When it seemed that her feast had come to an end and she may have successfully revitalized herself back to the biggest and baddest that all should tremble before, he grabbed her dumb little petal creature and tossed maybe another few coins onto the table. Just to give the elder woman that had served them truly a tip well earned.
Although she hadn’t fallen for his wiles but rather knew what he had been up too, it was worth the little added bit of shiny weight to pocket. Gathering up and quite literally throwing the llama at her. Not hard, but enough to treat it like some child’s flying machine made from parchment. Whether the thing sailed or failed was entirely its own problem. Leaving him play pretend gentleman to open the door and offer the exit firstly to the real princess in the midst of it all.
He was only slightly distracted when the door being opened, allowed others to enter too. Only two of them were interesting as they could be a pair of the sorts that would add to Calia’s bullshit blending in and he actually contemplated just slipping back inside to flirt and see if he would get them out of their clothing rather than merely towels.
But, he resisted. By sheer will and well, he didn’t think it was very appropriate quite yet to just bail on said mountain princess. Although he didn’t fear she needed him to be some sort of presence or threat- she was plenty capable of handling herself three times over without a second thought- but he returned his attention forward.
“Alright, then…. What chamber of steamy vexing yah be thinkin’ yah be wantin’ to brighten with yer wit and batting lashes for whatever beau it be that pulls yer attention.”
There was never a more horrified and affronted expression than that of Calia watching him throw her precious little dipshit of a petal llama and the small thunk it made in hitting her shoulder. Surely never a more scathing one than what he received in opening up the door and her very carefully cradling it in her palm to smooth out it’s blue petal body, oddly crooked neck and jangled up eyeballs. It was, of course, perfectly fine seeing as it wasn’t even actually alive – but still! He could be a little gentler with these things!
When he was done being distracted by a pair of elven ladies – impossible to miss even if his expression hadn’t changed, Calia could practically hear the wheels turning in his head! – she scoffed and led the way across the winding boarded path on this search for somewhere worthy of their resting time.
“Surely I’m not going to find anyone worth my time in the baths, I’m not even sure I have the patience to sus out whether or not they’re trying to kill one of us. Maybe instead I’ll be your brooding chaperone, and just conveniently pretend to be looking away when you convince some silly little thing to sneak off with you. Ladies do always like it when it’s a forbidden romance.”
What could be more forbidden than sneaking away from your demon wrangler, after all. Even if the whole demon thing was presently safely under a simple glamour.
Speaking of glamours, Calia wrapped her demented little creature in a glamour of it’s own so it wouldn’t go drawing curious eyes. Just for that added fun of Archimedes looking truly demented himself swatting at something no one else could even see. She lift it up in her palm to send it beating it’s golden beetle wings just as hard as it could, and with a gentle bop set it loose to trail after him.
“Teasing aside, I’d just like somewhere quiet and genuinely beautiful. Burn something pretty and green into my mind before we’re stuck in the mountain tunnels for days.”
Did he have any remorse about throwing her little creation at her.
Not one wit of it. Even offering her a grinning smile that was only interrupted when he was looking after the elven ladies that had entered and were whispering to him. Only he could hear it of course but he was certain they were making sultry winks at his direction telling him to and talk to them. Surely…
And… he would surely have a chance much later because well, they had come here to unwind for a day or so. Or whatever, he didn’t actually know if there was a set schedule, so there was plenty of time to introduce himself to every pretty little thing that had green, blue, brown or gold eyes.
So he leveled his stride back with her to offer his unsolicited wit and shortly a tilt of head when she expressed that she didn’t know if anyone was worth her time. Immediately he reached out and felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “I knew it,” Arc whispered, “Yer nor Calia, conqueror of men’s bedroom fantasies! What have yah done with the sultry princess that leaves men with stories of a ebon crowned woman making them see god for one night?” He was slightly serious but not really. Merely smirking at her before he shrugged once more.
A signature move of his, “I’m already a forbidden romance, petal. They just can’t tell that right now cause my unsavoury bits are all hidden away by yer’s truly.” Indicating her, “And I might be concerned about the sorts that want to be thrown into the mood by the idea of sneakin’ around under my broodin’ chaperone’s eye. Sounds like the sort that like being voyeurs too.” His nose wrinkled at that, clearly not interested.
Where eyes flickered over her, they moved to whatever nonsense she was doing to her stupid little creature, wondering if he should take it and climb up to the highest part of the halfway town and throw it from there. Just to see how far it could glide, “Mmm, somewhere green and beautiful well…” He kept his hands to himself even if he was eyeing said newly released parasite gliding after him, “Then I suppose we best look at the few bathhouses present and let whichever one tickle yer fancy.” There was a bit of a frown on his face with the mention of tunnels, “Can’t wait to be in a labyrinth of stone and stone and—” he gasped in dramatics, “Stone!”
Calia swatted at his hand with that scowling, dubious frown and was quick to follow it with a heavy sigh and exaggerated roll of her eyes. This ease to expressive motion, the way she carried herself now without an ounce of stiffness was such a far cry from what she’d been weeks ago. When she was so drowned in her own thoughts she couldn’t see outside herself. How she was so concerned about what other people were seeing and thinking about her that it was almost as if she didn’t day move else she might risk being perceived. Now they could’ve been the only two people in the town for how little she paid attention.
And yet somehow could still walk across those rope and board walkways with such a fluid grace someone could be jumping up and down on one of those damn bridges in the middle of a storm and she wouldn’t even miss a step! Even when she whirled around to walk backwards simply because she was far more involved with talking with her hands to tackle his new obsession with her bed partners!
…to be fair she’d started it with talking about his – but usually he was more horrified at the thought her!
“Who! Who in this green land has been singing my praises Archimedes! You went out with me one night for all of five minutes before you ditched me. You’ve not even seen wink at someone, much less slink off alone somewhere. So I want to know where all these dazzled men are, it would certainly save me some time! Except for Starling–“
There she paused, making a sudden cringe and rise of her shoulders before motioning her fingers as if she could pull every single one of those memories out of herself and toss them to the ground below. If only she could! One perfectly distracting evening ruined by the reality of day. For she could no longer tell now what parts of the man were real at all.
“–and you know what, I am pretty damn sure praises aren’t what he’s singing at all.” she added just for good measure. Best to shove that back into the chest she was shoving all of her unwanted memories now.
“Stone and bugs. And monsters, we can’t forget the monsters. Luck is not on my side, we’re liable to run into that grotesque soul eater thing. …at least this time I can kill it.”
Being swatted at wasn’t unexpected. It merely brought a fully toothy grin to his mouth because if she were really annoyed at him, she would have probably shoved him right off the top of their current walkway. While shouting all sorts of colourful profanities and promises of dismemberment. Just she was only giving him her best imperious look that was suggesting she was displeased but not entirely.
No sooner turning to face him as she walked backwards over the precarious rope bridge and he was rolling his eyes at her new antics.
Demanding just who it was that would be singing such praises. Only that he gave her a prompt glare secondly when she recalled that he had only gone out with her for one night before dipping. “Careful now,” he did agree that he would tell her when she was getting too close to potentially pissing him off, “Yah know as well as I do that it was not my best night and honestly, I’m surprise yah noticed at all. Yah were off makin’ cow eyes at the bartender and I had come out to be around yah.” Arc gave her a once over, “I wasn’t even interested that night to flirt, not with the whole recollection of what a fuckup I am, so let’s be mindful that I had reasons.”
It was made clear he wasn’t enthused at her attempt to cut him. But sighed momentarily when she continued her dramatics about these dazzled men.
About to say something that there was probably quite a few in Caeldalmor but stopped himself from doing that. As it was a little dark considering. “Well, it just be soundin’ that yah need to start makin’ a new list.” Arc decided on instead, “There be all sorts about this place but if yer not feelin’ it, I ain’t guna get on my soap box and preach about it. Yah know yerself better than anyone.”
He wasn’t even going to touch on the topic of Starling because well, he didn’t want too.
Maybe now approving the deviation of commentary into that of the mountain tunnels. How it was going to be so very interesting and she aided by pointing out monsters which Arc sighed at. “Aye, that be truth. The spooky sorts do love to make themselves comfortable in places that people don’t typically wander into.” Violets flickered over her, “Yah want to destroy a soul collector, yah now how to? Without killin’ the souls it’s eaten?”
There was that warning glare and subtle tone with that careful now, prompting an immediate shift to eye him and just listen. While their attempts at warning each other when something was over stepping could be hit or miss at best, Calia could at last admit he was trying not to take everything she said as a stabbing insult.
…or well, in this case was pointing out that he had taken it wrong just without making a grand fit about it.
Her stature softened as she turned to resume walking neck to him instead of her wild bound across the bridge way.
“You know, my intent had been to spend that time with you, so we could exist in a sort of place we’d both enjoy and I could distract you with magical nonsense, and drinking and dancing. …I suppose I could have tried a little harder to make sure you understood that.” Calia could admit that at least. That it never occurred to her that he needed someone to be more persistent at pulling him out of his own thoughts. Princess Liriel’s later words echoing in her mind; Archimedes was fragile, with a heart made of glass. A warning that came a little too late for that particular moment, but it held space in her mind now with every interaction since. Forging a dam over her temper – not always perfect, yet there – and forcing her to choose words oh so carefully.
A change of tone and topic was good though, because he might be interested in flirting around with any pretty lady that caught his fancy, but every time Calia started toying around with the idea of a little male company, it all sort of fell flat. Appealing to a point before the idea fizzle into an unsatisfied disinterest.
“If I knew how to destroy a soul eater I would’ve done it already. …to be honest I think that was the first time something genuinely scared the shit out of me, and I’d be glad to never see one again.”
Thankfully it seemed that him voicing his own potential rise to irritation was met with an understanding. That she didn’t seek to poke at it further but rather expressed a slow offering of similar fathoming. Enough to dull his latent ire and shrugged indifferently. “I appreciate yer sentiment but at that time, I doubt much would have alleviated my internal struggle.” Likely still well in affect within him but he was spending so much time actively avoiding such things. Outside of well timed self depreciating commentary that was a fine crown to adorn his brow with.
Granted, he really didn’t want to even begin thinking about it all. Let alone talking about what had already happened.
So it was brushed aside, not about to be opened in the presence of one another if he could help it and moved eagerly into the dreary commentary about the mountain pass and goopy soul collectors.
To where Calia expressed she didn’t actually know how to destroy a soul eater. If she had, it would have been dead. “Yeah, they ain’t grand thin’s, to be sure. Start off wee wittle but when they get enough people to munch on, they get to be quite the nasty problem.” Fingers itched behind an ear, “Not fun to git rid of either. Unless yah ain’t fussed about the souls going off to whatever afterlife, then yah can just burn them up. Sure there is a hell fire implication in that somewhere.”
Tipping his chin to indicate for them to step to their right, there was a bathhouse just below their view that showed it was mostly outside. From their vantage point, it was all sheltered behind the large building. “Green enough for yah, yer practically in the trees.”
Maybe there would be a time where Calia would poke a prod a little deeper to talk about the things they both well knew they were avoiding. In her own fumbling way, understanding that for all their similarities in temperament and a few unfortunate events, Archimedes had the experience of rises and falls at least a dozen times long before Calia and her mess came into the picture. He’d fallen over the ledge of making all the wrong choices and having to face the consequences of them. And Calia? Her feet were right there on the edge wondering which direction she was going to take.
…they didn’t need to think about any of that right now. Not after Fawna. Not after that damnable holy temple.
“It seems you are going to have to teach me proper monster slaying on top of the fundamentals of arcane magic,” she mused, pausing long enough to lean and take a look over the place he’d pointed out. She didn’t know about practically in the trees, but it looked like a nice and non-troubling spot to spend their early afternoon. Surely the two of them won’t get into any trouble there!
Well, trouble they didn’t start on purpose, anyway.
Calia adjusted their direction accordingly, casting him this quick and almost deviant sort of smile.
“Bringing a bath into the tallest canopy sounds like an interesting challenge, really. All the way up there with nothing but birds, sun and sky to admire while soaking away? That might be a treat worth constructing.”
“I didn’t know there was a proper way to slay monsters outside of just screakin’ like a barbarian and declarin’ yah be finishin’ them off with a mighty cleave of sword.” For emphasis, he added a little bit of theatrical enactment. Motioning hacking with an imaginary weapon. Merely missing the whole grand leap and said screaming in righteous fury.
He wasn’t even going to mention the fundamentals of arcane magic because well, did he really have too? She had it down well enough that she pulled and knitted the fabrics of the unseen to fit whatever thus far, so it hardly seemed worth the nattering effort of blithering at the mouth.
Thankfully it seemed one of the bathhouses was suitably situated below them and encased by the grand forest enough that it ought to fit that greenery requirement she had expressed previously. Although he was a bit wondering why she was giving him a devilish look at all, and shortened as he almost could hear the wheels of thought conjuring themselves into her skull.
“I’m sure it can be done. Just the right bits of tethered magic and will power and sheer gumption.” He twirled a finger into the air, “If marshmallows can rain from clouds, who’s to say yah can’t make a bathhouse in the sky.” He might had added on that Calia was creative enough that the idea would have flown easily.
“Well, that work for yah then. Soak yer bones and feel slightly more livin’.” Another gesture to the aforementioned bathing spot.
“Nobody with sense starts screakin’ and blathering off fightin’ words,” she countered with a wrinkle of her nose. “Those sort of dramatics are for mages and arrogant swordmasters.” Though she did tilt her head a moment just to ponder if she’d done so herself once or twice. Only to quickly shake her head in denial, for Calia tended to approach fights as if she was already done with it. Never having wanted to get into them in the first place and wishing to finish it as quickly as possible. Calia never started a fight, but she sure as hell finished it promptly.
He sure hadn’t been wrong about that imagination of hers either, for Calia was already putting the pieces together in her mind on just how she’d do it – despite the fact she wasn’t actually going to tackle such a nonsensical thing! Sometimes all the fun was in working through the details. The potential of whatifs.
In the moment, though, it sounded far too much like he was still considering this outing a Calia Only stop. Prompting her to quickly reach out to grab his wrist before slipping down to claim hand and be sure he was tugged along with her on the winding shift between roped bridges and more stable spiraling stair cases.
“Soak our bones, until we’re both a notch away from being boneless and then we’re going to get so drunk that we’re not going to have a lick of sense in us either. Then you can run rampart through the town stealing maidens and maybe I’ll try that damn fae orgy you were suggesting.”
“Y’know, that sounds far more entertainin’ than watchin’ two people flingin’ spells or weapons at another. Dramatic, absolutely worthless but comical to behold.” Of course he was the dramatic mage through and through. Perhaps taking this into stock as he might in the future just throw out obtuse nonsensical names for anytime he casted something just as a sort of what the fuck moment. It would keep him amused and whomever he was assailing, hopefully baffled.
Leaving her to think of what sort of devious and over the top design she would want for her bathhouse in the sky. Suspecting somewhere that it would be on the back of some strangely designed googly eyed monster with too many wings and its tongue dangling out of its mouth while carrying the whole establishment on its back.
Easily deciding not to say anything in that regard and pointed out if the located spot was suitable for her bathing pleasures.
Throwing him off so sufficiently when she grabbed at him and took that of hand to pull him along. Correcting his statement from yer to ours. Declaring it as fact that they were both going in till they made broth of themselves and then went to get so shit faces that up would be down and sideways would be through the nearest wall. Blinking a few times because he had been caught off guard by her insistence at all, quickly adjusting feet to catch up so he could walk beside and hum. “Would it be a fae orgy or just a troll orgy? Try a new flavour, since I seen a few of them around already.”
By the expression on her face, that wrinkle of nose, the side-eye followed by the heavy roll, Calia could all too easily see him being one of those ridiculous tongue flapping mages. Rambling off all manner of wordy speeches to his enemy, more for his own entertainment and much to the bewilderment and confusion of whatever poor moron decided to come up against him. Betting that is what he’d done with Fawna, with sarcasm and flippant charm before she’d met her end. After all, that’d been his ridiculous behavior when it came to that strange stark white demon that came crashing into the small village of Caeldalmor and with that asshole dryder in the mountain. All showy sass before a grizzly doom.
Then again, he’d scared her before. Though it was never through might and power. Just words. Or the lack thereof.
Luckily for Archimedes she couldn’t be reading minds, for if she could those fantastic little images of flying beasts with googlie eyes would be the very next on her list of whimsy and tomfoolery. Calia would make every single one of those dreams come true.
Instead she was twining her fingers with his, casting this new suggestion of a troll orgy a dubious tilt of her head. Shifting quickly into this deliberate means of actually thinking about it by sending verdant gaze around them to give those local trolls an examining perusal. Truth be told, Calia had never met a troll face to face. Orcs a few times, since they tended to prefer the mountain lands. An ogre once when she stumbled into the wrong part of the fir forests.
“Can’t say I’m not liking the idea of being absolutely squished by some massive troll,” she retorted maybe a little too candidly! “Positively crushed. Pretty sure there’s not an elf that can pick me up and throw me. Not that I’ve been rolling around with any fae either, just yet.”
At her lead by that of hand, and apparently giving his words about trolls a deep thoughtful consideration, he merely smirked to himself. Trolls, as Arc saw it, were one of those rare creatures in the world who somehow managed to be both utterly ridiculous and quietly majestic—depending entirely on whether they were trying to kill you or just standing around like oversized lawn ornaments, humming to themselves.
They were tall. Always tall. Built like walking sculptures carved from the bones of the earth, with long limbs and backs that curved slightly from years of crouching in spaces too small for their own mass. Skin came in all manner of stony hues—mossy green, river-rock grey, dusty clay-red—cracked and layered like the strata of a mountain. Some had bony ridges along their jaws or browlines. Others had tusks that curved out like scythes, or hair like coarse ropes dipped in silver and ash.
They weren’t pretty, by any stretch of the word. But they were striking. Especially in motion—which was rare. Because trolls had the peculiar quality of moving like they had all the time in the world and not a single regret about taking three hours to lift a spoon.
Arc always thought of them as the old souls of the wild, made of bone memory and half-forgotten lullabies, with voices that sounded like stone cracking under frost when they got serious. Which, again, was rare. Most of the time, trolls were perfectly happy to exist in a state of eternal loafing, unless you disturbed something they valued—like ancestral rites, sleeping dogs, or their third lunch.
So to hear Calia express she wouldn’t be opposed to being squished by some massive troll, that made him laugh earnestly. “Sadly, them elves are pretty little dainty thin’s. Only a few are made of muscle, as yah seen with the second elven prince.” Referencing back to Aien because well, he was one of the few that actually had arms rather than these delicate noodles. “Suppose yah just need to branch out and try other flavours. Or wait for yer mountain men to come trot in for yer hairy back desires.”
He definitely didn’t need to tell her twice about the lithe prettiness of Edelguard elves! Even those that weren’t as skinny as a twig, and had forms full of rounds curves and ample stomachs, still all had that elegant daintiness about them. As if they could all walk on clouds and get knocked over by a breeze. Beautiful and handsome and oh so good to look at, like living pieces of art… only gorgeous art wasn’t what caught Calia’s attention. What use did she have a man that was prettier than her and could be broken in half with her own hands!
Still, it amused her that Arc even said as much, for he himself was once one of these elves. Being a demon had surely changed him some, enough that she’d heard one of the royals say he was a good bit taller than he’d been before. It did make her wonder if he’d been the reedy sort, the bookish mage weaving magic in the tower or had he been a little closer to Aien – someone atypical and outside the norm of physicality the same way he’d been with magic.
“I did give elves a fair shake,” she said, matching his laughter with a wide smile. “Alas, it seems not only am I a princess with high expectations, I seem to be gifted with faeish insatiable whim. Although you’re making it sound like I should run the gauntlet of every type of man in the world. You shouldn’t have killed that dryder, Archimedes, that might’ve been my one true love! An opportunity missed!”
She was teasing in the most obvious of ways, as even when she said it Calia almost cringed herself. Adventurous she might be, willing to try all sorts of interesting things, but she wasn’t so sure she could cross the realm into Spider Fuckers. Not a chance in all of the hells.
Calia held his hand until she wound them down enough to find the entrance of this bath house, and truly only being able to tell what it was by the symbols on the sign for the wording was in an elvish script she couldn’t read and so worn with time it may not have been legible anyway. The front part of the building had the sort of charm she was coming to expect from this border town. Something reminiscent of ancient fae roots with weaving vines and gilded art, but distinctly modernly elf with the way it was forged out of the trees and stones as if it’d grown up naturally there rather than being constructed.
On entrance it was pretty clear from the start that this wasn’t the one that lured in all the tourists with shiny luxury and special treatment. This was a world weary travelers stop. Tired merchants just needing a place to soak their bones. Single road wanderers wanting somewhere to get off their feet without the boisterousness of a tavern.
There were absolutely courtesans here of both the female and male persuasion, but they were being so elfishly subtle about it that Calia almost wanted to make a scene. Be a gawky loud stupid round ear and see how many stuffy elves started blushing.
She wasn’t here to cause trouble, though!
From a few lovely windows, one could see outwards into the springs themselves, proving that the main building wasn’t anything more than a place to change your clothes or go to bed for the night. The real attraction was the way the springs seemed to taper down like watery pool steps right in the side of the hill, fed by some underground mineral spring. Cradled by the big beautiful redwood trees to create this lovely enclosed space of steamy mist and emerald green.
A very bored looking young elf covered in an array of freckles, eyes focused on a book and twiddling a pencil amidst her fingers barely acknowledged them at all when Calia stepped up to her desk and taptapped her own finger on the worn wood top.
“Day rates for the springs and night rates for rooms are on the sign,” she mumbled, gesturing with that pencil behind her. Of course Calia couldn’t read a damn word of it, already scrunching up her nose trying to figure it out. While the girl finally had herself straightened up to see about these new customers, her thoughts flickered across her face in quick obvious succession.
First, a round eared girl was rare enough to take curious notice of. Secondly, a ridiculously tall and handsome elf was enough to send any young girl into immediate attention.
“Hiiiii. What can I do for yoouuuu?”
“I mean, why not?” He asked so suddenly, so sincerely at her suggestion that he thought her to run a gauntlet of every type of man in the world. “Yah never know what yah be likin’ unless yah try everythin’ at least once.” But of course she followed that up with a suggestion that he shouldn’t have killed the dryder. Immediately he wrinkled his nose, “He poisoned me. I think brutally murderin’ him was the least I could do! But if we run across another, I will cover my eyes and leave yah to become the new spider queen.” Miming the action of covering his oh so innocent eyes because well, if she had been serious he would have left her to her nasty devices.
To each their own but he would absolutely judge the choice.
With the lead being made and him tethered by that of hand, they were certainly lead down into that of the bathhouse. Where it screamed the calm and sort of invitational relaxation that wasn’t all fanfare and whispered desires. Although his attention did flicker to the stalking courtesans that were lurking nearby. As if they were invisible but failing to realize that their attempt to do so was grossly overestimated.
They got a quick glance at him and he was soon released. Calia haven’t let go so they could step into the declared establishment with this elven scripture in abundance. Where that movement indoors, only could smell the saturation of lush, surreal, and layered with ancient indulgence. The air was heavy with humidity and enchantment, curling with warm steam that bore the mingled perfumes of rare herbs, magical minerals, and blooms that no longer grew in the wild. At the forefront was that of crushed lavender and moon chamomile, calming and dreamlike, steeped into the water to soothe both skin and spirit. Beneath that, notes of honeyed myrrh and amber resin would wind through the air like forgotten lullabies, thick and resinous, grounding everything in a sense of sacred luxury.
He guessed there were spell-activated oils might release their aroma only when touched by warm water—vanilla orchid, saffron, and wild bergamot, unfurling like invisible flowers in the steam. The minerals in the enchanted pools would smell faintly metallic, but not unpleasantly so—more like silver rain on stone, cool and clean and laced with something almost electric, as if lightning had struck an ancient spring.
It was passable for him though the little elven woman that was sat at the entrance desk looking so bored reading her book, that it spurred every bit of impish delight to potentially burst that bubble just to see what would happen. She noticed them however and the suggestion of what the sign said, he did tilt focus to read over it. Finding that it did have the rates for both and he gave a motion to Calia as if to express that it was decently priced. Maybe a little more than most would pay but well, one didn’t exactly care when the came to such places.
It was only when the little clerk decided they were worth her attention that she turned to visually address them. And clearly realize the oddities of what was on her figurative doorstep. Inviting the easy gleam into his stare and offering a grin that was daring her to flirt back, “If yer job’s to get me settled, yah best be careful—I’m easily tempted, and not half as good at leavin’ as I am at lingerin’.” Arc offered so smoothly that honestly, he just might forget about the bathhouse entirely!
And why not. Those words of his were ringing in her head, even as the little miss at the desk was finally taking notice of having customers. That look of boredom fading off the girl’s face in the instance of seeing a handsome man. Really, it was worth laughing about as Calia surely would try every man in the entire world if given the chance! Yet in that same breath, it sounded completely exhausting. It wasn’t a matter of discovering what she liked – she knew herself and what she wanted. It was… well, she didn’t know. What used to be a thrill, now felt like a chore.
The way the clerk started giggling immediately drew Calia out of any stray thoughts, for it was a high pitched girly heeeeeeehehehehe that was both obnoxious and adorable all at the same time. Having to stuff down her own amusement in this case, for if she encouraged Archimedes at all, this poor girl was likely to explode with glee.
“I’m Molly,” the girl managed to get out between giggles. Only pausing when Calia rose up a finger in front of Arc’s face to catch her attention and slowly moved it until her line of sight was back on Calia again.
“We need a room for the night, Molly. And a chance to go play around in those hot springs,” she murmured softly, still trying to hold in her amusement.
“Oh, right, of course!” announced the girl, turning in her chair to go digging around under her desk before producing two very distinctly different sets of keys. One seemingly perfectly innocuous, plain black iron looking like any other normal key. The second was a delicate coppery piece of work that practically sang with magic. Molly pointed out each as she spoke. “Your room key. Have company as you wish but no parties. We no longer allow room parties after the whole wild buck incident-” she pushed the black key forward and then tapped at the copper one. “This one is for the springs – don’t loose it! Only guests are allowed inside, that includes those saucy lurkers over there – so no company. No outside soaps, drinks, food. No weapons, especially. Don’t be noisy. Clothing is optional, so if you have a problem with wrinkly old butts and saggy teets then you might wanna go in blindfolded.”
That finally broke Calia’s attempt at looking oh so unreactive, creaking her stoic features back into that cheshire cat grin even if she did hold in a laugh. At least until her hand reached out towards the keys – that is where she paused. A burning, screaming memory of having her own skin practically singed off flashing through her mind.
This was stupid. She’d touched iron things before. Keys, doors, bars, tools and weapons. The iron had to be more than pure it needed to be enchanted, she’d learned that now.
Still, her fingers curled and she pulled her hand back to hold against her chest, not daring to claim either key. Strangely silent as a mouse on top of it. Even when Molly was piping in again.
“Payment?” the clerked asked Calia first, giving a curious tilt of her head when reply seemed to readily come before turning her eyes back to Archimedes. Just one look at him was all it took for her to be back into her girlish giggly and grinning. “If you’re going to linger with me all day, you do need to pay to stay. I don’t make the rules, sorry!!”
He knew it was going to be a fine establishment when the front desk clerk was both cute enough to flirt with and was immediately doing that sort of girlishly dumb high pitched giggling that foretold she both was somewhat embarrassed and liking the attention. Though before he could honestly start offering every bit of flirtatious efforts he could pull out as comfortably as magic, Calia put one finger into the mix.
To right focus, “Spoil sport.” He muttered lowly enough for one to hear but he was smirking about it. So it wasn’t so grievous of an intervention.
Quick to the means of being a hospitable clerk, Molly stepped into the verbal introduction. The okays, the no-no’s and of course, “The wild buck incident?” Arc lifted his brow because okay, that clearly had a story behind it. Did she literally mean deer bucks? Were they faun bucks? Or just a group of men that called themselves that! There was so much unsaid and he was absolutely wanting to be a nosy prat to find out. But he could store that aside for now in which was being attentive in listening to what was allowed inside the pool.
Pretty much it being yes company was allowed so long as they were also guests. No courtesans, fine by him. And that was inside the waters was some clothing and saggy flesh that might make you want to go blind. “Dually noted, love.” Nodding for effect, attention flickered to the keys. Feeling the thrum of magic from one and nothing from the plain one.
At least not from it, but he would have had to be impressively blind not to see how Calia went to reach out but hesitated. Prompting him to take a better look at the iron key with dawning realization.
The princess had just learnt she was a full fae. Which meant enchanted iron really did have a painful effect on her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t traumatized by the event so before any questions could really roll out from Molly dearest, he swiped them both. Kept them in hand and leveled this violet gaze upon the constellation baring dot when she was all giggly at him again. Arching a slow brow at her when she reminded that payment had to be done –pulling that leather throng out so he could comply with these requirements. “Ah, but see, if I do pay to stay… does that make yah mine for the afternoon, or is that the premium package?” Sliding the coins forward to ensure it was covered.
“Just know I also pay in compliments and bad decisions. Not official currency, I know, but I’ve got an endless supply. In case yah be wonderin’, love.”
Slyly he gave Calia a nudge, as if to say you will be okay and that she could start moving. Allowing him to be the focus for the moment.
“Oh goodness, don’t get me started on the wild buck incident!” lamented Molly, pressing a hand to her chest and just as quick to wave it at him as if to dismiss it all away. He was so quick to flirt though, and the elven girl was back to another round of those giggles. Successfully stealing all of her attention from the now oddly quiet round-eared human that had seemed originally to be of congenial spirits and now was as mute as a door mouse!
“You think you’re the next best thing to sugar plums, don’t you!” she laughed, whole heartedly reaching out to give his arm a squeeze in a move that was for certain something she wasn’t well practiced in but an obvious flirt. “Now you know a good girl like me isn’t part of nothing. Better come back with something better than gold coins and charm, you silly thing!”
A soft nudge did appear to do the trick of tilting Calia out of her inner thoughts and back into the present world. Where she took in a deep breath and was back to that gentle weary amusement, of a woman who was so used to her partner’s bullshit antics that it didn’t phase her anymore.
“Be careful, he eats hearts,” she murmured with a quick wink, and taking great deal of personal joy in the hidden meaning. Calia wasn’t about to stay and be a third wheel to this nonsense, however, already moving away towards the narrow hall leading towards the private rooms.
“Oh, it’s room six by the way! Best view in the whole building!” chimed in Molly before she was zeroing in her giggles at the impossibly tall man, brought in by the gods just for her and raking those coins into her palm. “If you need anything – above board, mind you, strictly business – I’ll be here ’till sunset.”
Oh he was absolutely going to get her to talk about the incident. Maybe later but she was trying her damnest to give back what he was offering her. Of course it was only a silent invitation for him as a slow curl of lips began to show. Letting it crawl with deliberate care to hang in the air. “A good girl like you, huh? Dangerous combination. That means you look sweet but secretly bite. Guess I’ll have to come back with something sharper than charm—maybe teeth?”
As easy as it could be to stand here and try his luck with making the girl give him more than just her name and soft looks, they did have a vague schedule to keep. Which was currently, soak in the waters till they were sufficiently boneless. Suitable for broth!
And it seemed Calia was coming back to reality with a light nudge because she was saying true facts in such a way that it sounded like he was just a insatiable flirt. Which was also true. So he leaned into it, offering a click of tongue and an indulgent wink as he went to trail behind the princess. Unless she was going to bang on the door they rented without the key he possessed. “I think yah be wrong, I already seen the best view and I’ll be coming back later to see what that anything can be broadened into.” Arc called back. Letting it linger before he aligned his steps to the round ear.
Offering her a quiet look that was absolutely questioning if she was alright. Idly opening hand to show the key and how he had picked up she was not too thrilled about it.
Calia was practically rolling her eyes at the back and forth. That girl was about as green as the trees themselves, not liable to know what to do with someone legitimately chasing after her and especially not one like Archimedes! There was no denying that was the sort he like, however. Sweet and adorable little dames that’d enjoy every moment of his exaggerated nonsense, that’d still believe he was the greatest thing to walk the earth even when he left them.
He wasn’t hurting anyone, so he could do as he wished.
She followed down the hall around a curved bend, counting doors until Arc caught up, opening up palm to reveal the simple key within palm.
Right. One did need a key to open the door after all. Aside from a twist of her mouth to acknowledge she’d forgotten about that, she said nothing else about it. Counting the doors until she found the one with the proper gilded number – at least that one she could read! Then it was a gesture of her hand for him to do the opening even while she leaned against the frame.
“What kind of bet do you want to make about the wild buck incident?” she asked, mostly because she too was curious about it, but there was no denial too that she was deftly dodging making a comment about that look he gave her. “Real buck? A hunter’s lodge?”
It spoke volumes that she didn’t verbally answer him. Or even reach to take the key even after it was revealed. Where in the past perhaps she would have been so stubborn about it, forcing herself to do something that she was wholly uncomfortable with because she didn’t want to seem weak or whatever the hell nonsense floated around in her own head.
That she merely leaned into the doorframe of the door, leaving him to be the opener of such things. Asking him instead about a bet. Sliding key into the hole to have the tumblers audibly unlock, he gave a deep hum. “At this point, its somethin’ between literal faun bucks that disguised themselves as humans, and someone smugglin’ a real deer in somehow.” Arc offered, “And I will be severely disappointed if it is just mundane nonsense of the latter. I say lightly.”
Arc stepped into the room with the slow effort as gaze swept over the space, pausing just long enough to take in each detail with a kind of low-burning suspicion—because anything this tranquil was either enchanted, overpriced, or hiding a very smug squirrel in the rafters.
The whole place looked like it had been carved from the inside of a storybook.
Warm, amber-toned wood paneled every surface—from the polished floorboards to the beam-crossed ceiling—while rich rust-colored curtains framed wide windows like the place had dressed up just to greet them. Sunlight filtered through the trees beyond, spilling golden ribbons across the floor and bed, highlighting the deep greens of the forest and the shimmer of the hot spring visible just beyond the glass.
It smelled like cedar, old linen, and faintly of flowers—the natural kind, not the cloying perfume mess people thought was a good idea in hospitality spaces. Arc clicked his tongue once and tipped his head to the side, smirking faintly. “Well. Look at this. A place that doesn’t immediately scream poor life choices and impending drama.” Stepping up to glance out the window as if checking for assassins—just in case—and added, “If yah don’t defile this place somehow by midnight, I’ll assume yah’ve been replaced by a very polite changelin’.” And still, beneath the sarcasm, there was something softer—some brief flicker of appreciation in his eyes. Maybe for the quiet. Maybe for the fact that, for once, they’d walked into a room and no one screamed.
“Can’t be mundane, surely. Not if it caused such a ruckus that all parties are now banned,” she quipped easily, following him inside and fully believing that her moment of uncertainty had skirted by without a second thought. Because it truly didn’t need to be thought about at all! Calia was fine.
…she was also quite impressed! On entering the room, she hadn’t been sure what she was expecting. Most of the outside of the building seemed pretty average, even with those hints of elvish flair and faerie nuance. Faded dark wood and mossy stone. Of course, most of her experience with rented rooms where sparse empty things full of worn out old furniture, dusty corners and a sort of unwelcoming coldness. Calia ought to have known better, though, for elves loved their spaces to be full of warmth, comfort and beauty. It was no royal palace, and yet in the moment it may as well have been!
It didn’t even have the stench of old hops and musty linens. Just this wonderful woodsy smell that brought the outdoors inside. Calia immediately took to plopping flat on the mattress with a long unwinding sigh, as he went about looking around the space.
“Gods I love the forest, but you really can’t replace the wonders of a feathered mattress,” she mused, already shifting legs to make an awkward attempt of kicking off her boots without having to bother sitting up and using her hands. Then came a laugh, natural and as warm as the room. “You’re spending an awful lot of time thinking about me and a rotating door of muscles. Or have you moved on to hoping I’m going to start the next wild buck incident?”
“Eh, yah look at someone the wrong way and they might ban yah from the place. So there ain’t no tellin’ that said incident was actually that. Elves are dramatic, remember.” Flashing her an all knowing look because she’d seen such things first hand. And travelled with the master and king of thespian dramatics! Would she really be surprised if the idea of a party gone rogue might have just been a stag party.
He shrugged at the idea with the same grace he gave generally everything. And eyes taking up the room to where he had migrated to look out the window. Once clear of any lurking dangling assassins, he considered the view. Seemingly having to accept that Molly was right about that.
With a flicker of attention to the corner of eye, he hummed in soft agreement about the appreciation of a mattress. At least she would get some good shut eye this evening. But she was shortly removing boots and laughing towards him with a suggestion that he had been pretty focused on her rotating door. “I said defile, however yah do it is yer business. If its with three trolls and two elves, that’s yer business. And as much as it would be amusing to be the flare point of a new debacle that results in life time bannin’, I thought we were guna behave this time around. Not leave this place with our names scrawled into stone of do not admit entry?” Arc stretched that of his neck one way then, the next. Shoulders following suit.
“Three trolls and two elves,” she marveled out loud, staring up at the redwood beamed ceiling both amused at the absurdity of it and impressed that he thought she even had that much stamina! How was the logistics of that even supposed to work! And damn it all, if she didn’t have just the right kind of imagination to come up with a few scenarios. That was one way to make the mundane suddenly seem a little more exciting. And exhausting. In a good or bad way, though?
Regardless there was still laughter in her voice even when she did sit up again, finally giving up her battle with her boots to tug them off by hand and set them aside on the floor out of the way. As much as a soft bed was calling her, the whole idea of these hot springs had been set into her mind as the perfect leisurely activity so she had every intention of taking advantage while she could. Such bath houses and springs didn’t exist in Caeldalmor, at least none that she’d ever come across. Why not have a new and good experience to help push away all the bad ones.
“Right, right, we’re being well behaved and perfectly civilized,” she agreed, hopping up on bare feet to cross over to the large glass double doors so she could peer out and have a good look herself. Molly hadn’t lied, the view was fantastic. She could see some of the springs, just barely through the break of the greenery and all of that thick warm mist. A small well worn trail of soft dirt and woodchips seeming to wind and curl to lead to different levels of little pools surrounded with stone. Though the hot springs themselves came from somewhere natural under the village itself, it was clear much of this had been added on and cultivated, much like the rest of the town.
These doors appeared to be what the copper key was for. Private allowance onto the wooded porch on this side of the building, making the springs essentially blocked from anyone sneaking their way into the springs without first acquiring a room. Savvy and smart to assure privacy of the place.
Tapping the lock with a finger to silently signal that purpose of second key, Calia made quick work of examining the remains of the room. A small table for conversation and meals. A dresser for changing clothes and a standing mirror she didn’t look directly at. Her quiet steps moved over to the closet where she pulled open the double doors to find what one should expect for a place calling itself a bath house. Thin silky looking robes meant for wearing down to the springs, slippers, towels and the likes. Calia plucked out one, feeling the fabric between her fingers before she offered it out for Archimedes.
There, slowly, a thought seemed to flitter into her mind. The way they always seemed to do when something curious occurred to her – usually when she was about to something that was liable to be a pain in the ass. But seeing as her petal llama was busy hanging onto the back of Arc’s own clothes, trying not to reveal it was there at all – what she was think could’ve been anything!
Yet, like always, it was never to remain a secret thought for long, as the second she dropped that robe into his hands, Calia plucked at the sleeve of her own clothes. A gentle tug and a weaving of magic, still physical in the way she did it as it came with a one, two, three slow turn on her feet. Twisting the form of her usual black assassin’s garb into a sort of tiny silk dress, that on anyone else might’ve looked like an attempt of being modest swim attire – but on a woman that was near six feet tall and all legs came off as something else entirely. Everything else had vanished away to her Hollow, minus the chain she liked to keep her signet ring on and those silver hair pins, having swapped out her usual hairstyle of braided circlet to a loose twist since the day he’d given them to her.
Naturally she cackled that this means of magic had worked at all! Displaying her hands, waiting proudly for the compliments of her clever usage.
“I know,” He lamented at the echo of what he said, “It’s guna be such a bore.” Lips had turned in such a way that while he was suggesting they were doomed to be uttered brought to the ends of madness by not behaving in any sort of way that trouble would come chasing after them; Arc would actually welcome it.
After all, he had expressed that he wasn’t in much of a mood currently to have to deal with being the screamed at thing with horns and claws –that she had rectified if for now-, so he might as well enjoy the moment for what it was. True relaxation.
Indicated no sooner that it was to begin by her tapping to the lock on the sliding door. One he obliged with an over the top bow right from his waist. Never mind how his eyes flickered to the stupid little llama that had settled itself into his clothing! When the hell did that happen!? Staring at it for a moment and resisting the urge to pick it up again and throw it out the door once he had it unlocked; Arc straightened.
Finding himself being stared at as the wheels were practically grinding and sparking with how hard Calia was thinking. Leaving him a moment to slowly straighten as she was going about that and turning it into a whole show of how she could turn and twist and adjust her attire to go from every day assassin stabby chic, to something suitable for that of water. And how she came to the end with that look that was expecting the praise.
An invitiation he leapt on in his best way. Immediately giving theatrical whistle, slow and drawn like he was witnessing a meteor shower cross a velvet sky. He dragged a hand through his hair, blinked once—twice—then finally let out a small laugh, the kind that sounded like it had slipped past his usual defenses. “Oh gods, there she goes.” He spun in place, slowly, as if showing off the sheer magnitude of the moment to some invisible audience. “Do yah ever tire,” he began, voice laced with amused reverence, “Of turnin’ the laws of nature and fashion into yer own personal runway, or is this just the natural fallout of being too powerful and too pretty for the rest of us to cope with?”
He gestured to the newly revealed ensemble with a flourish that would’ve made a stage magician blush. “Look at that. Threads worthy of a queen, spun by mischief itself. Yer over here bendin’ weaves and wild willpower to dress like an ancient deity while I’m just strugglin’ to not wrinkle my shirt on a good day.”
He grinned, eyes flicking up and down—appreciative, but playful. “I’m honestly not sure what’s more dangerous—yer command of magic, or the way yah weaponize silk.” Another pause, as he leaned in with mock seriousness and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper: “Please tell me yah do this just to make the rest of us feel vaguely underdressed and entirely mortal. I need to know where I stand.”
Landing a stare at her as if that was exactly what she wanted him to do. Looking for the approval and then, giving her a shooing motion to the door. “Go on and git yerself into yah stew.”
Praise she expected – and she should have known he was going to do it in the most superfluous, obnoxious way possible. Taking what could’ve been a simple of course you’re brilliant into the realm of pure cheese. Treading so close into the realm of almost making it weird, that all she could really do was toss her head back and groan. This was so very stupid.
And yet, there was still that hint of a maybe smile there at the corner of her lips even despite it. A lightness in the way she gently nudge his chest with the back of her hand to get him out of her way to pass him towards the door. Almost imperceptible, but there nonetheless.
One could not deny that it was what she wanted. To have a chance to use magic free of will and actually have how stunning it could be simply acknowledged by someone who knew how vitally important and special magic truly was.
“Alright, you’ve ruined my chance at being smug. As if you can’t do something similarly spectacular just with a flick of your wrists,” she scoffed without any ill will at all. Pushing that sliding door open to step out onto the wooden decking, before she turned to give him a last grin. “Bugsoaking and stewing first, then you can go charm the skirts off Miss Molly. Don’t think I won’t know if you sneak off.”
Likely because of his unwanted new llama stalker, but she didn’t have to say it out loud.
Calia wasn’t going to wait around and watch the blasted demon get undressed, by normal means or magic. Having more of an interest in scoping out one of the pools that didn’t already have wrinkly occupants that might want to butt their way into conversations. She followed along the decking towards the simple set of stairs, running fingers along the redwood railings until her feet hit soft earth where the mist was now thick enough that the only way to see through it was by the guiding lantern lights that were scattered around the paths to show where they bent and curved. It all had a sense of mystical mystery and intrigue all of it’s own.
With mock indignation as she both gave him a gentle push and suggested he had ruined her chance to be smug, Arc huffed. “Who says I can do such thin’s? Have yah seen me do so?” Whether or not he could wouldn’t be discussed. Simply that he shook his head momentarily, as if mourning the moment for its utter nonsense.
Granted it was very short lived because he was straightening as she told him once more that there was stewing to be had and he was not to sneak off to make flirtatious attempts at the young woman at the front desk. Rolling eyes, “Fine, fine.” Not to say he didn’t stoop down and pick up her damn little newest dumb creation and repeated the process of throwing it at her again. “Take yer pet!” Declaring with a hair flipping huff as he wandered a few steps away. Only glancing over shoulder to make sure she was suitably out and beyond the means of window so he could be mostly normal and shuffle attire to generally fall onto bed for now.
Making use of said magic to open hollow and pull out item that would keep the lower half of himself sufficiently covered for such bugsoaking.
It was only a few minutes before he moved at an unhurried pace behind her pathing, fingers drifting along the smooth redwood railing as though tracing every curve of the grain. The boards gave a muted creak beneath his bare feet before giving way to the cooler press of damp earth. Mist hung thick, swallowing shapes into pale shadow until the warm glow of lanterns emerged like scattered embers, marking each bend in the path. The steam curled around him, softening the sharp lines of a frame built through centuries of movement, battle, and survival. The faint, silvery-violet runes etched over his chest and ribs caught what little light filtered through the fog, subtle glimmers that spoke of something older than they looked. The larger, intricate weave that sprawled across his back shifted with the pull of muscle beneath it, less decoration than living design—magic set into flesh with purpose.
The air was heavy with cedar and mineral heat, the quiet broken only by the low hiss of the springs and the occasional trickle of water slipping over rock. Arc’s gaze tracked a small fork in the trail, following one curve until the mist parted to reveal a pool half-hidden against the roots of a massive redwood. The water glowed faintly in the lantern light, its surface rippling gently, untouched.
No voices. No movement. Just stillness and steam. A slow, satisfied smirk ghosted across his mouth. “Perfect,” he murmured, the word almost lost to the fog. He stepped forward, crouching at the edge to let his fingers break the surface. The heat spiraled instantly up his arm, coaxing a low breath from him. Straightening again, he cast a glance back over his shoulder through the drifting mist. “Reckon this one’s ours,” he said, the ease in his voice carrying the quiet assurance of someone who knew exactly when he’d found the best place—and intended to keep it.
Maybe Calia had a taste for the dramatics too.
Not intentionally, of course. Once again he’d tossed her poor little creature and with great offense she took it with her, carefully tending to it’s blue petals to make it’s shape all the more rotund. Shined up those beetle wings so that even in the rolling mist one could see it’s golden glimmer, as if it could glow all on it’s own in the dark. Added a little violet to it’s googlie eyes for the added bonus and… speckled two thick fuzzy eyebrows so it was even more expressive. Who could throw such a darling thing!
So when he called out to the mist, expecting Calia herself to appear and see the spot he’d found – it was her petal llama flapping and buzzing it’s way through the swirls. Sticking out a pistol tongue and going thbbbbtt, before making a fine fancy show of loop de loops that looked oh too familiar.
As for Calia herself? He’d taught her a trick or two and spacial blinking was next to test out. Much to her glee actually working as she intended instead of landing her ass upside down and tumbling headfirst into the spring. Thankfully dropping with a gentle tip-toe step onto the steady branch of that towering redwood so peacefully stretched out over the pool. There was not a rustle of the tree or creak of teh branch to be heard – yet, his reaction to her little creature was plenty enough to ruin any sneaky attempts. Covering her mouth to keep from snickered just didn’t do the trick.
Dropping the act entirely to smile that faeish cheshire smile, as if she’d always belonged in those trees but might just belong in a few nightmares too.
“You shouldn’t be so mean to it, he looks just like you.”
He shouldn’t be remotely surprised that her dumb little creation had found him first. With a whole new style that was honestly so utterly extra that he was rolling his eyes so hard! It was amazing that they didn’t just pop out of his skull and roll away.
No sooner tilting focus upon the woman that wielding her spatial blinking to look the part of pleased little faeling because she had done that and the creation of the llama thing. With an added commentary about how he shouldn’t be so mean to it.
Arc’s brow lifted slow, like he was giving the words time to sink in just so they could offend him properly. “Oh, does it now?” he said, voice low and silky with just enough edge to it. His gaze flicked toward the offending creature, then back to her, measuring her with a stare equal parts disbelief and mock injury. “Well, then I suppose I should thank yah for pointin’ out I apparently look like a badly cobbled-together pest with win’s. Truly, yah’ve flattered me.”
He leaned in slightly, smirk tugging at his mouth. “Though I’ll have yah know—if that thin’ actually does look like me, then it’s the best-lookin’ vermin in three realms. And that’s a tragedy all its own.” Arc huffed at her before helping himself into the steamy waters. Sinking down some and taking a further edge as so he could begin this whole brewing thing. Casting arms out to either side to brace himself and sigh heavily.
His ire over the thing made every moment worth it’s weight in gold. For even while he fussed about it, she could still see that little sparkle in violet hues. A tiny bit of being impressed, a small splash of being flattered that such a thing was made to vex him at all. So as he caved in to the idea of rest and relaxation, sinking himself down into the misty heated springs. Calia perched there on the tree branch just watching and appreciating the moment for what it was. Her goofy little creature taking flight to glide along rising steam. The quiet bubbling from up underground. A breeze in the trees.
She’d fucked a lot of things up, but this had been a good idea. A good breakfast and a pretty spot, with nowhere to be and he already seemed to be a little bit lighter. Spending a little too much time up there examining the whole of him. Runes and sigils tattooed over a body that even Calia had to admit was quite nice to look at. Part of her wondering if he now remembered what every rune meant now that he had his mage’s memory returned. The other half speculating that if the only reason she thought he was attractive were the elements that others generally couldn’t see, did that make her insane?
Damn, he’d spent so much time fussing at her about finding a beau today that now her head was a jumble down roads she ought not be thinking about. Maybe she should run off later to charm someone simply to get it all out of her system. Like hunger and sleep… sometimes it was just necessary!
Shaking herself out of those thoughts, Calia finally shifted from her perch, making an elegant jump down to the soft earth with nary a sound. Stretching arms hover her head before waltzing without an ounce of hesitation into that steamy hot spring. All the way to the center where the waters were deep enough to come up over her knees.
The spinning llama spun and flipped, beating it’s little wings with a pitiful complaint.
“You weren’t for the water, don’t give me that face.”
It thbbbbbttt again, and buzzed on over to plop itself on a rock near the very object of it’s visual resemblance. Huffing, puffing, and being generally pitiful.
“Shush,” she huffed, staying there standing just for a moment to close her eyes, with no real reason to it. Just listening, just feeling her way through things. Simply existing in her own skin where things were calm and quiet. Before she bent and sank and vanished herself completely under the waters to be nothing but a blob of fair skin, black silk, and blowing bubbles. Dramatic and divine!
Arc had gone quiet.
Not the charged sort of quiet that meant a plan was forming, but the rare, languid stillness where his head rested against the stone edge of the pool, arms stretched along either side, and his body sank into the heat like it had finally convinced him to stop moving. The steam blurred the sharp edges of him, but not enough to hide the faint, silvery-violet runes over his chest and ribs or the sprawling design across his back—lines that caught hints of lantern light when the mist shifted just right.
His gaze had been on her more often than not—tracking the shape of her up there on the branch, and inevitably flicking toward the ridiculous llama-beetle abomination she’d set loose. He studied it with the same patient disapproval one might give to a street performer blocking the doorway, and still, there was that faint sparkle in his violet eyes. A trace of being impressed. A touch of being flattered that she’d bothered to make the thing at all, even if it was only to vex him.
When she finally descended—landing with that irritatingly silent elegance and strolling into the spring without hesitation—he didn’t shift from where he was. Just kept the water lapping at his chest, letting the warmth hold him steady.
The llama fluttered down onto a rock beside him, still dripping petulance. Arc didn’t look at it. “Yah’ve made yer point,” he murmured to the creature, “And it’s still ugly.”
Steam curled between them as she sank under the surface and vanished entirely, leaving him alone with the sound of water and the occasional bubble rising from where she’d gone under. When she surfaced again, he broke the silence at last—not with some biting remark, but with something oddly, almost suspiciously, ordinary.
“What’s yer favorite season?” he asked, as if they were just two strangers in a game of twenty questions instead of a demon and a fae sharing a private pool in the middle of a fog-wrapped forest. The question carried no agenda, no edge—just idle curiosity, floating as lazily as the steam between them. Though by the way his half mooned stare was to say anything, he knew he was asking a mundane question that was entirely out of his character. And that was the point.
Calia could’ve stayed under that water for hours if she didn’t have that pesky need to breathe. Something about water was soothing, embracing. The further down you sank the more it squeezed you, and clearly she had a need for being gently crushed! That white stag’s words flittering through her head. You will live a life that is fae until the day you grow weary of this world and choose to leave it. With a caveat, of course, someone else could always come along and end her.
They could fucking try, anyway.
These thoughts were also too heavy and not where she wanted her mind to be. Damn it all, could she not just empty her head for one day! Letting out a stream of bubbles before she finally surfaced, tucking loose strings of black behind her ears, only to find herself at the receiving end of the most out of left field question.
Calia paused, first in an expression of confusion, blinking verdant gaze to examine him for half a second. Melting into a cross legged sitting position when she quickly decided such a question was actually the most perfect natural thing. She’d told him her intention was to be friends – partners. One could pay attention to little details dropped in random conversations all they wanted, but sometimes just asking random weird questions was necessary.
…wasn’t it?
“It’s going to sound oh so typical of a cold frigid bitch to say the winter…” she started slowly, humoring this question with a genuine response. Reaching up to pull those pins from her hair so she could comb through it with her fingers and make sure it didn’t get all knotted up in these mineral springs. “It’s not really about the cold, though. I like the way the snow covers the whole worlds and deafens it down to this serene quiet. Pretty in the day with how it all glitters, but at night…? A blanket of soft shadow filled with a million stars. You can stand in the middle of a field and feel like you’re floating in the cosmos.”
The spread of the smirk easily grew when he successfully caught her off guard. Of course it was a hundred percent unusual for him to ask something so normal. So every day average which was entirely not who he was after all! Yet he earned a whole blinking confused look that easily amused every little nerve in his entire body.
Expecting her to give some sort of snarky reply back about him being strange, or whatever. He couldn’t guess the multitude of ways she might have thrown a barb towards him for asking. So when she didn’t, but rather replied in such a detailed way that winter was her preferred season, Arc was aptly listening.
Mentally trying to picture the scene and honestly failing. Probably because standing around in day or night looking at crystallized water had never seemed important to him. It was there and it was cold and that was good enough. Not worth a secondary consideration! “Well, now that was a very lovely answer. Not what I expected, though I think I appreciate that it wasn’t as I might have assumed.”
Reaching over to where the llama petal creature was to bully it off its rock, because well… he wouldn’t be Arc without a little bit of being a pest!
That was it? He was going to ask her a weird question, say oh that’s nice and drop it? Move on to be a menace to her goofy little critter? Calia almost sent a splash of water his direction, only refusing simply because the last time she’d done so, he hadn’t taken it so playfully. And granted this water was a little hot and maybe not meant for the splashing anyway unless you wanted to burn someone’s eyes out!
It was too bad she didn’t make that thing to bite. The thing was using it’s new eyebrows to do it’s best imperious impression of being a rage-filled beast that could bite, though. Inching itself just outside of an arm’s reach.
Turnabout was fairplay, however, and Calia wracked her brain trying to think of just the right innocuous question to shoot back. Only, everything she could think of was liable to bring up a past that he wasn’t so keen on remembering. Of the people he lost and were long from this world, and the ones still living who most certainly had feelings about the person he was now. While she wanted to know all of it, Calia was certain that it’d be better to leave it for a time he was finally ready to share on his own terms.
Honestly, it was no wonder she always fell back to asking about magic. Getting to know him behind that felt like a mine field.
“Well, are you going to tell me yours? Or are you trying to see if getting me distracted is what it takes to dissolve my little winged friend. Because I can tell you easily, it’s not me sustaining him. I just made it!”
“So fierce.” Growling low in his throat to mock the little thing with its god damn newly adorned eyebrows. Pleased that it was inching further away this time rather than trying to climb into his hair or something. Really not about to assume it wouldn’t because of course, Calia had made it to vex him!
So when she seemed to lull into a temporary quiet that turned into questioning if he was going to reveal his favourite season, his gaze moved slowly to her. Thoughtful and wicked all at once. “I haven’t shoved it in the water! Cause I know if I do, yah’ll add on gills or somethin’. Make it a little lillypad to float on that farts glitter.” Arc lifted his brows as if to say am I wrong?
But she wanted to know his own answer to the question he had asked her. Arc leaned back again, letting the mist bead along his shoulders while he considered her answer once more—or maybe just considered his own. One arm shifted on the pool’s edge, fingers idly tapping against the warm stone in a slow, absent rhythm. “Fall,” he said finally, the word rolling off his tongue like it was already steeped in memory. “Not just for the colors, though I’ll grant, there’s somethin’ about a whole forest catchin’ fire without burnin’ that’s worth seein’ at least once.” His eyes half-lidded, as if the thought alone brought the image into focus. “It’s the feel of it. Air gets sharp enough to wake yah, but not so cruel it bites. Food tastes richer—meat’s heartier, bread’s better when it’s warm enough to steam in your hands.”
He shifted his gaze toward the mist curling up from the water. “And people slow down. There’s less… rush to everythin’. Yah can walk through a market and it smells like spice and smoke, and everyone’s thinkin’ about gettin’ home, not runnin’ off to somewhere else. Makes even a busy place feel like it’s breathin’ with yah, rather than against yah.” A faint smile touched his mouth, one corner lifting almost imperceptibly. “It’s a season that don’t ask for more than yah can give it. Just lets yah be—long as yah can stand the wind and the sound of leaves underfoot.” He let the thought hang there, violet eyes flicking toward her with something quieter than his usual mischief. “Besides… it’s the only time of year the world looks like it knows how to age well.”
Oh, he wasn’t wrong. As soon as it came out his mouth she brightened into this slow creeping smile of pure wicked mischief, as if he’d now planted a grand new idea into her mind. Using those hairpins to spin and twirl the rising steam around them until the wispy shape of her petal llama formed, wings and all. And with a tap she added a back tail fin. A perfect example of exactly what she’d do should he dare, before the apparition faded and dissipated up to the sky.
When he leaned and lounged back again, Calia wasn’t sure if he would bother to answer at all. Then even when he dropped the simple word of Fall, she hadn’t expected any more than that. Only to get an answer that was so telling on just the sort of person he was, whether he realized it or not.
Calia tilted back, letting limbs go lax until the heated waters too over and she could stretch herself out to casually float on the surface. Listening with that quiet attentiveness that probably looked more on the surface as if she wasn’t listening at all. Except oh, how she was. Arranging the details of his soul into the picture he painted, of a man that chose the fall not because of the season itself, but because of the people. Of being connected to others through food and smell, appreciating how the time of year seemed to make everyone draw a little closer to live in the moment.
Did he even know that’s what it was? That he actually cared that much?
And what did it say about her own answer. She wanted to stand alone in a world wrapped in silence? Well, that wasn’t it. Calia just never felt like she belonged to this world and the closest she ever got was when she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was at least one of the stars.
There was humor in knowing a demon had more of a warmer soul than her, at least.
“…not what I expected. But a lovely answer nonetheless,” she mirrored his own words with a quirk of a smile. Keeping her eyes to the canopy of the redwood trees while she floated there. “You make the world sound like it’s something worth living in.”
Pure exasperation flickered over his features when she ever so helpfully decided that she could show him exactly what she could do with the newest little creation. If she felt so inclined to give it a tail at all and how it would come to annoy him in the water. Surely she might realize that if she did so, he would sink it on purpose. Hold it under water or actually dispel the magic used to keep it up and alive with its dumb tbbbhpt. Even eyeing it a moment till it seemed that nothing was going to happen and there was the move into where she asked him to reply to his question he had asked.
To where he gave her a reply and thought nothing more about it. Because honestly, it was not something he thought about!
So when she gave him his own accepting reply back with a bit of a turn, he gave her a bit of a roll of eyes. Only that she seemed to add onto it. In a way that drew a pause. “As someone who has been too literal hell, lived there and knows how it works. Uh yeah, I would be sayin’ this life is far better. Even if it’s shitty, at least yah have will and freedom. Even if it ain’t always feelin’ that way.”
“Hmn,” the sound slipped out whether she meant it to or not. Not quite dismissive, but surely contemplative as despite it all, despite everything there was still something so woefully shattered inside Calia that she couldn’t see the truth in his words. Oh, she’d live. That burning, spiteful will to survive against all odds remained as strong as ever. All that freedom and free will would be sure to help her accomplish every goal she had left in her.
…holding onto that tiny shred of hope she’d wished for back in Tir Elas, that somewhere along the way she’d finally stop feeling like it was all pointless.
He didn’t need to know that darkness in her, nor feel like it was his weight to carry. After all, by his own words he’d lived through literal hell and was now here in the world with a second chance. Calia might be heartless, but his was still very much intact and the least she could do was help heal it.
“Alright then, beetlebug,” she finally said, shifting from her free floating to sit upright again. Scooting along the heated waters to take up a lounging seat next to him, with a challenging grin. “You’ve asked me before what I want to do with myself after all is said and done. …but what do you want to do? If life is worth living in, inspire me! Where do you want to go, who do you want to be? Possibilities are endless with a long life and your only tether being some lunatic fae.”
As she scooted forward to settle down to sit rather than being a mortal sized floating apple for something unseen to bob for; his attention shifted. Raised a brow when she seemed to be working on something. And it came out in the means of give her reasons why she should feel like life was worth something.
Arc, fairly, didn’t have an answer.
To any of it!
Sights that had been thrown into languid drape had shifted. Now widened to its full hold to look back and forth between her own stare as though searching for some reasoning to what was she trying to get at.
His mouth opened once, twice—three times even—making a passable impression of a fish trying to lodge a formal complaint about the air. Finally, Arc gave his head a sharp shake, as if tossing the thought away like it had personally offended him. “Firstly,” he said, wagging a finger toward her with mock sternness, “If yah know where this lunatic fae is, yah tell me.” Because he sure as hell didn’t see her as that any longer and wasn’t going to lean into that line of thought either.
“Secondly,” he added, but the words caught in the net of some half-formed thought. A huff followed, his gaze sliding sideways before he slapped on a grin so effortlessly roguish it practically had ‘nothing to see here’ carved into it. “I ain’t got no plans in the long run of thin’s. Seems senseless too. I mean…”
One hand lifted in a vague, encompassing gesture at himself—runes, muscle, scars and all—as if he were both the question and the answer. Then, without ceremony, he let himself slide further down in the water until it curled around his shoulders, both hands stretching back over the lip of the pool like a man who’d just made peace with whatever nonsense he was about to say. “Just keep doin’ as I’m doin’,” he finished with a shrug. “Find somewhere else to squat, make eyes at the pretty sorts, rinse and repeat. A highly complicated life plan—don’t try it unless yah got the stomach for luxury.”
Those silver hairpins were now in both her hands gesturing at herself with them like they were a pair of wands, when he tried oh so ineffectually to insist she wasn’t the lunatic fae in this duo. There was no way to defend of dodge the fact her present life was nothing but insanity.
Still, she’d managed to catch him off guard enough that he was all open-jawed fish-gaping, which confirmed her own suspicions that the majority of the fluff and encouragement that came out of his mouth was only for She and not for He. Maybe in his past life everyone had let him get away with that kind of shit, but Calia was not an arrogant mage or an uptight royal elf. She was mayhem and chaos and stubborn annoyance all wrapped up in one explosive package.
So when he slipped down in the water, rising it up to shoulders and tried to play off this act of being lackadaisical, truly a lay about loaf – Calia sidled up closer under the crook of one of those arms. Not even trying to hide the grin that meant pure trouble was on the way.
“I see, I see… you want to go the route of being a lazy, over pampered. Liable to get good and plump on banquet dinners. Run the gauntlet of every pretty dame in the world. Sleep. Sunbathe. Sounds…. boring.”
Not to say some of it didn’t sound delightful, yet Calia had a very hard time believing that someone like Archimedes would be happy staying idle. One isn’t born with that much magic, have that much ambition to learn it and play with it, to suddenly give it all up to be a lump on a log.
Of course, the real trick of this conversation was not that Calia was seeking to be inspired for her future, but rather to inspire him for his. Even if that meant having stupid conversations that never really went anywhere beyond daydreaming of whimsy and nonsense. And with a little magic.
A little flick flick at the steaming waters was all it took – another theft of things she’d learned from him so far. He’d risen a city made of magic and illusion back at the Edelguard Palace, and it had been potentially one of the most dazzling things she’d ever seen. Taking that idea of giving space form, with a bit of shimmering steam and a few directions of waving those pins, she constructed the shapes from the water’s surface up to form a chamber straight from memory. That hidden ruin deep underneath the Temple of Light, with it’s ancient figures cut of stone of gods even older than the ones people called old now.
“Did you know that place is underneath the Temple in Neive? That’s where I found the book. There’s probably places like that all over the world that no one has seen for thousands of years. Ones you can’t really get into without a ton of clever magic and a penchant for troublemaking.”
There was still a bit of an eyebrow raise at her. Lifting further that it might even pop off his very head because she was slinking close and showcasing all the more that she was up to something. Practically one thought away from making the smell of woodburning and smoke coming out of her ears.
She was up to something and he wasn’t sure what. Which made him naturally suspicious! Because what he learnt thus far with Calia was, she had a great hand at making sure nothing was ever as it seemed. She was clever and devious and absolutely filling in all those parts that were faeish. Eventually, he was sure she would be making one-sided, but beautifully worded deals with mortals that they thought was in their favour but really they were all in hers!
So when she reiterated his statement of just being lazy and unfussed about anything once everything was sorted, a violet eye was narrowed. Loudly offering the nonverbal of what are you up to?
“At least till I’m forced back to hell.” Arc stated with a practiced nonchalance. “Gotta make use of what is present after yer contract has ended and as long as I can hold out from being shoved back into the abyssal realms.” He had no preconceived notion about that.
There was no elven stature in him. He was entirely demon now and he was bound to the realms of fire, brimstone and every sins imaginable. It was inevitable after all so of course the idea of doing absolutely nothing more than flirting his way around and having nothing concrete was suitable. The moment their contract ended, he would be the sand in the hourglass. Eventually, it was all going to run out.
His attention deviated a little because she was getting all glittery and invoking the streams of magical threads to manifest a creation of a place that expressed something runic. Unknown, unseen and untouched. Of course she was up to something still by the way her words were slithering from tongue –nearly tempted to see if it was starting to turn silver too because that was the way of fae. “Well, seems like if yer whole rebuild Caeldalmor works out, yah have a fun idea of goin’ diggin’ for old bones and said troublemakin’.” Arc was looking at her still. His features were still loudly arranged in what are you up too.
Calia was about as obvious as a bull in a pottery shop, and knew as much just based on all those raised eyebrows he kept giving her. Didn’t stop her from pursuing this attempt of giving him something to think about that wasn’t just her endless bullshit and his own lifetime of trauma.
All it took was one phrase to shift her entire demeanor.
That’s what he was worried about? That the resolution to their contract meant he’d be shot right back into the abyss again?
No gesture, no swish, not even sound heralded the sudden severance of magic. That memory shaped room of mist and sparkled dropped right back into the heated waters as if it’d never been there at all, the moment Calia turned to face him. All of that faeish pretense, the teasing, and puckish mischief had gone with it. Leaving behind nothing but this truly baffled expression.
“You’re not going back to the hells, Archimedes,” she told him, with an odd sort of softness, considering in most cases she tended to be so fiercely serious to the point of it being downright aggressive. It was still in there, of course, that confident belief that what she said was fact. It just didn’t need to be said with fire and fury. “Contact or no contract, I will not let it happen. Fuck’s sake, let them try. I’ll cross the realms and go make myself the problem of any demon dumb enough to get in my way.”
It was a hell of a lot more concerning when she stopped being a puckish little gremlin. Because it meant something had hit her and she was either going to hit it back, or give it a serious bout of whiplash due to being an item of distaste. Because when she had bluster and delight and mischief, then you knew she was playful. Enjoying herself. Free spirited and razing stupid creatures out of flowers and rocks and leaves and sticks!
But watching how she dismissed her little orchestrated magic of shape and sound only to look at him, ears lifted. Shifting, making the dangling bits of earrings jingle slightly. “Calia,” he started with all the means of being serious because she was so assured at least suggesting that he wouldn’t be going back.
It was weird of course. Probably because it was said with a peculiar softness that seemed so, not something she’d said about such things? He wasn’t sure. But she was shortly detailing how it was entirely off the table and how she would fight about it.
Which was, he supposed, sweet—like telling a man with a spear through his chest to “walk it off.” “That’s not how thin’s work, unfortunately.” He rolled a shoulder, lazy and dismissive. “I sold myself, petal. Signed, sealed, delivered—Arc’s my name, damnation’s my address. And that debt? Oh, it’s to a neighbourhood so charmin’ the welcome sign’s just a skull on a stick. Great place to visit if yah enjoy being set on fire, screamed at, and judged by creatures with worse fashion sense than orge’s. Really not the sort of place to send postcards from unless yah want the paper to smell like sulphur.”
The false elf laughed easily, “Plus, what the hell would I do anyways besides fuckin’ about and being a general pest to all those near me?” He looked at her authentically, “I’m a demon. The very same that came pourin’ outta the portal the wannabe be warlock made. That harmed yer kingdom and slaughtered people. That’s not a very good wrap sheet after all. The very same that yah want to stop, that others want to stop from harmin’ their lands. Their peoples and that. It’s just nature.” There was more behind it, absolutely there was but well… he didn’t want to talk about it. Or even acknowledge it!
Arc let his head tip back against the lip of the pool, eyes half-lidded like he was halfway to a nap he’d been planning all week. Steam curled around him in lazy ribbons, the picture of contentment… if you ignored the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth that meant trouble was incoming. “Just because we’re friends,” he drawled, voice slow and dry as the edge of good whiskey, “Don’t mean going on to wastin’ all that effort on a lost cause. Yah’ll strain somethin’.” One hand floated up in a lazy gesture, the sort of vague wave a monarch might give to dismiss a servant. “I’ll just be here, sufferin’… livin’ in sin, soakin’ like the pampered little demon brat I am, waitin’ for my adorin’ public to bring me grapes.”
He cracked one violet eye at her, the ghost of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “So unless yah’ve got a fruit platter hidden, petal, best save it for somethin’ that won’t snore in yer face the second yah look away.”
He’d said her name with all the enthusiasm of a man that’d already accepted his foul fate. Drawing this faint frown out of her, even as she waited to hear what his excuses were.
He was damned.
Things didn’t work that way.
Demons were demons.
Things didn’t change.
Fuck, all of that. Calia even opened her mouth to say as much, as who the hell made all of these rules, anyway? Who made these decisions? Not anyone that mattered. Archimedes didn’t deserve to be condemned to the hells for all eternity over a mistake that was made with the best of intentions. Calia could pull the stars out of the skies or split a mountain in two. She could rip a hole right into the hells if she wanted to and no one in this world could stop her.
And like a goddamned plague, it was now Starling’s words clawing their way up. Here was Calia in all of her righteous fury, ready to force the very laws of the world to bend to her will and whim. Was it arrogance, then, to think she could even change one man’s fate? Did she even have the right to?
There was that dizziness again – too many conflicting emotions all once, too strong and overwhelming. Demanding action, insisting on something. There was nothing to take them out on and nowhere to direct it. So Calia pushed it down, forced it inwards back into that little void in her chest and slammed the lid shut.
“I guess I’m going to be breaking a lot of rules and killing a lot of people. Take over the hells. Be the next dark queen in the making.” Easy, breezy, oh so dramatic. A splash of sarcasm mixed with this sigh of inevitability. Calia was who she was, and that meant she would not let him go back to a life of suffering. Not as long as she still breathed!
So it was quite ironic that with that ominous, frustrating thought she slipped downwards under the water again, letting out a stream of bubbles and wishing she didn’t have feelings at all.
He rolled his eyes at her. Not surprised that she was already raising verbal hell that she would just take over literal hell. And all for what?
There was absolutely no way in any realm that he was worth such a thespian attitude and claim. While he could appreciate her candour for it, he was just a demon. And she would have many other things to worry about once they got to that point where the contract was rendered completed. Where her heart was in her chest, the portal was shut and the loser of a wishing dark sorcerer was finished.
But of course if he was going to try and remind her of these things gently, she was sucking herself down into the pool again. “Thanks for stoppin’ by!?” Arc called after her though he was truly confused what the hell that was all about anyways. Why she was getting passionate about something that was as matter of fact like the air they breathed. Or the ground they walked on. Stuff that was just there. Was understood and that was that!
So he scrolled his gaze over to the blue llama with its beetle wings, “Fae, am I right.”
That little petal llama gave the most world weary sigh. As if in it’s tiny lifespan of just a few hours it held the weight of the world on it’s wee delicate shoulders.
Calia stayed down there twice as long this time, not so much in hopes that she’d perish but to make sure any signs of potential tears were completely obliterated. Doing everything she could to lock up those thoughts of all being pointless, worthless, useless. They’d come here for a purpose and the last thing she wanted was to sabotage it with her own stupid bullshit.
Once she did finally resurface, that carefully constructed mask had returned. Not perfect, as it never was anymore, but that was easily enough masked by the motions of her gathering up the wet strands of inky black hair to twist into a tidy little bun and set securely with her silver pins.
“How much does it take to get a demon drunk, anyway? Or do you prefer yourself level headed so those pretty damsels don’t take advantage of you?” A swift change back to their original topic – safe, light, and perfectly nonsensical. The less feelings she had, the better, and in fact… all of his suggestions of finding a handful of someones to keep her busy was starting to sound like a grand idea! Anything to not be wearing out the wheels in her head from all this brooding and spinning about his apparently inevitable fate.
Had he known they were both incredibly this terrible with honest feelings, he might have laughed. Long and hard! Which wasn’t saying much, they both had to know to some extend that both of them were due to speak candidly but were avoiding it due to their own internal struggles, fears and whatever else.
So when she resurface and he had stopped pondering to see how long the world weary sighing creature of flowers could float on the hot water; his attention flickered to her. Watching a moment in a way that likely wasn’t registering into his thoughts. Something subdued that flickered away when the questions were asked.
“No idea, never managed it.” He answered rather honestly about the whole how much it took to actually put him under the table! But of course that wasn’t the only thing wondered about considering she was no sooner questioning if he was one that preferred to keep his wits about him so people, or rather damsels didn’t take advantage. “Yah can’t take advantage of the willin’, love. Drunk or not, I’m always willin’.”
But he seemed to think about it before leaning forward in the heated water, “Suppose it all depends on yah. If yah want me to piss off like an unwanted blemish on yer arse, or if yah want annoyin’ company. I ain’t guna actually guna go flirtin’ with anyone if yer wantin’ me to be said company.” Arc shrugged once more in his signature way, “When I know what I’m doin’ and whom I’m to be with on purpose, I don’t actually make it a habit to flirt and ditch them with someone else.” Immediately he puffed up, “I’m noble like that. Comrades over dames.”
A few barrels, then, is likely what it’d take. Calia could hold her own through a couple bottles if it weren’t one of those wild elven wines, apparently now recognizing that was a faerie’s metabolism and not because she was any skilled drinker. Already plotting how much she could drink to make her own thoughts turn off, how much it would take to not care much about anything anymore… finding herself pausing at the ridiculous phrase of Comrades over Dames.
She really couldn’t help the smile, it was out before she could temper it. Leaning in close just to she could mutter softly, “I like annoying company. You haven’t figured that out yet?”
There might’ve even been a cheeky wink in there, gone before it could even be questioned.
Calia had enough of stewing, however, both literal and figurative. The steaming hot waters might’ve done wonders for the aches in her muscle and bones, yet her brain was still whirling a mile a minute. Tempering that required a medicine of a different kind! A slow shift and rise brought her back to her feet in one fluid motion. Gently reaching out to press fingertip to his forehead before flicking a bit of that starlight navy hair out of his face.
“I’m going to go dry and see if I can find something in my hollow that doesn’t scream murdering wench. I might not be able to drink you under a table, but I’m real good at dancing on them.”
“Oh I figured it out,” Throwing a thumb at said annoying company! Aka her creation. “Yah said it looked like me after all. And I don’t know how much more annoyin’ that can be to get the point across.” The smirk and the phantom wink was enough to suggest that she was absolutely getting ready to plot something. Which turned into she apparently was officially cooked up and out, ready to be suitably devoured as a pieces of meat stew.
About to say something himself but paused and slightly went cross eyed when she came so close to touch his brow. Almost expecting her to flick him in the head rather than any of the hair that liked to hang in front of his face. Absently reaching up to pull on the strand like it was about to tell him the reason for her doing that.
“Then we best make sure we find a bar that has tables ready to be danced on, some of the places from memory weren’t more than a crooked post with a piece of lumber balanced on top.” Arc hummed, giving a minute wave. “I’ll be along in five. Give yah time to search yer hollow.”
“Don’t bother him,” was a soft warning, but with the gentle smile that came with it, there was no telling if she meant Archimedes or the petal creation currently looking like a blue loaf and flapping it’s golden wings!
Calia didn’t hover or hesitate, glad to leave every single one of those stray frustrating thoughts behind in the springs themselves. Using every step she took through the rolling humid mists, across the soft dirt trail to untangle every thought and feeling that wasn’t going to be useful in the here and now. This detour was meant to be restful and healing to recover from recent events. Getting herself wrapped up in what the future might bring wouldn’t help them.
What had she been thinking asking such a damnable question anyway? When had opening her damn mouth ever been good!
Didn’t matter! By the grace of the gods Calia had managed to not blow up and do something crazy. She hadn’t snapped at him, or said something wild only to immediately run. That was progress.
And fuck this mirror.
As soon as she was back in the room of beautiful redwood tones and soft fabric curtains, she spun that standing mirror around to face it at the wall instead. Giving herself a moment to stand there and breathe, until she finally felt some semblance of calm again. From there it was nothing to open up her hollow and draw out some of her clothing. A few things she’d taken with her from the elven palace. The things Nova had purchased for her. None of it quite Calia, yet now that she had a new trick…? Transforming something that already existed into a new form was such an easy bit of magic. That one blouse of green silk she’d really liked from the palace was shifted into a rich midnight blue. A pair of trousers that Nova picked out only needed a shift to Calia’s preferred shade of black. She kept her hair up as she always did now with those silver pins.
And weapons? Well. Calia was a weapon, she didn’t need to be strapped head to do at any tavern. Sort of made it awkward to dance and fool around in when there was risk of hands grasping blades.
Arc waited until she’d waded off far enough that the steam swallowed her outline, the little swish of her hair and the sound of water lapping against her legs fading into the muffled warmth.
Then, with all the subtlety of a cat that absolutely knew it wasn’t supposed to be on the counter, his hand shot out and snatched up the big-eyed, golden-winged llama-flower abomination she’d left perched on its rock. He held it up to eye level, squinting at it like a jeweller appraising a very ugly gem. “Well, aren’t yah just a smug little cabbage with legs,” he muttered, giving it a gentle shake so its wings flapped pitifully. “Suppose I should introduce yah to the locals—see if they think yer prettier than me. Spoiler: they won’t.”
Arc’s fingers tapped the llama-flower’s leafy little sides like a drummer working up to the big finish, violet eyes glittering with that rare blend of I’m about to do something and you will definitely regret knowing me after this. The steam rolled thick and slow over the decking, and somewhere beyond the white shroud came the soft splash of another guest. Minding their own business.
Which, naturally, Arc considered a public service emergency. “Alright, cabbage,” he murmured to the creature like they were in the middle of a high-stakes heist. “Mission Dumb Luck is underway. Yer the distraction. Try not to die unless it’s really funny.” Before it could squeal in protest, he wound up with the grace of a professional dart champion at a rowdy tavern, and threw the little abomination into the fog. Its golden beetle wings whirred like a drunken bumblebee as it cartwheeled out of sight—followed by a very distinct SPLAT and a shriek that could only belong to an elf who’d just been violated by something botanically unholy.
The llama thbbbpppt’d like it was summoning reinforcements, wings slapping wetly against its new host. From the commotion, Arc could picture it—clinging with all four legs to the elf’s collarbone like a possessed neck pillow!
Arc was already vaulting out of the pool, dripping and grinning like he’d been born for this moment. The runes along his chest and ribs caught the lantern glow, making him look absurdly heroic for a man who had just committed an act of floral assault.
“Don’t panic!” he bellowed through the mist. “Its bite will only paralyze half your body!”
Chaos absolutely erupted. Guests scrambled onto the pool edges, clutching their towels like talismans, one woman actually leaping into the next bath over and nearly capsizing its occupants. Someone shouted, “Is it venomous?!” and Arc answered solemnly, “Only emotionally.”
By the time he emerged through the steam, the elf “victim” was frozen in a perfect tableau of horror, the llama-flower still latched on and making an unsettling raspberry noise. Arc plucked the creature off like it was no more threatening than a soggy muffin and cradled it to his chest. “Yah fought bravely,” he told the elf gravely. “Now yah’ve got a story no one will believe—make sure yah add at least one explosion when yah tell it. Yah’ll drink for free everywhere north of here.” And with that, he turned, strode back into the mist with his unholy cabbage-beetle abomination, and left behind a soaking, breathless crowd already debating whether the creature breathed fire or just whispered unspeakable insults into people’s ears.
Having taken the time to give Calia that chance to do what she said, he had appeared soon. Tossing up the llama in hand like a common ball as he entered through the sliding door and set the creature down on the table. “Home, sweet temporary home,” he announced in a sing-song voice, swinging the door shut with the kind of flair only a man completely aware of his own ridiculousness could manage. Then, as if he were performing on some invisible stage, he gave a dramatic flick of his fingers. A gust of warm air roared up from the floorboards, spiraling around him like a miniature cyclone. Steam curled from his skin, lifting away in translucent ribbons until he stood there bone dry. His hair, somehow, now looked like it belonged in a recruitment poster for most handsome bastard in the realm, falling perfectly into place without a single comb stroke.
“Much better,” he said with mock primness, as if he hadn’t just cast a spell purely to avoid the manual labor of towel-drying. The next flourish was for the clothes. His current swim shorts blurred, shimmered, and were gone—replaced in a single magical ripple with a fitted shirt that clung comfortably over the breadth of his shoulders and chest, and dark trousers tailored enough to look intentional, not constrictive. The fabric moved with him, casual but sharp, like even his lounging attire had been made for a man who could lift a cart but also steal your wine without you noticing.
He gave himself a once-over, tugging at a sleeve like a master craftsman admiring his own work, then caught Calia’s eye with a lopsided grin. Plopping his rear on the edge of the bed, “Well?”
Calia was dry, she was dressed, she was pulling her boots on when he finally graced her presence. Leaving her straightening up with a curious rise of her brow when he set one incredibly shocked look petal llama on the dresser and then with a flick mimicked her own bit of magic to dry himself and switch into some proper clothing.
How could she not preen just a little at that.
Still, when he plopped on the edge of the bed she waltzed over resting her hands on her hips, giving him every bit of that royal imperious look. The one that seemed to be ingrained into anyone of noble blood, no matter how far they’d fallen from the throne.
“My enchantment still seems to be in place. So I wonder, just what was the cause of such a sudden scream that very well could’ve been heard clear across the entire town? You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?” Though there was no out right accusation, that quirk of her mouth was a good enough tell that she knew exactly the whoms even if she didn’t know the hows and whys.
Calia flicked a glance over her shoulder at the thing stumbling and weaving dizzily across the dresser until it felt right off the edge and hit the floor with a soft thump.
“Oh, damn. You knocked all the sense out of it!” she stooped to scoop it off the floor, once again smoothing out the petals and wings. Not that it was doing any good, it was all shaken up and buzzing angry now. Scoffing at it’s fit herself to close the distance between herself and the demon. Without any warning or preparation she drew two fingers over his heart, catching that fabric of his fitted shirt to make a nice little pocket. The perfect size to tuck in the petal llama, where it continued to look furious with those lopside eyes and thick eyebrows, but it at least settled down and fanned out it’d beetle wings to now appear like a pretty flower.
“There. Now we’re ready to go out.”
With the pure, unhurried control of a man who had absolutely rehearsed this kind of innocence for years, Arc shook his head slowly—just enough to make it seem believable, not so much that it looked like he was trying too hard. His shoulders rose and fell in a subtle, almost weary shrug, as if he were the picture of baffled detachment.
Calia’s stance in front of him—hands on hips, eyes narrowing in that way that felt far too familiar—pulled at some half-dozen memories from his past. He’d seen this exact look before. Dozens of times. Maybe hundreds. Wives. Husbands. Tavern owners. Captains. Guard sergeants. Even an old priest once, though that man had given up halfway through the interrogation and just started praying for patience.
“No,” he declared, voice dripping with innocence so pure it could have been bottled and sold to nuns, “I haven’t the faintest idea what happened. I was but a humble traveler, minding my own business, when chaos—unprovoked, uninvited—descended upon this peaceful establishment.” The faint crease in his brow suggested genuine confusion. His tone was steady, almost wounded at the thought she’d even suspect him. He even let his gaze wander toward the far wall, as if mentally retracing his steps to make sure he hadn’t somehow, accidentally, been responsible.
A masterful lie—because the only real giveaway was that tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth, the one he almost suppressed. The same twitch that always came right before he burst out laughing at his own audacity and happened. Not because of himself, but because the little creature had wobbled off the table and fell on the floor.
Pleased with himself, he leaned back. Crossing ankle over the top of his kneecap to offer her a pleased grin. Which may have lasted but Calia was seeing fit to keep the damn thing still going and added some embellishments on his clothing. Tucking the annoyance into place and well, Arc huffed at her. “Yer only encouragin’ me to try my hand in different ways at makin’ it miserable.” He was going to shove it somewhere that it was never going to get out at this point. “I think yah like it being tortured.” He offered but gathered up off the bed. Flipping hands a few times down his front, “Alright yah impish faelin’, but don’t say I didn’t warn yah when I gift it to the bartender and tell them it’s a rare creature best squeezed like orange rinds for juice!”
If Calia were anyone else, she would’ve been fooled what could only be called a master class in pulling off bullshit. The dumb clueless expressions, the bewildered tone of voice. Perfection in every single detail. It almost made her smile. Game recognized game, though, so if he wanted to make up stories, so could she.
“Tease it all you like, you’re only making it stronger,” she warned him. That same serious deadpan expression she was oh so good at. Not a crack of amusement, simply that concerned furrowed brow (concern for her critter, obviously), stern voice, and quiet huff under her breath when his standing forced her to take a step back else she’d be getting chest right in the face. Damn it all, sometimes she forgot that he somehow managed to be half a foot taller than her! Having to look up at a pain was a pain in the ass when you were trying to be imperious!
“Don’t worry, I’ll take him back when you do grow weary of me and something catches your fancy. Until then, let us go get merrily silly and menace someone else. See if someone will spill the beans about that wild buck incident. A true incident would have to be town gossip!”
A flick of her hand pointed towards that waiting room key – apparently it was his responsibility now – and Calia was already leading the way out the door. Eager to get the drinking portion of her day well and started. The duller her head, the better it was going to be!
“Yeah, I’d believe that if it weren’t my font fuelin’ it.” Apparently not about to fall victim into thinking that every time he assaulted the little magically created blue cabbage, that he was making it stronger. After all, she was the one who told him it wasn’t her that was keeping it functional. No, she just kept adding nonsense to it.
The eyebrows were truly a work of art and utterly terrible!
Tossing her a final look just for added measure and arms coming up to pause in that means of knitting them behind his head. Because he was being shown to take the room key and that her mouth was running bullshit about him growing weary of her. Rolling eyes for effect rather than talking about it.
She could believe that he wasn’t worth his salt –certainly wasn’t the first time, wouldn’t be the last- about how he wouldn’t go after someone that caught his fancy if she was serious about wanting him to stay present.
He was a shitty elf and a true demon but he wasn’t heartless!
“Alright, but if this incident isn’t grand, I’m guna make my own before we leave. So it better wow me.” Picking up the said key so one might lock the door after they left. And making it quickly disappear into that of the hollow –he wasn’t about to lose it after all. Keeping quick on her heels, with the whole they were soaked thoroughly on the outside, so now it was time to soak their insides.
Calia was fairly certain he already started an incident outside, at least a small one and the quick look she cast him spoke volumes on that without her ever needing to utter a word. Regardless, she led the way out, giving a small salute to Molly at the front desk who once again only had mild interest in Calia and a budding obsession with the unknown demon who got the full brunt of her dreamy smile and a wave.
Well, one of them was going to have a grand time tonight without even an ounce of effort put in!
Chances were in a place like this, you could throw a rock an land on a tavern serving spirits. Still, Calia took her time walking to get a feel for the layout of the place. Occasionally reaching out to grab his wrist or tug his shirt when a change of direction was necessary. It wasn’t clear at first what she was even looking for, as sometimes she’d stop in front of a place, tilt her head and think about it before moving on.
Eventually she landed at this little hole in the wall (hole in a tree, rather!), nondescript place that really could’ve been any elven tavern in the world. Just enough off the beaten path that it wasn’t a stop for tourists or the typical travelers. Nor was it so buried and well hidden that it was a front for black market business or a watering hole for criminal sorts. Simply a lively little tavern without all the flash and flare, promising to be a good time and nothing more than that.
Being a rare sight of human, Calia was going to stand out no matter what, but add on being tall, pretty, and dressed like she didn’t spend all of her nights out in the woods, it was enough to turn a few glances. And with the way she smiled, it was pretty clear that might’ve just been purposeful. She glided across the room to find herself the perfect seat at the bar – not tucked away out of sight, yet not exactly something easily approachable. Calia could turn on her stool to see the whole of the place, who was coming and going, and if needed, how she might escape quick.
A little wiggle of her finger pointed to where she wanted Arc to sit.
There had never been such an ordeal with picking a place to sit down and pony up at the bar for as many drinks as either they could handle. Or that of the coin purse could, whatever came first! But Calia really did make it quite the event.
Starting to make him think of a story that had some little girl trying to pick the perfect meal and chair and bed till it was just right. Not sure he ever understood the reasoning for such efforts but he followed along diligently enough. Guessing that the ambience had to fit that just right feeling so Calia could start searching for whatever soul or souls were going to be on the menu in reply.
Once they finally had gotten to a place that had fit the aesthetic that he knew one hundred percent was the mountain princess –she did have an affinity for trees after all. Sitting in them. Sleeping in them. Being drunk in them, so this location was pretty much the hammer to the nail.
He’d follow right until the very end, to where she wiggled in pointing to where he was to sit. Plopping his rear into it easily and almost as if the waiter himself had just been absolutely waiting for them to do so, he manifested. The figure who approached was not the sort one could overlook, even in a place as picturesque as the high-perched hot spring border town, village.
The half-elf carried himself like he’d been born knowing every pair of eyes in the room would eventually turn his way. Taller than most of his kin by a clear head, he had the long, lean lines of elven grace overlaid with a frame carved from honest labor—broad shoulders, a chest that tested the limits of his fitted shirt, and forearms corded with muscle that suggested he was more than capable of hauling barrels as easily as carrying trays. His skin was sun-warmed bronze, his hair a fall of obsidian black bound neatly at the nape, leaving his striking features unobscured.
He stopped at their table with the easy poise of someone who knew precisely how good he looked, and the faintest, almost feline smile tugged at his lips when his gaze settled on Calia. It lingered there in a slow sweep, openly appreciative without crossing into anything crass—though there was no mistaking the interest in the glance. When his eyes flicked to Arc, it was quick, polite, and gone again.
“Evening,” he said, voice rich and low, as if the warm tone alone might coax secrets out of someone. “I’m Thallan. I’ll be taking care of you tonight.” His attention returned to Calia like a compass needle to true north. “What can I bring you both to drink? Something to suit the evening… or perhaps something to match the eventual company?”
The last suggestion was aimed solely at her, though the question had technically included Arc—barely.
Something was spinning in Arc’s head, likely about to call her some kind of tree goblin or lush faeling – both close enough to being true. It’s not like she went looking for trees to hide in, it just turned out such spaces were perfectly suitable in most cases! He was a former elf, besides, shouldn’t he be just as drawn to green spaces too? Or had being a demon mean he wanted to roll up in a fire pit!
Regardless, a bartender appear out of the void-space they always jumped out of when a customer looked like easy money. She didn’t choose silk and polish to stand out, Calia needed to look like she could afford the good drinks! Something that packed a punch and wasn’t watered down to hell and back!
This one in particular look liked he’d walked right out of the forest with those elven features, with the sort of broadness hinting he had enough muscle in him to lift a pair of wolves up on his shoulders. He didn’t have that light hair that usually swayed her into a second or third look, but she wasn’t even going to pretend he wasn’t something nice to look at. Enough to have her leaning forward on the bartop at any rate, beaming the sort of trouble’s coming your way smile that so far had only been reserved for moments she was trying to get on Arc’s nerves.
There was definitely a natural ease to her when she wasn’t trying to impress royals or worried about what others were thinking. Just Calia being Calia.
“Alright, Thallan,” she mused out loud. “I am here-” she paused, hovering her hand just over the bar top. “and I’d like to make my way up here-” up went her hand way over her head. “Fast enough to have me giggling at whatever bad jokes come my way, but not so quick that I need to crash in bed before sunset. And my companion is going to need a whole barrel of something to even make him sweat. So we are in your very skilled hands.”
Thallan’s smile deepened, the kind that hinted he’d just been handed a challenge he fully intended to win. His eyes followed her hand as it lifted above her head, lingering there for a moment before returning to her face with deliberate slowness.
“Giggling, but still standing by sunset,” he repeated, his tone warm and edged with that unshakable elven confidence. “I can work with that. Something bright, with a little bite—starts sweet, ends with a spark.” His gaze slid briefly to Arc, the acknowledgment quick but not dismissive. “And for your companion… well, I’ll see if the cellar has anything that doesn’t blink at being called a drink. Something older than most kingdoms and twice as unkind.”
He straightened, the faintest hint of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But if you’re going to put yourselves in my very skilled hands, I expect you to trust me all the way to the last drop.” With that, Thallan gave her a slow, knowing look, like a man who already had the perfect drinks in mind, before he turned toward the shelves, his stride measured and easy, every step a quiet reminder that he knew exactly how much attention he’d left in his wake.
Arc followed the half elf a long moment, slightly squinting and next raising a brow, “If he brings me somethin’ that says property of the stables, I’m one hundred percent abandonin’ yah, because I can tell he wants yah already to himself.” Fingers reached to stroke along that of chin, “What was that about men singin’ yer praises? Think yah already got a contestant.”
The man clearly knew he could turn heads and was practiced at it, Calia could tell that immediately just with a few short phrases. He’d also been clever enough to size her up as well to see she wasn’t someone easily dazzled by pretty smiles. Smart too in that he wasn’t just pretending Archimedes was something invisible next to her, as she wasn’t about to even entertain the thought of someone who could be so dismissive.
Not that she was entertaining any thoughts. Leaving her turning in her seat to rest her chin in her palm and eye the demon and his attempts at pulling out an I told you so.
“I’d say a bartender’s gonna use every trick in the book to get good tips,” came her answer, deliberately being contrary if the grin she gave next was any indication. “I could be missing both my hands and have a wart on my back and get about the same attention.”
Even her petal llama was giving her cross-eyed look at that, prompting an immediate laugh out of her at them both.
“Besides, that’s just one. I thought you had in mind a whole passel of vagabonds for me? Need at least four more or it’s just not going to live up to the whole scene you’ve probably got going in your head. It’s… me riding on one’s shoulder’s and cracking a whip at the rest? Liable to cackling like a witch too.”
If it were possible for him to roll his eyes any harder, he would have. Because, “Ugh,” The demon in disguise could have flopped right over on the table here and now. “Yah really are makin’ use of the term, excuses are like assholes, everyone’s got one.” Hands came to the table to tap lightly, “I doubt he cares about tips, yah sack of excuses and commentary. Yer a beautiful woman, gobshite. Yah think he might just wanna make cow eyes at yah because of that.” Arc apparently wasn’t about to be sold this bag of poop about her thinking that Thallan was just trying to get good tips out of her or them, or whatever.
Even looking down at the damn llama that was giving her a look that was by far, not remotely convincing.
Only that Arc gave her a look. A very dangerous look that curled lips into a very wicked bend, “Oh is that so?” So she wanted to fit the motif of his idea that he had mentioned. “Alright, I didn’t know yah were lookin’ for me to be the wing man this evenin’. But if that’s the case.” Now his expression carried the grim focus of a man who’d just been knighted in the court of debauchery.
Settling into his stool with one elbow hooked over the backrest, legs stretched out in the universal posture of I own this spot, but his eyes were working. Those sharp, heliotrope irises swept the bar with the efficiency of a predator sorting prey from background noise. He wasn’t just looking for men—no, Arc was assessing. Cataloguing. Judging.
First, a cluster in the corner—laughing too hard, too loud. Arc’s gaze lingered a second before he shook his head faintly. Too drunk already. They’d be slurring and spilling before one got past introductions. He needed endurance picks, men who could hold their liquor and a conversation.
A tall one near the far wall caught his attention next—broad shoulders, decent jawline, not bad on the eyes. Arc’s head tilted as though he were considering a wine label. Handsome, sure, but there was a stiffness to the way he sat, an uptight posture that screamed would ask for a receipt at a charity ball. He dismissed him with the smallest flick of his fingers. When he did see one he liked—a dark-haired man leaning on the counter, forearms braced and smile quick and easy—Arc made a subtle motion toward Calia, tipping his chin in the man’s direction. His mouth curved, half amusement, half conspirator’s signal, the kind of look that said, this one’s got promise.
He adjusted in his seat, back straightening, energy shifting as he settled into his role. If someone glanced his way, they’d just see a tall, outrageously well-built elf-turned-demon with a lazy smile and the kind of casual charm that pulled people in without them realizing. But under the surface, Arc was working—not for himself, but for her. Every flicker of his gaze was calculation, every shift in his posture a lure to draw in the right marks to her orbit. “Five yah want, yeah?” Apparently he was about to make her either regret all of this or he was going to win at this new idea.
As expected, he fell for her nonsense hook, line, and sinker. Because of course she knew she was beautiful and the likes of that bartender was probably weighing the pros and cons of flirting with a customer. Calia had spent enough times in bars and taverns to know when someone was eyeballing her. Didn’t stop that shit eating grin she got when Arc spilled out the frustrated compliments… until all of a sudden it was his countenance that shifted. Turning sly, turning serious.
Oh fuck. This was about to be trouble.
Her own expression fell into something of concern when he shifted around to start his perusal of everyone and everything in the place. She knew that look too, something shrewd, picking out the details, catching signs and warnings. Naturally she did, this was the kind of shit she did to pick out someone herself! With a dawning horror she realized he was going to take up this task like it was his damn job.
The last time she’d let someone pick out a beau for her she’d ended up with Starling! Good gods!
Calia almost almost sucked in a breath to tell him to cut it out. Only… damn it all if she wasn’t curious what he’d drag out of the shadows. Nor did she want him thinking he’d won this little game of bullshit she’d started. If he wanted to play the game, Calia was going to win it.
First a quick show of what she’d already clocked.
“Oh, you think it’s easy, do you? Finding someone that isn’t going to be an absolute disappointment and also isn’t trying to kill me? Let’s see,” she leaned in close to keep her voice down, but sure as hell didn’t mask or hide the fact she was directly pointing. Let everyone in the bar see her do it, she wasn’t leaving with any of them.
“Drunk, drunk, stupid, that one is married. Brittle bones, that one is eyeballing you, drunk, lazy.” she swiveled to the other side of the room. “Couldn’t lift a chicken, married, old, no teeth, that one killed someone today, and–“
The one he gestured at with the easy smile, there was a quirk at the corner of her mouth. “And I’d eat him alive.”
Satisfied she at least made things real difficult for him, or at the very least was going to make him give a second look for details that maybe he himself hadn’t caught, Calia straightened and smugly smiled.
“You’re never going to find five, maybe two at best.”
Arc let the smug little smirk stay on her face for about two heartbeats before he rose—slowly, deliberately—like a man taking the stage for the main act. He dusted himself off with both hands, smoothing his shirt in a way that was more for show than function, and arched one brow at her like she’d just dared him to leap off a cliff.
“Oh, fine,” he said, voice rolling with mock exasperation but eyes glittering like he’d been handed the keys to the kingdom. “If that’s how yah wanna play it.” He gave the table a little pat, like it was a loyal hound he’d be back for, and stood at full height. Broad-shouldered, self-assured, and absolutely radiating the air of someone who had no intention of backing down from a stupid idea.
Without another word, he started toward the crowd, scanning like a man on a hunt. First, the lean fellow at the end of the bar who already looked like he could hold his own in conversation without turning clingy—that one got a nod. Next, a more rugged elf with a scar that said bad decisions made me interesting, which Arc filed under maybe. And then, as if the gods themselves had dropped the challenge in his lap, he saw him.
A orc, impressively. Not a handsome creature by elf standards—not even close—but in orc terms? Practically a heartthrob. Broad jaw, tusks polished to a respectable gleam, biceps the size of tree trunks. The kind of man who could wrestle a bear for fun and then very politely open a door for a lady. Arc’s eyes narrowed with mischief. Oh, he was adding that one to the list, if for no other reason than to see the look on Calia’s face.
He glanced back at her just long enough to give a subtle two-fingered salute before rolling his shoulders like a prizefighter entering the ring. This wasn’t just a game anymore—it was personal. He was going to find her five, and by the end of it, he’d prove beyond a doubt that he wasn’t stupid enough to pick out dangerous sorts. Well… not dangerous in the wrong way.
Arc moved through the crowd like he’d been born to it, all casual charm and predator’s instinct. He didn’t waste time with the obvious drunks or the ones puffing themselves up like roosters—those were easy, lazy picks, and this was serious work. No, Arc was looking for something very specific: men who could actually handle Calia without folding like wet parchment the moment she turned the full force of her mischief on them. And he surely had the game to know who and what she might like. She may not agree with him, but he’d like to think he made enough of a difference now to declare he knew her at least well!
First, there was the sharp-eyed ranger leaning against the back wall, the kind of man who didn’t speak unless it mattered and didn’t waste words when he did. Arc liked that—he’d seen Calia eat the chatty ones alive. The ranger had enough presence to hold ground, and enough humor in his smirk when Arc approached that he was clearly game for trouble. A few words, a tilt of the head toward Calia’s table, and the first candidate was in motion.
Next, the broad-shouldered mercenary near the hearth—scars that said he’d been in fights and the relaxed ease of someone who’d won most of them. Not the clingy type either, Arc could tell. He’d give her space, but wouldn’t shy away if she pushed. Arc clapped him on the shoulder, murmured something that had the man laughing, and gestured toward Calia. Two down.
Then came the orc. Oh, the orc. Arc approached him like he was closing in on a rare prize at auction. The big bastard looked down at him with a slow, curious blink, and Arc grinned like they were already old friends. The exchange was short, but whatever Arc said made the orc’s tusked grin split wide. A moment later, that massive frame was lumbering toward Calia’s table, every step making the floorboards creak like they were questioning their life choices.
The fourth was a wiry, dark green-haired half-elf with clever hands and a quicker wit—Arc caught the way he was palming cards in a quiet game at the corner table. Not exactly clean-handed, but he had the sly glint of someone who’d make a game of keeping up with Calia’s antics. Arc didn’t even have to say much, just tipped his head toward her and let the half-elf size her up for himself.
And for the fifth… Arc found a human. Tall, steady, not a trace of fear in the way he met Arc’s gaze, and just enough of a grin to promise he’d be fun without being foolish. A rare breed, really. Arc leaned in close enough to mutter something that made the man snort before nodding toward the table.
Within minutes, Calia’s quiet corner of the bar became the center of attention as Arc’s handpicked selections—ranger, mercenary, troll, cardshark, and human—started making their way over in a steady, deliberate procession. Arc, of course, lingered just far enough away to watch it unfold, leaning against the wall with a smug little twist to his mouth and arms folded like a man waiting for applause. He didn’t need to say a word. The message was loud and clear: five… and I didn’t even break a sweat.
Calia should’ve known when he stood up that she’d made a huge mistake. All of those warnings bells should’ve been going off that a demon was loose on the prowl and she’d been the one dumb enough to give him the perfect means of making her eat her own words. Watching him with her eyes narrowing as he slipped through the bar like a damn shadow on a mission.
At first it was fine – thinking he would just pick out a few faces to point them out for her. Proceed to goad her and tease her until she finally dug up the will to bother laying her charm on whomever at least seemed a little bit interesting.
That two finger salute of his, though! Immediately she straightened up, realization dawning with a quick zing of horror. Don’t. Do not. That son of a–! Fuck.
Quick succession those thoughts went at the first person he bent to whisper to, and of course that bastard smiled because this was fucking funny as hell – if it weren’t about her and about to be her goddamned problem. The second man he approached laughed and Calia covered her mouth… mostly to make sure she didn’t start cursing out a line of obscenities at the demon who was presently either trying mortify her to death or give her the best night of her life.
The orc… alright, Calia would give Archimedes his flowers for that one, as that man could absolutely crush her in all the most delightful ways.
Calia couldn’t bear to witness any further of this bullshit turning back around in her seat, mouthing fuck, fuck, fuck before she took in a deep breath and reigned in her composure. What in the hells was he thinking! What were they thinking accepting weird offers by a strange man, because this had succubus trap all over it. The kind of story men told each other in bars to be leery of.
Unless, of course, he’d told them all something innocent and he was just waiting for Calia to say something incriminating.
Calia curled a bit of magic in her fingers and for a split second she didn’t know what she was going to do with it. Freeze time? Vanish herself? Set fire to a second tavern? Escape seemed to be at the forefront of her mind, until she caught a glimpse of that smug smile from over her shoulder.
Oh, fuck him. If he thought this was going to throw her off… He found five good enough to pique her interest. Fine. But that didn’t mean any of them were worth crawling into bed with!
Damn that Thallan, he better have a whole bottle for her!
Not about to deal with any of this seated like a proper young lady, Calia slid out of her seat in a showy display of oh so bored stretching. Finding perch there on the edge of the table before crossing her arms and giving the first of these approaching gentlemen the very best impression of noble superiority and wickedly charming smile They hadn’t clue of what they were getting into and neither did Archimedes.
“I didn’t realize this place was so crowded.”
They came in like a tide—no single file, no neat approach—just a loose knot of tall shadows and broad shapes breaking apart as they closed the distance to her table. And every one of them had that look in their eyes. Not the drunken, lopsided leer of amateurs, but the sharper gleam of men who’d practiced charm like other people practiced swordplay. It was obvious they knew exactly who had sent them over, and even more obvious they didn’t care—because the moment their attention fell on her, Calia was the only person in the room worth noticing.
The first was Tharos, the orc. Not the hulking, knuckle-dragging stereotype, but a clean-cut figure for his kind—tall enough to blot out the lantern light behind him, skin like polished slate, and tusks capped with silver. His dark hair was pulled back in an intricate braid, and his smile was slow, deliberate, as if he was already imagining her laughing at something he hadn’t said yet. “Crowded?” His voice was low, a rolling rumble that carried warmth. “I thought it was just the two of us. Everyone else is decoration.” He leaned one arm casually on the table’s edge, glancing at the others without breaking his grin. “You boys here to hold my coat while I talk, or…?”
That earned a laugh from Vaerion, the half-elf with green hair so vivid it seemed to catch the lamplight. His eyes were a cutting shade of gold, and there was an ease in his stance that made him look like he’d been born leaning on bar counters. “You think you’re getting first dibs just because you can look down on the rest of us without a chair? Please. She’s got room in her evening for someone with a bit of grace.” He swept a little half-bow to her, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “And I promise I only bite when asked.”
Dane came next—human, broad in the shoulders, with the kind of sun-bronzed skin and rough jawline that came from too many hours working outdoors. His hair was a sandy mess that somehow looked purposeful, and he had the easy air of a man who’d never needed to try too hard. “Greenhair here’s gonna talk your ear off,” he drawled, pointing a thumb at Vaerion. “The orc’ll tell you you’re pretty ’til you start believing it. Me?” He grinned, showing white teeth. “I’m just here to see if you drink as well as you look like you do.”
Sliding in with the unhurried gait of someone who never got turned down was Silven, a light-haired elf with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. His tunic was well-tailored, his boots immaculate, and his voice smooth enough to pour over ice. “Forgive them,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he met her gaze directly. “They haven’t learned that some company is worth savoring, not rushing.” He let the pause linger before adding, “Calia, isn’t it? I’d ask if you’d honor me with a drink, but I suspect we’d both enjoy making the others wait.”
The last was Branrik, the ranger built like a fortress wall. Where the others glided in, he strode up like a man heading to a winning hand at cards. “I was told,” he said bluntly, “That there was a woman over here worth risking my pride on. I don’t like wasting coin or dignity, so I hope he was right.” His grin was roguish, his eyes bright under their thick brows. “Now, which of us do I have to trip to get the seat next to you?”
Around them, the banter started immediately—Vaerion tossing a jab at Dane for leaning too close, Branrik telling Tharos to mind his tusks around her drink, Silven murmuring something low enough to make the others roll their eyes. But no matter how much they ribbed each other, the collective focus never strayed far from her—each waiting, in their own way, to see which line she’d bite first.
Arc sat there like a man who’d just thrown a match into a barrel of fireworks and was waiting for the grand finale. Elbows on the back of his chair, legs kicked out, expression the perfect picture of smug relaxation.
The “chosen ones” were in full formation now, circling Calia like they’d rehearsed it—Tharos the orc standing like a wall of carved stone and muscle, Vaerion prowling in with that smug green-haired saunter, Dane laying on the rough-hand charm, Silven purring out sentences like each one was dipped in wine, and Branrik just barreling into the fray without an ounce of subtlety.
From where Arc sat, it was a work of art. The body language, the competing glances, the little flare of rivalry when one of them made her laugh—it was better than any stage play. That’s when Thallan appeared, sliding into the seat beside Arc like they were co-conspirators in some long-running scam. The bartender leaned on the back of the chair, watching the chaos with a grin that was just a shade impressed.
“Look’s like you were plenty busy, then.” Thallan murmured, voice low but tinged with that incredulous amusement of a man watching a game he didn’t even realize had started.
Arc gave him a sidelong glance, smirk tugging at his mouth. “Took me all of two minutes to pick ’em. Not a bad hand, eh?”
The bartender let out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “That’s… that’s actually brilliant. They’re eating out of her hand already. You do this often?”
Arc shrugged, violet eyes drifting back to the scene. “Not often. But when I do… I like to be thorough.”
The man chuckled again, then, with a conspiratorial look, set a fresh glass down in front of Arc. “On the house. For the entertainment. If you can keep that going, I might even make it two.”
Immediately he raied the glass in an easy salute before taking a slow drink, eyes never leaving the unfolding spectacle. “Careful,” he said with a grin, “I might start charging admission.”
In a castle, in a palace, walking down the streets Princess Calia did not want to be perceived. Always stiff and quiet. That resting face of stone cold nothing that got her all kinds of unflattering names, especially when she did open her mouth and say something bluntly factual that no one really appreciated. Then there was tavern crawl, Masked Calia. From the day she realized she could travel by magic across the whole of Caeldalmor, she’d used a little glamour to be as forgettable as could be – yet equally as free to act just as she wished. Mysterious or bawdy, didn’t really matter. Whatever mood it was that struck her. Still, it was all a dim shadow of who she really was.
In the here and now? Calia hated how amused she was with the entire mess. No glamours to hide her real face, no holding back her words out of fear on how she’d be perceived or how any of them would react. She honestly didn’t give a shit what any of them thought – and how freeing that was! Annoyed that Archimedes had masterfully trapped her with the consequences of her own words for certain, but what a lark!
He’d certainly listened and paid attention to her own rants on what it was like for her trying to find someone just right. Somehow he’d gathered up a little passel of them, good to look at, amusing to talk to… nary a one giving her that feeling they had expectations of her, which made it all the easier to relax and play this game of volleying banter. Not having to feign interest in the conversation just to sate egos, simply going with the flow to laugh or gently flirt. Likely making it easier for the lot of them too that she had, otherwise they’d have walked into something stupid, sketchy, or just plain awkward had she been the sort of woman to curl into herself with shyness or start shrieking from fear!
Masterful in her own right too in learning little details without favoring too heavily on any single one. Branrik’s way of bein straight forward and cutting through all the bullshit was a delight, to which she easily played up again that half-elf Vaerion because he was so full of his own bullshit that she was quick to laugh. She most certainly tested Dane on just how hard of a drink he could stomach without pulling a face, because she might’ve looked perfectly human but she sure as hell wasn’t. Silven had those elven sensibilities and yet didn’t stumble at all with her attempts at shaking him. And Tharos was one that didn’t seem like the type to blush, but he proved to be out of the norm for typical orcs with every sly question she applied!
For a small moment Calia almost even considered the merit of this motley crew! All five would be pure insanity no matter how amusing and deviant those mental images could be. To choose one, maybe even two was perfectly acceptable and it wasn’t hard at all to see which ones might just be deviant enough in their own right to match with another without getting awkward or intimidated.
Only… verdant gaze always found it’s way back to Archimedes. Checking where he was, watching what he was doing. Fully having expected him to bugger off the second she wasn’t paying attention. As entertaining as all this attention was, with no denying the fact she enjoyed every moment of it… there was still some element missing. Oh, it’d been distracting enough for a couple hours, and maybe if she pushed herself she could have a good time with any one of them. It just…. missed the mark.
Calia didn’t even know what her problem was, so how could Arc even begin to guess!
“As much as I hate to be the herald of bad news, I’m afraid you’ve all been bamboozled into chasing after an unobtainable golden goose. A wild goose chase as it were,” she grinned wide and almost even just a little apologetic. “You’ve all been great company, however, and I might find myself looking back in the future and imagining what might have been.”
The bar had gotten livelier in the past hour—fuller, louder, the air now carrying the mixed scents of spiced liquor, roasted meats, and the faint tang of damp wool from travelers shrugging off cloaks. Lanternlight bounced off tankards and bottles behind the counter, casting a warm, golden haze over everything. Laughter rose and fell in pockets across the room, punctuated by the occasional slam of a hand on wood or the clatter of dice hitting a table. Thallan, all silk and muscle, was now a dark flash weaving through the crowd with a tray balanced on one hand, that sharp, easy grin of his drawing just as many stares as the drinks he delivered.
Calia’s little circle of would-be suitors—Arc’s “carefully selected candidates”—stood like a mismatched council before her, each reacting in their own way to her announcement.
Branrik, all solid shoulders and blunt honesty, gave a short bark of laughter, shaking his head like a man told his wager had been lost fair and square. “Figures,” he said, deep voice carrying easily over the noise. “Still, not a bad way to waste an afternoon.” He tipped his glass toward her in a mock salute before finishing it in a swallow, looking more amused than wounded.
Vaerion, the green-haired half-elf whose ego could have its own postal district, clutched at his chest like she’d put a blade between his ribs. “A golden goose?” he said with theatrical devastation. “Then I suppose I must console myself with being the most devastatingly handsome failure of your day.” The smirk stayed on his lips, but there was the faintest edge to it, like a man not used to being told no.
Dane, leaning against the nearest post with the comfortable sprawl of someone who’d had his share of long nights, just chuckled. “Fair enough,” he said, voice low and easy. “But if you ever change your mind and want to finish that drinking challenge proper, you know where to find me.” His smile lingered just long enough to make it clear the offer wasn’t a throwaway.
Silven, all fine bone structure and perfect posture, inclined his head in a gesture so polished it almost gleamed. “An honest rejection is still a kindness,” he replied smoothly, though there was a subtle shift in his eyes—just enough to betray a pinch of genuine regret. “You’ve been… a delightful mystery, Calia.”
And Tharos, the broad-shouldered troll whose tusks caught the light every time he spoke, only gave a slow, rumbling nod. “Worth the try,” he said simply, deep voice vibrating in the bones. “Not often someone keeps me on my toes.” The five exchanged small looks—half camaraderie, half resignation—before peeling off into the crowd, swallowed by the ebb and flow of the bar. A few were intercepted by other patrons, already easing into new conversations.
Arc had not so much as twitched from his place at the bar since the whole farce began. He was the very picture of improbable good behavior, lounging with one elbow hooked on the counter, his long frame settled into an easy sprawl that somehow looked both lazy and deliberate. Before him lay a thick, leather-bound book—its spine well-worn, pages whispering as they turned at a slow, unhurried pace. Now and then, that faint curl tugged at the corner of his mouth, the kind of expression that could mean he’d just read something amusing… or that he was quietly savoring the chaos he’d so effortlessly set in motion without leaving his seat. His ale sat within easy reach, and he was on his third, nursing it with the patient rhythm of a man who could linger there all night if left to his own devices.
From time to time, his gaze would drift up from the page, sweeping over the room with idle detachment—not the restless search of someone itching for trouble, but the casual, cataloguing eye of a predator who didn’t need to chase to know exactly where every moving part was. It was a quiet, calculated sort of awareness, though the rest of him radiated nothing but ease.
The ridiculous golden-winged llama that Calia had created had claimed the space beside his glass as its personal runway. It toddled along the counter in awkward, curious little circuits, its jeweled beetle-wings catching the lamplight in quick flashes. Every so often, it leaned its plush head down to sniff at the wet ring his glass had left behind, or poked at the worn bar surface as if expecting something to sprout there. Arc didn’t seem especially bothered by it—he’d clearly decided to keep the thing close rather than let it go blundering into the wrong hands. A long finger would occasionally tap against its rump to turn it away from the edge, or a lazy sweep of his palm would redirect it when it strayed too near an ink pot or someone else’s plate.
Thallan drifted past in the midst of his rounds, the crowd having swelled into a lively press of voices and laughter that filled every corner of the room. With one smooth motion, the bartender set a fresh drink in front of Arc without breaking stride. No questions, no commentary—just a brief, knowing grin that carried equal measures of approval and curiosity. There was no doubt the man had noticed the little matchmaking stunt Arc had orchestrated from afar, and perhaps was even a little impressed by how the half-demon had managed it without so much as standing. Arc accepted the unspoken compliment with nothing more than a slight tilt of his head, one hand sliding the new drink closer while the other turned another page. He didn’t bother with an explanation—whether for the drink, the chaos, or the llama—and after a slow sip, his attention returned entirely to the book as if the rest of the room had ceased to exist.
Each gave their own farewell and she in turn gave hers as well, genuine and soft in her own sort of way. A cheeky wink there, a regretful shrug of the shoulder there. The ghost of a winsome smile, a gentle squeeze of arm to a bright laugh. Weird as it might’ve been, it wasn’t a bad experience at all, orchestrated in such a way that was so irritatingly Archimedes that it was so easy to imagine what sort of menace he would’ve been as an advisor to a future king. Nysia’s stunts would’ve looked like a child’s game in comparison.
Calia stayed there at the edge of her table for a moment even after the too-well selection of potential mates had wandered off back to their own lives. Sitting in there in that warm and fuzzy feeling of just getting to be a normal woman for an hour or so, lavished with attention and having all the options in the world. Almost regretting that she’d put a stop to it at all… for what? Examining it carefully in her mind, just in case she’d somehow it her own emotions get away with her again and was shoving an opportunity away simply because she was scared.
Finally landing on the fact that they just didn’t know her, the whole of who she was. A night might’ve been fun and entertaining, but it would’ve only been the night. In the end she’d be going back to her lonely life of being this shiny idea of a thing everyone wanted, yet not really what they wanted at all. That wasn’t a nightmare she wished on anyone.
So Calia placed each of their names and faces away in her mind, for who knew what the future might hold. Maybe one of them was the perfect man to trip into Nova’s path. Happy High Tide, Nova, here’s a bouquet of husbands for you!
Although… maybe not entirely alone. Calia found her way back to the bar, slipping into the chair next to Arc to give his book and the enchanted critter a subtle once over. Finding a strange sort of warm satisfaction that he was still there at all. An ease of breathing, when she hadn’t thought she’d been struggling before.
With a soft tap of her fingers to get Thallan’s attention, wordless she mouthed I’m here and gestured her level with her hand. Signaling that she still had several drinks to go if she wanted to reach her lofty sloshy goals.
Then it was a heavy, dramatic sigh and a lean to softly bump her shoulder against the demon’s. “You win. I don’t know why I doubted you at all. Truly you are a master of your crafts. The best and most fantastical advisor a demented fae renegade princess thing could have. Any one of them would’ve been a fine companion had I not someone better to spend my time with.”
He’d been somewhere in the middle of his page when Calia had both dismantled and shooed away her harem of various men and came to plop her rear down on the stool beside him. Some the corner of his eye he had noticed Cabbagebutt –yes that was exactly what the thing was called now- was making itself know with its stupid eyebrows and eyes looking in two distinctly different directions and how Calia was flagging down Thallan for a new glass of whatever it was he had brought her to properly pickle that of insides.
Finishing his page in the troll cookbook he had pulled out of somewhere at some point, to slowly raise his gaze to her. Using thumb to hold his page and other hand to pick up the drink to properly re-wet his whistle.
Seemingly offering her a look when she bumped him softly and gave her best conceding speech about how he won and she didn’t know why she doubted him at all. Making it so over the top and extra that he was expecting her to clap her hands together at the end to make confetti fly out in the shape of little beetles! Arc’s grin hooked sideways, sly as a fox with a hen under each arm. “See? I told yah. Should’ve just trusted me from the start and saved us all the suspense,” he said, swirling the ale in his glass like it was a victory trophy. “Now, of course, I’ll have to update my résumé— Archimedes Silverstone, Former Elf of Dubious Virtue, Demon of Irresistible Charm, Eternal Purveyor of Ill-Advised Shenanigans, Lifelong Student of ‘It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time,’ Patron of Overcomplicated Introductions, Grand Master of Wingmanship for Discerning Royal Runaways, Official Harbinger of Handsome Distractions, Keeper of the Sacred Llama of Golden Wings, and Notary Public of Absolutely None of This. Might even get it embroidered on a sash. Wear it to all the important functions.”
He tipped his drink toward her in mock toast, violet eyes gleaming. “And don’t think I won’t be remindin’ yah of this moment for the rest of yer natural life, petal. Could’ve had five fine blokes hangin’ off yer every word, but nooo—guess yer stuck with me. What bad taste yah have, it’s tragic, really.”
Calia let him preen, supposing he at least deserved a little bit of appreciation for pulling off something no one else in the world could do. Nodding along with agreement until he started listing off his titles, wrinkling her nose by the time he got to Grand Master and finding herself regretting coming back to sit with him at all! Perhaps she should’ve wandered off to go fuck her way through a dungeon crawling party! It would’ve been better than this never ending nonsense!
Scoffing under her breath at his salute and rolling her eyes to go along with it. At least until she settled in her stool again, pasting that nonchalant look on her face.
“…so my little critter is sacred now, is it? You liiiike it? It is your coconspirator of mayhem?” Even Calia couldn’t get through it with a straight face, slipping into a silly bit of grinning that was likely egged on by the amount of alcohol she’d already consumed and having one too many people letting her get away with saying whatever nonsense came to mind.
“It was a valiant effort, beetlebug. I’d return the favor, but I’m sure you could just whistle and someone would fall into your lap with enthusiasm and grace.” A little bit annoying, the thought of that, but it was what it was. At least he enjoyed it and Calia didn’t have to think about it. or be involved!
She reached out to gently flick his hand.
“Now that I’ve thwarted what was likely going to be one hell of a story about the Whore of Caeldalmor, what shall we do to top the wild buck incident? Oh which I still haven’t found someone to answer, by the way. I’m starting to think Miss Molly has exaggerated something boringly mundane.”
“Cabbagebutt,” He corrected her so matter of fact about her blithering on about how he liked the thing and it was now his co-conspirator of mayhem. Tossing a look to the thing and, “He deserves a top hat, don’t yah think?” Of course he wasn’t answering the question but also answering it in his own way. Maybe it was growing on him like a fungus, or Arc figured out that if he seemed like he cared about it, she wouldn’t make a new one for a bit. Whatever it was, he was not telling.
Just watching as Thallan made his way around like a veteran bartender and plunked down a new glass of whatever syrupy nonsense that was meant to make Calia stupid. Already off on his next adventure of serving Gaia only knew what!
“Well if they were fallin’ in my lap with such enthusiasm, I ought to know what sort of spell I cast. And dispel it, the chase and the flirtin’ is the best part! If they fall so easily, then they aren’t ones I want.” A lazy shrug was given and eyes looked to where she was flicking him. To where she posed what they were to do now, since she had taken his carefully curated arrangement of every suitable sort that he believed would compliment to one of her desires and threw them away; it seemed she was about to forgo the whole don’t make trouble clause of this whole eventful outing. “I ain’t heard a peep either, so perhaps she was tryin’ to spin yarns for us to raise brows at. Which, touché.”
The cookbook was set down and picking up Cabbagebutt to be given a light float so it could glide around where he could watch. “Now do yah really want to cause mischief here, love. Or do yah just want Thallan to waggle his brows at yah with a promise of more drinks. Let yah inhibitions go and then when yer good and plastered, yah will make the new incident accidentally?”
“Cabbagebutt,” she repeated with a tone that was both horrified and so very sorry for the little petal llama that didn’t deserve such an awful moniker. Nothing was nothing cabbage about it! Leaving her giving him a doubtful up and down glance about this top hat suggestion, for he’d spent the entire day throwing the blasted thing. She didn’t trust this new truce in the slightest.
At least the handsome bartender was doing his job with a speed an efficiency Calia could admire. Plucking up that drink on the instant it hit the table to quickly down in a few deep, heavy swallows. Elven mixed drinks were always so painfully sugary, yet they came with so much alcohol in them that any average person might get knocked to the floor after the third one! Fantastic if you were intending to make a bunch of bad decisions.
…to which Calia was still debating about. For she’d waffled and wasted her opportunity to dive into the arms of someone to turn her brain off. Her backup plan was to drink so much she didn’t have a conscious thought left. Only her first and foremost agenda was making sure a demon was well entertained.
Although he HAD made a grand ass of her and gotten to show off already. He was surely finding ways to entertain himself with or without her.
“Making deliberate mischief does sound like too much work. And I’ll have you know I have never been so smashed that I made mischief accidentally, either. Always with intent, petal, or I might kill someone without meaning to.”
That was a bit of an ominous statement, especially when she said it with a smile. Only, fact was fact. She’d been plenty drunk before, but one could bet she’d been oh so careful not to cross lines that were liable to hurt someone. Unfortunately all her accidents had been when she was stone cold sober!
“Do you want to go dance with me? You’ll make a better partner than Sir Cabbage.”
“Say it with your chest out, he’s a noble sort Calia.” Arc attempted to correct her tone because well, it was her own damn fault for insisting the thing stay with him. Either he was going to use her creation as a thing to harass others with or he was going to adopt the thing to be a agent of his selected chaos. And required the worst name he could possibly think of that wasn’t lengthy or details. And for Cabbagebutt’s dutiful service, he deserved a top hat for it. Maybe even a little cape!
Looking at her with the near expectation that she would do so because thus far, every verbal suggestion he had made, she added to it!
So make with the magic, Calia!
Just she was taking back the drink that had been dropped off like a couriered package and made it part of her digestive system. Even making him grimace at it because well, he knew how sickly sweet elven drinks were and he would happily stay with the brew of dark-amber spirit that had tasted faintly of coffee, iron and scorched cinnamon bark. Almost convinced at his first sip that it was the time of brew that mercs used that wanted a drink that also could double as a disinfectant. Going down like molten iron and threatening to keep him up till sunrise!
It’d grown on him but there wasn’t much affect yet.
“Well there’s always time,” Arc offered, clearly not offput by her cryptic commentary. It was a very Calia thing to do and it had a lot of merit behind it. Likely because it was true. The woman was as blunt and sharp about her actions as a new knife, and her smile was simply the sheathe that had been misplaced at the wrong time.
For the moment, he took up the glass once more. Knocking back his molten iron to drown the rest away and gave Cabbagebutt a final look over that decided it would be fine flying around. It’d likely follow him anyways since Calia had installed the thing to do so! Obviously!
Feet slid him off the stool like he’d just been summoned to accept a trophy for Most Unnecessary Levels of Confidence. He smoothed his lapels—never mind that he wasn’t wearing anything that had lapels—with the kind of flourish only a man very committed to his own performance could muster. Then, pivoting with all the pomp of a half-drunk duke who thought he owned the moon, he extended his hand to her. “My lady,” he intoned in mock-regal grandeur, bowing just enough to make it look ridiculous, “Would the Great and Terrible Destroyer grace this unworthy soul with a dance? I warn yah—my steps are as lethal as my charm, and both have taken lives.”
If he was going to treat the little thing as their new royal guest, who was Calia to argue? Watching with a dubious twist of her mouth while he finished off his own drink and slid to his feet. Leaving her tossing her head back with a soft groan when he made it all a grand dramatic flourish.
Yet she was still taking his hand and hopping off her own seat, wasn’t she?
“Don’t make it weird,” she warned him, keeping hold of hand but pressing her other to his chest to push him backwards and guide him through the crowd, like she was worried he was going to make some twinkle toed move to escape the tavern entirely. Calia hadn’t forgotten those comments in the capitol that Archimedes didn’t dance.
And fust because he’d started his nonsense about poor Cabbagebutt, it did seem he needed something to reflect his elevated station as he floated around the room looking perfectly royal. A small twirl of her fingers to shift some of those blue petals into a violet vest, and a little soft pop of pistols becoming a tiny gold monocle.
Perfect for a distinguished gentleman.
“Now when have you ever killed someone with dance and charm,” she asked on blooming into a wicked smile. “Or do you mean swooning ladies left and right, because you know that I naught but something frigid and heartless, so all of your lethal wiles are about as effective as a bleating goat.”
She told him not to make it weird but she was still taking that offered hand. Earning a roguish and entirely impish spread of a grin. Because what she was calling weird, was hardly unusual. They’d been travelling for how long both on terms of good and bad. She surely knew that he was only the comedic sort that had to have a word in some twisted amusement. “Yah like it, and yah know it.” Arc hummed as she started giving him a push backwards to indicate where she wanted to go.
Without refusal or complaint in step to do so, his attention only flickered to where she was making the little creature all the more fanciful. It wasn’t the top hat and cape but it worked well enough.
If it was supposed to be a reflection of him, it had better start developing an attitude and cheek in abundance to be truly a mirror. “Well I can’t tell yah details as it would be too impolite to give even to the most bloodied of ears.” Violets narrowed playfully, “And don’t yah worry. I ain’t intendin’ on usin’ my best lethal wiles on one who cannot be charmed. Sounds like a perfect waste of effort and I’d have better luck usin’ my head to chop wood. So I suppose I will just wear the title of bleatin’ goat for this evenin’.” Moving into position for the means of dancing. And to remove any beliefs potentially for whatever Calia was expecting.
He didn’t go for anything that resembled proper steps. He moved like the music was just an excuse—turning her with a flick of the wrist when best, shifting close only to spin her away again, dipping her half just to snatch her upright with a grin that was far too pleased with itself. It wasn’t neat, but it was alive—an easy, instinctive rhythm that said he could dance if he wanted to… but he wasn’t about to let it get boring enough to look like he cared.
Calia’s laughter was immediate whether she wanted to admit that she liked it or not, giving away the truth of her thoughts through the simple motions. With all the more toothy grinning when he claimed the role of bleating goat. Suspecting he’d somehow find a way to make even that endearing if he truly wanted to.
As for dancing, well… Calia had always been confident in her own skin and body. Moving with a kind of grace might’ve been easily explained away with centuries of royal blood and a faeling secrets, somehow just unapologetically taking up space and existing like the floor was hers to do as she pleased. Now, with enough drink in her to temper away any dark thoughts or any concerns, she might as well have been the water or the wind! Allowing him to move, guide, lead her however he damned well pleased with no care in the world if it was stilted or messy. He might as well have been a magnet for how effortlessly she bent and mirrored any movement.
There was no doubt there with every bit of cackling laughter and flourish of hands that this was something that she loved. A core vital part of her that so instinctively felt the physicality of music, that without it she would not be Calia. A little piece of her soul being laid bare in a flitter of tipsy twirls and a rare moment of candid joy.
Arc matched her energy with an easy grin, letting her flow around him like she owned every inch of the floor—which, let’s be honest, she probably thought she did. He didn’t bother to outshine her; that wasn’t the game. His steps were quick where hers were slow, lazy where hers were sharp, a deliberate counterbalance like he was keeping the whole thing alive just by making sure it never got too predictable.
“You know,” he drawled as he caught her in a turn and sent her spinning out again, “I’m startin’ to think the floor is actually yers. I’m just the hired entertainment keepin’ it warm ’til yah feel like usin’ it.” He leaned in as she came back to him, voice dropping into that low, conspiratorial tone of his. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to leave a few scuffs so the next poor bastard knows he’s got somethin’ to live up to.”
With that, he dipped her—not a stiff, formal thing, but a sudden, almost reckless swoop that left her laughing—and pulled her upright again with a flourish, clearly pleased with himself. “Besides,” he added, flashing that wicked little grin, “Yah twirl like a menace. I’m just here to keep yah from takin’ out any tables.”
“Who is paying you!” she exclaimed with wholehearted amusement at the thought that she owned the floor, for she wasn’t exactly thinking about it or anything really, beyond just moving with him. Letting out that trilling laugh so easily at being suddenly dipped without even a single cell of her going stiff or being concerned about potentially being dropped on the floor. Calia might as well have been boneless with all of the trust in the world.
That amount of trust might’ve even been worth thinking about, only once she was back on her feet breathless and faintly dizzy, he made a comment that did finally make her give a glance around to the rest of the room. A little more aware that it wasn’t just the two of them in the middle of nowhere but rather a crowded tavern full of people and furniture.
“The tables ought to get out of my way then,” she muttered, and in that moment of absurdity reached out her hand to rake her fingers across the top with the softest release of enchantment. As easy as she made her odd creatures, it crawled it’s down into the very wooden posts that made up it’s four legs, where it sprouted dozens of almost imperceptible wriggling new centipede appendages. The whole table shifted ever so slowly to start it’s drawl.
A bunch of very drunk elves, orcs and trolls were about to have a bewildering night.
Mischief with purposeful intent, not an accident. Written all over her face in those brief seconds before she was taking a contented breath and tilting her head to gesture she’d had enough of dancing and like the wild whims of any flighty fae she was ready to move on to the next bit of entertainment.
“Wouldn’t yah like to know?” Flashing her a conspiratorial grin that was one hundred percent nonsense and lies; Arc didn’t miss his beat. Unbothered even as the idea of reminding that they were hardly alone being to loud and dancing dolts to a beat that was coming from the musician’s present; it was her motion of hand that made him flicker attention.
The thread of magic moving to be picked up and then noticing how she made one of the tables decidedly start moving out of the way. Seeing how a few addled people were noticing and doing that comical double take as if not certain they seen what they thought they saw. Spurring a smirk from him. While he righted them both upwards and she was already making it clear that her whims were as fickle as the very bloodline that ran her veins. Now bored of the means of dancing and looking for him as her jester to provide a new source of entertainment.
Maybe he should be getting paid because she was truly fussy.
Do this, now this!
Before her newly enchanted table could find its way potentially crawling across the wall, Arc guided her to it. Pulled a chair forward for her to sit and motioned with a snapping wave to catch Thallan’s attention. Prompting a silent exchange that loudly expressed likely another round. He on the other hand remained standing but leaned an arm onto the table to squash it into place. “And what is it now that yah be seekin’ for yer next piece of the agenda.” Arc looked at her impishly thankfully, “Besides a refresher on yer drink tab.”
He pulled a chair and had her sit, to which Calia did with all the primness of a very tall and demure queen. Deceptively obedient in that motion if there were trouble written all over her features. Breathless and a little flushed in the face from dancing, she’d settled into a delightfully good mood and it was about to be everyone’s problem. There were no royals to offend and create an international incident, after all.
More drinks would’ve been the first thing she requested, and he’d already beat her to the punch on that. Signaling to Thallan that another was necessary. Then he’d leaned on her newly enchanted table, making her eyes go wide with concern as she bent just enough to peer down at the bottom feet to see if that motion had killed the enchantment at all. Amused to find all those wriggling legs were still there and trying very hard to resume their crawling. So a demon could weight it down and keep it still, but it was likely to run off with any drinks and meals set atop it.
Beautiful.
“This is where I would typically grab the object of my affection and drag him off for the evening,” she admitted without care and a shrug of her shoulders. “So we are at drinking until I can’t walk straight, but not so much that I pick up a lute and start singing.”
Before he made comment about that, she quickly lifted a finger from both hands to make him pause and refocus attention. Steadfast on her mission of giving him a day away from all their troubles, and determined not to be the one having all the fun.
“You’ve danced with me, so then how can I entertain you. Not even the sky is a limit. I’ll give you anything.”
Whether he played this song and dance before –beyond the literal means of it- he knew well enough that Calia’s means of getting drunk had been her desire loudly claimed. And Thallan was happy to oblige so long as they paid the tab at the end of the night. Just he wasn’t sure the barkeep would appreciate a table on his roof with its thousands of legs holding it hostage up there. Not sure if that came with an inconvenience fee and really, he didn’t want to find out.
So even as she looked to see if he had killed her newest creation, Arc chuckled as she detailed this was the part when she would have taken her pick of whatever man had been eyeballing her and made him disappear till the wee hours of the morning. “I gave yah a whole buffet that yah turned down already,” he shifted his weight to remind her of such, as he promised he would.
And started to truly open his mouth because that was how he worked, about her suggesting she wasn’t near to the point that she started caterwauling with a lute in hand. But she had made a motion for him to focus and he huffed at her. Landing a stare that proved he didn’t need assistance to focus, he wasn’t the one tipsy.
And about to be more so with the run-by drop off as Thallan appeared and disappeared to make his round effectively. “Entertain me?” Arc laughed at that easily, picking up the drink that was his own to scoot closer and keep the table hostage. “Such a dangerous offerin’, Lia. And thankfully as horrible and truly a deep scoundrel that I am, I seek nothin’ from yah.” To punctuate his sentence, he took a good deep drink. “And I am entertained. Watchin’ yah not be such a sour puss with twelve sticks in yer ass. Or broody.”
“You did. It was a good selection, I’m just broken inside,” was her quick rejoinder, out before she could stop it and was proven shortly in his next statements that she was a broody stick in the ass! Calia debated if that was the part she was going to take offense to or the fact he was refusing her offer of entertainment in that moment she reached for her new glass to deftly swallow it’s contents.
Thallan was surely switching it up on her to be sure she wasn’t about to grow bored or know what to expect from these increasing level of alcoholic drinks. Instead of sugary syrup this one had a spicy bite to it strong enough to make her tongue tingle. Absolutely horrible enough that she couldn’t drink it all in one swallow, she had to pause in the middle to lower it and eye the contents before she wrinkled up her nose and drank the rest.
Calia set the glass down on the table and gave it legs too. Out of harmless spite.
“I was not always brooding, you know. At least I hadn’t thought so back then! I practically lived in places like this, watching and listening. Playing a fool when it suited me, chatting and flirting and living a life. …granted the only magic involved then was a glamour so I’d not be recognizable. I have to admit it is a great deal more fun not being afraid.”
He would have rolled his eyes at her if he wasn’t sure she would reach over and slap him for the whole suggestion that she was broken inside. And he was the one who was dramatic? “Yer not broken, yah just have a lot goin’ on. There’s a difference. If yah were broken, yah wouldn’t be in this bar.” Likely sequestered away or they’d still be travelling into crawjag’s domain. With no room for anything in-between. But was he about to say that, hell no!
Busy wondering what the hell sort of fleetfoot magic it was that Thallan possessed in secret to zip here, to fro, to over there. Because he was dropping off drinks at the speed of light and she was making it disappear like it was water. He didn’t even want to think about what it would all taste like if it all came back up in whatever rainbow hue it came as. Let alone the headache that would be produced come the morning.
And she was inspiring the drink to decidedly start crawling around. Earning a look but he wasn’t about to stop it from deciding to go for a wander. If she was determined to make the furniture go for a tour in the bar, well, suppose that wasn’t up to him to manage.
“Yeah, well… I didn’t know yah back then. So I have nothin’ to compare it too,” Setting down his glass and holding it still with a cautionary watch. Arc tipped his chair back just enough to look like he was two drinks into not giving a damn, elbow hooked over the backrest and that lazy, knowing smirk creeping in.
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” he said, voice all smooth amusement. “But I can see it now—little storm of a thin’, breezin’ through taverns, laughin’ with strangers, probably sittin’ in some poor sod’s lap without askin’ just so you could steal his drink. All charm and sparkle, never lettin’ ’em see the sharp edges till yah were halfway out the door but likely not at all.” His eyes narrowed, but not unkindly, like he was cataloguing her tells. “Now, though? Yah’ve got it refined. All pretty smiles and polite enough words when necessary—just sharp enough to cut if someone leans in too close. Keep most folks at arm’s length till yah’ve decided if they’re worth the effort but most aren’t and yah too busy in yer own head nine times outta ten.”
Arc let that linger before shrugging. “But that ain’t neither here nor there and hardly a topic yah want to talk about in any sort, so let’s pretend that I ain’t aware of it and yah give that guys chair, some legs too.” He pointed at someone to be the object of her next chaos moment.
She wouldn’t be in this bar if she were broken? Coming from the man who liked to pretend he was fine and did a grand job of doing it most of the time! Calia might’ve laughed and told him he was full of shit again, but she was liking the easy way they were talking to each other. One of the rare moments of being candid without frenzy and coming off a traumatic moment of something terrible.
The fact that he was comfortable enough to be draping over chairs and yet still held onto his glass as if he were afraid it too was going to grow legs gave her a great deal of satisfaction. There probably wasn’t another person in the world who could match his mettle when it came to keeping things lively.
“Analyze me all you like, Archimedes. Figure out the ins and outs of me, I’m not complicated.” she answered with a slight shrug of her shoulders and a cheeky grin. “I’ve only ever told you the truth of my thoughts. You don’t always like it or believe me, but they’re my truth nonetheless.” Her truth… a deliberate statement, as even Calia had to admit to herself that she didn’t always know the depth of her own thoughts or reasonings and she had many plenty enough mistakes and assumptions. With him included. Still, she never lied to him on purpose, not when it mattered.
Though he did successfully derail her own thoughts to point out some poor bloke across the room. Without even second-thinking it, Calia leaned in her chair reaching downwards towards the floor. Pressing fingertip to the floorboards to cast her magic through it until it wrapped it’s way around yonder chair. Sprouting wriggling little legs.
Poor things, they struggled with the weight and weren’t quite able to get moving. Except when he rose just enough to pull ass up from seat and then that chair skittered it’s merry way along and with a loud yelp and ruckus instead of ass meeting chair, it met floor instead.
Calia very quickly sat up and found sudden interest in leaning on her own enchanted table and glancing up towards the candlelight chandeliers.
She was so full of bullshit that she was one runny comment away from her eyes turning brown. To suggest she wasn’t complicated was absolutely the largest lie she had ever told. And he suspected it was one hundred percent because she really believed it.
Just people who weren’t complicated, didn’t need to hide themselves away. From others, from themselves. To lash thoughts into silence and bulldoze their way through whatever obstacle came next. That talked down about themselves and such. But, he wasn’t about to get into it because unlike her, he damn well knew what sort of myriad of a storm housed itself within himself. And when they did get into it with another, they both had a strong tendency to rip, snarl and tear at the other till they were both bloody. And he, absolutely didn’t want to be part of it.
Which was why he made use of pointing out a task of mischief for her and she leapt to it like a eager kid. Leaning down to press touch to floorboards and shortly, the man was relieved of his chair by one rogue asscheek lift!
Falling all the way down to cause a commotion and Calia was taking a new interest in that of the chandeliers. And other eyes watching as the chair was just meandering its way along like not a single chair in the world. For now it really didn’t have one, being freed from ass-tyranny! Leaving him to scoff, “That the best yah can do?” Goading her intentionally, letting violets peer over the precise timing of lifting his glass and paused. “To others, don’t do shit to me.” He stated just in case she got any ideas.
Well, they’d almost had a moment, anyway. Of talking to each other for real about something that might matter. Right there on the cusp of it, had he not diverted her attention back towards a little bit of light mischievous magic. Worse yet playing on her ego on whether or not that was all she could do. And like a fool she fell for it, incentivized by good liquor and the rare opportunity of having someone actually ask her to show them what she could get up to!
First it was a narrowing of her eyes at him – not him was his immediate correction and she shifted into sitting straighter in her seat. Flickering eyes of deep green towards the rest of the tavern, likely at the very peak of it’s night filled to the brim with chatty faces and boisterous patrons. Music loud enough to be enjoyed by all, but not so loud that it drowned out conversation. There were others dancing and enjoying their time. Patrons at tables and tucked away in corners both in groups and those singularly alone.
That roving chair was doing it’s best impression of a real chair when anyone looked at it directly. Likewise too her enchanted glass, for it had no interesting in tipping off the table to a shattering fall. With her elbow resting on it, her own table was behaving for now.
The nonsense of falling marshmallows in Tir Elas had been an easy idea, inspired by wanting to please a single moonbeam elf. What to do in the here and now that’d be a good bit of fun, and wasn’t going to actually be disastrous and menacing? Strange and spectacular magic, then. Well curated whimsy that’d leave a tavern full of patrons wondering if the drinks had just been that good or if something odd had occurred at all.
Gaze went upwards against to the dangling bit of wood and twisted metal housing a circle of warm slow burning candles. On taking a deep breath, she aimed the release upwards at those flames nice and slow. Until they all flickered and a small little sparkle came loose from each and everyone. They floated and drifted until they sprouted little firefly wings and then off they zipped into the many corners of the place right into any bits of furniture and decor they could weave themselves into. A rug started squirming. Someone’s cane went limp as a noodle to slither to the floor. Another chair scooted and a table inched.
Maybe she should’ve been a little more selective about where those magic fireflies went, as one disappeared onto the nose of a mounted deer head, effectively beginning what was about to be a sequel to the wild buck incident.
All it took was a gesturing count of one, two, three with her fingers before absolute mayhem erupted!
Arc didn’t even glance up right away when the first sign of trouble began—a low, almost questioning murmur that rippled across the room like a pebble into still water. Then, a chair slid two feet of its own accord, stopping just short of spilling its occupant. The man yelped, leaping to his feet so fast he caught his boot on the table leg and sent his drink flying into an unsuspecting bystander.
From there, it was a masterclass in escalating absurdity.
The rug in the center of the room reared like some monstrous serpent, flinging an elf clear off his feet. His companion—already mid-swig—spat ale halfway across the room in shock, hitting a gnome who let out such an indignant squeak that three others turned to see what was wrong, only to have their chairs promptly swivel away from the table as though embarrassed to be seen with them. By the fireplace, the mounted deer head gave a great shudder, glass eyes snapping wide before it bellowed a sound that was somewhere between a war horn and a drunken yodel. The noise froze half the tavern in place, long enough for the damn thing to wrench itself from the wall and land with a mighty thud, its antlers catching on the drapes and bringing them down in a tangled, fluttering mess that engulfed two patrons entirely. From within the fabric came muffled swearing and the distinct sound of someone spilling a tray of drinks.
Somewhere behind Arc, a table had decided it had been underappreciated long enough and took off across the floor like it had urgent business to attend to in the kitchen. Three drunken elves tried to stop it, only to be dragged halfway there before they let go, tumbling into a heap of limbs and offended shouting.
At the bar’s far end, a cane that had been quite content leaning against its owner suddenly went soft and wriggly, snaking up the wall and plucking someone’s hat clean off before vanishing into the rafters. People were pointing, ducking, laughing, shouting—half convinced they were the victims of a haunting, the other half clearly deciding the ale here was dangerously strong.
And in the middle of it all, Arc… sat. One elbow on the table, the other hand holding his glass with easy, unhurried precision, he looked for all the world like a man enjoying a pleasant evening’s reading. He took a slow sip, the deep violet of his gaze flicking briefly toward the chaos—cataloguing every moment, every spark of madness—before lowering back to the open page in front of him.
The golden-winged llama toddled along the bar, tilting its absurd little head toward the madness like it was critiquing the choreography. When a troll staggered past, pursued by his own jacket (which had apparently decided to strangle him), Cabbagebutt fell right off the bartop. “Mm,” he murmured, entirely too calm for a man watching the social fabric of a tavern disintegrate. “Inspired work, really. I’d give it… eight out of ten. Needs more livestock.”
And then—utterly at peace—he turned to merely observe everything with the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth as a stool scuttled by like a crab fleeing the scene of a crime.
“Oh no! Egads! What the dickens!”
Each of those phrases she let out at perfectly timed moments to go along with some means of tragic buffoonery, with just enough inflection to seem like she was just as shocked as everyone else that the tavern appeared to be utterly haunted either by ghost or trickster spirit. Not at all to be suspected of the singular cause sitting there in woven blue silk, with fae blood and a poised agenda of entertaining a demon.
Maybe when the deer head came off the wall and started bellowing, or perhaps the moment that troll was getting beaten up by his own jacket did she start to wonder if perhaps her magical stunt had been a little too far. A few moving tables and chairs was charming and silly, she hadn’t considering people were going to get spat on from shock or that canes would be up in the rafters weaving down to steal people’s hats.
It had at least six of them up there now!
Of course, then he labeled it all a paltry eight out of ten. Needed more livestock, was it!
Calia swiveled in her chair glancing around the stumbling chaos of the bar seeking out something that was going to bring that wish to life. Or at least as close to life as she could get when she was tipsy and working quickly through what were surely some really bad creative ideas. Sight landed on some pitifully old worn out pillow that’d seen better days. Willing to bet it wasn’t stuffed with straw or cotton batting with how limp and flat it had become.
A cheshire cat grin, a quiet bockbock under her breath and a swift gesture of her fingers was all it required.
That pillow puffed and fluffed until it burst at the seams, feathers went flying in every direction and amongst the downy chaos they began flapping! Round and fat and utterly unreal, but they were vaguely chicken shaped if you were drunk enough and squinted just right. Naturally, the eyes couldn’t really point in the same direction and the things weren’t no bigger than a tiny field mouse. With so many of them, though, she might as well have unleashed a whole coop into the tavern.
Calia turned to Archimedes then and visually dared him to say that wasn’t impressive!
Arc’s smile turned positively feline as the tavern dissolved into what could only be described as an inspired disaster. The deer head on the wall had fully embraced its new lease on life, clomping along the floor in awkward, staggering hops, antlers swiping tankards off tables while shouting in a deep, guttural bellow about the indignities of taxidermy. The troll in the corner was still losing a wrestling match with his own coat, the sleeves coiling and tightening like affectionate constrictor snakes every time he tried to pry them off. Over by the fireplace, a rug was having an identity crisis, rippling like a serpent and attempting to swallow a chair leg whole.
One unfortunate patron had been halfway to standing when his stool grew a set of mismatched crab legs and scuttled sideways, dumping him unceremoniously into the lap of a horrified elf noblewoman. Whoever’s walking cane—having already stolen a hat—was now in the rafters trying to shake another free from a elf patron’s head. Overhead, the candle flames Calia had coaxed into firefly form zipped madly about the room, disappearing into tankards, hair, and the occasional unfortunate neckline. Each time one vanished, something else inanimate shuddered to life—tablecloths fluttering off their tables and wrapping themselves like cloaks around laughing patrons, a set of cutlery clattering in formation across the floor like a tiny silver army, and in the far corner, a coat rack loping drunkenly toward the door as if seeking freedom.
And then there were the chickens—if one could call them chickens. Each about the size of a mouse, round as overstuffed dumplings, with eyes pointing in two completely different directions. They flapped about in chaotic arcs, sometimes colliding midair and tumbling into puffs of down before reforming again. One landed in a pint, another tried to roost in a half-empty breadbasket, and at least three had taken to hopping along the bar top, pecking at bottle caps like they were grain.
Arc, of course, sat in the midst of it all like it was background noise. He leaned back slightly, the picture of improbable calm, swirling his ale lazily as his heliotrope gaze drifted toward Calia. “What do yah know about elves, petal?” he said, as if they were exchanging pleasantries at afternoon tea. “Their kingdom ain’t just touched by magic—they were drownin’ in it. Every brick, every bloody blade of grass, soaked through. And some of them—” he gestured with a lazy flick of his fingers, “—get a knack for feelin’ when it’s thick in the air.”
He tipped his head toward the far end of the bar, a sly grin forming. “And I might… be thinkin’ yer bartender friend is one of ’em.”
Sure enough, Thallan stood across the room, tray in hand, looking as if he’d been force-fed an entire lemon and was still chewing it out of spite. His face was flushed crimson—not the warm pink of a man charmed, but the deep, simmering red of someone actively calculating how many ways he could throw them out. Even from here, Arc could see the twitch in his jaw, the vein in his temple, and the way his grip had gone white-knuckled around the tray’s edge. “Mhmm.” Arc sipped his drink with relish. “Yep. Definitely feels it.”
When Thallan finally stormed over, the chaos around them seemed to part just enough for his towering frame to bear down on their table. His tray thunked onto the counter so hard the golden llama familiar startled and fell onto its rump with a squeak. “You’re paying your tab,” he said in a voice that could’ve cracked stone, “And you’re leaving. Now.”
Arc only leaned one elbow on the counter, swirling his ale with infuriating patience, the ghost of a smirk on his lips as though he’d been waiting all night for exactly this moment.
Beautiful harmless madness it was. Pure stupidity and means of chaos that truly wasn’t hurting a soul, simply making life a little unpredictable and wild for people who otherwise would’ve had yet another droll, same old evening. Magical mayhem with no purpose other than pure delightful fun. Calia might’ve claimed if she were properly sober she wouldn’t have done it, but what a lie that’d be. This was a freedom she’d been waiting for her whole life.
She ought to have guessed trouble was on the horizon when he asked what she knew of elves. Calia leaned in, tilting her head with that skeptical oh do tell written wordlessly all over her features. Elves were stuffy things, generally too serious for their own good. Wrapped up in appearances and social etiquette. Which wasn’t to say some didn’t also understand how to have a good time. Yet he mentioned the magic of this kingdom, how the magic was soaked into the very land and everything around it. Something that Calia knew well, for it was that very thing that made Edelguard feel more like home to her than her own birthlands.
Arc gestured towards the bar and… oh. Oh shit.
Well, he surely was as handsome furious as he was smiling, that was an undeniable fact. If Thallan had a knack for feeling it, then he was practically drowning in Calia’s multitude of enchantments wrecking havoc in the place. With an expression like that, he wasn’t liable just to be the one who was going to have to clean it all up, he probably owned the placed. Her hand went immediately to her mouth, because her ass was just drunk enough to think this was all hilarious but still seemed to have enough sense to not want to let him see her grinning like a fiend about it.
That tray hit the table and Calia was on her feet in a heartbeat, the heel of her boot hitting the wooden floor with a deliberate thunk and like a wave of something wonderfully dreamy, her enchantments dispelled in an instant. Tables, chairs and rugs, and all manner of what nots just freezing where they lay as if nothing had ever moved at all. Rotund beeping chickens with googlie eyes all popped back into innocuous feathers and floated lazily in the air. The only magical thing still standing was her silly little llama that had wriggled itself under a glass where it was safely giving it’s disapproving eyebrow stare.
“Sorry,” came the word in a whisper, both whole heartedly genuine with just a little bit of not mixed in. Her hand moving to gesture softly towards Archimedes with a point. “…he’s got all the coin.”
Then with one swift step backwards she vanished. A little spacial jump, not even far enough to be considered running away, really, as she dropped right outside the tavern doors. The whole realization of consequences finally coming crashing in to have her throwing her head back and groaning at the sky!
Arc had been the very picture of unbothered through the entire storm Thallan was kicking up, shoulders loose, one elbow slouched on the bar, fingers idly rolling the rim of his glass while the big half-elf barked like a general on parade. Every accusation, every order to “stay the hell out,” just rolled over him like rain on slate. “Mhm,” Arc murmured when Thallan’s voice cracked into that dangerous growl, eyes drifting lazily up. “So that’s a no on the complimentary nuts then?” This was hardly his first time for making a bar come to life. It was however, the first time it wasn’t his hands doing the casting.
If there was a remark about that to be found, it died in mere seconds. Because—she was gone. No subtle excuse, no quick word in passing, not even a look back to confirm he’d take care of it. Just one blink she was there, the next she’d done that smug little pop out of existence, leaving behind only the faintest shimmer in the air. That, well… why should he be surprised! Arc’s brows rose, slow and unimpressed, before his gaze slid to the empty spot she’d vacated. “Oh, brilliant,” he said flatly, voice dry enough to parch a desert. “Not even a goodbye. Just—poof. Guess I’m the idiot who gets to pay the piper while yer Highness air-steps her way to safety.” The wounded edge wasn’t outrage—it was insult. He could put up with her causing chaos. He could even put up with cleaning up after it. But to bail like that? That was a low blow and honestly at this point, it was so on par for her that he was starting to wonder if he liked getting burned!
“You.” Thallan’s shadow fell across him, hot with the heat of pure loathing. “You and your friend—” the word was spat like it tasted bad—”Stay the hell out of my bar. Permanently. Clear?”
Arc’s eyes lifted to meet his, slow as sunrise, his tone unshaken. “Oh, clear as the moon on a cloudless night, sunshine. Yah’ve got the kind of voice could carry all the way to the capital if yah shouted a bit harder. Want me to fetch yah a bell to ring while yer at it?” Still, he slid a hand into his hollow and came up with a weighty stack of coin, more than enough to cover the drinks, damages, and the man’s wounded pride. The silver hit the counter with a ringing clink. “For yer trouble,” Arc said smoothly, sending one coin spinning just to be irritating, “And for yer tragic lack of appreciation for fine performance art.”
A dull thunk from nearby drew his gaze. Cabbagebutt was still wriggling indignantly under the glass that had trapped him in, his stubby legs paddling uselessly. “Come on then,” Arc sighed, moving the glass aside and scooping up the ridiculous golden-winged creature. “Don’t give me that look—yah stayed, didn’t yah?” No teleport, no vanishing act—just boots clicking slow and deliberate as he pushed open the tavern door and stepped into the night. Behind him, chairs scraped, voices rose in retelling, and Thallan’s muttered curses followed him like a parting gift. Arc didn’t bother to look back. He just tucked Cabbagebutt under one arm, the other hand shoving deep into his coat pocket, and muttered, “I paid for it, cabbage-brain. Every damn feather.”
When his gaze found Calia having apparently dropped herself outside the tavern doors, he was purely furious. “Yah really are utterly the shittiest attempt at a friend, just so yah know. Find yer own way back to the bathhouse by the way, I’ll be there. I need to be away from yah for a bit and yer impressive ability to throw me under the wagon again.” He was already walking away from her but this time, he wasn’t leaving without her knowing.
Stating it clearly he was insulted she had pulled such a stunt, but he wasn’t disappearing on her. He was going back to the bathhouse, she could find it herself.
Calia could surely hear Thallan in there yelling up a storm, loud enough to have her cringing where she stood out there alone in the twilight of the evening. Practically holding her breath until Archimedes came out the door, opening her mouth to say– well she didn’t know what she was going to say. Likely a whole bunch of awkward laughing over something that had been highly entertaining, but not a well thought out idea.
Nor did she get the chance, as he snapped at her immediately. Deserved in some respects, she did sort of pop out of there as if hell was right on her heels. Calia did leave him there to pay the price of her chaos – chaos he encouraged – but she’d done him dirty by vanishing, even if it’d just been outside the door.
…except she didn’t expect being told quite bluntly that she was a shitty attempt at being a friend hurt so sharply. That immediate need to lash out prompting her to pick up the nearest tiny pebble and prepare to throw it at him. To this new ability to stop herself before she did, instead tossing it off in a different direction and taking in a deep breath to yell another I’m sorry at him, because she WAS sorry! It’s not as if she was abandoning him to something he couldn’t handle!
Calia was constantly saying she was sorry, did it even mean anything anymore?
“Yeah okay,” she muttered under her breath and simply let him go. He said he needed time away from her, then he could have it. This time without her chasing him down and sitting on him and trying to force him to listen to apologies he didn’t want to hear.
She was fine. This was fine.
Calia turned on a heel to go the opposite direction to do what she did best. Disappear into a tree until it was safe to show her face again.
Oh he meant it! Calling her out on the whole means of whatever it was she thought being a friend was. Because at this point, he was pretty tired of having this song and dance to keep repeating! That she would overstep or do something that anyone with a lick of common sense wouldn’t do and then they were at odds. And he entirely knew he encouraged the chaos but being bloody handpicked to be the one to be yelled at, to pay the coverage and in turn he had made a very clear note in the night that he would not go flitting off to gallivant with anyone else. That he stayed by even after he had gone around to prove to her that there were men in that place that would have absolutely been thrilled to have an evening with her, even just talking!
The difference was, he knew he was reeling from it all. Raw under the efforts of being okay. And just plainly tired of having to be the stomping ground that was Calia figures out how to be a half decent person while taking the consequences with him. Not just throwing him over as fodder.
This was exactly why he didn’t trust anyone. Didn’t want anyone close or near because by Gaia’s green tits, he was very tired of being made the one that got the flack. Tired of the one being hurt because he was a stupid serial offender that just kept believing she had some wit about her not to treat other’s like they were simply stepping stones for either her amusement or in this case, to deal with the consequences of her actions. He knew he was more upset than he should have been, aptly aware of it!
And he wasn’t making excuses for it. Having said he didn’t want to be around her right now because of what she had done, he needed to step back. And he’d already paid for the room anyways. Alongside everything else and was feeling maybe the means of both being her personal little jester and piggybank more than usual, blaming it on the fact he was still reeling from the psychic damage that Fawna had gifted him so generously. Whatever it was, it was his to deal with. And that was to be dealt with back at the bathhouse, not even sure why he was still holding the little stupid llama either.
The realization was enough to have him unfurl his hand to release the dopey stupid thing and stared at it. A moment, and snatched his hand in a way that the thing finally crumpled back into its original state of flower petals and it. Dropping down to flutter between the grand rope pathways.
Things really did need to change, didn’t they… And it meant making a choice and holding firm to it.
That, he could do. Would do. Had to do.
For her entire time in Edelguard there had been one thing she’d wanted to do and finally she allowed herself the chance. She walked until she was far enough out of town that she’d not be accidentally climbing into anyone’s windows and balconies, searching the massive redwoods for one so tall that down there on the ground it looked as if it was touching the stars. Calia didn’t bother using magic to make climbing it easier, she did it the old fashioned way, the hard way. The only way that was going to let her work through her thoughts, process all that alcohol, her aggression, and everything else in a way that wasn’t going to be explosive.
It may have very well taken forever for how long it took, going from big stretching branch to the next. Finding what could hold her weight and what wouldn’t. She climbed beyond the lowest canopy where long twisted branches stretched out to created the shielded ceiling of the forest floor. Through the middle brush where most animals seemed to have their homes, safe from anything down below trying to climb or claw their way up. She climbed until branches became thinner and smaller and there was no longer anything thick enough to keep her from tumbling down below. That’s where she finally roosted in the crook of the redwood, where there was just enough of an opening between the thick needles that she could see the open sky.
Calia would return and she could already play it out in her mind. She would say she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to seem like she was abandoning him. Not the way he was likely assuming, anyway. It was a childish moment of her being in trouble and simply trusting he’d manage it.
Of course as she played that explanation out she could see how that sounded like absolute bullshit. It didn’t matter the context, she’d left him. How was he supposed to ever believe that in a moment where it truly mattered that she wouldn’t abandon him? Save herself and leave him behind to just figure out the rest.
Saying sorry wouldn’t be near enough and at this point… Calia was wondering if continuing to try was even the right thing anymore. Every time she tried to do anything for him it somehow found a way to blow up in her face. Even all the way back to the moment of her breaking out of that cell in Caeldalmor, he’d helped her over and over again. Advised her, saved her life, protected her, soothed her and entertained her… and what had Calia done in return? Pulled him out of a mad mage’s torture dungeon, sure. Then every moment since has dangled the idea of hope that she might be someone worth depending on, only to constantly fail at even coming close. Always a disappointment, never being enough.
She didn’t want to see that look on his face anymore. At this point it felt like her only purpose was to make him suffer, as she sure as hell didn’t succeed at anything else. That ache in her chest bearing down so tightly, she wished it would just squeeze the last bit of life out of her already. Just let him go. Cut him off and let him go. Calia didn’t need him and he sure as hell didn’t need her.
I thought it was all a grand bit of fun.
Gravelly and a little bit squeaky was the voice, sheer out of nowhere that Calia nearly jumped out of her skin. She was a good three hundred feet in the air, there couldn’t possibly be anyone else up there!
Then with a hophop a magpie appeared on the edge of her branch. Turning it’s head this way and that, eyeing her with a beady black eye. And Calia’s heart sank, for of course a fae would appear now. When she was somewhere dark, troubling, at her very lowest. That is how it had seemed so far, anyway. Ignoring the calls of those asking her to come play. They came to find her when she was hurting and did not know where to go.
“Go away.”
What what? I’m not the one that hurt your feelings, don’t take it out on little me.
Damnit all, Calia shifted her legs to straddle her branch and then gave it a good hard shake to dislodge the bird and send it flying. Unfortunately it merely perched on another one outside of her reach.
Feelings, feelings, feelings. Leave me be, wretched girl! Cry over your demon!
“You came here to bother me!” shouted Calia back.
Maybe. It was a good show. Not that anyone appreciated it. Not even that dimwit who incited it in the first place. Bet he’s crying too over a dumb fae girl. Feelings, feelings, feelings.
Fuck. Well, at least this one wasn’t trying to kill her. Calia sighed, leaning back with a hard thump against the bark of the tree. Lifting a hand to rub at that ache in her chest. Ignoring the magpie hopping along on the branch nearby.
He’ll never accept you.
…still ignoring the stupid magpie.
Maybe if you were dark fae. But you are all feelings, feelings, feelings. Dark fae don’t have feelings. A blessing. A curse.
Fantastic. Just enough fae nonsense that it was the perfect amount of vague that Calia wasn’t sure if the feelings were a blessing or a curse.
Why have you not returned to your own kin? You struggle in this world that is not kind to fae.
That one had her, leaving her letting out a soft sound of breath and shifting where she sat. “Because I-” …wasn’t whole? Broken? Or the reality that Calia was afraid of what she might discover. “I’m not ready to.”
The magpie fae puffed up on it’s branch, twisting it’s head this way and that. Eyeballing her like it was able to see right into her mind and into her soul. Calia stared back at it with a narrow eyed gaze, practically daring it to come a little closer, as she’d had enough of today and was ready to see if maybe she could explode an annoying bird right out of the sky. The stare down last a good minute or two before the magpie cackled out an amused caw.
I like you. The Court of Vines will like you. We will come to take you, when we are ready. The demon too if you have not killed him.
What the actual fuck. “Uh… no? No thank you?”
No one refuses a Fae Court, little crying fae girl. When you are invited, you come. There will be refreshments!
On that ridiculous statement the magpie flapped it’s wings and took flight into the starry night sky going only a small distance before it vanished altogether. Leaving Calia sitting there with her mouth half opened, wondering if this was going to be the next disaster to strike.
Who was she kidding, of course it would be a disaster.
She might as well stop sitting here in her feelings, feelings, feelings and return to the waiting demon who was absolutely in his as well. Maybe by the time she returned to their little room at the springs she’ll decide whether or not she was going to keep being insane, or if it were finally time to stop the madness.
The bathhouse room was warm, humid, scented faintly of cedar and whatever oils the attendants burned to make guests believe they were safe here. Arc wasn’t fooled by that, but he let the heat sink into him anyway. Somewhere between the door closing and the silence setting in, his body had shifted—muscle, bone, and shadow collapsing inward until the lean figure in fine clothes was gone, replaced by a dark, chitinous beetle clinging to the side of the low table. He flattened himself against the polished wood, antennae barely moving, making himself a quiet, inert shape that the room could forget about.
It was easier to be small. Harder to be read.
He told himself he wasn’t sulking, though the thought had that bitter aftertaste he recognized for what it was: a lie he’d happily swallow if it meant not staring directly at the knot in his chest. The truth was… he’d enjoyed the chaos of the bar. Every unpredictable beat of it, the ridiculous whimsy she could whip out of thin air—it had been good. Fun, even. The sort of night where you got thrown out the front door, laughed about it over cheap food later, and kept the story for years. That was what he thought they were building toward.
But she’d left. Not just slipped away politely, not bowed out with a nod and a wink—they’d been standing together, and then she’d been gone, leaving him to catch the fallout alone.
He told himself it didn’t matter. That he’d been yelled at before, thrown out of worse places, had worse things shouted in his face by better men. That none of it was serious. But it wasn’t about the yelling. It was the ease of her leaving, the way it didn’t even seem to cost her anything to do it.
He hated—loathed—that it got to him. That some pathetic part of him still expected someone to stay. Didn’t like needing people. It made you weak, made you hesitate when you should be moving, made you care about things you couldn’t afford to. But that need was in him all the same, raw and ragged-edged, and every time he tried to starve it out, it just… waited. Quiet. Patient. Until something like tonight came along to feed it again. The worst of it was, he thought they’d been starting to become a team. The kind of pair who, when trouble came calling, at least stood side by side to see it off. He didn’t need devotion, didn’t need loyalty carved in stone—just… not that. Not the easy severing of “you handle it” and a shimmer of magic leaving him alone in the middle of the room.
He’d been left before, too many times to count, but it didn’t get easier. Every departure dug into the old wounds Fawna had torn open with her illusions, forcing him to look at the people he’d failed—Atticus, Aelyra, Starling, Carlisle—and listen again to all the ways he wasn’t enough. The weight of it didn’t lift. The bodies, the blood, the lives crushed in his wake—they didn’t fade into the past like they were supposed to. They stayed, heavy and cold, gnawing at the bone-deep certainty that he was, at his core, a failure. Unwanted. Hated. Loathed.
He wore the mask because it was easier. Jokes, smirks, some exaggerated court-jester performance—it kept people laughing, kept them from looking too hard. It kept them at arm’s length. It worked. Mostly. But tonight made him think—really think—about what he wanted to be in this contract. Bound to her whether he liked it or not, he still had a choice in what shape that bond took.
Friendship was a dangerous idea. He didn’t know if he could manage it, not if it meant letting himself believe she saw him as more than a someone who provided amusement, a clever monster to wind up and watch run. And yet—gods help him—he was desperate for it. For one connection that didn’t carry a ledger of debts and expectations.
The thought twisted in him, sharp and unsparing.
He wasn’t a good person. Oh he was so absolutely aware of that, as it was a lingering whispering siren’s call in his head every second of every day. He’d done worse than most and found ways to justify it that still made him sick when the room was too quiet. But the part of him that wanted—needed—someone to stay… that was the part he didn’t know how to kill. Arc stayed there on the table, small and silent, the bathhouse steam curling lazily around him, and kept his myriad of twisting thoughts exactly where they belonged—inside. Hidden. Where they couldn’t hurt him until they inevitably would.
Calia worked her way down that tree as if she were on her way to a funeral pyre. Didn’t matter that she was still quite a bit tipsy and liable to have a splitting headache in the morning, down she went. Through the dark forest and back into the border town that still seemed to be alive even this late at night. Finding her way back to the springs was not difficult at all – even if she didn’t have a good sense of direction she’d have been able to follow the pull of Archimedes from across the whole damn world.
What she would need to say was practiced to perfection in her head. That this was not working. He didn’t want to believe she was the problem, but look at what always happened! Calia would set boundaries. He was not to help her, not to take care of her. They were not to be friends. At least if she were an asshole on purpose he’d be able to put her in the proper context and she’d never have to see that hurt disappointed look on his face ever again. He could go back to hating her, cursing her, fighting her. Then he could break free of her and not look back.
The room door was unlocked and she was glad for that, as how embarrassing would it have been to have to knock and then go through this stupid speech.
She stepped in, finding the room appropriately dark, seemingly empty. No sign of her latest creation, which spoke volumes all in itself. He had unraveled it just like the ones before.
That vice in her chest squeezed tighter.
Instead of finding the whole man lounged in bed or brooding in a chair he’d take up the beetle form again – also telling. Made himself as close to disappearing as possible, a feeling she understood far too well. How she wished she could make herself so small that she’d just vanish altogether.
And in the single thought Calia’s entire planned speech was thrown right out the window.
She pulled in a deep breath and said absolutely nothing. Quietly just tugged off her boots and set them aside. The pants and shirt came next to be tossed onto a chair, it wasn’t salacious. She had the camisole and undergarments underneath, it was merely too hot and humid to try sleeping in full clothes. Without ceremony she crossed over to the dresser where he was presently trying to pretend to be the world’s most invisible beetle and plucked him up with gentle fingers into her palms.
He’d be pissed, that was fine.
Calia took him to bed with her, climbing in under the covers before setting him on the second pillow right there in the middle. Sliding down under the covers herself to turn away from him as she laid down and settled on her own pillow.
“I’m sorry,” was all she said. All she could say. And Calia decided she was going to keep saying it over and over how ever many times it took. She was going to fuck it up a thousand times, she was certain, but she wouldn’t be the one to let him go. Everyone else in the world had given up and left him adrift, forgotten him, and hell… let her take him without even fighting for him! So Archimedes belonged to Calia now, until the day he finally had enough and made the choice himself to go.
He didn’t fight her. Didn’t skitter or hiss or make some pointed remark about the indignity of being scooped up like a bit of lost jewelry. His legs just folded neatly in against his body, antennae drawing down until they lay flat along the curve of his head. By the time she set him on the pillow, he’d sunk into it like a stone into silt—small, still, and perfectly content to be mistaken for something inanimate.
Her apology reached him through the humid air, muffled but clear. He didn’t look at her—didn’t have to. “It’s fine,” Arc spoke, voice flat but not cold. One of those phrases that, from him, could have meant anything from I’ve already forgotten about it to I’m shelving this forever where you’ll never see it again. And in this case, it was neither and both.
Because he’d already decided, somewhere between the bathhouse door and the press of her fingers around his shell, that this—they—were not going to change. Oil and water didn’t mix, not without burning both apart in the process, and he was done pretending otherwise. He could still respect her, still work with her, still keep the terms of the binding clean. But no more leaning toward some imagined middle ground. No more setting himself up to be surprised when she slipped away.
That didn’t mean bitterness. Just… distance. The kind strangers gave each other out of courtesy.
He settled deeper into the pillow, letting the weight of his own body anchor him. The warmth of the fabric was a quiet thing, almost soothing if he let it be. It was easier, staying small like this. Harder to read, harder to reach. Harder to hope.
“Night,” he murmured, not unkindly. And then he let the room go quiet again, keeping the rest of his thoughts folded as tightly as his legs.
It’s fine. Yep! Everything would be fine. Calia hummed an acknowledgement of goodnight herself, to prove that it was indeed alright. Curling her arms tightly around herself and burying her face into the pillow, to squeeze her eyes shut and will herself to think of some other shape she could take. After all he’d been a grand teacher so far and she’d mimicked so much of his magic. It was time to stop being so afraid of being something other than herself, to learn how to become literally anything else.