| 5th of Teryusin — Year 362 of the Cycle of Synthesis, Grand Cycle ??? |
Raoul pursed his lips at Idri’s firm grip. Her fingers were feeling up every single line of skin on his face, very much akin to a cat making biscuits. His own hands moved to pry them off with a gentle force, but she stood resolute and continued even under the interruption.
“Can you… get your hands off my face?”
Idri’s lips curved upward in a knowing, slightly coy smile. “But your face feels so smooth. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this. Felt you.”
There was no sign of her ceasing anytime soon. Hesitant sighs left his lips, but a reluctant smile followed at the next instance. “How have you been, Idri? You’ve… changed since I’ve last seen you.”
He kept his eyes locked onto her face, staving off any attempt of his body to steer them lower. Fearing adding the sight of her crimson-drenched clothes to the intoxicating smell would totally render him paralyzed from trepidation, Raoul sought to steer the conversation to more favorable waters.
An earnest tilt of her head combined with an eager expression before she finally pulled away. “I have, haven’t I? Hmm… Maybe you were right. Let’s change places. I know a very scenic spot.”
In the underground? He mused, but nonetheless nodded and gestured for her to continue.
Frail and thin as she was, Idri made no effort to exert herself as she strode back to the sword at the far end of the room and casually hoisted it onto her back. Said sword vibrated for approximately three seconds as her sylphlike whites wrapped around the leather hilt, finally ending as it magically attached itself without the need for a back sheath. The strange behavior ticked off a few questions in Raoul, but he shrugged and pretended not to notice.
Journeys were meant to be savored, even if much of the five minutes that made up their current one had more than half of its timeframe allotted for passing through winding dead body-infested hallways and corridors. Each step the girl in front of him took seemed to exude still the personality of a young lady with no more cares in the world than a predator in the wilds might have. By then she was still humming that same song, but Raoul felt that his memories of it had been tainted by recent events to the point he couldn’t enjoy it fully.
She led him straight into a room at the far end of a carpeted hallway. As if knowing every single detail of the floorplans, she stepped over to the engraved, hand-carved wooden double doors behind a stable dinner table and gingerly pried the lock open with her blade. A blast of cold underground air rushed into the room at the doors’ opening. Unbothered, Idri continued onward, leading Raoul into a balustraded balcony with limestone handrails that ended just above their waists.
“Here,” she murmured, maneuvering herself to sit atop the handrails’ tops with little effort. She gently tapped the spot to her right. “It’s a nice view, right? It’s like Tel Midasia… but nighttime. Hehe.”
It was the farthest from it in terms of aesthetics, but Raoul wasn’t going to deny it looked pretty. A literal ocean of rock lit by the countless stars of the underground. Ranging overhead and for miles and miles were both expansive canyons and mountains of sturdy stone, rolling outward in ridges and fractures that steeped in both vertical directions. Even from where they were, Raoul still couldn’t see the end of the ceiling. Glittering stars in the distance flashed, casting pale silver that washed over the entire underground.
Much of the light did not travel far. Corners and angles obscured by the array of cliffs and natural pillars left thick, unmoving shadows that balanced out the radiance that was ever-present.
Every few hundred feet houses built from what soft stone was present stood tall, creating interspersed marks of human life and civilization. The far orange dots of flame—no doubt magical in nature—helped to mark the boundaries of the quaint villages that made up most of Under Buril’s living folk. Along the canyon and into immense dug holes that welled deep into the earth trailed dozens of miners carrying pickaxes, all traveling in groups.
From where Raoul and Idri were sitting, they looked no different than barely visible flecks of ash. Metal on stone did not reach their ears fully, serving only as barely audible clangs produced by their tools.
The both of them sat in pensive silence for a few minutes, simply taking in the view. But it was Idri who broke the silence first.
“You’ve probably been wanting to ask what I’ve been doing all these years, right? The last time I was still in contact with Avil and Cali was three years ago.”
“That long?”
No gazes were shared between the two. They kept them wandering around the view in front of them.
“Mhm,” nodded Idri. “It started on the eve of my fourteenth birthday. There was a feminine voice that spoke to me like it knew me. It kept calling to me in my name. “Idri, this way,” it would always say. I couldn’t find any way to get rid of it. I went to Avil and Cali, but even they couldn’t figure out what was happening to me.”
“I couldn’t help but feel a really, really weird sense of nostalgia from it. Eventually, I got sick of the voice and decided to follow where it was pointing me to.”
She raised a tender finger and directed confidently to a spiraling conjugation of stone homes built around and atop a rising hill. At the very summit, a cabin fashioned out of tightly-bound wooden logs and modeled in the shape of a cabin in the woods stood out as the black sheep simply from the difference in material. No other houses like it existed for dozens of miles.
Raoul had to physically squint his eyes to follow where she was pointing.
“I traveled for a really long time through an underground tunnel in the subway. When I came out, I found this place. The people around here were so nice, too. They gave me food and water and gifted me this pretty black robe. There was that one house in the far distance, and I somehow realized that that was where the voice in my head was pointing me to all these days.”
“I knocked on the door a few times, but there was no response. The door was slightly open, so I went in. It… reminded me of your home, Raoul. I could smell your scent from every single piece of furniture.”
A frown curved onto Raoul’s lips. She was most likely referring to his old home.
“Today’s the first time I’ve been in Under Buril.”
“Mhm. I couldn’t mistake it, though. I then walked around to the back, where there was a metal dumpster.” Her head made a subtle nod to the sword that was magically affixed to her back. “That was where I found Kranstor.”
“Not the kind of name I expected you to give it.” replied Raoul, crossing his arms.
“Mm, really? Well, you’re right, the sword gave me its name. The moment I picked it up, it felt a lot like Kranstor was binding itself to my very soul. I couldn’t stop it… Before I knew it, the sword was following me everywhere I went.”
“I’m going to assume you’ve tried all kinds of ways to get rid of it, then.”
Idri chuckled, not from the hilarity of the situation but the sheer absurdity of it. “Of course I have. I first tried throwing it into Greo’s Lagoon, behind the mountains over there. I watched the sword sink to the bottom, but when I woke up the next day it was lying beside me. I tried giving it to a really good metallurgist who specialized in melting down metals, but the sword didn’t budge even after being exposed to the heat of a dragon’s breath. That was what Grandpa Urfrey said, anyway.”
“Oh, oh! I also tried throwing it into the Hole to the Abyss at the edge of the district. Can you guess what happened?”
Seeing her being so jolly while speaking about disposing of a sword was almost endearing.
“It came back the next day.”
“Hehe, of course. So now, I just keep Kranstor with me wherever I go. I use it to beat up all the baddies that threaten the Under-Burilans. The Goldstone boss was the worst of them; he was operating as a loan shark that charged exorbitant rates and frequently ordered his lackeys to disrupt mining operations. So I had to stop him.”
“...By slicing the throat of him and his hundred or so subordinates. Remind me why you’ve kept your eyes closed the entire time we’ve been talking, Idri?”
Her upbeat mood floored the brakes and swerved off a cliff at the mention.
“Haha… Have I?”
“Yeah, you have.”
“...Are you sure? Maybe you’re just seeing things.”
“You know you’re my best friend, but that doesn’t mean I’d trust your unused eyes over mine that are perfectly open and clear. You’re dancing around the subject, Idri.”
The sound of fingers clenching and toes curling. Beads of sweat began to pour down from her forehead. Her body shivered at the intensity of the interrogation.
“It’s nothing, really…! I just… really got used to it since I picked up Kranstor. It’s totally fine, trust me. I can sense my surroundings just as well as I could with my eyes before.”
To prove her point, Idri began waving her arms out in a fine circle. The display only made Raoul much more apprehensive at her clear attempt to gloss over the subject. However, his intuition was cleanly telling him that she wasn’t ready for the conversation, so he chose to let it be for the moment.
“But what about you, Raoul?” questioned Idri, attempting to change the subject. “What have you been up to since… you left?”