Avishraa Reloaded

Ilirith had crisscrossed the landscape surrounding Alvraan throughout her time in the Matriarch's service, and done so in circumstances where being seen would have been a major detriment.

Under her direction, they forded the Shedir over the shattered remains of the old bridge, then turned northeast into a hilly, sparsely inhabited land, where they would be less likely to be seen. Over the following vigils, the gloom of night grew deeper and the stars more visible; although takmar could see well enough even at night, it added enough to their concealment that it proved a fortuitous time to travel.

They paused only infrequently, for brief periods of full-sleep or to hunt for food; the latter was particularly important, as they had no supplies. “I'd brought some with me,” Zadireth had explained, “but with our precipitous exit I hadn't the chance to retrieve them. Our first stop will be a place where we can get some things for the longer journey, but until then we'll have to live off the land.”

This was a facet of their travels with which Demarath was not, at this time, well-placed to make a contribution. Since his family had gone to some lengths to keep him from the public eye, his existence had mostly been an indoor one, his time in fresh air limited to secluded courtyards. He had never really spent any time in the wilderness, and the closest he'd ever come to gathering his own food had been, when very young, chasing minnows around a shallow pool at his mother's home.

Ilirith and Zadireth, who had both had much more experience in foraging, between them appeared to be quite capable of keeping them all fed. Ilirith could tell, however, that without any survival skills to his name, Demarath was beginning to feel somewhat useless - he could light fires effortlessly, but otherwise there was nothing substantive for him to do. As they began to cross the nebulous border of Alvraan's control, Ilirith saw an opportunity.

“We should be well away from pursuit now,” she said aloud, when they'd paused to rest. “We should have a bit more leeway in how we move around, and I think this would be a good opportunity to make sure we all know how to acquire food - in case one of us is incapacitated. I think I'll take Demarath along and show him how to fish, since that's easy enough - if you'd like,” she added, addressing this to the copper.

Zadireth's antennae pricked up. “That wouldn't be a bad idea. Did you want me to come along?”

“Ah, well,” Ilirith replied quickly, “there's no need, really. You did hunt last time, so it's only fair that you have a chance to relax.” The bronze twisted his head in a shrug.

It wasn't that Zadireth wasn't decent company, as such. He seemed a good-natured sort, if somewhat cryptic. But it would be a nice change of pace to talk to Demarath without a third person listening in, or making comments about Srian and Kaean and whatever else. The topic hadn't helped them much except to make the both of them uncertain around each other, and she would've preferred to operate without that cloud over her head.

After all, Demarath appeared to actively like being around her. And, for that matter, to like looking at her; she had noticed him, several times, eyeing her when he thought she hadn't seen him doing it. She didn't quite understand why, though she found it pleasantly different from the fearful glances and searching stares she usually got. It made her antennae warm up a bit, though.

The first few vigils since Kar Oram had been interesting. The world outside of Alvraan was so different from what Demarath was used to. No takmar aside from his companions for who-knows-how-far. Glimpses of wild animals he'd never seen, or only seen domesticated variants of. It was quiet, except that it wasn't ever actually quiet.

But as the vigils wore on, it became clear that 'interesting' didn't always line up with 'fun'. As it turned out, running away from Alvraan and living off the land was hard work.

Demarath appreciated that Ilirith and Zadireth seemed to know what they were doing. Still, it had taken a while for him to get used to the… rustic style of meals. Maybe if he'd spent a few more vigils in his cell this would seem wonderful by comparison, but a part of him still yearned for food like he'd had at home.

Worse was the growing sense of uselessness. He didn't know his way around the area, despite it not being so far from Alvraan. And while he could follow instructions from his companions, there wasn't much he could do without constant guidance. The few times he'd offered to try to help, it became quickly clear he had no idea what he was doing, and they had politely insisted on handling the foraging themselves and relegated him to minor tasks.

It wasn't fair to them. That particular thought had been occurring more frequently lately, especially as he had more time to think about their situation. He'd begun to realize that all of this – fleeing Alvraan, Aveshinoth's rage, her sudden rise to power and attempt to have them all executed – all of it had been sparked by him. By a literal spark in this case. It felt especially unfair to Ilirith, who'd seemed happy with her place at the Matriarch's side, who'd had plans and security he'd unintentionally ruined.

It didn't help that he was different from both her and Zadireth, in a supposedly-essential way he still didn't fully understand. But Zadireth's words had stuck with him. So long as they were together, neither would entirely get what they wanted – but he'd gotten his freedom and she'd lost her home.

And worst of all, he liked Ilirith. A lot. Maybe it was because she'd been fairly kind to him when he was imprisoned; maybe it was because she was the first fellow witch he'd met. (Or maybe it was those hips. He'd tried not to think about that aspect too much, but he'd caught himself staring at her a handful of times since Kar Oram. Thankfully, he was pretty sure she hadn't noticed.) Knowing that he'd made her life worse, or at least massively disrupted it…

What if she didn't like him back? What if this divide that Zadireth hinted at was real, and they couldn't like each other?

The sound of Ilirith's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. “Um–” His antennae twitched slightly in uncertainty. After Zadireth's comment, he hesitated a moment, then replied, “…Sure. That makes sense. I mean… as long as it's not too much trouble for you.”

“No, of course not,” Ilirith replied. “It'll be a bit of a change of pace from all the hurrying.”

She led him away from the undergrowth-shielded spot they'd stopped in, toward a small, steep-sided lake nestled between the hills. As they picked their way carefully down the slope, she glanced at Demarath out of the corner of her eye. She struggled to decide on an opening line that didn't sound moronic, and settled on, “So… how are you holding up with all this?”

How was he holding up? One antenna drooped in uncertainty, his lips pressed to a thin line. “…Fine, I suppose? I guess it's… not really what I imagined it would be like, running from home. It's nice, though.” There was a hint of a smile, before his thoughts turned in a different direction. “Though… I feel like I should be the one asking you.” The other antenna joined its twin, his gaze shifting to the side, watching the slowly-approaching lake. “…I mean, you… lost a lot more than I did.”

Ilirith remained quiet, antennae quivering gently, until at last she said, “I knew it was going to happen someday. The Matriarch wasn't going to be around to protect me forever. I just wasn't ready for it yet.” She carefully clambered down a rocky incline. “The worst part part was that I failed to stop it - rather, I was never given the opportunity to stop it. She gave me a different task. And even if I'd been there… neither she nor I would've suspected her own daughter of being capable of that.”

They came to the shore of the pool. Ilirith, antennae dangling, stared moodily into the water before adding, with feeling, “The self-absorbed bitch.”

Throughout the long silence before Ilirith spoke, Demarath felt a slowly sinking pit in his stomach – which then tipped into a spiraling uncontrolled descent once she mentioned her failure to stop the Matriarch's murder. She'd been given another task – watching him, in other words. Or something else related to him. His gaze fell to his forepaws, watching the ground sidle by as the lake drew closer.

“It's not your fault,” he replied emphatically once they got to the shore. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “It's mine.” One forepaw clenched into a fist, then slammed into the muddy ground. “This all started because I made a stupid mistake, one that should've gotten me killed, and –” Tears started to form; his eyes squeezed shut to try to hold them back. “And now instead the Matriarch is dead, and her awful daughter's in charge, and you've lost everything, and my family probably thinks I'm a criminal–” …Technically, they would be right. “–and everything is awful and it's all my fault and I'm sorry.”

Ilirith was a little surprised by the depth of the guilt Demarath was expressing. She'd quietly been making an effort, out of politeness, not to read his mind (no one understood how difficult it was to avoid using the ability when it was always available - it was like trying to look at someone's face while trying not to stare at a really strange birthmark), but she wondered if perhaps it would've been better to know, so that she could head it off.

Too late now. Now he's crying.

Ilirith prided herself on having kept a great deal of her ability to understand and empathize. When one's entire upbringing had been devoted to turn one into a spy, a fighter, an assassin, that was no mean achievement. But the same upbringing had also taught her a certain amount of brutal practicality, and had also, incidentally, complete failed to give her experience in being soothing or giving hugs. Knowing how to deal with someone crying, even someone she was getting to like quite a lot, was not within her skill set.

“Demarath,” she began. She hesitated, then continued, “There is a lesson I've had to learn, and it goes something like this: mistakes happen. It's okay to have a bit of regret, to remind you to do better going forward. But weighing yourself down with guilt - or grudges - doesn't undo what happened, and it'll only hinder you in the future. I wouldn't indulge in it, if I were you; if we have to go as far as Zadireth says we will, you can't afford to.”

Ilirith hesitated again, and then added, a bit less assertively, “I can't speak for your family, but I don't really blame you, if it helps. You panicked when abruptly presented with a life-changing choice. It wasn't a smart thing to do, but it was a perfectly understandable thing to do. Aveshinoth went out of her way to put you in that situation, and then she went even further out of her way to kill her own mother. She didn't really need to do those things, but both times she chose to. That's where the guilt is in this.”

She gathered up a fold of her cloak, and, in the absence of any better ideas, tried to wipe the tears off Demarath's face with it. “Besides,” she added, “I've been wanting to do something besides being told to kill people. Now I have an excuse. I can figure out everything else.”

“Mistakes?” Demarath blurted out the distressed echo before he could stop himself. Just as his emotions geared up to deconstruct it as a ridiculous euphemism for the magnitude of what he'd done, he faltered - and realised that it hadn't even been that.

A mistake suggested that, on some level, he had made a choice to send that spark into Aveshinoth's arm. But no, it was worse than that - he hadn't even had that measure of control.

You can't afford to. His emotions chewed on the sentence as though it were a sticky gum, granting neither his chided guilt nor his petulant urge to assert said guilt any real foothold. Instead, it wrung the seed of a sense of dread from him, threatening to add to his self-loathing: You can't control your emotions, either.

Numbly, he let Ilirith dab the tears from his muzzle, a distraught expression on his face. It was very clear that he was confused - Ilirith's comments on Aveshinoth's inherent malevolence and her own new freedom seemed to soothe him a slight bit, but there was not yet any good route to merge those insights with how he felt.

Miserable, aware that his incompetence hadn't only led to Ilirith's previous life being taken from her, but was now making her have to comfort him, he struggled to hammer his thoughts into a more presentable shape. As a stop-gap solution - anything to make the immediate situation less painfully awkward for both of them - he muttered an apologetic, tense: “I-I'm still sorry.”

At least he managed to keep the rest of what he wanted to say under wraps, although that wouldn't shield Ilirith from the nonsensical spiral of self-loathing if she chose to look into his mind. Self-consciously, he threaded in a thought to the effect of 'I'm working on it', just in case she was.

For the time being, trying not to feel guilt only made the guilt worse. He found himself fervently hoping that it would burn itself out quickly - a numbness he could deal with. A numbness would, eventually, let him think again, and really absorb what Ilirith had said.

Ilirith felt at a loss. Clearly, Demarath needed some time to come to terms with things; but while she was no stranger to watching mental struggles without interfering, they'd always previously been situations where she hadn't been involved. Here, she felt, she actually had an obligation to do something, but there was nothing to be done that wouldn't probably make things worse.

She idly dragged a claw through the dirt for a moment. “Um, look,” she said, eventually, “would it help if we had you learn to fish later? …or would it possibly help to go on with it, to have something to do?”

Ilirith's suggestion to put off fishing was the exact worst suggestion to make, saved from any expression only by that Demarath's emotions couldn't quite decide if they were more interested in how it was another thing he was proving to be a failure at, or that it simply would give his feelings an undisturbed chance to devour him whole, with no help in sight.

Then the second suggestion followed and the weight of the brief spike of terror and humiliation lifted so abruptly that it left him as an almost audible exhale. “…fishing sounds good,” he said, his voice remarkably even, revealing only a tiny fragment of how deeply grateful he was for the promised distraction.

He could do this. He could learn to fish. He could make himself useful - it wasn't too late for that. And once he'd done that, maybe these thoughts would stop entirely on their own, or at least decrease.

“I'd like to give it a try,” he added, finding some determination amongst the whirlwind of his thoughts. A memory, from his former life: How can you think like that? The answer was 'not very well'. But perhaps that was to be expected; given the sheer repetitive nature of his life before fate wrenched it onto a different route, it was okay to be overwhelmed by circumstances now.

Not that he was thinking that. He wasn't yet allowing himself to make that manner of excuse. But it was in the back of his mind somewhere, biding its time.

Ilirith nodded, eyeing Demarath carefully. She was no stranger to demoralizing circumstances; her own training with Kurril, the Matriarch's senior husband and previous bodyguard, had been long and difficult.

But Kurril, though he'd meant well, had been a firm believe in the idea that the way to approach the prospect of failure was to push harder. Ilirith had the feeling that this would not work on Demarath, at least not in his current state of mind. He might fall to bits. More careful handling would be needed, at least until he'd gotten into the habit of feeling accomplished.

She removed her cloak and unbuckled her harness, and hung them from a nearby tree branch; she slipped into the water and grimaced. “Fair warning, it's a little chilly.”

Demarath could handle the cold; a part of him observed, in dry amusement, that he had once literally handled the cold, before– yes, let's not go down that path again.

Not having anything that could be cast aside to prevent it from getting wet, Demarath instead gave the water a determined stare, as though perhaps considering to take it on as a thermic enemy. But no; that would likely get in the way of fishing. Although maybe if he simply gave the water a good zap while Ilirith wasn't in it…

No, bad. Regular fishing first. It might yet teach him basics that he could apply to other situations. And so, dutifully, with a certain care, as though it made a difference how he entered the water whether the fish in it might swim away, he eased himself into the water.

Almost immediately he found that he wasn't altogether sure what to do with his wings. It wasn't that they were in the way, per se, but they were a large area that the water was drawing warmth from - not terrible yet, but they seemed oddly inconvenient in the long term.

He had never really been taught how to swim; while there were plenty of instincts to help him, they were a little incomplete. But he could figure it out. He watched Ilirith, using what he could see to correct his own posture, letting reason guide him with what he could not see. There. Easy. The swimming part, that was. The hunting… well, they would see how that went.

Ilirith was clearly at home in the water, having already ducked her head under a few times. She surfaced again, and glanced back at Demarath. “You may want to fold your wings up. You can propel yourself quickly through the water with them, but they're the wrong shape for maneuvering, so they won't be of help unless you're in a large body of water. A warm one, for preference.”

Ilirith slowed to a stop, remaining vertical in the water with a slow paddling motion of the hindlegs. “When you submerge, try to let your body act for you. Your nostrils will seal, and if you don't let them, you'll end up trying to breathe water. Try to use slow, easy motions to go down and stay down - that way you'll use less air and startle fewer fish. We'll practice that first before trying to catch anything, okay?”

She took a breath, then ducked beneath the water again, propelling herself downward with careful movements of her limbs and a slow, vaguely eel-like slithering of her body and tail through the water.

The instructions were clear enough, but the motion Ilirith proceeded to make was a little… distracting. Again, Demarath found himself in the awkward situation of fleeting, inappropriate thoughts while in the presence of a mentalist.

Really, of all the things he wanted to work on as far as his chaotic psychology was concerned, 'think fewer embarrassing thoughts' was prioritised the highest. Of course, given other points on the list included 'be functional', perhaps that was in itself something he ought to fix.

He shook his muzzle as though to clear his head, then took a moderate breath and slipped into the water.

The immediate peril was that though the previously submerged part of his body had gotten used to the temperature, his head wanted none of it. It nearly opened up his nostrils in a gesture of misplaced, instinctive distress - he willed it aside and swam, a little awkwardly at first, down toward the lake's bed where it was not yet too deep for this to be a foolhardy mission for a beginner.

Ilirith had, quite reasonably, been monitoring Demarath's mental state as she descended. After all, in the event that he starting breathing lake, she'd need to turn around and get him back above the water.

She noticed his momentary distraction. Though she was too busy, by that point, to peer into his head closely enough to determine what he'd been distracted by, she'd gotten the impression that he'd been watching her. Certainly that's what he should have been doing, if he wanted to learn.

As he made his way awkwardly down, she recalled the other times in recent vigils she'd noticed him peeking at her, as well. She watched him thoughtfully as he matched her depth.

~Is everything all right?~ she inquired silently, keeping herself down through careful upward motions of her limbs. ~It felt like you saw something.~

…yes, definitely prioritise 'thinking fewer embarrassing thoughts' more highly.

At least his startled reaction managed not to turn into a reflexive inhale of water. Ah. Saw something was right. For a moment he considered the merits of trying to keep a secret from a mentalist - then swallowed something that had meant to be his pride, but turned out to be a very tiny helping of lake water instead, and pushed against his inner resistance.

~I'm sorry,~ Demarath thought, as clearly as he could, while still focussing enough on the swim not to get himself turned around. In as much as the subvocalisation could be said to have a tone, it was respectful, not the desperate apology from earlier. ~Just… you.~ Glub, glub.

Unhappy with splitting his attention between 'finding the right words' and 'learn to swim', he rose for air and to let himself float for a moment, allow himself to focus on what he wanted to convey.

~…I find you beautiful and sometimes this is slightly distracting?~ By another measure, one could also call it 'very distracting', but, to be fair, he'd managed not to trip or walk right into something yet.

Of course, no one said that a valiant attempt to be honest would stop him from flushing red in embarrassment, or indeed regretting the whole honesty thing, or further regretting the whole line of less verbal thoughts that had led into the mental conversation in the first place.

As he floated, he puffed quietly, just a little, mostly to make sounds and reassure himself that he was still in one piece, even though he was telling a trained assassin that he was apparently really into her. But again - mentalist. Concealing it might work once or twice at best - and she deserved better.

~I can work around it, I think, it's just really new for me, so I don't have many mental defences yet, nor even the desire to have any, except, you know, intellectually, because distractions are bad, and you deserve that my full attention is on the subject matter at hand, and–~ Wow, Demarath, you can babble even in your mind.

~Yeah, so. Sorry about that. Swimming.~ The water didn't seem so cold any more now that his blood circulation had been notched up a gear. He slipped back under the surface, as though it might make him disappear, and tried, a bit unsuccessfully, to stop thinking about the fool he'd likely just made of himself.

Ilirith had started rising partway through his explanation; this had begun from an intention to follow him up to the surface, but had quickly turned into a sudden inability to hold herself down due to her limbs freezing still. Her head bobbed to the surface only shortly before Demarath submerged again - though it was just as well, because from the way her heart had started hammering, her oxygen probably wouldn't've lasted long in any case.

As Demarath descended again, he received: ~Oh.~ And then… ~Oh.~ And, finally, and more coherently, ~Um. Yes. Swimming. Just, er, practice a bit, okay? I'll… be back down in a moment…~

Ilirith could not honestly say that certain thoughts about Demarath hadn't already crossed her mind, some of them even before they'd been formally introduced. Well, of course not - they were a similar age, they were probably the only two witches in Alvraan that hadn't been killed off early, and who but a witch would be interested in a witch?

But it had been only an idle daydream, mostly. She had been officially Forbidden from seeking male companionship, for reasons which made intellectual sense, but which had been highly unsatisfactory at this particular stage in her life. And while she had her suspicions about what the Matriarch had intended, when she'd explained that Ilirith would be following Demarath into his internal exile, it hadn't occurred to her that any kind of closeness would be driven by anything other than personality.

She'd never thought of herself as attractive. Not as ugly, either, but not attractive. She looked like someone had taken a male and stuck status-markings and a female's hips on. No one'd be drawn by that. No one ever had, not that the pool of observers had been that big.

But Demarath thought she was attractive.

She found it hard to process, she didn't know what to do about that. Had no plan for that. Her brain seemed content to lurk in the bottom of her skull and content itself with gibbering bafflement.

She realized that, even with her face above water, she was still holding her breath. She started gasping in lungfuls of air, and managed to call out, ~Are you, uh, all right down there?~

~Yes,~ Demarath thought, clearly. ~Yes, I am.~ It was perhaps a bit more forced than it had to be, but sincere. Aside from the embarrassment he was obviously still suffering, he was quite fine, and learning how to manoeuvre while under water with an admirable speed, especially for someone with such a messy thought process.

~I think I'm getting the hang of this,~ he added - and then broke the surface a couple of metres away from her, snorting, then giving his head a shake to dispel some of the droplets clinging to his brows.

He glanced at her a little sheepishly from his position, clearly unsure whether to feel slightly proud about that he was learning something, guilty for looking at her when he could be diving back down right now, apologetic for having dumped his earlier thoughts on her, and related feelings that all seemed close enough to 'sheepish' to unambiguously settle on the expression.