132 - Futures of Ash

“I was thinking.” Theo tore into a piece of bread, feeling its soft surface give under his fingers. “Sean mentioned that most people leave town after they graduate.”

Jenny looked over, brows furrowing as she ate her own chunk of bread.

“And?” She asked, mouth open as she chewed.

“I hadn’t thought about it before. To me, Union City has been my whole life.”

Theo didn’t notice Jenny freeze as he rambled on. “And now that I am thinking about it, I guess I was assuming we’d stay here, but if you want to go explore the world together that also sounds nice. What’s your plan?”

“I’m going to leave when I graduate, yeah.” Jenny sounded reluctant, carefully weighing up each word and measuring the best way to say what she wanted. “There a lot of world out there to see, and it’s not like there’s going to be much to do if I stay.”

“Any idea what to do when we leave? I’ve got nothing in mind.” Theo grabbed a little tuft of bread, throwing it into the air and trying to catch it, head moving as the wind changed its path.

Jenny had stopped chewing by this point. “I’m going to be an adventurer, or a mercenary for hire.” She said brusquely, and with finality. This was clearly not something new to her, in contrast to Theo.

“And while you do that I’ll perform at whatever pub we stop at. I’m happy to be a wandering adventurer, but I have a feeling a bard’s idea of adventure and a warrior’s will be rather different.” He joked.

Jenny didn’t laugh.

It was at this point that Theo realised the mood had shifted, the breeze tenderly blowing his hair around as it carried with it the knowledge that all things end.

“We are going together, right?” He looked for hope, for confirmation that he was reading too far into things, that her growing reluctance was anything other than what he was dreading.

Hope never came.

“I’m sorry, Theo.” She let go of the bread that has stayed stationary in her hands for the past few minutes, bringing her hands up to caress his face. “I have to do this myself. I need to see what I’m capable of, see where the world takes me and what my place in the world becomes.”

She tactfully kept to herself the fact that it was difficult to see what she was capable of when she was overshadowed by someone who could save the day all by himself. There was no need to mention how she didn’t want to just be on the sidelines, especially when Theo’s face crumbled.

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“But hey, that’s years away. Who knows what will happen by then?” She tried to inject some hope into her voice, some false levity.

Theo didn’t buy it. He closed his eyes and shoved the rest of the bread in his mouth.

Minutes later, once he was done chewing, he broke the silence that had frozen between them. “Let’s enjoy the time we have left.”

“Of course.” Jenny agreed, as silence solidified once more.

They sat there, united in being alone with their thoughts, considering a thousand tomorrows as the darkness gave way to the pre-dawn light.

“…how about, one day in the future, once we’ve both gotten tired of seeing the world, we meet back here and catch up?” She suggested.

“Yeah. That sounds good.” Theo forced a smile on his face. They both knew it, but they both also knew better than to mention it.

She awkwardly gave him a hug, patting him on the shoulder, before leaving him with his thoughts.

---

Theo tired to keep his mind on the battle, he really did. He juked to the side, avoiding a hail of arrows as he sent out another barrage of backfires, forcing Etol to back up. It was a thrown about scattering, less to injure anyone and more to simply disrupt them.

His mind kept drifting back to Jenny.

As far as he knew they were still together, but knowing that there was likely a time limit wasn’t very comforting regardless.

Theo activated both Meditation and Self Awareness, time slowing down as he redoubled his focus in the present moment.

He did so at a rather lucky time.

A javelin was thrown at him, and he reacted just in time. He dropped to the ground, feeling a sting as it sliced his cheek in the instant it made contact.

It continued its flight past him, piercing straight through a whole copse of trees that The Woods suddenly grew in its path, before being knocked off its path by a branch in just the right place.

It scythed through everything as it spun, leaving clean grooves marking its passing until it finally hit the earth long after it should have. There was a perfect corkscrew imprint left in its wake as it sunk through the dirt.

Theo picked himself up, brushed off the dirt, and felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as someone stared at him with unbridled hatred.

He turned around, and realised he was surrounded. By who, he didn’t know, but he felt their eyes.

There was no noise, nothing that could be turned into a backfire. It was too silent, as if sound itself was cut from the cloth of the world and discarded.

Or someone cast a silencing spell.

Thankfully, action magic is called action magic and not sound or music magic for a reason. Someone tried to ambush him. Someone missing a hand, now covered with a prosthetic sword, with eyes he would never forget.

The spy who they almost caught at the Ball.

The spy who flew backwards as a chunk was torn out of their torso, backfire spraying their blood around their surroundings.

The blood outlined a number of shapes hiding in shadows, who leapt out, cover blown. There was nothing identifiable at all about them, shrouded in a darkness darker than any eclipse, one so unnaturally dark it had to be magic. They stared Theo down, not making a move, even as he condemned them to death, a ring of skulls fragmenting around him as explosions rang out once more.

Of course, that was when a rain of arrows impaled him, pinning him to the ground by every limb.

And a giant, vengeful ball of flame filled the sky, heading straight for him.