Without even scars to show for it (which came as a disappointment to her, for some reason I hope to never comprehend), Sara recovered from her injuries within a matter of days. As it turned out, that was also enough time without any Black Knight related incidents to convince my stubborn party that Inesrov was in no danger. I may have made a few comments regarding the matter, but I know by now that my opinions are disregarded before I've even finished speaking them around here, so I'm sure they had no effects, other than probably slowing the process down considerably, I realise in retrospect.
And so, the five of us made our way back to Larit. Part of me did wonder if Inesrov was a distraction, and we'd return to find Larit annexed by the Night King, but no such thing happened. The town was exactly how I'd left it. I'm sure on some level Emerald's a little disappointed she doesn't get to make a big show of rescuing everyone from the dastardly Vaxyll, but hey, you win some, you lose some. But I have to wonder whether the town being overthrown count as winning or losing to her?
The fact Vaxyll hasn't done anything since he shattered me ego is putting me on edge. If he wasn't in Inesrov, then he must be here, but I he was here, he would've attacked while we were in Inesrov. None of his strategies make sense to me, but then again, he's a general, and I'm a run-of-the-mill adventurer who happens to have a Unique ability by pure bad luck, so I suppose I can't be faulted for having no clue what he's thinking. Ultimately, waiting for him to strike is all I can do, and if he's not going to strike, then I'm just gonna get on with my life. I'm sure the morals committee, that is to say, my party, will take issue with that, but I'm far past trying to appease their heroics.
And, in the interest of living my life, I head for the adventurers guild. The time spent in Inesrov cut into the month, and once again, I haven't even made a dent in my quota. At least this time I only wasted a week, instead of leaving myself one.
"Welcome back." Marie greets us. "And all of you this time, I'm glad Darius had a change of heart."
"I've had no such thing." I say, I can't have them getting their hopes up and thinking I care, after all. "These stubborn idiots took a whole week to realise we'd wasted the trip. Both of them, in my case."
"Oh, we all know he loves us really." Emerald jokes, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. I should mention that on her request, we threw a small party in Inesrov to celebrate Sara's recovery, and she's still revelling in the after effects. Makes you wonder if she'd ever had a drink in her life.
Not that I can say anything on the matter. I've abstained from drinking my entire life. I suppose some things just never leave you no matter how far away from home you get, or how desperately you want to leave your past behind.
"How long do you intend to remain inebriated, Emerald?" Aura asks, as if that's something you can guess, again, not that I'd know outside of what I've heard. "I would appreciate if we could return to our duties as soon as possible."
"Our duties!?" Emerald mocked. "You're not a soldier anymore, Ra-ra!"
"I beg your pardon?" Aura says, completely taken aback by the sudden affection of a nickname. "I was never a soldier in the first place, I left Ghalytorm before I would have been inducted into the order."
"I think she's just teasing you." Claire adds, since she's too young to drink, she's also in full control of her faculties. In fact, I think Emerald's just a lightweight, it's honestly kind of impressive she's still drunk after almost a whole day since the party. Sara, on the other hand...
"I swear to the gods, if Emerald doesn't stop screeching, I'll slap her all the way back to Inesrov."... is incredibly hung over. And has been for the entire return trip. Aura had to carry her on her back.
"Well, it certainly seems like your trip to Inesrov was eventful, to say the least." Marie says with her best customer service smile. "I suppose you won't want to go on any quests today, considering Ms Emerald's... state."
Before I even had a chance to agree to that very obvious statement, one of the nuisances had to go and ruin everything.
"I see no reason to postpone our duties just because we have a single member out of sorts." Aura said. "Though, may I ask you take care of Emerald, as a personal favour, Marie?"
Marie let out a sigh, before saying. "Fine, since it's you. But you three better not get any funny ideas, only Aura can put me on drunk babysitting duty, got it?"
***
"So, do know Miss Marie?" Claire asks as soon as we're out of the guild, having picked up a simple amber lilly gathering quest in the plains.
"She was an innkeeper in Ghalytorm." Aura explains. "She left the city about a year before I did, though I believe she had planned on travelling the world, so I cannot imagine why she would end up here, of all places."
"She ran the inn?" I inquire. "Management doesn't seem like it'd be her strong suit."
"Curious as I am as to why you have finally taken an interest in anyone other than yourself, she took over from the previous owner, her father."
"Nepotism, then, got it."
"Marie has a plethora of talents, which is more than one can say of you."
"Hello, Unique?"
"A single talent, if you could even call it that. A natural boon given by unknown forces. Marie, on the other hand, is capable with handling money, dealing with unruly people, administrative procedure-"
"Somebody's got a crush." I sing mockingly, to which Aura turns beet red. Wait, am I right on the money here?
"Did you partake in Emerald's wine after all, or are you simply a fool beyond measure!?"
First of all, I don't think what Emerald was drinking was wine, and second-
"I was obviously joking, but since you got all defensive about it, I have to wonder!" I snap back. Claire, clearly worried by the sparks that are flying between Aura and I, quickly makes a distraction.
"Ah! V-V-Vaxyll!" Yeah, like that's gonna...
"Darius Crowley!" I hear a familiar voice come from behind me. "After I went out of my way to spare you, are you truly making another attempt on my life?"
Damn it!
"I think we both know I'm not that stupid, Vaxyll." I say. "My friends and I were just passing through, no harm, no foul, right?"
"In my experience, you are indeed a fool." Vaxyll gloats. "And may I ask why you are so intent on passing through my territory?"
Aura seems to be having trouble holding herself back, her sense of duty and self preservation are definitely at war right now. Steady, girl.
"Adventurer business." I tell him.
"Clearing out monsters?"
"That sort of thing, yeah."
"The monsters that make up the bulk of my forces, perhaps?"
"That... is not a possibility I'd considered."
"I suggest you leave."
"And leave I shall."
""What?"" Claire and Aura both shout in unison. Seriously, comedic timing.
"You two are the last people I'd expect to want me to fight this dude! You saw how it went last time!"
"Still, you can't just-"
"You honestly think he will simply allow us to walk away?"
"The Night Princess told him to leave me alone. I don't bother him, he don't bother me. He promised."
"This man is a high-ranking officer in service to the cruellest man alive! A vow from him means nothing!"
Stop antagonising him.
"This foul creature will cut us all down the second our backs are turned, then have his goblin army raze Larit to the ground!"
Stop antagonising him!
"This hollowed out husk that forsook his own humanity for power seeks nothing more than to better his standing with the Night King, honor is a foreign concept to one such as him!"
"Stop antagonising him! We've got a good thing worked out here and I don't need some holier-than-thou failed knight doing everything she can to ruin it!"
"F...failed knight?" Aura's features go slack, her voice turns quiet, and I immediately know that I've gone too far. "Yes... yes, I suppose I am. A failed knight who forsook her homeland, and a failed adventurer who cannot defeat even a single one of the Night King's Generals." She turns without even giving me or Vaxyll a second glance, and walks away.
"Darius..." Claire mutters.
"Yeah, I know." I say. "This time, at least, I know." I turn back to Vaxyll, who seems impressed... finally, somebody who's a bigger asshole than I am.
"This is how it always ends for you Uniques." He says cryptically, before turning to leave.
***
Judging from the glares I'm getting, Aura beat us to the adventurer's guild.
"Before any of you say anything, I know I fucked up big time here." I announce. "I'm not even gonna say something like 'she was screwing everything up and I snapped' even though that's totally what happened. I'm a big enough man to own up to my mistakes." Emerald scoffs at that. "So, if somebody can please tell me where Aura is so I can apologise to her instead of all of you, that'd be just great."
"She's going home." Marie tells me, I did not know she could scowl like that.
"Great, which is her room-"
"No, home. She's going back to Ghalytorm." Marie finishes. "The carriages leave every hour, on the hour."
"So I have-"
"The last carriage will have already left. So you'd better hope she missed it."
"And none of you tried to stop her?" I ask, now it's my turn to glare. "Or keep her here until I showed up to-"
"To do what!?" Sara returns my anger and then some. "Make everything worse like you Uniques always do?"
"Make things worse?" I storm over to her. "Who was it who got his ass kicked by one Night King's Generals and still managed to stop him from taking over the town? Who stopped Max and his bandits from taking all the food we have stockpiled for winter, who killed the ogre that got released in the forest? It wasn't the journalist, or the receptionist, or even any of the upstanding adventurers who do the right thing because it's the right thing to do! It was me, the guy who hates being a Unique because now I have to do real work. If that's what you call making things worse, then maybe I should let Aura go. Maybe respecting her choice is the morally right thing." I look at Emerald, finally sobered up from the party she insisted on having, and as always, got her way despite my protests. "But when have I ever done the right thing?" I turn to Claire, who's only brave when she's giving me a piece of her mind. "Never. And I'm not starting now." I make my way to the door, then turn back. "Aura is my party member. She's not going anywhere." Before I leave, I make one final statement. "And if you ever force me to make a big speech like this again, you'll all be begging for the Night King to take over when I'm done with you."
***
Making a mad dash to the stables was a tad embarrassing, even more so than the big speech. For all my posturing, I can't shake my flair for the dramatic after all, though given the grandiose chants I make up for my fusion spells, that probably goes without saying. The fact that, after all that, I really was too late just added insult to injury. Am I really going to have to go to Ghalytorm of all places just to bring Aura back? Part of me wants to say it isn't worth it, but to come back on my own after making such a big deal of things just wasn't going to happen. I get enough flak from Emerald and Claire without chasing off the most competent member of our team (besides myself).
"Damn it. This really is rotten luck."
On top of everything else, it's raining for the first time since I became an adventurer. Seriously, my luck is something to fear, if I somehow weaponized it, I'd be unstoppable.
"Must you truly blame everything that goes wrong for you on bad luck? Can you not even entertain the fact that, perhaps, just once, you yourself are to blame for this situation?"
"Sure, it was my fault Aura left, but you've gotta admit that her arriving just in time to catch a carriage to Ghalytorm could only be bad luck in action."
"You admit that m-Miss Aura leaving was your own fault? Truly?"
"You probably didn't catch everything, but I got angry at her acting like a hero and said something I know isn't true. Of course it's my fault."
"Why did her being a hero make you angry?"
"Because I was being a coward, and she showed me that sometimes, even when you know you can't win, you still have to fight. And that's something people like me can't do. I was kowtowing to Vaxyll of all people, just because he beat me once."
"You're jealous of her courage?"
"I guess, yeah." I pause. "Wait, why are you so invested any...way..."
I turn to face the person I've been venting to. Pure white hair, deep, purple eyes, and a face and frame that could easily be mistaken for that of a man, save for the two protrusions that she once hid, now puffed out in confidence. The only thing on her that wasn't familiar to me was her gentle smile, but even with that, this was definitely...
"Aura? You didn't leave?"
"I had planned to go home. But when I got here, I realised, whatever it once was, Ghalytorm is no longer my home."
"Yeah, you're Laritian now."
"Home, Darius. Is not a fixed point. It is wherever you can find people whom you would never willingly leave. For now, for me, that is Larit."
"Oh." I can't really respond to that in any meaningful way. Actually, yes I can. "I guess Larit's my home too, then."
"That is certainly good to hear." Aura smiles at me again, and I worry that I might seriously fall for her if she keeps doing that. "Now, what say you we return to the people who make it so?"