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hexblade-warlock · 8 years

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A Small Story Regarding NPC’s the Party Met Once.

Or, How I Found Out I Can’t Write Stories Anymore.

The rain didn’t feel like rain. Not anymore. It was more like a big, wet blanket that you couldn’t escape, no matter how fast you ran. Angelo liked to imagine the blanket was wielded by a very angry nanny. He chuckled.

Small, periodic hissing noises to his left made him remember at least one reason to be angry; Amara, happily walking alongside him wasn’t bothered by the rain at all. Every time water came near her skin, it evaporated with a soft hiss, and as a result she was warm and dry, and Angelo’s probing of her surface thoughts confirmed his suspicions that she was very happy that he was not.

“You shouldn’t do that in public” he said. His voice was smooth and silky, and had a quality to it as if it was somehow new, or barely used.

“We don’t know how people react to magic in this place but with our luck it’s usually poorly.”

Amara looked at him, still smiling, and those golden eyes glinted in the dim, yellow light the street lanterns provided.

“Is that why you’re speaking to me with your voice, and not your brain?” Her tone was mocking, almost, as if she dared him to use his magic in public too. Angelo scoffed.

“Yes, that is precisely why. Both you and I know that there’s a significant magical presence in this city- don’t make that face at me when I’m talking,- and we can’t be sure how the people react to individuals who aren’t a part of this ‘Institute’.”

He felt a sting of satisfaction as Amara reacted to the word 'Institute’ with a grimace. He continued: “Or would you perhaps enjoy the feeling of being locked up again? I don’t know, maybe you miss it?”

The sudden buildup of steam around Amara indicated that she didn’t, and Angelo was pulled away from his button-pushing as he almost instinctively began to wave his arms around to disperse the very eye-catching mist.

Amara watched Angelo flail like an upside-down beetle as the steam started drifting off of her body and out into the night. It was absolutely hilarious.

She saw a man, heavy of build and red of beard who clearly noticed the out of place steam, but as he approached his eyes went blank and he immediately began walking in a different direction. Amara turned her gaze to Angelo, and just as she expected his left eye had turned completely black; a sign of him using his, all things considered, really weird magic.

“Now who’s using magic in public?” she teased him. He didn’t even answer, he just shot her a look that slowly grew softer as his eye turned from the all-consuming black to his normal blue.

“How about we find an inn” he said with a forced smile after about five seconds of awkward silence. “I’m getting tired of being the only one here not made of fire.”

Crossing the Emerald Bridge of Farwater during the night can be a harrowing experience. The lights are fewer, the people are fewer, and the sound your feet makes against the hardened glass teeters on the unnatural.

Amara noticed fairly quickly that Angelo was in fact hovering just an inch or two above the actual bridge, and she saw him wince just a little whenever her feet impacted the glass.

When she first met Angelo, during their time as Lady Hope’s Special Children, he seemed almost unreal. Distant to the point of indifference, or even worse, cruelty. Nowadays she just knows him as the man who talks in his sleep, the man with a plethora of strange fears and phobias. The man she calls family.

The man who can read minds, she realized. She turned her eyes to him, and while his face was still perfectly straight with just a hint of discomfort, his eyes were smiling.

The warm interior of the Marble Arch Inn was a welcome change, at least to some. Amara simply adjusted her hair a little and walked up to the counter, trying her best not to smile as Angelo made an absolute mess of the carpet as he peeled off his soaked overcoat and shook his mop of unruly black hair, kind of like a dog.

She kept on walking and took a seat at the bar, throwing up two fingers. The innkeeper nodded and began preparing something to drink.

Amara took the opportunity to adjust her dress. It was black, very fine material, with red and blue accents. Poofy arms and everything. Amara didn’t particularly like it as it restricted certain features of the human physicality she very much enjoyed, such as the ability to run, and to breathe, but as she glanced over her shoulder and saw Angelo approach the bar currently being choked by his awful yellow ascot, she steeled herself and remembered why they were wearing these awful things. She didn’t hate dresses per se, but enough is enough. The innkeeper’s return reminded her to put her smile back on.

“Two glasses of Lothric red, your lordships”, the innkeeper said as he placed the two fine glasses before the completely not-noble young individuals. Angelo immediately downed the entire thing, sloshing the deep red liquid around in his mouth for a while before swallowing.

“An excellent year, I must say” he said as if he had the slightest idea what he was talking about. “Very light and invigorating taste, my good man. I think I will have another, as will my wife.”

As if on queue, Amara downed her drink as well, trying her hardest not to explain to the innkeeper how much she hated wine.

The innkeeper nodded with a certain kind of smile on his face, like the one a dog has after being called a particularly good boy, and poured the couple new drinks.

Halfway into it, Angelo raised a curious finger.

“Tell me, my good sir, you don’t happen to have any rooms available tonight? It’d be an awful shame if we had to step back out into the rain with only some wine to keep us company.”

The innkeeper again nodded and corked the wine bottle, and then went to look for his ledger. As soon as he turned his back to the couple, Amara dumped her wine into a nearby potted plant with a grimace.

The innkeeper faced them once again, ledger in hand.

“Why, yes, we do have rooms available. Not many high-class tourists visiting Farwater this time of year, at least not as high-class as you, my lordships”.

After squirming for a moment, he spoke again.

“Now, this is a very fine establishment with a very fine clientele, and as such I am sure you can imagine we demand quite a fine bit of gold. The standing cost is 50 gold for one night, per person of course, and that does not include any food or drink. And on the subject of food and drink, our menu can be seen here…” the innkeeper rambled as he showed the couple the menu on the wall behind him, complete with big, golden letters.

Angelo downed the rest of his wine and tapped the innkeeper on the shoulder, causing the rotund man to stop. Amara watched with some trepidation as Angelo’s left eye was once again clouded by black as he spoke with the innkeeper.

“That sounds lovely, my friend. In fact, we’ll take the biggest room you have with the two nicest beds you have, and we will of course have the nicest breakfast food you have in the morning, coupled with the nicest drinks you have. Here’s your gold, plus some extra just for you”.

Angelo reached into his vest pocked, pulled out a stunning amount of nothing and placed it into the innkeepers waiting hand. Angelo then closed the hand around the wad of nothing, smiled and said: “Now, our room?”

“When did we last pay for anything, anyway?” Amara always knew how to ask the questions Angelo did not want to answer.

“No idea, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t remind me of what a low-life criminal I have become.”

“What, you’re playing the part so well, I could have swore you enjoy prodding at the minds of normal people.”

“I really don’t. We’re just poor.”

“So convince the fat man downstairs to just give you all his money. Then you can bloody well pay for things as much as you like.”

“Convin-… I’m sensing that we’re not on the same page regarding what is and isn’t a shit thing to do to another person.”

“Angelo, I think you should rethink how lucky you are that your thing is being able to get people to give you free things and not, say, burning things down by looking at them funny.”

“Unless I ask them too hard and their eyes fall out of their gods-damned sockets. Maybe you’ve forgotten about Embermeadow and that poor sailor, but I haven’t.”

Amara finally managed to get out of her dress, and kicked it into a corner as if to make a point.

“What I remember from Embermeadow, you black-eyed coward is that you were THIS close to letting that boat captain put her hands on me because you were, how did you put it, 'uncomfortable with revealing your abilities’. Or was that what you said? I’m not sure as I was slightly traumatized at the time.” She took her shoes off and tossed them into the same corner as the dress. Angelo said nothing.

Amara huffed and crept into her bed, and with an irritated wave of her hand, the lanterns in the room went out.

“I just don’t want you to be so afraid of yourself that you’d give up your life for a secret you don’t even want to keep. Or even worse, my life.”

Angelo stayed silent, but his mind kept picking away at the surface thoughts swirling around in Amaras brain. She was annoyed, she was heated, and most frustrating of all, she was right.

Time passed in silence, but as Angelo began muttering in languages Amara didn’t understand, she knew he had fallen asleep. So she set out to do the same.

#Edgegate #npcs #be gentle all my skills have vanished and i am now absolute shit #desperate ravings

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