I was getting a lot of attention from two women of varying capability, and it was not particularly fun, the fact that that the least of it was because it was hostile intent. A more important one, though not the most, was because I kept accidentally looking at Joan because I was flustered and then looking down and then back up.

The greatest curse of being attracted to women… Not wanting to be a creep but also being able to admire their bust.

Gahh. Stop it! Instinct, you hear me! Cut it out! No looking at other women! Anna is more than enough for me.

My instinct, responsible for all of my nebulous thoughts, did not ‘cut it out,’ and it made me feel terribly weird at the situation, and all the more because I was fairly sure accidentally ogling a person who might be able to read my mind, while also being angry at me for not telling Anna the words I love you.

It was not a good look, for sure. But I had some reasons for not telling Anna I loved her, and they came with many an edge. The sharpest of which was that

“Listen, I don’t want to get into it, alright? Especially not in a tavern. The last thing I would want is it getting out,” I hush whispered to her.

“I have a skill for it,” Joan told me, “you could shout about wanting to have a night of hot, passionate lovemaking with her, and no one would notice.”

I could feel my cheeks flush as her words conjured an image in my mind that I found indecent and titillating that I shook away quickly. As I did, Joan pointedly watched my face.

“Well, you’re certainly interested in her if your face is anything to judge by, though I have to wonder why you’re so adverse to love. What, is she supposed to be a dirty little secret? You’re fine with the benefits, but you don’t want to settle down and live publicly with her? Are you ashamed? Or are you just having some fun, getting ready to gallivant off into the sunset and break her heart?”

In a bit of panic, I started to look around but pulled myself back. I trusted her, if not much, and took her at her word that no one would notice.

“I’m not-” I sputtered before thinking better of saying anything at all. “I owe you no explanation.”

I practically hissed it. I couldn’t tell if she was just angry if she was using some kind of mental trick to piss me off intentionally if it was plain old manipulation, or all three, but she was cutting deep into the festering wound of emotion.

It was a tumour of festering sickness, and it had been growing for a long fucking time. It was in fact, something I had always lived with.

My father, whoever he had been, was never around. He had left when my mother got pregnant, running away from responsibility before my mother had so much as a bump. I had never seen him with my eyes.

I had, at one point, when I was tenacious and contrary and a teenager, argued in a quiet room with my mother about him. The back and forth was overall unproductive, just me resisting the tyranny of people older than I was. Among the hurtful back and forth, I had questioned why she had even brought me into the world if everything sucked so much.

It had been a rare thing to see my mother truly sad, and it was all the worse for me to remember it. But I could remember her eyes when she told me it was because she had been in love with him.

Every day after that, I had been afraid of it. Of the idea of being in love with someone. Because when you loved someone, you let them in, and losing someone that close hurt more if they left. Worse was the accusation that, like my father before me, I wanted to take advantage of Anna. Without her knowing, she had mirrored me on the other side of my fear of love.

I clamped down on it, grasping the outrage reared from the old open scar, like the practiced fingers of a [Surgeon], and pinched and stitched the wound closed again before mentally slapping a bandage over it to hold in the black, toxic bile. With my other hand, I reached out and held my frustration and anger.

I had developed something of a tendency to yell at those who didn’t deserve it, and it wasn’t something I wanted to do. So, with hard-fought control, I lowered that below the surface. Choking it down and into the muck of my mind where it could drown for all I cared.

It was not the time and absolutely not the place for anger. Not in a tavern with a mark of hospitality and not when her mother had invited me in. No matter how uncharitable her comment was towards me and my intentions. She didn’t mean to hurt me, though I had the feeling that she was poking me intentionally, it sounded more like she was trying to get me to defend my honour and open up, not cut me out of malice.

So, I started trying to move the conversation along and away from it, but Joan, quick and aware, slunk back into the topic at hand and gave some of her intentions.

“You right in that your relationship is none of my business,” she said placatingly, “if that is what you have with her. But you’re turbulent, and I’m... close with Strause. As a friend, I would be remiss if I didn’t look out for her well-being.”

She said friend like it was a poison pill, and while it was impossible to tell with her face as blank as it was, even I could tell with my non-existent charisma that there was something there.

I wanted to tell her to kindly fuck off, but she had also strummed a bit of my curiosity. Her phrasing of turbulent was interesting, and her friendship with Strause had me interested.

I had no real idea what she meant, but considering they had freaky deeky powers that were beyond my comprehension, some magic that was not based in mana like Sophy had explained soul magic.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“What's with the sourness and love talk?” I asked her, “It doesn’t seem… I don’t know, like you? Does that make any sense? So spill, what's the deal?”

She blinks her blank face at me a few times owlishly. A stare of incomprehension paired with calculation and thought, all without so much as a twitch of her face, a blush, or a change in her eyes.

Reading her was like trying to read a smooth granite wall, much like trying to read Strause. A skill they no doubt shared in one way or another.

“I owe you no explanation,” she said, the hint of a well-curated smirk as she threw my words back at me.

We locked eyes for a few long moments, a flicker of my flame reflected in her eye as she stared me down. Her blank mouth was a line, held in check by will and skill in equal measure.

It was my move. She had managed to get me to want to talk to the horrible, manipulative woman.

I went to open my mouth when her mother came back in from the kitchen with an honest-to-goodness basket of food.

There was a flicker in Joan's eye, and immediately after, her mother, whose eyes were skating over me like I was a pond in winter, found me.

She smiled, and I smiled back, sans teeth.

I didn’t have time to get sidetracked and spend an hour trying to dig into her. I had somewhere to be.

I worked out the payment and got the food under my arm, and said my goodbye, and then I left the tavern and Joan behind without getting to the gossip with her. She had wanted to, but I would need to save it for another day.

Me and Selly, headed out with a gift basket.

Joan's mom, which was now her name in my head despite her name being Katharine, had given me a gift basket.

For free.

I know it was free because I tried to pay for it, but she didn’t let me.

I would come back. If you cut out the first part, where my presence alone almost got people to freak out, the atmosphere was almost as cozy as home.

It sucked that Strause wasn’t there, but I trusted Joan enough to not be worried.

“I wonder what her deal is,” I said to myself, unable to puzzle out Joan's deal.

Selly humphed, “It’s the same deal as you, no doubt. The both of you are sick in the head.”

“Wait,” I said, translating from Selly to a normal person, “you think she’s in love?”

“Not in love, I don’t have a problem with love,” Selly said tiredly, “I have a problem with the sickness you all get when you fall in love. You get all ich about it. I’m no [Healer], but I know it when I see it.”

I picked that apart, not even caring enough to contradict her words. I didn’t know if I loved Anna, so I didn’t say I did.

That was all, nothing else there. I definitely wasn’t worried about love.

“So… you’re saying that she’s having relationship issues?” I asked her, trying to focus on the conversation.

“I’m saying that all of you have issues, and relationships are the root cause.”

I wonder who it was.

The only person I could think of was…

“Do you think she might be… you know… with Strause?”

“Eh… Maybe? It makes sense if they are, they're both the same kind of weird. Same with you and you’re [Druid].”

She said it without derision for once.

I think I’m getting through to her over Anna. Now, she only thinks we’re weird instead of freaks.

“Anna’s not that weird, she’s perfectly normal.”

Selly almost laughed, and while short, it at least gave me the hope that the brash but happy Selly was still in there.

“Oh boy. If you think she’s normal, you have a beam loose in there, the both of you do. She’s a [Druid] who lives in the forest all alone, with a history as a [Noble] woman, you’re a commoner and don’t seem to care about nobility one bit. She’s teaching you to be a mage, and you think about hitting people with a shovel. She probably doesn’t give a rat's ass about holy junk, and you’re a bloody [Saint]. And the both of you are lovey-dovey out the ass while simultaneously being worried about pushing each other away. You contrast each other in the weirdest ways.”

My foot almost caught on a cobble, and I bumped into a random person on accident as she spoke, but I caught myself and made a turn, almost spilling my precious cargo. I got onto a clearer road and managed to pick up the pace on my way out of the city.

I didn’t respond to her; instead, I just thought about it for a bit.

Are we weird? Anna was a noble… Or I guess she still is. Is it weird that we get along?

Were we worried about the same thing? Are we worried about being left? I know I am… But is she?

My memory reminded me of her asking me about her crying, and started doing what it did best, connecting the dots as my mind whirred. I crunched it over in my mind, thinking about it only to hit a dead end and started to examine it from another direction.

Was that one of the things that kept her interested? That I that I didn’t want to see her go, and instead hold her close?

Was she aware of me being afraid of her leaving?

What should I do if that’s correct, and Anna is worried about me leaving? Should I let it affect me?

I had no answers to any of them; each of them rattled around in my head, bouncing over and over without any way to catch them. I had no idea what to do with it, no idea what to think, feel, or believe.

My inability to do something as simple as understanding the situation I was in made me want to bang my head in the hope that it would somehow fix what was broken. A bit of percussive maintenance on myself.

I, of course, couldn’t do that, but it ate at me nonetheless.

Then I remembered I wasn’t alone.

I thought over it carefully, thinking of what to say, but I have never been good at thinking, so I acted instead.

“Selly… Do you honestly think Anna is afraid of pushing me away?”

I asked it quietly as if my thoughts would shatter like a vase if I raised my voice.

She just made a noise of agreement, not even speaking, as if worse would be a waste of time on something so basic as to not need words.

“What should I do about that?” I asked.

Selly, for once, didn’t immediately answer, rolling the idea around in her head.

“Sometimes,” she said thoughtfully, “it's not about what you should do; it is about what you can do. You can’t change how she feels or how you feel. All you can do is keep them in mind. I am no mind reader. I can’t tell you for certain if she is afraid you’ll leave her, but if you want her to feel better, if she is, if you want to act on it, you should keep it in mind and apply it as you go. It's not like you can swoop in and change it, but if I had to do something about it, it would be to keep it in mind and ask her.”

She said it with sincerity and thoughtfulness. It was touching that she did, considering her normal distaste for anything romantic or non-platonic. I took her words to heart, and the ideas began to lose their energy and began to pack themselves away, tucking themselves in to bed.

Her words brought a lightness to my situation, and it was nice to feel that relief because even if it was for a moment, it was like the world made sense again.

“Thank you for the words of wisdom,” I told her before taking a deep breath.

“It is not a problem,” she told me quietly, “I know it probably flew over your head or perhaps crashed into it like a wall, but you are kin and friend. If you want to talk, all you need do is ask… Now, let's get out of this smelly cesspit and back to your… er… lady friend so you can go on your date.”

It was touching; she only gaged a little bit when she said date. She had the spirit… or I supposed she didn’t have the spirit, but she was on the right track to not vomit when someone said romance.