Chapter 163: Something to Cuss About
Nara escaped to her room in her nebula house, feeling dispirited and angry with herself. She had used her aura against a normal ranker. It was a mild suppression—she had controlled herself, but she had suppressed someone who was friendly and had no bad intentions. There had been nothing malevolent in his aura, yet she overreacted. If she ran into someone with less-than-innocent intentions, what then? Would she kill them on the spot? Leave them hyperventilating on the floor, in shock and fear?
And she had told Laius that she couldn’t imagine suppressing anyone’s aura. All it took was a harmless touch to break what she thought she knew about herself.
Flirting yes, but she shouldn’t have accepted the drink he offered.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She should have made it clear before that. She shouldn’t have made someone fear for their life because they tried to touch her hand.
She had thought of it before, but the realization that she was far from normal baseline humanity once again dawned upon her. It had been so easy to make a normal person freeze with her aura, to demand an answer and compliance from them. It was a sobering parallel between gods and essence users.
If she went back to her world, a being with magic in a world without—what would that be like?
It would be disastrous.
To Earth’s weapons she was unkillable. A high-power rifle would do damage, but it would be massively reduced thanks to her bronze rank damage resistances plus her inherent damage resistance from Resilient, now Tribulation of Self. She didn’t have the speed to straight up dodge or parry bullets, but she could just teleport out of the way.
A nuke wasn’t fast enough to kill her. She could Phase Shift on the impact, or just conjure a portal and leave the area. The radiation and fallout was no danger to her at all.
It was telling that her first thoughts were of violence. She shook them from her mind. There were other issues—she could cure cancer as long as she had the boons to do it. Curing cancer was an ability she and John shared. What would she do when people clamored to be released from their torments of illnesses. Deny them?
She’d work with them at first, but then she’d be bogged down by the unceasing line of the afflicted. Growing weary of doing nothing but healing the sick and the injured.
And the governments, of course. They’d want to study her and John. Consensually hopefully. There wasn’t much they could do to forcefully hold her, although no doubt some would try. How much could she lift? How fast could she run? How quick was her reaction speed? How fast did she heal?
Her thoughts were falling in disastrous directions, tumbling down sheer cliffs and into darkness. Could she tell her family about the magic, the monsters? Could she keep it a secret while she was there? And then what, tell them she’d somehow found a job in her coma and that she’d be no-contact for months at a time?
“What would you have done, Chrome?” she said, leaning her head back against her seat and letting the chilly wind brush against her cheeks on her balcony, calming the fire of irritation burning on her skin.
“You know how I feel about being touched.”
“You hate it.”
“You overreacted,” Chrome said bluntly. “Consider that you did not break his arm.”
“Great, so I didn’t physically assault someone because they flirted with me. I just aura assaulted them. Yay me, I deserve a pat on the back for a job well done.”
“Have you considered not going to a bar at night?”
“I’m in a goddam fantasy world. I wanted to get to know people beyond just—” she waved her hands around annoyedly, “—essence users. Normal people. People don’t have to be magical to be interesting. And Rhys was interesting. Do I need to wear a shirt that says, ‘Don’t Flirt With Me I Just Want To Be Friendly’, or something? Why is everyone so damned flirtatious here.”
“They have purgation and contraceptive magic,” Chrome said pointedly. “It solves the…issues that plague the physical bodies of your kind.”
“Right. Of course. Risk-free fucks for all.”
She closed her eyes, letting her mind wander in self-contemplation.
“Do you think he’s still there?”
“He is,” Sage said through her mind. “Drinking away regretful mistakes in a rather unbecoming fashion.”
“I think I should apologize.”
“Or let bygones be bygones,” Chrome said, uncaring of Rhy’s woes or Nara’s need for neutrality in her relationships. Didn’t like leaving people angry, especially those she thought didn’t deserve her ire (arrogant young masters notwithstanding). “You don’t have to be friends with the first person you meet in a tavern. Plenty more to choose from.”
Nara inhaled deeply, sucking in the pleasantly chilly air that tickled her nose and lungs.
“We have a big day tomorrow, I should sleep.”
If she saw him again, she’d apologize. She liked that tavern, liked the music and the atmosphere, and liked Rhys as a person and strictly a friend.
She puttered off to her bed and sprawled comfortably on it with Thanatos. She ran her fingers through his silky black fur, and drifted off to sleep.
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*****
A strong aura pulse woke everyone in the nebula house. Aliyah swung out of her bed—the aura was very familiar to her. It was Nara’s.
She knew what was wrong.
She slipped on a shawl, and stepped into the second floor corridor. Doors quietly opened as team members gathered quietly in the second floor longue.
The aura still raged and wavered, an untethered kite within a category 5 storm of emotions and memories. The nebula house responded, dampening it’s owner’s aura, but it still pulsed down the corridor like the echoes of a screaming beast.
“What’s going on?” Eufemia demanded, not of annoyance but of concern.
“She’s having a nightmare,” Aliyah said.
“That’s rare.”
Aliyah shook her head, “It’s not rare, she just seldom loses control of her aura.”
“Why is she losing control now? What can we do?” Eufemia asked.
“It may because she’s away from Sanshi now,” John said. “Or that she’s past the period of keeping it bottled up inside. It’s been three months since Aliyah and Nara were abducted. She may be re-experiencing the trauma now.” He glanced at Aliyah. “Are you fine? You died.”
“I wasn’t tortured John. My death was nearly instant. Then I spent the rest of the time waiting around in her soul reading books while she was isolating herself in a gods-damn lake to escape being hassled by more Adventists!”
John raised an eyebrow at Aliyah’s raised voice.
“Abduction and imprisonment of uncertain futures is no small trauma either.”
“I’ll seek trauma healing if I need it, John,” she said, lowering her voice back down.
“You should,” John said with well-intentioned warning.
“The pressing concern right now is Nara,” Aliyah said. “Someone needs to calm her down. We can’t all go in there, all six of us.”
Lawrence had been woken too, sitting quietly on a couch but otherwise not participating in the conversation. This wasn’t his place to interfere. Once her aura was calmed, he’d head back to sleep. He was just here to wait it out.
Aliyah and Encio glanced at each other. They were the two most qualified people to help Nara right now. Aliyah had suffered together with her at the Advent prison, and Encio was her closest friend.
“Should we both go?” Encio asked.
“No…” Aliyah said, “I think you should go. I’m not as calm as I should be either. And, if she’s truly having a nightmare, seeing the one person who was with her during her time of crisis, while comforting, may place her further within her nightmares.”
“Aliyah,” Sen said, his grew eyes searching her glowing gold irises.
“I’ll leave her in your hands, Encio.”
Encio nodded, and headed down the corridor.
*****
During their conversation, albeit short, Nara had already started to wrestle her aura under control. It peeked out in short bursts, like a tea kettle varying just below boiling, sounding bursts of hot-steam whistles.
Encio walked softly down the corridor, and knocked on her door.
“Nara? Can I come in.”
He sensed her hesitation.
“…I woke you guys up, didn’t I. I’m sorry.”
He was about to ask again, when the door swung a crack inwards. He gently pushed it open into the dark room.
There was no other light but her familiar’s lunar eyes, gazing calmly at him as he proceeded forwards towards the bed. He didn’t know what the familiar thought of him, but it seemed assenting. The wolf closed its eyes, and turned it head away, resting them on its paws.
“Nara, can I come up?”
She nodded.
He sat next to her on her bed.
“What happened Nara, what got you worked up?”
“The nightmares?” she said, haltingly, as if she struggled to breathe. “Nothing really happened today, so I don’t know why…”
“You’re right, there’s doesn’t need to be a why.”
He opened his arms outwards, offering a hug. She glanced at him, nervous, but eventually she decided to accept, snuggling into his arms, with her blanket cocooning the two of them together. She heard the beats of his heart, the soft rise and fall of his breaths. She could feel her tensed up muscles relax against him. She felt safe.
“I had a nightmare,” she began.
“Really? We were quite unaware,” he quipped.
She rolled her eyes, feeling annoyedly happy with his snark.
“I was back there again…A lot of it I don’t remember clearly. Just unending sensations of pain that I know sucked in the moment. But the…t-the day Aliyah died I remember.”
“Aliyah’s alive,” Encio said soothingly. “She’s fine. Do you want to see her?”
She shook her head. She laid against his shoulder, letting herself remember how to breathe. She meditated, and smoothly brought her aura back under control again, snapping it into its neutral projection with the ease of practiced choreography.
He thought she’d fallen asleep, but she spoke again.
“Something sort of happened, but I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“What happened?” he gently encouraged.
“I went to a tavern to play music, meet people…normal people stuff.”
“We all do that,” Encio said. “Sezan plays table games in a beachside town. Essence users can’t just interact with other essence users. There’s not enough of us, even if it feels that way since that’s our life.”
“I think I got flirted with. I didn’t realize at the time, but reading auras does sort of help with that. And uh, I snapped.”
“You killed him? If he wasn’t important, it should be fine. What did you do with his body? Did anyone see you?”
“Encio, I didn’t kill anybody!”
She headbutted him, since her arms were wrapped up in the blanket.
“Ow.”
“That didn’t hurt.”
He grinned playfully. His antics had considerably lifted her mood, and she was feeling peaceful now, at ease.
She rolled her eyes, “I didn’t kill him, but I may have dunked on him with my aura.”
“Dunked on him?”
“You know, suppressed him. Put the ‘Fear of God’ in him. Just to be clear, I was at fault here. He did nothing wrong.”
“He flirted with a pretty bronze ranker. That all checks out. So, you suppressed him a bit much, its fine. No lasting damage, no issues.”
“That’s not it though,” Nara said, “and it’s not even the whole ‘I’m superhuman now’ thing.”
“What?”
“I was having a bit of an internal crisis earlier too.”
“Twice in one day? And you didn’t call me over to experience it with you?” he said, mock aggrieved.
“Technically, past midnight. So, not twice in one day.”
“Technicalities, Nara? Resorting to such trivialities.”
“Hush.”
She looked up at him, and he looked down with his emerald eyes, waiting.
“I’m worried that I’m not…reliable. Prone to making mistakes. Not in battle, but in a social situations. The next time, it may be a sleazebag, a bronze rank one I can’t just suppress into obedience, and I’ll attack him. And he’ll end up being royalty or something and it’ll be this whole mess.”
Her eyes dipped down.
“I’m worried that I’m not a reliable partner anymore.”
“You’re worried about mistakes you haven’t made yet?”
“I’ll have you know the fear of failure plagues my entire generation. We have a few words for it—Imposter Syndrome, for one.”
“Don’t say that like it something to be proud of. Your world is not unique in its fear of inadequacy.”
He flicked her forehead.
“Ow.”
“That didn’t hurt,” he teased, mirroring their earlier banter.
“Maybe you mess up later, it doesn’t matter Nara. Do you think I wanted to team up with you because you didn’t make mistakes? Who exactly lost the most table games between us?”
“Me.” She rolled her eyes. He’d really never let her live that down for the rest of her life. God, if she lost another important game against him he’d just become more insufferable about it.
“This is what teams are for,” Encio said, echoing that belief he held close at heart. “We’re all going to grow and change as people—bronze, silver, gold, and diamond. They all change you. What matters is that we’re there for the changes, to lead each other in positive directions. I am your guide, and you are mine.”
She looked up again, breath caught in her throat in an emotion that had been growing for the past few months. A full, safe, comforting warmth spread over her body, starting from the heart that wasn’t there.
Nara realized her regard for Enciodes Aciano may not be entirely platonic.