A/N: Because this is exactly what I need to be doing. No, not printing. Nah, not figuring out what I'm writing for my next fiction writing class story. Nope, not applying for JET. Or any other things. This. This is it.
The summary is a working one, and "Orange Lilies" is a working title. This comes after "Xonge" and "Silver Morning."
The study was large and well-lit by two giant windows, whose thin, magically reinforced-glass somehow seemed to let in more sunlight than they should be capable of. In front of the shorter window at the head of the room sat an off-white desk, which hummed low as it hovered a few feet off the floor. Along its underside was a dim blue glow, and on its front were several buttons and sliders. On it were a few old physical books, stacked carefully, a pair of archivist gloves laid on top of them. A blank journal sat next to the stack, closed, a ballpoint pen marking the writer's progress close to the leather back. Behind both of them was a clear crystal vase filled with orange lilies, placed there by the owner's housekeeper on request.
Perpendicular to the desk was a long couch, a sharp red in the light environment of the room. On that couch, leaning against the rightmost armrest, sat a person, pale-skinned and pale-clothed. Their hair was styled to curl close to the scalp, layered in deliberate arcs. Their eyes, such a dark brown that they were almost black, were trained on the Reader in their hands, skin tinted pale blue by the glow of the holographic screen. They were frowning.
They tapped their fingers on the canvas cover of the armrest and swallowed. After a moment, they scrolled down the Reader's surface with the thumb resting on the edge of the screen. They read, and read, and then stopped mid-sentence, only to cast their gaze up a few lines and reread, slower this time.
"Power to curse," they murmured, tone smooth with years of speaking experience. They stopped tapping the arm of the couch. "Alcor's demonic energy found in their victims…"
They looked up and over at the desk, at the orange lilies sitting under a stasis spell that extended their shelf life. They stood slowly, setting the Reader down on the couch as they did so, long fingers tugging down the semi-formal blouse they wore. Taking three steps towards the desk, their feet bare against the ash wood floorboards, they waved away the desk chair with a languid motion. They then stood before the desk, thighs pressed against the edge, fingers hovering over the lurid petals. Breathing in, they canted their head just slightly to the side, and then set their fingers on the smooth surface.
For a moment, nothing. Then, they jerked their hand back, hissing in a sharp breath and cradling their fingers close to their chest. They stared at the flowers, eyes wide, lips pressed together. Their shoulders were tight, their stance uneven and drawn back in an uncharacteristically frightened manner. There was no new quiet in the room, no new noise, but a sort of tension set itself to the air, drawing particles into and against each other. Their fingers twitched against the silky fabric of their shirt, cool against too-warm, and eventually they pulled their gaze away from the flowers and to their own hand.
They relaxed their shoulders and straightened their fingers, looked down at the pads of them. The fingertips were red and shiny in the way the newest, thinnest layer of skin always is, blood pumping through delicate veins just under the fragile surface. The whorls and lines of the epidermal ridges were faint there, barely formed, too young to have been shaped completely. They would have to change security requirements until the skin had fully formed.
The person held their injured hand up to the light, only a slight tightening at the edges of their eyes a sign of their residual discomfort. Steam, barely visible even with the sunlight behind the fingers, untwisted itself into the air, dispersing with no sound and barely any motion.
"You will burn," they murmured into the humming stillness, "wherever they touch you." They looked up to the ceiling and sure enough, along the edges, warning runes glowed just enough to be visible to the discerning eye. Demonic energy. The person looked back to their burned-raw fingertips, and their face smoothed out the signs of pain and fear.
"I don't know whether to be happy or upset," they said, slightly louder and still to themselves. They reached down with their good hand and brushed the archivist gloves off the books and onto the leather bound journal. Snapping their fingers to dim the windows, they slid the glove on using the knuckles of their burned hand and glanced over the title to the topmost book. Gleeful, Silent, Ferocious: Following the soul of 'Mizar' through three lives.
Carefully, they pulled one orange lily out of the crystal vase, making sure the water running down the stem did not drip on the valuable books. They thumbed one petal, fabric between skin and plant, and waited.
Nothing happened.
Their eyelids rose just a fraction, and they replaced the orange lily in the vase. They did not let go of the stem until the bottom of it hit crystal; only then did they withdraw. "If you are Mizar," they said, dropping their hands to their sides, still staring at the flowers in the vase, "then I wonder what you might be called, Bentley Farkas."
They tipped their chin up, stared at the fading runes on the ceiling, and blinked once, slowly. The desk hummed, but nothing else made sound in the study, darkened by the dimmed sunlight filtering in through the windows.
"I wonder," they said, and then looked back down, at the book. They did not smile, did not frown—just reached their hand out, still in the archivist's glove, and ran their fingers over the embossed lettering of the title. "I wonder."