The Day My Dream Died

40 - Compensate Unbalance

— 40 —

Compensate Unbalance

//\\

"Where to begin..." Aleen murmurs, pouring hot water over the tea leaves. "Do you want honey in yours?"

"Sure." The new medicine has kicked in, lending her the tolerance to sit up again.

"How much?"

"Just a spoonful." Seeing the size of the spoon, "Maybe half, actually."

Aleen nods, stirring in the sweetener before handing the cup over. Lise breathes in the scent of the dark leaves, a touch of spice sharpening it. She blows on it, watching the red-brown tea ripple. The first sip is hot but the taste is good. The fragrant spices are unfamiliar to her, yet redolent of the traditional Luman teas; almost savory. She sets it back down on the table.

"Who are you?" Aleen asks at last. "I know next to nothing of you besides what scraps I've collected talking with you. You bear a gaze that speaks of significance. To look at you I would guess a warrior of some kind, a hunter, but your manner is different from those I know."

Lise shakes her head. "I trained to be..." she suppresses a cough, clearing her throat feebly, "...I trained to be a hunter when I was a bit younger, but circumstances led me elsewhere. I can't claim any importance in and of myself. It's more the mantle I've assumed, I assume. Not significance, perhaps significant purpose."

"You like playing with words?"

"Mm... I suppose I do. It's more of a habit, honestly. One of the people I... spoke with a lot was incessant with it, so I sort of picked it up."

Aleen nods patiently. "What mantle? Some kind of profession?"

"No... No, responsibility."

"A responsibility to what?"

To life. "It's difficult to explain."

"Just what you can, then."

"Right..." She's really going to press me... "I've been following my sister who fled home on the solstice."

"...Huh. I feel like you're leaving a good deal out."

What to say... "In Opis Luma, a new kind of fiend was born. It took control of my sister. I've been pursuing her to stop its spread... and..." her throat constricts, "and I've failed."

Aleen falls back against the couch, "I... see."

"Everyone... Everyone is dead because of my failure." The sobs come unbidden, and she can't keep them down despite the pain begging her. "I... I can't right it..." I can't even speak it... barely graze it with my mind without weeping...

What discussion there had been devolves into tense silence and choked crying. It comes to a point that Lise can't say if she is still crying for misery or if her reason has become the agony of the act itself.

"Take a drink," Aleen says, leaning forward to push her tea closer. She sets a few more medicine pellets beside it.

Lise takes the cup up in trembling hands, sipping slow, eyeing the medicine, hungry for it. She wavers, knowing well the peril, but takes the pills anyway. What's the point when I won't see the end of the night?

"You say there is a new form of fiend. Can you explain?"

She tries to order her thoughts, "I don't know... I can only say they are far more malignant. They learn, or... well, adapt is more apt." Incessant... Even indirectly, the thought of Akota, killed, brings her to the breaking point again. "Everyone in Opis Luma is dead. And in her wake the fiends have devoured town after town, village after village—all the children—so many dead and I've tried to save them only to fail again and again and again... so many bodies all lined up piled up pulling me down..."

Aleen stands, beginning to pace. "This... I can't imagine... This is foreboding. Not foreboding, it's already happened, happening, it's... a catastrophe. I don't know what to say, I'm sorry Lise. When I brought you here to talk, I didn't expect..."

"My last chance was to stop her, I was too slow; I'm crippled; I'm a failure dragged, stretched, dragging along like a lame leg, propped by the hope of balancing my wrongs; but it was always impossible for me: a lame leg dragged along by a prosthetic. This hope, fabricated, crumpled under the weight... I'll never walk again."

"Do you know how the new fiend came to be?"

Lise looks up from her torment, held tight. "What do you mean?"

Aleen thumbs the bridge of her nose, "I mean, do you know where it originated? Where it came from?"

"No."

The woman looks at her, and stares at her, "You're lying."

"What."

Something clicks into place—whether it is her understanding, or Aleen's mask... A different woman stands before her. "You lied."

Her eyes fade over opaque, deathly cold. The gentle cleverness sucked away so emptiness can fill its place.

Lise sits straight, and, feeling the peril, speaks carefully, "On my mother's ashes, I swear I don't know how the fiend got to my sister."

The woman locks on her eyes, reading... then, like a drop of dye in water, warmth saturates her gaze. "My apologies." Aleen inclines her head, "That was deeply inappropriate—cruel, even—please forgive me."

"It's okay, I understand..."

"Thank you. I trusted an intuition, and I'm sorry I reacted how I did."

Lise clears her throat, "No, no, it's alright... I'm not innocent of that either."

"I'm relieved, then, that you're so understanding—I feared I might have thrown away what rapport we've had."

"If you were right, then I'd think your reaction justified. To deceive about something so serious..." would be akin to fooling with fire.

"Lise, I will do what I can to help, and you might find my help more significant than appearances would tell. Kellean has among the strongest support systems on the continent, with perhaps only The Dwelling eclipsing us, for obvious reasons. We will send word to the major cities—and once the danger is assessed, offer assistance. This will not be the end for humanity, I promise you. You will be safe as long as you remain here."

Lise wants to feel comforted, wants to let the weight from her fall, that she might stand again. Yet responsibility has her in its grip, has her gripping the weight ever closer to the chest. She nods anyway.

"In addition, I have a deal for you... When you can walk to the top of the plateau I met you on, I will send you off with the resources you need to catch your sister. You may leave whenever you wish, but any sooner than that and I fear I would be delivering you to death with my blessing. I will not be party to that."

Lise considers it, rubbing her pinky nub with her thumb. "Will you give me a cycle to think?"

"Of course, there is no time limit. In the meantime, you are welcome to stay here or return to the infirmary. There's a bed in that room there that you can use."

"I couldn't take your bed..."

Aleen waved it off, "I rarely sleep here anyway, I have another apartment upstairs." She winks, though the full significance of it is lost on Lise.

"In that case, I will take you up on your offer."

"The bed one or the other one?"

"The bed one. I still need time to think."

"Right, of course..."