Random Encounter Story

Sebastian, on the other hand, had been seeing dreams of his own, consisting of being chased, first afraid for his life and then just hoping they'd get it over with.

Had it been anyone else than Sylvie, he'd have tied her into knots of broken bones, but the moment he woke up, Sebastian had full knowledge of where he was. Who he woke up next to.

Who kissed her nose.

"Did that really happen?" he asked, tentatively, carefully, the tips of his fingers tracing the lines of Sylvie's face as she got up.

She settled for sitting up for the moment and smiled wrily. <em>Didn't I ask that yesterday? </em> "I remember talking to a sunflower while you cussed out a butterfly, if that's any help." Her voice was a tad raw.

He was quiet for a while. Then, finally, he said, "Good. I was afraid I'd been smoking haiyava last night."

"Not that I noticed, no." She did stand up, after all, and put on her boots and belt. She excused herself, among other things to see if there was reasonably clean water to be found at the bottom of the small valley. The stream, a rivulet, really, was mostly muddy, but she found a small spring, thick drops falling from a slight rock overhang. The water was cool and clear; she stood barefoot in the stream while she drank, washed her face, and refilled her bottle.

Even though she paid attention to her surroundings, the trip gave her some time to review the conversation of yesterday. By the time she returned she was moving briksly and in need of venting, even if she was smiling.

"Oh. Good."

He left it at that, watched (admiringly) her leave and set about his own business.


But at some point, all of the time he was left alone, he felt utterly confused. Nervous. Afraid. Angry, at times. By the time Sylvie made her return, Sebastian had parked himself on a rock half the height of himself, staring into the opposite direction where she was coming from. As fast as his mind could work, the confirmation that he had actually talked to his goddesses kept spinning his thought patterns.

And then there was that. While Sylvie approached, he said quietly, not even looking back, "They promised me a life with you, you know."

"Yes. I think I made a comment that the Old Lady took to make it a sealed deal, too. Did Fortuna offer you anything else?" She did not realize how much the mere fact that the talk had occurred affected him, though she noticed belatedly he was out of sorts when she caught sight of his face. She slowed down, frowned and bit her lip.

He had thought of Lady Luck for a while, and chose to stick his finger inside his mouth for a moment. Having went through his conclusions, Sebastian finally cleared his voice and sighed. "I think she did. I don't know. You can't know, not with her."

Nervous, he beckoned her to join him on the rock, and said, "I'm afraid."

"Me, too, but about them I'm mostly angry." She sat down next to him. "The Old Lady offered me a way home, under the condition that in future both of us would work for them. While you couldn't hear it, and she said it was my decision, not yours. Bloody mindgames."

That certainly made him twitch. It also made him think, even as he nodded at her comment of anger.

And he thought.

"Bloody games with the mind," he said quietly. Sebastian began to stare at the sunlight infiltrating foliage. Before Sylvie could say anyhing, he continued, slowly clinging to her. "I'm..." Oh, hells and worlds. "I was afraid of that. But I won't agree to that. They'll be back, then." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Do you want to?" he finally asked, under his breath. "If you don't, then, tell me to..."

But Sebastian couldn't say it.

"What? You think there's still a choice? I thought it belonged all together."

He shifted his position and stared down at the ground, trying to make sense of her thought process. Eventually, with a cracking voice: "I'm just trying to puzzle out if you really want me enough that you'd work for those hags."

This whole conversation had her thoroughly confused, so she said the first thing that came to mind. "Working with you isn't so bad, actually. Interesting. And educational."

He twitched. Looked at Sylvie. Blinked, analysed her words. "I'd only take that deal if we'd a chance to-- a chance to have children and raise them. Tell you the truth, I've never been married. For once, I'd like to be." He began to nervously braid the hair she'd cut to a manageable lengthy, with one hand. Then he stopped, lowered his hands into his lap and shook his head. "I'm confused."

"About anything in particular?" she asked gently.

"Why you haven't slapped me yet, to begin with," he said, honestly, nervous energy bursting out in a multitude of words. Fine, if this was punishment, then, oh well. He was damned well going to destroy himself and stay on that rock without eating if Sylvie decided to leave him. "It's worry, too. Too much of many things. You <em>trusting</em> and loving me, realising that my asshole goddesses found you a convenient way to test my sanity when they could just have asked me, but above all, finding that I don't care what will happen to us if we -- no, if you want to stay with me."

He cocked his head and leaned forward until his eyes, green and bright, were not far from hers. "So, I'm confused. And, keeping with what I said, I can't lie to you. I think I'm trying to scare you away."

"Well, let's take the easy ones first. I have mostly been irritated at other people, not you, and I don't find slapping all that effective or satisfying.

"As far as I'm concerned, your goddesses couldn't find common sense if it was pinned down on cork and put in front of their faces. I don't like being someone's tool, but I'm not going to run away from you just to spite them."

She leaned towards him, just a bit closer, and smiled. "And if you want to scare me, you'll have to try harder than just looking at me, because <em>I</em> happen to think your eyes are gorgeous."

He listened, waited, tilted his head the other way around. Finally, the combination of smile, leaning closer and the words -- it made him chuckle and grin. "I thought it wouldn't." He gave her nose a peck, but grew a little more serious afterward. "No, they could find common sense. It would have to be nailed to their foreheads. Tubers. Antennae. Whatever that freakshow was.

"But," he continued, taking her hand again, massaging her wrist with a thumb and once again making the observation of how interestingly different their skintones were, "I'm confused still. I'm used to puzzling things out pretty quickly, but... er, have I understood this correctly?"

He looked up at her face. "Are we going home?"

"I'm not sure anymore if the Old Lady meant her offers belonged together or not. Maybe I misunderstood and that part is still open."

She looked down at their hands. Hers remained relaxed. "You know what I'm worried about? That if we go there, I won't need you anymore, and hurt you. Or that you'll hate the place and want to leave." There was more, but these seemed most relevant now.

That certainly was something to think about. His hands remained relaxed as well, even though he felt a little stab in his chest. For a while, Sebastian was quiet and tilted his head and stared, blinking. "I'm not sure I'll ever understand Land. I doubt it's possible," he said diplomatically, trying and failing to hide his worry over what Sylvie had just said.

As it were, he realised he couldn't hide it and just blinked, sighed and said, "I'm used to hurt. If you won't need me, then I'll just have to accept it." Sebastian frowned and narrowed his eyes. "At least I'll have done something good to someone I care about if you get back home. I'd gladly do it."

"I don't want you hurt. That should be a good sign."

She went on haltingly, avoiding looking in Sebastian's face. "There's another thing." Her fingers twitched. "Your gods... If they can provide a way there, they have influence there already, right? It wouldn't be me letting them in?" It was almost as much pleading as question. "If it'd mean I give them my homeworld as a plaything... I'd rather die."

"It is a good sign, but as to that other thing... yes, I would imagine." He looked up at the foliage, then around at the copse and the hill, and nodded. In that time, he had considered the question thoroughly -- not just because he wanted to be so badly with Sylvie and because he was still trying to struggle with the idea that she bravely cared little about religion and the entities they involved.

"Nature is everywhere where it is. And consider, random things happen everywhere, correct? She would not have offered you that unless she had the capacity to function there already. And as for... that other one, I think she's <em>everywhere</em> at the same time." He kept staring at the foliage, thinking about several different possibilities and speaking at the same time. "It seems likely they're already there. And I'm certainly not going to go around telling people about them. I doubt it'd even matter if I did, but think of it as another fuck you at them."

"I did not get the impression you'd want to sing their praises, no."

He wasn't certain. His line of reasoning sounded sensible, but on the other hand maybe he just couldn't imagine an absence of gods because he was so steeped in their presence. The argument that they had to have a foothold to provide a way seemed the closest to solid. And the idea, still, that Sylvie could not be that important.

"That's better than the alternative. Still creepy, though. I could run away from my father, but if they're everywhere..."

He made a very good replica Kord's <em>harrumph</em> at her first words. And it was true, Sebastian wasn't entirely certain, but he was somewhat so. "Well, yes. It is creepy. Back when I was still filled with a sort of arrogance about it, I didn't find it creepy. But for a longish while now..." he shrugged, then raised an eyebrow at the foliage and turned to look at Sylvie, quizzical and curious.

She gave him a tired smile. "I guess I owe you some information about my family. Some things you should know. And I'd like to tell you, too." She leaned against his shoulder a little. "Would you hold me a bit? I... haven't told most of this to anyone since I left Yrn. I would feel better with an anchor."

That smile put one back on his face, and he complied -- not just complied, but gently and slowly lifted her into his lap. Sebastian remained silent, however, waiting and watching her sideways, eyebrows raised.

After a soundless chuckle, Sylvie wondered where to begin. <em>Oh, well, if he's a bastard, too, no reason to be coy...</em>

"My mother's a whore, so I didn't know my father.

"When I was little, I guess the closest to a father figure was a storyteller from a faraway country who showed up in the neighbourhood often." She pulled on a strand of hair. "He was the only other redhead I saw regularly, and he encouraged my curiosity about the world and how things worked. He named me Sylvie, too, because I never told him my birth name. And, well, I liked it, so when I was found talented enough to join the academy and learn magic, which he encouraged, too, that was the name I kept.

"So I got to learn a lot of things, including magic. I didn't pay more attention to the politics than I had to, but one thing you need to know was that Nahin, a faraway country, was trying to fish for expertise. They apparently used magic in completely different ways, but instead of exchanging knowledge and methods only wanted to add what my school knew to theirs."

She paused for a deep breath. "And when I was about finished with my schooling and starting to look into where to go during my wanderjahr, a Nahin mage-noble visited with his parade ship, looking for scattered children. He wanted to fetch me home to the family." She sighed. "Looking into his face was eerie. His hair and skin was lighter than mine, and he was older and a bit more angular, but the resemblance was obvious. There was some back and forth and negotiations, and oaths that I would not pass on anything about our magic, but, oh, yes, I wanted to go with him." She added in a whisper, "Stuff of legends."

"Well, long story short, these secrets were exactly what he was after. He seemed to take for granted that loyalty to blood family would override anything. And when I didn't, he got rather angry, and he told me..." She was getting tired of crying, but couldn't help tearing up. "He'd paid my mother to bear and raise me, and that storyteller to have an eye on me. There may even have been some strings pulled to get me into school.

"Luckily that was still early in the journey, still in Islands territory. He had me guarded whenever we got near an island, but I quietly made a hole in the wall of my cabin and slipped out one night. Found out just how far I can swim when I really have to." A little proud grin flashed on her face.

"Another ship picked me up and I made my way back to report. Nobody liked the thought of Nahin agents in the city, some people found me very suspicious... All I wanted was toget far, far away for a while. Eventually there was enough support for the idea that if I went to Konda, and away from the coasts, my father couldn't find me for a while, because Nahin dealt with them even less than with us." After a dry chuckle, she said, "I got way, way further away than planned."

There was one more thought she could not hold back. It made her shiver, huddling against Sebastian, and cry. "Between returning to Yrn and leaving again, I only saw my mother once. I cursed her. I was so... I never talked to her again."

During her story, Sebastian had been looking first placid, then surprised; angry; impressed/proud; sad, finally.

He went through the information a few times in his head, blinking after a few seconds of silence.

"No wonder you're that tough," he said, approvingly.

Sylvie laughed in surprise and delight.

When she had calmed down a bit, she said, "Or why I don't like puppeteers. Oh, well. Now you know. If we get to Yrn, with bad luck, people will think I went to work for my father in that time I couldn't report back, and consider me a traitor. I have no idea how likely it is, but..." she shrugged.

There was an urge to laugh with her; he settled for grinning. "I understand your hatred for <em>them</em> a little better, then. But your being thought a traitor... that's a hurdle for then but not for today. But, you do know... you could always use some dope acting as muscle, paid for with affection." He said this, touching her cheek with a gloveless hand. He wasn't sure if the scar tickled; he'd never asked anyone.

"I'd prefer someone clever and capable who'd help me get away if neccessary. More useful than dumb muscle." She put one hand on his, lightly. "I trust you'd manage."