“Oh my gods, this spell is so temperamental” Vyra whined, pitiful leaves bursting from thin air and floating to the ground, dissolving instantly. They carried a glow of magic to them that swiftly grew unstable mere moments after being conjured.
“You’re getting better, Vyra. Give it a little more time and I’m sure it’ll click into place!” I did my best to encourage her as we made it back to her dorm room after our third Florimancy club meeting.
“I feel like I’ve almost got it, I just can’t get that last bit to make sense.”
“At least you’re able to make something appear. I’m still as magicless as ever.”
Vyra gave me a halfhearted smile, not willing to venture further into the territory of my dormancy. She knew it was a little bit of a sensitive subject for me, and I instantly regretted bringing it up in the first place.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty or anything.”
“Don’t apologize, Xavier, It’s fine!”
I recoiled at my name, like the stinging kiss of a slap on the face. Vyra seemed to notice my reaction and paused. We stood for an awkward second, and I tried to follow up before the conversation became stale with consideration.
“S-sorry, I forgot we were in private and I got nervous, that’s all.”
She smiled and moved on to another subject, but I could see in her eyes that she didn’t believe my excuse. Her eyes seemed to pick up on every little detail like that.
“I should probably get some sleep, I’ve got my double divinatory class first thing in the morning. You can get changed in my bathroom. Sorry if it's a mess, I kind of forget to pick things up.”
“Oh, right. I don’t want to keep you up or anything.” I responded curtly to Vyra and moved into the bathroom to get changed back into my own uniform. I closed the door and was met with my reflection. Ester. I reached my hand towards the back of my head to feel the hair tie that suspended half of my hair up into a ponytail. I began to pull the hair tie out before stopping suddenly like I had been shocked. I loved the way my hair looked right now, maybe I could start somewhere else? I twisted to my side to reach for the buttons of the skirt, but I couldn’t get my hand to touch the top button. The skirt was probably my favorite article of clothing I’d ever worn. Maybe I could leave that until last?
Looking over my outfit, I finally settled on removing the flats on my feet first. I really couldn’t take off the tights without taking the skirt off first, but I wanted to leave that on as long as I could. I suppose I could take off the uniform blouse next? But that would only show my chest, something that filled me with a deep discomfort. I felt trapped. Looking in the mirror, I didn’t want anything to change, but I would have to remove the clothes and the makeup to make it back to my dorm room. Ester was for Florimancy, and that was only once a week. But… Why couldn’t Ester be for other days? It wasn’t fair that I was only allowed to like myself for 3-4 hours one day a week each week. Everyone else got to have that every day! How is that fair?!
I couldn’t remember when I had started to cry, but once it began, I couldn’t stop it. I watched my pathetic reflection whimper and cry as silently as I could, and it only served to send me deeper into despair. At some point, I must have choked out a sob too loudly, since Vyra was knocking on the door to the bathroom. “Xavier? I-Is everything okay in there? Can I come in?”
If dysphoria was the knife plunging into my chest, then hearing my name was the hammer that struck the knife even deeper. After not responding to her, Vyra opened the door to the bathroom slowly before locking eyes with me. I sat in the corner of the bathroom holding my knees to my chest and choked out sob after sob, like I had something caught in my throat.
“Oh my gods, what’s wrong? Did something happen?!”
It took an entire minute before I was able to fumble out a response. “I don’t want to go back. I-I c-ca-can’t go back.”
“Go back? You mean to your dorm? Oh my gods, is someone bullying you? I can contact the administration. Or I can deal with them myself! Just tell me who he is?”
“N-no… I don’t want to go back to Xavier…”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“I like Ester. I just wish I could be Ester. I hate Xavier.”
Vyra seemed to understand completely. Her demeanor shifted instantly from one of concern, to one of sympathy. A dark-skinned hand brushed against my chin and lifted my head up to stare deep into my eyes. I could see her eyes had grown misty, while mine continued to stream solemn tears from the corner of my eyes, dripping off of my chin and onto her hand.
“Hey, it’s gonna be alright. What can I do to help?”
“I want to b-be Ester more.”
“Absolutely. Hey, look at me. You can come over any night you want, and stay as long as you want.”
My arms flung around her to pull her into a tight hug. Tears flowed into the shoulder of her shirt, soaking it with the salty sorrows that never seemed to cease.
“Would you really do that?”
Vyra pulled away from me and lifted my left hand. She drew a ‘V’ into my palm and spread her own hand out for me to respond. “I swear on my name I will do everything in my power to let you be Ester as much as possible.”
I lifted a shaking finger and drew an ‘E’ into the palm of her hand.
“Come on, bandit. Up you get.”
“Gods! What the fuck?!” I let out a yelp as a short burst of electricity shot me awake. If I was being honest, it didn’t hurt that much at all, but considering I had been unconscious, it completely surprised me, and I was scared. Sebil pulled his hand away from me with a coy smile.
‘You must be prepared for threats at all times, human.’
I wasn’t even awake! How would I have done that?
‘Be awake.’
If I ever meet the physical manifestation of you I’m going to slap you so hard you’ll end up in the backseat of someone’s mind again.
“Quit whining, we’ve got distance to make.” Cecelia offered a hand to pull me up, and I gladly took it, wincing at the pain that burned just above my ribs.
I took a moment to observe my surroundings. We were still in a forest, but next to a quite large road. The sky above us was still mostly obscured by the interweaving branches of Multon’s forest, meaning we hadn’t made it that far out of the city.
“How far out of Multon are we?”
“Only about twenty minutes. We didn’t want to keep carrying your limp body so we did our best to wake you.” Phern gave me two thumbs up and a reassuring smile.
I was just happy that the poisons had worked their way through my system while I was asleep. The long walk that we had ahead would have been unbearable if I could barely put one foot in front of the other.
“Right. So now we-”
“Walk. Yep.” Cecelia gave me a half hearted smile and a pat on the back.
Walk, we did. Those travelling past us towards Multon hadn’t seen the wanted posters yet, and those who were travelling from Multon were the people we were already trying to outpace. Because of that, we got to travel across the main road rather than hoofing it through the thick forest.
Ten minutes into walking I broke the silence.
“Cecelia, Phern, when did your disguises end?”
“Hm? We let them drop when we woke up bound and gagged. Wasn’t much to gain having them on at that point.” Cecelia shot a look back towards me. “Yours faded as we were leaving Multon. How come you kept it up that long? Markus knew who you were as soon as he poisoned our food.”
“I’m not sure. I guess I forgot about it being on.” It wasn’t true. I had been painstakingly preserving the disguise as long as I could throughout the events of the day. It was one of the first things I noticed when I woke up. It was disappointing to be Xavier once more, but that was inevitable. I knew all too well that you could pretend to be someone else for a while, but you’d always end up back where you started. It was nice while it lasted.
One hour into walking, Cecelia broke the silence.
“Okay, now that we’re actually away from Multon, I have to ask again. Who the fuck are you?”
Sebil simply laughed. “I was waiting for the pin to drop. The name's Sebil Partillo. I’m an inventor, love. It’s rather fortunate that I ran into the lot of you. I’ve been looking for your Deathless friend here. Ester, was it? Or…”
“Xavier’s his name, Ester was for our less than successful disguises.” I winced as Cecelia corrected Sebil on my name. I shouldn’t be upset, she was just relaying my real name.
“Ah, Xavier then. I’ve been looking for him ever since, let’s see, 3 days ago?”
Phern joined the conversation and slowed her pace to insert herself between Sebil and I. “Howdja know where to look? Howdja know when he showed up? Whydja start looking for Xavier?”
“Oh, lots of questions, love. Let me take them one at a time. I knew where to look due to one of my inventions. I created this a while back-”
‘Writhing spark plug of a man.’
“-to help me track Deathless. Here, I can demonstrate.” Sebil pulled the large canister strapped to his back to his side in order to rummage through with his hand. Now that I was not so occupied with my impending death, I could take an actual look at the strange device he had on his back. It was a large cylindrical steel container with 6 circular ‘chambers’. Seeing it in action, it looked like Sebil could reach into a specific one of the circles to retrieve an item. Even more surprising, when Sebil retrieved his device, it was a small toy-sized device that could fit in the palm of his hand. Only, as it left the canister, it enlarged into a full device that needed to be held with two hands.
It was a modern miracle machine. I had never seen anything quite so peculiar in real life before. I had my theories of how it might operate using dimensional space reallocation, but all of those concepts were purely theoretical in the books I’d read, nothing of the sort had been attempted to my knowledge. I didn’t know much about Sebil, but a competent inventor was definitely at the top of the list of what I did know.
The device whirred to life and the central square outline glowed in a wave pattern, changing depending on the direction that the device was pointed in. He moved the device to each one of us to demonstrate the lack of response, and then pointed it at me.
“See? The response allows me to- sorry. One second.” He briefly fiddled with the machine before furrowing his brow. “Something might be wrong with it, it’s displaying what looks to be two overlapping signatures on Xavier.”
I paled and turned to continue walking down the main road. “Must be some mistake.” I deflected.
‘I will sever his head when we camp for the night.’
Woah, Lilith, pull back the reins a little. What is up with you and this man? Do you know each other?
‘Too well.’
Well that tells me a lot. Care to give even the smallest amount of elaboration?
‘No, I do not care to.’
“Hopefully I can get that fixed later. As for the second question, how did I know he showed up? Sort of the same answer as the first I’m afraid. There was an immense release of energy detected near Multon, and I came to investigate.”
Phern nodded in response, as if to acknowledge his answer as satisfactory.
“As for why, love? That’s harder to explain. Like I mentioned to our Deathless friend here, it's a long story.”
‘Most likely filled with lies.’
“The full tale is a touch personal, so I’ll just say I’m trying to save someone. Finding a Deathless is my solution. If it’s not too much to ask, Xavier, I’d love to join this group of yours to help you on your journey. In exchange, I would need to ask you for steady amounts of your blood to study.”
‘We will NOT give him our blood’
Study. A benign word that can mean so much more than it sounds. I wasn’t sure how comfortable I felt with the idea of someone studying and possibly experimenting with my own blood, but this journey had already proven challenging with only two other companions, and he was clearly a capable individual.
“Deal. But you don’t get any blood for the first… Month. I want to know if you're committed before you start studying me.”
“Month?! How far are you planning on travelling?”
“North. To Varenthell.”
“I see. Very well, we have a deal.”
It felt strange to say our goals out loud. But since I wasn’t entirely clear on Cecelia and Phern’s goals, my destination was our destination. It might have been a long shot, but part of me hoped that my body was still in the basement of Varenthell. I had a theory that the ritual displaced my soul with Lilith’s, creating a new vessel for the two of us based on my old body. If I was right, then my old body would be in a kind of comatose, a common result when a soul is shunted from its body. Varenthell Academy had a medical wing that safely preserved bodies that lacked a soul while administration seeked a way to restore the student. If my old body existed, it would be there. I had little doubt that they hadn’t found my body in the basement, considering multiple teachers would have gone missing down there. I could have the administration perform a simple soul transposition to restore me to normal. No more Deathless, no more danger, just Xavier. I didn’t bother telling anyone about the plan.
Two hours into walking, Phern broke the silence.
“Sooooo. If we have another member in the group, we should definitely establish that team name! I was thinking… ‘royal dispatchers’? Y’know? So that it sounds like we go around kicking royal ass and lookin’ sick!”
“What royals have you dispatched?” Sebil asked with a look of confusion.
“I don’t know, Phern. What royals have we dispatched?” Cecelia asked her leading question with a roll of her eyes.
“Ummm. None so far. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start now! We kind of got rid of Markus!”
“Markus isn’t royal, he just rules Multon with full martial law, treating himself like the royal he always wished that he was.” Cecelia grumbled.
“Yeah... Man, I’m stumped then. Maybe we base it around Xavier? We’re all here because of him being a Deathless. Oh! We could do ‘The Deathless Decimators’! No, wait, that sounds like we kill Deathless.”
‘They do.’
“Don’t you? Aren’t the two of you supposed to be the best Life Hunters in Kistram?” I asked with more venom than I intended.
Cecelia and Phern both looked to the ground and fell silent.
Sebil looked at me for some kind of explanation. I just shrugged at him and kept walking. There was clearly something that happened with the two of them to have them go from prestigious Life Hunters to protecting a fledgling Deathless.
Four hours into walking, Sebil broke the silence.
“Xavier, can I ask you something?”
Sebil had picked up his pace to walk next to me in the front of the group.
“Go for it.”
“When I first saw you in the bedroom, you had quite the reaction to seeing me. Have we met previously?”
‘One flick of a claw and he’ll be gurgling until the curtain drops on his clown show.’
Gods, I hope I never wrong you enough to end up on this side of you, Lilith.
“Uh, no. I don’t think so at least. I was just experiencing some unfortunate symptoms at the time.”
Sebil looked at me with eyes as kind as ever. I could just tell that he knew I was lying as I talked to him, but he made no attempt to shame me for it.
“Very well. I was just curious, love.”
“You don’t have to call me that. I’m not a girl.” I practically spat the last part out.
“I’m aware. I swing both ways, love. I should also clarify I don’t mean it as anything other than a nicety. It was how I was raised. Calling someone love is simply out of respect. I hope I haven’t crushed your hopes by telling you that.” He laughed.
“Oh, no, it’s okay. I’m straight, anyways.” I mumbled as we walked. I spoke loud enough for him to hear, but only barely.
The two of us fell silent once more, but I decided to take a risk by reengaging our talk.
“Have you ever met any other Deathless? You have that device for us, and it seems like you have some kind of vested interest.” I still felt somewhat wrong saying us when referring to Deathless, but it was something I would need to adjust to until I got my body back.
“I have. A variety of them, as well. They are wonderfully diverse beings, just the same as human. Some have tried to kill me-”
‘Unsuccessfully.’
Excuse me?!
“-others I became friends with. The stories you hear of Deathless are so wrapped up in biases. Markus is a despicable example of the lows a human can reach, but we wouldn’t go around claiming all humans share his cruelties, would we?”
“I-I. Yeah, I suppose so.” Sebil, more than anyone I had met so far, spoke of Deathless in a positive light. It was refreshing to say the least. It also made me further question Lilith’s hatred.
Why would you attempt to kill this man?
‘You couldn’t possibly understand.’
Not if you don’t give me any information, no.
‘...’
Fine, whatever.
“Your right hand. I hope this isn’t insensitive to ask, but it’s not flesh, is it?”
Sebil looked at me with a smile and tugged the end of his fingers to slip the glove off of his right hand. It was a peculiar device, one that very aptly resembled a hand while being made of metal and wires. I could see the faint glow of magical enhancement flowing through the device. Gears turned underneath a small glass window on the back of his hand, showing the ingenuity required to build such a wondrous invention. “No, I’m afraid it’s not flesh, love. Like I said earlier, my relationships to Deathless have been complicated.”
‘The bastard is lucky I only ate his hand.’
Fucking hell, Lilith.
We walked for another 2 hours, finally deciding we would look for a good place to set up camp. The 4 of us were currently spreading out across a small area to find a spot that would effectively hide our tent from the view of the main road. The exhaustion of our days walk throbbed in my feet, but I was comforted with the knowledge I’d soon be able to rest for the night.
‘He killed someone dear to me.’
It took me a moment to realize that Lilith had resumed our conversation from hours earlier without warning.
I’m sorry, Lilith. I was torn between sympathy for Lilith and the notion that the kind man I’d seen in Sebil could do something so cold. Was he putting on an act?
‘I regretted my inability to end him myself before being killed in your foolish attempt at sabotaging the ritual. This feels like a second chance to correct my mistakes.’
I understand that you hate him, Lilith, but we can’t afford to lose an ally when the Empire is attempting to track our every move.
‘You do not understand! You are but a child in the form of a warrior. Do not think your new nature makes you any less of a coward.’
Our mental link was alive and well, but the two of us refused to communicate any further during the night. Phern eventually found me, and brought me towards where our group had set up the tent. I was thankful for the magical nature of Phern’s tent, which allowed for the ‘expansion’ of the tent within the inside without affecting the size of the actual tent. It meant that while the tent on the outside could appear mundane, it featured multiple rooms on the inside. I was eternally grateful to be able to spend the night alone in my own room. Far too many thoughts were racing through my mind about my “nature” and “identity”.
Each of the ‘rooms’ in the tent had short armoire, a suspended mirror like in the main room, and a small table with a glowing lamp. Upon closer inspection, the lamp was simply a stick with a luminary magical blob stuck to the end. Much to my agitation, I could not find out how to ‘turn off’ the lamp, opting to instead place it inside of the armoire before laying down onto the bedroll in the center of the room.
A hesitation wrapped around my heart as I gazed up into the top of the tent while lying on my back. It was held up by a long wooden rod, and the entire room spelled of strong spices that couldn’t possibly be escaped from. It wasn’t discomfort that stopped me from falling asleep, but instead a fear of the dreams that would follow. Each time I fell asleep the uncomfortable memories of Vyra slipped into my mind, like roots breaking through a stone road against all odds. I didn’t want to wake up to wet eyes and a salty face once more.
She was gone. I needed it to stay that way.
Exhaustion subsumed the fear in my heart and sleep blanketed me into its cold embrace once more.