Katy may not have been surprised, but that didn’t make her any less unhappy. She didn’t understand why Azura was so keen on keeping secrets. She wasn’t an idiot, it was obvious something had happened at the library. Well she supposed he could have been lying about going to the library in the first place, or it could have been after he left.
She remained silent while her friends talked around her, only giving one or two word answers to their questions. She was too busy trying to figure out what he was hiding this time. Whatever it was it had shaken him pretty badly, he was late which while not unusual for him per se wasn’t the norm either. Besides he usually has a much better cover story prepared, this one was so half assed she saw through it immediately.
There weren’t many things that could shake him like that, and even fewer that he wouldn’t talk to her about. She pulled herself out of her thoughts briefly when the most average man she had ever seen walked up into the tower. She raised an eyebrow; he was extraordinarily ordinary. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, and common tan clothes. The gate guard had been right; that tiny little scar really was his most interesting feature.
She didn’t bother listening into the conversation, taking care of all the boring stuff is the least Azura could do after keeping yet another secret from her. She was pleasantly surprised that no one tried to involve her in the discussion, but was also mildly annoyed at how long the discussion had been going. Did it really matter whether two shadow panther heads were to be traded for 1000 silver or 1 gold, the value was the same.
She needed something else to think about. She knew from experience that thinking about his secrets was futile. That way lies madness. She sighed, and reluctantly tuned into the discussion.
“... more dangerous than the shadow panthers? Not really, there are definitely poisonous and venomous things in the forest, but as long as you take standard precautions they shouldn’t cause you much trouble.” She felt a little bad for this man, he even sounded average.
“I think that should be most of what we need, can we get a map of the area? Preferably with the cove and the places their attacks happened marked down.” She thought it was a little odd for Azura to be in his negotiator mode when they were just accepting the request, but she figured he wanted as much information as he could get. A little ironic for someone so keen on hiding it.
“Of course, I already have it prepared.” He handed Azura a rolled up piece of paper. “That is all I can offer as assistance though I’m afraid, the rest will be up to you lot.” She noticed that he sounded almost pitying. They were young, sure, but the academy wouldn’t have let them take a quest they had no shot of completing. Recalling Azura’s run in with a true dragon and Luna’s recent curse she was forced to alter that thought slightly. They wouldn’t let them take a quest they had no shot at on purpose.
“No worries, this should be more than sufficient. I thank you for your aid, and soon will be back to thank you for the reward.” She rolled her eyes, she was half convinced his bad luck was because he always said stuff like that.
Haden laughed loudly. “I like the confidence, but don’t let your guard down. Shadow panther’s are tricky prey.” She noticed Lily flinch and she frowned. Something was up there, her and Azura had both noticed Lily acting weird since they took the mission, but whenever they asked her about it she just brushed them off.
Thankfully though that seemed to be the end of the mission acceptance, so she decided to worry about that later so they could get started. They began to walk down the bell tower for a few minutes before she decided to break the silence. “So is the quest as straightforward as it appeared?”
“Based on what he said yes, but we won’t really know till we get out there ourselves.” Leave it to Azura to shoot down any attempt at easing the tension before a mission. She rolled her eyes. He could relax just fine in the wildlands, but give him a mission to accomplish and suddenly it was all business all the time.
“It’s already almost evening, we probably only have a few hours of light left. Perhaps it might be wise to push off until tomorrow?” That wouldn’t leave them a ton of room for error. The caravan would be arriving sometime Saturday, most likely in the evening. That would leave them with only Friday and the early part of Saturday to finish their mission.
“What! Why?! Going to fight has been the only thing keeping me going all day!” She giggled, Roran really did have too much energy for his own good. Her night vision was really good, so she wasn’t too worried if they decided to go out today, but the others didn’t exactly have that skill.
“She’s right, shadow panthers are basically invincible at night. They can be anywhere they want to be, even if we decide to retreat it will be extremely unlikely for us to get away. We might be able to make it to the grove on time, but we’d have to push it, and then on top of that we would have to take all of them out extremely quickly without damaging the flora or fauna too much. Failure to do so fast enough means it’s night and we’re dead.” Azura looked Lily dead in the eye when he got to the part about limiting damage. Worryingly Lily didn’t react to his unsubtle jab.
She hadn’t really considered that, melting into shadows was basically invincibility when the entire area was covered in them. “Sorry Roran, I was with you, but I think my vote just changed.” Roran pouted as their friends all expressed similar sentiments
“Fine, but I’m waking everyone up early tomorrow.” Roran grumbled. She laughed, honestly she would be impressed if he managed to get up early enough to wake Azura up. She hadn’t woken up before him once in the entire time she had known him, not counting times he passed out due to exhaustion anyway.
“Good plan, we want to leave a little before first light. Give us as much time as possible since we aren’t going to have as much as we initially assumed.” Azura’s agreeance seemed to make Roran grumble even more. She laughed if he was hoping to get back at Azura, doing it with threats of early rising was definitely not the way to go, but she had her own vengeance to consider with his recent secrets. She could probably persuade Roran to help out.
“Well we still have about 2 hours before it gets dark. What should we do till then?” Luna looked around excitedly. “We split up earlier, so we should do something fun as a group this time.” It was a fair point, but there weren't a ton of things you could go do with a group this large.
“Hmm at least one of us should probably be looking for accommodations for tonight. Since ideally all 7 of us would be in the same inn. I don’t mind doing it myself, so you guys have fun.” In other words he didn’t really want to do the activity and was looking for a way out.
However Luna had other ideas and swiftly increased Katy’s respect for her another step. “Just make a copy to do that! Come on, we haven't gotten to do anything actually fun as a team since we started this quest.” Roran opened his mouth, but to her surprise the normally shy Luna cut him off. “And fighting a giant spider monster absolutely does not count as fun.” Roran closed his mouth and pouted some more causing her to giggle.
Azura made no visible reaction, but she knew he was trying to find another excuse that didn’t make it sound like he just didn’t want to. She gave a wicked smile as he no doubt gave in. “Right, I don’t usually use them for simple stuff, I guess it didn’t even occur to me.” It never got less weird to just watch a perfect duplicate of him appear out of thin air. The copy gave a mock salute and ran off.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ok so apparently team bonding is the agenda, but does anyone actually have anything specific in mind?” Siara asked cautiously. She was the newest team member, so she probably felt it was mostly about her, but knowing Luna Katy didn’t really think it was about anyone in particular.
“How about tri-ball!” Roran finally broke out of his gloom.
Unfortunately she and the rest of them immediately put him back in it. “Noo!” She was not going to play tri-ball with Roran, she had a feeling there was a very real possibility it might end up being fatal to do so. Roran pouted about the swift dismissal.
“Sorry Roran, but between you and Lily we would need a lot of space and special equipment to play tri-ball properly.” Special equipment or not she at the very least was never going to play with him.
“How about we go dancing?” Huh Luna hadn’t really struck her as a dancer, but as long as it wasn’t ballroom dancing she was fine with that suggestion. She did after all love to watch Azura suffer.
“Maybe we can just grab some food and chat.” Nope if he wanted her to let go of his secret keeping they were all going dancing.
“I think dancing is a great idea, why don’t we take a vote.” Azura gave her a betrayed look. She just smiled innocently back at him. “Everyone in favor raise your hand.” She watched the hope fade out of his eyes as everyone except for him and Roran raised their hands. She thought Lily might be against it, but it seemed like she didn’t mind dancing either.
Azura sighed. “Fine… We can go dancing, but don’t expect me to take part in the dancing part. I'll just sit on the side.” What a sore loser, she wasn’t going to let that slide so easy.
“Hey we lost the vote fair and square, that means we have to participate in the team activity.” Surprisingly it was Roran who commented, apparently he already knew he didn’t have a choice and decided to drag Azura down with him.
“I mean I never really agreed to that, and you don’t understand. I don’t dance… ever, under any circumstances.” She didn’t know exactly when he had taken that mentality, all she knew was when they were little he used to love dancing, and then at some point he just never did it anymore.
“Geez don’t be so melodramatic, what’s the worst that can happen.” It was Lily that spoke, but she knew immediately pushing him any further wasn’t going to be good for any of them. She hadn’t realized the not dancing thing was this big of a deal for him.
“Hey it’s fine, if he doesn’t want to dance he doesn’t have to” Apparently Luna had caught onto his growing aggravation as well, if there was anything she learned about dealing with Azura it was when to pick her battles. She would get her payback later, this was clearly going to do more damage to him than she had intended so best to drop it before it got ugly.
“Yeah it will be good to have someone watching over our stuff anyway.” She threw in her own 2 cents, hoping the rest would let it drop. Luckily everyone either got the hint or actually agreed with the words and there were no further attempts to get him to dance.
***
Azura really should just switch with a copy. He would still remember wasting his time here of course, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with it till later. He sighed, at least the others were having fun. They had found a nice little pavilion, with lots of music and folk dances. Luckily there were also tables and vendors selling food and drinks, so he wasn’t completely bored. The music wasn’t half bad either.
They would all stop by the table to chat and eat every now and then. They had tried to get him to join it first, but had all long since given up on getting him to dance. They had unsubtly been discussing their theories on why exactly he refused to do so, but as far as he could tell none of them were even close.
Not that they really had much chance, it was such a silly thing. Completely unlike him even. It wasn’t like dancing with someone else would erase his last dance from his memory or anything, and yet he just couldn’t move past the irrational fear that he would lose the only thing he had left of his mother.
“You have a real pensive expression for someone who’s supposed to be having fun.” Lily interrupted his silent contemplation, and part of him was honestly a little grateful. Even as the other part of him was annoyed to have his silence disturbed.
“This just pulls up some memories I don’t really want to think about right now.”
She nodded in understanding, as she sat down across from him. “I know what you mean. You know how you said I’ve been acting strange lately?”
He raised his eyebrows, he certainly hadn’t expected her to pull out that topic after how much she had avoided it. “Yeah, why? Feel like sharing?”
She took a deep breath. “No… But I will. It seems like it might do us both some good.” She took a moment to gather herself before she continued. “As you know, I’m from Lindin. Magic is… let’s say heavily frowned upon there. My mother always told me to be careful, especially after my unique magic first manifested.”
He could see the sadness swirling in her eyes, and he knew this was not an easy story for her to share. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s difficult for you.”
Her purple eyes briefly intensified, her gaze pinning him to his chair. “It’s exactly because it’s so difficult that I have to tell you.” He didn’t know what to say in the face of her resolve, so he merely nodded. “Anyway, the point is I had been trained since I was little never to unleash my magic, but shadow panthers had gotten into our home. There were dozens of them, and they could move around so quickly. Our guards barely even slowed them down.”
He winced. Even if she didn’t finish her story he was fairly confident he already knew how it ended, and he wished he had chosen a different request for their team.
“In the end one dove for my mother.” She breathed in sharply and he could see her eyes start to moisten. “I could have stopped it, even then I probably could have burned it to a crisp, but I didn’t because she told me not to. I was rescued, but I decided I was done hiding. So I came here. I get the feeling you have a similar story right?”
“You made a choice you regretted in the split second you had to make it. I had chance after chance to make things end differently, if I’d only paid attention. I made my bed, and then I chose to lie in it.” He shook his head, they weren’t the same. “Even aside from that the shadow panthers weren’t your fault.”
“So what happened, it must be pretty bad if it has affected you this badly.”
It wasn’t something he would normally share. Even what little he had said was already more than he had told anyone else, but she had shared her story. Even if he hadn’t really asked he felt that he owed her something at least. He sighed as he dug his hand through his hair. “I’m not really a good person, I have more blood on my hands than I care to admit. Both those I’ve killed directly and those whose death I’ve caused. I’m not so noble as to try and atone, not really, but I want to escape the chains I’ve been stuck in. So I try to be better, but deep down I know I’m not.”
Neither of them said anything else, just sitting in a surprisingly peaceful silence. He hadn’t really given any details, but even so he felt a bit lighter. Perhaps that was really the fear the forest spirit was trying to show him, that deep down he was just like his father. It was closer to the truth than he was comfortable admitting even to himself.
In the end he always put his own interests first, even when the lives of those he held dear were on the line. Lily’s voice brought him out of his spiraling thoughts once again. “It’s ok you know.” What? She must have seen his confusion because she elaborated. “It’s ok to not be perfect all the time. No one can be.”
He had heard it before, Katy told him that all the time, but he hadn’t gotten out of his fathers house unscathed. He had plenty of scars to show for his time there, physical and mental. “It may be ok for everyone else, but I walk a delicate tightrope. One wrong step and everything I’ve worked so hard for will fall apart, I can’t afford to go through that again.” He had barely pulled himself together the last time.
Lily looked deeply concerned, but simply sighed and allowed the silence to reign. He was glad for it, he didn’t need pity or concern. As long as they helped him get through this trial that was all he needed them for. Guilt flushed through his system as soon as the thought registered in his head.
He laughed mirthlessly, Lily raising an eyebrow in question. Left to his own devices he may very well become exactly what his father had always wanted him to be, but he had to fight his own tendencies. He promised his mom after all. He owed her at least that much. “Sorry, I just realized this team trial might be a more important moment for me than I had initially realized.”
Lily’s response was cut off as the others wandered back over.