Chapter 4 – Magic?

Ash and I were eating dinner in the kitchen after our practice run with the balverine. I stared blankly at the food. Ash had made it, and it was delicious. The problem was that I had too much on my mind to be hungry. I thought back to some of the Peter Stevens had said to us. One of the things was something about new abilities. I thought he meant that we'd be better at hunting down monsters. As I thought, I rolled my shoulder and there was a massive pop. I grunted and realized that the simulation had real effects to it. My shoulder was sore from landing on it so many times.

I took a bight of the food and looked up at Ashley. She had this blank stare and I realized she was searching her memories. She gasped and took a few breaths.

"I get why you hate searching your memories," she said, half laughing. "It's incredibly creepy. My great-grandparents did the sort of things we did. They left the information stored in PAT with a password guarding it."

"PAT," I said and the hologram appeared on the table.

"Yes," he said.

"Enter code: Careful," Ash said to PAT.

"Accepted," he said. "What would you like to know about spell casting?"

"How does it work?" we asked together. We looked at each other surprised that we asked the same thing.

"You think of what you want to happen, and it does. The only trick is that you need a strong motive to use magic. Eventually, however, that can be changed and you can become so good with magic that you can do almost anything without thinking to hard about it."

"That's useful," Ash said.

"There really isn't a downside besides the fact that it takes a long time to learn," PAT said. "I think, though, if you'd like I could try and sum up all the last defendants did to learn magic, so that you're almost as good as they were by the end of your 3 years of peace."

"That's probably a good idea," I said. "But we should probably stop for today."

"That would be logical," PAT said in a rather off tone. "The main bedroom is all the way at the end of the Living Quarters."

"I'll take a different one if you'd like," I said to Ash. I knew she wasn't pleased with the fact that all of her dreams of marriage had gone down the drain. Even if it had nothing to do with me, she was still upset that her destiny had been decided for her.

"No need," Ash said. "We need to get used to this."

"You couldn't anyway," PAT said. "The defendants that designed this place knew that some people would come together the way you two did. They wanted you to focus on the mission at hand over each other, even though the bond between you two is equally important."

"I guess we should go to bed then," I said.

We walked out of the Kitchen and into the living quarters. We found the main bed chamber and settled in. There was a dresser on each side of the room as well as a nightstand by each side of the bed.

"You want to pick a side?" I asked. "It doesn't matter to me."

She walked over to the dresser on our left and opened it. Inside it was a computer and some empty hangers. There were categories of clothes listed on the computer and the words: "Touch Category to Start Making an Outfit".

I walked over to mine and looked at it more closely. The categories were: "Armor, Suits, Shirts, Shorts, Pants, Jackets, Underwear, Outerwear, Nightwear, and Miscellaneous". I selected "Nightwear" and a list of pajama shirts and bottoms came up. I selected a black t-shirt and pajama pants and went back to find a new pair of underwear. At the bottom right hand of the screen was a selection that read "Done". I hit it and the hangers on my side were filled with the outfit I picked out. I grabbed them and looked over at Ash.

"Do you want to take a shower first?" I asked. "Or would you like me to?"

"I'll go first if that's ok," she asked.

She finished picking out her outfit, but I didn't care to look. I sat down on the bed and looked over as she entered the bath room. She looked at me through the mirror and gave me a sort of half-smile.

I felt horrible. She was forced to be with me in this situation that was becoming more and more like a nightmare. Even though we could do all this cool stuff and we both enjoyed being with each other, I don't know that either of us was ready for this big of a commitment. I wanted to see her happy. That was the only thing I knew at this moment. And so far, I was doing a pretty shitty job of fulfilling that. That was the only smile she'd had since we got to Peter's house. I laid down making myself more and more pissed as I contemplated what this did to her. I dug my face into my palms and thought for the remainder of the time Ash was showering.

I heard the door click as she unlocked it. I looked up and she stepped out with her old clothes in a white tang top and sweat-pants. I watched her place the clothes in a bin and lay down on the bed. Pulled out a drawer on her nightstand and pulled out a Nook, a thing that you put books on to read instead of having paper books. I got up and headed for the shower. I kept contemplating what I had done. I finished and turned off the water. I changed my clothes and picked up my dirty clothes.

I walked out and placed my dirty clothes in the bin after taking my wallet and phone out. I placed the wallet and phone on my nightstand and headed for the fan light.

"Do you want the fan on?" I asked.

"Yes," she said. "Thank you."

I flipped the switch and the fan began to spin. It was nice because we had the same sleeping environment preferences. I walked over to my side of the bed and crawled in under the covers. I turned to face Ash and she noticed. She went to turn off the light.

"It's not that," I said. She turned and looked at me with a puzzled face. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"John," Ash started. "You've done nothing wrong. I'm not upset to be your wife or anything like that. It's just the fact that I never got anything normal in a relationship as far as the proposal or anything."

I sighed and said, "But I want to and am supposed to make you happy. So far, I haven't done a very good job though."

She set down the Nook and leaned over towards me. "You have done nothing wrong, John," she said and kissed me. "You're doing a good job. I'm just a bitch."

I chuckled and said, "I'll still make it up to you."

She turned off the nook and light and crawled under the covers.

"Goodnight," she said, still smiling from what I could tell.

"Goodnight." I quickly made a vibration alarm on my phone for 4:00 am. I was going to make it up to her. It was worth it. She was worth it.