Bane Thirteen - Realisation

Mom had given me a list of things to buy while in Santafaria. It was a neat little list, written in mom’s perfect calligraphy--which was quite pretty, I was kind of envious of it, what with all the twirls and sharp angles she wrote. It was all perfectly legible, of course, but every letter somehow oozed a dark, foreboding menace, and that was without any magic to it.

I had to let go of Felix’s hand to open the scroll, and that left my own hand feeling kind of chilly all of a sudden.

“Okay, the first thing we need to buy is... perfume?” I stared at the first item on the list in confusion for a moment, but there was a small note just beneath it. Find a scent you and Felix both enjoy.

Oh! That had to be for like... washing our clothes or something. It would make sense to spritz on a bit of scent on things to make them smell pleasant. Maybe even cover up the smell of sweat and such after a hard workout.

“Alright,” Felix said. “I think I know where we can find that. It’ll be in the nicer districts of the city, to the north.”

I nodded. “I’ll let you lead the way,” I said.

Our wyverns had dropped us off at the crest of a hill just a half-hour’s walk from the city. Someone appropriately eagle-eyed might even have seen us if they were standing atop one of the stubby outer towers.

We walked over together, both of us shouldering the small packs mom had sent over with the wyverns, both empty save for a few money pouches to buy stuff with.

I looked in one of them, out of curiosity, but it was only a fistful of gold coins, nothing out of the ordinary.

The walk was nice. It was different, being away from home. The sun wasn’t hiding behind thick clouds carried over from the volcanic mountains to the west, and so we got to enjoy a bit more sunshine than usual.

Felix seemed to enjoy it. She bounced next to me, sometimes darting ahead with a laugh. She even splashed into a puddle and almost splattered me with mud until I shrieked and chased her with a few balls of dark magic. Felix could be so gross sometimes!

Our laughing chase ended when we got within sight of the Monster Gate defending the northernmost wall of Santafaria.

The guard there let us through without a second glance. Just two girls minding their own business. Nothing interesting to see here.

Once inside the city, I found myself crowded in a bit closer to Felix’s side. There were people all over, and a lot of both hustle and bustle going on. Felix knew this place better than I ever would. Not that I was afraid or anything, it was just a lot to take in after months spent back in the relative quiet of the castle.

We crossed by the alley where Felix and I met, and somehow our hands ended up together again. She squeezed, and I squeezed back.

When Felix glanced my way, she gave me a smile that looked a little strange on her. Melancholic.

“So!” I said. If Felix couldn’t keep the mood up, then I’d do my part. It wasn’t right, not seeing a smile on her face. “Perfumes, right? Where do you think we can get those?”

“Follow me!”

Felix took me on a whirlwind tour of the nicer shops in Santafaria. First the perfume place, where the nervous clerk was reluctant to let us smell anything until I bought a bottle of a perfume that smelled like musty books for Esme and paid them in gold. After that, they were a lot more accommodating and helpful.

Felix and I walked out of there, heads spinning with all the sweet scents we’d taken in.

The next item on the list were flowers.

A bit strange. We didn’t have many of those back at the castle, but maybe mom wanted to change that a little? Add some colour to the more drab corridors? Maybe we could make some pretty monster flowers? They could look just like real flowers, but have teeth hidden under their petals, or maybe whip vines?

“What’re you thinking about now?” Felix asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You always have this pinched look when you’re thinking hard,” she said. “So I wanna know what you’re thinking about.”

I shook my head. “Just flowers,” I said.

“I never got flowers,” Felix said. “Sure, I guess they’re pretty, but they’re just plants, right? Can’t even eat them. If people liked... wheat or something like that, I’d get it.”

“They’re romantic,” I said. “And yes, they’re pretty, and they smell nice. I think that sometimes that’s reason enough to like something.”

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Felix snorted. “I don’t like you because you’re pretty,” she said.

I felt my cheeks puffing out, even as they warmed. Felix noticed, and her eyebrows shot up.

“I’m not saying you’re not pretty, or that you don’t smell nice, just saying that that’s not why I like you, okay?” she defended herself.

I poked her in the short-ribs with a finger, which had her flinching back. She, of course, retaliated, and soon we were tickling each other silly until a noble-lady-looking woman cleared her throat and I realized we were on the side of a busy street.

“N-next item,” I said. “Uh... Mom wants us to check out this restaurant?”

“Really?” Felix perked up. She shifted her pack, and the bundle of flowers sticking out of it shifted with the motion. “What does she mean by check out?”

“Doesn’t say. I guess we can just grab lunch and keep our eyes and ears open.”

It took asking a local for directions to find the place. It was on Inn Street, close to the keep in the centre of the city and with a wall between it and the docks. Not much of a view, but at least it didn’t smell like fish.

As it turned out, we had a reservation.

I didn’t know about that until the maitre’d noticed us and asked me if I was lady Valeria. He bowed and scraped and invited us past a line of well-appointed people to the restaurant’s second floor, where we were seated at a small table in a cosy room. Half the room overlooked the main floor of the place, with a railing to keep people from falling. A bard was below, crooning a song about two lovers while plucking away at a harp.

“This is strange,” I said as I pushed my pack up against the wall.

“A bit, I guess,” Felix said. She sat across from me, then started to sway her head in time with the music coming from below. The singer did have a nice voice, and the acoustics were great.

“You like the music?” I asked.

She paused, then shrugged. “It’s the only thing I miss at your castle.”

“Our castle, it’s your home too,” I said.

She shrugged, not making a fuss about the point. “There were always a lot of musicians in the city, you know? They’d play on the corner of streets and in the taverns. There were lots of people that would sing as they worked too. The sweepers and such, even some of the priests.”

“You miss that?” I asked.

“A bit,” she said. “I like music, I guess.”

I hummed. “Have you tried learning any instruments?”

“Yeah,” she said.

I blinked, surprised. I’d asked but hadn’t expected an affirmative.

“There’s this guy in the roughs that teaches a bunch of folk how to play music, and in exchange they give him some of the coin they make. He’ll teach anyone, at least for a couple of hours. I started to learn the lute. It was fun, but hard. I think I was pretty good at it, but I was blind, and it would make it hard to tell if someone stole the coin I made. So he told me to get lost.”

“Oh,” I said.

Food arrived, without us actually ordering anything.

The waiter bowed as he placed a big silver platter before us, then he removed the bell from atop it revealing a plateful of... spaghetti? There was a thick, meaty sauce atop it, with some grated cheese, and a few steaming meatballs.

There was also, I noted, only one fork.

“Uh, could we have another fork, please,” I asked while he poured us two cups of a fruity wine. The waiter paused, then nodded. He returned a moment later with a second fork, which I took since Felix was already digging in with the first.

The meal was actually pretty good. The wine was very weak, which suited me just fine, and everything tasted pretty nice. The garlic bread, of course, was immediately devoured.

I was a growing girl, I needed those carbs.

There was an awkward moment when Felix and I both slurped the same strand of spaghetti, but Felix was the stronger sucker, and it snapped between us and flicked a line of tomato sauce across her face.

I laughed; then, when I had my fill, looked at the list again.

Perfumes, flowers, a nice restaurant... It hit me all of a sudden and I gasped.

“What is it?” Felix asked.

Oh, my, mom.

These things... they were all things you needed for a date!

Mom was sending us to check things out for a date between her and Semper!

***