Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (41/?) WiP 1 (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here's the Work in Progress for Chapter 41 I hope you guys enjoy! :D 

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. Local Time: 0230 Hours.

2 Hours and 30 Minutes After Emma’s Disappearance

Thacea

“It’ll be alright.” The earthrealmer spoke with that confidence-inspiring bravado. “I’ll be back before you know it. Promise you won’t blow anything up while I’m gone alright?” Rounding off the sentiment with a jab at humor at that.

Perhaps it was her armor hiding any and all physical cues that could be read. Perhaps it was the unknown mechanisms aiding in the translation of her speech that was preventing any sign of distress or anxiety from surfacing. 

Because not a thing, not a single thing, ever once broke her cavalier spirit.

“Remember what I told you over dinner: calm is the ally of the victor, panic is the flatterer of the defeated.” I spoke firmly, maintaining that signature sharp stare befitting of an Avinor of Royal heritage, despite the obvious handicaps present in such an effort. The armor’s tinted lenses made every attempt at this gesture a challenge, as without irises to fixate upon or pupils to peer into, I was left with only my imagination to fill in the empty void that was the earthrealmer’s eyes; as whatever form of visual orb that lay behind those tinted lenses connected with my gaze.

What happened next however, was something I did not expect. As perhaps in making up for her handicaps in the physical space we all took for granted, the earthrealmer without any warning or hint of hesitation, reached for my hands with her own gloved fingers. Those alien digits coated in an equally bizarre material, rubbery, and inlaid with strangely textured bumps and patterns, tightened around my sensitive talons in what most onlookers would call an uncouth gesture of unkempt barbarism, but one that I personally could only describe as an unsolicited gesture of brazen solidarity. A gesture that for all intents and purposes, made the Earthrealmer but one of only a handful of people to have been brave enough to bridge the gap, to not hesitate in making contact with the tainted body belonging to a tainted soul. “Trust me, I’ll be fine.” She reaffirmed with that same strangely textured voice, all the while maintaining an undeniable overture of boldness.

There were… so many more things I wished to say in that instance. A thousand decisions were running through my head, my whole body wished to react as fledgling does in flight, to delay and defer… but circumstances demanded an answer. A response had to be given, and only one of several hundred that came to mind felt appropriate despite being the most inappropriate to any other self-respecting member of nobility.

“I will count that as a promise, Emma. Know that knights do not break their word.” I returned with a confident, reassuring tone of voice. Mimicking the strange jocular sense of bravado the human had championed in every single challenging encounter thus far.

That entire exchange happened just a scant few hours ago, a little over midnight.

It was now 2:30 in the midst of night, and the Earthrealmer had yet to have returned.

=====

Tick tick tick.

I watched as the seconds turned into minutes.

Tick tick tick.

Then minutes into hours.

Tick tick tick.

Hours spent on edge.

Tick tick tick.

Hours spent with my heart racing.

Tick tick tick.

Hours spent without a moment of reprieve from my most intrusive of thoughts, and my most flighty of macabre fantasies.

Hours spent desperately trying to curtail the ever encroaching, insidious march of vexing turmoil in any way I could, but finding that none worked.

The warmth of the baths did not help.

Neither did the soothing teas or herbal essences, not that any were known to be of any use before regardless.

Any effort made to assuage the strain of the mental by means of pampering and manipulating the physical, were futile.

Perhaps I subconsciously believed that this time would be different.

Perhaps I was hoping for a complete dissociative detachment through the repetitive rituals associated with the preparation of tea itself, rather than the impalpable effects granted by its consumption.

Perhaps I was just hoping to busy my body and my mind with something, anything to halt that gnawing anxiety associated with being relegated to a flightress-in-waiting.

Because all I could do… the only thing I could do now, was wait.

Wait as the resonance of time tightens towards an ultimate end.

Wait as the impossible results of an unlikely confrontation are revealed.

Wait, as I tried my best to dampen my hopes, for the sake of maintaining realistic expectations.

But I could not.

For dampening my hopes in this particular situation, would imply the mitigation of another’s fate not of my own.

And whilst I could always resign myself to a more tempered expectation of my own fate and destiny… I inexplicably found myself incapable of doing so for the fate of someone else.

Someone who had been an actor in my life for scantily a week.

Someone who was by all means a disruption to the passive stability I longed for.

Someone who threatened to upend the tentative circumstances of my place.

Someone who had time and time again demonstrated the fallibility of it all.

A commoner who I saw as my equal.

Perhaps even more than an equal, because for the first time in so long, I found myself in a position where I cared more for the fate of another rather than my own.

Every moment spent trying to force myself to relax, was another moment I felt useless.

It was a feeling that I foreign to me, as foreign as the earthrealmer I found myself worrying over.

I found myself unable to sleep, unable to think without a dark overbearing miasma blanketing each and every one of my thoughts.

So I decided on the next logical course of action: a change of pace.

As I found myself blanketed in twenty different pieces of silken fabrics, and a robe to top it off for good measure, I walked silently into the shared living area that was our dormitory’s living room.

The mana-fueled fireplace roared as soon as I got near, as it reacted to my presence in the same way it did everyone, with the sole exception of the Earthrealmer.

The same went for the windows, as I could feel the push and pull, the ever gentle tugs of the mana-streams connecting with my own mana-field. The windows themselves were capable of changing tint, color, and shade, or even acting as a magnifier to view places so far down below in exquisite breathtaking detail.

Indeed, for most adjacent realmers, these toys as I found them, would’ve been all but irresistible to at the very least poke and prod at.

This was something that the Earthrealmer simply could not do, as evidenced by her inability to even make use of the washrooms without intervention and aid from myself.

This inability to manipulate the world around her, to even see what is in effect the commonalities of the everyday and the mundane, was something that both worried me and baffled me in equal measures. On one hand, her inability to see and interact made her seem so childlike, and in the eyes of most she more than likely would’ve looked entirely helpless. A fact that Qiv and his clique made obvious during our thankfully short-lived encounter. Yet, as Emma had demonstrated time and time again, she made up for this with the mana-less tools and methods that not only made up for this handicap, but surpassed it by leagues and bounds.