138 - Acceptance
Arielle and Vittoria had dinner in total silence that day.
While Vittoria ate, Arielle mostly shuffled her food around her plate, lacking a discernible appetite. She fed most of her meat to the dragon, who was plopped close to her side that night, settled between her and Inara. Inara, for her part, sat stiffly and snuck glances between Vittoria and Arielle, trying to chew as quietly as she could in the tense silence. After dinner was done, Arielle went back to her couch, and Inara followed her.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, and Arielle shook her head. She wasn’t okay. She felt sick to her stomach, sick with the guilt of endangering Inara and Sir Spendulon, the shame of failure, the anxiety of not being able to keep her promise to Lyra.
She never should have told Lyra she could do it in the first place. Everyone had told her that it would be practically impossible, but she’d just deduced that she would figure something out because she was good at figuring things out.
Inara sat by Arielle, and Sir Spendulon was between them once more. She was quiet for a long time, though she picked at her fingernails, opening and closing her mouth, uttering tiny starting breaths.
Finally, she got the words out.
“I truly hate that you're feeling so down," she said. "If this is about whatever it is you were doing, or feeling...inadequate, believe me when I say you are not."
That was the truth. Ari was largely the opposite of inadequate, but she could still remember a time when inadequate was all she was. That was the feeling that lingered right now.
Vittoria was wrong in a sense.
Arielle was used to feeling average, or even less than average. After all, she had been mediocre at very many things in life. In fact, most of the things the Mossbornes prided themselves on–camaraderie, physical prowess, size–Arielle had failed at. Failure had been her norm, and apart from having a good memory, she’d figured there would be nothing else special about her.
Until she’d discovered that she had magic. All of a sudden, her connection to the spirit orbs was no longer a weird infirmity that earned her scorn, but a special superpower that gave her an advantage over others. No one else could do what she did, and she'd gone from average and below average to being exceptional at this one thing.
Now, so much of her self-esteem was tied up in being exceptional at it, and perhaps she had thought she would always be exceptional, and that she always had to be exceptional.
So discovering that there were limitations for her even with magic…she hadn’t reacted well to it at all. She had been so determined to hold onto the thing that gave her worth, that made her special, that even a tiny limitation felt like a deadly prick into her ballooned sense of self.
Vittoria had been right. Part of her insistence had spawned from Arielle’s pride. There were other ways to help Lyra, such as enabling her to craft more spells and working with her to adapt to casting them. But that way would not help Ari prove a point that she could do this, that she could find a loophole after all, that her status as special was forever unquestioned.
She sighed and lay down on the couch. She still felt bad, so much that even when Sir Spendulon nibbled at her jacket and tugged her onto the floor, she didn't move. Just lay there while Inara fussed and said, "Bad Sir Spendulon. Don't do that. Are you okay, Tamsy?"
Arielle didn't answer for some time, lost in her tumultuous thoughts.
Then she said, “Inara?”
"Yes?”
“Can you pat my head for a little while? Like this.” Ari showed her the way Lyra and Celie often did it, slowly and gently.
“Of course,” Inara said and went ahead to do just that, petting her with light, gentle touches, not unlike how she did for Sir Spendulon.
Arielle closed her eyes, ignoring the dragon when it lay next to her. She didn’t know if it was the exhaustion from the emotional roller coaster or the need to escape reality for some time, but she was asleep in a few minutes.
The next morning, she found herself on a couch with the covers drawn over her. She didn’t know how she got there, because she didn’t even feel herself moving, but she had a feeling it was Vittoria, as Inara’s bones were too slight to carry her, and the dragon would not have lifted her onto the couch, merely buried his full head underneath her abdomen.
Arielle sat up and shook her head to clear it, wiping her eyes. She’d had the entire night to feel sorry for herself, and now she finally had an idea of what she wanted to do next. She had to set things right.
She would be meeting Lyra later today at Sower's Point, which was close to Lyra's town. Lyra assumed that Ari was staying with Elric, and Sower's Point had a carriage station that made it easier to access for her, though she would probably arrive by teleportation.
Before that, though, she wanted to talk to Vittoria again.
She got up and went to Vittoria’s room. The door was closed, so she knocked on it and waited for Vittoria to say, “Come in,” before she did.
Vittoria was still studying the scrolls that she had been reading last night. She didn't look up when Arielle walked in, and Arielle folded her hands in front of her, clearing her throat, suddenly nervous.
“I am sorry,” she finally brought the words out of her mouth. “For what I did. You’re right. I was trying to prove a point, to prove you wrong and prove that I wasn't average. I shouldn’t have done that, any of it. It was stupid of me, and I endangered you all, and I'm very, very sorry for that.”
Her words sounded flat to her own ears, rehearsed. That was because she had rehearsed it–so as not to accidentally say the wrong thing–but that did not make it any less true.
She hoped Vittoria could see that.
Vittoria finally looked up at her, staring at her for a long time.
“And?” she inquired.
“And?”
“Is that all you have to say?”
The tone of her voice suggested that she wanted Ari to say more. But what more could she say? Did she want her to grovel? Get on her knees and beg?
Arielle had never grovelled before and found the act distasteful. She also didn’t know if she would be good at it. But if that was what Vittoria needed to forgive her, then she guessed she could try to oblige her.
She slowly began to lower herself to her knees, but Vittoria’s sharp voice stopped her. “What are you doing?”
Arielle paused in the act, her knees creaking from the strain. “I thought you wanted…”
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“I’m not asking you to kneel or beg, Arielle,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “I’m asking if there’s anything else you want to apologize to me for.”
“I…” Arielle straightened, deep in thought. Had she done something else to make Vittoria upset? She replayed their entire conversation in her head while Vittoria waited there patiently for her to get it.
After a few seconds, it hit her.
“I’m sorry I broke your trust,” she said, and finally Vittoria gave her a proud nod.
But rather than accept Arielle’s apology, she stood up and stood next to her. She laid a hand on Arielle’s shoulder, and a portal opened up and swallowed them both, leading them to a site with a deep, deep gorge in the center of it, where there was bare, dry, cracked earth.
The strange thing was that around them there was a thriving forest and what seemed to be settlements in the distance, but this place was a reverse oasis, a desert in the center of a lush garden.
"Where are we?” Ari asked.
“Cha-mi,” she responded. “In the Northeast continent of Benhai. This is one of the earliest sites of what turned out to be a multi-decade demonic invasion on Earth. It happened centuries ago, and this conflict was one of my first, as a General.” She smiled distractedly. “I was so cocky back then. A few years out of the War Academy, I was already one of the most decorated soldiers in the world. I'd earned a few nicknames for myself, including the Golden Beast and the Biumi, which means the one who rules the battlefield in Floian. It was said that whenever I showed up, the tides of battle were sure to change to ensure a win for my army." A gust of wind blew, but it didn't kick up the sand on the hardened earth, which seemed stuck in place. "As you can imagine, all of that made me pretty full of myself pretty quickly."
Arielle slid her foot across the earth, testing it. It felt almost like the basalt that was in the volcano, except it wasn't charred. Just...dead.
"So what happened here?" Ari asked.
"Have you ever heard of the term Ironic Irene?"
She shook her head.
“In military terms, it’s what we call lying in wait for a known ambush with a tactical reversal on the outskirts. It was named after the woman who came up with the formation. We'd predicted based on the trajectory of the demon's actions that the next rift would appear here, and so we planned to fight them here. We predicted the size of the attack too, and we were ready for them.” She looked up. ‘"The previous commander warned me that it was a mistake. That it might be a trap and we should be cautious. But of course, I didn't listen. I was The Buimi, after all. Even if it was a trap, I was sure that I alone could change the tide of war if it came down to it. But they had indeed planned for me to be there, and they were readier for us than I ever imagined." She swallowed, a dark shadow moving over her face, shivering though Arielle had never seen Vittoria cold before.
"It was a massacre. More than half of the company died; some were direly injured. My magic was essentially stifled by a particularly skilled Overlord, and I was useless to them, only able to watch as they got slaughtered. And he mocked me for it, because we both knew that it was my fault. Ironically, I got away with few physical injuries, but the psychological ones were long-lasting. I could barely live with myself for years after. The guilt almost drove me to some very dark places and to make some very drastic choices. I never would have made it if not for a few stubborn friends pulling my head above water now and then." A pained smile appeared on her lips, but it was gone in an instant. "I wasn't the only one who made the decision to ambush the demons. In fact, most of the generals were in agreement, and only a few, including the commander, opposed. But I know they only agreed and took my side because I was me. Because the soldiers looked up to me, because I had already saved them several times before and they had faith that I would do it again. And because of me, they were all dead.”
This time, it was Arielle's turn to shiver as the stiff wind brought the scent of nothingness.
She stared at the vast land, imagining the carnage that had lain there, the bloodshed on the yellow earth. Her stomach tightened. She could see it somehow. If she recreated Elric’s spell, she could probably clearly see the deaths that littered the ground.
It was hard to imagine Vittoria as trapped and helpless, but also that was what made it so terrible.
“I think that was when I learned the lesson,” she said. “I might be invulnerable, in many ways, but those around me aren’t. One of the first things we learned at the academy was that war happens and people die. We may not be able to save everyone, but the least I can do is not put them in danger. Do you see what I mean?”
Arielle nodded. She understood just how bad it could have been if a host of demons descended and attacked Vittoria's abode because of her. Inara couldn’t fight. The dragon was still a baby, and Ari and Vittoria might be highly skilled, but they were not ultimately invincible.
“I understand,” Arielel said. "I won’t do anything like that again.”
Vittoria didn't smile, but she did look at her warmly as she squeezed her shoulder.
"I don’t want you to be scared to act either," she said. "I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that you take the risks you do, as it has saved more than a few lives and led to some pretty outrageous magical discoveries. But just think deeply and weigh your options. Consider those who might be affected. Don’t test fate too many times.”
“How do I know how many times is too many?”
“It comes with age,” she said and ruffled Arielle's hair. "You'll get the hang of it. Just be careful.”
Although Ari wasn't the biggest fan of hair ruffling, she smiled, and Vittoria smiled back.
“Let’s go home.”
That afternoon, they had lunch together, and Inara seemed chattier than normal, even starting a conversation herself about the method she had used to cook the meat.
Vittoria stared at her, amused, while she did.
"Someone's happy we made up," Vittoria said afterward. “Let me guess. You're relieved because you were scared the fight would turn physical, and we might end up burning the place down. Correct?"
“No, of course not,” Inara said hurriedly.
Vittoria raised an eyebrow.
"Maybe a little," she admitted with a blush.
Vittoria laughed at that, which made Inara blush even harder, though she smiled more too. So did Arielle.
Nevertheless, though some of her tension had eased, Ari was dreading seeing Lyra again and admitting her failure. She knew it was unlikely, considering how kindhearted Lyra was, but she had an irrational fear that Lyra would be furious at her for not being able to cure her and going back on her word.
She felt her heart beating faster as time drew close, and she even voiced it to Vittoria when the latter asked her why she looked pale.
"I'm scared she'll hate me," Ari whispered.
"Nonsense," Vittoria said. "If she’s truly your friend, she would understand. And if she doesn't, she was never your friend."
Ari nodded. It sounded easy enough to say, but she really, really did not want to lose Lyra's friendship, especially this way.
Vittoria and Arielle teleported early to a shop next to the busy carriage station. Vittoria had disguised herself this time as a young woman posing as a maid for Elric.
After the last carriage from Stonehold arrived, they walked towards the station, spotting Lyra and a tall, lean man through the crowd.
Lyra had spotted them first, though, and immediately hurried towards them, eyes glowing, hair glistening, with her sunflower yellow dress billowing about her.
Arielle waved at her friend as she dashed towards her and surrounded her with a big hug.
“Ari!" she exclaimed. “I missed you so much.”
Ari patted her back awkwardly. “I missed you too.” Lyra let her go within five seconds, still beaming, and Ari felt self-conscious, so she gestured at Vittoria. “This is…” She only barely remembered in time the fake name they agreed to. “This is Jane.”
“Hello, Jane,” Lyra curtsied, bowing her head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” Vittoria said. “Rarely do I meet young kids with good manners anymore.”
“Thank you.” It was Lyra's turn to gesture to the bespectacled man standing next to them, eyeing them with a friendly curiosity. “This is my brother, Florian.”
“Hello, Florian," Ari said and bowed too.
"Ladies," Florian said as he bowed. "It's lovely to meet you as well. Hopefully, your travels weren't too strenuous."
"Actually, it kinda just flew by. Barely noticed it," Vittoria joked.
“Lyra,” Ari opened her mouth because she wanted to get it over with, to get rid of the tightness in her chest. “I…”
Now that she was here, it was impossible to get the words out. Her hands got sweaty, her throat tight. She imagined the disappointment in Lyra’s eyes.
Lyra cocked her head. "Are you okay, Ari? Are you sick from the long carriage ride?"
"No, I'm..." She shook her head. “I can't…I couldn’t.”
Ari could tell the exact second understanding dawned for Lyra.
Lyra barely gave her a reaction. Her eyes only flared slightly, and then she allowed a soft smile to curve her lips. “I told you not to worry about it, Arielle. You already gave me the best present there is. You’re here for my birthday.” She looped her arm through Ari's. "Come on. Let’s go meet the rest of my family. They’re all waiting for you.”