There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

25- Wounds pt.2

'And as usual, you're perfectly late.' She thought, but bit her tongue to avoid exposing herself.

"I like to be on time." She said instead, tightening her lips and turning her gaze to the sky for a couple of seconds, trying to calm down a little, getting a little less rigid in her posture. Then she went to grab both the old ceramic pitcher and the cup, also made in ceramic, that had been on the low coffee table -without a base to support it since it was perfectly down on the parquet- that she had in front of her.

"Thirsty, perhaps?" She asked politely, scrutinizing the other man and seeing him deny it with a small shake of his head. Claire -Dalai!? Seriously?- therefore put the objects back in their places, thinning her gaze.

"Let's get to the facts if you don't mind," asserted Shaoran, his arms always returning annoyingly to coincide. "What did you request my meeting for, O'Pacific?"

Claire -Dalai. That was his name- had a moment of paralysis at the polite title -which only his friends usually used, partly to joke around with him softly and partly because it was one of the Crucible's shared formulas of affection. The use of titles meant respect. It meant the continued trusting of each other. They receive and connect with each other's Magic without hindrance. But Shaoran was not a friend to him. He had never seen him as such- so she went back to tapping her fingers on her sleeves, taking a big deep breath.

"I would like..." she began. "I would like it if you would dissuade Xia from performing the ritual." She paused. A very small one. No longer than a blink of an eye, so short that Shaoran did not even have time to change his expression. Perhaps he did not even fully understand the request she had asked him. "She wants to do it for you ... So only you can convince her to stop what she is doing. Only you can make her see the negative side of it."

She -He. He was a male. Dalai was a male. He was Dalai- had tried.

He had tried, even pushing harder than he should have, all to make her understand the danger her choice might bring to herself. He had desperately tried to make it obvious to her what she was getting into, but Xia -oh, the stubborn, wonderfully intelligent, and talented Xia- his Master, well, she had not listened to him. Any attempt to open the conversation was shut down with glares and the repeating of the same phrase. Over and over again.

'I told you I'm not going to talk about this anymore. I've made my choice. You can't change it.'

Shaoran was the only one, unfortunately, that she would listen to. Unfortunately. Just thinking about it irritated the hell out of him. Why him? Why not Dalai instead? It wasn't fair. It really wasn't.

The Health Mage fell silent, peering back at him for a while, before lowering his gaze with an almost guilty look. "I can't, I'm sorry," he said, his tone soft. And disgustingly happy, which made his stomach roll.

Dalai's world seemed to come to a screeching halt. As if the seconds were no longer flowing. As if a patina of ice had gone into one of the many objects of time in the Forbidden Wing of The Crucible, stopping every living thing in its forever static state.

He stiffened and gritted his teeth. And after that instant -that very long instant of nothingness and shock- anger exploded in his chest and began to make him tremble. He clenched his fists so tightly that he could have driven his nails into his flesh.

"No?" Dalai asked, his low voice quivering, almost interrupted by his own heavy breathing. He sounded both genuinely surprised and upset. "Why not?"

"Dalai..." Shaoran tried to say, making an expression that looked like mild exasperation, but at the same time an understanding of what he was feeling. Which was definitely not true. Shaoran could not feel what Dalai was feeling. He could not!