Chapter Twenty-Three

Twenty-three!

Countess Lili-Bon Vin Dreso was exhausted, exhilarated, and extremely nervous. There were only two days left until she turned twenty-three, two days left before she could partake in the Crucible! Her mother and father were against it, of course, as they were incessantly worried about their “special girl” hurting herself.

Their coddling has never done me any good before. Now is no different.

Except that it was.

As a child, Lili-Bon had been absolutely terrified of loud noises, so her parents had soundproofed her room and forced the young girl to wear sound muffling mittens on her ears whenever she left home as if she hadn’t stood out enough already among the other noble children. Lili was nearly certain the ear muffs had earned her the moniker “Simple-Lil”, which stuck even now as her old classmates moved on to positions of prowess and power. The ones who were still alive, anyway.

When Lili’s mother noticed that her young daughter preferred things to have order and followed her own unique schedule, as most with her condition tended to, she’d made moves to ensure that Lil-Bon always had the exact same servants, in the same positions, every day. At the time, as with all her parent's precautions and maneuvers, it was greatly appreciated by a young Lili. As she grew older though, she began to feel more cramped, like her freedoms were being limited by overbearing parents attempting to garner some sense of control in their own hectic lives.

Lili-Bon’s first personal interaction with Grand Councilor White was during her father’s inauguration onto White’s court, just five short years before the Fracturing. It was the only time in her life, to that point, that anyone had spoken to Lili like a normal person. Lili-Bon hadn’t even noticed how patronizing everyone else had been before until her first conversation with their Lord. White ignored her condition as a part of her identity, while also respecting her rules of space. He allowed her time to think without ever being asked to do so, despite being the most powerful, important man in the world. He waited. Lord White’s kindness and sincerity in accepting her as a true individual resonated with the awe-struck Lili-Bon. She was sure it would until the day she died.

Lili also liked the fact that she didn’t have to avoid eye contact when talking to him.

Within weeks of their meeting she was studying and training in the marble halls of White’s estate alongside an ever-talented Mezir, before the war, and the intensely willful Heria, after the war. She learned and practiced everything they did even with her many ‘quirks’. It had taken the largest, loudest, most vicious argument Lili could have ever imagined experiencing with her mother just to be allowed the privilege of asking her father for permission- to then ask Lord White to teach her.

Lord White himself had actually had a hand in the outcome.

Lili-Bon’s father had sided with her mother, of course, but just as they were dismissing her in father’s new office, Lord White had come in. He was accompanied by his handsome son Mezir to the offices of the counselors for some reason and she had taken her chance and expressed a bit of spontaneity that stamped a scowl on her mother's face. Lili asked Lord White directly if she may be allowed to receive an education like Mezir and White had loved the idea.

“Mezir needs a good influence around these days, keeps getting into trouble, this one!”

Mother had been none too happy of course, but her father’s eyes sparkled with possibilities that he would later share with her. Often.

That meeting had been her first step to freedom.

The Crucible was the next step. Hopefully, not the last.

Lili-Bon had been sick with worry for weeks on end but she was determined to survive whatever they threw her way inside the testing grounds. She needed to become a White’s guard. She would hardly be the first child of a noble family to make it into the guard and she would undoubtedly not be the last. The only thing that set her apart from the other noble participants was that she didn’t have her family's blessing…. That and no one believed she could do it. No one except Lord White.

Where everyone else had offered half-hearted advice and pitiful looks while planning what extravagant piece of fabric to wear to her funeral, White had equipped her with the tools she would need. Something her family would have done for her if she had been “normal”, she was sure. Without their official blessing, they were barred from providing any financial support in her endeavors, however, if she made it into White’s Guard she would be able to renounce her noble ties. Earning her true freedom.

Lili-Bon would be more than happy to disavow her family as they had her own dreams and desires.

They wanted me to be a vegetable, totally reliant, and subservient. That’s why they had adopted me outside of normal means. They just wanted a charity case, not a daughter. Bragging rights, not an actual human being. I have had the training that was necessary! I have the tools! I have the ri-

Lili-Bon was interrupted by one of her White’s guards waving hand from across the street. They were always ten paces ahead and two to the right. Always. The hand wave was only meant to be used during emergencies and was, essentially, all the interaction she had with the two guards; Seben and Vicon. They had been serving her personally since she was a small child and upon entering the Nu’ Council her father had allotted all of his vassals and security personnel to be named White’s guard- or better. As such, she knew they were extremely loyal and trustworthy, though it still boiled her blood to have her walk interrupted.

Stay here please, Lady. Vicon’s hand told her.

Lili-Bon smiled politely in return despite her ire and raised a hand of her own. Will do.

Both guards bowed slightly, turned, and drew their long, dazzling sabers that illuminated the street before them. All guards were allowed to choose their own weaponry, so long as they carried one of the smooth, opalescent blades as well, for official business. She tried her best to follow their path in the darkness beyond the many lamp posts around her but Lili’s eyes had yet to adjust. She took a breath and focused intently on their swords cutting through the darkness. After a moment she could see where marble roads turned to cobblestone.

The harbor? There shouldn’t be anything over there except…. a barge or two? Why in the world have they stopped my stroll to go and meander over to some unseemly vessel in the middle of the night! Do they not even realize they’ve abandoned their charge in the dark of a very…. empty… port. Ah. Right.

Lili-Bon chose to walk at this time of night specifically to avoid running into others.

So I am entirely...

Both her guards had already very nearly gotten to the barge’s single door when she realized she was actually alone. Lili-Bon truly couldn’t remember the last time when she had been alone. There was always someone there. Always. The point of taking her walks at such a late hour was to avoid being around anyone while she could… and think. Generally, Lili may see another guard or two, maybe a merchant closing late. Almost always a homeless person resting in an alley somewhere. More and more of those popped up in the port as the years went on it seemed, unable to find room in the southern and western districts; officially the districts of laborers.

Unofficially, too full of their own homeless and downtrodden to handle anymore. They’d nearly integrated everyone from the - once slums- of Blancana just outside their borders wall according to White’s reports. Still, she nearly always saw some dirty, starving man or woman on her outings. Lili-Bon always brought food along with her to give to them, just in case.

That night, there was only one such person nearby. He slept, loudly, in an alley a few feet ahead and to her left. The narrow tunnel created by the port merchant’s walls made the sounding of his carefree snoring reverberate all around. It made him sound more like a guttural beast than a sleeping man.

Just because the man has no charm and my guards have no sense of duty doesn’t mean he should starve.

That was that. Any small discomfort she had conjured upon hearing his uproarious snores completely vanished. It was simple to Lili-Bon. He was unhoused, unfed, from the look and smell of him as she got closer, most definitely unbathed; ultimately underprivileged. She was not. She had plenty to give. So she did.

Lili-Bon felt no great purpose to feed the unfed and had no real desire to be a charitable person for the sake of it; it was purely logical. Logic is where she prevailed, it was emotions where she found herself confused and uncomfortable. Altogether a bit… lacking in the area of expression and interpretation of emotions, Lili spent a lot of time studying people when she thought they would not see. She looked for any curves or twitches and guessed at what they may be feeling, what she would look like feeling that emotion. Happiness and sadness were easy… though she honestly struggled with sympathy. Still, Lili knew what was right and what was wrong. Giving the loud slumbering vagrant was the right thing to do. She was certain.

It was also beneficial to her studies of people’s feelings. The sleeping man was smiling, which usually meant happy unless the person was lying or acting, like Lili, but something about his smile was… concerning to her. His lips were unmoving even as his chest rose up and down in time with his monstrous snores. His nostrils didn’t flair.

Illogical Lili, entirely illogical. It is very dark out and the nearest lamp post is a good ten steps behind you. You can’t possibly see all that. Stop speculating. Besides, you’ve got your blade on hand, show some courage now. Be good. Be strong.

Lili-Bon pushed down whatever strange feeling had nearly caused her to turn, to flee from a man very obviously in need. She chided herself, shaking her head and muttering about morality, as she gently placed a sack of food against his side. Lili held the hilt of her lovely blade as she did so. Fear was another one of the easier emotions for her. She lived with it as a constant, though usually, she didn’t suffer fear of sleeping men.

“White’s guard… owner…. Immediately.” Seben’s voice carried over across the street in segments, though Lili-Bon could hear the woman banging on the barges door with her expertly toned arms clearly. Turning towards the barge she could see both guards alight in the glow of their own swords.

What a waste of time! Seben should know better, the woman’s father owns half of the harbor! If anyone is aboard the barge they’re likely asleep… but maybe they have orders. Ugh. I suppose I should walk a little closer and see if-

Suddenly the night overtook her. A terrifying black wrapped around her head. Lili could make out a faint swirling in the mass of darkness and she swore the swirling shadows formed a smiling face for just a moment.

Impossible. Breath. This just an episode. Breath.

The darkness didn’t fade. Didn’t begin to recede from her vision. Dilated pupils revealed to Lili-Bon that it was not just around her head that black prevailed, it was all around in swathes. Only patches of the port broke through the thick shadows, patches of marble reflecting light from the lamp posts above. For a moment she saw the lights from Seben and Vicon’s sabers, she hoped desperately they would look her way and see the vortex of death swirling about her, but as soon as she saw them, they flickered out of existence.

Lili-Bon closed her eyes and yanked forth the ornate blade from beneath her shawl.

Remember what Heria taught you. Remember how Mezir inspired you. Don’t be a failure… Not now Lili-Bon. You’re so close!

She’d never actually cast, never once had she manipulated essence, even after the Fracturing when most all the living beings on Noctra became at least proficient at casting, she was too wary. All her life the physicians had told Lili-Bon that essence would reject her. Kill her.

“It may break your body, it may break your mind. Either way, it will surely break you. I’m sorry.”

Everyone is always so sorry… but are they really? If they were, wouldn’t they try to help? It's magic. Fucking magic! There should surely be a way…

“Be strong Lili-Bon.” Was that in my head? That sounded just like… no, impossible, he would be sleeping at the estate now. Right?

“Now, girl, don’t hesitate. Just will it!”

The voice was definitely not within her mind… but it was out beyond the living darkness.

“Help me!” Lili-Bon squeezed her eyes shut. Pathetic! No… logical. Asking for Help is always logical. Right?

“I can’t dear… Lili-Bonnett! You’re too far now- feel- got…. Please!” His screams were getting harder and harder to hear.

Far? Where th- the fuck am I going?! Stop! Think. No- Feel. He said feel!

And she did. She felt a surge of hope, of joy, draped in a thick sheet of fear blanketed in a dread she’d never known. It was too much all at once and she nearly collapsed in on herself. It was wonderful and painful beyond all measure- feeling the essence move through her with a life all it’s own, feelings all it’s own. Lili-Bon had never known that essence itself was truly alive. No one had ever told her.

She held tight to all of those feelings, to all of the essence accumulated within her, and cast it out down the length of her blade. The falcata went aglow like a prismatic beam, every color visible to the human eye split down the sword, shining greatest at the pinnacle of the curve and finally out at the tip where it blasted forth into the growing darkness. Lili-Bon’s emotions shot out into the world and cleared a path for her back to the port as the swirling black that engulfed her world shrieked as if burned by a lit torch. Then she followed the light, traveled down it at a speed that turned her stomach, and flew out of the mouth of a dark cloud that could only have been the size of her body.

Impossible… all of this…. It has to be. Impossible.

An eerie skittering of naked human feet running through something wet passed far too close to her left- am I laying? When did I fall?!- before a small, entirely nude woman with endlessly curling black hair passed overhead. She landed, rolled, and dashed up a building to the right... on all four limbs that moved inhumanely fast. Then she was gone.

New darkness began to overtake Countess Lili-Bon Vin Dreso. A completely natural black was falling over her vision, beckoning her to sleep.

The last thing she saw was the man who had been sleeping before, or who she thought had been sleeping before. A blade stuck out of his back and his eyes were scorched black, mouth agape.

“Oh, my dear Lili-Bonnet, how much you have grown.”

Someone lifted her from the ground and she heard the clattering of her blade as it hit the marble roads.