Runelords 22.1 - Deal With It

A faint knock at the inn door caught Virgil’s attention, and he got up quickly to open it. Luna stood in the hallway; she looked at him with trepidation and concern, and with a slight worried frown she asked, “Hey. ...Is...is everyone, ok?”
Virgil made a sound halfway between a sigh and a chuckle, shaking his head, “Yeah. Everyone’s asleep, at least. Eamon got so drunk he passed out, and Khyr keeps waking up, sobbing a bit and falling back asleep, like he was all afternoon.” He glanced over his shoulder before adding, “They should both be fine for the night. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“Don’t…don’t you have to sleep too?” Luna asked, wincing, obviously afraid to offend.
He just gave another snort of laughter, grinning patiently as he replied, “Yes, but I sleep light. Always have. Not the first time I’ve watched drunks either. It’s fine. Go, work on your spell; don’t worry.”
She continued to frown, but nodded slowly. Suddenly, she looked up at him, “...Are you ok?”
Virgil blinked with a slight surprise, then smiled again, “Sure! Of course. Fine.”
Luna was less than convinced, “You don’t seem fine.” She played with the fabric of her sleeve, “It’s...it’s ok, you know, to not be fine, I mean, this was...whatever happened, it’s not exactly…”
“It’s fine, Luna, really,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s...it’s fine. We’ll deal with it. Khyr doesn’t have much of an attention span. He doesn’t worry about the old; he only cares about the new. He’ll be fine. Eamon...I don’t know. We’ll call Pandemonium. That’s all he can do, so we’ll handle the problems here, then go do that, come what may. It will work out, one way or another.”
Considering him flatly for a long moment, she replied, “...You excluded yourself again.”
He chuckled and shook his head, “It’s fine, Luna. Really. I can deal with things; it’s my job. Don’t worry.” He gestured with his chin, “Go on. Finish your spell. You’re not going to get a restoration from nothing. Besides, I need to get some sleep too.”
She frowned at him sadly, worrying, for another moment before she shook her head in resignation. “Ok.” As she took a few steps away, she looked back over her shoulder, “Let me know if any of you do need anything?”
He smiled and nodded. With a ‘goodnight’, he closed the door behind him and went back into the room. The two beds were occupied: Khyrralien sprawled across his own, his whiskers twitching as he slept peacefully, while Eamon lay on what was previously Virgil’s. After having explained themselves to Ilsa, Eamon insisted on going to the bar, and had diligently drank enough to cleanly knock himself out, whether that had been his intention or not. Virgil watched them both for signs of duress, and was confident that both were sleeping soundly and well. Sighing, he turned to regard the washbasin in the corner, and more particularly the small, dingy mirror that hung over it. He had studiously avoided reflective surfaces after the others had mentioned his dramatic change of appearance on the ferry ride back to town, but he couldn’t help looking more closely at his hands. They were older, assuredly, judging by the lines and veins that weren’t immediately familiar. His skin was a bit lighter too, when he looked at it. Luna had said he looked Cafeyetan, but he guessed that wasn’t strictly true: he hadn’t seen his face yet, and he was a human now, not a half-elf, but he still guessed he’d see a relatively familiar Asonian when he looked in the mirror. He let out a deflating sigh. He might as well.
Head lowered, he made his way to the corner where the washbasin stood. He leaned heavily forwards on it, trying to keep his breathing steady as he held his eyes shut. With a final exhalation, he looked up and straight into his reflection. It was more or less what he had guessed: the face that looked back at him was hardly unfamiliar, at least to him. He stifled himself, making sounds that were difficult to judge as laughs or sobs from behind an expression that was somewhere between a smile and grimace. He mostly looked like he used to before he became a devil, at least he thought: it was such a long time ago. His memories of Hell seemed hazy and his memories of life were old, so it was as though he had just woken up confused from a vivid dream that had gone on too long. He had a half-grown beard, and so much grey hair; he hadn’t ever been this old, had he? He almost looked like the illusion his father had used to look like Victor, but his ears were human, the beard was out-of-place, and his hair was an unkempt, uncomfortable length between short and long. He looked like an imperfect Victor, as though he was a disguise with some of the details wrong and had given up on hygiene. 
He kept making the choking, chuckling noise. He was a human, certainly. An old, shiftless human. He could recognize himself, but it was no surprise that Eamon and everyone else didn’t. He didn’t look like who he used to be: a young, handsome devil, in a literal sense. His gaze lingered on his eyes: no longer almond-shaped, no longer the flat grey that they had always been, as an elf and as a devil. No longer the same as his father’s, or the rest of his family’s. He closed them and turned away. 
The beds were taken and there was no other furniture, so Virgil slunk to the floor, leaning heavily against the wall. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, he took a deep breath before rubbing his face. Letting his hands fall, he looked between the sleeping pair, making sure they were still resting comfortably before sighing again. With the determined look of one pointedly denying their feelings, Virgil sat back against the wall and forcibly relaxed. It was as he had said earlier to Luna: he had to sleep too. He was tired.
Category:Rise of the Runelords