New Story: The Millhouse
He was left clutching a fist full of disheveled papers, one door closing before him while another opened somewhere behind. Charley could feel the texture of the immaculately hand written pages. They were course and rough beneath his finger tips. What an odd thing to wonder, if she could even feel what he felt in that hand of lifeless metal. Soft footsteps neared and a hand rested on his shoulder, the figure crouching next to where he knelt.
“Was that...” the elven man began.
“Ya.” Charley answered the unspoken question before it was finished. It was not rude or meant to be disarming, simply that the two men had become inveterate friends over the last few years. They were as brothers, sharing a bond greater than blood. At times, each simply knew what the other was thinking. “Alex, why does she push me away as if fate is conspiring against me?”
Alex’s hand slipped down from young man’s shoulder. It curled under his arm, lifting him from the floor in a single fluid motion. His accent heavy, Alex mused, “An odd question. Especially from someone so intimately connected to the aspect of destiny.”
Charley couldn’t help finding the irony in the statement. The smile was not forced, it was a sincere. About to comment, his words were cut short by a sloshing sound. A bottle of fine elven brandy appearing in his line of vision.
“Worst and best?” Alex spoke, still offering it. A strange game the two had concocted. In the early years it had been a benign way of figuring the other out. Sense then, a way to comfort the other when life had become aggravating.
Submitting with a wistful sigh, the papers fluttered to the floor unceremoniously, falling from limp fingers too tired to care. Grasping the bottle Charley inspected it, “Fine. But you start and not here.”
Rubbing his hands Alex brightened, “To the usual place then?” Even as the words left his lips, they shook their heads unanimously before racing to the roof house door.
It wasn’t far, an abandoned millhouse once used to refine granite the city of Winter’s Shard manufactured concrete from. The discovery of Durite in the local mines had made many of the granite mills obsolete. The two had purchased the building covertly as a place to get away. It was a sanctuary where they could just be themselves. Alex called it their fortress of solitude, Charley a place where he could hang his hat. An inside joke.
They burst out, immediately washed in the cold Everwinter air. Without the magic to used ward off the numbing chill, the two youth faltered. It was for but a moment as they steeled themselves, the race was part of the game. They glanced to one another, smiled, and scurried off along the building’s decrepit battlements. All the while the city stretched off into the distance to their right, with houses mulched almost into a single structure. Varying gaps appearing as if out of nowhere. It was this uneven and hazardous avenue of housetops the two would use as their road to freedom. So caught up in the friendly match, the men never saw the two girls watching as they left from roof to roof.
Ari was shaking, a mixture of frustration and anger entangling in her chest like a coiled beast. The clatter shocking her from the trance even as Scout turned the corner and bumped into her, the woman’s attention also drawn upwards. Scouts hood was knocked back as she steadied herself.
“Scout?”, Ari chimed having temporarily forgotten her sorrows though the beast still felt heavy beneath her bosom.
“I thought I heard something,” Scout replied sullenly, quickly replacing the fallen hood of her cloak, “Up there on the roof.”
Far above Alex and Charley navigated through the path of interwoven houses. Alex was a better swordsman, more adept at using the environment to his advantage. Charley had his tails. Well, his tails and four years of brutal Ra’Shu training. As for the cold, it was a wild card neither had any particular immunity against. In many ways, their race wasn’t the other but the bitter chill could kill a soul too slow to finding refuge from its grasp.
Already their toes and fingers had become numb as they threw open the door and entered. Alex first, Charley soon after. The single roomed structure was oddly warm despite the obvious lack of heating, probably from the Durite that had been mixed into the structures concrete foundation. Aging crates cluttered the millhouse’s uneven floor while ropes dangled precariously along the walls and down from the structures sturdy rafters. The two didn’t spend anytime catching their breath, merely nodded then drew out their blades.
As metal drew against metal, Charley pulled the cork from the bottle of brandy with is teeth, signaling that the duel and the game had begun. With a garish toss of the bottle in Alex’s direction Charley alighted as he thrust out his blade, “Best.”
Alex parried a thrust and spun, catching the bottle behind his back, “Learning that the love of your life had come back into your life.” He brought the brandy to his lips and savored a long pull before tossing the bottle back with an equal flamboyant grace. Kicking a crate in his friend’s direction, the rapier thrust low, “Worst”.
Charley leapt onto a crate while balancing the bottle keenly on one foot, Alex’s blade caught now between the crate and floor. “Wanting to hold her and tell her that I Lo...”, his words caught in his throat. Reaching down to his foot he grasped the bottles neck. Lifting it to his lips he drank and coughed. The stuff was bitter. Perhaps the brandy had gone bad. Tossing it back he moved to an adjoining crate that creaked ominously. The wood suffering from dry rot. “Worst,” he returned tossing the brandy to Alex.
“Lying to you,” catching the bottle Alex took another drink. “It’s actually an orcish stout. I used an empty bottle to lure you out of the house.” Again the bottle drifted through the warm air of the millhouse. This should have moved Charley to laughter but as he caught the bottle his expression became sullen. The point of his sword drooped. “I kissed her Alex. I felt her lips upon mine. Soft, supple, and warm.”
The young elven man lowered his blade in turn, evident concern for his friend.
“I think she kissed me back.” He continued as he took another drink, “Well that is I think she kissed me back.”
Alex sat, Charley following suit. The two silently passing the bottle back and forth until it was completely drained. They spoke volumes in that silence, as if knowing exactly what that other was thinking. Finally Alex tossed the bottle into the middle of the room where it became just another obstacle in their duels. “You have to give her time. From what my sister told me, she thought you were dead.” Alex murmured softly, finally breaking the silence.
“Obviously.” He responded not sounding so sure of himself, “But there are other complications that I recently learned of.”
Frowning Alex inquired, “Boyfriend? Husband?” Then, as if trying to add a little levity to the sullen conversation, he added, “Jealous sister?”
Standing Charley hopped onto the crates and growled in frustration, starting to pace to and fro. “I’m not sure I should say anything about it. Only it’s bound to be a sore topic of conversation. I want to ask her about it, but that would just upset her. But if I don’t ask her about it she’ll tell me I didn’t even care enough to find out what happened. It’s like being stuck in a cook-box!”
“Cook-Box?” Alex inquired.
“Mechanical blueprints to a device Devlin, Ari, and I stole off an old mechanist.” He paused and slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead, “That sounded a lot worse than it was.”
Alex just held up a hand as if not to judge, “Eh. I traveled with Alexis and Jin for many years, enough said.”
“Is she still out sailing with your old crew?” Charley inquired cautiously, he knew it was a sore subject.
“I suppose. Though I hurt a lot of feelings when I told them I needed to return to my search for Fai.” He sighed, training his eyes back onto Charley’s pacing from crate to crate. Standing he stepped up as well, joining in the pace. “My friend, Ari is here. Count your blessings. I’m searching for a single soul among millions. An individual that can shift into anyone she desires. While my plight is hopeless yours isn’t. At the very least you can be the man she needs even if you can’t be lover you want to be.”
Pausing Charley blushed, the rosy color turning the insides of his ears pink. Just the thought of it, Ari and him as lovers. He could still taste her on his lips. Smell her scent on his clothes.
“Well look at that”, Alex chuckled in his deep accented voice. Leaping onto Charley’s crate the elven man mused, “When you flush you can see it in your ears!” His fingers deftly teased the long almost feline like ears resting atop Charley’s head.
Charley’s eyes opened wide and he noticeably twitched. If he would have been a tea kettle a puff of steam would have popped out his ears. As it was they went a deeper shade of crimson. The aged crate groaned with their combined weight than the wood splintered, caving inwards. The young men hurtled towards the millhouse floor. Caught off guard they reacted reflexively. Charley threw his arms around Alex’s neck while the elf’s hands shot out wildly. One wrapped around Charley’s waist while the other clumsily clung to a dangling rope that drooped from the rafters.
Their breath caught as they stared into the other’s eyes blinking.
“This is... awkward.” Alex joked.
Charley could only remark dryly, “Next time. Better just let me fall to my death.” Not that the fall would have done more than hurt like hell.
“Will do my friend, will do. Let’s not tell Alexis about this”.
“Deal. In fact this never happened.”
There was creak far above them, one that caused them both to look ominously upwards.
Charley quirked a brow, “Was that the rafters or is someone on the roof?”
Alex responded with a questioned tone, “Rafters?”
(Edited)