A month after Damien’s excursion into the sewers, his training had amped up tenfold. Now that his baseline had been more properly established, with the Acrobatics, Thrown Weapons and Stealth Skills provided by the Grandmaster Tome once he’d upgraded his two primary fighting Skills to Uncommon rank, though he’d gained the former mid-combat, Corbyn started to expand his apprentice’s horizons. They worked with blunted swords instead of wooden ones, and he let him make most of the attacks now.
Those spars were still intense, and often mixed in the other Skills that he was learning that felt odd, but also strangely natural. It was starting to come together for him, but it was only the barest beginning hints of understanding that he was still coming to terms with on his own.
As to the training with his other Skills… well, Corbyn had forced him to get through a crowd of people without being noticed via Stealth, which ended with him causing a bit of a scene, and then had him jump off a two-story building into a proper roll as one of the tasks to train his Acrobatics. That had ended in him barely avoiding breaking his bones. Thrown Weapons was easy, at first, requiring him to only hit the center of a target consistently. Then the targets had started moving and it got so, so much harder.
After a month of this, having regular hang outs with Felicia, and even finding some time to hang out with Leon, Corbyn finally brought up the prospect of choosing Professions, and what exactly that would mean for him as a Shade Hunter.
“Traditionally, we choose a Profession that supports our Class in some way, shape or form,” Corbyn said, the two sitting across from each other on a sparring mat. They had just wrapped up an Unarmed Combat session, and Damien had the quickly fading bruises to prove it. “There’s technically no inferior Professions, just those that will help you far more than others. Some of the more traditional Professions for Shade Hunters are Alchemist, Ritualist, and Explorer, since they all help out directly with some aspect of what we do.”
Damien nodded. He could already think of several uses for those, especially Alchemist. But, even though he could see the uses for them logically, none of them actually seemed to click with him in truth. “Uh… so, do I have to choose one now?”
“No - by the Spirits, no,” Corbyn said quickly. “If you want to take up a Profession, it will be your choice. I won’t force you into a box here. Hell, the only reason I chose the Profession I did is because it resonated with me.”
“Oh. Uh… what did you choose, then?”
“Alchemist,” he replied. “Mainly because I loved seeing the reactions that could take place. It was fascinating to me. And I knew, when I first saw that, that I didn’t want to be anything else.”
“Right. So, uh… how should I do this, then?”
“Simple. Take it at your own pace. Even if nothing speaks to you, we’ve still got some time. Not an infinite amount, but enough for you to make your choice without too much discomfort.”
Damien nodded. “I… guess I’ll get some second opinions.”
----------------------------------------
“And… it’s been how long since you had that conversation?” Leon asked, using some rod in place of a blowtorch as he welded together two sheets of metal.
“About five days,” Damien replied, sitting to the side of his workshop, trying not to look directly at the condensed energy. If it was anything like looking at welding torches back on earth, it wouldn’t do his eyesight any favors, especially since it was magically enhanced now. “But I haven’t come to any real conclusions other than the stuff we talked about. And, as it turns out, some Professions are straight up incompatible with my Class. Specialized Crafter Professions require their basic Classes to actually be selectable, and something like Historian might be useful for memory retention, but only for certain subjects, and I don’t get nearly as much out of those if I don’t have Scholar as a Class. Arcane Adept was something I considered for a while, but all that does is give me an overview of magic without the finer details. I’d effectively be a less useful version of anyone with a particular magic Profession with only the basics of each discipline memorized.”
“Huh. I mean, I can understand why you’re worried,” Leon said, briefly touching up a tack weld before he continued on. “The reason I chose Mechanic is because I was already comfortable around magi-tech machines, and because I had enough people around to teach me stuff and get me on the right track.”
Damien nodded. That was the other caveat with Professions. They required a mentor of some kind. He wasn’t quite sure how that worked, but he did know that it worked much more like a traditional teacher-student thing than a Mentorship Contract that was required for Classes. So, even if he found a Profession that he enjoyed and would want to pursue, there would also be the problem of actually finding someone who would teach him its ins and outs.
“What’s your mentor’s Profession, anyway?” Leon asked, putting up his welding mask and looking back at Damien for the first time in ten minutes.
“Uh… Alchemist,” Damien said.
“Seriously? Damn. I haven’t heard much about that one, but what I have heard is freaking legendary,” Leon said conspiratorially, his face looking excited as he explained. “Apparently, some of the stuff they brew is so dangerous that they get a massive boost to Vitality in order to survive it! That’s mostly hearsay, since they’re kinda rare outside of Apothecaries and Doctors, but it makes a lot of sense, when you think about it.”
“I guess,” Damien said, scratching at his chin. Still, this fact didn’t really stir any real feelings of curiosity in him. He had never been one for chemistry either. Sure, he was decent at it in high school, but he wasn’t really chemist material. And just because he was decent didn’t mean he liked it. He just sorta did it to get through the year.
“… well, if you’re still not sure about it, then at least you’ll have some time before a real decision needs to get made. I mean, I’d offer to let you apprentice here, but you don’t seem to have any natural inkling or interest in mechanical stuff.”
Damien shrugged. It was true. He’d never had much interest in stuff like it back on Earth, and that fact wasn’t changing any time soon. Still, the differences in tools were interesting, specifically the runes that had been carved into Leon’s welding rod. He actually thought he might be able to read them, thanks to his Universal Polyglot Trait, but deciphering them would take too much time. He was meeting with Felicia later that day to see a show she highly recommended, and Leon was booked for the foreseeable future.
“Maybe Medic?” Damien contemplated. “It doesn’t mesh very well with my Affinity or my Class, but it’d probably let us survive for longer.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want,” Leon replied. “There are no bad choices when it comes to Professions. Only different ones.”
Damien sighed. Again, it was another one he was really only contemplating out of potential necessity. Ash emerged from his shadow with an impatient look on his face. Damien raised his eyebrow at the Shadow Wolf. “What is it?”
“I still think you should choose Warlord,” the bloodthirsty animal said without shame or hesitation.
“No,” Damien replied immediately.
“But it’s so damn useful!” Ash argued back. “We’d be able to take strongholds and establish a full-on power base of our own! No one who deserves judgment will ever escape our reach!”
“Again, no,” Damien said. The Shadow Wolf had been like this ever since the idea of Professions had come up a few days ago. Warlord was a Profession that could be accessed by any combat Class, but had some extreme requirements in order to even begin qualifying for it. Not to mention the fact that, according to the historical accounts that Damien had been reading, the people who chose that Profession had a coin flip’s chance of creating true democracies or fascist dictatorships. And, unfortunately, it was slightly skewed towards the latter, especially in recent years. The stigma he might receive for choosing that Profession was already bad enough. Plus, while he was all for hunting monsters and criminals, he really didn’t want to go waging wars on a concept as nebulous as ‘evil,’ no matter how much Ash wanted to do exactly that.
His familiar sighed, trotting around his legs for a bit before sitting back down again. “Fine. But make sure that it does something to help you in combat, alright? I know I make a damn good bodyguard, but we both know I can’t do everything.”
Damien nodded as the Shadow Wolf faded into his shadow. That was something that Damien had wanted to aim for too, but he also didn’t want to be a one-trick pony. It would be hard to find a Profession that could be used both in and out of combat without sacrificing any specialization bonuses he might gain for choosing one path over the other, but he was determined to find it.
Eventually, anyway.
“Well, since the topic of unusual things just came up,” Leon said, trying to sound casual, and failing. “Did you, uh… tell him about the chains?”
“I… I tried,” Damien admitted. He really had. But he’d gotten cold feet, especially because of the Spell and Ability he’d received alongside his Unique Spell. But it wasn’t exactly easy to bring up. And… and he was scared of Corbyn’s potential reaction. He shouldn’t be - he knew that, logically speaking. But logic hadn’t been what made him freeze up every time he’d tried to talk to him about it. It was fear. Of rejection, and of anger. Pure and simple.
“… it’s alright,” Leon said, giving the Traveler a reassuring pat on the shoulder before he walked back to his workbench. “This probably isn’t easy to talk about. Hell, I think the only reason you’re talking about it with me is because I actually saw it in action, and it happened to save my life. Just remember that the Spell itself isn’t evil. Sinister looking, certainly, but not evil. It’s just a tool. And like any tool, it can be used for a variety of purposes and ends. Whether those ends are good or ill are all up to the person using it.”
Damien nodded as his friend started the finishing touches. He knew everything that Leon had just told him; they’d been parroted at him by an endless amount of movies and shows and books and countless other mediums of entertainment trying to impart some message within themselves. But hearing someone he knew tell him that, actually tell him that, and mean it… it affected him a lot more than he thought it would. And in the best way possible.
“Hey, did you want to go monster hunting next week?” Leon asked, seemingly done with the project in front of him. “I’m looking to get my Level up to six within the next few months, and my Staffsmanship Skill up to Advanced.”
“We going back into the sewers?” Damien asked, already shuddering at the proposition. He’d go down there if Leon asked, but only if he asked. He didn’t want to go back there for a long, long time. In fact, if he never went down there again, it still might be too soon.
“Ha! No, no, Spirits no,” Leon said with a laugh. “I don’t want a repeat of what happened down there anytime soon. We’ll just go around some of the nearby forest and clear up some trash monsters. Maybe hunt a Direwolf or two. Whaddaya say?”
“Y’know what? That actually sounds like fun.” And it did. Damien just hoped that he’d be able to find a Profession of his own by then.
----------------------------------------
Later that day, he and Felicia met up by Regina’s, as they tended to, talking about recent books they’d read as they took a long walk through the city. He had recently begun to read through a historical account in his spare time, one of Felicia’s favorites. It was an epic adventure and romance story between a Traveler and a Princess of kingdom whose true name had long since been lost to time. He related to the protagonist a lot, especially the turmoil and confusion that came with coming to a new world where everything was different yet familiar in so many ways. It spanned a number of volumes, and though Damien wasn’t often one for stories where romance was a focus, he had to admit that this one had him hooked.
Still, they hadn’t come here purely to discuss books. They’d also come here to discuss Damien’s primary conundrum: his Profession.
“I’m really not sure how to help you there,” Felicia admitted, an apology clear on her face. “It’s really just a matter of finding something you like. I’m not sure how much clearer people can be on that point.”
“You keep saying that, but-”
“No buts, Damien,” Felicia said, taking his hand in hers as she grabbed his attention. The grip was soft, but firm, matching the velvety texture of her dark skin perfectly. “There are no right or wrong answers here, only different ones.”
The Traveler sighed as he slipped his hand out of hers, walking only a shoulder’s width apart from his friend. She was right. So were Leon and Corbyn. He didn’t know why he was trying to rush it, really. But he just… it felt wrong, seeing the slot that should’ve held his Profession so barren and empty. Almost on instinct, Damien pulled up his Status, which was entirely unchanged from his foray into the sewers over a month past.
[Status]
Name: Damien Sinclair
Race: Traveler of Umbra (Male)
Age: 18
Class: Shade Hunter
Level: 4
XP: 750/4,000
Profession: Not Selected
Affinity: Umbra
Stats:
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 45
Intelligence: 45
Constitution: 25
Endurance: 25
Wisdom: 25
Vitality: 24
Vigor: 24
Willpower: 24
Reaction: 60
Stat Points: 0
[Spells]
| Shadowbolt (Common) | Invocation (Epic) | Shadow of the Night Wolf (Ancient) | Chains of Tartarus (Unique)
[Abilities]
| Shade Sense (Uncommon) | Shade Strike (Uncommon) | Bloodcasting (Epic)
[Skills]
| Identify (Common) | Adept Swordsmanship (Uncommon) | Adept Unarmed Combat (Uncommon) | Mediation (Uncommon) | Acrobatics (Uncommon) | Thrown Weapons (Uncommon) | Stealth (Uncommon) | Mana Control (Rare)
Damien hoped that his Stats weren’t overly skewed. It was true that his highest Stats by far were Reaction, Dexterity and Intelligence, and not by an inconsiderable margin, either. The former would probably always remain his mainstay Stat, but he felt blessed to have an evolved race so soon into his journey. It meant he had more room to maneuver when it came to Stat Point Distribution.
He’d still feel a lot more secure if he had his Profession box filled in, though.
“Hey!” Felicia said, snapping him back to the present moment with the sharp tone of her beautiful voice. “I know that looking at your Status is satisfying, but I need you to be present, alright?”
“Sorry,” Damien said, embarrassed to get caught up in the moment like he had. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, beyond the dissatisfaction with his unselected Profession and the looming conversation with Corbyn about his Unique Spell. It might have something to do with the fact that they were going to see a show. Alone. Just the two of them. Just Damien and a very, very, very pretty young woman.
It wasn’t a date. It wasn’t something even remotely close to a date. He thought he’d managed to get that fact through his thick skull, but it seemed that other parts of his brain were jumping to conclusions faster than he could slap himself. Eventually, Damien managed to get a hold of himself, distracting himself by checking over his outfit.
It wasn’t the dark clothes that he’d gotten used to. In fact, other than when he trained with Corbyn, where his trainee clothing saw much more use, Damien tended to wear more local fashions, with a plain, beige tunic and brown pants belted with dark leather, matching his ever trusty combat boots. He didn’t have a great fashion sense, but he was at least blending in like someone who knew how to coordinate an outfit. Barely.
Felicia, by contrast, was much more put together, with her white hair in a set of crochet braids that reached down her back, wearing what looked like a dark blue turtleneck shirt that highlighted her figure well, with a forest green skirt to match up with her eyeshadow, which held a similar coloration. She also wore a pair of black-heeled shoes and an onyx bracelet of squared stones on one wrist, the only real accessories she had brought. All in all, she looked casual, but stunning all the same.
Damien looked away from her before his mind could betray him, and gazed at the theater they’d be attending that day. Damien had already forgotten its name, but it was typical of the style that summarized the upper middle-class districts he had already been in: casual, but in a way that screamed riches well spent. The building was tall, at least two stories to seat as many people as it could, with teller booths that checked and sold tickets even as the line moved further into the place. It reminded Damien of the old-school movie theaters back on Earth, except Xaunis had yet to develop recording and entertainment technology beyond certain amenities.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Felicia checked them both in, the teller giving them an obvious look that Felicia either didn’t notice or didn’t respond to. She handed him his ticket, at which point the Traveler looked at the title of the show they would be seeing for the third time that day.
The Comedy of Regis and Callus.
It was about a pair of men who, through circumstance or odd coincidence, kept running into one another, and eventually fell in love, managing to be there for each other through the worst of times. Damien wondered if this was Xaunis’ closest equivalent to a romcom, like a variation of Shakespear’s many comedies. He had never personally enjoyed that genre of movie all that much, but his mother had. It had been a way for them to bond, even as Damien had been forced to keep his mouth shut at so many hoops the plots often had to jump through just for the story to stay even remotely coherent. Again, romances weren’t exactly his thing.
They sat down in a row with a fairly decent view of the stage on the second floor. Not many others were up here, and Damien knew why. At least, he thought he did. Though she hadn’t spoken much to her own financial situation, he could tell that Felicia was rich. Filthy, filthy rich, even if she was far too humble to show it most of the time. The fact that they’d gotten tickets to what could be considered some of the best seats in the house was tribute enough to the idea. But today wasn’t for speculation. Today was for him to finally relax for once with his best friend on Xaunis.
As the two sat down, Felicia looked around the space as the mana-lights dimmed down, the performance clearly about to start. As she did so, something that she saw briefly caused her to swear under her breath and turn away in a hurry.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, briefly glancing in the direction that she’d just been looking.
“Yeah,” she answered, a sour look on her face. “My ex is here.”
Her tone suggested nothing good. Damien didn’t look behind him as he asked his next question, not wanting to draw attention to himself. “I’m guessing that things… didn’t end well?”
“Nope. The cheating bitch… well, cheated on me,” Felicia said with a bitter tone. “The whole situation kinda turned me off of girls for the foreseeable future.”
Damien gave a low hiss of sympathy through his teeth. Yeah. That uh… that sucked. Especially since it seemed like the two had been pretty close, at one point. Though the Traveler didn’t really have a lot of experience with actually dating a girl, he knew what it was like to have your heart broken. It sucked. In the worst way possible.
Felicia glanced back a second time, and swore once more. “Dammit. I think she saw me.”
“Uh…” Damien was entirely unsure of how to handle the situation that was unfolding. Then, before he could even begin to think of a solution, Felicia gracefully slipped her arm into his elbow and leaned her head into his shoulder.
“Sorry,” the young Seraphite apologized, blushing at their proximity as she settled into him. Her skin was soft against his own, her fingertips brushing at his own digits as she continued. “But would you mind playing along for a minute or two?”
“Um… sure,” Damien replied, trying not to notice how gentle she was being or the subtle scent of the citrus perfume she liked to use or the fact that her boobs were kinda pressing into the side of his arm and it felt really, really, really good and he didn’t know if she’d noticed or not, leaving him unsure if he should point it out or just let it be for the sake of keeping her ex away.
This is not a date. This is not a date. This is not a date. This is not a date. This. Is Not. A Date. He repeated those words over and over in his mind to head off any physiological reactions that might make their situation more awkward than it already was. He really enjoyed having her as a friend, especially since he’d started getting into the books she’d recommended to him, and he didn’t want to make things weird. It was fun to talk to someone about books and magic and plotlines without seeming like a weirdo.
The show began, the first song introducing the leads and their bizarre first encounter through a comedy of sheer luck and bizarre error. The two men weren’t quite star-struck upon seeing each other, but there was an easy chemistry between them that, according to Felicia, was simply the actors natural talents and fondness for one another shining through. It also helped that, outside the show, the two leading men had been happily married for a few years. In fact, one of the men had asked the other out the second month into rehearsals, and the rest was history.
Then Felicia shifted to get a better look as they changed scenes, raising her head on his shoulder and getting closer to him, just a bit. This shift also happened to press the side of Damien’s arm ever so slightly deeper into her cleavage. The Traveler was convinced that his face must’ve been red like a tomato, if the speed at which his heart was suddenly racing was anything to go by.
The Seraphite also seemed to notice what she was doing, blushing as she began to move away a bit, speaking to him in a low whisper. “Sorry. I kinda just dumped that on you and, uh… got handsy. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine,” Damien said. And he meant it. His initial reactions aside, he didn’t want to force Felicia to do anything that she didn’t want to. “If it helps sell the act then… I can bear with it.”
“… you’re sure?” she asked. It was clear that she wanted to keep up the charade, but not at his expense.
“It’s not a big deal,” the Traveler affirmed. Now that he’d had a chance to come to terms with it, he legitimately managed to calm himself down and start thinking straight. They were friends, and this was something he could do to help her out. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
They enjoyed the rest of the show without incident. Though Damien had to steer his mind back on track a few times, the show, and Felicia’s genuine enjoyment of it, somehow made managing them easy. Plus, it helped that the show was very well written and really, really funny.
Before he knew it, almost two hours had passed, and he had laughed, tensed up, and even shed tears of joy at what could only be the best love story he had ever witnessed. And he didn’t even like romances all that much! But this one… this one got him, and got him good.
“Holy crap, that was great,” Damien said, unable to help gushing at the show’s sheer quality. “I know that the second-act breakup is a trope for a reason, but nothing’s ever managed to convince me of it so thoroughly before.”
“I know! Ugh, I wish I could see it for the first time all over again,” Felicia responded, a grin on her face to match the Traveler’s own. “I was completely blown away by everything! The acting. the sets, the music, the effects - oh, the effects!”
They kept discussing the rest of the show, particularly some of the high points, like Regis getting his Profession through sheer determination and blind luck and Callus’ solo song in the rain as he mourned losing his first opportunity to be with Regis due to his family. It had been a wonderful time. And the company was beyond extraordinary.
Of course, then someone just had to come along and ruin a good thing.
“Felicia.” The voice was feminine, cold, and downright venomous. The Seraphite practically froze up on the spot, her face contorting first in fear, then in rage. But she managed to gather herself and, with a quick breath, smoothed out into a calm, placid facade. She turned to face her ex, and Damien turned with her.
The woman behind them was clearly gorgeous, with long curls of blonde hair framing a perfectly symmetrical face with graceful lines of molten power flowing gracefully just beneath her fair skin, with a suggestive figure only further highlighted by a tasteful red dress that looked more appropriate for a ball or a formal dance than for going to a theater. Her face marred her beauty with a scowl, her amber eyes boring holes into Felicia and only briefly flicking to Damien, barely acknowledging his existence. He knew the type, and even this brief display immediately earned her the Traveler’s distaste.
“Petra,” Felicia acknowledged, just as icy. “Didn’t I tell you that I never wanted to see you again?”
“You didn’t mean it,” the Hearthborn woman denied her ex’s claim, her tone so self-assured and haughty that one might’ve mistaken her for some noble. Which, given her state of dress, she very well might be. “No one ever means it. In the end, they always come back to me.”
“Well then, guess I’m the first,” the Seraphite said with a shrug. “Our relationship ended when I caught you in bed with other people. Hell, it should’ve ended when you went out at night for hours at a time and came home early into the morning. I should’ve known then, but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt because I thought I cared about you. Because I thought our relationship meant something to you. But you betrayed my trust completely and thoroughly, and you will never get it back. So please, with my sincerest disgust and disinterest, kindly fuck off you narcissistic whore.”
Petra looked briefly stunned, her expression turning furious as Felicia turned to walk away. Damien had to admit, he hadn’t seen a rejection of one’s ex quite this brutal, but given the look on the blonde woman’s reaction to it, it was probably well deserved. And he could also tell from the fact that she was charging some kind of attack that she had not taken it well. Not at all.
Damien’s Danger Sense and Reaction Stat combined to help him process and act on that information faster than he could register it, his hand grabbing Petra’s wrist in a firm grip that dug into her bones. The silvery light around her clawed hand remained, and made a loud buzzing sound that everyone on the roadway could hear, their eyes immediately turning to the two as one stared down the other.
“That was uncalled for,” Damien said, trying to remain calm as he felt the eyes of the crowd fall on him, some with sharp disapproval and others with only curiosity. “She says she doesn’t want to see you anymore. I suggest you respect her wishes.”
“And who the fuck do you think you are?!” Petra exclaimed with a shout. “You think you’re special just because she decides to smile in your direction every once in a while?! You’re just some boy-toy to hold her over until she comes to her senses.”
“… wow, jumping to a lot of conclusions there,” Damien said as he released her arm, the attack she’d gathered dissipating into wisps of silvery light. “First off, Felicia and I aren’t an item. We’re just friends.”
“Then when the hell was she-”
“Because she knew you were there and didn’t want you to approach her, and I went along with it for her sake,” Damien interrupted before the angered blonde could get any further. “That’s the long and short of it. There’s no agenda here. Just friends hanging out because they enjoy each other’s company and like the same stuff. Is that such a foreign concept to you?”
“You can’t be! You have to be the reason she’s not come to her senses,” Petra continued, trying to blame everything and everyone but herself for Felicia’s distance from her. “It’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense! You’ve been poisoning her mind with lies about me for almost a year!”
“… lady, I came to Lamora less than two months ago,” Damien said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Your timeline makes no sense.”
“Of course it makes sense, you buffoon!” she yelled. The Traveler didn’t flinch at the volume, but did start to feel the crowd’s mood turn against the woman as she continued. “Did your parents teach you nothing?! Or did you gain your idiocy and deceitfulness from them?!”
The world was suddenly very, very still. And then, there was no crowd. No street. No mana in his veins beginning to cycle at his emotional turmoil. Not even Felicia was anywhere close to his mind. Instead, all that was, in that moment, was him, Petra, and his shadow. And his shadow started to roil and boil right alongside his emotions.
“You should leave now. Before you make things worse for yourself.” Damien’s tone was flat, neutral, and entirely emotionless. He wasn’t equipped for this. He wasn’t ready for someone to just… to say that about his parents when they had been anything but. Yes, they hadn’t been perfect, but dammit, they had still done their absolute best to do right by him and by each other.
“And why the hell would I-”
“Leave. Now.”
Damien only noticed his familiar coming up from his shadow when his ethereal fur brushed against his pant leg, the wolf standing in front of his summoner with a baleful glare to join Damien’s own.
“I’m a pretty cold guy. I talk shit all the damn time, it’s part of who I am. But that… that was not okay. Now please take the out your ex offered, and fuck off.”
The fact that Shadow Wolf had spoken to her seemed to snap Petra out of it, the woman noticing the suddenly glaring crowd for the first time. Then, with a glare that was definitely filled with some amount of terror, the Hearthborn woman fled the scene.
Damien wasn’t sure when Felicia had come up to him, but he felt her hand on his shoulder, felt her gaze look at him with concern. He looked back at her, his face blank and numb.
“Sorry,” he said, trying to move past what had just happened.
“No, no, I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” Felicia said, taking his hand in hers as she started to take him with her. “C’mon. I know a quiet place nearby.”
----------------------------------------
Felicia’s quiet place was a small bridge that connected Lamora’s middle-class and upper-middle-class districts together, though it was rarely used save occasional foot traffic and maybe a taxi here and there. It overlooked a surprisingly beautiful waterway, with inland rowboats and ferries connecting various parts of the city in ways other than just the bridge. The water was a blue coloration that reminded Damien of animated depictions of ice, and likely held similar temperatures, though it appeared to be crystal clear most of the way down, unlike the canals he’d seen in cities back on Earth. It was a beautiful sight, and exactly what he needed after hearing what Petra had spat in his face not even half an hour ago.
“… that’s her normal M.O.,” Felicia said, placing a donut down next to Damien as she bit a small chunk out of her own. “Try to find whatever will break a person down topic by topic and use it to destroy them. Sometimes it backfires, but not often enough. She… it was an easy way to gaslight me, back when we were together. To convince me that she just had some late-night things to attend to and not that she was sleeping around behind my back. So, what you were feeling, right then? It was probably justified. And probably a healthier reaction than what I had, which was to trust her despite my suspicions.”
“… I didn’t feel anything. Just… numbness.”
Damien’s admission took the Seraphite a little off guard, but only a little. “That’s fine. Sometimes, things can get to be too much and you just want to feel nothing. But it’s not something you should get used to. It’s the first step to truly convincing yourself that nothing matters. And that can lead somewhere… well, frankly terrifying, if you take the wrong path.”
He sighed. He shouldn’t be forcing his friend to worry about his emotional state, especially after that encounter with her ex. Yes, it had caused him distress too, but Felicia had had an actual relationship with the woman, and she seemed practiced at hiding her pain, if not her other emotions.
“Sorry. Uh… I’m not really sure how to help with this. I’ve never helped someone deal with pent-up emotions before. But… I’m here to listen, if you want a sounding board or just need to vent,” Damien offered. It was really the best he could do with what he had available to him in the moment.
Felicia looked grateful for his offer, taking another bite of her donut before placing it on the stone balcony they were leaning against. Then, she spoke. “I caught her with another girl and a guy I didn’t know. On my nineteenth birthday. They weren’t from her usual social circles. They seemed like they’d never seen the inside of a home as lavish as hers before that night. I didn’t blame them for falling for her lies. I’d fallen for them myself. But it was the last straw. After all those times she never responded, leaving me alone for weeks on end without so much as a hello, gaslighting me into believing that it was my fault our relationship felt like it was starting to fall apart… I couldn’t take it anymore. I left her, and I didn’t look back.
“That wasn’t even the worst part,” Felicia said running a hand through her braided her, gently tugging at one of the lengths in nervousness. “I… when I thought about where she went when she made excuses about not being able to see me, she tended to move south, towards the poorer districts. I think she got off on ‘slumming it with the poor.’ But she didn’t treat them like people, she treated them like a fetish. People aren’t fetishes. People are people. Complicated, messy, and beautiful all at the same time. But she just reduced them to a one-note stereotype to get herself off. It’s dehumanizing and disgusting.”
The silence stretched between them for several moments before Felicia turned to Damien with a relieved smile on her face. “Thanks. That felt… good. Thanks for listening. Uh… if you needed something similar… I mean, I’m here, so…”
“… my parents died about two years ago,” Damien admitted, forging onward before he could look and see the likely expression of pity on his friend’s face. “In an accident. It was a freak explosion caused by some kind of leak. I can’t remember which kind, but it ended up hurting a lot of people. They were some of the unlucky few who died. My parents weren’t perfect people, and we weren’t a perfect family. But we were a good family. I wouldn’t be who I am right now if it wasn’t for them. I don’t think I’d be as nearly good a person if I didn’t have them in my life. And while it still feels fresh… I’m starting to heal. But it’s a slow process.”
Damien felt bad about lying to Felicia, even about the little details, but there was little he could do about that if he wanted to keep the fact that he was a Traveler under wraps. He honestly hated doing that. So few people knew the truth - and the only person he had been fully honest with was Corbyn, mainly because the guy had found out through a Quest. But he had been as honest as he could be. At least about this. He wouldn’t dare lie about the pain the deaths of his parents had caused him.
“I moved in with my aunt and uncle afterwards,” he continued. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re good people, and they tried their best, but… there was just a… a distance there. One that none of us could breach. I’m not sure if it was because of the fact that I was scared or they didn’t know what to do or some combination of it all, but in the end… I had to leave. Because there was a chance that we wouldn’t be able to get past the grief and the sadness and we would just be miserable together instead of… y’know. Together.
“It was about time I went on my own anyway. I didn’t exactly know where I was going when I left Errenyl, or even Redmire in particular, but… well, I got here anyway. And I was lucky enough to find people that actually like being around me. So… I might as well make the best of it.”
Felicia looked at him for a moment, processing everything he’d told her. Damien’s anxiety flared up despite the fact that he’d known her for over a month, and knew she wouldn’t judge him. At least, he hope she wouldn’t. He had never been good with people, despite his best efforts. It was why he got lost in stories so often.
And his hopes were not betrayed. The Seraphite smiled as she touched his shoulder, her hand a warm, comforting thing against his fears and doubts. Then, they just stood there on that bridge, the afternoon sun bathing them in a gentle, warm glow that had the both of them smiling. It might not be a great thing, bonding over pain. But it forged a stronger bond nonetheless.
“… do you think Regina has any suggestions?” Damien asked, unable to help himself from thinking about his Profession even now. “I haven’t known her very long, but it seems like she’s the smartest person I know.”
“She is the smartest person you know. She’s the smartest person in Lamora, hands down,” Felicia said, chuckling as she lightly tapped her elbow into his side. “If you can’t find anything you like, feel free to ask her for advice. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to apprentice under her or something.”
“And you aren’t?” Damien asked, surprised. They had seemed pretty close when the Traveler had first seen them interacting, but he hadn’t wanted to assume the nature of the relationship.
“Nah. I just hang out there sometimes,” Felicia said. “I actually don’t even know what her Profession is called. I just know that it’s a rare one.”
“Huh. I’ll do that,” Damien said, reminding himself to swing by her bookshop later tomorrow. “If you don’t mind me asking, do you have a Profession?”
“Uh… yeah,” Felicia said, looking suddenly embarrassed. “It’s kinda weird, though.”
“Weird doesn’t mean useless,” Damien said. “Maybe it’ll gel with me?”
“I… I dunno, it’s pretty odd,” she said looking suddenly uncomfortable.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Damien insisted. “I was just curious.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I… my Profession is…” Felicia hesitated before giving a low, almost inaudible answer.
“Uh… sorry, I didn’t hear you,” Damien apologized.
“DANCER!” She exclaimed, her cheeks burning red with embarrassment. “My Profession is Dancer!”
“… is that a problem?” he asked, genuinely confused. “It doesn’t seem all that conventional, but I imagine that a Profession like that would help a lot with Dexterity, right?”
“You… you’re not… why aren’t you looking down on me?”
“Why would I?”
Felicia looked genuinely flabbergasted for several moments before a look of sheer relief came over her face. “Holy shit, I was nervous there for a bit. Thank you. Uh… well, you see, the reason I assumed that is because when people hear I’m a Dancer, sometimes their first reaction will be to ask… uh… what my rates are.”
“… in what context?” the Traveler asked, a slight sinking feeling in his gut.
“In the context that they assume I’m some kind of prostitute or a hooker.”
Felicia looked extremely pissed as she said this, and Damien couldn’t blame her. There was nothing wrong with sex work, so long as you knew what you were doing and were careful about it, but assuming someone was in that line of work just because of their Profession; something that, on Xaunis, didn’t neatly translate into a career or a job, was a very, very shitty thing to do.
“I think I’d like to punch their teeth in,” Damien admitted.
“Get in line,” Felicia said. “I’ve already had to do that a few times.”
The two laughed as the sun continued to settle through its rotation in the sky, golden rays falling on the two friends as they talked for hours. And that was all that mattered, for a while.