78 lines
9.2 KiB
HTML
78 lines
9.2 KiB
HTML
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<title>05: selmina and her sword</title>
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<p><b>05: selmina and her sword</b></p>
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<p> </p>
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<p><em>Tap, tap, tap.</em></p>
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<p>Eraser to paper. Fingers against a notepad, itching to write but idle nonetheless. A fat fountain pen sat in her lap, weighing down in the canopy of her skirt between her skinny legs. Glossy and black, catching her eye every few seconds when the lightbulb hanging above her head swung her way.</p>
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<p>“You should really get a proper light fixture,” she whispered.</p>
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<p>“You wanna buy me one?” a woman squawked from inside the room Selmina was sitting outside. “What with all that money you get from patrolling the outer tunnels and outposts with those filthy caedats-”</p>
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<p>Selmina twisted around and nudged the door shut.</p>
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<p>The woman kept squawking inside, but Selmina paid her no mind as she gathered her writing supplies up and slipped them into her little blue drawstring bag. She slipped it around her shoulders and stood up, gazing over the balcony at the activity teeming several stories below. The short point in the day when there were the most people awake and active at the same time. Buying, bartering, socializing. Pacts made and sworn on.</p>
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<p>She turned her violet eyes skywards. A massive tree grew in the center of the expanse, all the way up to the ceiling far above. Little apples like jewels, or popcorn strings scattered around a yuletide tree. Shallow divots in the bark where countless generations had found the best places to climb, the best wedges to place their feet and their trust on. There were only a few people in the tree now, reaching for apples to eat or trade off for something else-</p>
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<p>“Solstice!” Selmina yelled, waving her arms. The redhead wrapped her limbs around a branch, steadying herself and the bag on her back, then lifted one arm to wave back-</p>
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<p>-and slipped, and lost her grip.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>She clutched her bag tight against her chest. Her leg inevitably started bouncing, nervous jogging, making the person sitting on the other end of the couch grumble and move to the other couch on the opposite end of the lobby.</p>
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<p><em>She’s not dead. She’s not dead.</em></p>
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<p>She glanced around. There were no doctors in sight.</p>
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<p><em>Could I…?</em></p>
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<p>Selmina stood up. The grumbler, an old wrinkly man who didn’t look at all like he belonged in Rennica, rubbed his nose and promptly drifted off to sleep. Just like that, quicker than she could snap her fingers.</p>
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<p>Her footsteps were barely audible as she made her way down the ward hallway. Eleven doors. Ten private rooms, and then the mass infirmary at the end.</p>
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<p><em>One, two, three…</em></p>
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<p>The door was closed. She jogged the handle- locked.</p>
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<p>Muffled speech inside. She glanced around again, checking for nosy nurses, and then pressed her ear up against the door.</p>
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<p>“<em>I’m sorry, Sol. That’s reality. That’s</em> our <em>reality. The longer you go without shifting or casting or</em> anything, <em>the more likely you’re going to go feral.</em>”</p>
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<p>“<em>Then just let me go feral.</em>”</p>
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<p>“<em>Sol-</em>”</p>
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<p>“<em>You should have killed me when I was young. When I was still happy in this place, still had hope in my soul.</em>”</p>
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<p>“<em>What the hell are you talking about?</em>”</p>
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<p>“I don’t want to be here anymore!” Solstice screamed, loud enough for Selmina to cringe away from the door for a second.</p>
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<p>“<em>Rennica is the safest place for all of us at the current moment. Maybe one day, when Chronos is dead and you’ve grown into your powers more, we can go back into the firstworld and begin rebuilding.</em>”</p>
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<p>“<em>How’s Chronos going to die if we all just cower here?</em>”</p>
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<p>A sigh of frustration. The legs of a stool scraping on the ground. “<em>I’m not having this discussion with you right now.</em>”</p>
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<p>Footsteps towards the door. Selmina stepped away and brushed her clothes off, presentable just in time for the door to open and Lukas to step out, lips tight, eyebrows drawn together.</p>
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<p>He shut the door behind him- “Oh, Selmina. I wasn’t expecting you here.”</p>
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<p>Selmina curtseyed. “Lukas. A pleasure to see-”</p>
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<p>He cut her off. “Get up. There’s no need for niceties here. You don’t have to treat me like I’m some sort of… king.”</p>
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<p>Selmina straightened. “Y-yes, right. My apologies. Is Solstice alright?”</p>
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<p>“Broke an arm, fractured several ribs. Nothing life-threatening. It’ll only take a few days to heal. So close to her birthday, though…” He gestured to the door. “I have to go. But you can talk to her.”</p>
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<p>He took off. Selmina, cautious, opened the door and slipped in, closing it behind her. Solstice lay on the bed, her right arm bound up in a makeshift cast, her chest tied into some kind of plastic brace that may or may not have been stolen from an otherworld hospital.</p>
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<p>Her face looked <em>especially</em> sour.</p>
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<p>“Oh. Salmonella.” A half-smile tilted on her dopey face. “Just the person I wanted to see right now.”</p>
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<p><em>Is she drugged?</em></p>
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<p><em>Better drugged than dead, I suppose…</em></p>
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<p>Selmina dragged the metal stool back over and took a seat, holding the straps of her sack in her hands, letting the bag dangle near her feet. “And the same to you. I’m not sure how you survived such a fall without immediately dying, but… I’m glad all the same.”</p>
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<p>“You’re so cheesy.” Solstice grunted. The fingers of her right arm flexed. “Too bad I’m lactose-intolerant. Are my apples okay?”</p>
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<p>“You almost died, and you’re concerned about your <em>apples?</em>”</p>
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<p>“Well, yeah. They’re the reason I was so high up, after all.” Solstice shrugged- and her face immediately crumpled in pain. “I want my pie…”</p>
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<p>“A death pie for a… birthday. Alright.” Selmina took her notebook and pencil and fountain pen out of the sack, letting the blue bag fall to her feet. Her restless fingers started scrawling words as fast as the pencil would let her. “So what I overheard…”</p>
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<p>“Is that Lin?”</p>
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<p>Selmina’s large violet eyes glanced up from the paper. “I beg your pardon?”</p>
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<p>“That’s Lin, isn’t it? My father’s sword?”</p>
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<p>“Um…” Selmina held the pen up to the ceiling lights, studying the glossy surface. “No, it appears to be a pen. No use without good ink, and I wouldn’t know how to load it anyways.”</p>
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<p>“No, it’s a <em>sword,</em>” Solstice drawled, eyelids fluttering, begging to shut so she could doze off. “You have to click the top <em>real hard.</em>” Selmina touched the bottom- “but point it <em>away</em> from the bed! I don’t want to be a skewer.”</p>
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<p>“And I… wouldn’t want to skewer you.” Selmina blushed. “Nothing lewd intended, of course.”</p>
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<p>She slapped the bottom of the pen-</p>
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<p>A flash of light. Selmina jumped back in shock, letting go, her face immediately flushing bright red. A pitch-black longsword clattered on the floor in front of her. The blade had several indents in it, like it were designed for ripping flesh as much as possible, and the hilt had a few cracks in it where a lighter material peeked through.</p>
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<p>“Yeah, like that.” Solstice closed her eyes. “Salmonella.”</p>
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<p>“<em>Selmina.</em>”</p>
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<p>“Yeah. Salmonella. That’s what I said.” Solstice let out a long breath. “Come close. No theatrics. I’m not gonna die.” A weak laugh. “Not yet. Not for a <em>long</em> ass time.”</p>
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<p>“I’m <em>well</em> aware of your divine status.” Selmina stepped closer. She folded her hands like a demure schoolgirl, resting against her skirt. “What do you wish to tell me?”</p>
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<p>“You.” Solstice flexed her fingers, almost as if to gesture to her friend. “And I. I’ve been thinking. We should leave Rennica.”</p>
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<p>“Solstice, don’t take this the wrong way, but… are you <em>sure</em> about the thinking part?”</p>
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<p>“Yeah. Real hard. We… go and kill Chronos.”</p>
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<p>“<em>I’ll ask again-</em>”</p>
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<p>“You and I will return heroes. I’ll convince Father to make all the sand go <em>woosh</em> away. Good riddance, since he’s the one who’s at fault for it…” Solstice half-opened her eyes, pupils just barely visible under her heavy eyelids, under her thinning eyelashes. “I’m going anyways. Sometime after my birthday. But you’re the only one I’d ever trust at my side.”</p>
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<p>“I’m… honored.”</p>
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<p><em>Does she really mean it?</em></p>
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<p><em>Suppressants often affect more than pain. Behavior inhibitors, for one.</em></p>
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<p>“I will consider it,” Selmina continued, picking up the sword, studying it with intent eyes. “For your sake, if nothing else. But I should warn you: I have little to no training in… medieval forms of combat. Or slaying gods.” She ran a finger along one of the cracks. A bead of light followed her finger up, then fizzled out at the end of the crack.</p>
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<p>A tiny giggle escaped Solstice’s mouth. Almost like a little child, like the two of them were five years old again, back at the entrance to the underworld, meeting each other for the first time.</p>
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<p>“It’s okay. Me neither.”</p>
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