The kitsune’s ears pressed flat against his head as he stared down the redhead in front of him, his entire emotional being condensed into a pair of eyes which felt like they pierced through her physical self to look directly at who she was – a raw, perfectly still yet visceral reaction to the question she had posed.

  “How do you know that name?” Came a composed yet loaded question directed at Clarisse after about half a minute of silence had passed, who seemed stunned by the change in the mood of their conversation within mere moments.

  Clarisse opened her mouth to answer, but held herself back on account of her order arriving. She didn’t pay attention to the dish, or even the order in which the plates were arranged in front of her. The waitress may have asked her a question and she wouldn’t have noticed at that moment, for all she could hear was her own heartbeat, raging wildly as if it had been thrust into a storm.

  In contrast, Nikolas sat perfectly still, so still it seemed as if he had stopped breathing. Air seemed to be immaterial to the rogue at the moment, who simply maintained his gaze while the waitress arranged the plates she had brought before leaving upon witnessing the awkward silence.

  Throughout the entire juncture of the dishes arriving and being arranged into a neat pattern on the table in front of them, they hadn’t exchanged a word. The ambience of silverware was screaming into Clarisse’s ears, begging her to break it by saying something, anything… And yet she sat there, petrified by the notion that she had done something horribly wrong by asking what she did of him. She remained petrified until she couldn’t bear the pain of silence any longer, until she couldn’t bear the pain of that ruthless, piercing gaze anymore.

  “I- In a dream…” Clarisse stuttered, speaking in a whisper silent enough that she knew he could pick up without others overhearing. “I saw… I saw you in that dream and… you told me he died,” she confessed, looking up at him for a split second to see if his gaze softened at all before continuing to speak. “Then these two other people were there, and they hurt you! I couldn’t help you at all… even if I tried, I couldn’t touch anything…”

  Behind the mask, Nikolas continued staring her down with an unyielding gaze.

  “I told you this would-”

  “You did. So what?”

  “So? Doesn’t it make you angry, going back to that moment? Hah!”

  “. . .”

  “Your one moment of weakness. Because you weren’t strong enough to save him, to save yourself… you lost everything.”

  “Yes. I lost everything, and I got cursed with you in my head.”

  “Don’t kid yourself– I was here long before you ever knew. You just didn’t have the guts to accept my existence.”

  “Mhm, what are you gonna do about it?”

  “I’m going to show her the consequences of her actions. Curiosity will kill the cat the day I take over.”

  “She deserves better than that.”

  “Yes! She deserves to know what you really are.”

  “You mean what you want me to become… That’s not happening.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she trusts me. More than a rational person should.”

  “So we agree on the front that it makes no sense?”

  “No, it does not.”

  “Making us agree on something, that truly is amusing.”

  “Let her give me a chance if it’s so amusing to you.”

  “Fine, have at it.”

  There was a movement. It was slight, ever so slight, but it was there. A tilt in his head. With how still he had remained, it stood out quite prominently, before he began talking. “It’s okay. Sherly was the man who raised me… kind of a father. But not quite. More of a master. He was a rogue himself, a high-profile thief. He died during the war when a job went wrong.”

  Clarisse looked devastated, even more so by how composed Nikolas remained while talking about it. She didn’t have to think back to what she had seen in her dream, she knew very well how it felt, the pain still stinging her despite being an old wound in her heart.

  “Eat.” Nikolas advised her, reverting to what looked like his usual demeanor despite the drastic turn in their conversation as he slid her plate closer to the edge towards her.

  “I think I lost my appetite,” Clarisse squeaked, looking up at him from across the table. “Wanna go back to the apartment?” she asked, hoping to escape the location entirely so she could curl up in bed and pretend the last few minutes had never happened.

  Nikolas let out a sigh, picking up the box of takeout from his bag and getting up. Much to Clarisse’s surprise, he walked over to her side of the table. The table itself was large enough to comfortably seat two on either side. She understood the implication and quietly shifted to one side.

  “Eat,” Nikolas repeated, sliding her order closer towards her while sitting down next to her and opening the takeout box. “I’ll help you finish it if there are leftovers, but you shouldn’t skip meals on a whim. The past happened… and you were bound to find out eventually.” He shrugged, taking off the bottom section of his mask and biting off a small chunk of the breaded omelet.

  Clarisse’s own body language eased up upon seeing Nikolas revert to his usual self, or at least what she knew him as. She was glad it had only been a brief moment of shock which made him tense, and that their rapport hadn’t immediately been destroyed by her curiosity. Slowly, she made an effort to pick up a spoon and began eating. Only small bites, but it was progress nonetheless.

  Nikolas quickly whittled down the sliced bread to two remaining pieces, before turning to Clarisse. “Mr. Shirev’s cooking really is something else. Want a bite?” He asked, stabbing one the two pieces with a fork and holding it up for her to take.

  A tiny smile appeared on her face as she considered the idea. “Only if you accept one from me after,” she put her own caveat on it before quickly biting down on the fork he held up and chewing down the bread. While she savored the familiar flavor from breakfast, she was already beginning to gather as large a bite of rice and curry she could fit on her spoon for him, and soon she proudly held it up for him to accept.

  Nikolas let out a chuckle at her attempt, subtly slipping his hand under hers to help guide the spoon to his mouth without letting the food touch the underside of the mask.

  Clarisse grinned as she held the empty spoon – it wasn’t at all like all the stories she had read while cooped up in her room during the war or fantasized her own adventures would be like while daydreaming in her bed, but she knew she had something special. Certainly a friend, maybe someone more.

  A few more minutes were spent finishing the food laid out before them, by which point Clarisse was subtly resting her head on Nikolas’s shoulder. “How long have you been having dreams like those?” He asked, reattaching the bottom piece of his mask with a click.

  “Since you moved in, so only about two nights”, Clarisse replied, lazily shifting her gaze to his eyes. “Do you think it could be because of our mana bond?”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “That might be the case… or you just have some very special fire.” Nikolas replied in kind, thinking about any possible explanation for why she could’ve seen what sounded like a memory of his.

  “Haven’t you seen any dreams with me in them lately?” Clarisse prompted, wondering what his dreams would look like. Would a rogue dream of stealthy sheep, she pondered.

  “A professional rogue knows how to surpass the need to sleep,” Nikolas boasted in a soft tone, though he acknowledged that there was merit to her question. “It’s actually a good way to test it out now that I think about it. I’ll really have to sleep now… ha!”

  “I wonder when I’ll stop learning new things about you…” Clarisse teased him as she leaned further into the safety of his shoulder.

  “Not for a long time…” Nikolas replied bluntly, though it was met with an adequate amount of humor in quick succession to keep things light-hearted. “I have a lot of secrets… but if I didn’t I wouldn’t be a good rogue now would I?”

  “If you want me to stop asking, let me know,” Clarisse broke her own immersion for a moment to make sure he was okay with her curiosity. “I can wait until you’re comfortable to learn everything.”

  “I will, Clarisse, I will,” Nikolas nodded, quietly gesturing for the waitress to close their tab and bring the check for their food. “How does picking up a new quest sound like to you?”

  “Sounds great!” She piped up, excited by the prospect of their first official quest together. She sat upright, stretching her arms out before catching the waitress approaching with a slip in her hands and quickly rummaging through her own bag for whatever leftover currency she could find. “One moment…”

  “You paid for breakfast already,” Nikolas nudged her shoulder with his wrist, reaching into his cloak to unveil a purse of coins. “I’ll cover this one.”

  “Thanks.” Clarisse continued to rummage through her bag for whatever she could find, planning to pay for dinner if they didn’t decide to have any at the guild.

  “Uh, no,” Rika declined the request of the two adventurers stood before her, with a stack of quest posters on the table between them. “I can’t let you take this one in good conscience.”

  “But why? It’s an iron ranked quest for a party…” Clarisse asked, quite confused by Rika’s change in demeanor. The usually prompt and radiant receptionist was being quite defiant in their presence today. “That’s also the last quest out of everything you put up today…”

  Rika seemed adamant in her stance with the situation. “Exactly. After that little stunt yesterday, I can’t let you keep taking easy clears, and everything else is going to be too dangerous for you.” She elucidated, shifting her emphasis from the masked kitsune to the amateur redhead.

  “You’re not serious about this, Rika… Come on.” Nikolas sighed, already quite frustrated by the amount of attention their presence was attracting despite the lack of headway they were making.

  “Not until you explain yourself,” Rika pointed an accusatory finger at him, leaning back in her seat. “Your win was good for the guild’s name, but I do have a job to do here, and that involves vetting the adventurers of this city to make sure everyone’s getting a fair bid at the earnings from quests. I thought you were barely managing to keep things together at a bronze rank level, but you’re clearly well beyond that.”

  “And? Is being good at defending myself supposed to be some sort of crime?” Nikolas rolled his eyes defensively.

  “No, but lying about or falsifying skills on a rank placement exam is,” Rika countered with her lips curled into a scowl, reminding Nikolas of where he stood regardless of his abilities. “I don’t think you want me to reopen that file…”

  “Fine,” Nikolas conceded, taking a step back to reconsider his options. “What do you want us to do then – just not go on quests? I imagine that would be even more detrimental to the guild’s name.”

  “Let Clarisse train and build up her own portfolio of quests, while you continue your usual activities on your own,” Rika advised both of them in turn, her decision all but set in stone from the looks of it. “I’ll let you take high ranking quests together once she’s proved herself capable of handling them.”

  “Right… we’ll leave you to your work while we figure out what to do then.” Nikolas turned away from the front desk, gesturing for Clarisse to follow as he made way towards the exit.

  From the comfort of the floor above, Ciela had been overlooking the entire encounter. As soon as the pair turned around, she made a dash towards the stairs leading down to the main hall, but was stopped by her party leader.

  “I can tell what you’re thinking. Don’t,” The ranger advised her, casting a cursory glance downstairs. “The kitsune?”

  “You want me to just let him go like that?” Ciela questioned, speaking in a threatening growl. “Stop getting in my way, Thoumal! There is no way he should be as strong as he is.”

  “You’re right, but you don’t understand-!” Thoumal interjected once more, fishing out a dagger from his pocket and unsheathing it slightly for her to see. The slim metal let out an irradiant, blue glow once let out from its cover, something which served as a point of concern for both of them.

  “Doesn’t that only glow when–” Ciela began, but a swift finger placed on her lips from the ranger silenced her.

  “Yes. and don’t say it out loud,” The ranger whispered urgently, before pulling her away from the railing so they wouldn’t be seen from downstairs. “It’s never been wrong before… though right now I wish it was.”

  “There go our chances of taking a quest together…” Clarisse mumbled in a disappointed tone as she glanced back at Rika one last time before leaving, it seemed she was already addressing another adventurer’s concerns. “I thought you were one of her favorites.”

  “Even favorites can’t feign ignorance to the rules…” Nikolas grumbled as they walked under the arches leading out to the city square.

  “What’s the plan then? We could go to the fields and train…” Clarisse suggested after thinking on it for a while. There really wasn’t much else on their agenda besides training and questing, she quickly figured out.

  “Eh… there’s gotta be something else we could try to get out there for some experience…” Nikolas looked up at the sky as they walked, eyeing the crimson streaks from the evening sun clawing across the sky and overtaking its color.

  “What about the book you were reading?” Clarisse piped up with an idea. “It had tips on how we could train my magic, right?”

  “It did, but that’s also something we could do basically anytime.” Nikolas answered blankly, still caught in his own train of thought. “What if we went to get you some gemstones?” he suddenly asked, glancing at his partner.

  Clarisse brought up his prior statement as an example. “Sure, that would be nice but didn’t you say they’re hard to find…”

  “In the markets, yeah,” Nikolas nodded, but he wasn’t done there. “But we could go to the mines in the east and get you some from the source.” he stated it in a matter of fact manner.

  Clarisse looked at him with wide eyes, his tone suggested as if such a journey was to be taken lightly. “The mines are really far away. I don’t even know how long it’ll take for us to get there.”

  “On foot, months,” Nikolas replied off the top of his head. “But we can hitch rides on caravans. There are plenty of merchants who use those trade routes for their supplies. It’ll just be us two, so it shouldn’t cost a whole lot too.”

  Clarisse stopped walking, flabbergasted by the way his idea was sounding more and more plausible by the moment. There was the matter of her own excitement at the prospect of wielding gemstones to improve her magic as well, but she still had some reservations about it. “I’ll have to write to my mom about it before we leave… she should at least know if I’m going to be away from Junnhaven for a long time.”

  “Reasonable,” Nikolas nodded, though there spawned a new lingering worry in his mind as to how much Clarisse intended to tell her mother about him via letters if that was how she intended to communicate. “We can go back to your place if you want to start writing.”

  “How soon do you want to leave?” Clarisse asked, catching onto his haste from the suggestion and following along as he turned the corner into the street she lived on.

  “Ideally, tonight. I can track down a merchant heading that way and figure out a deal for us to tag along.” Nikolas said, again as if doing so was well within expectations.

  “We could, but why the rush?” Clarisse asked, feeling woefully underprepared for such an ambitious expedition.

  “Isn’t that how adventures are supposed to begin!?” Nikolas shrugged with excitement bleeding from the way he moved. “Besides, I think staying in the city is a surefire way to cause trouble with that party again. I don’t want everyone to know how a toss up between me and Laufey would go…”

  There it was, the actual reason he wanted to leave. Clarisse shook her head with a sigh, finding herself in agreement. Simply being away on a journey was enough of an excuse to get past the suspicion she had brought onto him because of the duel. “Alright… I’ll go pack up and write to my mom. If you can find a caravan that leaves tonight, let’s take it.” she nodded to him.

  “Shouldn’t take me long at all.” Nikolas gave her a quick thumbs up before making away down the street, towards where the merchant guilds were. His footsteps ceased to be audible well before he turned the corner of the road, breaking into a light jog.

  Clarisse watched him leave, staying out on the street for a little while longer thinking about what she would say in her letter before heading upstairs to put it onto paper.

  Thank you for reading!

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