For a hero already suffering from slight self-confidence issues, it really doesn't help matters to wake from your silent (slumbering) vigil and find that one of the ladies you were supposedly watching over has just left the room. It would just figure along with Kyle's luck that it would be the headstrong and infuriating lady, at that.
One of these days, he mused, he would have to sit down with Jess and have a long talk with her about what females should and shouldn't do without the strong presence of a protective male.
Rather, he would have that sit down, if not for the horrible certainty that she would give him a resounding beating around the head and neck. Those head beatings really started to get to you after awhile.
"Women," he grunted, pulling his clothes on, trying to wipe the last bit of some nightmare from his thoughts. Something about a giant beastman, bearing down on him with a heavy two-headed axe in one hand a rubber stamp labeled "denied!" in the other. His subconscious understood perfectly. His waking self was drowning out the information with more important things. For instance, he ought to go take a minute to bathe, but it was Jessica's stubbornness and sudden absence that was making him go out into town anyway, so too bad for HER if he smelled a bit.
"Hmph," Kyle muttered to himself. "Lucky for her I'm the mature one here…"
The discovery that NastySicklyWussyBoy's room (the rest of the world would know him as Len, but he had acquired this new, longer name in Kyle's head) was also vacated helped to spur Kyle on a bit faster. Serene was, for once, living up to her name, sleeping peacefully with a thumb stuck in her mouth and drool spreading over the pillow. He closed the door softly and headed into town.
When not distracted by women (as most of the ones he usually appropriated with weren't up at this ungodly hour, and on a rainy day no less, leaving only those determinedly homey ones with laundry and/or cows to deal with) Kyle could get things done at a rather astounding rate. A bit of questioning here and a small conversation there earned him a few choice bits of tasty information, and in only ten minutes to boot. A couple shoveling manure were more than happy to take a break and let him know that they'd seen a girl and pale man head through this section of town just recently, toward the outskirts of town. An old woman knitting a ridiculously long scarf on her porch was able to tell him that they'd most likely been headed for the house of those nice woodsy people, and though she couldn't remember their names she did hear through the grapevine that there had been trouble there sometime earlier this morning. The geriatric then said she might be persuaded to remember more information if he would just step closer and let her feel those bronzed muscles. Kyle blinked slowly and politely explained that he usually left the touchy-feely up to girls who could still eat solids.
At this point our hero started to walk a little faster. It wasn't that any of the knowledge garnered thusly had made him suspect danger, or that he wanted to get far, far away from the old woman, or the fact that he was getting wet… just that Kyle had a neat little voice in the back of this head that most people would notice as Reason.
Kyle's reason was a little strange, and not all that frequent, but extremely reasonable in its own way. It had offered, in the past, such stellar bits of wisdom as "Keep your mouth shut, she's really pissed this time", "That white-haired fruit in the pointy hat looks a little shady", and "Say! You should dress like a woman!"
At the moment it was insistently remarking that NastySicklyWussyBoy was alone with Jessica at some little house near the woods and away from the rest of civilization, and that this was a bad thing. It was insisting this so loudly that the quick walk switched to a jog, and the jog to a trot, and before too long there was a lone swordsman pounding his way across town in a flat-out run.
The cabin was your typical rustic home; cozy, sequestered, and littered with animal heads. Hunting trophies jutted out from every clear space on the wall, staring endlessly with black, empty eyes, fur catching the dust before it could fall onto hastily done plaques and labels.
When Jess and Len had first arrived, they had business to attend to, of course. The husband, Fior, was nervous and agitated, pacing along the length of the porch while waiting for them. Len took him aside and asked soft questions while Jessica went in, seeking out the wife.
Her name was Till, and Jessica could only describe her as 'rustically pretty'. She had a strange sense of masculinity that supposedly sprung from being able to "wrestle down a mama bear" and "chop a tree in less'n five minute!"
The attack had, of course, left her slightly shaken, though it seemed mainly because she didn't know what the attacker had been.
"No animal I ever seen before in my life, ma'am," Till reported, shaking her head in a wondering daze while the priestess tended to the scratches and scuffs. "Keep in mind it was might dark, and we had no lights on, on account o'it being morning as we bein' newlyweds, but I know the animals of our woods and that weren't any of 'em."
Jess rather liked the accent; it reminded her of the fishermen in Saith, and that was enough to bring her mind back to the good old days, as it were.
Fior insisted that since they had come all the way over, he and his wife should treat them to lunch. Till made a pot of tea that tasted rather like bark strained in water (Jessica restrained herself from looking in the pot for the offending piece of tree several times), but the sandwiches were decent enough. Len requested his without meat, to which Fior looked at him as he might look at a man with eight heads, but somehow found some lettuce and other various vegetables.
The light brunch commenced with much crunching, leaving Jessica time to glance around the cabin and organize her thoughts.
The light wounds she'd found on Till were less severe than she'd expected, on the way here. The scratches hadn't run very deep at all, leaving her to think that either the animal couldn't get close enough to do real damage or else had strangely short claws. There was a slight mess in the living room, a few pieces of furniture knocked over, a broken window, one deer head hanging askew, the scorch marks from the spell used to chase the creature away.
"D'you reckon we're the first to have fended off the monster?" Till asked, raising her eyebrows with some strange air of pride.
"So far as we can guess, yes," Len supplied, wiping at his lips with the plain white napkin he'd gotten with his sandwich. "Though we have already captured a similar beast: large, hairy, and fairly quick. With only a wand, you should consider yourselves lucky."
Jessica swallowed her mouthful of tea hurriedly and tried to smoothen the edges of that statement.
"What he means is, it's a good thing you two are so adept at survival."
The couple practically glowed. Len gave her a curious look, to which she smiled and shrugged.
The odd knack of knowing what to say certainly never came natural to Jessica, if only when dealing with her father. Maybe she'd picked it up from Mia, during that long and far-away time of travelling. Jess herself was more of the abrasive sort, loud and truthful, blunt and fierce. The only thing that made her seem soft in comparison was standing next to Kyle…
The slightest of frowns drew the edges of her mouth downward. She'd managed to stave off thoughts of Kyle all morning, but having found the door locked they had crept to the windows and snuck inside regardless, like any good thief.
And now she had to admit it to herself. It felt strange being here with someone who wasn't Kyle.
It felt… wrong.
"Smiles suit your face more than frowns," Len said softly, by her ear. Jessica jerked her gaze up, studying the thin, washed-out yellow color of his eyes from the depths of her introspection, and dully recognized that she was disappointed. That flat lemon shade should have been a restless, deep chocolate, standing out vividly against the whites. Kyle's eyes flashed with color when he felt emotions; Len's nearly blended into one mottled shade.
But she'd been staring, and color rose to her face for the seemingly rude moment between them. She hastily gulped the rest of her tea down and hoped that he would figure she'd been gazing at him with something other than disdain.
"Least it finally stopped rainin'," Till sighed, leaning against a doorframe and folding her arms over her chest. Fior smiled lopsidedly and winked at Jessica and Len.
"My Till hates the rain," he informed. "Likes it dry an' warm, she does. Me, I prefer cool, but love demands ya make sacrifices. I got used to sleepin with the windows shut."
"Shut?" Jessica blinked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "They were all shut?"
"Course!" Till chirped. "I hate breezes when I'm in bed."
Len glanced over inquiringly. "Something unsettles you?"
"There's no glass in the room with the broken window," she said slowly, "so we know it was hit from the inside, heading out. I had figured it had come in through another window."
"True," her pale companion noted, twining his fingers together in thought. "We assumed, since the other one we found had entered in the same fashion."
"Most definitely not," Fior argued, shaking his head. "They were shut, and we didn't hear any glass breaking."
"Then how did it get in?" Jess asked, glancing around the cabin as though the walls would supply the answer. The others followed suit, spying for shifted panels or unlocked doors.
But of course, in a house at the edge of the woods, everything was shuttered and tight.
"A most peculiar mystery," Len murmured. "Perhaps the two beasts are not entirely the same in behavior… perhaps they act as our species sometimes does, male and female."
"A couple?" Fior translated into his vocabulary with a start. "You think the two thingie-ma-bobs ransacking the people o'this town might be a couple? Wouldn't THAT just be the flea on the bear!"
"The… what?" Len blinked.
"The driving force," Jessica guessed. "Back home it was 'the air under the gull'. Basically he's saying it wasn't just gathering food for itself, but for both of them… and now since we've got one under wraps, the other is rampaging."
"We survived a rampage!" Till hooted.
"I'll go get the scrapbook," Fior offered, scooting into the bedroom, closely followed by his wife. Len and Jess exchanged a small glance, and smiled.
"They're very enthusiastic," he noted softly.
"They're in love," she replied with another slight shrug. "It happens."
"To some people, perhaps." He shifted in his seat and gazed off into empty space. Jess watched him for a moment, comparing the line of his jaw, the small, flat jut of his nose, the watery complexion…
"You and he must be very close," Len said suddenly, startling Jessica.
"Me and who?"
"You and your sword-wielding companion," he clarified, still just staring at the wall. "You are staying in the same room, after all… and he was very protective of you last night. I haven't received such looks since … well… I don't think I ever have." He spread his hands, fingers stretched, and looked at his palms as though answers were contained therein.
"He didn't harass you, did he?" Jessica hazarded, half in dread. "He comes across as harsh sometimes."
"Nothing of the sort," Len assured. "But it was made rather abundantly clear that he considers you his."
Several emotions tried to shove their way into Jessica's head at once, and got stuck in the doorway. Internal chaos ensued as she tried to sort out rage, offense, relief, disbelief, and giddy delight.
"He does, does he?" she finally forced out, not as angry as it could have been, not as loud as it was in her mind.
She wasn't anybody's. She was just herself.
But… it didn't seem to piss her off as much as it should have. She would have liked a minute, or an hour or two, to sort through this strange shift (the phrase 'priestess stuff' popped into mind, and she squashed it away with annoyance), but Len was speaking again, hands on the table and looking at her. She met his gaze and tuned back in.
"Is he mistaken in his insistence?" he asked smoothly. "Because if he is wrong, then I would like to throw my hat into the ring, as it were."
Jessica stared for a moment, searching for the kindest words she had that meant 'never in a million years, pal'.
Len tilted his head curiously.
"One day he will mess up, and you will realize he doesn't deserve you."
"He's not like he comes across at first," Jess defended instantly. "He isn't all brash and forward and brainless muscles. He thinks things out sometimes."
"I stand corrected, then." He leaned back in his chair. "Your stalwart protector isn't all brawn, after all."
"He isn't my protector," Jess fumed. "He's my partner in this. I could handle myself fine even if he weren't here."
"Yes, that's why he hovers over you with his mighty sword in hand."
"He does not hover," she hissed through her teeth. "He just needs to get it through that I can take care of myself."
"You're right, of course," Len sighed. "I'm only being petty in my jealousy. It is obvious that he trusts you, as he isn't even here at the…"
The door burst open as Kyle rushed into the cabin, eyes wide and searching, hair half-plastered to his face by the recent rain or the sheen of sweat his run had brought on.
"…moment," Len finished lamely.
And the argument choir took the stage.
"You…"
"Jess, calm down for a minute," Kyle pleaded.
"Are…"
"I can give you some good reasons for this!"
"SUCH…"
"Um… Jess… breathing is good..."
"A JERK!" she concluded finally, stomping on the hardwood floor.
Fior and Till were peeking from the door of the bedroom, having heard the door slam open moments before. Len was still in his seat, watching the diminutive blonde shriek at her companion with an easy smile on his face.
Luckily for the well being of Len's internal organs, Kyle was too busy trying to diffuse the priestess-bomb to notice.
"It isn't like I don't think you can be on your own, I just thought we were doing this together, and by us I mean JUST us, but-…"
"You selfish, egotistical numbnut! Len's trying to find out what happened to his sister! YOU might think this is a fun little side trip but people are being hurt, probably KILLED!"
"This ISN'T just fun for me," Kyle insisted, raising his voice to be heard over the banshee-wail of the female. "I ran all this way cos I was worried about you! Wandering all around town when you know it's dangerous! You didn't even leave a note!"
"You're worse than my father!" Jess cried in disbelief. "Do you wanna know why I'm mad, Kyle? Let me count the ways!! ONE! You don't trust me! TWO! You left Serene all alone after her terrible ordeal last night? How insensitive is that?! What's she going to think when she wakes up in an empty room?"
"But-…"
"You know what, consider this partner thing through. You're obviously never going to do anything other than what YOU think is fine at the time, so go on and whore yourself around, or get trashed, or even investigate on your own. At THIS juncture in time, I just can't care anymore." Jessica tucked her hair behind her ears, narrowed eyes glinting with a furious gleam, and grabbed Len's sleeve.
"… Miss DeAlkirk?"
"We're leaving." She yanked the mage to his feet and stormed out of the cabin, dragging the thin man behind. The door slammed behind them with incredible force, shaking the foundations and rattling a deer head right off of the wall, landing with a resounding thud.
Dust settled.
Fior cleared his throat carefully, pulling himself and his wife into Kyle's stunned line of sight.
"… Want a sandwich?"
"How… Arrgh!" Kyle threw his hands into the air in frustration. "She ALWAYS takes things the wrong way, and I never get a chance to put her on the right track!"
"It's not really your fault, kiddo," Fior assured, pulling a chair out for Kyle to sit on. The swordsman ignored it, pacing in place, fists clenched and lips locked in an upset scowl.
"I KNOW it isn't, but I'm not kidding about this always happening! You'd think she'd be anything but upset that I was worried about her! It's not that I don't think she can take care of herself!"
"Calm down, there, youngun," Till interposed, planting her hands on her hips. "What y'all need to do in this instance is go after her!"
"So she'll yell at me and insist I don't trust her even more," Kyle grumbled dryly.
"He's got a point, Till. If he chases her again she'll most likely hate him."
"I mean, what'd I DO?!" He shook his fists at the ceiling.
"Like I said, man, it isn't you. It's just this crazy nutso female thing!"
Fior was cut off abruptly by Till crashing a baking pan onto his head. She hid the offending piece of kitchenware behind her back and smiled sweetly.
"What Dearest means t'say is, sometimes ya can't understand the mystery of feminine wiles, so don't let it get ya personal."
"I just hate the idea of her alone with that…"
"The skinny kid? He seemed nice enough," Till mused. "Wish he woulda ate more, though."
Kyle took a moment to seethe in absolute hatred. Fior, in the meantime, got back to his feet, nursing a bump to the noggin.
"If you're sticking around," he offered, "could you help us clean up the mess that danged creature left?"
"Crea-… Oh. Right. You were the attacked couple. What happened?"
"I got up early this mornin and the thing leapt outta nowhere at me!" Till crowed, flailing her arms. "Outta nowhere! Scared the dickens outta me!"
"My Till doesn't scare easily," Fior said proudly.
"Damn tootin, I don't. Like I was tellin' yer ladyfriend, only thing that gave me the willies bout the thing was, I aint never seen no animal quite like it!"
Kyle squinted as his mind slowly muddled through the backwater dialect.
"Describe it."
"I really can't," the woman admitted, creases of age or worry suddenly marking her otherwise smooth, if survival-hardened features. "T'weren't no animal, but ... t'weren't no man, either. Some kinda in-between thing."
"I never saw an animal what wore clothing," Fior added, folding his arms over his chest.
"Clothing?" Kyle pinned Fior with his dark gaze, mentally cataloguing the oddities he and the group had fought while on their adventures, and systematically crossing them off one by one. A beast in clothing… he was stumped.
"Jess couldn't figure it out either, huh?" he finally guessed, adjusting the weight of his scabbard over his hip. Fior tilted his head and rubbed at his chin.
"To be perfectly honest, I don't think we got the chance to tell her, did we, Till?"
"We were busy in the bedroom." She glanced over as Kyle's eyes grew huge and he made an odd choking sound. "Looking for the scrapbook," she added hastily.
"Blast," Fior muttered. "Speakin' of scrap, I forgot to show them."
"Scrap?" Kyle leapt upon the word like a pouncing cat. "Evidence?"
Yet even the notion of being a better sleuth than the priestess did nothing to alleviate the heavy, sick feeling that had taken up residence in his gut. His reason, which had been nowhere to be found during the actual altercation, cheerfully noted that only the presence Jessica herself could heal that particular ailment.
If he hadn't just ruined it all…
Indignant storming had gotten her and Len quite a distance away from the cabin before her rage began to clear, her steps began to slow. Her conscience started to nag.
She hadn't exactly given him much time to state his case, after all. He'd been out of breath from running, stuttering out some sort of weak excuse while she went into full-fledged tirade. Of course, she was angry! Kyle had to have the worst timing in the world, bursting in like that, proving his obvious lack of trust in her. And after she'd defended his name to Len, to boot!
And Len… Jessica's gaze darted to the silent, slim man walking beside her, his hands folded behind his back, his eyes on the trees. Sure, he was a bit spooky, but shouldn't a priestess of Althena rise above that sort of thing? He hadn't done a single thing to give her the willies, in fact he was being the nicest man she'd ever met in her whole life... excepting maybe Alex, and he was always busy with that save-the-world, beat-the-megalomaniacs thing of his.
Something about Len both attracted and repelled her, though. He was kind, polite, quiet, delicate, clean, scholarly, and dedicated. He was on a mission to rescue his sister… or, at the very least, stop whatever had gotten to her. Wasn't that heroic, noteworthy? Admirable? Was there a single thing besides his raspy voice and watered-down eyes and skinny little twitchy fingers that gave her any reason to want to shrink away?
Well, there was the fact that his lips were like colorless little flesh worms, but beyond that, no! She was being irrational. She was trying to compare him to Kyle.
Did Kyle do that to the other women he ran across? To the random girls in the street, the flirty women? How did she fare in the comparison? Why did it matter so much? Wasn't she mad at him? Why was she even thinking of him? Damn him! Taking up all this space in her head when she was trying to clear it! Wasn't that just like him, not letting her have her space, smirking knowingly at her empty excuses and seeing right to the core of everything with those damned dark eyes…
"Arrrrrghhh!" she wailed (or roared, as she did have those robust Hell Mel genes), stopping in the middle of the road and stomping a foot in sheer frustration. Len blinked mildly, stopping as well.
"Something… upset you?" he asked, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Would you like to discuss it?"
"I'm discussing it enough already," Jess grumbled, rubbing her temples. "It's driving me absolutely batty."
"Ah. The mental cycle of question and accusation." He shifted a foot in the dirt, studying the pattern of dappled sunlight. "Am I to blame?"
"Huh?" She ceased her massaging and readjusted her hood. "You, no. Why?"
"I thought perhaps I had come on a bit too strongly, back there. If that is the case, I ... apologize. Profusely."
Jessica stared at him flatly, her lips curving in a slight, wry smile. "Len, nothing of the sort. You should see the usual sort of flirting I get… if you can call it flirting."
"That is a relief," he sighed, shaking some of the hair from his vision. "I'm trying my hardest to seduce you, you know."
Birdcall accentuated the thick, frozen silence for a good half-minute.
Len tilted his head.
Jessica blinked.
Len smiled faintly.
"I'm joking."
"… I knew that."
"Mmhmn," he agreed with a smile, starting to walk again.
"I did!" Jess called, starting after him.
"Thus your shocked, uncomprehending stare."
She fell in place beside him, automatically picking up her end of the bickering, falling into the routine so easily that it didn't even matter where they were headed. Maybe all journeys proceeded as such. Maybe, she thought with an inner smirk, this was the only way she knew how to deal with men, after all.
"Jessica."
"What?"
"I think it's going to rain again."
After a certain amount of time, all of the rooms in all of the buildings of the Magic Guild of Vane began to acquire the same scent. It wasn't by any means unpleasant, and for certain one grew used to it, after the hours of studying the students had to go through (else risk setting themselves on fire during the final – see that happen once in class and rest assured the cramming never stops).
Mia loved the smell of the Magic Guild. She equated it with all of the memories of her childhood, all the hours learning, bent over ancient tomes, marveling at the incredible things people could do with their wills and their hearts. She had never quite distinguished every little bit of the peculiar meltingpot of smells. There was the scent of heavy, leather-bound books, of slight must and dust, the sharpness of charred paper, melted wax for sealings, and maybe even just a pinch of something arcane and mysterious. Eye of newt, as it were.
Even more recently, however, this scent gave her cause for joy. She could smell the Magic Guild because there was a Magic Guild. The floating island of scholars had been slapped out of the sky by massive destruction, and had been rebuilt and re-risen. A great deal of the banners and flags streaming from the turrets of the main hall had been embroidered with phoenixes. New students and old students had flooded the campus, everyone pitching in ideas and work and magic and sweat until the entire city had been returned to its pristine glory.
And by goddess, it would be hers someday.
"Something wrong?"
The slight, nasal tenor cut into her ensuing visions of the future, bringing a smile to her face as she turned to regard the mage carefully balancing a stack of books in his hands, staring at her from the doorway.
"Why no, Nash, why do you ask?" she replied, lifting the hem of her robe slightly and stepping over to help him with his burden.
"You're just standing there with your eyes closed, inhaling a lot. You looked like Nall in a fisher town." He grinned at her, eyes flashing playfully beneath the great swoop of hair he carefully styled every morning (and in subsequent 20 minute intervals).
"I'm just thinking about how much I love this place," she said shyly, reaching for the uppermost few books and nestling them in the crook of a thin arm.
"Thanks." Nash glanced into the room behind her. "What were up to, anyway?"
"I was cleaning out the scroll storage," Mia explained, glancing at the half-dusted mound of rolled paper behind her. "I ran across a keepsake of mine and went off daydreaming." An embarrassed giggle escaped her lips, and when she looked back to Nash there was a strange, warm expression creeping over his face. "How about you?"
"Running a few errands for your mother before lunch... which, by the by, I'm inviting you to." He tilted his head slightly askew. "Keepsake?"
Smile widening a bit sheepishly, Mia held up a tattered, discolored piece of rough cloth for his inspection. After a few moments, his eyes widened almost comically and the stack in his hands teetered.
"Is that from what I think it is?!" he yelped, wobbling slightly to try to keep the books upright. Mia grabbed the books from the side, helping him regain his balance, a blush creeping up over her face from her neck.
"Maybe," she drew out, folding the scrap in her hands.
"Mia, why in Althena's name did you save that? We almost died in that stupid hot air balloon, remember?"
"Of course I do," the young spellcaster smiled. "Racing all over the world with my greatest friends, seeing everything and meeting so many great people."
"Plummeting toward the earth at insane speeds, resounding crashes, ubiquitous sore muscles," Nash groaned. "That's your idea of a great time?"
"It was the best time of my life."
He opened his mouth again for another quip, but let it die away instead. She was standing in one of the narrow sunbeams allowed by the thin windows, and dust particles roused by her vigorous cleaning sparkled all around her. His throat went dry as she looked up at him and smiled sweetly the way only Mia could.
"Don't you agree, Nash?"
It hadn't been the best of times for him, really. The adventure in his point of view had been filled with guilt and fear and betrayal.
But it had also brought him together with the people he loved most in the world.
"Yeah, Mia. It was."
"I wonder what they're all up to," she sighed, placing the scrap down on the table. "Alex and Luna… I'm sure that Nall is eating or sleeping. I bet Jess and Kyle are doing something very fun!"
"I bet they're at each others throats," Nash countered.
"Don't be silly," Mia chided, patting his arm gently. He glanced down at her manicured fingernails against the blue of his robe and felt his face heat up. She was smiling in her special sweet way again.
"You're right, I guess," he said, shifting the weight of the books slightly. "I mean, look how far we've come, you and I."
Her eyes met his, sparking with mischief, reminding him how much she'd grown up from the shy, demure, frightened Mia he'd known as a child.
"I'll bet at this very moment, they're spending quality time and enjoying this great, sunny day," she said slowly. "Maybe she's cleaning out the Meribian Hall rooms.."
"Jess? Clean? Get real."
"And maybe he just happens to walk by and catch a glance, and stops to say hello, and then maybe they get to talking about old times… and then, I bet you, she walks over to help him, and maybe compliments his pointy chin.."
"Kyle doesn't have a pointy chin," Nash said with a blink. "If anything, then I d- … Oh."
"And after she compliments him they might go out to a nice lunch…"
"Yes, I think they'd do that," he agreed, nodding.
"And maybe after lunch," Mia murmured, "they could take a walk out behind the buildings, and look at the view, and talk about .. things."
"Things?" Man, she was being weird today.
"Or if they don't walk to talk," she continued, ignoring his stutter, "then they could just sit on the lush, green grass and enjoy each others company and have some very, very nice quality time.. don't you think?"
"I think we should - .. I mean.. I bet you that's exactly what Kyle and Jess are doing. Will be doing. Should be .. er.. quality time. Quality time is nice," he finished lamely, wondering at what point in the relationship Mia became an instigator and he became a dry-throated shy stutterer.
"I'm glad you think so," Mia chirped, all sweet, bright smiles once more. "Why don't you come back when you're done your errands, and we can go out to eat?"
"Sure thing, Mia," he said calmly and evenly, stepping into the hallway and slightly down a bit so that the thunderous beating of his heart wouldn't shake the scroll room apart. "Holy cow," he muttered to himself, shaking the slope of hair from his vision. "Keep it together, Nash man, you're the cool one, 'member? The ultimate awesome mage, He Who Smites With Thunder. She's just putty in your hands. Putty."
He continued his mantra as he headed down the hallway, a grin sliding across his face that may or may not have looked goofy, but he would only classify as "heartstopping and ultimately awesome".
As for his friends, he could only offer up a little prayer that they were, indeed, so lucky as he was.
After all, everyone needs a little quality time. Right?
It felt like he'd been walking for hours by the time he looked up to find himself at the inn once more. Kyle was surprised to glance at the sky and note that the sun was still skirting the morning section of its daily trail. He tended to lose track of time when he delved into rare brooding; either was later than he thought or no time at all had gone by.
The slow winding road through the city lent him the chance to try to get his thoughts in order. He wasn't truly sure if it had worked yet, though he had gone over each section of the morning and poked holes in the conversations, examined and re-examined every he'd said, coming at last to two conclusions.
One, it wasn't his fault for worrying over his girl, but maybe it would be wisest to note voice these worries in the future.
Two, he really, really hated Len.
Three, he'd also be sure to not refer to her as "his girl" in her presence.
Lastly… somehow, seeing her storm off like that, and the oppressingly silent aftermath, had somehow hurt worse than her strongest right hook.
The worst thing was, he couldn't pinpoint exactly what was going wrong between them. Maybe it was the town, though he'd tossed that idea aside after mulling for a bit. It was a perfectly pleasant place, and an environment filled with so many young lovers (and the whole terrible disappearing thing, too, but he wasn't factoring that in as a part of the towns atmosphere) would surely do anything but drive two others apart, right?
So then he thought maybe it was a female thing, but it didn't quite ring true with him. He almost played the thought that maybe they weren't meant to be, but hastily stopped the sentence before it could even form out fully. He wouldn't consider that, not even for a moment. He needed her.
There. Laid bare, truthful and a little squirmish but irrevocable. He needed Jessica. Kyle of Nanza needed his Jess. This whole mess was making him feel all twisted and rotten inside, it needed to be fixed. If only it could be so simple as finding her and telling her everything.
No, no, obviously the thing to do here was break Len's neck.
… is what he WISHED was reality. Growling under his breath about the circumstances and what a perfect world would be like, he strode toward his room to wash up before finding Jess and putting it all on the table, as it were. Words had done nothing but screw him over for this whole trip, so it was up to words to fish him out of the hole he'd dug himself.
He'd forgotten completely about Serene, and the sight of her sitting upright on the bed, a sewing kit open on her lap and a needle in her hands, just about gave him a heartattack.
"Oh! You're back!" the girl chirped brightly. "How was your morning?"
Kyle eyed her warily, waiting for her to start cooing over his rugged good looks or leech onto his arm, as she had last night. Instead, she seemed very self-possessed, almost normal and … well, kind of domestic, with the whole sewing thing. He chalked up her irrational behavior to terror and shock (while mentally applauding her good taste in times of trauma).
"Sorry about that," he shrugged, propping his sword against the wall. "Went out to investigate some stuff early on, you were still asleep."
"Where's Jessica?" she asked curiously.
Kyle turned away, knowing his expression would give away more than he'd like, realizing too late that even turning away spoke volumes.
"Crap," he muttered, resting his forehead on the wall.
"That bad?" Serene asked gently, curling her legs beneath her. "What's wrong? You two are like.. the perfect couple. Like story stuff. A priestess and a rogue, defending justice and all that."
"The priestess has a temper the shorter than her pinkie and the rogue can't ever seem to say or do the right thing," he sighed, rubbing at the back of his head. "We've been on thin ice with each other for a few days, and it just about cracked this morning."
"It's hard to be independent these days, you know", she said suddenly, setting her work aside. "For women, I mean. I have to tell you, I admire Jessica greatly. I could never do what she's done. Just look at last night, I fell apart completely. You probably think I'm some hysterical little nitwit, don't you?"
"No," he said, immediately ceasing all labeling of Serene as 'hysterical little nitwit', since with his current luck with females she could probably read minds. "You were attacked, is all."
"But when Jess gets attacked or whatever, she doesn't crumble like that, does she?" Serene prodded.
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "'Course not. She fights tooth and nail. She's a hellcat on the battlefield, honestly. Probably saved my hide more than I can count."
"See, my problem," the girl said with a sigh, "is I'd always be afraid of someone proving me wrong, just once. Just one time of showing fear or hesitance or a dependency. Then all the effort would be for nothing."
"That's not how it is at all," Kyle argued with a slight blink. "You saying that Jess thinks if she shows weakness then we'll all think she's useless?"
"I've only just met her," Serene admitted with a slight shrug. "I'm only throwing possibilities out at you. Maybe she's more afraid that she'll find out she does need someone after all."
He leaned against the wall slightly, arms crossed over his chest in Deep Ponderous Thought. Jess was always snapping at he and Mel whenever they tried to make sure she was safe, insinuating they didn't trust her, when in fact they were just didn't want to lose her. Never wanted to lose her. But they were clear and open about that, right? So it was something on her end coloring the information wrong. She was always insisting she could do things on her own, she didn't need to be followed that she could do it all on her own perfectly fine. Constantly arguing that she didn't need any help, pushing away while at the same time pulling him closer with searching glances and occasional conversations.
An old nanny had told him when he was younger that the thing people deny the most is like to be the largest truth, and the thing that they push away the most is like to be the one thing they'll end up needing in the end.
Jess was afraid, and she needed him, but she was afraid of needing him.
"I believe that's the look of understanding on your face?" Serene asked softly from the bed. Kyle looked over, pressing his lips into a wry little smirk.
"I was actually just thinking to myself that maybe you're not all nitwit.." A pillow whomping against his face cut that statement off, and as he caught it she began her stitching again.
"Incidentally, what are you doing?"
She looked up with a blink, before glancing downward again to inspect her work.
"This? I was trying to think up ways to help you, Jessica, and Len for helping me last night. For you two, it was obvious you needed some romantic medical attention, but Len doesn't really let on about his affairs, so instead I'm mending his shirt. Found it in his room this morning while I was looking for you guys."
She held up the faded article of clothing for him to see, pointing out careful rows of stitching along a frayed sleeve and corner. "Shame about this rip, though," she mused softly. "I could fix it if I knew where the rest of the material was."
Kyle's vision had tunneled into sudden, perfect, crystal clarity.
He knew exactly where the rest of the material was.
In his pocket, where he'd put it after Fior had handed it to him as evidence.
Author's note -
This took forever. -.- I know, and I apologize profusely. Strangely enough, the first half was like pulling teeth, and still doesn't feel quite right with me, though after three rewrites I suppose this is as it is supposed to be. The Nash/Mia scene, and everything after, however, was done in a matter of hours. Odd, how that works out. At any rate, I hope this chapter can help those still waiting to pass the time, and I thank you for all the kind reviews. With any luck, chapter 4 (which should be the last, and perhaps an epilogue) will be out in less time than this one took.