Becoming monsters is the creation of AiLovesToGrow, setting used with permission.

  This idea comes from Amethyst Dragonfly. Oh, and before any of you ask, no this is NOT the st chapter of this tale, not by a long shot.

  —

  Chapter 21: Blue and Gold

  “I wish to be as good a husband for you as you have been a girlfriend for me.”

  The entire world seemed to fall silent as those words thundered in her head. They consumed her being, they redefined reality as her Wish-granting powers surged forth. She sensed more than saw it follow the bond their two souls shared and crash into Justin, enveloping him in a combination of her power and his will. The Wish drew from both of their reserves, fueling its might with their mana. With their entire being.

  A glint of gold flew out of his pocket, coming to a stop in the air between them. For a split second she recognized her Coin, the vessel for her soul. Justin’s eyebrows furrowed, focusing on the glittering object before him. He nodded, as if coming to a decision. As if agreeing to pay a price. With a sudden fsh of light it was two objects. Two lumps of gold, spinning rapidly as their shapes changed, until just as rapidly they flew to where they belonged.

  Abbey held up her left hand, trembling, and saw what her Coin had become. Standing out sharply from her azure skin was a ring of bright gold, unpatterned and without any stone mounted on it, on her ring finger. Its match adorned Justin’s left hand. “How… how is this even possible? I don’t even know what to think, that’s my soul!”

  “Our souls, love. Mine’s there too, now. No, I don’t know how, but as long as we’re wearing these rings I can keep you safe. I… ah, I guess the order got screwed up, but it’s about time. Abigale Denise Williams, will you marry me?”

  “YES!” Abbey practically flew into his arms, sobbing tears of joy. There was no doubt in her mind, if he asked her a million times she would say yes to every one of them. They were together, there on that empty bus, in each other’s arms. Their lips met, a gentle kind of kiss, one with the promise of many more like it to follow. They were together, as they would be forever more.

  And yet, the moment couldn’t st for the eternity it deserved. The world kept moving. A few moments ter, both realized that they had headaches forming. That they felt a bit shaky. That there were sounds of talk coming from just outside, and at least one of the voices had a very distinct Texas drawl. It all served to remind them that they needed to get back out there.

  Justin led the way, his eyes searching the area, but the conversation they’d heard was just Abbey’s parents asking someone not to board yet. They were still at the civil phase of things. They heard the footsteps as the two descended the stairs, turned to help them down, and immediately noticed the newest accessories. Abbey’s dad took a deep breath, thought better of what was about to come out of his mouth, and let it go. “Looks like we’ll be needin’ to have more of a chat, Justin. Part of the big event, or did it come afterwards?”

  Justin stammered a bit. “Uh, kind of both? I mean, part of it, but I asked after.”

  The Goblin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve definitely heard worse excuses in my day. Pretty sure I gave a worse one to my father-in-w when I was expining why I proposed so fast, myself.”

  The matronly woman next to him smiled warmly. “You did. He was polishing a shotgun for a reason.”

  “That’s what I said.” The man looked around, a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that he was half the size of everyone else there. “I’m hungry. We haven’t had lunch yet since we were on the bus. Reckon you might have missed it, too.”

  Abbey giggled. “Kind of. Justin got me some fries, but nothing too big. We were in a hurry.”

  “Why don’t you two show us to where the food is, then, and we can get talkin’?”

  Justin took a deep breath to steady himself. “That… I think that sounds good. Hope you like faire food, this pce likes its meat.”

  “Young man, the day I turn down a roasted turkey leg y’all might as well call the hospital.”

  The walk wasn’t far, the food court being close to the Camp entry in order to help hungry tourists and hungrier delvers get there fast, and though the line was long the four of them got to order their food without incident. That, as it turned out, happened between their order and the food arriving. Abbey’s dad had just paid when there was a sudden noise coming from the center of Camp. From the direction of the Main Hall.

  Abbey’s eyes widened. “Justin! We forgot about your parents!” Not another word was needed as she took off running, Justin close behind.

  Abbey’s mother looked at her husband as they dashed off. “Think they’ll be back before the food gets cold?”

  The Goblin shrugged. “If he’s anything like our Abbey, I give it a coin flip whether they remember to come back at all. Let’s enjoy what we ordered and put the rest in doggie bags, just in case.”

  Both Abbey and Justin knew the way and were motivated to move quickly. Even if they hadn’t been, the commotion was more than enough to both let them know where they needed to go and to spur their steps. Once they got close, the crowd helped them find it. Abbey tried to let herself grow a bit for emphasis, but rapidly found that once again she couldn’t. Accepting that she’d have to do it as she was, she started pushing through the crowd. “Excuse me! Please let me through, I’m needed, on task for the Marshal, excuse me…”

  Three people were revealed at the center of the crowd, already drawing back in anticipation of a good fight. They were close to one of the dueling circles which dotted the Camp, and the pair on the right seemed oblivious to this fact. Mister and Missus Majors, the former looking ready to fight, were facing down someone looking much more casual about things. He was clearly non-Human, probably an Armadillo Beastfolk if Abbey was any judge. She felt like he was familiar, then remembered. He had been one of the people to walk out of the Marshal’s Hall earlier. His badge was also familiar, the six-pointed star in blue and white with a gold pomegranate on it. Guild Talmid. The same one as the Marshal. That meant the man wearing it was likely one of the more hideously dangerous people to be found in the State.

  Lieutenant Colonel Majors seemed utterly unaware of the fact, despite the fact the Armadillo man also had a huge axe across his back. Or maybe he just didn’t care. “I said I am going in there to meet the Marshal. I am on business.”

  “And for the second time, Marshal Shapiro isn’t in. It’s lunch, the man needs to eat. Nobody goes back alone without permission, and he didn’t tell us anything.” The Armadillo’s voice was a fairly harsh growl, like he’d survived neck injuries in the past (or was just wrangling vocal cords no longer quite meant for English). “That means you can come to the public areas, but not behind the desk. No exceptions other than other Marshals, the Governor, or the President. You can wait for one o’clock.”

  The Elf’s face was back to turning red from being confronted in such a dismissive manner. “Who do you think you are to speak to me that way?”

  “A local. We all know that, and you should have if you knew you were coming. Also the Marshal’s guild mate. Nobody disrespects him, the Guild, or the Camp in my presence and gets away with it. You’ve managed to come awfully close to all three.” The Armadillo wasn’t backing down one inch, and he was standing between the Elf and the door to the Main Hall. The crowd was starting to get something else very dangerous in the mix. Tourists. There were people here who were not local Delvers and crafters. This was public, now. Again.

  Abbey was looking around for answers. No other officers seemed to be nearby, no military or Delver authority she could appeal to. Physical intervention was starting to look like it was needed, but she was not a fighter. Oh, and her Mana was again at zero after this st Wish, which both expined the headache and meant there was no way to invoke her magics to help.

  “Last chance. Get out of my way and allow me to complete my mission.” Mr. Majors’s face was fully red, a vein pulsing in his forehead.

  “You don’t have anything you can threaten me with. You are denied entry, now, not just deyed. Leave.” The Armadillo was supremely unimpressed.

  In a fsh, the Elf’s hands glowed purple. His right traced a vertical circle targeting the man across from him, obviously charging a spell to smite him. Just as suddenly, a rock flew from the crowd and struck him on the side of the head, breaking his concentration and dissipating the magic charge. Abbey turned her head to see where it had flown from, like everyone else in the crowd, and saw her boyfriend… no, fiance… panting hard and obviously in a post-throw followthrough. “What the heck do you think you’re DOING?” Justin half-yelled. “You are assaulting an officer of this post outside of a dueling circle, any dunce knows how bad an idea that is. You unch a spell, you aren’t making it out of here alive!”

  The Armadillo was no longer standing casually. He stood straight and powerful, his huge axe held with deceptive ease in his right hand. His left was held forward, palm out and towards his near-assaint, the entire hand glittering as if covered in diamond dust. It was oddly beautiful and strangely threatening, as if to so much as conceive of unching an attack against it would be suicidal. His eyes, too, shone with an inner glow. “You might want to listen to the guy, he seems to know more than you. Let me clue you in. You’re a Magus, and I deal with those literally every day. The Marshal is the strongest one on Earth. Nice element. Rare one, but you are so far out of your league it’s absurd. Level seven, hah. You might make it to second-string on a delve team with some training, but that won’t be here. Now. This next part is important. I am now acting in accordance with Delver code. Leave this Camp, or in thirty seconds I’m demanding satisfaction from you. If that happens I’m decorating the entire floor of the nearest dueling circle with your blood, and it will not take me long to do so.”

  Abbey and Justin took the cue to step forward. Abbey stopped directly between them, her body separating the two, facing Mr. Majors. Justin went to his father. “Sir, listen to him. That’s how the Delvers do business around here. You stepped on a whole lot of toes already, and reputation is everything here. All of them sy monsters for a living. You let your temper get the best of you again, but this time it hit a wall it can’t beat. These aren’t your soldiers that you can bulldoze anymore.”

  Mr. Majors stood there for a precious handful of seconds. The man had been around the block a few times. Joined the Army, fought in a war, seen what all that could mean. Even had a Purple Heart to his name to show for one of those fights. He had never felt so completely outcssed. He had a problem, but no context with which to solve it. Now his son was telling him to turn and run, without even coming within sight of finishing the mission. That simply didn’t happen, he couldn’t LET it happen, but just as obviously the mission was already lost.

  Abbey, one hand out to the raging Elf, did her best to present a confident face. One in control of a situation that could have gone severely sideways. “Sir, please. This is not worth a fight, not a risk to your life. Talk to your superiors and tell them something went wrong, there can be other routes forward.”

  “This is not over.” He turned and did the hardest thing he could. He walked away. His wife, who had not said a word since arriving at Camp, followed.

  Abbey’s thundering heart rate began to slow, bit by tiny bit, as she watched the man walk off with his metaphorical tail between his legs. An incongruous thought struck her, that many of the locals would have been a lot more literal about the phrase. Half of a muffled giggle escaped her lips, but then a hand came to her shoulder and her heart rate leapt back upwards.

  “Heck of a thing you two just did. Any reason in particur, or just being stupid?” The harsh voice was not mistakable, the hand belonged to the Armadillo.

  “The Marshall wanted me to stop conflict at camp, and that seemed like the best way from what I saw.”

  “Jordan could have ended it in a third of a second, personally. Starting to get a bit tired of him always testing people. And why did you face him, back to me?” The man’s voice seemed genuinely curious, not accusatory.

  Abbey had to think for a moment about that one. It had been instinctive. A hunch. Yet still, a reason was there. “You’re local, he was hostile. If someone was going to do something stupid, it was going to be him, so I needed to be facing that direction. I knew you weren’t going to stab me in the back.”

  The Armadillo chuckled. “Alright, alright, either you thought this through or you’re the smoothest liar I’ve ever met. Liars don’t tend to jump between a hostile Force Magus and the guy fighting for the title of highest-Level Mirror on record, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Abbey’s heart rate, which had finally been managing to slowly decrease, decided it really wasn’t done sprinting and powered right back up to its previous peak. “Uh, thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir. Just the brother of someone way too powerful for his own good, visiting for a bit to lend a hand. Dunno how he keeps a lid on it, might be why he’s hiring you. Good job.” His hand lifted from her shoulder. By the time she spun to face him, all she could see were the broad ptes of his shell, striding off into the dispersing crowd. The st thing she caught before he walked around the corner was that he had pulled out a cell phone and started to make a call.

  “Think your parents are still over at the food court?” Justin’s voice, coming from behind her after she turned, didn’t make her jump. She knew it, and it helped anchor her despite everything that was going on.

  “I… uh, I hope so. This didn’t take all that long, even if it felt like a million years.” Abbey took a few deep breaths, steadying herself further. “Let’s get going?”

  Unlike the trip here, the walk back to the food court was a sedate walk. Neither really said anything. Both had too much to think about, and not nearly enough words to say what they were thinking about it. Too many topics to broach. Too many yers of meaning. The deep thoughts were thankfully interrupted by frankly obscenely-sized ptters of chicken wings and Mr. Williams handing a five dolr bill to Mrs. Williams. “Here I thought we’d be taking the chicken back to the RV. Never been so happy to lose a bet.” The Goblin grinned, his mouth full of crooked and yellowed teeth. “Do what you meant to?”

  Justin scratched the back of his head, shrugged, and reached for some chicken. “I think so. Nobody died, nobody got hospitalized, and my dad left Camp. Wins all around.”

  The Goblin paused to consider those words. “You sure ‘bout that?”

  “What? I’m gd nobody got hospitalized. Could have happened if it had gone wrong.” Justin paused to chew and swallow, reaching for the lemonade he’d ordered one crisis ago.

  “Daddy?” Abbey was suddenly very serious. “I know that look. What did we miss?”

  “Justin, your father didn’t exactly strike me as a forgiving sort of man.” Mr. Williams was considering his words carefully. “If he got himself humiliated for a second time in fifteen minutes? That’s gonna be a problem.”

  Justin looked down. “You’re… probably right. He doesn’t take losing well, especially on the job.”

  “That’s what I thought. Abbey?”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “You probably want to talk to your folks around here about that before you head for home.” An eminently practical kind of Goblin, Daniel Williams. “That can wait until after y’all eat, though. Have to keep priorities straight. Like, for example,” he stared straight at Justin, “a certain talk I was mentioning that I wanted to have with you, young man. I’d normally ask what your intentions are with my daughter, but you’ve made that abundantly clear. How do you pn to support her?”

  “Uh. Can I go back to risking getting shot?”

  Mrs. Williams, one arm around her husband, shook her head. “Of course not. This one has much higher stakes than that. After all, I’m not sure whether to call you Abbey’s boyfriend or fiancé right now.”

  Abbey coughed delicately. “Might as well add husband to the mix. That’s what he Wished for, and I would have said yes even without that.”

  Abbey’s mother looked at their hands, staring at the rings they wore. “I see. We can talk about ceremonies ter, but it seems fairly official to me. Calling upon the opportunity to use reality-warping power to become the groom is what we like to call a sign that he’s serious about this.”

  “And that’s why I asked about pns to support Abbey, not about if he was serious,” the Goblin said with another crooked grin.

  What followed was an interrogation worthy of pulling state secrets out of an international spy. Infinitely polite, patient, and genial… but every tiny detail and comment of every response was dissected and analyzed like a frog on a b table. Discrepancies between answers to one question and offhand comments to another were zeroed in on like sharks homing in on blood. It took five minutes for Justin to feel like he was running a marathon trying to keep up. Abbey, used to this from the st time she tried to date anyone, was kind of gd Justin really was serious about it. Her st boyfriend in college ran for the hills a day and a half afterwards. This time around, no matter how hard he was sweating, he hung on for dear life and answered the questions as best he could.

  The wings had gone cold and the air was starting to join them when Abbey’s dad suddenly grinned again. “I’m not a hundred percent happy with what I heard, but I reckon nobody would be in my shoes.” he nodded at his wife. “What do you say?”

  The matronly woman smiled a bit. “I think he’s going to make Abbey happy or die trying, and she’s going to be with him the entire way.” Abbey wasn’t quite sure how her mother had figured out that second part, but given that the woman was her mother she was sure there had to be more than one good reason for her to be able to say so. “That’s about all we can ask for. Hopefully he’ll ask for advice when things get tricky so he can avoid some of the mistakes we made.”

  “Fine, fine. Young man, you’ve got my blessin’ to court my daughter.”

  Justin slumped as the stress left his body. “Thank you, sir.” With one suddenly-shaky hand, he reached for one of his now-cold pieces of chicken. Suddenly, he was hungry. Very, very hungry.

  Euphegina stood. “Honey, if you want to do any shopping today we have to get walking. Abbey, which way to the crafters and supplies?”

  Abbey pointed off to the left. “Head that way and take the second right. You’ll find a map sign there, but both Crafter’s Row and the Quartermasters are that way. It’ll be cheaper if you’ve got Coinage on you, but most of them accept cash.”

  “Thank you, dear. Daniel, let’s go let the lovebirds have some alone time. We’ll see them again in a couple of days.” There were a few hugs and goodbyes to get through first, but the two walked off in the direction Abbey had told them. The second they were out of sight? The lovebirds both flopped back onto the bench.

  “Abbey, I think we’ve done enough for today. My mana’s empty, I couldn't do more work even if I wanted to. Think it’ll take long for you to tell the folks at the main hall about my dad?”

  “Less if you come with me. Tell you what, we go do that, then we take the Door home and actually rex for once. Maybe work on our tans while we can.”

  “Abbey, you’re blue. Can you even tan?”

  “Sure, it darkens my skin tone two or three shades to more of a sapphire.”

  “Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed, but I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

  Abbey gulped. “Justin, one thing before we do that. What… do we even call ourselves now? You’re definitely more than my boyfriend, and the Wish definitely did something to make sure we’re effectively married, but nobody remembers a ceremony, and…”

  “Abs,” Justin interrupted. “All I really care about is that we’re together. If anyone else needs a word for it, we can go with ‘fiance’ until everything becomes official to everyone else. Far as I’m concerned, we’re married more deeply and truly than anyone else ever has been no matter what anyone else thinks of us.”

  Abbey blushed a deep purple, her heart feeling like it had melted into a puddle. She felt much the same way about him, but when did he get the words to say it like that? Right, easy answer. He got them at about 11:45 this morning, on the bus. “I think I like that, Justin. Let’s bag the leftovers, throw away the trash, and take care of the st couple of things. My parents decided we needed time alone, and I agree. Sound good?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Dropping by the Main Hall turned out to be the work of about ten minutes. The crew there knew perfectly well who the visitor was and when his appointment was supposed to be. Simontov Shapiro, the Marshal’s brother, had met him to see if he’d have basic decency as an outsider before letting him in to see the Marshal himself. Lieutenant Colonel Majors had badly failed that test, but the extra context Justin could provide helped the staff as they got ready to contact the more local military base to talk about it. What had gone down was not going to do much to build a bridge over the rift between the two communities.

  In short order they got back to the hidden nook with their doorway home, but Justin paused with his hand on the knob. “It… feels different. Abbey, it feels… why do I want to say it feels ‘healthy’?”

  She looked at him quizzically. “Because that’s what I feel when I’m in the house. Kind of tenuous and unfinished, but determined to stick around. It’s still building itself.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. Why didn’t I feel anything but a tingle before?”

  “I don’t know, love. You just made a Wish. A lot could happen that we don’t know. The only way to find out is to go and figure it out.” She giggled a bit. “I can’t say I mind, though. You seriously used a WISH to marry me?”

  “You’re worth it, Abbey. That and more.”

  She smiled again. Even compared to the st month, she was doing that a lot more today. “Come on, Justin. Let’s go home. We can figure out the rest tomorrow.”