Chapter 272: The Magician 30
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Considering the backstory of this particular 'tragic hero', he very well could be from his perspective. The sharp and almost noble features of the girl had subtly shifted to softer edges. Light skin had taken on a golden hue while blond hair had darkened to slightly wavy auburn. A small beauty mark had appeared near the corner of her left eye as if she had a single dark tear she could never finish shedding.
Through the slit in his helmet, dark brown eyes locked with ocean blue ones as he said, "They're not hazel."
In confusion, the cleric looked around and said, "I don't know much about trees and shrubs. Was there more than one cave entrance?"
With the visuals exposed, the armored man seemed more aware of how similar her voice was to someone else, "You, what's your name?"
Taking the perfect lead in, Orison fed a portion of prepared script through the cleric. "I was meaning to bring this up. Would you mind taking my original adventurer's plate back with you. After everything that's happened, I was thinking about a fresh start."
Suspicious again, the man said, "You want to be reported as dead or are you giving up adventuring?"
With a solemn face the girl said, "In more ways than one, the person I was did die down there. I was changed in ways that I can't easily begin to explain. Some you know, though. I took a life.
"No matter the reason, I can no longer pray to the Earth Mother for grace but I don't want to be a follower of the Sun Lord. Those priests are just shy of insane and their suppression, sometimes exploitation, of women is an open secret. I have a way to still use healing but I'll have to earn grace through the elimination of monsters.
"It's a harder road but generic, er, secular clerics aren't publicly suppressed or persecuted by any orthodox church. I'd have to find a capable adventurer above my grade to help me collect grace until I grew in power enough to learn my own combat methods. But if you'd help with that, I'd use my skills to help you every way I could in return."
The internal battle of the armored man only lasted a moment. Were it not for his own shock, the refusal would have been instantaneous.
And as much as he doubted that she was a creature in disguise, he wasn't able to completely shake the doubt that she might be demon or devil blooded once she brought the point up. It was a simple thing for him to request that she be tested for such a heritage during her examination. Considering how much her appearance had spooked him, he wanted to do that, at least.
With a dark look through his helmet slit, he pointed ahead of him and said, "Walk."
Not allowing his moody turn to affect her sudden feeling of unburdened existence, she skipped ahead.
With a few hops forward, she turned with an airy smile and said, "Call me Wren."
She was answered by a sullen grunt. With a reply like that, she knew she was in for a silent walk to the local village before another long and silent walk back to the nearest town. To keep herself occupied, she kept her eyes peeled for medicinal herbs and wasn't at all surprised to see many. Local herbalists and even a few savvy woodsman would go out of their way to spread a few seeds further afield when they encountered or harvested a mature, useful herb they had no intentions of cultivating themselves.
By the time they reached the village, it was starting to get late. The small, four room inn they would be spending the night wasn't unknown to the cleric. She had stayed there only the night before with the party that was now deceased. It was a sad and painful thought as the armored man lead her in that direction once he'd collected his task completion fee and request form stamp from the village elder.
The homely but pleasant woman who managed it was all smiles at their approach. Wren was surprised when the woman told the armored man that he could stay free of charge but took the cleric's two silver without a moment's hesitation. It was the woman's turn to be surprised by the cleric's hesitation to follow her to the room she was leading the girl.
"What's the matter, hon?" she said kindly.
Unsure how to breach the subject, Wren replied, "Is-is there another room available. Any will do and I hate to be a bother but..."
The look on the innkeeper's face wasn't encouraging but she was saved from having to respond when the armored man said, "Bring a spare cot to my room. She can sleep there. Keep her room fee."
Both the woman and the cleric were scandalized but seeing that the red faced girl didn't object, the innkeeper called for her daughter to help with the arrangement.
Once they were settled in, the armored man sent Wren to fetch their dinner when some hot water was brought up to their room. Catching the hint, she complied. In similar vein, he had a sudden thirst he went to the common area to take care of while she cleaned up.
With no business left to attend to but not yet quite time for sleep, Wren sat at the small room's table and worked the herbs into something usable while the man performed upkeep on his equipment. She noticed that he didn't take off the helmet or the padded jacket as he cleaned and polished the mail and shortsword. She was tempted to ask why. But since he'd not said anything about her strange reticence to stay in the room she'd been given, it didn't really give her any leeway to ask questions of her own.
As she ran out of busywork to perform with the herbs she collected, the silence began to get too loud to bear. "That room, I stayed there yesterday with the mage girl you saw... when we first met. I-I don't think I would have been able to sleep if I'd have stayed there."
With a forced smile, she added, "I'm surprised the innkeeper let me stay in here with you. The other girl had to sneak into her boyfriend's room after nightfall."
For a moment, she wondered why everything had gotten so blurry but suddenly realized that she was crying. The man froze up for a few seconds as if trying to figure out what he should do. He decided to put an extra, unneeded layer of waterproofing polish on his boots as if he didn't notice.
She curled up into a ball of misery. And despite feeling like she would never sleep again, the trials of the day had worn on her more greatly than she realized. Later, when she awoke with a gasp in the dark hours of predawn, she absently noted that she'd been covered up at some point. As she took a few deep breaths to push irrational terror back down, she noticed the faint red glow of the man's enchanted helmet with a special kind of sight she hadn't possessed before.
It took a few more slightly ragged deep breaths to keep from screaming anyway. Nerves singing, she couldn't lay back down. It didn't seem possible to pretend that she hadn't just woken up from a nightmare and likely woke him up too. It seemed like a generous assumption that he had done much sleeping himself, sitting in bed like he was, staring back at her.
Attempting to downplay the moment, she said, "Hard time sleeping too?"
The man just grunted.
With fake cheerfulness, she added, "It might be easier to rest your head without that helmet on. Or am I wrong and it's like a fluffy pillow inside of there?"
Little above a whisper, his said, "Habit. Sometimes I forget it's on."
Unable to help herself, she asked when he cleaned and did upkeep on it. Apparently, the man cleaned it when he cleaned himself and the enchantment that was placed on it somehow kept it from rusting as well. When asked if he took it off to eat or drink, he reached underneath the bottom of the face guard and pressed outward. A section fell down to swivel on a lower hinge.
When she got up to get a closer look in the dim light, he tensed but didn't stop her. Reaching out an index finger, she poked the piece so it would swing a little. She giggled and stopped, surprised by the sound of it.
"Sorry. It's just that it kind of looks funny like that. I couldn't exactly tell you why. Maybe it's just my nerves," she said, feeling foolish.
Displaying a little curiosity of his own, he took off his helmet to look at it himself. Experimentally, he tapped the dangling section of face guard. With an intensity of focus that was likely another 'habit', he examined the helmet for what might be 'funny' about it.
Seeing the man scrutinize his headgear with a wooden face while performing almost child-like actions caused her to giggle again. When he looked at her in confusion, a couple more giggles burst out. Coming to the conclusion that his face must be funny too, he quickly put the helmet back on to hide his burning ears.
Realizing that she might have hurt his feelings, she said, "My mind is all over the place right now. Everything is so raw and open like someone ripped away the world I knew to expose an entirely different one underneath. I think-I think this is just how I'm healing, adapting to it... Y-you have a perfectly handsome face."
She ducked down a little and landed a quick peck on the side of his helmet. Seeing him flinch and have to physically restrain himself to endure her 'attack', her courage and temporarily elevated spirits evaporated. To keep from showing too much of her own hurt feelings, she busied herself tidying up her herbal preparations from the night before.
She wouldn't have noticed but Orison's much broader spirit sight picked up the image of the man slowly reaching up to touch the side of his helmet where she had kissed it. The image translated to her as something she had noticed out of the corner of her eye. A faint smile brought by relief and hazy understanding ghosted over her expression before she quickly hid it.
The subtle and insidious effects of pattern adaptation aside, her compliment hadn't been much of an exaggeration from her point of view. What admirable qualities he did have were marred by a chilly expression and dull eyes, however. A pale complexion from constantly wearing his armor even lent a slightly ghoulish aspect to his otherwise dark features.
Deep within the core area of the hollow soul of the girl, in a place that he could wholly be and think for himself only, Orison said to himself, "This is going to end up being more painful than I thought. Should I just pack it up or pretend I'm a cartoon crab and start singing a crappy love song... Who am I kidding? I'd walk through hell itself to get what I came for. I just didn't expect that a 100% genuine girl's heart WAS hell.
"I mean, for f*ck sake! She doesn't even know if she likes him, much less love, but a perceived snub made her feel like she'd been stabbed in the chest with an icy dagger. A feeling that intense would have haunted the old me for days but seconds later, she 180ed and felt pleased with herself like she hadn't felt completely ugly and worthless mere moments before.
"I feel like I'd understand if Reese was still a part of me. If I ever meet her in the future, I might ask her right after I get answers to the hows and whys of hiding a piece of herself in the cabin's greenhouse supply tray. She might not even remember but I'd desperately love to know how she grafted herself to me. Whatever method she used was a serious weakness in my soul's insane self defense capabilities!"
To the young mage's surprise, he was interrupted from his long bout of memory sorting by a steadily sharp increase of agitation and resentment. Focusing back outward, Orison saw that the man had set her to do early morning exercises and light combat training with him. He wasn't going easy on her either. Covered in sweat, dirt and enough bruising to justify healing, even the Orison half of the girl was ready to choke the guy out.
Picking herself up from the ground, desperately hold back another round of tears that had zero affect on the man when he was in serious mode, she snapped, "I need to heal and breakfast is ready. I don't know about you but all those goblin parts are going to start rotting soon and we'd both rather not have that, right?"
"Three more rounds," he said.
"Enough!" Wren shouted.
The innkeeper came out to see what the fuss was about. After looking at Wren, she laid into the armored man about how a man should treat a young lady but the girl stopped her before it went too far.
She said, "I appreciate the concern, mam. But this isn't about being a girl who wants to be protected, this is about a healer who knows the limitations of their own body and the skills they possess. Magical healing still requires resources from the body. Any more 'training' and I'm going to be laid up trying to replace what my body's lost even after healing. Unless you want to see me get sick from who knows what after you've worn me down too much, that is."
He didn't say anything else to her.
Turning to the innkeeper, he said frostily, "We need water for cleaning up."
After breakfast, they were back on the road and the mood between them was almost hostile. By midday, Wren was too tired to continue herb hunting. When she called out to ask for a rest, it almost looked like he was going to continue walking without her but he relented with a sullen air.
Fed up with the silent treatment, Orison allowed some of her rage to slip the leash as he channeled it through as constructive an argument as possible. "I may be a defrocked cleric but I'm still a healer. I took an oath with the knowledge. Neither I nor any healer worth being called one would NEVER use the title of that sacred profession for something as pitiful as a way to get out of some harsh training.
"You want to toughen me up? Fine. I even get that you can't afford to see me as a girl while you're training me. I really do. But when I put on the healer's hat, I'm being all business with you.
"When you look at me, you see my softness, my age and lack of practical experience with the real world, right?... You stubborn *ss! Say something!... I understand that you have a leg up on practically everything else. But when it comes to healing, all I ask is that you give me the benefit of doubt until I screw up or you actually catch me in a lie! Is that so hard to do?"
The armored man looked at her and then looked away. Standing up, he started walking to town again. It was apparent that he had decided to wash his hands of her and even Orison wasn't completely sure why. While the young mage wracked his mind and combed through the girl's memories for a solution to the dilemma, Wren paced alongside the man in teary eyed silence.
It wasn't as if the young mage could get her to explain that if she strayed from his side for too long, she'd meet a bad end for a lot of different reasons. The last thing the man seemed to want was a responsibility. Making herself more of one wasn't the answer.
Less than an hour from town and already showing signs of him parting ways by any means necessary, Orison thought he'd found the answer. It was another burden of a reason but it did come with a benefit that was hard to ignore. He had to dig deep for it because she'd pushed it so far to the back of her mind, she'd almost managed to seal it away behind the fear and pain it caused her.
Wren said, "Give me two minutes to tell you something and if you still want to be done with me, then I'll give up and stop following you."
An internal war broke out within the armored man but he relented, more as an attempt to find a peaceful solution to his 'stalker' problem than anything else.
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Considering the backstory of this particular 'tragic hero', he very well could be from his perspective. The sharp and almost noble features of the girl had subtly shifted to softer edges. Light skin had taken on a golden hue while blond hair had darkened to slightly wavy auburn. A small beauty mark had appeared near the corner of her left eye as if she had a single dark tear she could never finish shedding.
Through the slit in his helmet, dark brown eyes locked with ocean blue ones as he said, "They're not hazel."
In confusion, the cleric looked around and said, "I don't know much about trees and shrubs. Was there more than one cave entrance?"
With the visuals exposed, the armored man seemed more aware of how similar her voice was to someone else, "You, what's your name?"
Taking the perfect lead in, Orison fed a portion of prepared script through the cleric. "I was meaning to bring this up. Would you mind taking my original adventurer's plate back with you. After everything that's happened, I was thinking about a fresh start."
Suspicious again, the man said, "You want to be reported as dead or are you giving up adventuring?"
With a solemn face the girl said, "In more ways than one, the person I was did die down there. I was changed in ways that I can't easily begin to explain. Some you know, though. I took a life.
"No matter the reason, I can no longer pray to the Earth Mother for grace but I don't want to be a follower of the Sun Lord. Those priests are just shy of insane and their suppression, sometimes exploitation, of women is an open secret. I have a way to still use healing but I'll have to earn grace through the elimination of monsters.
"It's a harder road but generic, er, secular clerics aren't publicly suppressed or persecuted by any orthodox church. I'd have to find a capable adventurer above my grade to help me collect grace until I grew in power enough to learn my own combat methods. But if you'd help with that, I'd use my skills to help you every way I could in return."
The internal battle of the armored man only lasted a moment. Were it not for his own shock, the refusal would have been instantaneous.
And as much as he doubted that she was a creature in disguise, he wasn't able to completely shake the doubt that she might be demon or devil blooded once she brought the point up. It was a simple thing for him to request that she be tested for such a heritage during her examination. Considering how much her appearance had spooked him, he wanted to do that, at least.
With a dark look through his helmet slit, he pointed ahead of him and said, "Walk."
Not allowing his moody turn to affect her sudden feeling of unburdened existence, she skipped ahead.
With a few hops forward, she turned with an airy smile and said, "Call me Wren."
She was answered by a sullen grunt. With a reply like that, she knew she was in for a silent walk to the local village before another long and silent walk back to the nearest town. To keep herself occupied, she kept her eyes peeled for medicinal herbs and wasn't at all surprised to see many. Local herbalists and even a few savvy woodsman would go out of their way to spread a few seeds further afield when they encountered or harvested a mature, useful herb they had no intentions of cultivating themselves.
By the time they reached the village, it was starting to get late. The small, four room inn they would be spending the night wasn't unknown to the cleric. She had stayed there only the night before with the party that was now deceased. It was a sad and painful thought as the armored man lead her in that direction once he'd collected his task completion fee and request form stamp from the village elder.
The homely but pleasant woman who managed it was all smiles at their approach. Wren was surprised when the woman told the armored man that he could stay free of charge but took the cleric's two silver without a moment's hesitation. It was the woman's turn to be surprised by the cleric's hesitation to follow her to the room she was leading the girl.
"What's the matter, hon?" she said kindly.
Unsure how to breach the subject, Wren replied, "Is-is there another room available. Any will do and I hate to be a bother but..."
The look on the innkeeper's face wasn't encouraging but she was saved from having to respond when the armored man said, "Bring a spare cot to my room. She can sleep there. Keep her room fee."
Both the woman and the cleric were scandalized but seeing that the red faced girl didn't object, the innkeeper called for her daughter to help with the arrangement.
Once they were settled in, the armored man sent Wren to fetch their dinner when some hot water was brought up to their room. Catching the hint, she complied. In similar vein, he had a sudden thirst he went to the common area to take care of while she cleaned up.
With no business left to attend to but not yet quite time for sleep, Wren sat at the small room's table and worked the herbs into something usable while the man performed upkeep on his equipment. She noticed that he didn't take off the helmet or the padded jacket as he cleaned and polished the mail and shortsword. She was tempted to ask why. But since he'd not said anything about her strange reticence to stay in the room she'd been given, it didn't really give her any leeway to ask questions of her own.
As she ran out of busywork to perform with the herbs she collected, the silence began to get too loud to bear. "That room, I stayed there yesterday with the mage girl you saw... when we first met. I-I don't think I would have been able to sleep if I'd have stayed there."
With a forced smile, she added, "I'm surprised the innkeeper let me stay in here with you. The other girl had to sneak into her boyfriend's room after nightfall."
For a moment, she wondered why everything had gotten so blurry but suddenly realized that she was crying. The man froze up for a few seconds as if trying to figure out what he should do. He decided to put an extra, unneeded layer of waterproofing polish on his boots as if he didn't notice.
She curled up into a ball of misery. And despite feeling like she would never sleep again, the trials of the day had worn on her more greatly than she realized. Later, when she awoke with a gasp in the dark hours of predawn, she absently noted that she'd been covered up at some point. As she took a few deep breaths to push irrational terror back down, she noticed the faint red glow of the man's enchanted helmet with a special kind of sight she hadn't possessed before.
It took a few more slightly ragged deep breaths to keep from screaming anyway. Nerves singing, she couldn't lay back down. It didn't seem possible to pretend that she hadn't just woken up from a nightmare and likely woke him up too. It seemed like a generous assumption that he had done much sleeping himself, sitting in bed like he was, staring back at her.
Attempting to downplay the moment, she said, "Hard time sleeping too?"
The man just grunted.
With fake cheerfulness, she added, "It might be easier to rest your head without that helmet on. Or am I wrong and it's like a fluffy pillow inside of there?"
Little above a whisper, his said, "Habit. Sometimes I forget it's on."
Unable to help herself, she asked when he cleaned and did upkeep on it. Apparently, the man cleaned it when he cleaned himself and the enchantment that was placed on it somehow kept it from rusting as well. When asked if he took it off to eat or drink, he reached underneath the bottom of the face guard and pressed outward. A section fell down to swivel on a lower hinge.
When she got up to get a closer look in the dim light, he tensed but didn't stop her. Reaching out an index finger, she poked the piece so it would swing a little. She giggled and stopped, surprised by the sound of it.
"Sorry. It's just that it kind of looks funny like that. I couldn't exactly tell you why. Maybe it's just my nerves," she said, feeling foolish.
Displaying a little curiosity of his own, he took off his helmet to look at it himself. Experimentally, he tapped the dangling section of face guard. With an intensity of focus that was likely another 'habit', he examined the helmet for what might be 'funny' about it.
Seeing the man scrutinize his headgear with a wooden face while performing almost child-like actions caused her to giggle again. When he looked at her in confusion, a couple more giggles burst out. Coming to the conclusion that his face must be funny too, he quickly put the helmet back on to hide his burning ears.
Realizing that she might have hurt his feelings, she said, "My mind is all over the place right now. Everything is so raw and open like someone ripped away the world I knew to expose an entirely different one underneath. I think-I think this is just how I'm healing, adapting to it... Y-you have a perfectly handsome face."
She ducked down a little and landed a quick peck on the side of his helmet. Seeing him flinch and have to physically restrain himself to endure her 'attack', her courage and temporarily elevated spirits evaporated. To keep from showing too much of her own hurt feelings, she busied herself tidying up her herbal preparations from the night before.
She wouldn't have noticed but Orison's much broader spirit sight picked up the image of the man slowly reaching up to touch the side of his helmet where she had kissed it. The image translated to her as something she had noticed out of the corner of her eye. A faint smile brought by relief and hazy understanding ghosted over her expression before she quickly hid it.
The subtle and insidious effects of pattern adaptation aside, her compliment hadn't been much of an exaggeration from her point of view. What admirable qualities he did have were marred by a chilly expression and dull eyes, however. A pale complexion from constantly wearing his armor even lent a slightly ghoulish aspect to his otherwise dark features.
Deep within the core area of the hollow soul of the girl, in a place that he could wholly be and think for himself only, Orison said to himself, "This is going to end up being more painful than I thought. Should I just pack it up or pretend I'm a cartoon crab and start singing a crappy love song... Who am I kidding? I'd walk through hell itself to get what I came for. I just didn't expect that a 100% genuine girl's heart WAS hell.
"I mean, for f*ck sake! She doesn't even know if she likes him, much less love, but a perceived snub made her feel like she'd been stabbed in the chest with an icy dagger. A feeling that intense would have haunted the old me for days but seconds later, she 180ed and felt pleased with herself like she hadn't felt completely ugly and worthless mere moments before.
"I feel like I'd understand if Reese was still a part of me. If I ever meet her in the future, I might ask her right after I get answers to the hows and whys of hiding a piece of herself in the cabin's greenhouse supply tray. She might not even remember but I'd desperately love to know how she grafted herself to me. Whatever method she used was a serious weakness in my soul's insane self defense capabilities!"
To the young mage's surprise, he was interrupted from his long bout of memory sorting by a steadily sharp increase of agitation and resentment. Focusing back outward, Orison saw that the man had set her to do early morning exercises and light combat training with him. He wasn't going easy on her either. Covered in sweat, dirt and enough bruising to justify healing, even the Orison half of the girl was ready to choke the guy out.
Picking herself up from the ground, desperately hold back another round of tears that had zero affect on the man when he was in serious mode, she snapped, "I need to heal and breakfast is ready. I don't know about you but all those goblin parts are going to start rotting soon and we'd both rather not have that, right?"
"Three more rounds," he said.
"Enough!" Wren shouted.
The innkeeper came out to see what the fuss was about. After looking at Wren, she laid into the armored man about how a man should treat a young lady but the girl stopped her before it went too far.
She said, "I appreciate the concern, mam. But this isn't about being a girl who wants to be protected, this is about a healer who knows the limitations of their own body and the skills they possess. Magical healing still requires resources from the body. Any more 'training' and I'm going to be laid up trying to replace what my body's lost even after healing. Unless you want to see me get sick from who knows what after you've worn me down too much, that is."
He didn't say anything else to her.
Turning to the innkeeper, he said frostily, "We need water for cleaning up."
After breakfast, they were back on the road and the mood between them was almost hostile. By midday, Wren was too tired to continue herb hunting. When she called out to ask for a rest, it almost looked like he was going to continue walking without her but he relented with a sullen air.
Fed up with the silent treatment, Orison allowed some of her rage to slip the leash as he channeled it through as constructive an argument as possible. "I may be a defrocked cleric but I'm still a healer. I took an oath with the knowledge. Neither I nor any healer worth being called one would NEVER use the title of that sacred profession for something as pitiful as a way to get out of some harsh training.
"You want to toughen me up? Fine. I even get that you can't afford to see me as a girl while you're training me. I really do. But when I put on the healer's hat, I'm being all business with you.
"When you look at me, you see my softness, my age and lack of practical experience with the real world, right?... You stubborn *ss! Say something!... I understand that you have a leg up on practically everything else. But when it comes to healing, all I ask is that you give me the benefit of doubt until I screw up or you actually catch me in a lie! Is that so hard to do?"
The armored man looked at her and then looked away. Standing up, he started walking to town again. It was apparent that he had decided to wash his hands of her and even Orison wasn't completely sure why. While the young mage wracked his mind and combed through the girl's memories for a solution to the dilemma, Wren paced alongside the man in teary eyed silence.
It wasn't as if the young mage could get her to explain that if she strayed from his side for too long, she'd meet a bad end for a lot of different reasons. The last thing the man seemed to want was a responsibility. Making herself more of one wasn't the answer.
Less than an hour from town and already showing signs of him parting ways by any means necessary, Orison thought he'd found the answer. It was another burden of a reason but it did come with a benefit that was hard to ignore. He had to dig deep for it because she'd pushed it so far to the back of her mind, she'd almost managed to seal it away behind the fear and pain it caused her.
Wren said, "Give me two minutes to tell you something and if you still want to be done with me, then I'll give up and stop following you."
An internal war broke out within the armored man but he relented, more as an attempt to find a peaceful solution to his 'stalker' problem than anything else.
Considering the backstory of this particular 'tragic hero', he very well could be from his perspective. The sharp and almost noble features of the girl had subtly shifted to softer edges. Light skin had taken on a golden hue while blond hair had darkened to slightly wavy auburn. A small beauty mark had appeared near the corner of her left eye as if she had a single dark tear she could never finish shedding.Through the slit in his helmet, dark brown eyes locked with ocean blue ones as he said, "They're not hazel."In confusion, the cleric looked around and said, "I don't know much about trees and shrubs. Was there more than one cave entrance?"With the visuals exposed, the armored man seemed more aware of how similar her voice was to someone else, "You, what's your name?"Taking the perfect lead in, Orison fed a portion of prepared script through the cleric. "I was meaning to bring this up. Would you mind taking my original adventurer's plate back with you. After everything that's happened, I was thinking about a fresh start."Suspicious again, the man said, "You want to be reported as dead or are you giving up adventuring?"With a solemn face the girl said, "In more ways than one, the person I was did die down there. I was changed in ways that I can't easily begin to explain. Some you know, though. I took a life."No matter the reason, I can no longer pray to the Earth Mother for grace but I don't want to be a follower of the Sun Lord. Those priests are just shy of insane and their suppression, sometimes exploitation, of women is an open secret. I have a way to still use healing but I'll have to earn grace through the elimination of monsters."It's a harder road but generic, er, secular clerics aren't publicly suppressed or persecuted by any orthodox church. I'd have to find a capable adventurer above my grade to help me collect grace until I grew in power enough to learn my own combat methods. But if you'd help with that, I'd use my skills to help you every way I could in return."The internal battle of the armored man only lasted a moment. Were it not for his own shock, the refusal would have been instantaneous. And as much as he doubted that she was a creature in disguise, he wasn't able to completely shake the doubt that she might be demon or devil blooded once she brought the point up. It was a simple thing for him to request that she be tested for such a heritage during her examination. Considering how much her appearance had spooked him, he wanted to do that, at least.With a dark look through his helmet slit, he pointed ahead of him and said, "Walk."Not allowing his moody turn to affect her sudden feeling of unburdened existence, she skipped ahead.With a few hops forward, she turned with an airy smile and said, "Call me Wren."She was answered by a sullen grunt. With a reply like that, she knew she was in for a silent walk to the local village before another long and silent walk back to the nearest town. To keep herself occupied, she kept her eyes peeled for medicinal herbs and wasn't at all surprised to see many. Local herbalists and even a few savvy woodsman would go out of their way to spread a few seeds further afield when they encountered or harvested a mature, useful herb they had no intentions of cultivating themselves.By the time they reached the village, it was starting to get late. The small, four room inn they would be spending the night wasn't unknown to the cleric. She had stayed there only the night before with the party that was now deceased. It was a sad and painful thought as the armored man lead her in that direction once he'd collected his task completion fee and request form stamp from the village elder.The homely but pleasant woman who managed it was all smiles at their approach. Wren was surprised when the woman told the armored man that he could stay free of charge but took the cleric's two silver without a moment's hesitation. It was the woman's turn to be surprised by the cleric's hesitation to follow her to the room she was leading the girl."What's the matter, hon?" she said kindly.Unsure how to breach the subject, Wren replied, "Is-is there another room available. Any will do and I hate to be a bother but..."The look on the innkeeper's face wasn't encouraging but she was saved from having to respond when the armored man said, "Bring a spare cot to my room. She can sleep there. Keep her room fee."Both the woman and the cleric were scandalized but seeing that the red faced girl didn't object, the innkeeper called for her daughter to help with the arrangement.Once they were settled in, the armored man sent Wren to fetch their dinner when some hot water was brought up to their room. Catching the hint, she complied. In similar vein, he had a sudden thirst he went to the common area to take care of while she cleaned up.With no business left to attend to but not yet quite time for sleep, Wren sat at the small room's table and worked the herbs into something usable while the man performed upkeep on his equipment. She noticed that he didn't take off the helmet or the padded jacket as he cleaned and polished the mail and shortsword. She was tempted to ask why. But since he'd not said anything about her strange reticence to stay in the room she'd been given, it didn't really give her any leeway to ask questions of her own.As she ran out of busywork to perform with the herbs she collected, the silence began to get too loud to bear. "That room, I stayed there yesterday with the mage girl you saw... when we first met. I-I don't think I would have been able to sleep if I'd have stayed there."With a forced smile, she added, "I'm surprised the innkeeper let me stay in here with you. The other girl had to sneak into her boyfriend's room after nightfall."For a moment, she wondered why everything had gotten so blurry but suddenly realized that she was crying. The man froze up for a few seconds as if trying to figure out what he should do. He decided to put an extra, unneeded layer of waterproofing polish on his boots as if he didn't notice.She curled up into a ball of misery. And despite feeling like she would never sleep again, the trials of the day had worn on her more greatly than she realized. Later, when she awoke with a gasp in the dark hours of predawn, she absently noted that she'd been covered up at some point. As she took a few deep breaths to push irrational terror back down, she noticed the faint red glow of the man's enchanted helmet with a special kind of sight she hadn't possessed before.It took a few more slightly ragged deep breaths to keep from screaming anyway. Nerves singing, she couldn't lay back down. It didn't seem possible to pretend that she hadn't just woken up from a nightmare and likely woke him up too. It seemed like a generous assumption that he had done much sleeping himself, sitting in bed like he was, staring back at her.Attempting to downplay the moment, she said, "Hard time sleeping too?"The man just grunted.With fake cheerfulness, she added, "It might be easier to rest your head without that helmet on. Or am I wrong and it's like a fluffy pillow inside of there?"Little above a whisper, his said, "Habit. Sometimes I forget it's on."Unable to help herself, she asked when he cleaned and did upkeep on it. Apparently, the man cleaned it when he cleaned himself and the enchantment that was placed on it somehow kept it from rusting as well. When asked if he took it off to eat or drink, he reached underneath the bottom of the face guard and pressed outward. A section fell down to swivel on a lower hinge.When she got up to get a closer look in the dim light, he tensed but didn't stop her. Reaching out an index finger, she poked the piece so it would swing a little. She giggled and stopped, surprised by the sound of it."Sorry. It's just that it kind of looks funny like that. I couldn't exactly tell you why. Maybe it's just my nerves," she said, feeling foolish.Displaying a little curiosity of his own, he took off his helmet to look at it himself. Experimentally, he tapped the dangling section of face guard. With an intensity of focus that was likely another 'habit', he examined the helmet for what might be 'funny' about it.Seeing the man scrutinize his headgear with a wooden face while performing almost child-like actions caused her to giggle again. When he looked at her in confusion, a couple more giggles burst out. Coming to the conclusion that his face must be funny too, he quickly put the helmet back on to hide his burning ears.Realizing that she might have hurt his feelings, she said, "My mind is all over the place right now. Everything is so raw and open like someone ripped away the world I knew to expose an entirely different one underneath. I think-I think this is just how I'm healing, adapting to it... Y-you have a perfectly handsome face."She ducked down a little and landed a quick peck on the side of his helmet. Seeing him flinch and have to physically restrain himself to endure her 'attack', her courage and temporarily elevated spirits evaporated. To keep from showing too much of her own hurt feelings, she busied herself tidying up her herbal preparations from the night before.She wouldn't have noticed but Orison's much broader spirit sight picked up the image of the man slowly reaching up to touch the side of his helmet where she had kissed it. The image translated to her as something she had noticed out of the corner of her eye. A faint smile brought by relief and hazy understanding ghosted over her expression before she quickly hid it.The subtle and insidious effects of pattern adaptation aside, her compliment hadn't been much of an exaggeration from her point of view. What admirable qualities he did have were marred by a chilly expression and dull eyes, however. A pale complexion from constantly wearing his armor even lent a slightly ghoulish aspect to his otherwise dark features. Deep within the core area of the hollow soul of the girl, in a place that he could wholly be and think for himself only, Orison said to himself, "This is going to end up being more painful than I thought. Should I just pack it up or pretend I'm a cartoon crab and start singing a crappy love song... Who am I kidding? I'd walk through hell itself to get what I came for. I just didn't expect that a 100% genuine girl's heart WAS hell."I mean, for f*ck sake! She doesn't even know if she likes him, much less love, but a perceived snub made her feel like she'd been stabbed in the chest with an icy dagger. A feeling that intense would have haunted the old me for days but seconds later, she 180ed and felt pleased with herself like she hadn't felt completely ugly and worthless mere moments before."I feel like I'd understand if Reese was still a part of me. If I ever meet her in the future, I might ask her right after I get answers to the hows and whys of hiding a piece of herself in the cabin's greenhouse supply tray. She might not even remember but I'd desperately love to know how she grafted herself to me. Whatever method she used was a serious weakness in my soul's insane self defense capabilities!" To the young mage's surprise, he was interrupted from his long bout of memory sorting by a steadily sharp increase of agitation and resentment. Focusing back outward, Orison saw that the man had set her to do early morning exercises and light combat training with him. He wasn't going easy on her either. Covered in sweat, dirt and enough bruising to justify healing, even the Orison half of the girl was ready to choke the guy out.Picking herself up from the ground, desperately hold back another round of tears that had zero affect on the man when he was in serious mode, she snapped, "I need to heal and breakfast is ready. I don't know about you but all those goblin parts are going to start rotting soon and we'd both rather not have that, right?""Three more rounds," he said."Enough!" Wren shouted.The innkeeper came out to see what the fuss was about. After looking at Wren, she laid into the armored man about how a man should treat a young lady but the girl stopped her before it went too far.She said, "I appreciate the concern, mam. But this isn't about being a girl who wants to be protected, this is about a healer who knows the limitations of their own body and the skills they possess. Magical healing still requires resources from the body. Any more 'training' and I'm going to be laid up trying to replace what my body's lost even after healing. Unless you want to see me get sick from who knows what after you've worn me down too much, that is."He didn't say anything else to her. Turning to the innkeeper, he said frostily, "We need water for cleaning up."After breakfast, they were back on the road and the mood between them was almost hostile. By midday, Wren was too tired to continue herb hunting. When she called out to ask for a rest, it almost looked like he was going to continue walking without her but he relented with a sullen air.Fed up with the silent treatment, Orison allowed some of her rage to slip the leash as he channeled it through as constructive an argument as possible. "I may be a defrocked cleric but I'm still a healer. I took an oath with the knowledge. Neither I nor any healer worth being called one would NEVER use the title of that sacred profession for something as pitiful as a way to get out of some harsh training. "You want to toughen me up? Fine. I even get that you can't afford to see me as a girl while you're training me. I really do. But when I put on the healer's hat, I'm being all business with you."When you look at me, you see my softness, my age and lack of practical experience with the real world, right?... You stubborn *ss! Say something!... I understand that you have a leg up on practically everything else. But when it comes to healing, all I ask is that you give me the benefit of doubt until I screw up or you actually catch me in a lie! Is that so hard to do?"The armored man looked at her and then looked away. Standing up, he started walking to town again. It was apparent that he had decided to wash his hands of her and even Orison wasn't completely sure why. While the young mage wracked his mind and combed through the girl's memories for a solution to the dilemma, Wren paced alongside the man in teary eyed silence.It wasn't as if the young mage could get her to explain that if she strayed from his side for too long, she'd meet a bad end for a lot of different reasons. The last thing the man seemed to want was a responsibility. Making herself more of one wasn't the answer.Less than an hour from town and already showing signs of him parting ways by any means necessary, Orison thought he'd found the answer. It was another burden of a reason but it did come with a benefit that was hard to ignore. He had to dig deep for it because she'd pushed it so far to the back of her mind, she'd almost managed to seal it away behind the fear and pain it caused her.Wren said, "Give me two minutes to tell you something and if you still want to be done with me, then I'll give up and stop following you."An internal war broke out within the armored man but he relented, more as an attempt to find a peaceful solution to his 'stalker' problem than anything else.
