Maria woke up when she heard a cry and a thump, and found that in her sleep Miss Shelley had fallen out of bed.
"Miss Shelley?" Maria said, crawling across the bed to look over the edge of the mattress. "Are you all right?" Miss Shelley had taken the blanket in her fall, leaving Maria's naked form open to the air. Said air had an early morning chill, combined with the general cool that came because of rain, meaning that Maria found herself shivering a little. "Do you need Light Magic?"
"I'm fine," Miss Shelley said. "Why are you naked?"
"I was sleeping," Maria said.
"I thought my mistress gave you sleepwear?"
"Yes, but I left it at the manor. We're traveling light, after all."
Miss Shelley nodded. "While I understand you prefer to sleep naked, in future if you're going to be sharing the bed with me, at least have some underwear on."
"Noted," Maria said. Well, it was cold anyway, so a layer wouldn't be too terribly warm.
Sitting up, she stretched, getting the kinks out of her muscles. Then she started getting dressed.
It was a bit hard with Larna Smith lying on the wooden floor, curled up in a ball to stay warm under her blanket and use her folded ministry uniform as a pillow, but Maria managed it. Miss Shelley had gotten up and started getting dressed as well, moving with a smooth energy and efficiency that showed that even after taking care of Katarina for years– or perhaps because of it– she was a neat, tidy and professional woman.
Maria really wanted a maid like her. Perhaps she could ask Miss Shelley to recommend someone?
After prodding Larna Smith awake with her foot, Maria and Miss Shelley went down for breakfast.
Rafael was already there, enjoying some warm porridge with some bread and jam.
"Good morning," Rafael said, smiling when he saw them. "Looks like a nice day to travel."
Outside, there rose a small, escalating sound as it started to rain.
"That was my fault," Rafael said with a sigh. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
"I'll go make sure the horses have their coats on," Maria said, heading for the stables.
After a quick breakfast, with Larna Smith coming down last and eating quickly, they were back in the carriage and traveling with all possible speed through the rainy morning gloom.
Maria and Miss Shelley used the magic tool together to confirm that her mother was still in the same place and alive– as the magic tool wouldn't react to someone dead– and Maria checked their map to assess their progress.
"We're not making very good time, likely because of the rain," she understated. The frustration at the delay ground at her, and kept making her want to leave the carriage and run ahead. She quashed the feeling.
"We'll make it, Maria," Rafael said, leaning forward awkwardly and patting her on the knee. Maria placed her hand on his, taking a moment to appreciate the physical contact.
"Larna Smith snuck out of the inn last night," Maria said.
"Larna, are you TRYING to get me demoted too?" Rafael wailed, turning to glare at the woman who had formerly been his superior. "Or kicked out of the Ministry?"
"I thought you hated the Ministry?" Larna Smith said. "You called it Dark Soul-crushing work for a maniacal tyrant."
"That was when I worked for you," Rafael said. "Since you got demoted I've actually had more in my life to look forward to besides passing Maria in the hallways and passing out unconscious at night." Rafael sighed and turned towards Maria, looking tired all of a sudden, like he'd had to navigate his way down a deep pit be falling on narrow, rickety pieces of wood. "What did she do?"
Maria summarized last night's events.
"And you didn't tell us you were going to do any of this… why?" Rafael asked Larna Smith flatly.
"It didn't come up," Larna Smith said with a smile.
Rafael drooped. "I miss Dark Magic sometimes," he sighed.
"Do you want me to use mine?" Maria offered.
Rafael opened his mouth. Rafael closed his mouth. "No, that's fine," Rafael said.
Then he leveled a glare at Larna. "See? That's what responsibility and impulse control look like. Seriously, I'm the vice-director who's supposed to be overseeing you! Why did you not tell me you were reporting our progress to the Ministry?"
"It didn't come up," Larna Smith said brightly.
Rafael gave her a level stare. "You realize as vice-director I can pull you out of Magic Tool research duty to do permanent miscellaneous duty until the end of time now?"
"You monster!" Larna Smith gasped. "Why would you do that?"
"Because you clearly have discipline issues," Rafael said. "If making magic tools and your own amusement are all you care about, then do what Leona Adeth does and spend your own damned souls."
"Are you kicking me out of my own department?" Larna Smith said, sounding shocked and even a little angry. "The department I founded?"
"Well, given how often in a year you ran off and dumped all your paperwork on me, seldom attend meetings, and let every other department treat us as the Ministry's postal service, including the mail room," Rafael said, glaring at her, "all so you can play at being a spy or whatever it is you do, you clearly don't care about it anyway."
Larna Smith slapped him. "You ungrateful asshole!" she snapped as Maria debated whether she should intervene. "I took you in!"
"You took me in and you treated me like you do the rest of the department," Rafael retorted, raising a hand to his cheek. In Maria's eyes, his hand glowed with eldritch light. "Just someone to do all your work for you while you have fun. You might have become the youngest director in the Ministry's history, and you took in everyone the other departments think are too troublesome, but you didn't care. We were just people you foisted work on while you did what you wanted."
"You're the one who's using my magic tool to help your girlfriend!" Larna Smith snapped.
"You're the one who volunteered because no one would let you test it!" Rafael snapped. "You didn't have to be here, Larna! I did!"
Miss Shelley coughed pointedly, and the two Ministry workers blinked, remembering they weren't alone. "As much as the two of you clearly have issues to sort through," Miss Shelley said coolly enough to leave snow, "we were discussing Smith's actions. Is she a danger or otherwise a hindrance to this quest?"
"I'm not!" Larna Smith protested.
"You were keeping secrets from your vice-director," Maria said. "Pointlessly and incompetently so. Circumstantial evidence and your own reckless history could easily suggest you are either a pawn or in league with the Dark Magic wielder. After all, I did not know who you were speaking to last night. For all I know, you were speaking to the Dark Magic wielder. After all, I cannot be sure that the person whom you spoke with was truly a member of the Ministry."
"You don't believe that," Larna Smith said. "Otherwise you wouldn't have slept with me in the room. You'd have stayed up because you'd be worried I might attack you."
"Larna Smith, believe me when I say that being asleep will not slow me down in adding the power of your Dark Soul to mine should you have tried to do anything last night," Maria said coolly. "No more games. Why did you not inform us you were keeping in contact with the Ministry?"
Larna Smith opened her mouth.
Maria drew her saber and thrust it between Larna's teeth. The woman grew still. "And if the next words out of you are a pithy attempt to be funny, I am throwing you out of my carriage," Maria said.
Larna Smith swallowed, wincing as her tongue touched the sword because of it. Maria drew back her sword, and did not ground its point, sheath it or do anything else to it, just kept it raised in front of Larna Smith. "I decided to bring the communications magic tool at the last minute and told the department to tell the princes, so they could keep us up to date on any new findings," she said. "I didn't tell you because I wanted it to be a dramatic surprise if they found out anything useful that I could reveal about the situation."
Maria stared at her. The woman actually seemed to be serious.
Rafael's face fell into his hands. "Hex it Larna…" he moaned. "It's dung pies like this that got you demoted!"
Larna Smith shrugged. "It's worked before, when I had to go on missions with someone else," she said. "Very nice and dramatic."
Maria's saber, still held before her in front of Larna Smith, twitched.
"Maria, stop the carriage," Rafael said suddenly. "Now, please."
Maria, Larna Smith and Miss Shelley all turned to stare at him.
Maria frowned. "Rafael…"
"Please Maria," Rafael said, voice wavering slightly. "Please stop the carriage."
Maria frowned, but the carriage started to slow, and eventually came to a stop.
Rafael opened the door, letting rain in. "Could I please speak with you outside of a moment?" he said, stepping out and immediately starting to get soaked by the rain. "Please?" He stepped off into what sounded like mud.
Confused, Maria followed after him, finally sheathing her sword as she stepped out. Someone hurriedly closed the door behind her. Rain fell on her, but between her hunter's garb and her tricorne she managed to repel some of it. Rafael, standing on the other side of the road under a tall, gnarled tree, wasn't as protected. Already his hair was plastered to his head, his boots and pants legs were muddy, and he was shivering.
"Rafael, you'll get sick," Maria said, annoyed as she approached him.
"Maria, are you all right?" Rafael said.
Maria frowned at him. What sort of absurd question is that? "Yes, I'm fine. What's so important that that you couldn't speak of it inside the abyss consumed carriage?"
Rafael reached towards her and took her hands gently. His hands were wet and getting cold, but they were gentle as they curved around her fingers. "Maria," he said quietly, barely audible over the rain. "You look like a pillar of black smoke."
"…"
Maria stared down at her hands. The black smoke of Dark Magic rose from them, so thickly she couldn't see her fingers.
For a long while, they both just stood there, getting wetter and wetter. Rafael held her hands as the smoke slowly, slowly thinned and faded away.
Maria closed her eyes, clenched them tight. The rain hid her tears.
"Feeling better?" Rafael said.
"No…" Maria said quietly. "But we can't afford to stop any longer."
Rafael nodded. "Ignore Larna, Maria," Rafael said. "She's not your problem, she's mine. All you should worry about is saving your mother. Just save Alice. Leave everything else to me to worry about."
"I know…" Maria said, "But I can't… I feel so helpless… I want to do something…! Even if it's just beat that stubborn woman under control."
"I know…" Rafael said. "Believe me, I know better than anyone how aggravating she is. But Maria, she's here because she wanted to help, in her own self-centered, impulsive, messed-up way. And she has. We wouldn't even know where to go without her. I know she can by annoying, but she doesn't deserve the anger inside you right now. The women who took your mother do."
"It boils within me…" Maria said. "A darkness under my skin, waiting to erupt and bring harm. And I want it to. I want to let it out…!"
"Larna doesn't deserve it, Maria," Rafael repeated. "She's made mistakes, made a lot of them. But she's been the most helpful person here to so far. If you need to take it out on someone, take it out on me." He smiled wanly. "I'll understand."
For a moment, they just stood there, Rafael still holding her hands.
Finally, Maria reached up, took hold of his now completely soaked head and pulled his lips to hers. She pressed him against the tree, as if trying to become one even though their clothes as she let out the pressure that had been building inside her…
Eventually they parted, now both completely wet. From the rain. Definitely the rain.
"Feel better?" Rafael said a bit breathlessly.
"Much," Maria said, equally breathless.
Rafael nodded. "Ready to get going?"
Maria nodded, licking some of the rainwater off her face and drinking it to quench her thirst. It didn't help. "Rafael, will you marry me?"
Rafael stared at her. "Here? Now? You're asking me?" he said.
"Yes," Maria said. "I want to be engaged to you, Rafael Walt. I want to stand by your side forever, even if you should tire of me and take a mistress."
"That will never happen," Rafael said. "You are the only woman for me."
Maria didn't correct him. One day he would, as all men did. She could only hope he would still be fond enough of her that he would not leave her when the time came.
"Yes, Maria," Rafael said. "Yes, I'll marry you. I want to be by your side forever too."
Maria closed her eyes and kissed her fiancé for the first time. It drove back the darkness and rage, stifling the urge to seek out her mother as if she were some kind of beloved pendant. The Dark Soul within her tightened upon itself as more than rage filled it.
They parted for air. "Will you live with me?" Maria said. "Your room at the manor waits for you."
"Isn't that improper, a man living with his fiancée?" Rafael panted.
"Fiancé and fiancée are traditionally given leeway when it comes to doing improper things, especially when it concerns intimacy and carnality," Maria said. "And the facilitating thereof."
Rafael swallowed. "Tell you what," he said. "Give me time to get over becoming an engaged man so I can think about it."
"Alas, you have foiled my plot," Maria said, resting her head on his shoulder and nuzzling his neck. "I wanted to use the shock of engagement to get you to agree quickly and trick you into living sinfully with me."
"Sinful?" Rafael choked out.
"Yes. There will be much lust involved," Maria said.
Rafael made a funny sound in his throat.
Then he sneezed.
"Ugh, okay, it's stopped being romantic," he said, wiping his nose. "Let's get back into the carriage."
Maria nodded.
They went back to the carriage hand in hand. Despite the mud ahead of them, they walked as if on air.
"Miss Shelley…" Maria said hesitantly as the carriage started moving again, and she and Rafael tried to dry off by using the blankets folded under the seats, "why does Larna Smith have a black eye?"
"She tripped," Miss Shelley said blandly, "and hit her face on the luggage."
"Yes," Larna Smith said, "I totally tripped and by complete accident inadvertently hit my face on the luggage by unfathomable random chance. That's absolutely how it happened and not any other way."
"Oh. I see. Would you like some Light Magic for your injury?" Maria offered.
"She will not need any Light Magic, as she considers it a mere inconvenience and a waste of energy," Miss Shelley said, "since that is her only injury and 'tis merely a scratch."
"Absolutely!" Larna Smith agreed loudly. "I don't need any Light Magic, it's just an inconvenience, everything that she said!"
"Are you sure?" Maria said.
"Yes, she's sure," Miss Shelley said.
"Yup! Absolutely sure!" Larna Smith declared.
Miss Shelley coughed slightly.
"Also, Lady Campbell, Vice-Director Walt, I'd like to apologize for my actions last night and until now," Larna Smith said. "I've thought about it, and I was being selfish and stupid and putting my own inconsequential needs before what really matters, which is rescuing Maria's mother. You have my word that from now on I'm going to cooperate completely with both of you and hold nothing back and be a completely trustworthy, open and honest teammate during this very important quest that we're on. I swear on my Dark Soul!"
Maria stared. "That's… very commendable of you, Larna Smith," she said, a bit confused at this sudden turn of events. She looked at Miss Shelley for some kind of explanation, but she was serene-looking as ever. "I'm… glad to hear it. And I'm sure Rafael is too." Maria picked up the plush land predator-shaped magic tool from her seat, which had its arms around itself and was rocking back and forth for some reason, and sat back down, careful to keep the water from her wet coat from getting at the small barrel of black powder. You could never be too careful.
Rafael was staring at Miss Shelley with something like awe. At hearing his name, however, he said, "Uh, yes, um, glad," he said, no doubt as surprised as Maria herself. "So, you'll teach me how to use the communicator magic tool and we'll conduct a proper ministry report? I can confirm your story?"
"Of course vice-director," Larna Smith said. "I'll tell you everything at tonight's stop! Especially all the magic tools I took from the department without permission and am carrying! And may I say how very sorry I am that my selfish actions has caused you so much pain until now. It was never my intention to hurt you, and I'm sure that if we work together we can mend the trust and respect between us. You were the best assistance I ever had and I'm sorry my pettiness and self-absorption kept me from properly telling you how much I appreciated you an all the hard work you put in. You're a good vice-director and the department is lucky to have you!"
"Uh… thanks?" Rafael said. Not seeming to have anything to say, he went back to wiping off what water he could and trying not to shiver from the cold water.
"And I'm sorry my actions have compounded your worries, Lady Campbell," Larna Smith said. "You're going through a stressful and difficult time right now, and the last thing you need is my immature silliness making things more difficult for you! Rest assured that from now on I will be as helpful, professional, helpful, mature, helpful, sensible and helpful as possible. I won't make you worry ever again!"
"Thank you?" Maria said. Had she… somehow gone sane? She'd seen people lose their sanity before, but had never seen then gain it back. But this must be it, or why else would Larna Smith suddenly be speaking sense?
Miss Shelley nodded. "Very good, Larna Smith," Miss Shelley said. "I'm sure you will do very well to keep these promises."
"Absolutely, Miss Shelley! You can count on me!"
Confused by gladdened, Maria was able to spend the rest of the day's journey concentrating on using Light Magic to keep herself from getting sick as she saw Rafael doing the same.
Their journey continued on under the sound of the falling rain.
A Millidiana Claes Interlude
"So I have cousins?" Katarina said, fascinated.
"Yes, 6 of them," Mili said. "Your older cousin Matthew has just recently become a knight, though we were unable to attend her knighting because… well, you were unconscious in a coma at the time. Then there are Marie and Olga, her younger sisters. Olga is going to be attending the Academy the year after, so perhaps you can speak to her about what it's like… Katarina are you listening?"
"I have cousins!" Katarina cheered. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun! We can go fishing and climb trees and I can teach them how to farm…! Ah, I wish I'd known when I was younger so we could have had more years of fun together!"
Katarina didn't notice her mother's wince. "Well, I'm sure you'll grow close," Mili said. If there was one thing she could trust in, it was her daughter's ability to be liked and make friends. She just hoped she didn't make any of her cousins infatuated with her.
"Who are the others?" Katarina begged, looking at her mother like she was expecting a treat.
"Um, well, there's your cousin Watson…" Mili said, trying to recall the letters that she'd recently exchanged with her siblings. Very long, multipage letters filled with guilt-inducing love, as if trying to fix nearly a score of years of separation in a single envelope, with a new one arriving every few days. To be fair, her replies had been just as thick, and she had been forced to dictate to her secretary, and then get a second secretary to write while the first recovered. "He's technically not related to us, since your aunt Sherry married his mother and he's from her first marriage… but he was just a baby at the time, so everyone treats him as part of the family. And then there's your uncle Henry's daughters, Adella and Iosefka."
Katarina blinked. "I have an aunt named Sherry? Wait, aunt Sherry has a wife?"
"Yes, Katarina," she explained patiently. "Your aunt Sherry isn't in the immediate line to inherit the duchy, so she had some leeway in her marriage. I met your father during her wedding party, you know. Though I hear your cousin Watson is very well thought of, so even if something terrible should happen…" Mili shuddered at the very thought. Literally so. She felt like she was choking, and her legs became weak. It was a moment before she could speak again. "Even then, I'm sure by now no one will object."
"They all sound so nice!" Katarina said, despite the current conversation being the full extent of what she knew of her siblings. "I really hope they like me!"
"I'm sure they will, Katarina," Mili said, neglecting to mention how they'd apparently been hearing of her escapades from noble gossip for years. "They're family, after all."
"Ah, that would be so nice!" Katarina gushed. She hugged Mili impulsively. "Thanks for taking me along mother! I know we don't spend much time together, but I'm glad we're doing it now!"
Mili, with effort, ignored the pain in her heart at those words, and took them in the innocent spirit they were given. "I'm glad too, Katarina," she said. She was getting better at hugging her daughter, who was so exuberant. Oddly, it had begun to feel familiar, as if something long missed…
Oh, right. Her sisters had hugged her like this… and even then she'd been a bit awkward.
"Ah, mother, you're crying! Did I hug too hard? I'm sorry mother!"