“It was either this or the carriages, and they couldn’t make sure you got where you were going safely,” I mumbled, then more tersely, “And you don’t need to remain in my arm if you're uncomfortable. Either stop wiggling or hop off.”
“All right, all right,” she sighed, settling into my one arm, my other keeping everything secure to my side because I had not planned on bringing two shovels back, nor had I planned on carrying someone, but here I was, carrying a woman and two shovels anyway.
Despite my tired arms, I held on with all the remaining strength, or more likely all of my spirit; it wasn’t muscle that kept my arms lifting now that toil was over, but a contempt for giving up made manifest in every blunt movement.
I could tell upon closer inspection that I wasn’t using strength mana, which further clarified what I was doing. I was so spent that I was burning into my durability. Only my spirit was taking the brunt of it.
I could tell I was going to be absolutely shredded tomorrow, shy of offing myself or some kind of weird interaction with life mana. I wasn’t aware that my body was kind of fucked.
Turns out, when you use your muscles too much, you hurt yourself, just very minutely. I could tell this because I could see the death mana in my muscles. I don’t know why that was so strange to me, but it was. After all, that was how you built muscle; how did parts of you dying make you stronger?
I let my weary mind puzzle that one out as I shambled. One foot slapped down in front of the other as I kept my eyes forward and my ears as perked as I could make them as I kept going. Just like when I had first walked up into Anna's cottage all those months ago, when you just let your mind wander, it was easier to keep walking, my mother's secret trick coming in handy for carrying a woman home... Only Joan wasn’t the right woman.
Joan poked my nose, and I let out a phlegmy, “Gah—" before looking down at her. My eyes drooped into a squint.
“You were zoning out again,” she told me as if somehow that made sense.
“I was doing it intentionally; that was the point,” I confirmed.
“But it makes it hard to hold a conversation, and we still need to talk about your lady friend… Come on, pay a little attention so I can figure this out. I need gossip, I need dirt, and I need you to spill the tea!” She complained.
“Didn’t I do that already?” I asked her. What else could you ask for? Anna and I aren’t the gossip type, and there is no tea.”
She looked at me like I was a moron, her look of patience like I was a particularly slow person.
“I know you think that, honey, but there’s something you can spill,” she said sweetly. All you need to do is let me poke around and ask questions, and I’ll help you for the low, low price of delivering me to Strause and letting yourself in with the promise of food.”
I looked at her with utter bewilderment. Confusion was written so large upon my forehead that you could see it from the battlements of the Mynes estate, even in the cool shade as the shadows grew longer, the thin light fading from an unseen sunset.
“You know, I think I can see part of the problem already,” Joan told me, “So little imagination.”
“I resent that,” I told her.
“Go on, what's the joke, smarty pants? What's the joke?” She asked, poking me in the chest.
“I…” I didn’t know what the joke was, and for all that I could tell, there was something to it; I couldn’t rally the other half of myself to help, assuming it could understand it. “I don’t care,” I answered.
“I’m the food! Dummy. I want him to gobble me up!” She told me.
I gaged, unable to stop myself. I did not like the image of Joan getting ‘eaten.’ Even as stunted linguistically as I was, the idea of Strause and his widow's peak gnawing away gave me the ick.
“Oh, you don’t like that? Well, too bad. You’re not getting any, and I am. Suck it up,” She told me, “If you were well-fed, I doubt this thing between you and Anna would be as bad.”
“Joan, you have to be aware that I don’t care for… Meat? I don’t want to know about that, and not just because of your looks or the meat in question. It's private,” I told her, my willingness to carry her back waning.
I carried her regardless. Because it would be rude to drop her in the wet leaves, but it was close.
“Listen, I get it, I do. You’re all squeamish about it, perfectly normal, especially for a non-human. Perfectly typical, even. We get our stereotype of laying everything with a pulse for a reason, but Anna is a human, too, Saphine. Judging by the fact that you’re even together in whatever manner you can call together, she didn’t just pick you because of your winning personality, at least not at first. As a fence sitter, I can see it; I really can. If I was as lonely as she was and you waltzed into my lap, the first thing I would be asking myself was how to lock you down and get you into my bed. You're basically just a funny-looking Human anyway, minus the whole crazy eyes and funny nose; I guess that’s just Annabeth's thing.”
I didn’t even know what to say about that. That made me want to back away and blush. I didn’t exactly say anything, so much as make a weird chitter of confused embarrassment. I didn’t know how the hell to even react to that.
Yeah, you’re embarrassed by the squeak, but also, your girlfriend was probably plotting on how to get you in her bed; I know because I know I would also be up for that if I wasn’t slowing someone’s knob already. Also said probably girlfriend is a bit of a freak.
It was, in a way, less metaphorical than you would expect, like getting clobbered over the head; it dazed the hell out of me and made my head hurt.
Hells, to top it all off, she had admitted that she thought I had good looks after I had said she had looks. If I wasn’t assured that she wanted to ‘get eaten’ by Strause, I sure as hell would have interpreted it as her hitting on me. It was dangerously close to some kind of cliche forbidden romance shlock.
She looked at me, her big eyes taking in my every expression, her face hanging close to my own as she tucker herself further into my breast. I sat there, unsure. Heartbeat like the pounding of hooves. The rain had tucked us away, secreted under the branches of a greatwood, just the two of us; the cool twilight air left only each other to warm ourselves. Hidden as we were, our blooming draw could not be stopped by the prying eyes of those we had promised ourselves to.
That kind of shit, you know? It both made the tiny part of me that couldn’t help looking at a cute girl panic between curling up into a ball and running for the hills, and the rest of me wanted to bludgeon that other part with a rock.
“Heh,” Joan said with a shit-eating grin, “You’re weak to compliments. Also, you look so embarrassed. I could get used to that.”
That tugged me right into a new line of thought: embarrassed outrage.
“You’re playing with me. You. You evil cow,” I claimed hoarsely.
“I won’t lie, I was poking you, but I’m being serious. You’re not even trying to deny the compliments? You know what, I think I have a bit of insight already,” she told me conspiratorially.
“You're jerking me around, playing with me, and you expect me to spill my guts and embarrass myself for something I don’t even trust you have?” I asked her, unable to deny her claim without lying my ass off.
“How’s about this, I trade you what I figured out, and you accept my deal? I would say that sounds fair, and besides, if you don’t think I’ve done my part, you would only be spilling the tea, not carrying me to Strause. How’s about it?” She asked, clearly thinking the deal was a great idea.
The staccato beat of my heart did not slow as Joan misunderstood my meaning. I was not embarrassed about literally tossing her on Strause with a slightly dirty line, so long as I could get out of there.
“Joan, the issue is my giving you information. We were barely acquaintances. I can’t read you. I can pick up a few things, but those seem obvious, too obvious compared to you normally. How can I trust you when I can’t even tell if you’re just using me for gossip that could make everything worse?” I told her tersely, enough so that her face took a strained look.
“You’re so tense and serious, so tense that you’re taking this all the wrong way,” she sighed, deflating slightly. “Do you understand what I’m doing here?”
“Annoying me?” I stated more than asked.
“Establishing rapport. You’re so quick to bring up our acquaintanceship, but not how I’m trying to carry a conversation or, help you out, or generally better our relationship. It’s like trying to break the ice, but it’s just ice all the way down.” She complained, her social nicety slipping slightly, the edge of frustration peeking through the mask before she sighed heavily. “You're so bent out of shape; you’ve taken a compliment and spun it into me playing with you. I’m too tired to spin much of anything, let alone a fucking web of deceit.”
Her words were out of her mouth with a tone that should be accompanied by her shaking me, but she was barely able to walk straight, let alone shake me. She tired herself out as she vented.
Her words also pointed in the opposite direction of my thinking and pointed out that we were both tired. Was she trying to manipulate me, or was I misinterpreting her words?
I had one edge, and only one edge. Wisdom alone would not cut the knot, but an additional observer could, and so I turned inward, used my wisdom, and teased out my instinct like I was trying to lead it by the nose.
My instinct did not like Joan. She was a strange woman, and being close to a strange woman was bad, mostly because she wasn’t Anna, who my instinct seemed to like more than I did. It didn’t like the fat that I was carrying Joan, either, because that’s where Anna went, and it didn’t like my arms being multifunctional.
It didn’t understand, however, why I was upset. The worst it could say was that she smelled weird, and while I had to agree there, Joan did smell weird for a Human. She didn’t smell like any of the known emotions I could smell. There was nothing there that indicated the emotions of a lie, no desperation, no fear, no hidden issues.
I was tensed, showing signs of agitation, and tired. She had set me off by talking about things I hadn’t wanted to talk about, which had mixed together with the rest and latched onto distrust.
I clamped down on my emotions, analyzed them, and put them to the side as best I could.
“If you’re going to drop me, just do it. Stop dragging this out,” Joan griped, though there was a dejected nature in her tone.
“If I can’t tell if she’s yanking me around and using me or genuinely trying to help me. But I shouldn’t treat someone like they’re wronging me unless they actually do. It’s not right to treat her poorly because I’m prickly right now.” I thought to myself.
My instinct gnawed at my leg.
‘No,’ my instinct told me, not in words, but in ideas, ‘not Anna, no forgive.’ But that was all I needed to choose.
“I’m not going to drop you, Joan. I… I’m in the wrong here. You offered to help me, and I’m being a bitch about it. I’m sorry. I just don’t like being poked,” I told her.
“Well… Good. Thank you for recognizing you were being a bit of a bunghole. Gods, but you have a hard head,” she said with a sigh.
I kept moving, not speaking up, but letting the tension ease. Large cool breaths of wet air calmed me down so I didn’t say something stupid. I brought my heart in line, the cool a balm to my warm skin. The tent of my cloak atop my head, perched upon my flattened ears, picked up the pitter patter.
I wasn’t moving quickly, a twenty minute walk back along the tree line gave us plenty of time to calm down.
“I think… I think I don’t mind delivering you.” I told her with unintended tersely, “I would understand if you don’t want to extend the deal to me, given I was a massive bitch about it, but if you do, I would be willing to at least bring you to Strause either way.”
She looked up at me, reading me like a book with none of the extra reach I required to read myself.
“It’s not a problem. I think I can understand, upon a little reflection, that you are touchy about things people just aren’t normally touchy over. If you are willing to give me my price, I will still help you out with a few things,” she told me, though the way she said it made me think she was slightly hesitant.
“Good job, me,” I thought to myself, “Now you’ve made her feel like she needs to step on eggshells around me. Great work.” Though what I said was, “I would very much like that. Thank you.”
“Stop thanking me, and I’m not doing much.” She said, “Though a few of the things I’ve recognized are more issues in general, so I’m not sure how they might help you out.”
“Fire away, it's not like I’m in a position where I can half-ass this, and I don’t know what I’m doing. Any wisdom, even that which seems pointless to you, could be useful to me.” I told her, not even trying to play off my own depreciation.
“The self-persecution aside, I’m guessing the two of you don’t exactly give each other compliments?” She asked.
“Anna compliments me,” I told her. Sure, it wasn’t every single day, but she gave them. They made me feel funky, but they also made my day most of the time.
“But you don’t give her many? I’m only pointing it out because I noticed you don’t exactly take compliments well. They’re a weak point. Is that fair?” She said, her words phrased into a question to avoid annoying me.
“I… I guess? What's the point there?” I asked her, not getting what she was trying to indicate; the dots were not connecting.
“If you don’t get them, you don’t give them. That’s not a recent thing, I bet. It’s honestly rather normal, just for lads instead of ladies. I bet those you get stand out to you, but you also don’t give many, which you should be doing more of, considering you seem to be obsessed with your soft little girlfriend.” She told me, her face turning deadpan in a way that spoke volumes without a single word being spoken.
“I feel like you’re insinuating something that I wouldn’t like,” I told her.
“That’s because I am,” she told me, “You clearly… Like her, so you should make sure she knows you like her. Praise her; make sure she knows how you like her, not just her looks but the rest of her, too.”
The word like clarified it. The last time we talked, she insisted on love. Its very idea made my skin crawl in fear.
“You should probably work on that too,” she told me, “Calm thine bosom and pin thither thy courage. Man up, basically.”
I could barely understand her cadence, her tone passing into barely comprehendible tone and primordial words.
“Thanks. I really needed someone besides myself to call me a coward… And a man, apparently.” I told her, a shred of edge blooming in my chest, though I caught it early before it could poison my thoughts.
“You certainly have the arms for it,” she told me, “Though I should probably keep going, give me some of your domestic life. How did you two bumble into each other's lives.”
“I stumbled into her garden covered in grave ash,” I told her, “and we’ve been falling into one another since… We,” I started before holding back some of the details. We spend a great deal of time next to one another alone out there. We eat together, we finish chores together, she teaches me magic, and we talk, mostly.”
“Sounds scenic,” she told me, and I nearly agreed until she asked, “And how do you fight?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Without thought or any falsehood, I said, “With a shovel. I use a shovel, and I didn’t get to see Anna fight much, but she used magic. That should be obvious.”
She looked at me and reached her arm up, struggling against its own weight, her hand shaking.
“Fight in the social sense, you great big bimbo. Ow. Shit. Ohh, my arms hurt.” she hissed, her arm falling back down into the bundle.
“Fucking eh woman. We don’t fight. We just talk. Now, keep your arms down.” I told her.
“Moron,” she said, “Now stop that; I can see your face. Everyone fights; that’s like the quintessential thing about relationships besides bedroom time. The only way you're not fighting over small stuff is that you’re not open to one another. Neither of you is adapting to the other, only their presence. You’re both walking the walk, but you don’t talk the talk.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” I told her with a squint, not at her words but at her actions as I tried to tell if she had just suffered a bit of a conniption or if she was trying to cuff me and simply failed to do so.
“Oh yeah? So you and your girlfriend have never come to a crossroads, and one of you decided one thing and then another thing. That’s fight territory, and the only way you don’t fight there is constantly sucking up to one another to avoid it because you're both worried about the stability of you two.” She told me.
“So me and Anna not getting into fights constantly is a bad thing?” I asked her, clearly not buying it.
“No, but now you're less than agreeable, and you don’t understand one another enough to get one another. It's not the fight that matters; it's mutual honesty. Getting to know one another means getting to know the parts that disagree with the other. Not arguing at all seems like a symptom of that, at least to me. You jumped into this way too fast and idealistically, like you got all of your relationship advice from the kind of storybooks with big pictures.”
She told it to me without malice or intentional unkindness, but it was unkind, if only because it was close enough to the truth, regardless of my opinions and feelings.
There was a hesitance between us at times; we talked about our inner thoughts most frequently at night, as if the gloom of the dark could hide us from each other. Like the darkness was freedom instead of a shroud that allowed us to ignore the other without judgment.
If we wanted to be a good couple we would need to be able to face each other. Face to face in the light, instead of hiding our dirt like a sin we couldn’t bear to show one another.
Like we had yesterday before everything went up in smoke.
“I… I think there’s some sense in that,” I told her, “But I needed to know about how to make it right, not how to go forward. We’re putting the cart before the mules here.”
“Then tell me how it happened. What kicked this off?” she told me tiredly.
So, I told her.
“Let's see, we made our way into the city because Anna could snuff out the fire. I sent her ahead and saved Clause. We dragged him back, Strause and me, and then I found Anna. She finished calling the storm, and it struck her with lightning. I traded my life for hers, and when I came too, she was… Afraid? Shaken, I think that works best. I put my foot in my mouth by breaking into her room, for sure, but that just made her angry; the worry is what I don’t understand.”
I found myself unable to look her in the eye as I finished, staring up into the gloom of the thinning trees. It was getting dark enough that it was hard too see properly, my pitch black magical eyes no better for seeing in the dark than they were amber, with the admittance that I could use them like a dim candle.
“So… Let me get this right. You stopped Anna from killing herself?” She asked, her tone disbelieving me.
“Yep,” I told her. “She almost got herself killed, yeah,” I told her, briefly looking down at her to try and read her. Her response was too short, suspiciously so.
“And is that normal? Anna casting magic like that? Because it doesn’t sound like her. Explain that a little more.”
The way she said it was obviously leading, her picking for information like a [Miner] for precious stones, but I had agreed to that.
“It's not like her. As best as I can understand it, the spell to cast a storm wasn’t Annas but bound to the staff. It was probably too complex to cast, too costly. She mentioned that she would need time to get it out, like a long time, so she was ritual casting it, building up magical power and drawing on her Druid powers to get the Land to help her, and it still took her over half a glass to build up the storm. She skipped some steps. The spell had bits for lightning; Anna figured she didn’t need lightning, just the rain, but they weren’t for calling it.” I told her, piecing the bits together as best as I could.
I didn’t know what Anna had done for sure, but she had found a way to shorten the casting, and that was the crux. The right heart, just in a less than perfect body.
“So they were for protecting against it,” she said politely.
“Bingo. The whole storm was directly above her. I won’t claim I understand how lightning works for sure, but imagine a thunderstorm directly above your head. Path of least resistance, but the highest point wasn’t a tree; it was her staff,” I told her.
“So she made a mistake for the sake of others, gotcha. So why is this an unknown at all? I can see a big thing you’ve totally missed.” She told me.
“Oh?” I asked, “I can’t see the issue. What's wrong?”
She looked at me like I was a vapid moron, a look I didn’t like the look of because if it was that obvious, it was bad.
“She hit you with lightning?” She asked in a way so rhetorical it was a tangible force.
“She killed me, actually,” I told her.
“That is even worse. What the hells?” She asked.
“I get better. I can’t be killed forever; I just get back up. That’s why I throw myself into stuff so freely. It’s not courage, that’s for sure,” I told her.
“And Anna is ok with you gods; this is weird, killing yourself?” She asked.
That caught me. She had found a sticking point. I hadn’t expected that, but I should have.
“I… Um… No. No, she doesn’t like it,” I told her as we exited the tree line, beelining for the gloom of the shadowed New Moarn, the field sloping beneath my feet.
“So she murdered you, and you're questioning why she was afraid? Why was she weary? Pardon my language, but are you a bit fucking retarded? To her, she just murdered someone she loves. It doesn’t matter that she knows you can come back. Emotions aren’t logical; they simply are. She doesn’t like it when you kill yourself, and you got yourself killed by her on a fuck up,” She told me, not with a great bellow, but with the smooth brutal blows of a [Craftsman].
“I. I don’t. I know that would be scary, but-” I started, only for her to cut me off, actual annoyance in her voice as she started ripping into me.
“But fucking nothing, you donkey. She probably watched the light leave your eyes by her hand. No wonder she's shaken. She killed you with something she no doubt takes great pride in. She killed you with her passion. She tainted her love, both of them, like staining a precious sketch with ink. How fucking callous are you? Because you are either a social Trog or a calloused bitch. Imagine for a second you killing Anna with that precious shovel of yours. Even if she just got back up, you killed her.”
That.
That closed the hole.
My world snapped into focus as I replayed the conversation but as Anna. She had killed me with her own passions, true, but she had also been caught lacking. Then in comes the very woman she liked, with whom she shared her passion.
Do you think I’m so incapable?
She wasn’t just ripped up about me; she was ripped up about her own magic. People were stuck in their own minds, and each of us was a prisoner. Alone and shaken, she had only her own racing mind to guide what others might think of her, and she had killed me with ineptitude. So when I skated in, she thought I thought she couldn’t even take care of herself; her own feeling of ineptitude reflected back at me.
And then I had shut her down before there could be any sharing, further isolating her. She wouldn’t even have anyone else to talk to. She didn’t get along with her family.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! How- Shit,” I cursed, the sucking earth beneath me nearly tripping me.
“There it is. You’re just a socially inept moron. Good. If you were a cold-hearted bitch I would have to part ways.” she said.
“Good? This is horrible!” I shouted.
“And you can now fix it! You great big, unassuming oaf. And you better. I’m a firm believer in a maidens joy, and you're currently not helping with one of them… By the gods. You need to work on communication. Clean the cobwebs from the dusty corners of your head,” she told me, still clearly confused.
“If I had any, I would have done that! Ughh. I should have thought for a minute. Stupid, stupid, stupid-”
“Stop that. You're shaking me. If you're going to do anything, just beat yourself up. Know when you’ve made a mistake, sure, but use that to spur yourself forward. You can’t undo what's already happened, but the future is clay in your hand,” she told me.
“That’s easy for you to say; you don’t know what your foot tastes like,” I told her.
“And it's easy for you to say it's easy. Don’t forget, even if you’re a dumbass, you’re a maiden too. I expect you to be happy. So don’t forget to work on the two of you when you bounce back. Learn to comfort her how she likes it, compliment her, understand and tend to her needs, and partner stuff, but also make sure she's a good partner. A fight once in a while is worthwhile. Also, for the love of everything, get in touch with your inner girl. It would be a shame for you to never know the simple pleasures in life. Wear a clean dress once in a while, let yourself be emotional, I can feel you bottling up shit, and that just makes you miserable that kind of shit.”
I looked at her; she looked serious. Passionate, even. She had me in the first half but lost me in the second.
“What kind of answer is that? Wear a dress? Who do you think you are?” I asked her.
“Someone who thinks you would look good showing off a little leg,” she told me, the swing recognizable. She had started light, swung into a more comfortable phrasing, and now she was fighting herself to go back to how we had started.
“You haven’t seen my legs. You weirdo.” I told her that I did not like this side of Joan. It felt wrong.
“Wearing a dress shouldn’t be done for others, but to make you feel beautiful. It’s a waste otherwise,” She told me. “besides, whatever you look like is probably Annas' type; showing a little leg might be worth it to get her thinking about you.”
I looked at her and weighed my words for a moment before deciding there wasn’t a point in holding back.
“Joan, we don’t have that kind of relationship at the moment. I’m not going to tease Anna when I’m the one who's not ready for that,” I told her, checking my words as I got a foot on the road and headed into town.
As I did I decided to speed up. Not that Joan wasn’t good company, but I needed to get around to putting souls in jars.
I also didn’t want to spill everything to Joan, because she had a way to get me talking. Stupid me.
“Well… Then you should be,” She said as if we were talking about me planning a flower pot and not me tying the knot.
“No diving into my personal issues. I barely know what love is, let alone what the right time to do that stuff is.” I told her with a grimace.
“If this is about the wait until marriage, that’s not an issue. They say that knowing the young will indulge anyway. It’s to get people to marry when they realize they have a baby in them; that’s why so many faiths say it. It’s a great big premature panic catch for when a girl wakes up and realizes she hasn’t had her time of the month; they need to lock down the guy and make sure the kid has a good life,” she told me.
“Cool theory, but as a bastard myself, it’s a little different,” I told her, “Even if its not about having a kid, which I honestly don’t know if I could deal with anyway, it’s a warning that whims of passion hurt those around you.”
“There is a difference between passion and love, though it's true enough,” she told me.
“Maybe for a Human. It’s a bit different for Kobolds, not like you would know. We form mating bonds, courtesy of my passenger, who hates your guts. You meet the right person, and bang, now you’re tied to them. Forever. My mom was like that, even though my dad ran off. I think it’s the same for Anna, though it's hard to tell.” I told her, carefully pivoting around how I was bonded to her already and that if Anna had it, she was bonded to me.
She had chosen me. Joan didn’t seem to understand the severity of why I was acting the way I was because she didn’t have a second entity in the back of her head with the comprehension of a literal wild animal.
“Hmm. I wonder if that’s what did it?” she asked herself quietly. “Did other species bond?”
“Not that I know of. The Mynes are part Mouse so its possible Anna might end up bonding. Why something weird happen? Time for you to spill the tea.” I told her, grateful for the distraction.
She had done it again, dragging me from my thoughts on Anna.
“Well were a thing now, but something happened last night… Well, when Strause mentioned to Clause earlier he needed to show him something, he wasn’t messing with him, we were trying to figure out if the rest of you can see it. When we… Spent the night with one another, we ended up getting a kind of. Well its hard to say,” she said, obviously embarrassed.
Of all the things I had seen Joan do, being embarrassed was not one of them.
This was a woman that was willing to talk about others doing the deed, or how she felt someone was attractive straight to their face like she had courage in spades, but she was now rendered to speechless stupefaction.
“Are you stuttering?” I asked her.
“No. I just don’t know how to explain the issue… We have tattoos and not ink ones. Elaborate magical looking tattoos…” she said.
Thinking back on it, Strause had gotten Clause to look at…
“You have a magic tattoo on your…” I went to ask before gesturing down with my head.
“No. Not there. Gods, that would be ever weirder. Just over my belly. It's kind of freaking the both of us out, but no one can even see it,” she said, her face falling into a forced neutrality, similar to the first time I had met her.
A skill to hide her embarrassment.
“I see. First time having something funky happen to your body?” I asked her, eyebrows raised to show off my magic peepers.
“It's not the same as that. It's just…” she said, not quite having the words for it.
“You have a glowing womb tattoo and I have black eyes that show off my soul, same difference,” I told her.
“It's not. I mean, it is, but it's not weird!” she said.
“Getting matching tattoos with your lover? It's kind of weird.” I teased.
“Nooo.” She whined. “It just happened when we… Well, you can figure that out.”
“Is it like a freaky mind reader skill?” I asked her.
“No? Maybe? I don’t know.” She told me, “I can’t exactly go check my status. They just don’t work right on us.”
I thought about that for a moment.
And then my mind started to turn and I asked, “I could try something, if you’re ok with that.”
“I don’t know. Is it invasive?” she asked.
“It’s a spell that tells you about the target. Perhaps that could shed some light on the issue,” I told her.
“I suppose if you’re not peeping where you’re not asked for, and you give me the information… I wouldn’t be averse to it,” she said, though there was hesitancy. “Just don’t be surprised if it's garbled nonsense.”
I took her words and stopped, laying the spades to the side to free one hand and begin to trace a spell. It was cheap, it was fast, and it wasn’t [Status].
[Inspect] was getting better and better the more I used it because it was just so darn useful. I finished the spell form and cast the small speck down at the woman in my arms.
Level -- Human, Condition: Exhausted
Description: Joan Taverner, Human Pr!mord!a! $%##@, [Pr??!????m????o(??d??i????@????!?? ??$????%??##??@????] Level $%, Barmaid Level 19.
Humans are the most widely found species in all the faded lands, with great adaptability and fecundity. They are best known for building expansive nations and bringing relative order as they seek stability and eak out their normally meagre existences. This Humans soul is marked by primordium, the essence of the beyond. Primordium does not mix with mana and is formed from the emotions of beings with essence emanating into the world before dissipating.
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A [Barmaid] is the general backbone of any worthwhile establishment, bar or tavern, wading tables, fetching drinks and tending to the needs of their clientele. [Barmaids] are well-rounded generalists with a great deal of variance in their class, even for their rarity.
Even looking at the garbled text made my head hurt, a sudden sharp pain blooming in my mind, causing me to flinch away. As I broke, looking at the gibberish, I felt the pressure cease.
“Sheesh. You’re bleeding,” Joan told me.
Checking myself, I felt a warm rivulet running from my nose, and quickly whipped it away; momentarily lost, I picked up the gear and continued walking, trying to parse the information I had read.
All of the garbled text was… meaningless. Even the ones that mentioned classes and skills. It was the only time that had ever happened to me. Whenever someone speaks a class or skill, you can just understand it. Everyone could understand it. It was clear and immediately understandable. This was not the case; it was literally beyond my comprehension, the idea of it so volatile to me that it wounded my mind just by hearing it.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, Joan, but can you even read this? Don’t do it out loud, please,” I told her.
“It's backwards, but most of it makes little sense to begin with. What could you glimpse?” she asked.
“It says your soul is touched by primordium, it comes from beyond, wherever that is, and it is produced by beings with a soul… The level stuff is wack, but as far as I could understand, you have a weird soul, basically.” I told her the visual of the spell disappearing.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.
“Well, a [Status] spell checks your mana, and I guess your soul, maybe if the information is garbled, is somehow unable to read it… Or it can, but the information is nightmare nonsense, gah, that hurts.” I told her, wincing as the pang of it caused my eye to twitch in memory. I couldn’t even hold my head.
“That’s… Should I even know that?” She asked.
“Doesn’t matter, I don’t think. Oh yeah, you have a subrace. You’re a kind of Human, in case you couldn’t tell.” I told her.
“Good. Ok. I will tell Strause about that. He’s been trying to figure out what our deal is for quite a while. Thank you, Saphine.”
“No problem, Joan. Just… Don’t ever let me do that again,” I told her.
“I’ll keep it in mind. We're almost there; just keep putting one foot forward, that’s it. That’s it.” She said soothingly.
I did so, letting my mind fix itself up, dust itself off, and get back up, frequently blinking as I got past the first gate, the [Guards] there armed and vigilant, and down the empty street leading to the Mynes estate.
I got in just fine, Joan got in as a ‘delivery,’ and I did deliver her. Pawning her off on Strause who was seemingly relaxing on a couch.
I let myself in but quickly fled when Strause said, “That’s not food,” and Joan replied with, “Eat me.”
I scampered and got on with my evening.
Someone would have to trench the soil of the field, or there would be landslides. Then again, the rivers would already start rising. There were a lot of things that needed to be done and not a lot of hands or know-how. There had been all of one [Foreman], after all. Someone needed to give the road a ditch.
I would talk to Clause about it. I’m sure he would be willing to help out, especially because I was cheap. I wasn’t particularly tired anyway, not in the way it mattered. I still needed time to think over my questions.
I also needed to get to putting souls in pots because tomorrow was important.
But first, I needed a bath.
Priorities.
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