13 Pelagius III

09.03.2024

Something had gone wrong.

There was a nervous buzzing all around the station of rumours and whispers, spread from the crew of the Dawnbreak down to even the kitchen staff. Upset like a colony of ants feeling the vibration in the earth with no way to differentiate between the step of a human or an earthquake.

The Twilight had gotten damaged and people had died. Moakatar had confirmed as much in a semi-public announcement a few hours earlier as rumours had started to grow dangerous. For the first time he had sensed the fear underlying all their lives. The quickness with wich worry had taken over the simple lives of these people.

Moakatar had spoken kindly and softly, trying to disperse the worry and stressing that they had no confirmed cause for the accident. Also noticeably stressing to call it an accident, not an attack.

But that didn’t quite fit the faint sense of tension and stress he knew Zenozarax was under right now.

Nevertheless, since the announcement he had seen none of the other wizards. The Dawnbreak was physically docked on the station right now, preparing for something. There was busying in the docks. Moakatar was there right now. But he had no good reason to go there besides curiosity, and really, he still didn’t feel very inclined to stick his nose deeper into any magical problem than absolutely necessary.

Moakatar had made her announcement in the Restaurant, and since then Pelagius had stayed there, officially keeping an eye on things in his position of station security. Sometimes he talked to this or that person who was still under the impression that he ought to know more, but mostly he had listened again.

The mug of tea he got earlier from the dispenser was kept at a constant pleasantly drinkable temperature by the mug it had come in. It was a perfectly normal item here, yet he still caught himself occasionally considering the thing just… fantastically extravagant. He took a small sip of the somewhat sour brew. It reminded him a little of rosehips.

He had taken the mug with his right hand, the magical inserts of his hand clicked softly against the strangely soft feeling shatterproof ceramic of the mug. The skin surrounding the insert looked much healthier now after Zenozarax had given his hand a little attention after picking Aeven and himself up. In what had felt like a previous life that had never been a priority — it had worked and that had been all that counted. Now bound together by curse and destiny for eternity as it seemed, Pelagius assumed the discomfort he had experienced due to the magical addition into his flesh and bones had started to grate on Zenozarax’ nerves too. At least he doubted the wizard had just done it from the goodness of his heart.

There was still a little sting, because the curse within him still didn’t quite want to accept this foreign part of his body that was so rudely forced into it — but it no longer felt like actively throwing a tantrum because of it. After years of constant pain in every digit and joining of his wrist and fingers, the slight soreness that was still left felt more than manageable and almost easy to ignore.

He had not asked Zenozarax to take it out.

Because despite the discomfort, he still felt safer with it and his sword (a new one since the original had been disintegrated alongside Treva. A memory he tried very hard to not think about). He was still immortal — but without it he would lose the only real ability he had to defend himself against any of the wizards. It was probably the same reason why Zenozarax in turn hadn’t even offered to take it out.

He heard the subtle change of the whispers in the room and looked up to the entrance.

A strange feeling sunk in his stomach.

Ravalor.

The wizard stood near one side of the wide entrance, only halfway turned to face it, quietly looking into it with a strangely distant look in his face as if he wasn’t really looking in the first place. Or as if what he saw barely made sense to him.

He looked almost exactly like the last time he had seen him back on earth. The clothes had changed a little, but most of it was still the same ruined and worn out pieces he had been wearing for the year they had been together.

Inevitably, the wizard’s eyes met his. Ravalor frowned slightly. Then he entered the restaurant. There was a slight limp every time he put weight on his left leg — though there was no recognition of pain in the wizard’s face when it happened.

 

“Fancy meeting you here,” Pelagius said with a forcefully neutral tone. He could see Ravalor struggle for an answer until eventually he said,

“I heard you were here.”

Here in the restaurant? Here on the station? Didn’t really matter, it was empty words, said in lieu of anything of substance. Pelagius nodded, offering Ravalor to sit. The wizard hesitated, then took him up on the offer.

“You want some too? It’s good.” Pelagius tilted the mug slightly in his hand.

“I —”

“Let me get you one.” He stood up before waiting for an answer and turning his back to Ravalor. He knew Ravalor had been about to politely decline, and he knew Ravalor didn’t really eat or drink much if anything besides mana, so it was pretty undeniable what he was doing; Fleeing the conversation at least for a few minutes longer, maybe to just finally get to terms with what he would want to say to Ravalor now that they had met again.

The strange machine conjuring up the beverage worked too quickly and he was on his way back with another steaming mug in his hand before he had come to a final conclusion anyways.

“Thank you.” Ravalor certainly didn’t actually want the tea but said it nevertheless.

“It’s a good one. Reminds me of Rosehip,” Pelagius repeated his earlier thoughts emptily.

Humouring him Ravalor actually took a small and very restrained sip. For a short moment he seemed thoughtful, like the taste reminded him of something pleasant. “Kessler buds?”

“That’s what it says it is.” Pelagius shrugged to imply that he had never heard of it.

“A type of fungus actually, it grows these little egg-like buds, intensely poisonous to humans when eaten raw, but surprisingly sweet and high on caffeine once dried and properly prepared.”

Pelagius grimaced into his tea. “I preferred to think it was rosehip.”

A silence set in that seemed to remind both of what they weren’t talking about. Because eventually Ravalor said,

“I’m sorry for what has happened.“

“Hm,” Pelagius acknowledged, then noted almost perfectly flatly, “You left me behind.“

Ravalor took a deep breath but didn’t meet his eyes. The weight of the accusation lay heavy on him, there was some comfort in the guilt he saw, but not much.

“And I’m sorry for that too.” Then hesitatingly he added, “I wasn’t well. Neither mentally nor physically. But I shouldn’t have left you. I just couldn’t —“

It’s alright, lay on Pelagius lips but he didn’t say it. Because besides the natural desire to avoid conflict if not strictly necessary, it wasn’t. He still remembered the mind bending sense of disappointment and betrayal. It was dull and distant now that the inevitable had taken hold of his life, but it was still there. At the same time he understood that Ravalor really had tried his best. Just that his best hadn’t been quite enough.

“Wouldn’t have thought us both to end up here, to be honest,” Pelagius said instead.

“Me neither.” Ravalor held his mug with both hands as if seeking subconsciously stability from it. “And I’d have never… expected this.“

“What do you mean?”

“All this — it seems wrong.” Ravalor frowned. “Unreal, in a way “

Pelagius smirked grimly. He knew more than one person that applied to currently. At least Ravalor seemed a lot more thoughtful about it than Aeven was.

“In what way?” he asked like he had had this conversation a dozen times over already. Ravalor watched the room for a moment before saying,

“I didn’t expect people here. Not families. Cultists, yes, Astral Zombies, slaves to their will, soldiers, goblins — but not this. Why are they here? Why do they live here? They don’t look like prisoners?” At the last question Ravalor looked at him, and there was concern there. As if he could only make sense of it if the answer was yes they are prisoners but he didn’t want to believe it.

“They are not,” Pelagius said. “I guess technically I am, because I can’t leave. But they’re not. They are here because these are their people. Everything they know, their families, friends.”

It still didn’t seem to make much sense to Ravalor.

Pelagius nodded over to the kitchen where one of the cooks was talking to a group of very young goblins. “That’s Chief Burton, cook. Family has been with Xaronzul for generations. He doesn’t talk about it but from what I heard whatever home that family had before doesn’t exist anymore. Loreley, the blond one over there, is a lot more open about it, her story is similar. Family tales that speak of great battles in the sky and absolute destruction of homes and even planets for a few of these.” He rolled the mug on its lower edge, making the tea splosh lightly from one side to the other. “Like the people from earth. Caught in this war of yours, homes lost or destroyed — just that these people got saved. They don’t like your bunch. Wizards I mean, but they do trust these ones. Because they keep them safe as much as they can and because they fight against your side. And in turn they give them their loyalty. Easy as that.“

He looked at the doorway as people came and went. Still with this unhealthy tension in their every word and whisper.

“They don’t tell me, but I got the feeling there are a lot more of them. Not here, but out there somewhere.“

Ravalor shook his head in disbelief. “But they aren’t safe. Not with chaos wizards around — if the Order finds them…”

Pelagius shrugged. “They don’t believe anywhere is safe. This place is only better because it is kept secret. And they know these wizards will do everything in their power to keep it so, because it’s their life on the line too.”

Ravalor kept quiet, pondering over his tea, and Pelagius had gotten used enough to his quiet nature to not read too much into it.

“Do you know what happened?”

Ravalor finally looked up. “An accident as it seems.“

“That much we all know.“

Ravalor nodded slightly as if to agree with that statement and seemed to assume that that was enough of an answer. As it turned out Pelagius wasn’t that used to Ravalor’s secretive nature as to not feel a sting of irritation.

But they both had changed. And so had their situation.

The always present and underlying desperation that had fueled every moment of their last months together was gone. So was some of the anger after rejoining Zenozarax, easing the until then restless curse within him. Gone too was the purpose that had driven Ravalor to do what he had done.

And Pelagius figured that they shared more in their current situation than they had ever before.

“There was the suspicion of sabotage,” Ravalor said quietly into the silence, much to Pelagius’ surprise. He leaned back forward, placing the mug back on the table and forgetting about it.

“Quadirymir?“

Ravalor looked at him, searching his face, carefully considering. Slightly he shook his head. “I feel like there is so much here I can’t speak to yet out of ignorance. He told me about him, warned me of him — but there are still too many things now he doesn’t tell me.” Ravalor’s fingers fidgeted around the rim of the mug, the frown on his face had turned concerned. He was bothered by this.

“You’re still just you?” Pelagius asked. “I mean just this Part?“

Ravalor nodded.

“And you’re not like them? A Chaos Wizard?“

“No.” The answer came a little too quick, a little too sharp, as to hide the ingrained destaine.

Pelagius shrugged. He shouldn’t even pretend to understand the strange machinations of what was going on here so he left it at that. Instead he said, “There are a lot of things he doesn’t tell me now either. But whatever is going on right now, he isn’t happy about it.”

“I know.”

Their conversation ended with that as Pelagius, somewhere deep in the strange shared impressions he got now, sensed that Aeven had just woken up. He stood up and exuded himself, saying that he had somewhere to be, but that they would talk later.

Ravalor nodded to that and so Pelagius left him and his tea in the restaurant.

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