As I finished telling Key my story, both of us seated in the common room with mugs of coffee that I swore I’d replace when I had the funds, I could tell by the look on her face that she was more at peace with it than I was. It seemed as though I was the only one getting shell-shocked by all this talk of divine beings and politics, like it was just the most normal conversation in the world to have for everyone I’d met recently. I didn’t have a lot of time to register how weird this city was before she asked me a question that floored me again.
“So, ya gonna tell th’roomies?”
At once my silence became obvious, and I could tell she realized I hadn’t thought about that yet. My hair would be a giveaway that I’d changed somehow, as I’m pretty confident nobody here took me for the type to dye it, and I didn’t want to lie to the people I’d be living with so I knew I’d wind up telling this same story again today. The issue was in that I wanted this to remain a secret generally, not among friends. I didn’t want the notoriety that came with all of this baggage I’d found myself carrying.
“I’m going to tell them, yeah.” I sighed, placing my mug down. “But I can’t let anyone else know what’s going on. I don’t want to be a goddess or a princess or anything, I just want to fight and protect people.”
“Secret’s safe wit’me.” she said, not skipping a beat. “Ya got a good ‘ead on ya shouldas, but’cha gotta ‘memba ya can still protec’ folks if ya got a throne too.” she stood, mug in hand, and offered to take my mug. As the guest, I took hers instead without words and made my way to the kitchen where I’d leave those for now, then returned.
“I guess that is true, but… I can’t know how things are out there by papers or advisors or anything. That’s not going to tell me the reality of the situation, just the numbers behind it. A person’s life is worth more than a number on a paper in a casualty report.”
“We agreein’ wit’out agreein’.” she said, shrugging. “But’s ya life. I’m jus’ givin’ ya ideas. Neve’urts t’have someth’ta think ‘bout.”
“I hear you.” I smiled, sitting back down in the common room and offering her to join me again. “I’ve got a lot more to think about now than I ever wanted to, so I’ll have to juggle this stuff around for a while anyway.”
“A’ight, jus’ don’ let it eat at ya too much.”
“Thanks. It helped to get all this off my chest.” I replied. We continued like that for a little while, and I’m too lazy to tell you every trivial thing we talked about, but it was mostly her asking about my life before I came here, about my family and friends back home. I told her about Allie and Nectar and mom, and she was very invested in the idea that I’d somehow lived with a Golem my whole life and never noticed. She told me about how Golem bodies work and how difficult it is to fabricate perfect skin due to the joints. It went over my head, but maybe you’d understand it. She was telling me something about hydraulic joints that ran on Flux energy that got filtered in a specialized artificial heart, and some form of artificial intelligence that is so sophisticated that it took on its own will. Her species was fascinating, but very complicated. And I suppose I am not as lazy as I thought since I just explained everything we talked about even though I said I wouldn’t do that.
“S’gett’n a bit past m’free time. I should head out.” she said, lifting herself from her seat just in time for the door to open, and for Ragnis to step in. She seemed to be curious about what was happening, but didn’t ask, opting to head to her room for the time being. I also stood to see Key out, and as she left I could hear Ragnis coming back from her space into the common room.
“Welcome back.” I said to her, making my way to the kitchen to clean the mugs from earlier. I saw her returning in an informal looking black skirt that passed her knees and a fluffy looking blouse, and this was the first I’d seen her outside her uniform.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked, beginning to run a soapy cloth over the first much. I could see her get a little nervous in her position in the halls, looking away as she answered.
“I’ve got a date tonight.” she spoke almost as quietly as one would if they were in trouble for something, which I thought was odd. To be fair, I also didn’t exactly know the worry behind a date yet, so from my perspective she was supposed to be going out and having a good time with some beautiful boy or girl or whatever.
“Oh, sounds fun! Who’s taking you out?” I asked, knowing approximately three people in the city and expecting a name I’d never heard before.
“This charming man named Dubro. I-” I cut her off.
“Oh, is he on the combat racing team? I met him briefly today, he seems like a good guy. Lucky you!”
She seemed to flush red even more so at that comment, and I laughed a little. “Come on, you look beautiful and you’re so talented. He’s going to love tonight.”
Even redder. Is this why my mom liked teasing me? Still, this was different from that. I was younger than the person I was teasing.
“T-thanks.” she moused again. “Say, what happened to your hair?”
“Oh, that’s a long story. Don’t let me hold you up, we can talk about that later.”
I managed to deflect the topic for now, thankfully, as I’d rather only tell the story one more time if I could help it, but I did remember that I had another goal today at that point. I finished the second mug and gathered myself again to head back out immediately. I could tell the day was going to end soon as the sun was starting to set, but I thought I could get this done quickly.
I was about to run out the door, when out from behind it came my other room mate, Arceia, tattered and out of breath. She seemed even more surprised than I was, which is saying something considering my immediate reaction was to ask her where our first aid cabinet was so I could help her. She shook her head, however, and made her way in.
“It’s nothing, but thank you.”
I sized her up, from her missing shirt collar to her bleeding arms and the red tint in her hair
“Yeah. Nothing. That adds up. Get in and sit down.”
“I’m fi-” I cut her off.
“Shut up no you aren’t. What did you do?”
“I was working, this happens sometimes. It’s fine.”
“So here sits the Third Princess of a foreign nation ragged and beaten in outside territory? No, I don’t think so.”
“You’re not acting like yourself.” is all she said in response.
“My friend is injured, why would I not freak out?” I sat next to her. “What happened? Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” a short reply that made me more nervous than comforted.
“Just tell me what’s injured and I’ll do what I can then. I won’t pry.”
She seemed to contemplate her options for a minute, sitting silently and staring into my eyes, which I found a little strange,
“You have beautiful eyes.” she said, leaning back. “Fine, fine, you win. I’m already patched up but if you want to check my shoulder you’re free to.”
I didn’t hesitate to run a hand along her shoulder, trying to identify the injury. I felt a strange patch of sorts that felt like a series of small holes, and saw her uncomfortable with my presence there.
“Wrong shoulder.” she clarified with a little bit of what sounded like genuine guilt, which I found off. Still, I did as instructed and touched the other shoulder, feeling a single, larger indent in her skin.
“Can you show me this spot here?” I asked, allowing her to maneuver her own clothes for her modesty sake. She pulled that side of her shift over and down, revealing a genuine hole in her skin that seemed to have a burn mark surrounding it. It wasn’t very deep, but it was still bleeding lightly and I could see the pink of the flesh under her skin clearly. The burn didn’t enter the wound, but surrounded it like a target, and there was no sign of a projectile of any sort in her skin.
“What hit you here?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“I’m still not sure.” she almost whimpered it out, like she was nervous about something. “But it doesn’t hurt anymore. I think it just needs some bandages.”
“It’s not too deep, so that will probably be fine… But, why didn’t you go see someone about this?” I half-sat at the foot of her chair, not quite on my knees but not sitting on any surface either.
“Can I just tell you that I can’t do that and we leave it at that?” she pleaded with me, and I could see in her eyes that she was serious. I nodded.
“I don’t like it, but I won’t pester you about it. I know we just met and all but you’re a friend, and you’re sort of incredibly important if I understand your rank properly. If your dad saw you in this state he’d take you out of school and start a war or something.”
I managed to get a laugh out of her, and she waved off the concerns.
“My father already doesn’t want me to stay here, but I’ve got a job to do for him and it’s taking me longer than expected, so I figured the most efficient way to do it was to get a place to stay. He wouldn’t start anything with them, but he may lock me in the castle for a while if he saw me like this.”
“Well, then we better make sure he doesn’t see this.” I stood, and headed for the kitchen where I assumed we had some bandages, but she stopped me by calling my name.
“Under the coffee shelf, there’s a bandage wrap that I had stocked for kitchen accidents. That should be fine.”
“Got it.” I waved back to her from the doorway, a whole ten steps from her chair like it was the biggest deal and I wanted to look cool or something, and sure enough the wrap was exactly where she said it was. I wasn’t sure if I was doing this correctly, but I ran the water to wet one of the white pads and kept the other dry. I returned to the room, the tan cloth in hand with some white padding that was next to it, and she at once presented her injured shoulder again.
Dressing the wound was easy enough, even for someone who rarely did it. I applied a thicker white pad to absorb the remaining blood or fluids in case of infection, wiped the area clean with the wet pad and then wrapped her shoulder with the bandages, tying them off atop her shoulder in the back to be subtle. It wasn’t perfect, and she had to correct me once about how tight the wrap was, but we got her to a comfortable spot with it and she pulled her shirt over it.
“See? Now nobody has to know about your secret vigilante life.” I joked. This seemed to hit her a bit, so I changed topics. “Or maybe this should be a lesson to take your safety at work more seriously. This did happen at work you said.”
“Right. And if Father found out I was working, he would throw some kind of fit, even if he was happy I wasn’t leeching my position.”
We shared a laugh, and I found myself getting more comfortable by finally sitting on my knees and leaning against the foot of the chair. I was too concerned for her health to leave this space yet, but I was relaxing a bit.
“The Empire sure seems like a friendly place.” I stated, trying to make idle chat. “Everyone I’ve met from there seems to have such a good heart. The diner I went to yesterday was relaxing and had great food. You’ve been so nice to me from the start, even as strangers at the pier. I’m told Magnum and the Empire have a strong partnership, too. I’d love to visit someday.” As I said this, I leaned my head back against the arm of her chair.
“You should. Maybe I can take you there after this semester is over.” she offered it so freely that it took me a bit by surprise, but I had to reject her offer.
“Sorry, but I’ve gotta visit my family after classes end. I promised them I’d be back as quick as I could.”
“Understandable. How about holiday break then?” she offered again, surprising me with her persistence this time instead of her general offer. “Classes will run for about four weeks before we have a week off for the Festival of Destruction. There’s a beautiful paper lantern display in the Empire during that time, and everyone writes down the one thing they’d never want to be destroyed in their lantern in hopes that the Goddess will spare it.”
“How does the Goddess handle all that mail at once?” I laughed.
“Well, she doesn’t attend the festival, but we always reassure the crowd that she knows about their wishes.”
That’s right, I was told earlier today about Grandmother’s relationship with the Empire. I didn’t voice this out loud, but it seemed Arceia didn’t realize it herself.
“I’m sure she can see them from where she is.” I responded. “And I’m sure she listens. I doubt she just blows stuff up for fun.”
“Definitely not. She has to work with Father to decide what’s run its course. And primarily she does the cleanup after natural disasters so that Father can bring life back to those spots. Volcanic eruptions sweep away a chunk of the forest by Skade Peak, and she destroys whatever dead foliage and buildings are there so that Father can make it green again. Things of that nature.”
“I get it, that makes sense.” I sighed, comfortable where I was finally and confident that Arceia was okay. “I think I’ll take you up on that offer. It’s only a week after all and it’s not like I’ll be alone.”
“Perfect.” she sounded more upbeat than before, back to her usual self. “I’ll make sure to have Father prepare a guest room for you.”
“That’s alright. I can just stay in an inn or something at night. I don’t want to burden the royal family.” She gave me a light bop on the head from her seat, and I heard her disagreement in her sigh.
“If the Third Princess invites you to stay in her home, you say thank you.”
“Fine, fine, I get it.” I laughed, and so did she. We stayed like that for a little while, quietly comfortable. It was an odd feeling, but one I didn’t hate. She never asked about my hair, and I had enough information to know she was okay.
I was content to let the day end like that. My quest to find work was put on hold until tomorrow, but then she spoke again after some time had passed. It hadn’t felt too long, but looking outside I could see that the sun had already gone down completely. Today was much faster than yesterday.
“You know, everyone is always keeping an arms’ length from me because of my title. Even Ragnis. Having someone so unapologetically concerned for me and unafraid of what my title meant… It was new. And I liked it.”
I couldn’t really respond to that without circling the topic a bit, so I just allowed it to happen.
“Why would anyone be afraid? You’ve been nothing but approachable. Even a dumb country bumpkin can see that you’re a good person and that’s more valuable than a title, to me anyway.”
“Maybe it’s that country mentality that makes the difference.” she waved off my self-depreciative humor. “Why don’t you tell me about your home? I’m sure you can read whatever you like about mine, but I haven’t the faintest idea what yours is like.”
“Oh,it’s a wonderful place.” I began, not missing a beat in sharing my world. “Everyone is so strongly connected, even those outside family. I just found out it’s very Lopriel in culture which I didn’t know, but that means that we’re all hard workers that never let each other work alone. There’s no money or anything, we just help each other live our lives and provide for each other as we need. I guess we’re also a neutral territory? So there’s no like, major government force.”
She seemed to be intensely curious about my home, as I heard her making sounds of acknowledgement and asking me to go on every so often while I rambled. I told her about my family, and what I’d learned in just the short day I’d been away. I didn’t expect a princess to be so curious about my small beginnings, but I didn’t hate it either. After we talked enough, I felt her hand on my head briefly, and then my hair was in her hands. Unsure of how to process such a bizarre action, I just asked what she was doing.
“I hadn’t noticed before, but your hair changed.” I felt her playing with it for a few more seconds before it returned to where it rested. “Late blooming potential is pretty rare, especially of your type.”
“I was just as surprised.” I said, telling as much of the truth as I could without Ragnis there to share the story for both of them. I know I said it earlier, but I did not want to do that three times in one day.
“Usually, potential that’s dormant like that for as long as yours has been requires some sort of magical trauma to unlock. So let me flip the situation a bit – Are you okay?” she asked it with such sincerity, and I felt obligated to respond in kind. So much for only telling the story twice.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I found out my grandmother works here is all, and she sort of surprised me.”
“Really? That’s great though, right? Is she someone I know?”
“Probably.” I swallowed, trying to force my nerves down. “I found out it’s Professor Faye.”
Magna Varia 