her head. “And that thinking is why no one invites your family to game night.”

“Really, I thought that was more our ‘If you can’t win by playing fair, then cheat your fucking ass off.’ mentality.” A mentality that has saved his life on numerous occasions.

“That’s a big part of it too.” Amelia admitted with a strained smile, before turning to Ember. “Never play cards with him, he cheats.”

(You’re just jealous you can’t catch me when I'm the one cheating.)

Ember gave him an odd look, before giving Amelia a more-than-serious nod.

He couldn’t help but shake his head in amusement, before turning to reach behind the counter and grab himself another beer.

As he popped the cap off of his beer, someone entered the bar through the front door, the customer bell once more sticking rather than ringing like it was supposed to.

(We need to get around to replacing that thing.)

Aiden glanced at the figure in the long coat, and while he was tempted to simply tell them to fuck off, since Ember was still settling in, he figured the bar was still Amelia’s and she was much more… non-violent when it came to throwing people out. (Which is probably a better first impression for Ember.)

Only rather than saying anything to the creep who walked right up to where the girls were seated, with Amelia pointing to little bits in Ember’s book and how to actually play them, while side-stepping anything about Arcane outside of the game, so she wouldn’t mix the younger girl up on the actual magic.

After a moment, he coughed into his hand to try and get Amelia’s attention, and when the girls turned towards him, he tilted his head towards the guy just standing there staring at them.

Amelia turned towards the man in confusion, before turning back towards him. “Uh, yeah, what is it?”

It was then, looking at the man in the fraying coat with a solid black mask that didn’t want him to look at it, that he remembered something important.

(I’ve still got the black Malice in my system.)