Otherworldly - A Shadowed Awakening

Break of Autumn, Week 3, Day 7

It was a long pause before one of us spoke, and Jenny was the one to break the silence.

“You never ask.”

I was so absorbed in my own thoughts that this was out of nowhere. Taking a moment, I took some time to look around –at the veritable orchestra around us, at the portraits decorating the wall– and then I settled back on Jenny.

“What should I ask?”

She looked pensive, “Everyone asks. It’s weird.”

Understanding filled me, and I leaned back into the couch, sinking deeper into the cushions. My eyes focused on a portrait of Lady Perry with a man and a younger Jenny. “About the Baron?”

“Yeah,” she whispered.

“Do you want me to ask?” I said, flicking my eyes back onto Jenny.

She looked down at her hands, “No.”

“Okay then,” I gave her a small smile and leaned forward, gripping her hands in my own, “I won’t ask.”

She returned my smile with a wobbly one of her own. She wasn’t crying, not quite, but her eyes were misty –and so I let my old thoughts resurface. Not of self-consciousness or anxiety but of growth. I wanted to run, to train my Endurance and Dexterity. I wanted to lean into my Strength and push through the barrier. I wanted to do anything except sit around the Perry manor and fester.

“I want to train,” I told Jenny.

“Train?” She asked, blinking her eyes rapidly to clear out the moisture.

“Yesterday, Klein, Arlen, and I did laps around the town. I want to do something like that again.” I nodded decisively, trying to push any thoughts of the Baron out of Jenny’s head. “I’m tired of sitting still.”

Jenny thought for a moment before gently pulling her hands away from mine. “I might have an idea?”

I perked up, “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jenny smiled more solidly now as she stood and left through the hall.

After a long stint down the hall and a turn, we were at a plain door. It was right in the corner of the hall. Jenny looked over her shoulder at me before opening the door to reveal a stairwell.

“Okay,” I hummed as Jenny waved me in.

The stairwell was dimly lit, and if not for my Perception, I was sure I would have been unable to see where we were going confidently. With every step, the light was darkening. Jenny tapped the wall as we were roughly halfway down, and magelights appeared, burning brightly above us. A towering stone archway was at the bottom of the stairs, beyond which was a large open room. As we approached, I could see that weapons were lining the room's side walls, and a tan mat was lining the floor. My heels sunk into the lining, and I knew what this place had to be. It was this world’s equivalent of a gym. A sparring room, a memory of little Eunora said.

“We could run here?” Jenny said, uncertainty on her face as she glanced at me.

We’d left all the guards at the door of the stairwell up above, so it was just us two.

“We?” I responded.

“Mmm,” Jenny hummed, “I think Mother would like me to. I mostly practice archery. But I want to know what it’s like –to run freely.”

I laughed, genuine and clear.

“Then, let’s.”

I dropped my bag to the side, leaving Noir’s eyes facing the center of the room. It was a comfort to have him watching over me, even if he wasn’t animated. I settled in the center of the room, preparing to stretch as Jenny continued walking.

“Do you have any blade Skills?” Jenny asked as she made her way up to one wall, running her hands over the wooden swords and daggers.

I’ve spent so much time hiding what I can do that I have hardly thought about what I can’t. I thought, wondering if it was safe to say either way. But ultimately, I was curious about what she wanted to do. So, I shook my head, then realized she wasn’t looking at me.

“No, I don’t.”

“Me either.” She sighed before turning around, “My father was Skilled in a ton of swords and daggers.”

My breath hitched.

“Was?” I asked, attempting nonchalance.

“Yeah, was,” Jenny said, her dark eyes soft.

There was silence as Jenny came up to where I was stretching my legs, and I was not going to be the one who broke it. She said she didn’t want you to ask, not that she didn’t want to talk about it.

“He had his Skills sealed by the Queen when I was little,” she half-whispered, “I don’t know the details, but Mother says it was his own fault. That we were lucky to come out with our Classes intact.”

I had so many questions. The Queen can do that? Paramount among them. But as I thought about it, memories of little Eunora began flashing in my mind. Memories of the tales of Queen Esther, Daughter of the Beheaded, Ruler of the Righteous, came in. Stories of her ascension to Queen were taught by Lina. The people called her Esther the Liberator and Esther the Beloved. The anarchists called her Esther the Queenkiller and Esther the Forgotten. The Queen herself chose Esther the Vainglorious. Lina taught that it was a joke, a message to the late Queen that came before Queen Esther. And there was silence at the coronation when she took the moniker. But after the initial shock, the crowd had roared so loud that all of Oberon shook. The capital city was a beacon of light and celebration for months afterward.

I wanted to know so much about what happened to the Baron, but I settled on a simple question.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

Jenny just shrugged, “Who knows? Not here.”

I nodded and went back to stretching. Next to me, Jenny looked down at herself. I could read her expression clear as day.

“You can’t run in that,” I said, amusement filling my voice. Jenny had never changed from the dress she had been wearing earlier.

“I’ll be right back,” she said with a defeated huff, and I heard her mumble, “Now I have to climb the stairs again.”

-

Jenny returned just as I was finishing stretching, dressed in short overalls made with a delicate material. The flowing shirt underneath was also lightweight, and her leather shoes looked well-worn and comfortable. It was similar in concept to my own outfit –though I’d focused on practicality, not comfort, nothing I wore was uncomfortable. Not even my boots.

I’ll have to [Inspect] them later, I thought, realizing it had to be some kind of enchantment. I wonder if [Inspect] gains levels faster if I use it on higher-tier objects.

While Jenny stretched next to me, I leaned back on my elbows. Soon enough, she was finished, and I was standing, a hand outstretched to help her up. We made our way to the edge of the training mat, and I shook out my shoulders.

“It’s time to run,” I said, letting out a deep breath and exhaling all my worries, all my anxiety, all my fear. My eyes were focused ahead, but I caught Jenny's movement next to me.

We started at a jog. Jenny and I were pacing each other for the first lap and the second, but once we hit the third, Jenny started to fall behind. Or, rather, I was pulling ahead. I didn’t realize it, but I was speeding up. It was gradual at first, but over time, I lapped Jenny once, twice, thrice. At that moment, I wasn’t worried about what it would show of me. Because I felt free. My lungs emptied and refilled, the muscles in my legs burned, and there was sweat on my brow.

It was what I had craved.

Everything began melting away. The bricks turned into a blur, the mat just another path to follow. Jenny was barely a tick in my Perception.

I felt the words leave my lips before I processed the thought.

“[Sophism]”

The world slowed, and the burn intensified. My mind relished the feeling of being alive. There were no red or white lines—simply my own mind. My body moved incrementally as my thoughts rebounded around and around within my head.

I don’t want to stop. I want to go to exhaustion. I want to crumble. I want to burn. I want to go further.

[Sophism] broke after what felt like an eternity. The world spun up around me, and I increased my speed. My heels dug into the mat, and my breath grew ragged. My body was my own. That was something I could control. Maybe not my mind, but my body. [Eternal Communion] couldn’t force me to move, and little Eunora couldn’t force me to stay still. This was all me.

So, I ran.

It wasn’t long after we started that I glimpsed Jenny pull to the side and lay down. But I focused my eyes ahead of me and kept going. And going. And going. I ran until I was panting, until my legs were jelly until I literally could not continue.

When that time came, I collapsed onto the mat and stared up at the ceiling. All I could hear was my heart beating. All I could feel was my own breathing. Nothing could reach me here. Not memories of elsewhere or thoughts of the Divine. I was simply Nora.

“I love running,” I said out loud.

“I can tell.” Jenny huffed from above me. When she had come over and started to hover, I had no idea. But my blue eyes met her amber ones, and I could feel a tired smile form on my lips.

“Sorry, I got a bit lost.”

Jenny looked at me for a moment before shrugging. “It’s fine. We all have our things. Do you want some water?”

She waved her hand to the side of the room, and I forced my head to turn. Someone had brought a pitcher of water and glasses. One was half-filled, the other sat empty.

I propped myself up on my elbows. “That sounds perfect.”

We sat down in the training room for another hour, just casually chatting. There were no hard questions, simply dreamy talks about Perry and what Jenny was hoping to see at the Autumn festival in a few weeks. I wondered aloud about what the church would put together for Winter. What kind of classes would they teach? The priest had said a mix of combat and crafting Skills would be offered, but what did that mean?

“Do you think it’ll help?” I asked Jenny.

“Of course,” she hummed. We were looking at the practice weapons, running our fingers over the wood grains. “It’ll change a lot of lives. Make Perry safer.”

“I hope so,” I sighed, circling my nail over a particularly spiral knot in the grain.

“We usually donate in the name of Frill before Winter –it helps the apothecary and healers prepare in case of injuries after a patrol comes through.” Jenny said, “There are more patrols after Rise through Rule, Peak, and Break. They slow back down in Fall.”

“There are more in Winter?” I asked.

Jenny nodded, “Blights create more brambles in Winter than in the other months. It’s why it’s been rough that their season came early this year.”

I hummed in acknowledgment.

“I wonder what’s causing the increase,” I thought aloud.

Beside me, Jenny shifted. I looked over at her, and she was gripping her stomach with her hands.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, taking a deep breath and carefully releasing her grip on herself, “It’s just scary to think about.”

“I know. The town must be a beacon calling to them.” I mumbled, thinking about how Sir Limrick and Dame Arella had explained how the blights feed off mana.

“You have no idea,” Jenny sighed.

We found ourselves at the back of the training room, where there was another door –this one metal. It looked intense.

“But we should go up. It’s almost time for dinner,” Jenny insisted, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the door.

“All right,” I said, stepping away from the door, “Do you think the Baroness is going to grill me again?”

Jenny laughed awkwardly and continued tugging on my sleeve, “Probably.”

As we turned around, I went to say something back. Something probably along the lines of, Are you okay? Or What’s with the rush? But I froze, my mouth half open, and my head turned when a sound filled the room.

A krrrrkkkkkkkrrkkkk of branches cracking with movement.

And it came from behind the door.