Chapter 10: Unwanted Aid

As expected, attending classes and working in the evenings was exhausting. He hadn't fallen asleep on a sword yet, but Cyril had a feeling he would before the month was over if he wasn't careful. For the third time that evening, Cyril shook himself in an effort to throw off the encroaching desire to sleep, but like briar to cloth, it clung and refused to let go. With a grunt, Cyril lifted the sack onto his back. The sooner he finished moving them up to the storage room, the sooner he could go to sleep.

The balance must have been off, because suddenly, Cyril felt himself tipping backwards.

He landed with a dull thud on the mercifully soft sack, the shock of the impact momentarily dispelling his desire to sleep.

"A-are you ok?"

Cyril tilted his head back to see Ignatz's face hovering over his. He ignored the hand held out to help him stand. "Yup, just fine."

"Do you need help with that?" Ignatz said, still hovering.

"Nah, this is my job." Cyril waved Ignatz off as he pulled the sack onto his back again. "I can do it myself." Another yawn threatened to leave Cyril's mouth and he clamped his mouth shut, hoping that the puffing of his cheeks wouldn't give him away.

Ignatz circled around to stand in front of Cyril. "B-but it'd be faster if we worked together—"

"Alright, what do ya want?" Cyril said, irritation edging further and further into his voice the more he thought of his bed.

"H-huh?" Ignatz blinked owlishly, his round glasses only magnifying the circles his eyes had widened into. "I j-just wanted to know if you wanted help—"

"And I said no." The sack dropped to the ground with a thud. "But you're still here bothering me. So just tell me what you really want."

Ignatz flushed red and his tongue tied itself into a spluttering mess. Cyril was about to snap the question again when Ignatz finally managed to untwist his tongue. "I-I had been meaning to ask you about Almyra."

" Almyra?" Cyril's lips curled into a grimace.

The previous year, the Golden Deer had surrounded him and dragged him out to the fishing pier in the middle of the night when they had found him cleaning the classroom.

Six years out from the end of the war, it was only natural that the wounds of that time still festered, yet to scar. The war had taken someone's uncle, someone's mother, someone's elder sibling. Almyra had taken them, and Cyril was Almyra.

One fool decided to start a war, and one hundred years later, that whim took his family, his freedom, and converged on five students pushing him into the depths of the lake. They had asked him at length about Almyra, but they hadn't really expected to listen to his answers. He had recanted any loyalty, he had told them he hated it, but they didn't believe him, even when from the deepest part of him, every drop of venom in his words was true.

He hated the land of battle hungry fools that would leave him no peace.

Ignatz was looking at him eagerly.

"Nothing about that place worth talking about," Cyril said bitterly.

Ignatz's mouth dropped open, taken aback. "But it must be fascinating! The people, the buildings, the flowers—"

So. Ignatz didn't believe him either. The tired irritation burst into anger. "There's nothing worthwhile there!"

"Th-there must've been some things you enjoyed—"

"You just don't get it! I might be stuck in that classroom with you, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna talk about things I hate to entertain you." Cyril swung the sack onto his back, and the arc of the swing made Ignatz step back. "I'm gonna go. Shoulda done that already."

Ignatz's face was pale as he stuttered for words, and the fumbling only put extra irritation in Cyril's steps as he walked away. He heard a stumbling "s-sorry…" trail off in the distance.

His irritation almost made him miss Claude leaning against the wall just before the stairwell, arms crossed and for once not smiling. The timing was too perfect. After only one week of attending classes with the Golden Deer, Cyril knew that Ignatz was too nervous to speak to him without prompting.

Cyril glared, and Claude remained silent. "...you asked Ignatz to talk to me, didn't you?"

"Well," Claude drawled, "it's more like I decided to give him a push when I saw him hovering around."

"What'd ya do that for?" Cyril hissed.

"I hardly ever see you talk to anyone, and of all the students in the Golden Deer, Ignatz seemed the most eager to have a conversation with you." He sighed. "I know he made a misstep tonight, but I hope you'll give him another chance. He means to do well by you, and that's more than I can say for most of the people at this monastery."

"I don't need people to talk to me."

Claude pushed off from the wall with another sigh. Perhaps it was the torchlight's shadows thrown across Claude's face, but his gaze, usually calculating and sharp, seemed weathered and dull. "Cyril, no one can live alone. There'll always be those who hate you, but you need to know how to draw the line between them, and the ones who don't or could be persuaded otherwise."

Cyril snorted. The Golden Deer were beginning to accept Claude as their leader, but Cyril heard enough whispering around the monastery to know that rumors still dogged after Claude endlessly. The whispers had decreased in their hostility, but not in their volume.

"I don't think your persuading is working too well," Cyril said. "There are still a lot of people who don't like you."

Claude let out a short bark of a laugh. "Like me?" There was a mirthless twinkle in his eyes. "I don't hope for that much, Cyril. I just need them to prefer me alive. Life would be easier like that, don't you think?"

Cyril thought again of the frigid waters of the monastery lake, of the relief when Shamir had made the students scatter and dragged him back onto the pier. Frankly, the amount of clinging and sobbing he had done afterwards was shameful. He was always a little afraid that Shamir had only agreed to train him out of pity from that night.

But even so, Cyril knew from then that he would never hold another teacher over Shamir.

"Yeah...it'd be easier," he admitted quietly. "...you're really trying to force this Ignatz thing aintcha?"

"It's not just Ignatz. There are people who will reach their hands out to you if you're open to it."

"Or maybe they'd let go and let me fall."

"Then I'd be sure to catch you if that happens," Claude said. "I can at least promise you that."

"And why would you do that?" Cyril asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Because I'd like to see you make a good life for yourself here?" Claude tilted his head. "Is that so hard to believe?"

It wasn't difficult to believe, it was just terrifying to raise his hopes any further than he already had. Especially for someone who would leave in less than a year.

Cyril turned away, mouth dry. He shifted the sack on his back and stepped onto the stairwell.

And missed the step.

Cyril felt himself tip forwards, but only slightly before a pull from behind resettled him back on his feet.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting to have to catch you so soon," he heard Claude say with amusement.

Without warning, the sack was plucked out of his grip. Claude swung it over his shoulder and began to make his way up the stairs.

"H-hey, that's my job!" Cyril cried as he ran up to follow Claude.

"Yeah, yeah." Claude swatted Cyril's hands away from the sack. "Let me help. Just for tonight, alright?"

Watching Claude turn into the storeroom, Cyril had a distinct feeling that it wouldn't just be tonight that Claude forced his aid upon him, and he couldn't bring himself to feel too badly about it.