V2Ch73-Momentous Decisions
Victoria found herself in a dark place, where strange stars twinkled and a great multi-headed black shape loomed in the distance.
She shivered slightly as she felt herself in the presence of something beyond the mortal realm.
The shape spoke.
“Victoria Twinleaf, you have been chosen.” The words rippled through the void with enough force that the foxgirl felt her body shake and writhe under the pressure of them.
“Huh?” she managed.
She dimly thought the sounds weren’t even language. They were more like raw intent that her brain processed into words by some magic she couldn’t name. The sounds reminded her of the runes Tybalt had tattooed onto the women’s shoulders.
“All your life, you have served faithfully. Your family, your community, your god.” Each phrase was accompanied with uncontrollable flashes of memory. Victoria saw herself caring for her sister when she was sick, gathering herbs for Elder Sybil to make medicine for the children when three of them caught salt fever, and lastly, taking care of Tybalt when he was near death, feeding medicine to him mouth to mouth…
“Your efforts have not gone unseen, daughter of the fox tribe. You have been chosen for greater responsibility. Do you accept?”
Every word felt like it could rattle her teeth with the compressed energy of it, yet she felt that the god was restraining himself so as not to shatter her body and mind. And there was no question which deity was talking to her.
“I accept.”
She felt a flood of power and knowledge flow through her. Rituals, the words of old prayers that had been lost for decades, and a deep connection to a divine legacy older than intelligent life. Her body and mind shook uncontrollably as everything washed over her.
For a time, she knew nothing, felt nothing.
Then she was coming to herself, suddenly aware of her body again - lying on something soft but damp.
What’s that smell? She wrinkled her nose. Oh, it’s… blood.
Victoria blinked awake and pushed herself to a seated position. Her fingers groped the ground around her, and she found that she lay in grass. That water she felt on her skin must have been dew. The blood she smelled was not her own.
She turned and saw Tybalt pivoting to look at her. He was around twenty feet away. Bodies hung suspended from the trees in front of him. They were spattered with blood. The arms and legs had been stripped of much of their flesh and now ended in long, jagged bone segments that looked to have been shaped into crude scythes. The corpses appeared to be physically connected to one another by some means that was not obvious to Victoria’s eyes, torsos attached somewhere around the waist while the arms, legs, and heads were left free to move separately.
“Shit,” Tybalt said in a low voice.
He wiped his bloody hands on a rag that hung from a branch nearby - something Victoria recognized had once been a person’s shirt - and he approached.
“Vicky, are you all right?” he asked. He reached her, bent down, tilted her chin up to look her in the eyes, and finally put a hand on her forehead as if checking her temperature. “Um, that might have been a bit reckless of me. I just - none of the other initiate priests and priestesses had that reaction to the blessing.”
The foxgirl found her voice again.
“Tybalt, I think I know what being important feels like now.” A silly, uncontrollable grin spread across her face.
“Did you hit your head?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No, I… got a class.”
That had been the first thing she knew when she woke up. She had tried circulating her mana before, of course. She had done it just recently when Tybalt wanted to test out his magical tattoos.
But now her mana felt different, like it was a more fundamental part of her, and she also felt a powerful connection to something beyond herself, just waiting for her to tap into it. Even before she opened her eyes, she had known that something big had changed. She had just put the idea of checking her status to one side, because the predominant fact in her mind at the time was that she could smell fresh blood.
Now the predominant fact was Tybalt, crouched in front of her, looking at her closely, ready to spring forward as if he thought she might faint again.
“Congratulations!” the necromancer said after a moment. He pulled her into an embrace. “I was worried you were, um, hurt in some way. But I know how getting a new class can leave you exhausted. I know… how much it can change things.” He pulled back, still crouched alongside her, and Victoria turned her head slightly to look him in the eyes.
She felt a pull toward him, deep inside her. She had already been drawn to Tybalt, attracted to him as well as increasingly certain that he was the most practical choice she had for a partner. But this was something else. A warm feeling in her chest that it would be hard for her to put a finger on.
She tried to sit up on her knees, move closer to him, but she winced as her kneecaps touched the soft ground.
“Oh, it was a bad call getting you to kneel on the stony ground back there,” he said, observing her. “I didn’t expect you to have a sort of seizure. Like I said, no one else… got a class right after I used Unholy Consecration. Your knees got kind of torn up from the rocks, so I patched them up with Fleshcraft. But I’d expect them to still be a bit sore for the next couple of days.”
“Chthonic Consecration,” Victoria said quietly. That was a definite thing in her mind. Lord Mudo was far from “unholy”; the underworld was not evil.
Tybalt smiled. “Yeah, it’s probably corrected to that even in my status, now that I’ve been informed on that a couple of times already,” the necromancer said. “But old habits die hard. I’ve had the image of my class as unholy since I got it.”
“Makes sense,” she managed. She was still trying to navigate her new reality. Everything felt strangely intense. The world was richer and more beautiful. Nature had an order to it that she had never truly grasped before. Conceptually, she had known it. Now she felt it. The flowers, the grass, even the corpses that lay mangled hanging from trees nearby, and Tybalt-
“About what you said earlier,” he said, interrupting her train of thought.
“Hm?”
“About knowing what being important feels like. You know you were already important to everyone around you, right?”
She let out a short breath and almost said something - that wasn’t the kind of important she meant - but he continued too quickly for her to interrupt.
“Just make sure you don’t let this change you too much,” Tybalt said. “I’m not sure if power has made me a better or worse person, but I’m definitely different. And I liked you the way you were.”
Victoria had been smiling for the last few minutes, but at his words, her expression became more serious. She looked Tybalt in the eye, leaned in across the few inches that separated them, and joined her lips with his.
I choose you.
Tybalt almost fell backward at the sudden contact but managed to keep his feet and kiss her back. Their lips pressed together clumsily, tenderly, but eagerly.
Victoria didn’t worry about whether she was good at kissing. It was her first time, so she knew she would get better. And Tybalt clearly liked kissing her twin sister.
“No more doubt,” the foxgirl murmured out loud, around Tybalt’s lips.
“What’s that?” he asked, pulling away, looking slightly stunned, to her satisfaction.
“I’m going to marry you,” she said.
And I think, one day, I’ll probably fall in love with you. I didn’t know if I’d get to have that. But it feels pretty unlikely to go the other way now.
“You don’t feel like that’s kind of sudden?” Tybalt said. “I really hope you didn’t hit your head.”
She scoffed. “Hey, don’t joke about this. It is sudden, but it’s also not. I… All the doubts I had have been cleared away. I’m ready.”
“Yeah, you definitely hit your head. You- ”
She shut him up with another kiss.
When they separated, Victoria spoke up again before the necromancer could say anything.
“Is it enough if I tell you that you’ve changed my life over and over, always for the better?” Victoria said. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me or my family. It took me a while to fully accept that. Although, actually, the real reason is simpler.” He just looked at the foxgirl expectantly. She blushed but powered through the feeling of awkwardness to say what she needed to say. “You make me feel special. Like no one else could.”
It sounded very corny to her, but it was true.
Even now that I have a class, I don’t think you like me any more or less than you did a minute ago. I don’t think that anyone else who’s ever expressed interest in me would react the same way. Maybe it’s a superficial way for me to think about this. And it’s definitely a little impulsive, which I’ve always tried not to be. Gods, I should be thinking about anything but romance. All the people I’ll be able to help. The favor I’ve gained with my god. How all of this reflects on my family. Being chosen by Lord Mudo to receive a gift like this honors them, and it changes my life… but all I want to think about right now is how no one has ever made me feel as special as you have. It’s turning into a pattern with you.
I spent so much of my life worrying about what kind of trouble my sister could get us into, or feeling insecure about being in her shadow. That’s right. I can admit it to myself now. A part of my greedy little heart wanted to reject both you and Andric, just because I was… jealous. Jealous that in any marriage where my sister was one of the wives, I would always come second. Never have a turn at feeling important. It was selfish… and that’s a part of who I am. But none of that matters anymore. I trust you to fight off any trouble. I don’t have to worry about being in Vida’s shadow. Because even if I don’t end up being your favorite wife, I think you have room in your heart for more than one of us to feel warmed by your love. It’s like worrying that I won’t have enough light when I’m standing out in the sun. Even if you end up loving her more, even if you spend most of your time with her or one of your other wives, you still know how to make me feel special. You can give me everything I need.
“That reason’s good enough for me,” Tybalt said, smiling softly.
Victoria wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into another kiss.