By the time everyone had gotten to their baths, Elia was still watching Rye take tentative steps with her new boon. It projected a near see-through silhouette of herself which Rye could make more or less detailed, like scaling up the quality on a video. Creating the projection took a decent chunk out of her reservoir, but the upkeep was surprisingly cheap as long as she didn’t do anything her body couldn’t do by itself. Flying was quite expensive and when she tried to project herself as far away as possible, her vision blurred and she was suddenly looking at herself from around ten meters away.
“So, your limit’s around thirty feet?” Elia asked, taking a sip from the bowl of respite. “Takes a lot to just plop you into existence over there.”
“But it’s SO COOL! I can fly, I can walk through walls, and the best thing: Everyone can see me. Everyone can hear me.” She cupped a pair of ethereal hands to her mouth as her voice echoed throughout the temple. “Echo-o-o!”
She caught a smile on Elia’s lips, the faintest tug against her lips. She ran towards her, giggling with glee before phasing right through her.
Magic. This is magic! It’s real, like the fairytales, it’s flashy. It’s me, me, mine!
“Alright. Enough horsing around. Actually, do you say grugging around? Grugging it? So hungry I could eat a grug?”
Rye laughed. How did Elia even get these silly thoughts? And wait, why was her hair so… weird?
“Oh my gods, Elia, our hair!”
Elia grabbed half a bang on her left side. The right was shoulder length but if you followed it along the outside parts of hair were cut short. It looked uneven, terrible, hideous. That damn stygian pike. Rye swooped around her physical body, fretting and bemoaning every lost strand, when the attendant walked on by.
“Um, hello. Mister attendant?” The attendant turned to her, all golden locks and smiles. “Do you know anything about… cutting hair?”
He made a thinking face for a moment, then lit up like he had an idea. He disappeared and shortly after returned with a pair of scissors. He circled around her, taking in the damage, before asking with his hands how short she’d like it. Considering how Elia didn’t seem to care, he redirected the question to Rye.
… as if this wasn’t her body in the first place. But, well, no insult taken. At least he didn’t comment on her magic. In hindsight, it made her look like she was the one possessing Elia’s body. Ridiculous. Rye had definitely had this body longer than her, and had seen herself grow with it. Though on the other hand, if Elia spent around two decades in the maze, then they’d be close to even.
Elia must have been exaggerating her stay. Nobody would stay sane walking around a deadly maze for even one decade, let alone two. What even was the purpose of it, what…
No, focus. It was time for a haircut. It was a shame to lose her long, flowy hair, but alas, beauty is suffering.
“Alright, Elia, sit still. No, no talking, just sit. I’ll give you some pedecud if you don’t say a word for the next ten minutes.” She hummed and hawed, twirling around Elia some more. It was like playing dress-up with herself. This could be fun. “Well, we will have to make it at most shoulder-length.”
“I think you could take off a bit more. Would be safer.”
“Nono, why would I do tha– Cess!” She stared over her – Elia’s – shoulder to meet the pink-skinned man’s eyes. What did he know about girly haircuts? They had to be cute, fashionable, eye-catching, stylish, elegant, practical but not dull… in total, they had to be a lot, they had to be just right. Rye had enough of looking like a corpse when thanks to her ring she could halfway look like a person again. “What do you know about cutting hair?”
“I worked in a brothel once,” he said as if he didn’t expect that to raise any eyebrows. “The girls and guys were always changing their looks on a dime. A curl here, a streak there, a bead, a tattoo, piercing–“
“You worked in a brothel?” Rye asked so Elia didn’t have to. Her impression of him seemed to be taking a nosedive.
“It’s a job. Never stayed in one place long anyways.” He shrugged. “Anyhoo, I can’t stand seeing people with so much wasted potential, so here’s my pitch: Make it wavy, cut it beneath chin height, then use a dab of snail-spray to give it volume and shine.”
The attendant made a flash of hand signs in protest. They turned into a veritable blur when Cesare signed back and took out his own pair of scissors. They were a fine polished steel with elegant, faded engravings. They looked just as practiced in his hands.
“May I?” He asked
“As long as you don’t give me a haircut that says ‘Roxanne’,” Elia dryly commented.
Rye looked between the two boys and Elia, stoic as she had never been.
“Only if you let me drill you with some questions.”
“Sure.”
“And you both have to do it. Both you and the attendant. Together.”
Cesare gave the attendant a look. The golden-curled boy huffed and positioned himself on the opposite side. They guided Elia to one of the smaller pools and after washing her hair started bickering over which cut to give her. Rye nearly squee’d, giddy as they made it a contest out of it and over her. This was drama, a thousand times better than any old haircut, and she had front row seats.
“So…” Rye started, dialing herself back a bit. She couldn’t start with the juiciest questions right away. A small entrée of facts and tidbits it was. “Why are you pink?”
“Oh my god Rye,” Elia groaned. “You can’t just say that.”
“Hm? OH! Sorry, I meant no offense.”
“None taken. It’s rare enough to see people like me once in your life.” Cesare smiled. “I wasn’t born pink. I, well, people like me aren’t born, we are made.”
Rye gasped. “You’re a crafted race? Like the stone-men and the Vili?”
He nodded as he watched the attendant cut her hair into more even parts. “I hatched from an egg, big like a cart, nearly the size of a twelve-year-old and just as able. We were one of the gods’ later creations. Our name is… hard to pronounce. It roughly translates to ‘joyful little ones’. And like all crafted races, we were made for a purpose. We were meant to be pleasurable. Easy, and not just on the eyes.”
“As in…?”
“Yes, well, childhood was short. They put us all in a home, me and a dozen others from the same batch, brought up by a mortal matron. Imagine my astonishment when I realized the love I felt for her was nothing like the love my brothers and sisters did. They saw her as an object of desire, an object of jealousy, and sometimes just an object. I assume she was some sort of test, a toy the gods gave us to train for the real deal.”
He sounded so far away standing right next to her. The attendant motioned towards him and he joined in the cutting.
“I left the nest before my urges overcame me. I was always the odd one out, preferring not to drown myself in reckless debauchery. I didn’t want to be an animal, chained to my instinctual desires, but alas, all but fish need breathe air. A brothel was the only place where I could live with myself. And I did. Madame Yvonne’s Cathouse was my first. It became home.”
Rye whipped away a spectral tear. “You poor boy.”
“Oh don’t misunderstand, life was good. It’s hard to be bad at something the gods went out of their way to create you for, especially when you just, you know, plonk yourself down amidst common practitioners. Though, I didn’t want to work there forever, so I started learning some skills. You’d be surprised what kinds of people come and go in these dens of iniquity.”
Elia snorted. “More like come and come, am I right? H–ow! Watch the ear.”
“’Pologies. Your hair is terribly tenacious, barely cuttable.” He combed more gently through her hair for stray locks. “But yes, I found a love for the arts and muses that I didn’t share for baser desires. When I got sick of Madame Yvonne’s, I moved on, and on, and on. The mark of undeath was a blessing for me, it gave me a good excuse not to look for the fine and less fine company of anyone who’d have me. It downright cured me of the base need, the bodily one you understand, though being an outcast rumored to eat souls was the price I paid for it.”
Rye sat in silence, locks tumbling down her shoulder. “Was that before all… this? Before coming back?”
“Oh yes. I was stabbed in an alley much like the one we first met in by some split-nosed washerwoman. She saw the instruments on my back, my chaste clothes, my reputation, and probably thought ‘yes, there’s a man who’s whoring in my shit-stained alleyway, taking away my customers’. Addicted to red sugar, that’s what she was. But still, steel is steel. Not a knife way to end, is it?” He chuckled. No one laughed, and his hands never ceased as he cut, cut, and cut. “Well, that’s my sob-story. The attendant could probably tell you his if his hands weren’t busy. We’re almost done anyways. I bet my side looks better.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The attendant made a sulky face.
Wait, I just realized something. We’ve got a princess that’s trying to be an adventurer, a priest who can’t preach, a monk who doesn’t know restraint, and an escort who doesn’t do any escorting.
“And then there’s us, a knight, a mage, two normal girls and none of all that.”
After a while, the attendant gestured for Elia to look at her reflection in the bowl. Rye already knew how she looked of course, but that didn’t diminish her joy when she saw her other half freeze for a split second.
“Damn, I look… cute?”
“Cute! Cute, she says. You look gorgeous, Elia. We both do!”
“Sure.” She shot her hair stylists a smile. “Thanks. Don’t have to worry about it getting it caught in combat anymore.”
“Pah. Classic Elia. Always a one-track mind.”
Rye dispelled her projection, then recast it again. It reflected her newly cut hair and she made sure to focus on detail around her face, striking a pose here and there in front of Elia. Everyone was looking at her.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Elia said. “Have fun with your boon while it lasts. Once we’re on the road again, we won’t be in reach of a bowl for recharge. You’ll need to savor every moment.”
“Are you leaving anytime soon?” Cesare asked.
Rye opened her mouth but Elia shook her head. “Nothing concrete yet. Maybe in a week or two. I’ll let you know. Can’t go on an adventure without a good barber.”
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It was an early morning when they left. Herbert the slugapede was still wrapped protectively around the sleeping form of Mahdi. Elia took a good long look at the spear she spent her last few souls on.
Yorivale bident
A two-pronged spear beloved by fishers and watchmen alike. Kao-Joo was greatly venerated among sea dwelling folk. Depicted on the spear is the story of how he tamed the twin serpents and took the title of god of the seas.
“Are we really going to leave them?” Karla asked from behind.
“We can move faster as two.” Elia watched her look at her, then to her left where Rye had partially projected herself out. “Or as three. I’m surprised you’d want them along at all.”
“They didn’t all want me dead. Two out of three is pretty good. And besides…” she mumbled something intelligible.
“Besides what?”
“… I want to see what it’s like, having friends.”
“Oh gee, that’s really… sad.” Karla hung her head as Rye’s voice reached her ear. It tinkled like chimes of ice. “… sorry. I forgot you can hear me.”
This new boon was turning out to be incredibly practical. She couldn’t see far, the way she described it sounded like her spirit-form was short sighted beyond the extreme. Her other senses were muted too and she couldn’t touch anything at all, let alone smell or taste. But she could talk, phase through walls, and give just about anyone a good scare.
Of course, the best thing about it was that people could see Rye, see what they meant when they claimed to be two people in one body.
“Alright, enough moping about. C’mon, you said your uncle can fix me. I can’t find him without you.”
Karla sighed. “I guess I’ve had enough fun. Maybe if we make the visit quick my aunt won’t snatch me up that instant.”
“Oh don’t worry. We escaped from Rhuna together, your aunt won’t be that much more difficult.”
Elia fingered a feather, her last one. “So, let’s put this in a bowl and we’ll be there in a second. You know a bowl close by, don’t you?”
“No! No.” Karla looked at her in horror. “They really will kill me if I showed someone outside the pact an easy way in. If we went there, you'd know the bowl that leads straight into the heart of our domains. Imagine if the Rhuna caught you, she could force you to send her people through, and then they would know it too. That’s how you get an army inside a palace within minutes.”
Elia grunted. Things weren’t ever easy. Then again, with all her gear, souls, and boons, it felt like fewer and fewer things out there could pose a credible threat .
“Alright, we go on foot.”
“... sorry.”
“Not your fault, Karla. Now come on, we’ve got some people to lose.”
Together, they stepped out into the wilderness of the city. Knotty vines and moss growing between rocks greeted them as they made their way through, dodging the odd creature or weirdly fractal plant. Rye was having a great time floating and bobbing around like the disembodied spirit she was and after a while, Karla too seemed happier as she watched the girl phase in and out of shops. Every now and again, Elia threw a look backwards before moving on.
After an hour or two, they stopped to rest at a bowl Rye had happened upon while zooming through an expensive looking villa.
*Gong*
“We’re being followed,” Elia said. Nobody else had noticed, judging by the looks she was getting. “I’m serious. No idea who or what it is this time, but we’re not letting it chase us halfway through the city again.”
“We’re setting up an ambush?” Karla asked.
Elia nodded, Rye made a nervous sound before steeling her resolve and they all got into position. When the steps of people were fast approaching, Elia sent her to poke an eyeball through the nearest wall. A tense moment passed before Rye returned, giving the two battle-ready girls a thumbs up.
“Of course it’s you.”
“Who else but me?” Cesare asked. He was flanked by Mouggen in armor and Nali, who looked even more tranquil after what must have been her seventh massage.
Elia gave Mouggen a look.
“We still need to fight our duel,” he said. “Preferably on an official dueling ground, in a temple of Aurana or Worga. May the sun ever shine.”
“And you?” She asked the monk. “What about you?”
“Amitabha friend. They follow me where I go, and I go where I will. A terrible fate, is it not?”
Elia smirked. “And why exactly are you leading them towards me?”
“Oh, not towards you. We merely travel the same path. It is coincidental.” That was a load of bull Elia could smell. But she let her gaze linger, until the monk continued on. “In truth, I wish to learn about this place, this world. It all seems rather odd and circular to my senses. And, well, you do seem like the fellow who’d be interested in truth, are you not?”
“Maybe. Maybe I just want a way out.”
“Ah, then we are of a mind.”
“Dang curse of altruism.” Elia sighed. “Alright. Come along. We’re not here for sightseeing though. We need to get somewhere and get there quick. Our motto is ‘keep up or stay down’.”
“I thought it was ‘listen to me or die’,” Karla said.
“I thought it was ‘because I’m awesome.’"
Elia groaned. “It sounded a lot better with no one else around.”
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Traveling with a group of five had its ups and downs. On the one hand, they were loud and noisy, especially Cesare who just couldn’t stop talking, singing, or whistling jaunty tunes. This attracted the attention of quite a few dregs and beasts, though in those moments the benefit of being a group of five became more evident than ever. Even with only three combatants, they dispatched anything from groups of spearmen to archers and an errant knight with ease.
However, they were taking longer, everyone feeling like a rock tethering Elia to the ground as she had to wait on them at every bend.
“It isn’t smart being so far ahead of the group.” Mouggen had commented.
But Elia was scouting. It was what scouts did and as far as she could tell, she could fill that role the best. Karla was nose-deep in the map, Cesare was torturing sounds out of one of his many small instruments, and Nali, well, Nali treated this entire ordeal like a school trip. It was hard to imagine how she had stayed alive for a week before the other two had found her. There was something about her that attracted trouble, in the same way that she was ignored by every dreg they encountered. They had a lot more fun going after Cess, who in turn had less fun climbing out of their range.
“C’mon, be a man and poke them with a pointy stick,” Elia yelled.
“Never!” he yelled back from the roof of a shed. “I was made to love, to play flutes and lutes, not kill dead things.”
“Is it really dead if it still moves?” Karla asked.
Nali leaned in towards her and whispered some wise philosophical truths or something. She was filling everyone’s heads with the most outlandish ideas of do no harm, think the right thoughts, and eat tofu, or whatever it was that monks ate. Sometimes, it felt like the monk could do nothing but talk, and yet when questioned she turned behind a veil of mystique. Every time Elia tried to ask where or when she came from, she only got vague answers.
One thing was for certain though, Nali was definitely not from the 21st century.
They moved on for a few days, resting in dilapidated ruins or at the rare bowl of respite when they happened upon them.
By the fifth day, the landscape had changed. Gone were the houses with rounded cream-topped roofs, Gone were the lone towers without doors and stands of fruit that was not fruit. Before them the city looked gothic, wet, and cold. It was the exact kind of cityscape that a planner would have made if they saw a picture of 18th century London and La Sagrada Familia and decided to mix, match, and dial it up a few notches.
They walked through a pointed arch where a metal gate had been torn aside and discarded some distance further down, then further over a small bridge spanning the nearby canal. Its railing had little pointy spires. At some point Elia mused that she could probably use parts of the fences as a crude spear.
“This place… stinks. Like fish.” Nali scrunched her nose. “Buddha, give me strength.”
It’s not that bad. Does she not like fish?
“It smells like blood to me.” Elia said. “Probably all that rusting iron and stuff.”
“Oh no, that’s definitely blood. It’s the smell, like a tang of pure copper.” Everyone looked at Karla. “What? Have you never smelled copper before?”
Evidently not, considering how rare and valuable it was for magic.
“Princesses.” Mouggen shook his head as they continued towards the smell.
They happened upon its source around a couple bends. Bodies lay strewn about in a courtyard where more of them were piled into a pyre. The pyre was unlit, and its protectors were being snacked on by a trio of shaggy beasts. They stalked on four legs, growled, and chittered amidst chewing and slurping noises. Nali and Cesare took a step back while the rest readied their weapons.
“Are those… werewolves?”
One of the creatures raised its head, peering at the group. It had no head, but a long shaggy neck filled with concentric rings of dagger-like teeth.
“Of course not.” Elia readied her spear and staff. “Any clue what those are?”
Karla shook her head. She glanced at Kess and Nali, or rather where they were seconds ago.
“Belching beasts.” The armored Mouggen to her left said. “Nothing much to say. Their bite is poisonous. Oh, and do stay clear of the acid.”
“The what?” Elia asked as one of the creatures burped and shot a projectile her way.