“How does a metalbender manage to hurt herself?” Elric asked sarcastically.
Lenore smiled, blushing. “Surprisingly easily, actually. That sword is sharp as Mina’s temper.”
Darcia held Mathieu’s blade in his hand, examining every detail. “You truly are a master of your craft, Lenny.” He held it in front of him even in his sitting position.
Jo was standing behind Darcia and leaned over his shoulder, running a finger along the edge of the blade; his blood coated the edge. “Oh, sharp.” He popped his finger into his mouth, talking around it. “Do ya make smaller blades? Like daggers?”
“Well, sure. Which kind?” Lenore asked, clenching and unclenching her fist as she spoke.
Jo considered for a moment. “Curved, push, and double bladed?”
Lenore nodded absently. “Yeah, I can do that. How big is your hand?” He held it up and she nodded again, eyeing it in a practiced way. “Good, good. It’ll take me a few days, kiddo.”
Mathieu stood and retrieved his sword from Darcia. He wiped the small bit of Jo’s blood off of it with his shirt, then sheathed it. “I need to go feed Niveus. Thank you for bringing this by, Lenore. And Darcia, we’ll start training soon?”
“Tomorrow, preferably.” Darcia replied, relaxing in his seat.
“Yes, it’s a date.” Mathieu waved at them and went to his shared room, placing his sword against the wall before going to the kitchen. Niveus was curled up on a dish towel in the sun, her size having increased to about a loaf of bread. Her paws and ears were slightly too big for the rest of her, but she gave a delicate purr as he approached her. “Hey, sweetie. Are you hungry?”
Rolling onto her back, one of her back feet kicked slightly at the air. He gave her tummy a quick rub, then went to the fridge, pulling out some thinly sliced ham. Niveus had taken quite well to anything made from a pig. Bacon was her favorite, however. Humming, he shredded the ham into a small pile for his charge.
Niveus stood, and lopped along the counter to the food, only slipping once, and quickly devoured it. Her fangs clicked softly as she ate, her fur feathering as she stretched her neck. Mathieu smiled and folded his arms on the counter, then rested his chin on them.
“You’re such a pretty girl, love.” He wrinkled his nose as she jumped onto his head clumsily, her back paw on his nose and front paws in his hair. “Don’t hurt yourself…” He murmured, staying still while the white Shadowrider fumbled to climb on him. Niveus purred playfully and slid down his back and leapt. She half landed, half rolled onto the table. Mathieu followed her, keeping her from falling off the edge.
Avanon came into the kitchen just as he stopped white Shadowrider from falling headfirst. “Hey, Matt, can I ask you a question?”
Sighing at the shortened version of his name, he looked up. “Sure. What is it, Avanon?” Over the pasted few months, Avanon and he had formed a friendship of sorts. She had yelled at Solomon for being a jerk and told Mathieu not to worry over the blond, claiming he was stubborn, but he’d come around in his own time. After that, they’d started to talk in passing and play regular card games at Elise’s home.
Avanon sat on the counter, messing with her multi-colored hair. “It’s Elric. He’s being oblivious again.” She frowned.
“What did he do this time?”
“Well, he’s just being stupid!” She threw her hands up with exasperation. “I kissed him, like you suggest, and he took it platonically. Platonically. Who does that?! He wants to hang out and starts to agree to dinnesr and stuff with me, but he doesn’t get that it’s a date. Elric is always like, ‘Oh, this was a fun time. I’m glad I have such a nice friend’. A friend, he says. Can you believe it?” She huffed and banged her head back against cabinet. “Is he daft? I mean, he can solve a medical crisis under pressure and determine that Nathan was killed by a slow acting poison produced by the flowers he had a romp in, but he can’t see a girl practically throwing herself at him. Am I not being easy enough?”
Mathieu laughed. “I don’t think you need to be easy. I think he just doesn’t want to misread the situation and make things awkward, so he’s playing it safe.”
“That’s just stupid.”
“I’m not saying it’s not stupid,” Mathieu said, “but Elric is a pretty logical kind of guy. He doesn’t act until he’s thought of every possible outcome.”
Avanon frowned and huffed in annoyance, kicking her feet against the cabinet.
“Good, Avanon, you’re in here.” Solomon was standing in the doorway, arms folded over his chest. “Someone needs to go tell Zanika and Zerieve that we’re having a full house meeting. Take Elric with you.”
“I will not. Besides, who died and made you king of everything?” The words were out there before she could react and the moment she realized what she’d said, her face went white with shock. “Oh my god, I didn’t mean that!”
Mathieu gave her a small smile and patter her thigh, “We know. It’s just an expression. I can go tell them, though. Where do they live?”
The blond man shook his head, “I don’t think so. You’re not going alone and I-” Solomon cut himself off there.
Picking up Niveus, he stalked over to the blond, face set in a scowl. “Excuse me, but you don’t tell me what to do. I can do whatever I damn well please. You haven’t talked to me in weeks because we had a kiss, you admitted to being attracted to me, you missed my hair on your shirt, and that little Enak kid caught you in a lie. You messed up and you’re taking it out on me. So don’t you dare try to play the concerned…friend, boyfriend, whatever you think that you are to me!” Mathieu pushed passed him, going outside. He was so mad that he was shaking, and not paying a bit of attention as he plowed in Darcia.
“Oof.” Darcia said, reaching out to catch Mathieu’s arm, preventing him from falling. “Hey kid. You seem kinda pissed.” He smiled with his mouth full of pointed teeth, “What’s wrong?”
Staring at him, a thought suddenly dawned on him. It was the perfect revenge against Solomon, and the perfect plan to do something productive. “Nothing. Hey, you know where Zanika and Zerieve live, right?”
“Yes, I do. Why?” Darcia put his hands on his hips.
“Good. We’re going there then, together.”
Darcia shrugged, “Well, sure, why not. How are we getting there?”
“Eh…” Mathieu frowned, not having planned that far ahead.
The raven smiled at him and patted his head. “We can take the carriage. It’s a long trip by tuvash, and your baby Shadowrider isn’t strong enough to teleport, yet. She’s beautiful, by the way. May I?”
Niveus perked her head up, stretching out towards Darcia at his words. “Here, take her.” Mathieu handed over his beloved, “The carriage is still here from when Akira used it to go into town. It should be just down the hill.”
~*~
They were driving along the coast when Darcia, who was still cradling Niveus in his lap even though he was driving, broke the companionable silence, “Have you ever been to the Eastern District?” When Mathieu shook his head, Darcia continued. “It’s nothing like here where everyone lives in communities, you know. There, people live spread out on plots of land where they grow crops. Of course there are some main markets for trading and stuff, but it’s not unusual to walk for an hour to go visit someone.”
“That’s just crazy.” Mathieu said, shaking his head. “But it sounds nice, simpler.”
“It is, except when Zanika decides it’s getting too boring. She’s like a small child; everything is about fun for her. She flooded her sister’s room when they got into a fight. It was actually pretty funny… Zerieve couldn’t figure out how to get the water out without flooding the rest of the house, so she had to bust a hole in the outside wall and let it drain out.”
Mathieu laughed as he watched the world go by, just relaxed. It was especially nice to be away from moody Solomon. “So you lived with them. What are they like?”
Darcia pet Niveus, and smiled fondly. “Believe it or n
ot, they’re actually clones, made by their ‘father’.”
“Huh?”
“Well, the Eastern District hasn’t always been run by those two. Once upon a time, it was run by a man named Lucen. Lucen was gifted, like most of the people who live here.” Darcia shrugged in an ‘obviously’ way. “If he could envision something, and truly believe in it, it would happen. In fact, he was able to turn the area from the barren place between the mountains into the fertile land. Luca was fairly well-liked from what the elders said. At least, he was until his daughter died in an accident involving a crop cart.
“After she died, he became very withdrawn and stopped focusing on the good of the people he was in charge of protecting. Every day, instead of tending to his duties, he would visit the site where his beloved daughter died, willing her to come back.” Darcia sighed and stopped the carriage, letting some kids run across the street in front of him. “I can understand that he was hurting, but…” He shook his head and the carriage began to move again “Sometimes, he would tell people who passed him that he could see his daughter standing on the side of the road, smiling at him. Insanity took over him, and his powers slipped out of his control. Without meaning to, he recreated his dead daughter. But he was weak against the creative abilities of his gift, they required the utmost control, and he couldn’t stop himself in time to make just one.” Darcia shrugged. “It took so much out of him that he passed away soon after.”
Frowning, Mathieu looked at the ceiling of the carriage as Darcia took a right. “I guess I just don’t understand how they ended up in charge, though. I mean, everyone must have known that the girl was dead, right?”
The raven laughed. “The people of the Eastern District were so happy to see Lucen’s daughter alive again, having loved her when she was alive, they let themselves become blinded to the magic, calling it a ‘miracle’. The people actually elected the two girls to be in charge. Little did they know how unlike Lucen’s daughter those two actually are.”
“Oh, the things we can’t foresee.” Mathieu shifted in his seat and looked at Darcia. The man was build to be lean, his body trim even though he was one of the oldest people at the Tri-District Manor. It was funny how when Darcia was relaxed, the muscled physique and pointed teeth were actually kind of…funny. Chuckling, he wrinkled his nose. “Man, how did they put up with some of a funny looking dude?”
Darcia lifted his upper lip, growling playfully. “They may be identical and always bicker, but the twins balance each other well. I just played the referee.”
Mathieu nodded slightly. “I hope they’re nice...”
“They are.”
Niveus got up and stretched out on the seat between the two men as they crossed the bridge into the Eastern District, right along the border with the Western. Darcia slowed as the road began to wind around the hills, just above the plains.
It took crossing another bridge, driving carefully around fields, and three hours to reach the central market just north of the twin’s home. There were little stands set up in a circle, selling everything from flowers to raw grain to meats of various cuts.
“Hey, can we stop for a second?” Darcia inquired, already pulling over.
“Sure, what’s up?”
Smiling, Darcia got out of the car and disappeared for a few minutes before returning with a handful of flowers. “Okay, now we can go. It’s just a bit further that way; the blue house up there.”
In the distance, Mathieu could see the house he was talking about and watched it come closer. Unlike near the border, there were clearly marked roads to use instead of winding around the edges of properties and hopping you didn’t run something over. The path was made with flat black stones that allowed for a smooth ride and decent speed.
As they pulled up to the blue, single story house with a white picket fence in front of it, Mathieu got out and scooped up Niveus; he noticed the ivy hanging on the walls of the house. He looked around he followed Darcia to the back of the house to a maze of hedges. Voices were floating out of it, but he couldn’t see who they were coming from.
“Eek!” A girl barreled out of the maze, a bow made of pulsing darkness in one hand, the other resting on the string, ready to pull it back. But her bow disappeared into thin air when she caught sight of them. “Darcia!” At full speed, she ran at him then leapt through the air.
Darcia caught her, smiling. “Hey, Zani. What are you doing out here?”
“Getting her ass kicked.” The spitting image of the girl in Darcia’s arms was standing on top of a hedge, where she pulled back the string on her own bow and shot Zanika in the back.
“Ow! Son of a bi-” She bit her tongue before the rest of the sentence could get out. Zanika kissed Darcia’s cheek, let go, and barreled back to the hedge. She jumped up, and tackled her twin off of it. A solid thump could be heard, and Mathieu ran into the maze to see the two brunettes wrestling on in the grass. He couldn’t tell them apart, but one clearly had the upper hand. The one who was winning had the other in an arm bar.
Darcia took his time to enter the maze, a bemused expression on his face. “Come on, Zanika, don’t hurt her. I brought flowers.” He said, holding them out.
“Flowers!” The girl in the red cardigan let go of her twin, hopping up with childlike enthusiasm.
The one Mathieu presumed was Zerieve stood, too, brushing herself off. Frowning, she pulled a few pins out of her pocket and pinned back the front of her A-line haircut. “Funny seeing you here, Darcia. Last time I saw you, you were running off to Nathan’s with your tail between your legs. And who is this?”
The expressions that crossed Mathieu and Darcia’s faces at the mention of Nathan had Zanika smacking the back of her head. “What’d you upset him for? He came to see us and you’re being rude. But, Darcia, who is your friend?”
“His name is Mathieu.” Darcia said. “He lives with us, now.”
Zerieve held her hand, which Mathieu shook. “Nice to meet you.” She looked between them, rubbing her chin idly. “Why do you two look like someone died?”
“Because Nathan did.” Mathieu blurted out before he could stop himself. He rubbed the back of his head and now that he had a moment to look at the two women’s shocked faces, they really were identical; all except for haircuts.
A short silence fell in the distance between the four of them as the clones pulled themselves together. Eventually Zanika said, “What the hell did he do that for? I bet Solomon is just loving it, that rat. Glad I don’t have to deal with him trying to be in charge.”
Darcia sighed. “Let’s go inside before we continue this conversation.”
Zerieve took the flowers from the older male and led them all in through the back door, taking off her shoes before walking across the carpet. “Who wants what to drink?”
“Tea, if you don’t mind.” Mathieu said, also slipping off his shoes.
“Sit at the breakfast bar.” Zerieve said with a serious expression. She motioned to the bar between the living room and the kitchen, then got water for the flowers; As she set them on the bar she previously mentioned, her eyes skimmed over Mathieu appraisingly. Whatever she was thinking, she didn’t say.
Zanika followed Darcia in and set about helping Zerieve by getting together a plate of snacks. “What happened, exactly? To Nathan, I mean.”
Darcia frowned and took a sip of the brandy he’d poured himself, then sighed. “I don’t know, really. I wasn’t there. Talk to Mathieu.” He looked at the other visitor.
Not quite liking the attention of Zerieve, she seemed a little too serious to him, he looked at the flowers. “I was at Elise’s house when she got a vision of something bad happening to Nathan. He was fine at first, but then he started to get dizzy and thirsty.” Talking about it was awkward and rather rushed; it wasn’t something he was really wanting to recount. “He started to convulse and get really hot, Adele tried to heal him, made it worse, then he died. The end.” Mathieu ended, folding his arms over his chest.
Zerieve leane
d her hip against the counter, having set a kettle to boil some water while they spoke. “How detailed.”
Patting Mathieu on the arm, Zanika leaned across the counter to steal a cheese and cracker from the plate. “So who’s running the show now? I’m sure the HQ is in disarray.”
Darcia shrugged one shoulder, “No one really. Everyone is just existing right now at Nathan’s place. And the headquarters is all but shut down. Elise is a mental mess, Enak and his god haven’t visited, and now we’re coming to tell you that there’s going to be a full house meeting. Solomon is being a big help in keeping things from falling apart, however.” He gave Zanika a pointed look. “He stops most of the fights and is keeping our District, and Elise’s, running moderately smoothly.”
Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) Page 28
