Chapter 122 – Brief Bars

Isra woke up alone. The room had gone chilly in the night, which often happened in Pucklechurch, even in midsummer. Beneath her blanket, all was well, and there was a temptation to hide there until the sun had warmed the room, but she threw off her covers anyhow and went into the closet, looking for something to wear. She had not just her new wardrobe, but more than half of Verity’s things as well, since Verity had thought that she’d be sleeping at the cabin only for a short while. It had been almost a week and showed no signs of stopping though, and Isra wondered whether Verity would end up simply living there, even though she wasn’t suited to the woods.

Dressing was harder without Verity. Isra had sometimes just stayed in the room until Verity woke up late, so they could get dressed together, because Verity was always helpful with navigating the ins and outs of fashion. Fashion had many rules, and while Verity couldn’t always articulate why those rules existed — many of them were made up, it seemed — she could at least define what they were, and help Isra to avoid the most serious missteps. Certain shoes went with certain dresses, and certain colors went with each other, and there were something called ‘accessories’, which was a name for more or less anything that you wore that wasn’t clothing. More than once, Isra had asked for advice and Verity had come over to redo almost everything, from the shade of her lipstick to the shoes she’d be wearing.

Black and brown weren’t supposed to go together, except in certain circumstances. A simple blouse would need to be paired with a vibrant skirt or a printed pattern. Skin could be shown, but only so much, and the idea that most people went with was to tease rather than flaunt, though that varied.

The irritating thing had been that Verity was, most often, entirely right. The changes she’d suggested really did make Isra look better. What Isra found most annoying was that she couldn’t just figure it out on her own, even having been told a handful of the rules. She was, apparently, a quick learner — people had told her that about many things, even when druidism wasn’t guiding her along — but in fashion it felt like she was still fumbling around in the dark. No one had said anything, and Verity had said that they wouldn’t say anything, and that was almost worse, because it meant that they might notice and then stay silent. When it came to fashion, you could put something together, look in the mirror, and end up looking wrong anyway, without even knowing that you were wrong.

And of course Verity had never helped with prim efficiency, not once they were partnered. There had been touching, the undoing of buttons, the slide of a zipper, hands touching hips and waist, or legs when explaining where a hem should lay for such and such purpose. As instruction, it was perhaps lacking, but as entertainment, it was nearly unparalleled, and Isra missed that too.

Their conversation after the concert had gone poorly. Isra blamed herself for that. There was a time and a place to talk about those feelings, and it hadn’t been right after Verity had gone through another moment with her mother. Isra had tried to disengage, to go to sleep with everything that had been brewing left unsaid, but Verity had pushed, and it had spilled out. And from there, it had mostly been silence between them. They were avoiding each other, and after a brief, awkward conversation about their living arrangements, when Isra had said she’d move back into the cabin, Verity had offered instead.

Isra was laced with regrets, but she was also convinced that there was something real she’d been feeling, and it wasn’t as though a reunion would make those thoughts go away. She loved Verity, deeply, but she worried that wasn’t enough. Hannah had said that, more than once, that it wasn’t enough to love.

Isra spent the morning in the garden after eating a small breakfast sandwich that Mizuki had prepared. Mizuki had declared it the Day of Three Sandwiches, and seemed to think that she could make all three distinct enough for it to work, which she seemed quite pleased about. Isra didn’t understand it, but she thought it was one of those things that most people wouldn’t understand. At least there would be sandwiches along the way.

Isra and Verity both worked on the garden, and in the week that had followed the concert and their return, it had been something of a way of interacting with each other, at least from Isra’s perspective. Isra did most of her work in the morning, before Verity came home, and Verity worked through the day, while Isra was busying herself around town. There wasn’t actually that much to do in the garden, not with all the work they’d already put in, but Isra knew the place like the back of her hand, and always noted what Verity had done, whether it was a new trellis for the tomatoes or an attempt to make sure the spinach wouldn’t bolt. Isra had left most of the harvesting to Verity, and noted which of the strawberries Verity had missed. She assumed that Verity was doing the same, and in that way, they were still friends.

“Hi Isra,” said Alfric as Isra was telling the bugs to stay away. His voice was soft, like he was trying to sneak up on a deer. “Just so you know, after lunch I’ll be doing disclosure. I wanted to wait until everyone was here, so we could do it as a group.”

Isra looked at him. He looked apologetic, but there was something else, not like he was wincing, but like he was preparing to wince.

“What happened?” asked Isra.

“The short version is that we tried to do a dungeon and it went bad,” said Alfric. “The long version, I’ll give at lunch.”

“Okay,” said Isra. She wanted more, but it was clear that Alfric was waiting for the right moment, and so she went back to the plants, willing them to grow bigger and better. There was a knot of tension in her stomach though, and it was hard to concentrate on anything, so she soon went back inside to wait.

Verity came right around the time lunch was being prepared. Isra saw her coming through the eyes of a few birds, though she was careful not to let the birds stare, and she hoped that Verity would be none the wiser. It was something they’d joked about before, but now the spying felt less like a joke. She hoped that Verity was doing alright out in the cabin, and all the reports from animals had been that things were going well.

“Verity, I need to do some disclosure, but I’d like to wait until after everyone has had some food,” said Alfric.

“Uh oh,” said Verity. She stared at him. “How bad?”

“We did a dungeon, and we didn’t all make it,” he said. “There’s also something that I’d like to talk with you about after I’m done with the others, alright?”

“Yeah,” said Verity. “That’s, uh. Fine.”

Because Isra was in the living room, Verity went into the dining room. It was how they were doing it, each of them in a different place from the other, if for some reason they ended up in the house together. Isra was doing her part to maintain some distance. She hoped that it was for the best. She didn’t want to lose the relationship, she just wanted it to be better, and some space seemed like it would help with that. And if they weren’t going to be girlfriends, then they should at least still be friends, colleagues, and maybe roommates. It seemed like that was for the future though.

They all ate together, mostly in silence. No one had all that much of an appetite. Isra wasn’t sure what was really accomplished by having them eat first, and she wondered whether that was deliberate on Alfric’s part. Whatever she was picturing in her head though, she was sure that it must be worse.

“Alright,” said Alfric once everyone was done eating. “Let me tell you how the dungeon went.”

Isra was wrong. It wasn’t actually that bad, not as Alfric had told it. She was the one who had died, which was a bit of a relief. If she had let someone down, or gotten in the way of Mizuki’s spells, or not listened to Alfric, or forgotten something they’d drilled on, it might have been different. Instead, it seemed like it was just chance, and all Alfric’s gravity seemed a bit unwarranted.

“Why are the dungeons so bad?” asked Verity, once Alfric had delivered a largely uninterrupted report.

“I don’t know,” said Alfric. “We don’t have enough to say that they’re above what we’d expect from variance, but it’s something I’ve talked to my guild about. They seem to agree that we’ve faced a bit worse than we might have expected. It takes some time for guild conversations to happen, but from the reports I put in for last week’s dungeons … yes, we might be getting bad variance, or there might be something else in play.”

“It’s me,” said Verity. She looked at Alfric. “That’s the conclusion, right?”

“Wait,” said Mizuki, holding up a hand. “Haven’t we had good variance? Like, a lot of money from the growstones, the theater, all that other stuff?”

“That’s not going to be worth anything if we die,” said Verity. She looked over at Isra, just for a moment. Their eyes met, then slipped away, like raindrops rolling off a leaf.

“No one died for real,” said Alfric. “It was all like a bad dream.” He really didn’t seem like he meant it though, or if he did mean it, then it was a bad dream that was sticking with him.

“I know that,” said Verity. She let out a sigh. “But if it’s me?”

“You said there was a large rift in the forest,” said Hannah, arching an eyebrow.

“I’m not sure that’s anything,” said Alfric.

Mizuki looked around. “I don’t get it.”

“The rift might be about us,” said Isra.

“Alfric, you said you had something more for me?” asked Verity. She wasn’t meeting Alfric’s eyes.

“Yes,” he replied. “I wanted to keep it confidential.”

“Can we do that now?” asked Verity. “I want to know what it is.”

Alfric paused, looking around the table. “Sure,” he said. “We can talk up in your room?” Verity nodded.

They left, and there was some silence.

“I wonder whether it was the Day of Three Sandwiches in the undone day,” said Mizuki. “Alfric didn’t mention it.”

“Well, ay,” said Hannah. “Probably didn’t think that it was worth the breath, to be honest.”

“Ouch,” said Mizuki.

“I don’t mean it like that, I just think this is hard on him, not just because he had to live through it, but because he’s our leader and feels like he let us down,” said Hannah. “Now, I don’t think that’s true, not as he’s described it to us, and I trust the man, but it’s what he feels, and that’s why such an august event as Three Sandwich Day wasn’t of concern to him.”

“Day of Three Sandwiches,” said Mizuki. She crossed her arms.

Isra was tempted to turn her attention elsewhere. She wanted to know what Verity had done or said that required a private talk. It would have been easy to send a nearby squirrel up the side of the house to sit by the window and listen in, or even to have Tabbins get up off his spot on the couch to saunter upstairs. Isra resisted the urge. They had gone up there for privacy, after all, and while she sometimes watched people when they didn’t know they were being watched, that felt manifestly different from watching people when they’d taken some pains not to have eyes on them.

“How are you?” asked Hannah.

“Fine,” said Isra with a shrug. “We know that this happens.”

“We knew it could happen, which isn’t the same,” said Hannah.

“It’s what Alfric’s chrononaut power is for,” said Isra. “He could tell me that I died in a dungeon a hundred times and I don’t think I would care, except that I would try to do better next time. We were all fighting for our lives, as he tells it.” She shrugged again. “Is that weird, to not care?”

“No,” said Mizuki. “I mean, it makes me sad that we don’t have a perfect record, but I mostly care about Alfric.”

“Ay,” said Hannah.

“Normally he’s so confident,” said Mizuki. She glanced at the stairs. “And, you know, I don’t want to die because of personal stuff.” She looked at Isra. “The whole relationship that Alfric warned you not to get into.”

Isra frowned and stayed quiet.

“No, I mean, it was fine when you guys were going at it, when you were peas in a pod, cuddled on the couch together, but now the party channel is quiet all day, you’re hardly ever in the same room, we don’t really know what’s going on except that it was probably you having a problem with her, we’re not doing dungeons and the dungeon we did do we failed —”

“Enough,” said Hannah.

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“Well I’m just trying to explain how it feels,” said Mizuki, turning to Hannah. “You understand that, right? And you’re the one who says that people should talk about their things.”

“It’s neither time nor place,” said Hannah. “Wait a day, maybe two.” She looked at Isra. “No need to have everything cascade at once, there’s a thing that can happen where too much silence means it’s like a dam breaking, and I want no one to get flooded.”

“Sorry,” said Mizuki. She looked at Isra. “Sorry. I wasn’t — I was just trying to explain how I’m feeling.”

“It’s fine,” said Isra, though it really wasn’t. That they were putting a burden on Mizuki was something that Isra hadn’t even really considered, and being told their personal problems were impacting everyone else was exactly what she didn’t want to hear.

“Alfric will need our support,” said Hannah, changing the subject with an abruptness that Isra quite appreciated. “It’s not been half a day since he saw us fail. It would be odd if he just said that it was variance and moved on like nothin’ happened. Odd, or maybe just good trainin’, but I don’t know how you train for that.”

“Yeah,” said Mizuki. “Is there something we could, I don’t know, do?”

“No,” said Hannah. “Besides, we did some work to help in the undone day, after the dungeon was done. He talked with me privately about it before this, mostly to get some advice.”

“Hmph,” said Mizuki. “Well I don’t know why I didn’t get a private talk for some advice.” She was still ruffled.