FEBRUARY 21st, 2022
My sword sent sparks flying off of Luna’s dagger as they collided. I felt the grinding inside as it dragged down my blade nearing the hilt—I flexed my wrist out to repel it away.
“Come on, Dex. You should have accounted for my other hand at some point.” She hurled her left arm upward and the second dagger catching Elcor’s hilt at the perfect point where my wrist was flexed—Elcor flew out of my hands and into the dirt.
“Yeah, sorry.” I said, walking over to my sword. “I was thinking of using my dual wield, but I thought you would have seen it coming so I sort of froze up.”
Luna had led me to a sparring hall that was on the artsy-side of Novus Dandé. It had been across the street from the Artist’s Guild I had stumbled upon when I first entered the town. I was glad that I didn’t have any awkward interactions as we passed. We had found an open arena that sprawled out thirty-feet by thirty-feet, and she had promptly proceeded to show me my rear end.
She rolled her eyes and motioned for me to hurry up. “Yes, yes. Considering that was your trump card the last two practices I did expect you to try it again. You have to stop overthinking things.”
“I just don’t want to become the definition of insanity—doing the same thing again and again for the same result?”
“Well, doing nothing may be different, but it’s still nothing,” she said. “Thinking ahead and being prepared is good, don’t get me wrong. But being so far ahead doesn’t happen in real life. You’re not an anime hero with some incredible foresight, but that’s okay. You just have to see what you have and what you don’t and think according to that.” She said, and then stepped closer to me. “There’s a natural rhythm underneath all the fighting—and the best fighters are the ones who learn that rhythm. It’s kind of like dancing.”
I laughed, “You know how to dance?”
She answered with a straight face, “Of course. Shannon—my housemaid—taught me—Ah, but I’m not talking about American dancing—the kind where you just flail your arms about all haphazard-like. I’m talking about actual poised and elegant movements.”
“Well then you can count me out for knowing how to dance then. All I know is the awkward flailing—I think it’s just a requirement to get through middle school.”
Luna clicked her daggers together back into its bow-shape and hung it over her shoulder. She took another step closer to me and held up her hands.
“Oh no no no thank you,” I said. “I couldn’t—it’d be way too embarrassing.”
She didn’t budge an inch. “If you cannot find your rhythm, then being embarrassed will be the last thing on your mind—because you will no longer have one. Besides, you’re not going to keep a pretty girl waiting, are you?”
I blushed a color redder than fire. “O-Oh, so you know you’re pretty, then?” It came out stranger than he hoped, but it was all he could think to say to diffuse the color in his cheeks.
She smiled warmly. I could see the color start to fill hers as well, “Well of course. If I didn’t who would? Now stop messing around and take my hands.” I did, and immediately regretted how nervous he felt. “Glad to know I’m not the only nervous one,” she said smiling.
I looked at her confused, “You don’t seem it—you seem in control.”
“That is what makes me nervous,” she said. “Now come on, follow after me.”
She took a step to the left and I followed. She swung around in an arc and I kept in pace until we were in sync. We flowed and it felt...natural.
“I’m surprised I haven’t stepped on your feet yet,” I said. “I’m thankful.”
She grinned, “That kind of thing only really happened in the movies—or really clumsy people. You’re not too clumsy, but I can’t believe that you spoiled what grace you have on that American flailing.”
“I can’t help it,” I joked, ‘It was how I was raised. It’s all I knew.”
“You can always help yourself. If you choose to follow what you’ve been taught then that’s really on you. None of the passing-blame game.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“But I guess I can let it slide since you came all the way here to meet me so you could learn how to dance,” she smiled brightly.
I flushed beet red and she laughed, pulling me close. I was intimately aware of how hot my face was feeling. “Thank you for being nervous at first,”
“I uh...what does this part have to do about training me?” I asked, trying to deflect the heat once again.
“Don’t be dumb,” and she pulled me close for a hug. “It’s nice to have a friendly face here, that’s all.”
“No, you’re right. I’m sorry. I do appreciate you taking the time to help me out. I really do appreciate it.” I said.
We extended at arms length and I spun her and she dipped down.
~...~
I caught the Elcor by the hilt as Luna’s second dagger came up to knock it back just like before. I had let the sword go just before the dagger had connected and dove to the side and caught the blade as it was cast off. I caught the look of momentary surprise Luna gave off, but it was just that—momentary. I rolled, landing upright on my knees and swiveled to face her.
Luna bounced back and connected her daggers back into the bow, Failnot. She drew the string back and an arrow of light nocked between her fingers. She didn't taunt or compliment me on the move, but she didn’t need to—I saw it all in the grin she wore.
She shot an arrow out to me—low so I couldn’t duck under it. “Think you’re in my shoes, Dex,” she said. “Imagine you’re up here dancing with me when you don’t know which way I’ll step—but your body finds the way.”
The arrow caught in my leg and it sure stung like hell. I braced myself to rip it out—but as I moved to do so the arrow started to vanish. It must respond to my touch. I thought about the two of us gliding across the field. How her hips swayed to the left just before she was going to step right—how she’d lean deep into her pivots and slow herself down so I could keep up. I knew that I was naturally pretty clumsy. I didn’t fall because she didn’t let me fall. She was constantly compromising for me, and that was what she wanted me to see.
“If your opponents get used to you, then you can still use that info against them,” I imagined her saying, and I got it. I gritted my teeth as the arrow faded completely away, and I got an idea.
Luna nocked another arrow and let it fly—this time at chest level. Another surprised look crossed her face when I didn’t move to dodge the arrow—but instead reached out for it with my left hand. I spun as I grasped it tight and hurled it back at her. She was so stunned she didn’t even move to block the beam of light back—she didn’t need to as my aim was a bit off from the spin so it ended up crashing into the wall behind her.
“How did you catch my arrow? It’s supposed to dissipate if you grab it...”
I held up my hand, showing the place where the arrow had cut into my hand. “I didn’t,” and pointed behind her. She turned to see impaled into the wall wasn’t an arrow of light, but a sword.” As she realized what I’d done she turned around and was surprised to see I was right up in her face.
“I may have missed with the sword, but I think that this would count as an honest win,” I said, with my sword pointed at her neck.
With a shallow gulp she looked me up and down but held close to herself. “I know it was unorthodox, but I promise there was actual strategy.” I said. “Also, thank you for being first.” This took her by surprise, and I told her that I could read her expression as clear as day. That was the first time I had seen her blush.
“W-well, I think we’ve had a successful training period,” she stammered, and regained her composure. “Looking at the time now I think we should find someplace like an inn to rest for the night.”
“Rest?” I asked. “Work doesn’t feel like work here. I’m sure I could train for much longer than that.”
“Yes, you most definitely could physically, but mentally you’d collapse under all the pressure. When was the last time you gave yourself the chance to rest?”
“I...” I thought about it, and it must have been when I fell unconscious after watching Eldon die. “It’s been a while,” I said.
“Right. If you keep chugging along you’ll burn out. I want to get out of here as much and as fast as you do, but we’re human. And unfortunately that means we must find balance.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “Do you happen to know a place in town too? Or...”
“I do, thankfully. There’s an inn over by the blacksmith’s in town.” she said. “But I have to ask something...”
“Yeah?” She looked at me inquisitively.
“Can we…get separate rooms?”
The question reddened my face, “Oh, of course! I hope I didn’t imply anything...before.”
She smiled and cocked her head. “Don’t worry. You didn’t. That was the answer I was hoping to hear.”
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We started our walk back through the town, passing the odd and end player. She turned to me suddenly, “So about your friends that disappeared with Rose,” she began. “I guess if I’m going to stick around I should get to know them a little bit.”
“I don’t know much about Sam—the boy. Klein and I had only just found him before Rose had ambushed us. said he’s looking for his Dad...”
“Do you think his Dad is dead?”
“I don’t know. Anything could be possible.”
“What about Klein?”
I sat on the thought for a minute. “He’s...difficult to pin down.” I said. “I met him in here—he’s the first person I met, actually.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. All spoken, he doesn’t have a lot of desirable traits—I mean, he’s kind of homophobic—I guess there’s no real kind of about it, I guess that phrase kind of softens the blow. He’s also not all that respectful towards girls—if it has a face and a chest he’s amp to hit on it.” She let me continue, nodding me along. “...and all that’s bad, I fully get that, and I’ve said as much to him, but at the same time if it wasn’t for him I would be dead now. We were ambushed by Python players in our starting zone and if it wasn’t for his thick armor and knowledge of the battle system they would have killed me. And again at the forest when they attacked again I wouldn’t have been able to hold them off for as long as we did until you showed up—much less fend off the wolves that were there before they showed up.”
She cocked her head, “Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “You seem like you have a pretty good head on your shoulders, Dex. You don’t have to beat yourself up trying to justify your friendship. Sure, I’m not excusing that other stuff too if it is true about him—and I guess I’ll see for myself if it is—and if so I’ll have some plenty choice words—but you’re allowed to feel gratitude toward another human being. As many choices as we make we’re not our worst ones.”
“A part of me thinks that,” I said. “But I guess a part of me has always felt like our worst choices are what are remembered in the end.”
“Well, we’re not near the end yet, so all we can do is work to make better ones, right.”
I nodded, and gave her a smile. “That’s right. God, how are you so wise?”
She shrugged, “Comes and goes. Besides, it’s not really so much wisdom as it is sense. We all change at least a little as we meet new people—we don’t exist solely for ourselves. Maybe you’re the friend that helps him see the error of his ways? Maybe you’re the start of his redemption arc?”
“Okay now you’re just talking cheesy anime bullshit,” I said and laughed.
“I’m being serious, though. You never know until you try.”
She was onto something. I really didn’t consider that I could be as much of a friend to Klein—a help to him as he has been to me. And...his views did seem to be because of his experiences in not branching out...maybe I could help.
“Maybe you will,” she spoke my thoughts. “Or maybe not. Boys who think like that most often don’t change, but hey, I’m an optimist, so shoot me.”
I imitate a gun with my thumb and forefinger and hold it up playfully. “Bam.”
She laughs and shoves me. “It doesn’t hurt to see the sun once in a while instead of the clouds.”
“No, I bet it doesn’t.”
She surprised me—she grabbed my hand in hers and looked into my eyes. I saw hers glowing almost like the leaves of fall. “Now that you’re not afraid to call yourself someone’s friend I am happy to report that you not only have one friend, but two.”
~...~
I don’t know what I dreamed of—because it left me as soon as I heard the knocking on the door to my room and my eyes opened. Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything good. My body felt restless and I could feel the strain from the day even though these bodies weren’t supposed to feel that physical exertion. I sat up and walked to the door and opened it up. Luna stood there and braced her arms together.
“Can we talk?”
“Y-Yeah, are you okay?” I asked, and stepped aside. She walked in.
“I’m sorry. I must have woken you up,” she said. “But it’s important.”
“No don’t worry about it,” I said. “What is it?” I sat down on the edge of the bed and she followed.
“It’s about me moving here. There’s a lot I didn’t tell you about and...I felt bad.”
“Okay, I’m here.” I said.
She nodded. “So I told you I was born in London. But I didn’t tell you a lot of the context. I know you probably don’t know a lot of what is going on outside this country.”
“I barely know what’s going on outside this state,” I said. “I’m from Aurora, and our news only covers our region.”
“Right. Well you must know that things are bad everywhere, right?”
“No, I thought we were on the short end of the stick,” I said. Didn’t we lose the war?”
The War being World War II of course. Our history books tend to stop around there for global news. Once England turned around and fought from two angles—using our attacks on Japan to extend themselves as the world’s superpower. Things haven’t been the same since.
“Yes, but just because England won doesn’t mean that everything’s perfect over there. They have really strict laws over there for practically every facet of your life—including the number of children you can have.”
“What?”
“The Queen is really big into population control—if there becomes too many people she fears that she’ll be overtaken and chaos will fall to the land or some bullshit like that. Families are restricted to one child. Anyone caught breaking the law will be jailed and the children...”
“What? They’re killed?”
Her silence was answer enough. “Did you have a sibling who was…?”
She looked at me fondly, and then a passing sorrow covered like a blanket. “I...was the younger sibling. The illegal-born child. Y’know, I’m sure most people could get away with living with multiple children if they kept to themselves, but my family—we had a much harder time of it. I don’t know anything about my Mother—she wasn’t around, so it was just my father. He was in a place of power—he was the Secretary of State for Her Majesty—so it was very bad for me that he had such a public position.”
“It must have been very hard on you.”
She nodded. “I had to stay hidden in my house—that is why I was home schooled. The only people that knew of my existence were my Father and Sharon, my house-keeper and teacher.”
“Wait, what about your sibling?”
She cocked her head and tapped her fingers across the bed. “He was a few years older than me—his name was Matthew. No, he did not know I existed. My house had a few secret hallways hidden behind compartments that Matthew didn’t know about. My room was inside one of these secret hallways. I only knew about him because as luck would have it, my room ended up being right next to his. He just never knew that there was anything beyond his wall.”
“Wasn’t it tempting knowing he was just next door? Did you ever think of letting him know you were there?”
“All the time,” she said. She carried herself with a lot more weight as she said it. “But I was so scared that he’d do or say something to alert someone. If anybody found out...anybody, I was as good as dead. It was a risk I couldn’t take.” She took a deep breath and prepared herself for the next. “I was discovered. My room was on the far end of the house—of course there were no windows in my room—that’d be foolish, but just outside my wall was the outside. Unfortunately, since our house was so big it’s common that animals can find ways inside and not be discovered for a sizable time after. I’ve twice found mice in my own room. But how this story turns is that these mice love to gnaw in the innards of the house. One cold winter there must have been an especially large group of mice active around our home, because there was a hole eaten through one corner of my room. I was able to see into Matthew’s room.”
“Was he able to see you back?” I asked.
“If he knew the hole was there he probably could have, but I don’t believe that he did. What I didn’t know, was that it wasn’t just one hole that was made--”
“One was made to the outside?”
She nodded. “It was small, but I guess it looked larger on the outside. If I had looked around and found it earlier, I could have told Sharon and we could have gotten it patched up. But since I didn’t...I was tempted to look outside. I hadn’t ever seen it and I got greedy. Unfortunately, someone saw me looking out. They got curious and discovered my hiding spot. The police were called and...”
“Matthew was killed.”
“Whoever saw me didn’t catch more than my eyes, but that was all they needed. Matthew and I had different eye colors. Matthew shared my dad’s eyes while I looked more like my mother's ...at least according to my father. So when the police came to our house, they only found Matthew. My father had been out at work and Sharon was at the market picking up groceries. They never found the secret hallway, and so they never found me. They weren’t thorough, it felt like they were only checking off a list. They found a kid and they killed a kid. He was...younger than I am now. And I hate it, but I watched. I saw it through the hole—they had swords...or what looked like swords.” She imitated a motion of sending a blade straight through the throat all the way to the brain.
“Jesus,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“My father wasn’t happy when he found out. Of course that’s the understatement of the century. But he couldn’t just leave his post—the queen is very resourceful I hear and could easily track him down, but obviously it wasn’t safe to stay. So he put me in Sharon’s care and sent me here to escape facing a similar fate.”
“Similar fate? This probably sounds stupid, but why would it happen again?”
“My brother was known by the public—being the son of the Secretary of State it wasn’t hard to be known. I, however, remained hidden for all of my life. What would the public think if I all of a sudden I started to appear as my father’s heir.”
“None of this is your fault,” I said, surprising her. “That’s probably been something you’ve held close to your heart, right? If I hadn’t been born...”
“Y-Yes...”
I shook my head. “Not even an inkling of truth. You didn’t ask to be born where and how you did. It isn’t fair that you had to hide as you did. The one responsible for your brother’s death and your separation from your father is the obvious answer.”
“The queen.”
“Anything else is only added stress that you don’t need.”
“Deep down I know that is true, but some nights I can’t help but think that I’m partly responsible.”
“I know how that feels.” I said. “When I was younger I witnessed my father kill himself...it was extremely scary. He had just come home one day blabbering nonsense—I was either four or five at the time. It was the middle of the night—I had woken up because I heard my mom screaming. I remembered the word gun and not understanding what it meant. Then I climbed down the stairs and the both of them were standing there in the living room and—” I held my fingers up to my temple in the shape of a gun and fired. She held her hand to her mouth and gasped. “Sometimes I wonder if there was anything I could have done to affect the situation. I was barely aware of anything until it happened, but maybe if I got his attention he could have seen something to live for and—”
She put a hand up to my face. “I know it’s contrary...but can I stay here with you? I think we both could use it.” I nodded slowly, and smiled small at her. “Thank you for listening to me,” she said.
“And you, me. You’re the first person I’ve told that story too.”
We both lay next to one another and she reached down and grasped my hand. I held it tight and my breathing fell in sync with hers.
“What’s your name?” She asked.
I looked at her and smiled. “Andrew.”
“Do you prefer Andy or Drew?”
“Andy,” I said. “But whatever is easiest for you, I guess. What’s your name?”
“Aria Avery, at your pleasure,” she said.
“That’s a beautiful name,” I said.
She blushed, and looked at my eyes before closing her own. She mouthed my name silently before her chest began to rise and fall slower and slower. Before I fell under there was a pulsing sort of sensation from my temples. It felt like it my brain had a thin but tactile cord wrapped around and some deviant was on the other end yanking it harder and harder. Once and just once it felt like my brain was going to slip out through my nose but then all at once it stopped and relief replaced the concern and discomfort.
I fell asleep.