Chapter 8: Chapter 5 – Crossroads

As the hug goes on and I look down at her, her head pressed against my collarbone, I finally manage to regain my composure. Her eyes were closed, but she was still smiling. At least she couldn’t see me awkwardly staring at her. Could this come down to cultural differences? She isn’t coming onto me or anything, right? We literally just met. They’re just more hands-on than where I’m from, right? I’m just misunderstanding things thanks to my own love-starved existence, right? This’d be a bit too perfect, right? Go to another world, meet the girl of your dreams, live happily ever after?

I know I need help to survive, but I have no idea what she’d be getting out of any of this. But obviously she thinks she’d get something. So it’s mutually beneficial, right?

… Actually, Isn’t she only slightly younger than me? This can’t be the norm for women our age no matter the culture, can it? We’re supposed to be adults. And, um, I don’t think hugs between acquaintances usually take this long? I don’t dislike it, but… I also don’t want to get my hopes up.

I lower my head towards hers.

“If you do this with strange women at this hour, they might get the wrong idea,” I whisper, gently, and stroke her hair.

It doesn’t take long for her to open her eyes, her face beet red, and she pushes me away. Her smile has been replaced by an expression of utter embarrassment.

“I-I may have gotten a little carried away,” she says, “But is this not supposed to be normal for girls our age?!”

“I wouldn’t know about that. Besides,” I look at her intently with a mischievous smile on my lips, “My eyes tell me that you’re in your late twenties. You’re just a little bit younger than me. A year or two, probably?”

Her eyes widen, the color is drained from her face, and she points at me. That’s a very accusatory pose if I ever saw one!

“B-but you said you could not use magic! Now you say you have some sort of magical demon eyes?!”

What is she saying?

“No,” I say, sighing, “It’s just cybernetics. My vision is augmented. As are my legs and my arms.”

She doesn’t look convinced. Maybe the word “cybernetics” isn’t translating very well? I have no idea what her experience with augmenting the body is. Her experience with technology could easily be less brain-machine oriented. Or, could my assumption of her using technology be incorrect?

I’ll have to show her, somehow, that I’m not using magic. She doesn’t seem like the type to just take me up on my word. I can fully understand why. Not exactly a common thing out here, and we literally just met. I probably wouldn’t trust me if our roles were reversed.

I dramatically point at my eyes.

And so, to demonstrate, my eyes literally light up, and I cycle through dozens of colors until I turn off the emissions and return to my regular eye color. I can’t be sure if there’s magic that could pull this off in this strange world, but surely she can tell I’m not using any magic. And that my eyes don’t look organic. Right?

“Satisfied?”

She nods. She had already started to look considerably relieved during the demonstration, so I’ll take this as a win. It may have reduced my life expectancy by a few hours, but giving her a reason to doubt me wasn’t a great idea in the first place. I’ll have to be more careful in the future. She may be my age, but she feels immature in some respects. Can’t hold that against her, though.

“I apologize,” she says, bowing her head a little. “This is the first time I have ever seen or heard of an outworlder that is as reliant on technology as...”

She coughs one of those awkward coughs of a woman who realized she's talking too much.

Aw, to think she caught herself at the last moment. Still, it’s very close to a confirmation of my earlier assumption as I’ll get right now. No point pressing her on it.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m not blameless, either,” I say looking away, gently scratching my cheek. “I did tease you for the hug. That was uncalled for.”

She shakes her head, “Oh, I know I overdid it,” she says with an adorable smile, “I just got carried away and  hoped my youthful looks would let me get away with it!”

Dammit.

I smack my forehead.

“I completely forgot, we won’t look our age to anyone else, will we?”

“Nope! Not at all.” She shakes her head again. “Based on my observations, both of us look quite a bit younger than we are. I thought you were at most twenty, maybe younger!”

“Ah well, nothing we can do about that.”

“Anyway!” She startles me with her sudden outburst. “It is getting really late,” she continues, grabs me by my arm and pulls me to the right from the sign that I had almost forgotten we still stood at, “We should probably start moving.”

“But why there?” I ask the question in slight protest but let her pull me behind her.

“Because the closest settlement is in this direction. We should start there!”

Ah. Of course.

“Makes sense.”

She turns to face me while still gently pulling me by arm.

“My name is Avilia, by the way. Avilia Belamy.”

That’s right, we never introduced ourselves!

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“I’m Irene Durant.”

She smiled at me and turned away again, mumbling something under her breath.

Nice name, though.

*-*-*-*-*

At least I wasn’t alone anymore. When there’s someone else with you, it’s a lot easier to distract yourself from your extraordinary circumstances. Sure, I had hoped for some kind of change in my life, but this… Is a bit extreme. Another world? I would’ve been perfectly happy with a promotion and a nicer home, thank you. Now, everything I’ve built for myself is as good as gone. They move fast when there’s even one cent to be made.

Ugh. Focus! Everything’s okay!

“Are we getting close?”

Truth to be told, I wasn’t asking out of impatience, but rather the opposite. I wanted this moment to go on for a while longer. A romantic jaunt on an empty street in the night, with just me, a mysterious beauty and the stars. What wasn’t there to like?

“Closer,” she states as she turns around again, “But we are not there yet! Are you getting tired?”

“Me?” I point at myself with my free hand. “No. I’m more worried about you, actually.”

I hadn’t felt true fatigue since my augmentation. Sleepy, sure, but never fatigued. That’s what you get, I guess, when you don’t have muscles to tire out.

“I am fine! Considering how late it is, I think it is best to just keep going anyway.”

A reassuring smile. I smile back at her.

“Okay.” My hopes of her wanting a break were thus trashed.

Oh, right!

“When I got here,” I say as I start opening my shoulder bag with my free hand, “I found some coins.” I grab one of the coins from the side pocket and raise it up. “I wonder if they’re still okay to use?”

She stops and steps closer to me. “Could you let me see it?”

I extend my hand holding the coin towards her, and she grabs the coin. She gives it a good look, using the illumination of the closest streetlight to help her see.

Without missing a beat, she starts talking. “Yes, this looks like the currency I have seen them use! Can I hold onto this?”

“Sure.”

She looks happier than I thought she would as she pockets the coin under her cloak. Touched, even? It was just money. Maybe she isn’t used to being given things?

“Oh yes, let me give you something I forgot to earlier!”

She releases my arm and pulls what looks like a pile of fabric from under her cloak. As she straightens it out, it turns out to be another cloak. Same design as hers and everything.

“I was going to give this to you.” I just watch her until she walks behind me and puts the cloak on me. To my surprise, it fits over me pretty well. You can’t tell what I’m hiding underneath it at all. It almost feels like it’s adjusting to my height, too. “There! Now you look more like a traveler than some foreign noble.”

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome!” She steps ahead of me again. “If you would,” she says, extending her hand towards me. I nod and gently grab it.

She starts tugging at my hand as she had pulled me by my arm before, but instead of allowing her to just lead me forward, I pick up my pace and walk beside her. Can’t have her pulling me around forever!

I look at her… And she’s blushing! But why? This isn’t all that different to how things were before.

“Is something the matter?” I ask with a smile.

“N-no! Just, nice weather we are having!”

I look around. The light night breeze feels nice on my face, the streetlights give off a pleasant, yellowish light. The grass flutters beside us in the darkness. The stars above us, twinkling.

“Yes, it’s very romantic.”

“… You are silly,” she mutters, still blushing.

I mean, what I said is absolutely true. Too bad this can’t go on for very long, as I’m starting to see lights ahead of us in the darkness.

Ah well.

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