Shockingly, and in gross defiance of the theory of narrative causality, Holly and Alec managed to avoid getting into trouble before lunch. Or at least they managed not to get in trouble with anyone else at the Necropolis, the pair retreating to their room for now, and locking the door for good measure.
If the two had been observed, by a somewhat uninformed observer it had to be admitted, two teenagers locking themselves in a bedroom would have raised some alarm bells. But if there was an observer then wiser heads prevailed. Holly and Alec were far more likely to be trying to brew explosives than anything that involved taking their clothes off.
Certainly something explosive was brewing in the room as the two glared at each other, Alec sat cross-legged upon the cold floor while Holly tried to stare a hole in his skull from her position atop the bed, her thoughts and feelings kept behind a wall that Alec could not pierce. If the bond had been narrow during their combat assessment, now it was practically sheered, the thin strands that connected their combined soul so frayed that Alec’s chest hurt.
A deep, empty, gnawing ache as if he was being hollowed out as Holly mutilated their combined self to make her point, not dropping eye contact with him for even a moment, a glimmer of Von Mori’s malice and madness in her deep green gaze as she unravelled the bond as far as she dared.
Until Alec actually clutched at his chest, knuckles white as he fought not to scream and even though he knew she had to be feeling the very same pain it didn’t warm the steel in her eyes by so much as a flicker.
Finally he could take no more, “I’m sorry. Whatever it is I did I am sorry.”
As soon as he said it he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “Whatever you did?!” Holly shrieked from the bed, “You got me stabbed you woodrotted spruce!”
“I did?” Alec asked, mentally trying to run back through his duel with Anesh. He remembered feeling frustrated, of being in pain from the cuts on his arms, and, with a rather sinking feeling he remembered the surge of triumph as he’d stepped into Anesh’s rapier, his own thrust striking true. And that he hadn’t tried to shield Holly from any of it.
He knew the dryad felt pain a lot more deeply than he did… that wasn’t quite accurate, dryads felt pain exactly the same as he did, just with none of the helpful chemical cocktails such as adrenaline that helped a human force their way through.
“I’m sorry.” He replied, simply yet sincerely, “I didn’t realise… I...” Alec seeking some sort of justification that wouldn’t paint him as a thoughtless idiot, “I messed up Holly. But couldn’t you just have said that instead of, you know, torturing us both?”
“I could have. And you’d have remember it until the next time you got carried away.” Holly informed him, cold as the void between worlds as she stared him down, still not restoring the bond. “Pain is a good teacher. This way I know you won’t forget about the consequences for me the next time you decide to do something stupid.”
“That’s insane.” Alec snapped, “So every time I screw up I can expect you to torture me? Holly that’s just not something you do to someone.”
“And you think it wasn’t torture for me?” She snapped, jumping to her feet, “Pain for pain. Seems like a fair trade to me!”
“Except we’re friends. Or at least I thought we were.” Alec retorted, real heat starting to creep into his voice, “Yes I screwed up. I screwed up badly but just… just stop Hol, this is hurting us both and it’s achieving nothing!”
“And you’re the one who gets to decide that?” Holly yelled, “You want the bond restored? Fine then!”
Alec wasn’t sure how you were supposed to release tension on a soul bond that had been taken just shy of breaking point, but what he was sure of was that you weren’t supposed to let all that tension snap back like an elastic band.
Impact wasn’t quite the right word as his mind and Holly’s were flung together. There was a lot more blending and smushing involved. Never good words to hear when the brain was involved. For a few moments Alec had to actively fight to remember who was, that he was a young man raised in the village of Respite rather than a dryad who had spent her early years fighting for her life in the most boring ways possible.
He managed it but barely, focusing on his rage at Holly, his fury at her for deliberately getting stabbed, her lack of care for his safety, how badly his own combat training with the staff had gone… except that wasn’t right… was it?
“We could be in trouble here.” His words (was he even a he right now?) came out of two mouths, the inflections identical as Alec/Holly felt inside themselves for the bond that linked their souls and failed to find it. Instead there was what they could only describe as a bizarre tangle where their different magickas merged in a knot of Gordian proportions.
By definition it had to be a single channel, but where it started and ended Hollec could not say.
“We are not calling ourselves Hollec.” Ally growled out loud, then realised that wasn’t much better.
“We have to call ourselves something.” Hollec insisted, “Who knows how long we’ll be stuck like this? Naturally I blame you… I mean me… uh… yeah this is a problem.”
“Then maybe I shouldn’t have… you- we? Yeah let’s go with we. Maybe we shouldn’t have started an argument and been more thoughtful of ourselves.”
“That at least we’re in agreement on.”
“Good...” Ally’s thoughts returned to the entangled ‘glob’ where one soul ended and the other began. “We need to fix this. Of course we do but how?”
They didn’t have a good answer to that. But given the alternative they had to try. Hollec heavily doubted that it would be regarded well if after just half a day (if that) of lessons they’d managed to damage their soul to the point irrepairability.
Slowly they extended their will to the point where magicka and soul met, using their innate mana, muddled as it was, to feel along the mess, just examining it for now. Afterall it was carelessly manipulating it that had gotten them into this situation to begin with.
The initial inspection turned up little they hadn’t already gathered, the bond had tangled upon itself, drawing the two souls into such close proximity they had begun to merge.
So how to fix it? Ally’s initial thought was to simply try and untangle the bond, but that proved impossible where some of the tangled strands of the bond had also begun to merge with each other.
First and foremost they needed to see to their bodies, which, with there senses turned inwards, had been just standing in place, and, in the case of the human body, begun to drool ever so slightly.
What a strange thought that was. The human body. Hollec knew that wasn’t quite right, but it how could it be Alec’s when Alec didn’t currently exist?
They sharply cut off that thought, lest it sink in too deep, melding them forever. They weren’t sure that would happen, could happen, but at this point they were really in too deep for further risks.
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It took a surprising amount of concentration to get both bodies to sit down upon the bed. At first the answer had seemed obvious, to only direct one body at a time but all that had succeeded in doing was giving them not just one, but two, concussions as a momentary lapse made both move at once, face first into each other.
The doubled senses were also a problem, just too much input, too much noise. Still after a concerning amount of scrabbling on the floor both were sat, or more accurately slumped, on the bed with their eyes shut.
Then and only then could their attention turn back to their soul. The news was not good. Even in that, probably brief, time the damage has gotten worse as more of the strands had melded.
“There’s not enough time.” Ally lamented, “If I just had more time I could- We could- We don’t have time… If we delay much longer we will become I.”
There was a long pause. “This is going to hurt.” “Yes it will.”
Tentatively they took a strand of their magicka and smoothed it into a blade. Then there was nothing to do but cut, and keep cutting, nearly every section that still had a clear owner was cut at the join, every section that wasn’t was cut anyway, as close to the centre of the merging as possible.
Perhaps they could have slowly separated whatever parts of their identity had blurred, if they’d had more knowledge, more practice and more time but they could feel how they were starting to blur. A memory of Holly coming down the stairs for breakfast. The time a particularly wet spring had caused Alec’s roots to rot at the tips.
When at last they were done, only a single thread remained and Alec was once more Alec and Holly was once more Holly. Probably.
There were still inconsistencies, memories they’d wrongfully transplanted in, minor aspects of personality that hadn’t been there before, but all of that was fixable. Now they’d done it once Alec was pretty sure he’d be able to slowly feed the memories back across then hire a memory editor to remove it from his own head and put Holly back into her own memories in hers. And vice versa.
Admittedly he had no idea how much a memory editor cost, where to find one or how necromancers even earned money, but those were all details. The plan itself was sound.
Alec paused at that point, usually when he had a thought like that Holly didn’t hesitate to chime in with something snarky, but for the first time in months his head was silent, and oddly lonely.
Right now, he realised, all he was getting from the bond were slight stabs of emotion, the sensations as weak as they’d even been. He wasn’t even sure they could share something as complicated as pain right now, let alone thoughts. Just a single thin thread anchoring him to the dryad. Who knew what would happen if he tried to send more than that thin filament could tolerate, especially with how stressed it already was...
That was when he realized just what he was feeling from Holly. Panic. Pure, unadulterated panic as she desperately tried to pull the mana she needed just to keep existing and the bond threatened to burst under the strain.
With a nervous gulp of a surprisingly dry mouth, he opened his eyes and tried to get to his feet only to collapse forwards onto his knees. How long had he been sat there that his limbs were so stiff?!
Turning to observe his companion, he noticed Holly’s eyes were shut, the colour literally bleaching out of her wood brown skin as he watched her face scrunched up even further in concentration. As gently as he could manage he placed a hand on the dryad’s shoulder, her eyes bursting open as she startled. “Easy Holly.” He assured her, “Just relax a moment, I’ll send mana, you take.”
Slowly Holly nodded, not daring to say a word as she fought against her instincts while Alec slowly fed mana into the bond, the young woman taken it out, the more even process not putting such a strain on it as her just taking until a healthy colour returned to her cheeks.
“Let’s not do that again.” Alec suggested weakly as he sagged down to sit beside her in relief, an arm extending almost automatically across her shoulders.
“Yeah.” Holly agreed, rubbing at her eyes, “That was...”
“Unpleasant?”
“Yeah, unpleasant’s a good wood.” The young woman agreed, “I’m sorry for… leaf rot I don’t even have the words for half of what just happened. Do you?”
“Not even close.” Alec admitted, shaking his head in commiseration. “I’m sure there are mages somewhere who put words to all of that but for now let’s just go with ‘The Incident’.”
“That works. Anyway, sorry for – dramatic pause – The Incident. I didn’t think that would happen. Didn’t know it could happen even.”
Alec nodded, “We are very much fumbling in the dark when it comes to this stuff. Seruatis’ library had a fair bit on dryads but not sundered ones. Still if there’s anywhere likely to have actual information on what we are, it’s gotta be here.”
“One can only hope.” Holly said, before, to mutual surprise turning to hug the teenager around the waist, squeezing uncomfortably tightly with more-than-human strength. “I really am sorry.”
“You weren’t the only one who fucked up.” Alec said as he returned the embrace somewhat awkwardly. He was certain this was the first time Holly had ever shown him actual physical affection. Sure she’d handed him things, hit him a couple times, even a friendly punch in the shoulder once, but hugs? Not once. “I should never have gotten you that angry.”
He paused, realizing the apology was insufficient, “Or done the things that made you angry. I was just so focused on winning I lost sight of the consequences.”
“Apology accepted.” Holly told him as she released the hug.
Alec opened his mouth to do the same, only to whirl round at a rather mocking clapping from the corner of the room.
Archmage Merida’s smirk was not reduced one iota by the twin glares directed at her as she dropped her invisibility spell. If anything it grew. “I would have interrupted sooner but you both appeared to be having something of a moment.”
“What are you doing here?” Alec demanded, trying to sound defiant but the way he’d gone deathly still spoke to his fear. As if Merida were a wild animal that would attack if he made any sudden movements.
“Oh your fellow students were… I want to say concerned but honesty compels me to say curious as to why you never appeared at lunch. So naturally I assumed an emergency and broke in.” Merida shrugged, walking over to the bed to peer down at them both.
“Missing lunch counts as an emergency?” Holly queried, torn between doubtful and amused at the idea.
“Alec is a teenager. At minimum I presumed him held against his will.” Merida stated with complete seriousness. “Instead I found something far more interesting.”
“Which is?” Alec snapped, not looking to indulge the ancient elf’s theatrics.
“A future. For the two of you.” She declared, hand lashing out before Alec could even flinch. But the blow never hit, the archmage instead grabbing the teen by the chin to peer into his eyes. “Interesting.” Was all she said before releasing him. “Congratulations are in order. The two of you survived your first major argument.”
“We have argued before.” Holly told her, a hint of defiance slipping in despite the fear.
“Not with the bond between you so developed you have not. It’s one of the more common ways for sundered dryads and their hosts to die. An argument escalates, one of the two idiots gets the smart idea to torture their partner through the bond, surprise surprise it doesn’t work, things escalate further and either they actually snap it, or the tension’s released all at once and two personalities get splattered into one unholy mess.” Merida shrugged before going back to smirking.
“I take it you’ve seen this before then?” Holly observed.
“In every single sundered I ever encountered.” Merida admitted, her own eyes aglow as she assessed the state of them, “You’ve done better than most. Not just kept your general identities intact but most of your memories too. Frankly I’ve seen qualified soul-surgeons do worse jobs.”
“You could have warned us.” Alec growled, “You had to know we weren’t exactly happy with each other when classes ended.”
“And am I to also give you hugs and kiss your knees better when you scrape them too?” Merida sneered, “This isn’t some pathetic college of magic like the Bastion Arcanum. This is the Necropolis. We teach necromancy here, and necromancy is dangerous. You want safe, go study shield-magic. Here we earn our attrition rate.”
Holly and Alec just nodded, the word ‘psychopath’ passing unheard between them. “So what should we do then? Just try to get along?” Holly asked cautiously.
“Oh Hells above and below, no.” Merida laughed, “You’ll drive each other mad doing that. Besides this problem will keep rearing its ugly head every time your bond grows strong enough, feedback loops are like that. And every time you’ll blend a little more personality until you’re basically the same person. That’s if you’re lucky of course.”
“And what if we’re unlucky?” Alec taking his turn to ask a question.
“Then you’ll fail to cut enough of the bond in time and actually become one person. At which point, unable to properly coordinate both bodies at once, you will likely starve to death.” The archmage informed them, “Of course if you manage to avoid both those pitfalls, then the real fun begins...”
“Which is…?” Holly asked her softly.
“For me to know and you to find out. Besides telling you wouldn’t help you, if anything it would just cause you to panic before it happens.” That said Merida headed for the door, still smiling from ear to ear, “Oh, and if you hurry you might still manage to make dinner in the common room before Brin has his thirds.”
Alec let out a breath as there was finally a door between them and Merida, “Do you ever get the feeling that necromancers enjoy being cryptic a little bit too much?”