Chapter 40: 43. Coincidences are Funny Part 2

“Hey, guys, grab two chairs and bring them to the table. Let’s all make some room.”

Sudirja prompts the group to move their chairs over to create enough room for Ajax and Shaula to sit. Ajax notices that there is an empty seat between Olah and Sudirja.

“Where’s Jelli right now?”

“Ah, she had to run an errand apparently, she should be back soon.” Ajax sits next to Meixi, Shaula sits next to him, and Dzan sits next to her. Currently, Ajax is wearing a long sleeve, white shirt with eyelets. His pants are dark blue plaid with suspenders.

Shaula is wearing a blue ‘townswoman’ coif instead of a headwrap today. She still prefers to downplay her short hair. Her dress is black with hanging sleeves that reach her thighs.

Olah is wearing what she wore last time, a crimson dress, slightly old fashioned in its style. Sudirja is wearing her same orange dress with wide sleeves. Ajax notices again her dainty, white-gold necklace.

Sigvor is wearing a bright blue tunic with black pants. Malia is wearing a bright green dress with floral patterns. Dzan is wearing an indigo shirt and brown cargo pants. His dagger holster is where it was at his left lower ribs. Shaula remembers his slick appearance from their last meeting.

Meixi is wearing a bright orange dress with beautiful cross stitching artwork. The art depicts an animal that Ajax and Shaula don’t recognize. She looks towards the two of them with a slightly annoyed expression.

“Why did you try to leave without saying hi?”

“Ahh, haha, your table looked pretty full, you know, we didn’t want to intrude…”

“Ajax, relax! The more people here, the better… I prefer larger groups, you know? It’s harder and harder to keep in touch when you grow up… Meet your friends more often!”

“R-Right, right, again, sorry, Meixi.”

“Well, I’ll forgive you, this time. Next time, I’ll treat you like Olah!” Meixi playfully grabs Ajax by his ear. He laughs. 

“Be nicer to them, Meixi, they’re our honored friends! Hey, Ajax, Shaula, how did you guys help Jelli so easily? She’s pretty strong, you know? Like, even I wouldn’t be able to help her in a battle; I'd probably get in her way…” Dzan asks this question of the two of them.

He hasn’t heard the exact details of what help they gave so Ajax fills him in.

“Well, it was Shaula who caught the guy, you wanna explain?” Shaula glares. Ajax retreats. Shaula still prefers to let him handle the talking. She’s also still not happy with him for overworking his body.

“A-Actually, I’ll explain. Right when the guy, that… ice mage, was about to fire his magic, Shaula grabbed him and made him fire in the wrong direction.” Shaula sighs as the group claps. It truly was a last second save.

“It was nothing, anyone could have snuck up on him.” Shaula offers words that the group misunderstands as modesty. Olah looks at her with proud eyes.

“Did you know, Dzan? These guys had Caprit Lush last time? Not just a cup either, Ajax finished like half a bottle while Shaula had the other half!”

“...What? Really!? Wow…” Dzan looks towards them as if seeing his childhood heroes.

“What’s Caprit Lush?” Malia innocently asks this question. She is a cute beastkin woman with bright yellow hair and emerald green eyes behind round-lens glasses. She is shorter than Olah, but more full-figured and curvy.

Dzan looks at her with shock. Unlike Malia, he’s a connoisseur of spirits. Dzan clears his throat in preparation for a long diatribe.

“Caprit Lush, what can I say about such a drink? Well, the most important thing is that…” Dzan goes into a long speech about what he finds most delicious and refreshing about Caprit Lush. He claims that even with its high alcohol content, it is surprisingly smooth. He even mentions that the eyes of the Caprit add sweetness to the drink.

He apparently tried a glass of it once and got drunk almost instantly.

The table splits off into two conversations. One between Sigvor, Malia and Dzan as he explains his alcoholism. The other with the girls and Ajax as he mentions magic to them and his current research.

Shaula takes this opportunity to get some food. She goes to the counter, the bartender recognizing her immediately. “The woman with the guy who drank half a bottle of Caprit Lush and doesn’t seem to be blind.” Shaula orders the house special which is slightly different this week.

I drank the other half of the bottle, you know?

Shaula orders the house special, which is slightly different this week. She also asks for a drink that would go well with her meal, some tissues, and a tall glass of Caprit Lush for Ajax. She returns to the table with everything. Olah is talking to Ajax about her own high magical aptitude.

“What do you think of this?”

“Hm. That’s… I’ve never seen anything like that. How would it… Wait, why is this here and… Huh.” Ajax shows Olah a diagram of a magic circuit. This is the one that his spatial power had used to complete the transportation spell.

“I’ll be honest, Ajax… This doesn’t look like it’s supposed to work from a spell standpoint. The base and all is… well, I think that you’d need a noble mage at the very least to decipher this… What is it supposed to do?”

Ajax looks over at Shaula. She looks at his hands below the table.

{Should I tell her what it does?} He signs to her. She whispers back to him while sitting down.

[If you feel like it would help. The grimoires never mentioned space as a type of magic.]

“...Well, Olah, I think it’s supposed to move objects. I’m just… having some trouble getting it to work properly.”

“Wind magic? That doesn’t look like any wind magic I know… Yeah, you’ll definitely have to ask a noble about it.” Olah misunderstands, but Ajax decides to leave it alone.

Sigvor soon joins their conversation as Ajax and Shaula focus on their own needs. He’s after a state of inebriation, she’s after a good meal.

Sigvor is quite a charismatic person. Right now, she’s hitting on Meixi, Olah and Sudirja hard. They rebuff her absurdist sexual requests, but he doesn’t push too hard or get handsy. He’s pretty funny. Ajax finds himself interested in his jokes, some of which are non-sexual.

Her humor plays off Astrid neighborhood lore and Tritol city history, so Ajax can’t decipher it. However, each of the jokes lands hard. Loud laughs from the girls. Malia is watching Sigvor, amused by his performance.

Meanwhile, Dzan orders drink after drink to the table. He seems like quite an avid alcoholic. Shaula even notices him looking over at Ajax’s glass of Caprit Lush. Ajax still hasn’t touched it yet. Dzan’s expression says something like, ‘why waste such good alcohol? What’s the holdup?’

Ajax actually is preparing to drink but first he has to weaken himself. His drink should actually get him drunk. He is holding a handful of tissue balls in his hands. He looks at the eight of them one by one, keeping them hidden under the table. He uses his power to move them from his hands to the floor under the table.

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Everybody is busy talking to each other right now. It seems like a good time to do this little trick.

He starts with the first tissue in his hand. It turns to dust. He has improved considerably. Unlike before, most of the dematerialized tissue dust has reached its target location on the floor.

He continues moving tissue balls until he reaches his seventh crumpled tissue. He wants to move this tissue as well, but notices something. His hands are trembling. He cannot lift his arms due to weakness.

He leans back in his chair and lets his arms hang to his side. His last two tissue balls drop to the floor.

[Shaula.]

[...]

[Shaula…]

[...What.]

[Could you…? Please?]

[...Fine.]

Shaula picks up Ajax’s glass of Caprit Lush. She carefully brings it to his lips. In his current state, he cannot even lift his glass up to his mouth. He drinks slowly. For the first time, he feels the burning sensation of a drink with an outrageous alcohol content.

He’s never had alcohol before on Earth. On Omicron prior to tonight, alcohol wouldn’t register as difficult to drink because of his healing factor. But, right now, although it still goes down smooth, he finally notices the harshness of the liquor. Meixi watches him drink with wide eyes.

“...Uh, Shaula? What happened to Ajax?”

The entire table stares at Ajax. Shaula frowns in slight embarrassment. She doesn’t want to field this question, so she lets Ajax handle it. If he wants to get drunk so badly, the least he could do is come up with excuses.

Ajax wonders what he should say.

“A-Ah, well, I just thought that I would like Shaula to… feed me my drink!”

“Um… O-Ok?” Meixi looks purely puzzled. Shaula puts her hand over her face in disbelief.

A convincing lie, not just any lie. Shaula cannot help but laugh slightly.

Of course, the group doesn’t probe deeper into Ajax’s odd behavior or new weak appearance. Dzan is impressed by how easily Ajax drank the Lush. Normally, Caprit Lush is supposed to be taken in shot glasses, but he drank it out of a cup.

The group talks amongst themselves while Ajax waits for the effects of the alcohol to kick in. Shaula stares at him. She notices him using his spatial magic every so often just so his body doesn’t regain its strength too quickly. If his healing factor comes back too quickly, he won’t be able to experience his buzz.

…Is getting drunk by jumping through all these hoops even worth it?

However, all Shaula can do is look away from him in sadness. He’s looking for an outlet to push his sadness to. Many people turn to alcohol to forget their problems. She can’t blame him. He may be dealing with things in an unhealthy manner, but they still have their powers.

So long as he can heal, his body won’t face the normal harmful effects of heavy alcoholism. She sits and nurses her own drink, hoping he never takes this too far.

By the time Ajax starts to feel buzzed, Angelidis appears at the table.

“Ah! Everybody’s here tonight! I’m glad I got to spend some time with you two again, how’ve you been, Shaula? Whoa, you alright there, Ajax?”

“I’m… just a bit… i-intoxicated. Don’t worry, it’ll go away in a few minutes… This feels interesting…” He has stopped his spatial magic right now. Apparently when he’s this drunk, his attempts to transfer objects are unsuccessful. His healing factor should slowly bring his body back to full consciousness. 

Shaula sighs and Angelidis leaves Ajax to his own devices. She sits at the table and starts talking again with everyone at the table.

Noticing Shaula sitting there quietly watching Ajax, she’s reminded of the festival.

“Oh, yeah, Shaula, these two, Dzan and Sigvor, are the ones that’ll be coming with us there. They’re big crawler addicts!”

Shaula’s eyes light up at this. Sigvor notices her subtly joyful expression.

“Yeah, Shaula, glad to have you come with us! Jelli and I met through one of these festivals, they’re always really fun! You two came from some village deep in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“Ha, yeah, not a lot connecting us to the big cities. I’ve never been to one of these festivals before.” Dzan laughs heartily. It’s always nice to see someone enjoying something for the first time.

“It’ll be good for all involved. I’ve asked Malia to go with me, but…” Malia gives Dzan a stern stare for a split second. Most people would have missed her look, but not Shaula. Even Ajax, coming down from his drunk state, noticed her expression.

“...No, no, it’s fine! We’ll have a good time without you, love. H-Haha…” Dzan backs off instantly. Malia had looked more gentle on the outside to both Ajax and Shaula. But now, Shaula can see that she has dominance in their relationship.

Angelidis snickers. She’s known who has the power in their dynamic since they started dating.

“Wait, that reminds me, Ajax, Shaula, did anyone tell you what happened with Dzan the other day?”

“W-Wait, come on, Jelli, they still respect me!” Dzan tries to cut Angelidis off, but she’s faster.

“Apparently, he got ambushed by some hotshots! Come on, Dzan, tell us the story again!”

Dzan grits his teeth while blushing slightly. Ajax and Shaula were hoping to skip something like this…

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