Indecision

Fiction | Ittoril

"I like your hair," Abigail said to the woman sitting next to her.

"Thank you!" Belle smiled politely. The two of them were sitting on some of the empty boxes that were strewn around the room. Jan continued to stand, arms crossed. Wilfred was floating nervously in the corner.

Abigail had, finally, come to a decision. She would stay here, just for now. She knew she should be out getting supplies and helping her family, but she had too many questions to want to leave. Not yet, at least.

"So, Um. Who are you all?"

"Well, let me explain," Belle began. "We — Jan, Alice, and I — are former students of the Empyrean Academy. Back from before it-"

"Who's Alice?" Abigail interrupted.

"Oh! Um." She frowned for a moment. "She's the one back there." Belle pointed to a figure sitting against the wall, who was not particularly concealed but whom Abigail had only just noticed in that moment. She wore all black, but her shaved hair was dyed red. Her stark eyes watched the room quietly.

"Oh," Abigail said.

"Didn't you notice her?" Belle smirked. Abigail looked up at her. "She was an apprentice assassin. It's kind of her thing."

Alice raised an eyebrow.

"What about you and Jan?" Abigail asked. "What did you study?"

"Well," Belle looked away. "Jan is an ecologist, and I, myself, was studying sorcery."

"You're a sorceress?"

"Eh, well... close enough." She paused. "None of us were actually able to complete our studies before the academy burnt down."

"Can you do magic?"

Belle scratched her head. "Uh, well, yeah... I can." She looked up at Jan, who was frowning at her. "But I shouldn't. The consulate doesn't like magic — and especially not in wartime."

"Oh."

Jan spoke up, still frowning at Belle. "Are you quite done, Miss Hart? Or is there more you would like to give away about our group?"

"I'm just answering her questions!"

"Indeed you are, every single one of them."

Belle sighed, and turned to Abigail. "Don't mind Jan. He's... He's like this."

Abigail nodded. Jan did have a point, though, she thought. Abigail appreciated Belle's friendliness, but Jan, as rude as he was, was right. It didn't seem wise of Belle to be so open. It made Abigail feel guilty.

"What about Wilfred? What's he..."

"Well..." Belle glanced over at the ghost floating nervously on the edge of the room. "I... I don't really know what Wilfred is-"

"I- I- I was the, uh, yes!" Wilfred seemed to burst out from the corner. "I was a friend of Mosr. Astrophel! He- I- Well, he found me here some time ago and-" Wilfred cut himself off, seemingly noticing how everyone in the room was looking at him.

There was silence for a moment.

Abigail turned to Belle. "Who's Astrophel?"

Jan sighed.

Belle looked away. "There... There is a fourth person in our group-"

"Besides Wilfred?"

"Besides Wilfred. Astrophel — Johannes Astrophel — is the one who brought us here. He was another student way-back-when, but he had been at the academy much longer than us. And then, about a month or so ago, he contacted us- or, he contacted me, at least, saying that he wanted to get the academy back together. The four of us have been meeting here since."

"Okay." Abigail paused, thinking about what else to say. She remembered something. "Um. Before I came in here, there was- well, I mentioned it earlier. There was this... noise."

"A noise?"

"Yeah it was this... weird droning, like... I- I don't know how to describe it."

"That's... odd." Belle looked over at Alice. "Alice, shouldn't the muffler-"

"It's broken."

"What?"

Alice held up a small metallic shape in her hands. "The muffler. It's broken."

Belle made a questioning face towards Alice, who seemed to believe she had said all that she needed to say. After a moment, Belle spoke. "Do you mind telling us how it's broken?"

"The muffler is damaged. It's not muffling properly."

"Do you know how it got damaged?"

Alice shrugged.

Abigail spoke up. "Could- Uh... What's a muffler?"

Belle looked back at her. "Ah, sorry." She paused. "A muffler is this... thing. That Alice found down in Reseggia. Dwarven Technology. It's supposed to, well, muffle any sound around it." She looked at Alice. "But apparently, ours must be broken."

Abigail nodded. There was a period of silence.

Jan spoke again. "If you're done, Miss Hart, could we please find a way to get this Bejuk out of here? Does she not have anywhere else to be?"

"Oh, shut it, Jan!" Belle snapped. "She can do what she wants."

In truth, Jan's words did have Abigail thinking again. She did have somewhere else to be. She should leave, she knew — she was wasting time here. She had to finish gathering supplies and then get home, and it was getting late. But she didn't want to leave. She had found something here that was new. Something that was interesting for once. She wanted to stay. Just for a little longer.

"I simply do not want to be the one who has to explain to Astrophel why-"

At that moment, there was a racing of footsteps from down below. A man swung up the staircase into the room, smiling widely. He was dressed smartly — similar to Jan, in fact — with a vest and ruffled white shirt. Abigail would almost call him handsome, if it weren't for one thing: as his eyes surveyed the room, they momentarily made contact with Abigail's. The back of her mind noted how, oddly, his eyes looked rather flat — like a painting's.

But what occupied the front of her mind instead was this horrible, mounting feeling as he looked at her. It felt as if his eyes were looking into her — past her eyes and inside her very soul. It felt as if, in an instant, those eyes were able to see the entirety of her being — could know everything about her, could figure out the ticking mechanisms of her mind, could summate her existence. She felt small. The eyes seemed to judge her, not with any emotion, really, just with a frustratingly modest satisfaction that they knew her, and she hated them, but she had not the heart to believe they were wrong.

A fraction of a second later, his eyes had looked away.

"Hi, Astrophel," Belle said to the man.

"Hello Belle," The man spoke quickly. "Jan, Alice." He addressed the others, and, if it weren’t for that moment of eye contact before, Abigail might have thought he hadn't noticed her.

He smiled at the room. "I hope you all are ready. We've got a meeting with the Empress."

← Back to archive