Letheo and Finnegan (or Finnegan enters the Fray)
He wasn't lost. He had not seen that square-shaped stone before.
If he just put his hand on the wall and followed it, he had to get to his room eventually.
He made a little scratch mark on the stalker stone though, just in case. He had only walked about ten feet when he heard a rustling sound, and when he swiveled there were two skinny arms buffing out the scratch.
"Now that is just not fair."
Finished with their work, the spindly appendices shook a finger at him, then disappeared back into the mortar.
He hmphed and kicked the wall. If this were Gorgossium he could just drop right here and go so sleep and no one would have looked twice.
Someone obviously heard him talking to himself and was loudly walking to investigate. How embarrassing. The loud walker turned the corner and he recognized the man with skin like Night.
"Oh, hello there, Letheo." The man strode up to him as a prince should, with a smile on his face and his shoulders ram-rod straight, "Finnegan."
They shook hands and he felt very foolish.
"I just had a couple questions about what you talked about today, were you heading somewhere?"
"To my room." He had been making such progress by the way.
"Well then, I shall accompany you."
And so Finnegan led the way and Letheo followed, much more comfortable trailing in his shadow. Although, the prince didn't seem to understand this and kept slowing down for him to catch up. Thusly the poor ex-assassin-servant was quite baffled. During a particular instance when a flying-light thing temporarily blinded him, Finnegan clapped a hand onto his shoulder, which then kept the boy from fading into his footsteps.
The prince asked annoying detailed questions, some of which he answered unwillingly and most of which he didn't know answers to.
The dreadlocked dragon-killer apologized (again) for being so frustratingly picky and (again) mentioned how he just wanted to keep everyone safe. "This adventure for the key and possibly to Xuxux is going to be dangerous. I don't want to lose anymore good people."
"I understand, uh, sir? But I really don't know anything else...sir"
His pearly smile stretched thin. "Nothing else?"
"I'm not hiding anything. I don't want Candy hurt just as much as you." Then as an afterthought he added, "or Malingo, or anyone else for that matter."
One of the spindly arms shot out of the wall and yanked a lock of hair out of his head. He winced. "This place doesn't like me."
Finnegan laughed and pointed at a broken dreadlock. "Maybe. But who can really say what the Abarat is thinking?" He shuffled his long hair around, "you seem like a nice kid, Letheo."
"I don't exactly consider myself a 'nice kid.'"
The prince barked out a laugh and steered the two into a sudden hallway. "I suppose you aren't. In that case I should get some details about you."
Letheo was used to duality, but he sensed none from Finnegan, and that quite unnerved him. Especially since the all-for-the-good-of-the-party questions sounded a little too much like an interrogation.
"So, how did you meet Carrion?"
That was a long story, and not a flowers and unicorns type either. So he summed it up. "He was going to train me to be an assassin."
"He seems to have trained you well on how to be a spy."
This sentence embodied Finnegan. Letheo wasn't sure if he was bitter, or befriending him. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
He apologized in a princely manner all over again then mentioned how he just wanted to test his reaction so he could have absolute confidence in the beast-boy's loyalties. After all, he had already lost Boa to Carrion once.
Maybe that was an accusation? But in a strange way he could understand why the half-breed would feel that way. He wanted to retort and say how his loyalties were fully with Candy, and how for there to be good somewhere in the entire frikkin' Abarat it had to be imported, but he lacked conviction.
There was a hallway of wooden doors, and so he opened one that looked promisingly empty and disappeared inside it. Automatically he pulled the vial out of his pocket to place near the head of the floor mat.
It was so automatic that he hadn't even noticed his actions until he was standing above it with folded arms and judging how much time he had left (a hobby he embarked on often). He paused, looked at himself from the outside, and hated how pathetically see-through he was.
So he opened the door. Came face-to-face with Finnegan-the-dragon-slayer, and looked him straight in the eye. The other man stared back humbly.
"I'm only loyal to the green thuaz. At the moment I have it. You can interpret that as you want, because I can't."
Then he reclosed the door and sat on the ground, feeling simultaneously selfish and at odds with his freedom. While staring at his veins he told the cursed beast exactly how much trouble it was.
Someone obviously heard him talking to himself and loudly knocked on the door to investigate. Here he went again. The knocker edged the crack wider and the man with the skin like Night stepped through.
He looked up at Finnegan from the floor.
"You really are a major asset to the team, Letheo. Without you we wouldn't be nearly as close as we are." He approached and crouched next to him. "I trust you. And I'm not just saying that." From his boot he pulled a dagger. "I will trust you with my life, and with everyone else's." He lay the dagger next to him and spoke amiably, "Any friend of Candy is a friend of mine."
Well, there's Finnegan's portion.
I'm glad I'm uploading all of these actually. It helps me feel like I actually finished something on this site that wasn't a oneshot. :/
I like this one, but sometimes wording things were difficult. And I tried to make Finnegan look like a nice guy while being a tough leader. I hope it didn't come off as him being a secretive asshole or something
My favorite part is Letheo following behind Finnegan because that's what he thinks is proper. Love it. And it's another one of the things you can see the change in by the end of the fanfic.
Alright, maybe somebody will review this week! :fingers crossed!: