Two Paths Diverged

“Here, is ok,” Wake picks up the dropped cup and hands it back to his Vegasian companion, who nods tightly in thanks and gives one of her not-smiles. It’s the kind of smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, like a lie without words. He doesn’t comment on it, but prefers her real smiles personally.

Rajah sighs, looks past the empty cup and down towards the wet tea stain now darkening the cave floor. Her motor skills had been improving a bit with daily exertion, but she still seemed to struggle at times with mundane tasks. He hates to see her this way, and can’t even imagine a life without use of his strong hands and claws. 

Wake pats the woman on the arm and smiles wide, “Floor has had worse stains, trust me.” The corner of her mouth turns up slightly in response, the ghost of a genuine smile. His grin widens. 

The Lascarian had been having a very good time with his new friend over the past month, and was reveling in her extended presence in the Hold. Of all the recent townies that he had met, Rajah was by far the most interesting. He had learned much from the woman and filed many of her anecdotes and lessons away in his mind. She seemed to understand from the beginning that Wake was not as simple as he appeared to be, and had treated him appropriately. He respected that. They had traded laughs and quips, and slowly fell into a comfortable rhythm in each other’s company. She was smart - much smarter than most of the Aboveborn that Wake had encountered - and her sharp smiles and wit were endlessly entertaining. 

Beyond that though, she had a depth of character that he seldom took interest in. People, Aboveborn especially, were pretty dull as a general rule. Entertaining, but predictable. Easy to read, easy to deceive - easy to hunt. Not Rajah, though. He had recently admitted as much to her in a rare moment of candor - that a goofy personality and a language barrier did not equate to ignorance. That he studied and measured people upon first meeting, and had done the same to her. She had laughed at that, admitting to have already assumed as much, but appreciated the honesty regardless. She had then shared some personal details of her own, some vulnerabilities, ones that Wake would keep close to his chest. For once when it came to an Aboveborn, he cared about her confidence and took pride in her trust. 

“Anyways, why don’t we continue the lesson?” Rajah seemed to have snapped out of her brief dissociation and was smiling at him again, holding a piece of rumpled paper up and gesturing to a line on it. “Try to read this one.” 

Wake squints, runs his tongue across his teeth in a nervous habit, then speaks, “Dear Moll-yuh- no, wait. Moll-ee-wood,” he pauses, looks sidelong at the woman for approval. She gestures him onward, and he continues, “It’s bean a l-long time since we talk-ed but your face came to mind re-cent-lee as I con- contem-“ He stops, growls, mutters in his native language under his breath. 

“Contemplated,” Rajah offers helpfully. 

“Con-tem-plate-ed,” He sounds out, brows knitted together. “What is?”

She taps her lower lip in thought before responding, “It’s like… thinking deeply about something. To contemplate. Contemplation.”

He nods, his mind translating it to the closest approximation to the word. 

“Ok, got it.” He picked the sentence back up and the lesson went on uneventfully, Wake trying not to feel too prideful about needing help to learn the Aboveborn written language and Rajah being patient with the Lascarian’s poor pronunciations and growled frustrations when he got words wrong. 

They spent the rest of the evening in that easy dynamic, until the lanterns of the Hold burned low and preparations for their journey back to Bravado began. 

-

Across the wastes, in a fortress above the ground as opposed to below, two other figures come together. The Iron hurries down the hallway, urgency in her gait as she comes upon her destination. She throws open the door without preamble, the wood loudly clattering against the solid stone walls and causing the woman in one of the beds of their shared room to startle and nearly drop the papers she’d been looking over. 

“Collie? What time is it?” Lyra’s eyebrows come together in confusion, worry clear on her face. 

“We need to leave for Bravado. Now.” Collie begins packing some of the other woman’s things, not bothering to wait for a response. Lyra hustles out of the bed and begins changing out of her nightclothes, already following the Iron’s lead despite her confusion. 

“What? What’s going on? Collie what happened?” The stress is evident in her voice. The taller woman pauses in packing long enough to turn and say in a clipped voice, 

“I remember. I remember everything.” 

Lyra’s eyes widen, understanding dawning on her face, and she begins packing their things in earnest. No further words are exchanged as they load everything onto Collie’s iron horse and walk it out of the castle’s ride storage area. Imperious is on the first guard rotation, and raises an eyebrow at them as they depart at this hour but chooses not to comment. They simply wave the two off as they go. 

Collie didn’t know how, or why, but all of the memories that she couldn’t even comprehend having lost had flooded back in a rush when the Falken Castle morgue had scabbed over. It had taken this long for the strange Mortis plague to reach them, but whatever connection had been severed as the putrid earth scabbed over had brought everything back into stark clarity. It felt… temporary, like the memories would be out of reach again should the ground re-open. It felt urgent. She needed to go back to the source. 

With any luck, maybe the peripheral source of her recent turmoil would choose to abstain from Bravado this trade weekend. 

She really didn’t want to face him right now.