2: Just like Home

Alexandrie understood what Re'ne'mala was saying: Focus on the here. Focus on the now. Things were dangerous down here. 

What Re'ne'mala didn’t seem to grasp was that the day before - not 24 hours earlier - they had been attacked in the middle of Glitter Delta Cove, which undoubtedly had more than the 4000 she was concerned about here. Where magic was involved, perhaps the two Ebon elves knew theory and technique, and perhaps they knew how to survive down here, but their biggest fear was still nature - and nature was random. Sometimes things just happened. Yes, she had this thought afraid to look at the blank, skyless space above her, and yes, she was easily startled, but they were afraid of something that may or may not happen.

Genofeva was actively hunting them, and she was powerful. There was a lot to keep track of without being treated like a child, or having her concerns dismissed. Re'ne'mala hadn’t seen how much blood came out of Lucas. She hadn’t watched as the others ran (or prepared to) - and even if she had - this is the life she had chosen! She trained for this. Did she even remember what it was to be afraid? To not know what to do moment to moment? To have a task given she had no choice but to do despite that fear and lack of training? And even if the answer to all that was yes, Alexa was more than capable of fearing multiple things at once.

The thought that the first thing Re'ne'mala thought she would do would be to kill on reflex stung, though it shouldn’t have. The ebon elf thought little of her anyway, and that was not new. She should perhaps have been used to people thinking little of her by now, but it still stung - as if she should have known things she could not have known. It seemed to happen a lot - people making assumptions of her, and she could neither stop it, nor could she seem to change it once it happened.

Now that she knew why Spider lied, it made a great deal of sense - even if the lying still made her uncomfortable. She didn’t know why Re'ne'shi had lied to her, but she suspected it was to make a mockery of her. Was that the same? Or was it that they had made assumptions and decided that Alexandrie needed to be brought down to her level? Based on the way others looked at their sashes, the two seemed to be perceived similarly to her in Shining Capital, so of what benefit was it to mock someone who had no reason not to trust them? All it did now was leave Alexandrie hesitant to believe anything they said. She thought she’d left the stupid subterfuge of court, but apparently it lingered longer than one of Lucas’ farts. 

Things weren’t as different as they thought. 

She would do, physically, as Re'ne'mala directed, but the time to relax had passed. She had a task to do, something Lucas seemed to have forgotten. Again. As wonderful as it was to see new things, she wasn’t travelling to see the world. She was travelling to do something of import. Everyone else seemed to find his behaviour entertaining, charming, but Alexa was concerned: about her own feelings and about…

It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. She sat as far away from the fire and the rest of them as she could, her fingers tracing notes on sheet music. She would have given anything to have a tree to hide in - maybe Emily to talk to. Suddenly she missed her eighth bodyguard dreadfully. She had no idea how old Emily was, but she had never spoken to Alexa the way either Ebon elf did. No one spoke to her like that except Maman, and even Maman was never that…cold? Distant? Disgusted? Despairing? The tone reminded her of someone…

Five days. Less than a month, surely to Lucas and Spider’s destination, if they hurried.

She resolved to stay quiet and simply endure the time, like a long day in court. She would not be down here forever.

It just felt like forever.

Edgewaters. That’s what Re'ne'mala’s tone reminded her of: The way Ellinora Edgewater had spoken to her.

Of course Lucas had reverted to form.

Did anything ever change? Or did it just move to new locations and repeat? Was that what she was on her way to do? Stop the repeating cycle of horrible treatment? Would it only stop for others, or her too? 

It had been a very long day, and Alexandrie Donadieu was tired. Who knew whether Genofeva would try to track her through every spell, so she didn’t want to even risk creating something to keep her company. Slipping the music away, she pulled the heart-shaped glasses from her nose, folded her arms on her knees and hid her face: The closest she would get to being alone, where none of these things mattered.

***​

But she could not sleep. Not here. Too much was different and her mind was full of thoughts. The book in her pack, for one: Re'ne'shi had loaned it to her. Full of very practical things to try to use magic, Alexandrie knew one thing immediately, as she flicked through it: If she had not been gifted La Chanson, she would not have learned to use magic. Which led to another realisation: If La Chanson left her, she would no longer use magic.

Not because she was unintelligent and could not learn. She was stubborn enough to keep trying if she'd wanted. She simply didn't find the use of magic without connection interesting. It was as though there were people who wanted to use magic the way others might use a mallet, or play the piano, or swing a sword. Magic to those people was a tool, not a need or a calling. A pastime. 

In essence, magic to those people operated the way Lucas saw magic. 

He didn't trust La Chanson, but he used it in the same way he used his weapons. To do a job.

And yes, she'd been gifted La Chanson for a purpose, but... it was a conversation. A presence. It was there to guide her, or watch her...lead her? Something. And though she was a little upset at it at the moment for reasons she really couldn't place, she was upset at it the way she was sometimes upset at Vee, or Grandmère, or Papa or Maman. A fleeting, familial upset that was fair at the time but had been held for a little too long, losing meaning. 

What this book didn't question was where the materials were coming from. If magic could exist, something was creating it. To play the piano, someone had to build a piano - they needed to source the wood and ivory and strings... to use magic, it had to be given, or loaned. Re'ne'shi's book did not answer that question. How could they all be using mallets without knowing where the mallet came from? At least when she used La Chanson, she knew the mallet would be made of music, and would become sound creating force on the object she struck.

If she used magic. Which, right now...she wasn't sure she should do.