Chapter 11: DD2 Chapter 005 – Reunion

The orphanage was a large, rectangular building located in the heart of the Crafter’s Village. It was clearly a converted warehouse, one which now stored unwanted children rather than the trade goods that it was created to house. Its outside grounds were practically nonexistent and, like the rest of the children who lived in this congested part of town, the closest things that the orphans had to a playground were the poorly maintained cobbled streets outside. The streets were littered with refuse and hazardous waste products from any one of a dozen different industries, none of which had any place around a growing child. The structure itself was in a dire need of a fresh coat of paint, but rather than critiquing the building any further, Typhoeus’s eyes were drawn to the ecstatic reception that Arilla received the moment they emerged from around a corner and were mobbed by a small horde of orphaned children.

As one, they charged at her, grubby hands outstretched from warm winter coats as they screamed her name, “Arilla! Arilla!” or “Ari! Ari!” depending upon the child in question. They raced towards her through the light dusting of snow on moccasined feet. Each child was clear in their intent to hug the woman whose presence had prompted their euphoric response. Arilla, for her part, took it all in good cheer, a broad smile on her face as she bent down low to embrace the children in turn before she began inquiring about their well being. The warrior only paused intermittently to fend off countless attempts made by some of the older boys to ‘have a go’ with her sword.

From what Typhoeus could see, the orphans seemed to be relatively well-fed and were all dressed in simple, if well-made, clothing. He briefly questioned the veracity of some of her earlier complaints about life in the orphanage, until his brain belatedly clicked into gear and he remembered that Arilla had given away most of her looted gold from the Traylan vaults. If her donations had resulted in dozens of well fed children then it was hard for him to criticise her for her generosity, even if the draconic part of him still baulked at the act of spending money, let alone giving it away. 

Soon enough an aged woman dressed in a long, overly starched habit made an appearance as she strode through the front doors of the orphanage. She then began to approach the swarming mass of energetic children with a disapproving frown on her face. The woman was tagged as a ‘Nun’, a category of classes that Typhoeus had never seen before in the flesh. Idly he wondered what kind of skills the class would award, but any further thoughts about it were dispelled by the woman's quite frightening demeanour. Dressed in contrasting blacks and whites, with sharp lines delineating the two, the nun was easily the most severe looking woman Typhoeus had ever seen; a remarkable feat for someone still in their second rank of a non-combat class. She tutted once and the children stilled, with Typhoeus having to resist the urge to do the same. He might have imagined it, but for a few heartbeats there, he thought that he saw the old woman’s frown flicker into an amused grin at his momentary lapse in composure.

“Children, give Arilla some space. I’m sure that there will be time to pester her later,” the nun instructed, causing her charges to physically slump as they backed away from the beleaguered warrior. “Arilla, why don’t you bring your friend and come inside. It’s cold out, and the children shouldn’t be playing in the streets.”

“Thank you, Sister Sybil,” Arilla said, while the crowd of orphans flocking around her dispersed and slowly began trickling inside the orphanage.

“It is I who should be thanking you, child. You’ve already done so much for us here and from what I hear through the grapevine, you’ve been doing good work with the Kitchen too. Father Mihalis has been singing your praises quite loudly,” Sister Sybil said with a knowing smile. “You know, if you ever decided to take the oaths, I’m sure there would be a templar class in it for you when you hit bronze.”

“She won't be doing that,” Typhoeus declared, speaking for the first time as a wave of possessiveness seized him. He felt the need to flex his claws and bite. To bare his teeth at the nun who threatened to take his Dragon Guard away. Arilla was his. He could just barely tolerate her doing her own thing, but the idea of someone else having her in such a permanent way immediately set him on edge. 

Surprisingly vivid thoughts of razing the orphanage and eating the nun filled his head as he stared back into Sister Sybil’s cool grey eyes, his stomach rumbling appreciatively at the thought.

“She can speak for herself,” Arilla said, shooting him a glare, before turning back to face the nun. “I’m sorry about Typh; she means well. And yes, I’m aware. Father Mihalis already made me the offer.”

“And?” Sybil asked expectantly.

“And I’m thinking about it,” Arilla answered, practically daring Typhoeus to say something as he instead clenched his fists so tight that he wondered if they would bleed.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll make the right decision eventually,” Sybil stated confidently. “Now that’s enough standing outside. Come, come, I’ll make tea.”

They were ushered inside and taken to a small parlour room where the Sister Sybil did in fact make tea. It was a fruity blend, not at all to Typhoeus’s tastes, but he sipped his cup politely and tried to look interested as the two humans discussed finances and investments. A subject he despaired to learn was about how to grow money, the humans having found some way to make gold, of all things, boring. As he often did when humans were being dull, he tuned out what they were saying, content to observe his surroundings through his skills while he waited patiently for something interesting to happen. 

Unfortunately, he didn’t have to wait for long. The singular sound of an open hand smacking into flesh, followed by a child’s cry of pain was more than enough to grab his attention. 

He tried to ignore it, but it was all so very familiar. The tears, the begging, the struggles of a child being overpowered by someone so much larger than themselves. As the boy screamed in the distance, only observable to him through the power of his skills, Typhoeus felt like his own past was repeating in front of him. Usually his own infancy was not something that Typhoeus liked to dwell on, and since becoming Typh, he had done a remarkably good job at ignoring how frequently humans liked to beat their own children. But, whether it was the recent delve into his ancestral memories, his current boredom, or this just being one time too many, it quickly became too much.

Typhoeus reacted without thinking, leaping up from his seat and exiting the room, moving through the narrow halls of the orphanage as he navigated towards the source of the disturbance without a care for propriety or manners. His own childhood had not been a happy one, and as he rushed forwards his mind couldn’t help but dwell on all the times he had cried out for help, only for no one to save him. 

He burst into the room, admittedly a little more aggressively than he needed to. The door strained loudly against its hinges as it slammed into the wall while Typhoeus raced through the large bunk room to where another stern-faced nun was sitting on the edge of a bed, currently engrossed in spanking a snivelling, snot-covered child bent over her knee.

Typhoeus grabbed the nun’s hand as it descended, her eyes widening with surprise at being interrupted so suddenly. Her strong arm strained against his and Typhoeus swore that he could feel a skill empowering her strikes, prompting him to rethink classifying nuns as a combat-capable class.

“That’s enough of that," he said, levelling the older woman a cautionary glare.

“Just who do you think you are? Getting in the way of me disciplining this rebellious child!" she asked imperiously, the boy on her lap looking back over his shoulder at Typhoeus with tearful red-rimmed eyes.

“My name is Typh. And I do not approve of this," the dragon declared, his hand around the woman’s wrist holding her firm as she struggled against him.

“Typh, let her go!” Arilla warned, the red-headed warrior standing in the doorway. Her tone was stern and unwavering, her feet in the fighting stance that he had seen countless times before—if a little more refined and her hand straying ever so slightly towards the hilt of her sword.

All at once, he felt cold. 

“I wasn’t going to hurt her," Typhoeus said, releasing the nun from his grip who promptly began rubbing her wrist while the boy scurried away, pulling up his pants as he ran.

“I know you weren’t,” she said after a brief delay, her words falling to ring true, the lie ruined by how he could physically feel her connection to him weaken as she had mentally prepared herself to fight him. “Still, maybe you should wait outside. I can clear things up without you.”

“I—”

“Typh, just go,” Arilla said, sounding more tired than angry as she made it clear that it wasn't a suggestion. Quickly, she crossed the room to help the nun to her feet, the old woman taking this as her opportunity to shoot scathing looks his way. 

“Sister Hortensia, are you okay?” Arilla asked.

“I’m fine, although it’s becoming abundantly clear to me that the youth of today have no respect for their elders," the nun said, grumbling to herself as she smoothed out the wrinkles in her habit.

Typhoeus left the room quickly, unwilling to hear any more of Arilla’s concern for the old nun. He left the orphanage in a blur, making his way back through the narrow halls, ignoring the puzzled looks of the children he passed until he found himself sitting outside, alone in the snow. He tucked his knees up protectively against his chest as he thought about how badly he had made a mess of things. He had imagined that by accompanying Arilla he could show her that he cared, that he wasn’t the monster she thought he was, and yet every time he gave into his instincts he seemed to instigate violence and conflict at every turn. 

He wanted Arilla back. He had never truly wanted to let her go, but she hated him for the lies he had told and the position that put her in, so he had made the difficult, or perhaps cowardly decision to give her space to cool off. A decision that was made easier to live with by how busy he had been the past few months, but now that he was confronted with her presence, things were considerably more challenging. 

A part of him wanted to respect her choice to reject him, to simply leave her life for good, but her contradicting choice of class had tied them even closer together, making it impossible for him to get over her, at least until she hit bronze, or he forcibly released her from her oath. He had no idea why she had chosen Dragon Guard for her rank up, and he was honestly too scared to ask her about it. Her choice to intensify the bond between them when she had claimed to hate him so much, made no sense to him, unless, on some level, she still wanted him. The tantalising thought that she wasn't over him fuelled many of his late night fantasies of reconciliation. 

Fundamentally, it didn’t really matter why she did what she did, because he was her patron dragon and she was his Dragon Guard. They were intrinsically linked. Every time her resolve wavered he felt it, every moment of spiralling panic or self-loathing transmitted through the ether by the Great System, whether it be across thousands of miles or dozens of feet. And because of it, he knew that despite what she said, most of the time she was more than content with her class and the connection that she shared with him. 

It just seemed to be whenever she thought about it or looked directly at him that she had a problem. 

His memories told him that dragon and human pairings were rare, but not unheard of before the Sundering. Although afterwards, theirs might just have been the only one. If he had more time, he might be willing to take things slow. With their respective vitality scores, they certainly had the years to waste, but time was running out, not just for them, but for all people on Astresia.

The wards were failing and they were—

“Thank you," a quiet voice said, causing Typhoeus to turn where he realised that sitting next to him was the boy that he had saved from receiving a spanking at Sister Hortensia’s wizened hands. 

The child couldn’t have been much older than ten, or perhaps fifteen. Typhoeus wasn’t that good at guessing human ages at the best of times, and when it came to children and the unclassed he was even worse. Even so, the child looked familiar to Typhoeus now that his face wasn’t scrunched up with tears and snot streaming down it. Although the last time he had seen the boy, the skin around his eyes was purple with fresh bruises so maybe it wasn’t all that different. 

The child was slight, with close-cropped black hair that appeared remarkably straight in the few places where it had grown out. His eyes were a matching shade of black that seemed to almost drink up the light. His light honey-coloured skin marked him as an outsider not native to Terythia, although given how the country was a veritable melting pot of different cultures from all over Astresia, that judgement had to be taken with a grain of salt. Typhoeus was hardly an expert in these things and was only just learning how to tell the differing human ethnicities apart. His previous belief that humans all looked the same was not one that he had the luxury of maintaining if he wanted to continue blending in amongst their society.

“You're welcome," Typhoeus said begrudgingly, then after a brief bout of deliberation he extended a small hand out to the boy. “Typh.”

“Tamlin,” the boy answered, shaking the offered hand.

“You don’t have to sit outside with me just because I saved you from a spanking. The weather is foul and you don’t have the clothing or the vitality to sit in the snow."

“You’re wearing a sundress," Tamlin said pointedly, his criticism clearly without merit as sundresses were suitable for all occasions. “Anyway, It’s okay. The cold kinda helps with the soreness," he added.

“Huh, maybe I should try that next time,” Typhoeus mused.

“You get spanked often?”

“Not as much as I would like.”

“I’m sorry?” the child asked, looking across at him with a puzzled look on his face.

“It's a grown up thing; don’t worry about it. So tell me, what did you do to get on the old lady’s bad side?” Typhoeus asked, quickly trying to change the subject.

“Being born," Tamlin grumbled.

“Really?" he asked, scandalised at the prospect of a caretaker being so prejudiced.

“No, not really. But I feel like she’s always waiting for an excuse. Like my butt will have her crusty old handprint engraved in it by the time I age out.”

“So what was her excuse this time?”

Tamlin responded by muttering something unintelligible under his breath, so quietly that even with his rank 4 perception skill enhancing his hearing, Typhoeus couldn’t understand any of it.

“I’m sorry?" he asked.

“I said, she caught me coming back from the catacombs.”

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“As in the ancient ruins that run for miles beneath Rhelea filled with criminals, collapsing tunnels and worse?”

“Uhh, yeah. That," Tamlin said, looking momentarily unsure of himself.

“And whatever were you doing down there?” Typhoeus asked, finding the little human to be far more interesting than he had first thought.

“Are you cool?”

“What?”

“You seem pretty chill for an old lady, but are you cool? Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

“I’m not old, but yes? I’m cool and fairly good with secrets.”

Tamlin looked around suspiciously, clearly checking to see if he was being observed before he reached a thin hand down the neck of his shirt and slowly retrieved a small egg-sized object that he cradled like it was a great treasure. The ‘egg’ was made entirely of a matte grey-blue stone that was covered with a mishmash of old faded runes. It was obvious to Typhoeus that it was nonfunctional as the majority of the arcane sigils were too worn away to hold mana. The whole thing reeked of age, if not value and Typhoeus had to struggle not to laugh when he saw it being held so protectively by the child.

“I found this when I went exploring the catacombs ...for reasons. Anyway I’ve been trying to find the undermarket to sell it, to buy my way out of this dump," Tamlin said, his words coming out as a hushed whisper as he shared his grand plan with Typhoeus.

“How ambitious of you," Typhoeus commented, a wide smile evident on his face. “Now give it here for a minute," the dragon demanded, practically snatching the stone off the child before Tamlin had a chance to react.

“Hey!" the boy protested, but quickly stopped when he saw the arcs of golden light extend from the tip of Typhoeus’s finger. Quickly and efficiently the dragon began to shear away old stone as he re-etched the faded runes on the egg. “What are you doing?” Tamlin asked.

“I’m fixing it. Obviously," Typhoeus replied, pausing for a moment before continuing. “This rune here, the squiggly one that kinda looks like a human eye, it’s actually a pretty good finesse rune. It helps make the magic a little more elegant when mana passes through these connection runes, here and here," he said pointing out the relevant sigils as he worked. “You should pay particular attention to this one here, it sort of resembles two interlinking chains. You can tell the difference between a good control rune and a bad one, mainly on how quickly the depth changes on the second link.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“For the next time you feel like making rats dance, if you push your mana through a stick with those two runes carved into it, you’ll find it a lot easier to get their little feet to tap right. Maybe you’ll even get something a little bigger to move," Typhoeus said calmly, causing Tamlin to go white as a sheet. The boy immediately looked like he was about to bolt, a frantic look of panic in his eyes as his heart began to race. “There, finished," Typhoeus said, pushing a drop of mana into the rock before handing it back to the child who accepted it numbly.

“Please don’t tell anyone," Tamlin asked, practically as a whimper.

“Don’t worry, little necromancer. I’m cool, remember?”

“You can’t call me that!" Tamlin hissed, turning around in a panic just as his rock began emitting a pleasant melody. 

The music was odd, not overly loud but clear enough to hear over the noise of the street and the sounds of craftsmen working in the distance. The tune was haunting and thoroughly different from the types of music typically played in Rhelea, where stringed instruments and rhyming lyrics were the preferred style of the day. Tamlin’s rock played a song that was all woodwinds that entwined themselves with non-lyrical vocals forming a melody that would have been haunting even if it wasn’t created by the ancient dead. Regardless of how it sounded, the music seemed to calm Tamlin and the two of them sat quietly for a time, until the mana inside the egg ran out and the music stopped.

“I want to say that I’m sorry," Typhoeus said, breaking the silence.

“Sorry for what?”

“For not helping you with your father. But I can see from how you ended up here that you took matters into your own hands.”

“I should go," Tamlin said stiffly, quickly standing up to do just that.

“Have fun with your rock. Just be careful and remember what I said about the runes. You’ll want mana-infused bone, ideally, but wood and metal will work in a pinch.”

Tamlin didn’t respond, the boy merely looked over his shoulder as he entered the orphanage, his face a mixture of worried anxiety.

Typhoeus waited outside for a while longer with just his thoughts, wondering how he could have done better, until Arilla finally re-emerged.

“Listen, about the nun—” Typhoeus began to say, eager to nip the growing fight in the bud.

“Forget about it. Hortensia can be a grumpy old goat; you were just trying to help that kid out, and I ...may have overreacted," Arilla admitted. “Gods know, the old nun has tanned my cheeks more than a few times.”

Typhoeus was floored, wholly unprepared for Arilla to apologise to him.

“Tamlin," he said.

“Who?”

“The boy Hortensia was hitting.”

“Ahh yes, I saw what you did for him. That musical rock of his will help him finally make some friends until it inevitably goes missing.”

“Why would it go missing?”

“This is the village, and he’s an orphan. He doesn’t get to have nice things. An older kid or a gang will take it off of him sooner rather than later. Gods know I’m pushing things as it is ensuring they all have shoes and coats this winter.”

“So that’s what you decided to do with your half then? You bought yourself a little home and gave the rest to needy orphans?”

“What else was I supposed to do with that much money? I’d never even touched electrum until we looted the Rovers’ corpses. All that gold was far too much for me. I didn’t give it all to the orphanage though: I split my donations between here and the temple's kitchen," she explained. “Also, it’s a big home, I have tenants and everything. What did you spend your half on? I can’t help but remember that you couldn’t even pay your bar tab.”

“I spent it.”

“Typh, there were over two thousand talents in your cut. That's more than enough to outfit a small army. What could you possibly have spent that on?”  

“Barely," he grumbled to himself. 

“What was that?" she asked.

“Nothing. Should we get going? I think this snow is finally starting to get through my vitality.”

“Sure. I've still got some stops to make anyway," she said a little uneasily, helping Typhoeus to his feet as the two of them began walking down the street together. The white clouds up above them finally decided to release their tightly held snowfall which drifted down to the city below.

“You know, I won’t take the holy oaths," Arilla said.

“You wouldn’t?”

“No. While I have a soft spot for nuns, I find priests creepy," she said. “And I could never swear an oath of chastity anyway.”

He chuckled at that and after a brief pause she joined him, a playful punch in the arm followed that sent him staggering to the side and into a tall snowdrift, but the giggles continued nonetheless and for a beautiful moment it was like there was nothing wrong between them. He felt her feel it, realizing their almost-intimacy and panicking, her connection to her class skills waning as she momentarily lost her ‘good standing’ with her patron dragon. It was unfortunate, but as it dragged him out of his good mood it reminded him that he still had an important question to ask.

“Arilla, ages ago you said that you wished that I was a necromancer instead of a dragon. What do Terythians do to necromancers?" he asked.

She didn’t even pause before responding, her answer coming out clear along with a slight shrug. “That’s simple. We do what they do in any sane country. We kill them.”

Typhoeus stilled, an image of Tamlin’s youthful face filled with wonder as the child intently watched him carve runes into the music stone flickered across his mind.

“Poor kid…” Typhoeus muttered, feeling true sympathy for a non-dragon other than Arilla perhaps for the very first time.

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