Chapter 263: 264: Soft

It’s late at night. The others are asleep and Fresh stands out on the edge of the balcony, staring out over the dark ocean. Her hair is soaking wet, just like her pajamas, skin and body. It has been raining for a while now. But somehow, the rain had roused her from her sleep and has drawn her out onto the balcony, where she has been standing for a while now.

There isn’t really a reason for it. She hasn’t been drawn here by any mystical force, by any whispering, cosmic voice or beckoning. It’s just raining and she thinks that that’s nice.

Fresh closes her eyes for a second, taking in another deep breath of the air. The air here by the ocean has always felt very clean and sharp to inhale, but somehow, with the rain causing the scent of it to become more matte and damp than it usually is, it gives it a soft pleasantness.

‘Soft’.

She repeats the word in her mind, staring down at her wet pajamas. They’re soft. Her skin beneath them, soft. Her body beneath that, soft. Fresh turns her head, looking around for more soft things. The cushions of the chairs. The curtains that Jubilee had made. The wet sand of the beach below herself. The fluffy, dark clouds that float up high in the sky. All of these things are soft.

Is that relevant to anything? No. Not really. But does it have to be? Fresh doesn’t think so, she’s just making a list of soft things, so that if she ever gets into a conversation about all of the soft things in their home with any of the others, she’ll be ready.

Now, is this likely to happen?

No. It’s very unlikely, in all honesty. But it’s strangely fun and in a weird, delirious way, it feels like a good, productive use of her time instead of sleeping. She isn’t sure why she couldn’t sleep, honestly.

“Moon sure is bright tonight,” she quietly mutters to herself, staring up at where the moon should be. But it’s impossible to see, because of the thick layer of obscuring clouds, covering it all up.

A noise comes from behind herself and she turns her head, looking at Shamrock who is standing in the door. She nods to him and he nods back, stepping outside into the rain.

“You’re gonna get all wet, Shamrock,” she says, looking back up towards the clouds.

The man doesn’t seem to be bothered and simply makes his way to her side, staring up at the dark sky in which no moon can be seen. She supposes that it’s fine. All of the salt-water is probably bad for him anyways, so a bit of fresh rain will do him some good too, in a sense.

“It’s bright,” he says, his head lifted up towards the rain.

“Mm,” nods Fresh in agreement and the two of them stand there in the rain for a while, just watching the droplets fall to the ground from the dark, lightless sky. “Hey, Shamrock?” asks Fresh, now being aware that she herself is asking the question. Not like the last time, when the two of them had stood out on the balcony together, back in the west. “Can I ask you something?” she asks, asking something already.

He nods and honestly, Fresh would have been surprised if he had done anything else.

She turns back to look at the endless, black expanse that is the ocean. The droplets of rain strike down onto its surface, bringing a great, odd disturbance to the water. From here, from this distance, it looks as if the world were shaking as a whole, perhaps because of the coming of some great, calamitous being. Some titan, shaking the world to its foundations with each of its monstrous steps. The bad-thing, manifested into a physical form.

But in reality, it’s just raining.

“Is the central-city really as bad as the others say it is?” she asks, turning her head to look at him, strands of her long hair glued to her face in thick bundles, as rain water runs down her head. Shamrock, facing forward, turns his gaze towards her for a moment, before looking back towards the sky. If it was anyone else, she’d say that they were looking away to avoid the question and to weigh their options. But Shamrock, she knows, is just looking at the sky much in the same way that she herself is.

There’s something about it. Something that she never really noticed before in her old life. The vastness of it, the sheer, overwhelming scale of it. But not in a frightening way, that might make one insecure of their own position in the world or their value as a small, insignificant creature. But rather, it’s as if it were a canvas, the largest piece of art made for mortal eyes to see. Painted by heavenly hands to span from one end of the world, all the way around to the next. A real sky, one that isn’t polluted and full of energy and lights, one that is as clean and as presentable as it was intended to be by the makers, should there even be such things, is hypnotic. She feels it and she knows that Shamrock does too.

“When I was there,” she goes on. “It was really nice. I mean, sure, I was only there for a little bit and there was a festival going on, so I know it wasn’t the real thing. But…” Fresh thinks for a while, before going on. “It felt different than the places we’ve been,” she says. “It felt light. Really light.” She looks at him. “And I’ve been feeling like, when I went there, to this really nice place, that I dragged in a bunch of gunk and I just messed it all up for everyone.”

Shamrock shakes his head and Fresh listens to the sound of water striking against his armor. “Sometimes,” says the man, staring up at where the moon ought to be. “We are misguided,” he explains, pressing a large finger just above her heart. “Our faith leads us astray.”

“What does that mean?” asks Fresh. Is he referring to his own faith in her? Did she let him down already?

The man lifts his hands, taking a second to cup them together to catch the falling rain. Fresh smiles, he’s gotten a lot better at moving his fingers more dexterously. She imagines it must be really hard for him. She watches as the gap between his hands fills up with water. “Sometimes,” he says again, his breastplate heaving as he takes a long breath. “We hold a precious thing,” explains Shamrock, opening his hands and letting the water fall down to the ground, now that he was done with it. He pull a long, thick strand of hair from her face and holds it out, squeezing the abundance of water out of it. “Sometimes, it holds us,” he says. “Captive.”

Fresh stares at him for a while. The man always has such a simple way with words, but he loves his turns of speech at the same time. But she thinks that she understands.

“So it was a lie?” she asks, turning back to look at the water of the ocean.

“Forgive them,” says the man. “They hold a precious thing,” he explains, turning around to go back inside. “Sleep,” says Shamrock, waiting at the door for her.

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Fresh sighs, taking in a long breath of the rainy, night air as she processes. So, Jubilee and Basil did lie to her about the central-city. But why? She still hasn’t understood that. And what about the barkeeper and her story? It had to be true, but… what if she was mistaken about the details?

She just doesn’t know. But what she does now understand is that her friends were fearful of her knowing the truth about it. Did they think that if she found out that there was such a real, happy place in the world, that she would leave them to try and enter it alone?

Even after everything, is that still a credible fear that they carried in their hearts? That she would just pack up and go if she found out the truth? She recalls Basil’s words to her, back in the west, when she had gotten that rare-wood staff to repair.

‘People like us aren’t welcome there.’

Fresh turns around, walking back across the balcony. Grabbing Shamrock’s hand, she drags him inside and closes the balcony door, setting him in the corner by the kitchen. Gesturing for him to wait, she drags herself to the wardrobe and grabs as many towels as she can successfully manage to. The enchanted-lantern rises up off of Basil’s nightstand and floats softly alongside her, giving her only a weak shine to illuminate her steps without waking the others.

Heading back to the dark kitchen where Shamrock is standing, she begins to dry him and herself off as best as she can, working through a mountain of towels until both of them are dry enough again to not ruin their beds.

After that, as she lowers herself down onto her mattress, having changed out of her pajamas, she stares at the bed across from hers, between her own and Shamrock’s, at the priestess who lays there with closed eyes, but isn’t flailing around in her sleep. The lantern lands back on her nightstand and dims itself once more.

Fresh lowers herself down into her own bed, covering herself with the heaviest, thickest arrangement of soft blankets that she has and rests her damp hair onto her soft pillow, letting out a long, tired sigh to signal that she is ready to finally sleep.

“I’m sorry,” says a soft spoken voice from the other side of the waist-high, stone wall that separates their beds. Fresh closes her eyes. “Friends shouldn’t lie,” concedes the priestess and Fresh nods in silent agreement, before falling into a sleep so deep, that not even the loudest surge of the coming storm or crash of thunder can wake her from her rest.

Razmatazz

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