Private Tales The Links That Bind Us

[Daria]

Daria pressed her lips together, her expression slowly closing off into a stony wall again. No word of acknowledgement came from her. No thank you, or I understand. She was unapologetically brisk, in a way all her peers were. There was no comradery. There was no acknowledgement.

Perhaps they would understand it was simply that. Or perhaps they'd take it as a sign there was more behind her motivation. Either way, it didn't change the way she was raised to respond to the world. She merely turned around and left them both, walking back into the room designated as theirs.

 

[Talus]

"Thank you." It was Talus who said the words, since apparently Daria was unable to.

His fingers relaxed into a flat palm, folding out from the fist that he had been clutching. A breath filled his lungs, and he glanced back towards the room that they had been left to sleep in.

"I think I need some rest." He said quietly. "At least until we leave. That..."

The apprentice cut himself off, closing his eyes and breathing deep. "That Herb hit me harder than I thought."

He glanced back at Daria, then looked at the woman and the man.

"I'm sorry for her..." His head shook. "Things were...hard at the academy."

He supposed that wasn't a lie at least.

 

[Daria]

Daria sat still on her bed as the man followed Talus into the room, quick efforts made to clean the floor of her previous vomit. She said nothing, half comfortable enough to allow herself to stare off at the wall. She didn't feel the man glance over her. Or place the blanket back over the bed. Or bring them both some water and some stew.

She mulled, in that silent distant way she had been doing over the past few days.

So what had changed?

Now she had a lot more to mull about.

The two set up in the space, they were left to rest with a single candle and the window's light. She sat there, not eating, her thoughts swirling with the twisting pattern of the oak paneled wall.

 

[Talus]

Talus stayed quiet for nearly an hour.

At first Daria might have thought he was angry, but in truth he was simply buying himself time. His gaze wandered around the outside of the window. It was calm, almost peaceful.

Eventually that was broken by his voice. "You don't have to go with."

He said the words in a whisper, spoken quickly after an incantation that would lay the room within a ward of secrecy. It was a trick that Fen had taught to him, one that rendered magic of listening almost entirely inert.

"I can go on my own." He said the words as he peered out the window. "You can go back."

Perhaps she would take it as an attempt from him to run away, but in truth he was just offering her a kindness.

 

[Daria]

Daria received these words surprisingly well, neither blinking or gasping or turning in shock. She pulled out of her thoughts, aware of the spell tingling around them, and answered with a slow sense of carefulness.

“Why?”

 

[Talus]

"I know who your father is." Talus broached the words carefully.

The last thing he needed was for her to suddenly overwhelm him with an outburst. She had been in control so far, but he remembered how she'd taken action without word back at that Inn.

"If this gets back to him..." He remembered his own interaction with Archon Crane. The casual cruelty, the way that he had nearly killed him and Hal on a whim. "I doubt he would be pleased."

His fingers drummed against his leg.

Talus knew that he could see this through to the end, but he wasn't entirely sure what they would do with it once they saw it all. Turn it in surely, but how? Even the knowledge they'd gained out there had been barely anything.

Just vague details and locations.

No names. No marks, nothing of substance at all. These people did their work well, as much as Talus didn't want to admit it.

 

[Daria]

Daria swallowed hard, her fingers curling in a little.

“If you’ve had the ...pleasure of experiencing my father, then you know returning empty handed in not an option.”

She let that sink in for a moment, then slowly turned to stare him dead in the eye. “And to return empty handed with the news I let you escape into the Underground Railroad with the promise ‘Oh I’ll be back?’” She slowly raised a brow at him, gauging his reaction. She was no lie reader, but time spent around her father had granted her a sense for it or two.

 

[Talus]

A shrug rolled over his shoulders. In the end they had known one another for two days. What did he care what happened to her?

Daria was about as important to him as a leaf in the wind. Crane might have had more authority than his own mentor, but he knew Fen would fight to the death for his reputation.

A month ago that would have seemed odd to him, but Talus' mentor had more than proven what he was willing to do for him. That was a thought which oddly comforted him, especially in that moment. "Your choice."

He said simply.

"We'll see where we end up." Alliria or Elbion, he wasn't sure which he wished for.

 

[Daria]

"I'm not leaving you," she stated firmly. "I'm not going back. Not without the assignment done." What she didn't say was that any attempt to shake her again would also mark him as one of the assignment to her.

In the back of her mind was the still lingering mistrust that this was some elaborate attempt at a ditch himself. If it was, she had to admit it was well done. She had no choice but to follow through and keep an eye open, they had hit a dead end either way.

And she could not return back without them. She couldn't. Would he know that weakness? Was he exploiting her? Once again, she wished she could solve the whole issue by blowing it up.

It certainly was easier.

Her eyes narrowed on him slightly, filled with all the paranoia growing up inside the academy had to offer. Maybe Talus was getting a break from that now that he was gone. Maybe his life was getting easier, maybe he was trying to pass some of this on. She didn't fathom that possible.

She only saw ulterior motive. What else was there.

 

[Talus]

"Alright." Talus didn't particularly care if she came or went.

Daria had at least proven that she could play the role that he needed her to play, and in time she would also make a nice battering ram against whatever else he would face.

That brought him some small amount of comfort at the very least.

He didn't trust her of course, not at all. Her father was Archon Crane, the man who had ten thousand schemes. That was how Fen had referred to him, and Talus couldn't help but agree with the assessment. If he had to guess, Daria being here was just another scheme.

Though he couldn't possibly fathom what. "Better get some sleep."

He offered.

"We'll have three long days ahead of us." It was a distant ride to the coast.

 

[Daria]

Daria gave a soft snort of acknowledgement, then said nothing more.

It was strange to have this taste of freedom-- free of academy walls and the weighted threats of punishment. No one was here to check her words or crack down on her mistakes. For the first time she was able to operate entirely on her own.

It was even stranger to realize the freedom was nothing but a pretty illusion. As she turned on her side, her weapon clutched inside her hands, her thoughts spun chaotic circles around the image of her father. Even at a distance, his presence was smothering. She would be returning to him. She would be made to learn from her mistakes.

But what were they? What would they be? Her thumb rubbed tight little circles around the hilt of the dagger, sleep not easily coming as she obsessed about what would come next.

 

[Talus]

Talus had slept like a rock.

It was amazing what you could get used to after countless missions and more than three dozen different places of sleep. He had oddly become accustomed to sleeping wherever and whenever he could. Thus when the next day came the Apprentice found himself well rested and alert.

He had no idea if Daria felt the same, but before he could ask the door to their room was pushed open and the man they had met the day before spoke.

"Time to go."​

No time for breakfast was made, no time at all for anything was made. The man urged them up and out of the house faster than the rally of an army.

Within just a few minutes Daria and Talus found themselves sitting in the back of a carriage harnessed to a large mule. A stranger was sitting at the head of the carriage, a large brimmed had covering his hair. He glanced back at the two apprentice and offered a friendly wave as the man who had awoken them stepped up behind the carriage and climbed in. "You're coming with?"

"Aye, I've got some business, and these things always go better with introductions."​

Talus nodded.

"What about the wo-" The man cut him off.

"Best to leave questions like that unasked, just in case..."​

The man did not need to clarify what he meant. In the back of his mind he cursed these people for actually being smart.