Chapter 128

Everyone Changed

Ryne hummed a low beat while slowly going through everything Sylas and Agnes brought forward in the preparation period for the creation of talismans. Even though Sylas wasn’t shabby either, it has been quite some time, years even for him, since he last crafted a talisman. He was rusty and decided to just observe for the time being before jumping in himself. Agnes, on the other hand, sat on the nearby chair and drank slowly, observing the both of them.

“This should be everything,” Ryne said. “Alright, why don’t you start preparing the papers,” she added, tossing a pile toward Sylas.

“Right, I know how to do that,” he mumbled, jerking his stagnant memory.

“I’ll slowly prepare potential rune combinations and then you can inscribe them later.”

“Why me?” Sylas asked.

“Uh, hello?” she waved her hand in front of her eyes. “My failure rate is too high as it is. I need more time to get accustomed to working like this.”

“Pretty sure it’s still higher than mine,” Sylas commented, slowly working through the parchments. “It’s been a while since I last crafted.”

“It’s been just over a month,” Ryne ‘glanced’ at him. “Do you have a memory of a gobhopper?”

“Gobhopper?”

“Two-headed rabbits,” she said. “Sleep practically erases their memories. They kind of recall scent, but that’s about it.”

“Man, you’re just a library of knowledge, huh?” he joked.

“Are we really not going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?”

“That woman boring her eyes through me,” Ryne pointed behind her. “Who you claim is your wife.”

“I’m not his wife!”

“Then stop staring at me as though I’m stealing your husband!” Ryne fired back.

“Wait--what is happening now?” Sylas mumbled.

“I am not!!” Agnes fired back as well.

“Oh, please,” Ryne scoffed. “I may be young, but I am not an idiot.”

“You may as well be,” Agnes said, walking up to Ryne. “Do you know why I am staring at you?”

“Why?”

“Because I admire you.”

“... what?”

“It won’t make sense to you,” Agnes said with a sigh. “But you and I exist practically on opposites of a line. And here I am... crying woes. And here you are... championing. Of course I’m going to stare at you. You are everything I aspire to be... yet fail to become, time and again.”

“... okay, seriously, where did you pick her up?” Ryne asked Sylas. “She’s already trying to posture herself as my mother.”

“...”

“Wow,” Sylas exclaimed in awe. “You know, Ryne, you’ve really got a tongue on you. You’ve grown. You’ve actually made a grown woman cry. I’m so proud of you!”

"Wait--she's crying? No, no, I'm sorry," Ryne seemed to recoil and backtrack heavily at that moment. "I--I... the last month has been hell, dealing with others. It feels like all of them are walking on the shards of glass around me. Softening their voices, ignoring my wants, babying me as though I am one. So... I..."

“I was joking, you know?” Sylas suddenly said, an awkward expression on his face. “She’s actually barely holding herself back from laughter.”

“... Sylas! Hush!!” Agnes growled at him.

“Ah. You’re still an ass,” Ryne suddenly smiled widely. “Somehow... it’s warm.”

“Besides, I don’t think she wants to be your mom,” Sylas said. “Sister, maybe. And do forgive her dancing around you like you’re a bonfire--she’s mightily awkward. Social skills of a twelve-year-old in the body of a thirty-something woman.”

“He thinks his ‘I’m an ass’ act is charming,” Agnes said. “It’s getting old, though.”

“... no, it’s cute,” Ryne chuckled. “Always has been. He’s an ass, but he knows when to stop. No wonder you fell in love with him.”

“Ah, that’s why you two get along so well,” Agnes rolled her eyes and retreated, taking a sip of wine. “You’re both assholes.”

“Ha ha ha,” Ryne burst out into laughter, surprising Sylas who paused his task for a moment to look. For a moment there, the briefest of seconds, she looked like an ordinary, teenage girl. She wasn’t a blind, heartbroken, insecure girl full of demons, both old and new, but an ordinary girl with a belly full of beautiful laughter. “I suppose we are, aren’t we?”

“Kindred souls, if you will,” Sylas said. “I’m glad.”

“Hm?”

“That you can still laugh like that.”

“... you wouldn’t be able to, in my shoes?” she asked, though her hands never stopped moving.

“Gods no,” Sylas scoffed. “I’d be wallowing in my bed for at least three years and four months. I’m a big crybaby, you know?”

“Hah,” both Agnes and Ryne exclaimed at the same time, as though they’d practiced it hundreds of times before. “As if,” they added, further enhancing the weirdness of the situation. “He can’t ever be honest, huh?”

“It would kill him, I think,” Agnes replied. “He thinks that his grief doesn’t swell up and that nobody sees it, you know?”

“He thinks plenty yet so little,” Ryne said while Sylas smiled faintly, similarly never having stopped preparing the parchments.

“He thinks plenty only when it comes to coming up with new stuff to make fun of me with,” Agnes said.

"Ah, look at the two of you; as a mother, so the daughter!"

“...”

“...”

“Did you two learn your lesson?”

“A-a bit of embarrassment isn’t enough to shut us up, you know?” Agnes spoke through gnashed teeth.

“Here is the thing, though,” Sylas said. “Do you really want to compete with the guy whose gland for embarrassment is literally dead? ‘cause I can, and I will, take this thing further.”

“Why are you so allergic to honest conversations?” Ryne asked, tinkering a bit with her quill, dribbling it between her fingers. “You haven’t spoken to me, eye to eye, as it were, since that day, Sylas. Even blind, I can see the hesitation each time you face me.”

“Put yourself in my shoes,” Sylas replied. “Imagine you’re a fully-ass grown man with one foot in the tombstone... and you had to watch a girl with a whole life ahead of her lose her sight. Would you be able to merrily chat with her as though everything was normal?”

“...”

“No, haah,” he sighed. “Even that’s not fair to you. You’ll come to realize it even more eventually, but adults are morons, Ryne. A good chunk of us are emotionally stunted children who would sell our mothers if we are told so by someone we think is cleverer than us. Instead of just owning up to the fact that I feel guilt akin to the burnin’ balls each time I face you, I try to wiggle out of it by sayin’ ‘eyy girl, it hasn’t been easy for me either’.”

“But it hasn’t,” she said.

“Be that as it may,” he quickly added. “We are all too often very keen on not owning up to our own fuck-ups. I’m sorry. You wanted to talk.”

“I did want to talk.”

“So, let’s talk.”

“Will you leave me behind?” she asked.

“Not even if the Gods themselves came down and ordered me to,” he replied instantaneously.

“What if they threatened to kill you?”

“Would be mighty ironic,” he chuckled. “But I wouldn’t care.”

“So, why are you leaving me behind? You didn’t ask me once if I wanted to come west.”

“Because you’re blind,” Sylas replied. “And you’d hold us back.”

“...”

“Sylas--”

“No, it’s fine,” Ryne interrupted Agnes who held a shocked expression for a moment. “Was that so hard?”

“You’re a morbid little girl,” Sylas sighed.

"Just because I'm now blind doesn't mean I can't see, Sylas," she said suddenly. "I'm the same 'girl' as I was before. The same. And yet... everyone around me is different. It was as though I woke up in some sort of a morbid world similar to the one I knew... but different. People's voices were softer. Their footsteps loud on purpose, as though to announce themselves. Suddenly, everyone thinks I've forgotten how to walk, how to talk, how to eat, drink, and even bathe. Same with Valen. We talk, you know. Among the two of us. And it's different. Derrek got hurt too. He lost his arm. Many others were hurt as well. And yet... why, why is it that the world is so much different for Valen and me?”

“...”

“We are still the same people we were before--it’s not us who changed... it’s others.”

“Then go and pour me some wine,” Sylas suddenly said, causing Agnes to stand up rapidly but before she could call him out, he looked at her--his eyes full of clarity.

“W-what?”

“You heard me,” he repeated, putting down the parchments. “Go pour me some wine. I’m a guest here, and you didn’t even pour me any wine. Since you’re the same person and all.”

“...”

“You are different now Ryne, whether you’re ready to admit it or not. Is it fair that others will treat you differently? I suppose not. But it’s very naive of you to believe things would just resume as-is. Furthermore, why Valen and you? Because one’s a Prince and the other’s an Exorcist. And a kid at that. Don’t tell me you haven’t realized you’ve been treated differently even before. Or were you so blind back then as to believe that the castle treated you and an ordinary maid the same?”

“...”

“I love you, and I love how brave you’ve been. And if I were in your shoes, I would have long since crumbled and surrendered. You’re inspiring in more ways than you realize. But you are different. Of course you are. Fuck, even I’m different. That day changed everyone, Ryne. Everyone. And that’s fine. Give them time. Let them dance and announce their footsteps and speak down to you. Instead, focus on doing what you love. Prove to them that it doesn’t matter--blind or not, this world is yours to push beneath your boots.”

He walked up to her, loudly, and stopped. Silence fell between the two, with Ryne hanging her head now, the bangs of her hair covering her face. Agnes remained standing, slack-jawed, though silent too.

“You’ve been hurt,” he added, reaching over and pulling her chin up. “Broken. Changed for the rest of your life. And, in time, you’ll learn to live and become stronger than you ever knew. I know you will--you are more than strong enough for it. But until then... fuck, why not let others baby you? It ain’t all bad, you know. Order maids around, have them do things for you, let the whole of the world spoil you before they grow tired of your shit.”

“Pfft...” her cheeks were flushed and her eyes covered by a cloth. But her eyebrows danced still, as expressive as the smile upon the lips.

"And, in the end, you'll always have me. For as long as I breathe and walk this plane of reality, I'll look for ways to give you what you deserve back. If it needs be, I'll burn the whole of the Kingdom to give it to you. That sliver of hope is the only thing keeping me from gouging my eyes and stuffing them where yours used to be."

“Eww, who would want those ugly-looking eyes of yours?”

“...”

“...”

“Pfft, ha ha ha,” the two burst out into laughter as Ryne launched herself forward and tossed her arms around his waist, cradling her head into his chest. Sylas replied in kind, hugging her back tightly, while Agnes sat down, tears coalescing in the corners of her eyes, the way she looked at him... shifting ever so slightly.