#demetria camarra-pharos

[noa-de-cajou]

Day 1 : Getting Lost Somewhere

One could say that I have no sense of direction. That’s not entirely untrue. The thing is, it’s not quite the whole picture, either.

It’s not like I can't figure out where I'm going, or where I am on a map. Those are basic skills. I just get so absorbed by my surroundings that I tend to stray away from my original path. There is so much noise, so many colors, so many people, I never know if I'm fascinated or repulsed and I never know if I’m running away or walking closer.

I do have a sense of direction.

It doesn’t change the fact that I have no idea where I am right now.

Allegian is huge. There are all kinds of places, most of which I'm not familiar enough with. I don’t get out of the Sainte-Astrale often, which does not help.

I have stumbled upon a market, it seems. Given the animation, the decrease in clothing and food quality as well as the amount of Larvae, it must be pretty far from the School. Just how long did I walk? It was only supposed to be a short outing, and now here I am. Demetria said I needed to get some sun other than my magic, ironic for someone who looks like they’re in constant iron deficiency. Or maybe she spent too much time in the sun, and that is why she looks bleached.

I'm getting sidetracked. Again.

No one here seems to have recognized me. Either the plain clothes are sufficient to hide my identity or no one knows my face. It’s probably both. It's crowded, too. They're not paying attention to me.

I’ve only been appointed Director recently, after all.

Someone bumps into my leg. It's a kid, a human, not older than six. Another child, their splitting image but taller, immediately runs to grab their hand.

“Sorry ma'am! Meena, I told you to watch where you were going…”

There you are! Mom and I were looking everywhere for you!

I can't recall how her voice sounded back then.

I look back. The two kids have disappeared into the mess of blurred faces surrounding me.

I didn't run at all but my breathing has gotten a bit fast. I should calm down. To calm down, I need to get out of here.

The thing is, no matter where I look, I can't seem to find an exit.

Are you okay? Did you fall? For fuck’s sake, you could have been kidnapped or something, you need to be more careful!

I should have been more careful. It’s too late to regret that now.

My hair is getting into my eyes and itches the skin of my neck. My fist opens and closes repeatdly onto thin air. My palm is sweaty.

Stop it.

You’re a grown woman who’s been through way worse. You can get out of this situation yourself.

Nia? Hey, it's okay. I’m here now. We’re gonna go and find mom together.

Fist opens and closes opens and closes opens and closes

Stop, she’s gone, Lani’s gone, stop it, stop it.

Let's go home. Hold my hand tight, ‘kay?

There's too much noise here too many people and I'm alone and I'm –

Scared

I want my sister. I want my mom. I want my dad.

I want –

I need –

I can’t focus.

I need to focus.

Opens closes opens closes opens closes opens closes

Someone

Please focus

Anyone

I can do this

Help

I have to –

Help me

“Found youuuuu!”

A hand grabs my wirst and I jerk.

Two eyes devoid of irises stare at me.

“Thank the gods for your aura, Nen! If it wasn’t that powerful, I never would have found you in that crowd.”

Demetria smiles, the white of her clothes and hair and skin clashing with everything else, but no one seems to notice her. She’s nearing sixty and yet she’s still just as powerful as when we met, if not more.

“Dal, found a poor little shaking elf over here!”

I’m not –

Oh.

I am, in fact, shaking.

Dal emerges from the crowd. He’s almost two meters tall so I can see him coming from miles away. As he gets closer, I can see how disheveled he looks, how sweaty his brow is. He’s panting.

“Nenia, for the love of–”

His eyes fall upon my face and his voice dies in his throat. When he speaks again, it sounds much softer.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten my eyes off you.”

He reaches out a hand, Demetria lets go of mine, and he embraces me. I let him.

“I’m sorry”, he repeats.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats as I stare at my sister’s flesh sizzling upon his plasma blade. “I'm sorry, Nenia”.

I take a sharp breath. I despise his touch I never want to let go I shouldn’t be allowing this I need this I don’t need him I'm scared.

Demetria chimes in, “Well, we found her. Now what do we do?”

“I don’t know. Nenia, what do you want to do?”

There's a long silence. Then a voice comes out and it sounds small and weak and broken and it says

“I want to go home.”

It takes me a while to realize it's mine.

Dal’s hand gently rubs the back of my head, like I'm some child that needs pacifying.

“Is it too loud here?”

I nod, to avoid having to explain further. I humiliated myself enough for one day.

“Well, Dalnæ’hyr, you heard miss Director~”

Demetria’s speaking just low enough so no one can hear. It'd be a shame, a scandal so early in my career. Dal keeps his arm wrapped around my shoulders as they walk me out of the crowd.

I'm not leaving for forever, you know.

My chest tightens.

This is stupid. I’m the one who wanted to do this. All of this.

For her

For a liar.

I guess it can’t be helped.

I was never an outdoor person, after all.

[noa-de-cajou]

Day 23 : A mystery / Being old together / Take a drink / judgement

_____

“... So.”

“... Yep.”

“Here we are.”

“We sure are here.”

“It wasn’t easy, to try and find some time to talk face-to-face. You’re always surrounded by other people.”

I smile and pick up the piping hot cup of tea on the table.

“So it's gonna be my fault?”

“I'm merely stating facts, Ether, that's all.”

Ha! Reminds me of someone I knew.

“So. You're married to an empress now. An a half angel, half demon queen. And a werewolf. That’s certainly something.”

“Sure is! I got really lucky. But what about you, miss Director? How’d you even manage all of this?”

“I got some help. From Dal and Demetria, mainly.”

“Demetria… Like Demetria Camarra-Pharos? Oh shit, talk about a trip down memory lane. I was getting weird ass vibes from her back when we were classmates.”

“And you were right. When she learned she was going to become blind eventually, she decided to just lose her sight as soon as she could and managed to get artificial aura vision somehow.”

“What the hell.”

“I know. But she was an excellent diplomat. And I mean excellent. So I got her help despite the “weird vibes” as you’d call it.”

“Was it, uh, worth it?”

“Honestly, I'm not sure. She never specified how she got the intel she gave me, kept bumping into every furniture despite her cane, I always got complaints from everyone in the School about her behavior, she was loud, wouldn't respect my privacy, asked the most intrusive questions, and I had to clean up after her all the time. To the very end. This idiot died attempting a lichification ritual. She gave us so much trouble with all the blood, it was horrendous.”

Hm. I smile, a little.

“... Is that all?”

Nenia averts her eyes away from mine. We’re both more than a century old but her mannerisms are still the same.

“... Well. Something’s different now.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know, exactly. It’s just, sometimes I hold out my hand expecting her to slap papers into it. Or I catch myself wondering why she’s talking so long to come back from her mission. And it feels… wrong, to not hear her voice shout my name anymore. It's strange. She’s been gone more than forty years and I'm still not used to it. She reminded me of some kind of snake and I got Horus some time after, without thinking about it.”

She looks at the vivarium where her snake is sleeping, curled onto itself.

“Do you miss her?” I ask.

“I… don’t know. Dal does, I think. Sometimes he just looks at her old office door with a lost face. He knows better than me what missing people feels like.”

Yeah. I bet he does.

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it? I could never understand her. Maybe I didn't try hard enough, but I had other things on my mind, and… I don’t know. The ritual was sudden. I don't know what was going through her head, to do such a thing.”

“She liked you, didn’t she?”

“I… suppose, yes.”

“Then maybe she wanted to witness the results of what you were building. Or to spend more time with you.”

Nenia looks thrown off guard. Like, fully. She grips her cup tighter and I can actually see her face twist into a weird expression. A childish anger. Maybe some kind of sadness.

“That's the stupidest reason for a ritual I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah, to you, maybe. But humans experience it differently.”

My eyes land on my wedding ring. The one on my artificial hand.

“This isn’t my first time marrying a human woman, you know. The first one died at fifty. Before her time.”

“Then why marry another? Even if the Empress lives to the maximum of a human lifespan, she'll probably die before you. You just set yourself up for more pain. Why would you go through this again?”

“Because it's worth it.”

I didn't hesitate. Not even for a second. Nenia stares at me intently, then smiles a little.

“You’ve changed, Lani.”

I wince a little. Haven’t heard that nickname in a while.

“Obviously? So did you. Like, you're taller than me now and your hair has gotten longer…”

“‘No, that's not what I mean. You look… well. If not for the ears and your age, I could swear that I have a human in front of me.”

She says that like it’s something to be sad about.

I understand, somehow.

I’ve lived too many years and too many things to be a human. Yet I tend to forget that I'm an elf, and not, like, three humans stacked upon each other.

“But I'm not human.”

“No. But you understand them.”

She chuckles and takes a sip of her tea.

“I envy you.”

… Is it really something to be envious about?

Maybe it is. Maybe Nenia would have liked to understand Demetria before she died.

But the way she says it… it’s like she doesn't even know how I do it. How to even apprehend me at all. Maybe we’ve been apart for too long.

Maybe we can't understand each other.

…

“This is the worst tea I've ever drank, Nia.”

“Well, you’ll brew it yourself next time, Lani, I have priorities.”

“Like what, ruling a country?”

“You're the worst consort I've ever met. Worse than my tea.”

“My wife does most of the ruling for a reason!"

Eh. I guess we’re okay like this.