Chapter 123 – The Sea and the Breeze

Mi-zu-ki and Ver-ity!
When they’re to-gether there’s lots of glee!
Stick a-round and you will see!
Today might be the day they climb a tree!

“Wow,” said Verity. “That was something.”

“I worked on it all last night,” said Mizuki. She beamed at Verity.

“Can I — I mean, you’re joking, right?” asked Verity. “I’m going to feel bad if you’re not, but —”

“Yes, yes, it’s a joke,” said Mizuki.

Verity took a breath. “Because if you wanted help writing songs —”

“It’s bad on purpose,” said Mizuki. “And therefore beyond criticism.”

“Ah,” said Verity. “You know, I should try that sometime. Next time there’s a major concert in Dondrian I’ve been forced into, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Okay, so how would you do it, if you had to do a song about us, for real?” asked Mizuki. “We are, after all, the original pair.” By this she meant they were the first two to be recruited by Alfric. “Which is why I’m glad we’re doing this.”

“That, I don’t know,” said Verity. “Give me some time to think. Maybe a compare and contrast, or casting us as two opposite things, the breeze and a sea, or something like that.” She hummed slightly to herself, a tune coming as if from nowhere. “I’ll work on it later, hard to do that and talk.”

They were Having A Day together, which meant a trip to Liberfell, a walk, a picnic, and a bit of shopping to ‘get Mizuki some fashionable clothes’. Mizuki didn’t particularly think she needed fashionable clothes — her clothes suited her well, and had felt fashionable enough —, but it was something for them to do together. They were going for a walk through a park together, along a trail that Mizuki had gone on with Isra before. The chest trundled after them, five feet behind, and when they needed to take a break, it made a convenient bench.

“So, Isra was spying on you with some birds, she said,” remarked Mizuki. It had been three days since then.

They had been scheduled for a dungeon the day before, but in the morning Alfric had called it off, because they’d apparently failed again. He seemed shaken by it. It had been a total party wipe that time, with no time for him to process before he woke up in bed, having not actually been bisected by a lancing beam of fire — or having undone it, if you wanted to be technical about it. Worse, they’d gone through seven rooms of a difficult dungeon before that point, all of which seemed to be weighing on Alfric.

Mizuki had wanted to spend time with him, to comfort him, to let him tell her about all the stuff he was feeling rather than the mechanics of the dungeon, what abilities the monsters had, the party formation, drills, response patterns, and all that other stuff he liked to go on about. Instead, Alfric had scheduled himself a trip to Plenarch, and Mizuki, for lack of something productive, had invited Verity to go to Liberfell. Mizuki did not like the cabin arrangement, as much as Verity had declared herself to be a solitary creature.

“She did spy, yes,” said Verity. “To be honest, I felt relieved.”

Mizuki made a face. “Not how I’d feel.”

“I’d thought that it was just over,” said Verity. “And it turns out that it’s not, not completely. She still cares. She still wants to be friends. We can stop avoiding each other.”

“Yeah, but now we’ve got to be looking over our shoulders,” said Mizuki. “Now we can’t trust birds. I used to like birds.”

Verity shrugged. “I’d made peace with the idea that she might be watching, at least when I went out. I guess I don’t feel the same way. I do care for her, immensely, which might color my view.” She sighed. “And like I said, I was mostly happy that it wasn’t as dire as I’d thought.”

“You still sit on opposite sides of the table,” said Mizuki. “Never on the same couch.” Mizuki hadn’t noticed that herself, it was Alfric who’d remarked on it, but once he’d said something, it was hard to unsee. They were at least in the same room together, but they were usually across from each other.

“Well,” said Verity. “Yes. Because if we were together, it might feel like, oh, I don’t know. Like it was old times.” She didn’t elaborate. Mizuki wondered if it was the right place to ask a question.

“I get it,” Mizuki said instead. She had kept her distance from more than a few people in her time.

“I’m sorry about the dungeons, by the way,” said Verity as she stepped over the root of a tree. It was right on the path, and had been rubbed shiny from the no doubt hundreds of people who had stepped on it over the years.

“Nah,” said Mizuki. “Don’t be. I mean, it might not even be you. Who knows why dungeons are the way they are?”

“It probably is me,” said Verity. “I’ve been trying to be happier, more at peace, but that’s a struggle. It’s especially a struggle when I think I might infect the next dungeon with something.”

“I talk with Vertex a lot,” said Mizuki. “They don’t seem like they have a cakewalk of it.”

“Mmm,” said Verity. “I guess I haven’t talked to other dungeoneers or read dungeon reports, so I don’t know for certain.”

“Nah, no one but Alfric reads dungeon reports,” said Mizuki. “I just know about them because Alfric talks about them a lot.”

“You’re good friends,” said Verity. Her voice was studiously neutral.

“Well, yeah,” said Mizuki. “I think we just vibe really well.” She paused. “You know, I spend a lot of undone days with him, which maybe helped him learn how to navigate me.”

“In what sense?” asked Verity. “Do you … need navigating?”

There was something about the way she said ‘in what sense’ that struck Mizuki. A normal person would have just said ‘what do you mean’. Maybe that wasn’t true, or it was Mizuki picking up on things that weren’t there.

“Yeah, I need navigating sometimes,” said Mizuki. She shrugged. “I am a river with many rapids.”

“Hmm,” said Verity. She was quiet for what felt like a while, and Mizuki kept her mouth shut, not wanting to interrupt. She knew she had a way of filling the air with noise. “I don’t think anything rhymes with ‘rapids’.”

“That’s what you were thinking about?” asked Mizuki.

“I thought it was a good line,” said Verity. “Now, not every line has to rhyme, but it’s what I like in a song. There’s a feeling of knowing what’s coming.” She lifted her chin and sang.

I am a river with many rapids
A flowing stream of cerulean dreams
Won’t you raft down me
with paddles out-stretched
And mind the danger
of death

It was a short and sweet song, with a wandering melody, and Mizuki actually quite liked it.

“I’ve always admired your voice,” said Mizuki. “And your lyrics.”

“Thank you,” said Verity. “That one was horrible.”

“I mean, if I’m the river, then the song is saying, um,” said Mizuki. “That I want people to paddle down me, meaning partner with me or whatever, but they need to be careful, and might die?”

“Something like that,” said Verity. “But it wasn’t about you, it was about what the metaphor evokes. And I think it’s likely true for myself.”

“Huh,” said Mizuki. “I guess I don’t even know what your rapids are.”

“Oh, lots of things, I think,” said Verity. “A tendency toward melancholy, a bit of completely unnecessary self-sacrifice, a compressing of emotion until it becomes crystalized into a weapon of sharp edges … I could likely go on, but I’ve lately come to the realization that I wasn’t raised correctly, and I think that’s the source of most of my problems. You know, for a time I felt like I was doing pretty well, but then my mother came back into the picture and laid bare that I might actually have some growing to do.”

“Did she?” asked Mizuki. “You think if your mom hadn’t come back, you’d still be having problems?”

“I don’t know,” said Verity. “I think part of the problem with Isra was that she started changing, and I didn’t like that change.”

“Why?” asked Mizuki.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Verity. “Why does a person like anything?”

“Heard,” said Mizuki, nodding.

They were almost out of the woods, which would bring them to the park. Mizuki had made a lunch for them, and the walk — hike, if they were being generous — had built up an appetite. Mizuki had acquired some of those little stacking tin pots, and while Verity was setting out a blanket, Mizuki was making sure that the ectad plates had kept everything warm or hot, as the conditions required. They had rice, pork, roasted veggies taken right from the garden, a cold soup, and some chilled fruit.

“So why are we doing this?” asked Verity as she sat down. “Not that I mind.”

“I dunno,” said Mizuki. “I was thinking about how maybe you’ve been making the dungeons worse than they need to be, and I was thinking that maybe it would help to, I don’t know, have your friend be more of a friend. Because we are friends, but the number of times we’ve ever done something together, just the two of us, has been, um … not a lot.”

“So you’re soothing me out of self-interest?” asked Verity.

“I’m —” Mizuki began.

“That was a joke,” said Verity. “Sorry. It was a mean one. A high society one, maybe.”

“It’s true though,” said Mizuki. She set all the tins down on the blanket and then handed Verity a set of silverware. They had little metal plates, and both began piling them up. “If we weren’t dying in the dungeons, I would probably never have thought to do this.”

“It’s true, that’s why it’s mean, and that’s why you’d make that kind of joke,” said Verity. “It would be better if it flowed like velvet though. I was never terribly good at the barbs.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Mizuki. “But no, seriously, I was thinking to myself, if Verity’s not spending time with Isra, then who’s she spending time with? I like Hannah, but she’s wrapped up with Marsh, and if you try to talk to her, sometimes you get the cleric treatment.”

“She does that to you too?” asked Verity.

“Yeah, but I kind of like it in a way I feel like you don’t,” said Mizuki.

“I do kind of like it,” said Verity.

“Huh,” said Mizuki. She hadn’t expected that. If it was true, then that didn’t explain how little time Verity seemed to spend taking Hannah’s counsel. Maybe it was like when Mizuki got the cleric treatment: she would agree with the thrust of it, but not want to follow through, which made her feel bad. “Well, and then your other option would be Alfric, and he’s great, but I feel like you’re both too Dondrian to have fun together.”

“And what does that mean?” asked Verity with a happy little laugh.

“You know,” said Mizuki. “You’re rich, you’re trained, you’ve got rules and stuff, there’s decorum. I feel like if we left the two of you in a room, it would be polite, inoffensive conversation, as one does when one is with a peer of one’s own standing.”

“Yeesh,” said Verity, which might have been because of the snooty accent Mizuki was putting on. “I’ve been in Pucklechurch a year, I can hang with the locals.”

“Well then the point stands, because he’s not a local,” said Mizuki.

“And you get along well with him,” said Verity. She had one eyebrow very slightly raised.

“Hey now,” said Mizuki. “You keep that eyebrow down.”

Verity grinned and raised the eyebrow higher, until eventually she was leering at Mizuki.

“Look, is Alfric handsome?” asked Mizuki as Verity ate. “Yes. Is he capable? Also yes. Does his family own an awesome dog? I mean, you’ve seen it, why am I asking you?”

“Lots of good points,” said Verity.

“Honestly, it’s almost all good points, with Alfric,” said Mizuki. “But does he make me weak in the knees?”

“Does he?” asked Verity.

“It’s not that simple,” said Mizuki. She felt like she’d been trapped by her own question. She ate some food, as though she could ignore following up, but Verity was also eating, and it really did feel to Mizuki like she was the one who was supposed to be talking. “Sometimes, I guess? He’s training shirtless in the backyard and my brain is like ‘hey big boy, why don’t you get your reps in up here?’ But I don’t wake up in the morning thinking about him, I don’t have sleepless nights tossing and turning, none of the usual stuff.”

“That’s the usual stuff?” asked Verity as she popped a grape into her mouth.

“I don’t know,” said Mizuki. “Yeah?”

“When you’re interested in someone, they consume your thoughts like that?” asked Verity.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Mizuki with a shrug. “Definitely not like that with Alfric though. Just occasionally it’ll be like ‘sure would be nice to’ and then you can fill in the blanks. But I guess also even if I were, you know, consumed with this obsessive crush, which I’m not, I also would just keep it to myself. Which is what I’m doing now.”

“Yourself, and me, and who else?” asked Verity.

“Kell,” Mizuki admitted. “Plus a letter to my oldest younger sister. Which was mostly about other things.”

“Do you think he’s not interested, or do you think it would go sour?” asked Verity.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Both,” said Mizuki. “And not to circle this back on you, but I think you and Isra having a falling out was very informative. And I think I would do less well than you’re doing?”

“I feel like I’m doing awfully,” said Verity. “So thank you for the kind words.”

“I think you’re doing okay,” said Mizuki.

“I’m still going to take that as a compliment,” Verity smiled.

“I think this break up, or just break, really could have threatened to tear the party apart,” said Mizuki. “I mean I care about the party a lot, I have no idea what I would do if it all just evaporated, and it seems like it could just evaporate. That’s what keeps me up at night.” It was at least part of why she’d asked Verity out.

Verity reached over and placed her hand on Mizuki’s. “I’m sorry. I think when Isra and I got together, we weren’t thinking too far in the future.”

Mizuki patted her hand back, then withdrew it. “See, I think if it had been rock solid, it would have been fine, and maybe it felt rock solid. If you were just a happy married couple — or if it had been going that direction — then, you know, we’d have all been happy for you and stuff.”

“So you’re saying that we shouldn’t get back together until it’s for life?” asked Verity. She let out a breath. “I don’t know about that.”

“I mean, isn’t the plan that you get back together?” asked Mizuki.