Runelords 27.3 - Missed You

Walking into the town hall, Virgil glanced about. There was a particular man who refused to evacuate, but the bard wanted the mayor’s permission before using suggestive magic on him to speed it up. He wasn’t about to let someone stand around and get killed because of stubbornness, the morality of Suggestion be damned, but he still wanted to be polite about it. As he poked his head in the meeting rooms, he caught a glimpse of not the mayor, but Shadliss, frantically going through some papers. He hadn’t seen her in two days, not since the meeting; she had been helping with the evacuation proceedings, and had been just as busy, if not more so, than him. Pausing in his tracks, he took a few steps into the room. She didn’t notice, so he walked up to her. “Hey,” he announced himself. She glanced up, her lack of sleep clear on her face; it took her a second to even register who was standing in front of her. Virgil asked, “Are you evacuating with your parents? I saw them loading things onto a ship this morning.”
Shadliss blinked a few times before shaking her head and turning her attention back to the papers, “I have to find this property form the mayor wanted. I’m busy. I’ll...I’ll meet you at the inn in an hour, if you want to talk.” 
Virgil raised an eyebrow, but nodded, “Alright. I’ll...see you then.” With that, he left her to her business.
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Running through the pouring rain, Shadliss stepped into the dry inn, shaking off her umbrella and clothes. The usually bustling business was desolate, abandoned as the town quickly emptied. There weren’t many people left by now: stubborn people for whom tradition was more important than fear, those who couldn’t believe the truth of what was coming, and those who had too much stock in their worldly goods to leave any of them. Her parents were just preparing to leave that night: the family store had been packed over the last few days, selling to townsfolk who were frightened and needing supplies. Today they had closed, taking everything of value to a ship they had bought passage on and storing the rest in the basement, hoping that it would survive whatever was going to happen. Hopefully, they would be back in a few days with nothing lost. Shadliss had to believe that. Walking through the empty common room and up the stairs, she made her way to the room she knew Virgil was renting.
Knocking before letting herself in, she saw the man sitting alone on the edge of a bed; his roommates were obviously elsewhere, preparing. He was wearing his disguise still, making him look like the Arroyitan she recognized. Pulling off her damp shawl, she threw it over a hook and sat heavily on the bed across from him, exhausted. He grinned sadly at her, casting Prestidigitation dismissively to dry the rest of her clothes from the rain, “Long day?”
“I haven’t sat down in two days, and it feels like I haven’t slept at all,” she complained as she kicked off her shoes.
He gave a good-natured snort of laughter, “At least you had that month in Medinipur. I feel like I haven’t stopped in weeks.” His tone became serious as he changed the topic, “Are you evacuating? That’s all I wanted to know. I didn’t want to interrupt you.” At that question, she drew her legs up onto the bed and hugged her knees. She seemed to be thinking carefully, so he continued, “There’s no shame either way. It will be safer if you evacuate, definitely...but I’d be a hypocrite if I told anyone they couldn’t or shouldn’t try and fight to protect something. I’m not trying to say you should or shouldn’t go, at least. I just wanted to know if you were.”
Slowly, she said, “I...I don’t know. I...I want to help. I’m sick of just...having things happen. What if the town is destroyed, and I didn’t help?” She sighed, and her voice dropped, “What if...the town is saved, and I didn’t help?”
“You have helped!” Virgil said, gently but insistently. “I know you’ve been working with the mayor. You’ve been organizing the evacuation, and that’s the most important part: getting everyone to safety. Everyone's seen how much you’ve been doing; no one would think you weren’t helping.” He looked at her softly, “You said yourself before, you don’t like fighting, and that you aren’t a fighter. Don’t try to make yourself into something you don’t want to be. And don’t dismiss what you’ve done, and what you’re going to do. The mayor’s still going to need your help getting everyone home and settled. There’s no shortage of things that need doing other than fighting.” He grinned, “The mayor is going to get dependent on you.”
“If there’s a town left…” she muttered sadly.
He shook his head. “It will be ok,” he said comfortingly. 
“No it won’t,” she retorted sadly. “This just keeps happening, and you say it’s going to get better but I can’t think that it ever will.”
“It will. It will stop,” he assured her. “This will stop, and the rest of your life will be quiet again.” He reached out and drew his thumb over the back of her hand, hesitant to make any further contact. “It’s been hard, and terrible, but you’ve been handling it better than a lot of people would. You’ll survive this, and it will get better again.” There was a silence, as Shadliss curled up on herself. When Virgil next spoke, it was quietly, “...I think your parents would want you to go with them. ...I don’t think they could bear the thought of losing another daughter.”
In a bare whisper, she replied, “...You’re right…” She sat for a long moment, and Virgil drew back his hand in the weight of the silence. Looking up through her knees, she said, “...I guess I’m going tonight then.” 
He nodded, smiling gently, “I’ll take care of things here. You did the important part, getting everyone out. The last part is easy: try to not let this army make a complete mess.”
“Then I have to come back and clean up after you,” she said, half in jest, trying to smile. She sighed and sank back into her skirt again, muttering slowly, “Don’t...don’t die.”
He grinned sadly, “I will try my very best. I have far too much to do to die.”
She added with equal gravity, “Don’t leave before I get back.”
“Heh,” he continued to grin, “What if I have to? Give chase across the countryside, cutting them off before they reach another town?”
“...Don’t leave,” she repeated, voice sorrowful.
He looked at her sadly for a moment, curled up as she was over her knees, before he turned his gaze away towards the floor. “...If that’s what you want,” he said simply, without any begrudgement. The two sat in silence, looking away from each other. A soft nudge jostled Virgil’s arm, catching his attention: Shadliss had quietly inched closer, and held out her arms towards him, almost demanding, her sad gaze still pointed down. With a gentle smile, he collected her up into a hug and pulled her close. She curled up into his chest and hugged him back, and the two sat quietly like this for some time. It was Virgil who broke the silence first, muttering into her hair, “Can...can I take off the disguise hat?”
He could feel her frown, pressed as she was into his shirt, “...I guess so?” As he reached up and it tugged off, she added, “I don’t know why it bothers you to wear it so much…” Virgil flipped the hat away, sending it to the floor with a soft thump. Shadliss pulled her face away to see what had made the noise, and saw the large, wide-brimmed straw paddy hat sitting on the floor. “...Wait,” she asked, “You were wearing that?” 
“Heh, yeah,” he chuckled. “I was borrowing Khyr’s hat. You don’t remember seeing Luna make it?” 
“I thought you had a better one…” she muttered before shaking her head, “I take it back. I wouldn’t want to wear that all the time either.”
“Yeah, it’s awkward,” he admitted, “but...it’s more than that.”
“Yeah. You said so,” she interrupted. “I still don’t get it though.”
He explained slowly, “I just...I don’t care if it’s me choosing to look a different way, for whatever reason, or if I have to look some certain way for a job or something, like right now, around town. It’s just uncomfortable, when it feels like...I’m hiding what I look like. From myself, or people who know me." He sighed, "And, if I look different now, it’s because there’s a reason...and I feel bad pretending the reason isn’t there.”
She shook her head, if Virgil didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't press the issue. They sat for a while longer, Virgil lightly stroking his fingers down her back. Eventually, she hazarded a question, whispering softly, “...Why didn’t you call your family?” Virgil made a confused sound, looking down at her as she explained, “At the meeting, when we were talking about getting people to come help. You said you only knew three people. But none of those were your family, right? Couldn’t...I don’t know, couldn’t you call them? Or...summon, them? Your father is super powerful, right? He could save the town.”
Virgil laughed quietly, sadly, and said, “It’s never a good plan to get monsters to fight monsters. That’s how things really get messed up.” He thought about it for a moment, adding more seriously, “Sending doesn’t always work across planes, and even then, there’s a time difference no one can predict, so it’s an awful way to get anyone to show up in time. It would have been a worse use of the spell than calling one of the others. I’d have to actually summon them if we wanted guaranteed help, and I don’t have the spells for that. Certainly not to get my father; the strength of magic I’d have to cast to bring him here is worth way more money than all of us have. So I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.” He mumbled as an afterthought, “I’m in no hurry…”
A thoughtful expression flicked across her face, considering this sentiment. Letting it go, she settled deeper into him. “...You smell different,” she offered, changing the subject.
“Huh?” he was caught off-guard, “Do I?”
“You stopped smoking,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“Oh! Yeah. Yeah, I did,” he nodded. “I figured I don’t have immortal lungs anymore, so I’d better quit. Not how I want to die.” He grinned, “It's driving me kind of insane, honestly.” She made a slight ‘hmn’ noise, but said nothing further. After another minute, Virgil twisted about, pulling her around so that he could sit with his back to the headboard. She slunk down, tugging one of the bed’s blankets up over her and dragging the man down with her, pressing her back up into his chest and tightening his arms around her. They lay spooning for another moment before Virgil said out-of-the-blue, “I can change my age.” Shadliss raised an eyebrow, but he couldn’t see it from where he lay. “I can look like whatever age I want. It’s a spell I...remembered, I guess. I used to know it, a long time ago. I remembered it.”
She rolled over and pointed her chin towards the discarded hat, “Of course you can look like whatever you want.”
“Well, it’s a bit different,” he explained. “That’s an illusion; it only changes looks. The spell is a transmutation, it actually shapeshifts.”
She rolled back over and said with some dismissal, “Whatever you want.”
He frowned and considered something for a long few seconds. When he spoke again, he mused, “I wonder if it would take the dye out of my hair…?”
This prompted her to roll over again, looking at his hair. “What colour is it really?”
He pursed his lips, “Grey…”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “I mean other than that.”
“Oh, black,” he answered. “That’s one of the things that isn’t really weird about this, actually. My hair was black when I was growing up. It’s just, black again now.” With a conceding expression, she shrugged and rolled back into him again. “Well...what do you think?" He pressed, "I can be pretty well any age.”
“As long as you aren’t younger than me,” she said.
“Hmm...probably couldn’t get much younger than...fifteen, I think.”
“Ok, that would be weird.”
“Might get rid of the terrible beard though!” he suggested with mock brightness. 
“Yeah, you really need to get rid of that,” her voice held a smirk. “Shave it, or grow it properly.”
He gave a false whine, “I don’t know how! Maybe if people would stop being under attack and give me a few days, I could figure it out.” 
“I’d hope so,” she chided.
He rolled his eyes at the jab and continued, “So, what do you think? Should we see if it helps?”
Shadliss sighed, rolling her eyes as well, “...Twenty-one.”
“Done!” he said brightly, and with a quick gesture and muttered incantation, his looks shifted slightly. The grey that was in his beard darkened and the lines on his face softened as youthfulness returned to him, younger than he had looked as a Yetoman. 
The girl scrutinized him for a few seconds before saying off-handedly, “...No. Still looks awful.”
Virgil gave a feigned sigh, hanging his head in defeat. Looking back up he grinned at her, “Better than Eamon’s though.”
“Oh, gods yes,” she said. “His is really bad.” He chuckled, looking at her with a grin, before leaning forwards and dragging the half-grown beard stubble along her neck and cheek. She yelped and jerked away, “Ugh! Don’t do that!” Rubbing her face and shrugging him away as he laughed at her, she added, “You’re terrible!”
“Heh. I am,” he agreed.
She chided him again, her annoyance partly in jest, “You’re lucky I put up with you.”
Virgil continued chuckling, moving to pull her into another hug which she accepted. “I suppose I am at that.” With another sigh of frustration, Shadliss settled into his arms. Another few minutes passed in a comfortable silence before Virgil leaned in towards her and whispered, his voice obviously holding a joke he couldn’t wait to tell, “Hey...I remembered another spell too.” Shadliss twisted her head about to frown at him, already disapproving. He smiled, expression silly, “It’s a stupid spell; I haven’t thought of it in forever.”
“...What,” she said flatly, not liking where this must be going, owing to the fact that he was already trying to keep himself from laughing.
“You’re going to smack me,” he said. “And if Luna knew I had it, she’d hit me too.”
Shadliss stared at him, unimpressed. After a few beats, she sighed and rolled her eyes, “Just use it, if you’re going to sit there like that.”
“Should I use it on me, or you?”
Shaking her head, she replied, “How would I know, I don’t know what it is!”
“Both it is!” he said brightly. With a few quick, repeated gestures and phrases, he sent his and her clothes flying to the nearby floor, leaving them naked under the blanket, save for their jewelry. Shadliss blinked once in shock before slapping him firmly across the cheek and pulling the blanket up around her protectively. Virgil just laughed. He snickered and chuckled, rubbing his face before moving to hug her once more, holding her tightly for a moment before beginning to trace a line of kisses up the side of her neck towards her ear.
Shadliss gave another sigh, “I don’t know why I put up with you. No one else would.” Despite her words, she melted back into his affectionate touches.
Virgil just grinned into her ear, whispering, “I missed you.”
She gave a snort of laughter herself, moving her arm up behind her to wrap around his neck, “I missed you too.”
Category:Rise of the Runelords