3.02 – Future ns


    Zoey woke first. She drifted to consciousness, morning sunlight trickling in through the window, pressed in by a soft body.


    Her eyes opened to a sleeping Rosalie.


    Zoey sighed.


    They’d gone to sleep on separate halves of the bed, but had, of course, intertwined while asleep. She and Rosalie <em>had </em>be easily acquainted with each other’s bodies, so night-time cuddling was an inevitability.


    Zoey basked in the moment. Sleep-addled and her brain not fully roused, the arguments—dilemmas—of yesterday didn’t breach the warm glow of Rosalie tucked into her.


    It was crazy how different she looked, asleep. Even more than most people, Rosalie walked around wearing an expression carved from steel. ‘Gentle and serene’ was a description ill-fitting her. And while Zoey wanted to draw out a more easy-going side of Rosalie, she knew that wasn’t Rosalie at her core. Zoey needed to ept that if she ever wanted … <em>something </em>with her.


    Rosalie was married to her work, to use aparison Zoey could understand. Maybe romance was possible, but trying to im first priority in Rosalie’s life would be selfish. She’d trained her entire life for wayfaring, and had responsibilities to her family, besides.


    Zoey sighed a second time, and maybe it was louder than she meant, because the blonde woman in her arms stirred.


    Pale, ice-blue eyes blinked up at her. Zoey simply studied her back, watching the crease-lines return, the sleeping serenity melt from her face.


    Rosalie sighed, then snuggled in closer.


    Zoey squeezed back. “Morning.”


    “Don’t remind me.”


    Zoey chuckled, pressing her forehead into Rosalie’s. She closed her eyes.


    They mutually enjoyed each other’s warmth, ignoring the problem hanging over their heads.


    “One of my runes evolved,” Zoey murmured.


    “Mine as well. Which?”


    “How would I know?”


    A pause, then a soft snort. “Right. Another thing you need to learn.”


    A short silence at the reminder of Zoey’s deficiencies.


    “You can check,” Zoey offered. She didn’t bother asking what Rosalie’s evolved rune had provided. She was, unsurprisingly, tight-lipped about her skills, even to Zoey.


    ‘Even to Zoey’. Zoey had only known Rosalie for a handful of days. Even if they’d be fast … friends? … she was overestimating what, exactly, they had together. Why would Rosalie share her runes and skills in detail? In her culture, it was apparently a deeply intimate secret.


    Like had happened a few times before, Rosalie’s finger went to Zoey’s forehead. There was a brief pause as she scanned Zoey’s tab anima.


    She stiffened.


    Then shot up in bed, throwing the covers off.


    “What is it?” Zoey asked, sitting up herself. Rosalie’s shocked reaction—though her face stayed calm, but in a frozen-disbelief kind of way—had worked to get Zoey’s heart pumping. The tenderness of their intimacy faded away, and the cold air of the inn room seeped in.


    Rosalie opened her mouth, then closed it.


    “What?” Zoey repeated. “It’s that weird?” She’d grown used to expecting strange things from her ss and circumstances, but so should Rosalie have.


    “Not weird,” Rosalie said. Her brow furrowed. “ … convenient.”


    Convenient?


    “Clue me in?”


    “Your Rune of Bonding evolved,” Rosalie said. “The newest skill is called Growth.” She rattled off the next as if she were reading from a page: “Shards provide additional experience for each day spent between entry. Applies to both rune-holder and bonded targets.”


    Zoey absorbed the announcement, stunned. The implications were obvious. ‘Convenient’, Rosalie had said. A solution, dropped into theirp, just like that?


    After all that agonizing over Rosalie’s need to be quickly progressing through shards, an explicit incentive to take things easy had been provided through her ss?


    It was as if a meddling goddess was trying to keep her and Rosalie from splitting up.


    Was it even that, though? Or a coincidence? Zoey’s Rune of Bonding had already indicated its purpose was to aid her and her bonded targets. crity, her first-advancement skill, specifically evolved bonded target’s runes faster. So this newest one fit with that. The skill had hardlye out of nowhere. Zoey could even make the argument it was a natural extension.


    But the how didn’t matter, did it?


    A grin crept across Zoey’s lips.


    “That’s good news, right?” Rosalie surely had to have understood the implications behind Zoey’s skill—that it solved their dilemma. Or … maybe not solved. But alleviated? It might not make up the entire difference—constant, vignt wayfaring might provide more experience than the skill’s ‘between-shard’ bonus offered—but at least it was something. It was a reason to stay together.


    “Good news,” Rosalie echoed. She chewed her lip, as if hesitant to let herself be happy at the development. “It depends on how significant the bonus is.”


    “Knowing my ss?” Rosalie had made it clear that Zoey’s skills were powerful, both by nature—the ability to amplify experience gained—and by potency, like how her Lust resource made her spells much stronger than a regr caster’s ought to be. “It can’t be weak, that much feels safe.”


    Zoey could tell Rosalie agreed, but she still seemed hesitant. Zoey got the feeling after so much deliberation, having a neat solution like this had triggered some dubious part of her nature: a slowness to let herself be hopeful.


    “It … likely wouldn’t be,” Rosalie said, almost begrudgingly. “But how strong?” She shook her head, as if contradicting herself. “Like you said, considering your other skills … your first-advancement skill already had my own rune advancing, which is absurd.”


    Zoey, at least, wasn’t as slow to celebrate. The smile finished creeping across her face, and Rosalie frowned at her, as if annoyed Zoey wasn’t having the same doubts.


    “It’s worth testing,” Zoey said, rolling her eyes. “It means we can … put this decision off, in the worst case. Let the bonus build up, then, say, a week or two from now, go on our next. If the extra experience isn’t worth it …” she shrugged. <em>Problems forter. </em>After mulling over a seemingly impossible problem to solve—at least for Zoey, since the dilemma was entirely with Rosalie’s internal motivations—having even a half-solution ted her. Zoey practically vibrated with excitement.


    She shuffled forward and grabbed Rosalie’s hands. Her demeanor was finally breaking, a hesitant smile touching her lips.


    “I suppose … what you’re saying does make sense.” She wavered, some of her growing optimism disappearing. “But it doesn’t bother you?”


    “Bother me?”


    “Why don’t you mind? That I … might have chosen to leave.”


    Zoey paused. “I mean, I understand your reasoning. You made it clear what your priorities are from the moment I met you. And …” Zoey hesitated on saying the next part. “And we aren’t girlfriends, are we? So we don’t have any obligations to each other.”


    “I suppose we don’t.”


    Rosalie didn’t hide the disappointment in her response. Or maybe, Zoey thought, she didn’t realize there was disappointment to be hiding.


    Zoey grinned, the briefly serious moment passing, and Rosalie’s reaction highly encouraging. “Not until we go on our date, anyway,” she teased. “We’ll talk about titles then.”


    Rosalie’s cheeks colored. She nced away and cleared her throat. “I suppose we will.”


    Which was a more direct response than Zoey had expected. Her smile continued to widen. <em>If that irritating goddess did meddle, maybe I have thanks to say. </em>Not that it made up for the whole memory-editing stuff … but those were separate issues.


    “When do you have to be back, anyway?” Zoey asked.


    “Back?”


    “To your parents. Family.”


    “Oh. I don’t know. Like I told you, I’m not supposed to be dying at all.”


    “But the more you progress, the more your time away can be excused?”


    “Up to a point. Past four or five weeks, they’d start to worry.” Her brow furrowed. “I suppose I ought to get in contact. Exin my situation in … roundabout verbiage. But I’m just not sure how I would, while maintaining discretion.”


    Zoey nodded along. She, obviously, couldn’t provide insight there. “Okay. So, assuming this skill does give us reason to stick together. What’s our future long-term?”


    For once, Zoey was willing to rock the boat. The agonizing of the past sixteen hours had shown just how big this crush of hers had gotten—an admittance she’d been shying away for her own sake, in case things hadn’t worked out.


    Now, though, with a potential path forward, Zoey wanted concrete details. To know if a long-term <em>was </em>something that could happen, considering Rosalie’s family. Pushing too hard probably wasn’t smart, but Zoey needed to know there was a shot. Because why put herself through that crucible, otherwise? If even Rosalie herself admitted it couldn’t work out?


    “Long-term,” Rosalie said. The words came out as if she hadn’t even considered it, which wouldn’t be a very Rosalie-thing-to-do. Then again, since it was a matter of the heart … ignoring it would be very Rosalie, wouldn’t it? Or maybe total ignorance—not ignoring it so much as being unaware. “I suppose … we would all need to head back to my family, together.”


    Zoey grinned at the ‘all’. She’d included Delta. The two of them might not get along, but Rosalie at least saw her as a teammate, and not someone to ditch as soon as it became convenient.


    “It would be wise to do so, anyway,” Rosalie continued, though not with any enthusiasm. She seemed, to say the least, doubtful of the situation. “My family’s resources would go a long way to improving our advancement speed. Plus, I can’t—“ she hesitated.


    Zoey waited patiently.


    “I can’t rely on not being recognized forever,” Rosalie finished. “So I should return because of that, too.”


    Zoey nodded. That made sense. Rosalie obviously didn’t think it likely, but it was a ticking time-bomb: something that could happen at any moment, should they get extraordinarily unlucky. She could be recognized. “You said we’re in enemy territory. The … Striders Highguild? And your family is aligned with the Deepshunters?”


    Rosalie nodded once, slowly. She was eying Zoey for a reason Zoey couldn’t ce. Fortunately, Rosalie formalized the odd look into words: “You aren’t curious?”


    “Curious?” Oh. “Who you are, you mean?”—Rosalie nodded—“Sure. But you don’t want to tell. So.”


    “And it’s that simple?”


    “You aren’t pestering me for my secrets, are you?” Zoey pointed out.


    Because their encounter with Not-Zoey had been revealing. She’d alluded to Zoey’s secrets, and how they were ‘bigger than Rosalie’s’. Zoey could plug her ears, close her eyes, and hum to block out the noise of the world better than most people could, but in that particr event, even Zoey had no hope that Rosalie had simply <em>forgotten</em>.


    Maybe Zoey could hope that Rosalie simply thought the reflection was lying, sowing dissent so the fight went better, but that was far-fetched, considering how bizarre Zoey’s circumstances were. And while Rosalie had been surprised by Not-Zoey’s im, she hadn’t seemed <em>that </em>surprised—more like something had been confirmed for her.


    “I suppose I haven’t,” Rosalie said.


    A silence.


    Zoey squeezed Rosalie’s hands—she was still holding them from earlier. “But our future. If it works out.”


    “Right.” Rosalie collected her thoughts. They brushed past their respective secrets. Though, Rosalie’s would presumably be revealing themselves sooner orter, simply by the fact they’d be meeting her family.


    Zoey should probablye clean before then, too. Obviously she could trust Rosalie, by this point. The reason Zoey hadn’t, yet, was for a few reasons. One, the absurdity—theck of reasonableness, and that Rosalie might outright not believe her. Though that might’ve been smoothed over with recent events. Second, though: Ephy’smandment not to share her past with anyone.


    She hadn’t emphasized it particrly hard … but disobeying a goddess’s instructions might not be the wisest course of action. Then again, fuck her, right? It wasn’t like Zoey had any great fondness for the woman who’d lobotomized her. And she needed Zoey—presumably. Zoey had been chosen her champion, and that made her not disposable.


    Still, Zoey didn’t know what kind of power or influence she had. Could she make Zoey’s life harder if Zoey upset her? Was she even watching Zoey? Would sharing her history with Rosalie upset her in the first ce? Or had the secrecy request simply been intended for the general poption—that Zoey shouldn’t go bbing her circumstances to anyone who wanted to hear?


    Something to mull overter.


    “I suppose,” Rosalie said, “assuming this skill does what we hope, then our future ns would be … get you trained up, explore perhaps one, two more shards, then head back to Deepshunters territory.” Her nose wrinkled. “Deal with the whole … family situation, and exin why I’ve chosen you two as my teammates …”


    <em>Right. Her family would be picky about who she teams with, wouldn</em><em>’t they? </em>Zoey might have to focus on making a good impression. That would be … an ordeal, she suspected. <em>Christ. And even more for Delta. </em>First impressions to someone like Rosalie’s family? Not easy to pull off, at a guess, and Delta wasn’t particrly tactful. To put it lightly.


    “… then continue more of the same. Further training, further advancement.” She shrugged. “Wayfaring,” she said, as if summing things up. A grimace. “With some politics mixed in. Though you two shouldn’t have to deal with much of that.”


    Zoey suspected they’d be caught along by that whirlwind whether Rosalie intended them to or not.


    Still, though.


    A potential future with Rosalie—that was all Zoey had needed to hear.