Armando opened his eyes… and was surprised.
The last thing he remembered was the Assistant, no, the Grandmaster now, doing a short evil monologue, then taking a vial of Rania’s poison and, somehow, managing to put a good dose of it in him and the other surviving members of their conspiracy. He also remembered using a Wanderer’s Scroll, otherwise known as Scroll of Greater Teleportation to studious [Mages] to escape.
And he remembered feeling like he was dying as a voice said something about looking, a rose and finding him.
Then nothing but feverish darkness and nightmares that he luckily couldn’t remember.
He opened his eyes, and was surprised, for he hadn’t expected he’d be able to do that again. He knew Rania was an extremely skilled [Poison Crafter] or something along those lines and, even though the poison the Grandmaster had used was only an experiment, not the final product, he didn’t have many expectations of that helping him out, so whoever had saved him must be an expert.
He tried to lift himself from the rather comfortable bed he was lying on, feeling his muscles protest, his bones creak, his spine crack and, in general, his body lamenting its existence, deciding in the end it wasn’t worth it.
“Good choice there buddy,” said someone to his side.
Hadn’t his muscles been aching as much as they did he would’ve probably jumped in surprise. Looking towards the voice, his eyes alighted on the figure of a slight young woman with piercing brown eyes that seemed to be capable of staring a hole right through him, a smile forming on her lips as she looked at his waking self. And yet there was also a sort of haggardness to her: circles bloomed a light purple under her eyes, her lips looked slightly dry, her hair frazzled, all of it forming a picture of someone who hadn’t been sleeping for a while now.
“You’ve been out of it for a while now. A week, give or take. I was hoping it’d take less time, but then again, you were hanging on to life by a thread, so I guess you had a right to sleep.”
He tried to say something, but found his throat to be sore, his lips cracked. He realized he was hungry and thirsty.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I tried feeding you honey and water while you were out of it, but as you can imagine that’s not enough to live on. As soon as I can I’ll make you a real meal. At least, one you can keep down.”
He nodded, then opened his mouth again to say something, but the girl, because she was a girl, not a woman, not yet, got up from her chair and walked towards the bedside table, where three glasses of water sat.
She took one in her hands and offered it to him: “Drink all three of them. Slowly. Don’t want you to throw up, you’re already low on liquids as is.”
As she handed him the glass of water he noticed that, sprouting from her arm, like a branch from some kind of parasitic plant, was a small, dark red, tube. Frowning as he took the glass he followed the strange tube down and up and up towards… to his arm.
The girl followed his gaze and nodded: “Ah, yes, that. I did create an antidote for your poison, an unconventional one, sure, but a working one, but it only cured the worst of the effects. The arsenic was still in your blood, so I had to get it out of you.”
He looked up at her, drank some of the water, smacked his parched lips, drank some more, then attempted to talk and, after a bit of coughing, he managed to: “What did you do to me.”
She shrugged, but gently, making sure not to jostle the tube too much: “I had to bloodlet you. Managed to get the bad blood out, but you weren’t in a state to replenish what you’d lost yourself, so I had to perform a transfusion.”
“...Transfusion?”
“My blood and my friend’s blood is running through your veins.”
She stopped, then, with a chuckle, added: “It’s not a sexual thing here, I hope.”
Armando felt a chuckle try to escape his lips and failed to contain it, causing his chest to convulse slightly in pain.
“You saved me,” he said after he’d finished drinking his third glass of water. Never would he have thought something as simple as water could taste so delicious. Guess nearly dying does that to a man. The knowledge you could have lost something makes it so much better
“Yeah, but you’re probably going to desire I didn’t,” was the girl’s very cliché answer to his very cliché statement.
“Because I’m in your debt and you’re going to ask me something ludicrously impossible to repay it?”
The girl shook her head: “What do you take me for, an evil witch? Not even the christians’ version of Baba Yaga was that bad, even though she ate children. No, you’re going to wish you had died because the poison used on you caused… collateral damage. I gave you an antidote, but for some reason the arsenic was already in your blood and all over your body. It probably damaged your nerves, the marrow in your bones is fucked and will make you anemic… ah, you probably don’t know what that means, so just know that your blood won’t work as well as it should; your heart will feel in pain often and you’ll be more prone to diseases of all kinds.
“So, yeah, you have no debt with me. Saving you gave me Levels, that’s payment enough for ‘helping’ you, since you’ll still die in a matter of years. I’m sorry for being selfish.”
Ah. So that’s what Rania had been working on. A poison that would kill someone no matter what one did: either you’d end up dead quite fast after ingesting it, or you’d still die not long afterwards because of its side effects.
“She was good like that,” he chuckled mirthlessly.
“Meh, I’ve seen and heard of poisons more interesting than arsenic personally. It’s just too overused,” said Alice as she gently extracted the tube from her arm and, afterwards, from his.
“It was a never before heard of poison, how can you say something like that?” he asked, curious.
She shrugged: “I’m an expert. Poisons, antidotes, traditional and occult rites and stories and cures. So trust me when I tell you that the poison used on you, which, again, is called arsenic, isn’t that hard to come by. It’s just a rock. A shitty fucking rock that’s killed more people than anyone cares to count. So either your friend wasn’t as good as you think, or she’d just found out about it and was in the process of turning it into something even I couldn’t cure.”
She sighed and, gently, sat down.
“Anyways, my name is Alice. Pronounced with a C, not an S, mind you. What’s your name? And where did you come from? I found you in a clearing in the nearby forest and, to my knowledge, the only other village close to Gunsee is two days from here by carriage, and if you’d walked all the way here you’d have died long before I found you.”
Ah, now that was a question he hoped he wouldn’t have to answer. From what she had told him she seemed a lot like a [Witch]. Sure, a young one, and sure, one that talked about some nonsense (what was christianity and who was this Baba Yaga?), but all witches were like that, and the College had a bad history with their kind. Very bad. They’d helped hunt them during the Purge of Magic a few thousand years ago, not long after the end of the Era of Hunts and the arachne menace had been dealt with.
Seeing his hesitation Alice smiled slightly: “I must remind you, o’ mysterious stranger, that you’re bound by the Laws of Hospitality to answer that. [Enforce Tradition].”
Meanwhile she also activated another one of her new Skills: [Disquieting Presence].
And suddenly the air around Armando felt oppressive as something ancient gazed upon him and clasped manacles around his hands and feet. The presence didn’t feel like the System. It was even more ancient. Older than the gods themselves, if that were possible. But that was impossible, right?
The presence then gave him the key to the manacles. They were an agreement, binding him to the girl who had saved his life, but the key was a way out, a way he could take, but at great risk, for that would mean going against an ancient Tradition, and there were Consequences for those who did something so heinous.
He looked up from his hands at the girl, at Alice, and as his eyes settled on her he felt his heart start beating a tad faster, dread forming in the back of his mind. There was something more to her now: the bags under her eyes were accentuated by her small smile and now felt like an integral part of her beautiful yet terrifying portrait as they accentuated her brown, half-closed, eyes that seemed to be staring deep inside his soul, reading him, his desires, his memories, his very being, planting hooks everywhere she could to drag him into her life and use him ‘till he dropped dead. He knew she could do something like that: the Tradition she had called upon, one not even the College could contain for it was as old as the world, would make sure that he would always be by her side if she so asked. After all, she had saved his life, and a favor always had to be repaid with something equal.
And then it all stopped.
“So? Gonna talk?”
He hadn’t realized it, but his hands were trembling.
Taking a deep, shaking breath, he spoke: “My name is Armando Casonza. I’m… I was a member of the College of Memoirs. Again, was. I escaped from it using a Wanderer’s Scroll, but not before they poisoned me.”
The girl nodded, whistling: “Ah, we’ve got ourselves a fallen angel here. How’s it feel to go from the stars to the stables? And what’d you do to get such a treatment? Try to kill someone?”
For a moment Armando thought about lying, but the moment the idea crossed his mind the ghostly chains seemed to tighten as the key was dangled enticingly in front of him, clinking heavily against its chain, a reminder of what could be, and of what would happen. The key was a question: what will you do, cute little Armando? Will you run, like you did for years, looking the other way at the College’s atrocities? Or will you look at truth with your face unmasked, your eyes open? What consequences will you choose to face?
“O’ Queen of ancients, I beg of thee, calm down. He is a guest:temptation and fear are not ours to use. “
And suddenly the shackles felt lighter and the key was no longer dangling in front of him, now lying beside him on the bed, unmoving.
Who was this girl? What was her Level, that she could do things like this and make it look so… normal?
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Maybe… maybe it would be better to answer her questions after all.
Maybe he should finally admit it even to himself: that there was no way out of this. Not anymore.
“I tried to destroy the House, make Her suffering end, and with Her the College. We, there were many of us, were found out, and were either killed on the spot or poisoned to death. I escaped only because the Elemental of the House gave me a Wanderer’s Scroll and, somehow, managed to get me out even with the building in lockdown.”
Ok, maybe he should’ve been more specific. Most people didn’t even know what the word Lockdown meant.
“Ah, I see. So you’re one of the good guys. Or I think you are? People’s opinions on the College are ambivalent. I just don’t like them because they restrict interesting Classes like [Storytellers] here in Eva. And more or less all over the world.”
She hadn’t heard of their worst atrocities, nor of what they did to obtain the Memories and rare Traditions that cropped up. She also hadn’t heard about how they’d burned down an entire forest to destroy a Nest of arachne. The news had been kept hidden from the rest of the world as much as possible.
“Well, anyways, I think I understand your situation. You’re doubly welcome to stay here.”
And she deactivated her Skill, the chains around Armando disappearing.
As she did, though, he heard her whisper something else: “Thank you, Queen of the Fae, my Lady Titania. Never again shall I forget of Tir Na Nog and your people.”
And she bowed her head to the air, as deep a bow as possible from her sitting position on her chair.
A gust of wind passed through the room, ruffling her hair a bit, and then silence reigned.
For her part, Alice was certain she heard mirthful laughter as a hand in that wind caressed her hair, welcoming her back. She may have forgotten them for a decade, but what were ten years for immortals? They hadn’t forgotten her, nor the vows she had made to her grandmother both on her deathbed and upon her grave. She had broken them, those vows, but now she was keeping faith to them anew, so she was forgiven. Never let it be said that the Queen of the Fae couldn’t be magnanimous.
“What did you just say?” asked Armando.
Alice smiled enigmatically, then turned around and began walking towards the door that led outside her bedroom.
“I’m gonna go make food. Stars know I’m hungry as Airm.”
----------------------------------------
Averick arrived an hour later. He looked a bit more haggard than usual because of the blood transfer he was helping Alice with: turns out, apparently, his blood was compatible with the man’s, what with him having a ‘0 blood type’, whatever that meant. Still, his hair was slicked back and well combed, there were no shadows underneath his eyes and his smile was as brilliant as usual. Really, he made it look effortless.
“Good morning Alice,” he said cheerfully as he walked in, noticing dirty plates in the sink of her kitchen and seeing her sitting on a chair with her head cradled in her arms in a futile attempt to fall asleep without using her Skill.
At the sound of his voice she looked up, raising an eyebrow: “Isn’t it customary anymore to knock before entering?”
“Isn’t it customary to lock your front door if you don’t want people to walk in?”
“...Touché.”
She let her head fall back in her arms.
A moment later it came back up, and this time there was a small, devious, smile on her face.
“Av, could you come closer a second?”
Immediately he took three steps back, making Alice’s eyebrows shoot upwards for a moment before she began laughing uncontrollably. That was ‘tired Alice’ for you: incapable of keeping her emotions in check. Some would say that made her friendlier, even cuter, and Averick could absolutely agree with them. The problem was, it also made her slightly more unhinged, prone to making very bad jokes that, worst thing of all, sometimes were even funny, and, in general, she was much more unpredictable.
“Come on Av, it’s nothing bad. I promise you’ll like it!”
“Last time you said that I ended up testing some of your homemade alcohol and nearly fell face first in your toilet.”
“Not my fault you’re a lightweight.”
“A lightweight? I can outdrink most people in Gunsee Alice.”
“Then they’re all lightweights!”
Then she went back to laughing as she remembered that night. In a flight of fancy she’d started brewing some samagon, an old recipe for moonshine her mother had taught her made using, of all things, potatoes. Apparently someone in their family’s past, probably some second grade cousin, had worked for a bootlegger in the americas during the roaring 20s, or so her mum had said.
It had come out particularly strong. So strong in fact that she’d had to throw the stuff away and, in the process, given alcohol poisoning to a few nearby fish.
“Come on Av, come here,” she repeated, her voice mellifluous and friendly, so much so that she did a whole circle and somehow managed to look menacing.
Still, this was Alice: what’s the worst she could do? Well, except for apparently ‘breaking his bones and poisoning his blood’, as she’d said a few days prior in a moment of desperation.
He stepped close to Alice, an animalistic part of him deep in the back of his mind whispering that maybe it wasn’t a good idea, that she was higher Level than him, which meant she was more powerful. At the same time, though, the rational, and louder, part of him told him clearly that she was harmless. More or less.
So he walked and sat down at the table close to her, smiling all the while.
“A lil’ closer,” she said, motioning for him to lean over with her index finger.
As he did, her hands shot out and grabbed the sides of his face, pulling him in, mashing her lips forcefully on his.
And they kissed.
Of all the ways he had expected their kiss to go, Averick had not expected this. At first, he was shocked, unable to do anything, just frozen in place as her lips touched his, questing and questioning.
Then the spell broke and he realized what was happening.
He moved slightly forward, his right hand moving up, cupping Alice’s cheek gently and keeping her where she was as he began to reciprocate.
Where Alice was aggressive, ‘going for the kill’, Averick was gentle and, slowly, he tried to tame her eagerness. She burned like a blazing fire while he was a candle: still hot, still filled with desire, but he wanted this to last, and if he let Alice burn that bright this would end sooner.
She opened her mouth, inviting him in, challenging him, licking his upper lip, but he didn’t answer: instead he closed her lips with a kiss of his own, delicate and caring.
That was how it went for a while as seconds turned to a minute to minutes and they stayed like that, as what had started as a spur of the moment thing, something that shouldn’t have meant anything, quickly became a moment of true passion and emotion.
Alice had never had the chance to taste a moment like this. Her previous lovers had all been like her: fiery, free spirited and energetic. There had never been any patience in anything they’d done, just raw, animalistic, want to satisfy their desire, to quench a thirst. There had been no lovemaking, only passion. Maybe that was also why it had never become anything more?
Averick was different. He was a surprise. With all the talk about bagging a different girl every week (an exaggeration surely, or he’d have bedded every woman his age in Gunsee) she’d expected he would be more straightforward, more… she couldn’t tell. Her brain wasn’t there to think complex thoughts. It was there to tell her that she should savor this moment and, at the same time, tempt her into taking this a step further.
In the end she didn’t know how long they stayed like that.
She just knew that, when they separated, she felt a bit emptier: she didn’t want this to end.
Looking up, she saw Averick blushing slightly. From the heat in her ears she guessed she was also red as a tomato.
They were both panting.
And they stayed like that for a while more, just staring at each other, eyes wide, suddenly questions of ‘What?’, ‘Why did I do this?’, ‘Does this mean anything?’ and many more like those appearing in the backs of their minds. At the forefront, though, was a single thought: That was good. I liked it.
“So -”
“I’m sor -”
They both started, and stopped.
“You sta -”
“You begi -”
And again.
This was so fucking cliché.
And yet their heads were quite scrambled indeed, two eggs in a bowl being battered around by a mad [Confectioner] for a Valentine’s day cake.
After another moment of silence, he asked: “Why so suddenly? Not that I didn’t like it.”
Alice chuckled: “From the way you were kissing back I’d wager you did. As for why, well, I did promise that if I managed to save the dude in the other room thanks to your idea I would kiss you. I always keep my word.”
They both knew that was a lie. She’d just wanted to kiss him and had done it, because she was free to do it, to do anything she wanted. Averick, too, understood that, and smiled.
“Ah, just that? Or did I finally manage to convince you to bed me after all that bragging?”
Alice laughed: “Keep dreaming Av. Although, if you’re interested, I do have a free mattress out there.
Av choked on nothing: “The one our guest there shat in? Fuck off!”
They fell in companionable silence, looking at each other and getting more comfortable in their chairs.
In the end though, Av broke the silence: “So…?”
Alice shook her head: “I don’t know Av. The last time I ended up in an actual relationship things got… bad. Real bad. And it wasn’t all the guy’s fault. You saw it, I’m not… stable.”
She sighed, passing a hand through her hair: “I probably should’ve gone to see a shrink or something, but in the end I just kept it all in. Fat lot of good that did,” she chuckled mirthlessly.
“Point is, Av: do we want to risk it? Risk this. Our friendship, what we have, it’s great. But what if we take it a step further and I get ugly again? I’ve been there before: everything starts great, then I start to get jealous, I fear the other person will abandon me, will leave me behind, I start to suspect their every action, their every motive, and before you know it bam! I become a control freak.”
Av said nothing, letting her talk, letting her get it out of her system.
“And you know the worst part? It was always my fault when things went wrong. I made them leave, I made them want to never again have anything to do with me. They were all genuine, my lovers. Or at least, I think they were, in hindsight.”
She looked down at her hands, and that was when he struck.
“So what?”
She looked up, her eyes wide.
“What do you mean so what? Are you sure you want to risk seeing that side of me?”
He shrugged: “I mean, it was a different time, a different place, and you hadn’t made peace with yourself and your past. I’m willing to bet that, until that day in the mountains, when you spoke to that flower, you thought of yourself as a monster because you’d tried to forget about your grandma, the person you loved most in this world.”
For a second Alice wanted to correct him, say that her ma and pa were the people she loved most in her old world, but that would’ve been a lie. She’d always loved her grandmother, with her eccentricities and stories, more than her boring parents who only wanted her to see the world as a grown up even as a child.
“You’ve changed Alice. From the day I first met you up to now I’ve seen you change in ways I can’t even put into words. Sometimes for the better, most of the times for the worst, sure -”
“Hey!”
“- but you did it. You’re not the Alice of then, the broken girl with abandonment syndrome and barely contained suicidal desires. And yes, don’t think I didn’t notice. Now you’re… not fixed, I don’t think a person can ‘fix’ themselves in those ways, but instead you’re just… cracked, yes. Like a vase that fell to the ground and was put back together. The cracks are there, clear for all to see, but they only make the thing look different from the others and, for that, more beautiful.”
He had forgotten to breath as he’d said those words.
Silence reigned inside the room again, not like a rock, but like a gentle, swaying, river, suffocating everything in it but also gently swaying, lapping at your submerged form.
Finally, Alice spoke: “Come here and kiss me again Av.”
He did just that.