Nova sat in a club called Torrent, in Reezilling City, just north of Rafferty Village, and where Boron Frost spent most of his money. Although Baron Frost was technically in charge of ten 'cities' and the Shadow Forest, he used to be in charge of twenty. Since he managed them so poorly, it allowed the self proclaimed king of the black market to take root and thrive there. Today, most of the baron's territory was actually run by 'King Vlasma'.
Reezilling city was the place to be if you didn't want to be noticed by others. It was always busy, no matter what time of day. The city was full of bright magic lights, clubs, high rises, gambling, and any other thing you could want. Not a bit of the money made from it went to Baron Frost. Most of the rights to the land had been lost during bets that the Baron made. This was a well known fact and a point that people often openly criticized the Baron for. Although Rafferty village was supposed to be the capital of Baron Frost's territory, you certainly couldn't tell.
Nova sat on the second floor of the club, near the balcony. She enjoyed being able to watch people, even though she was all alone. It was her birthday today, so she wanted to at least be able to appear as her proper age on this day. She took a sip from her dark brown drink and nibbled on her slice of pizza.
No one alive knew when her birthday was. What was the point? What was she supposed to tell them? That she was turning eleven?
Nova pulled open the flap next to her seat, on the side of the table, and pressed in some numbers that corresponded to her menu. As soon as the numbers lit up, Nova dropped in a couple of coins. She had just ordered a cupcake for her birthday. She should at least try to celebrate her birthday a little, even if it were pathetic and incredibly lonely.
Nova watched as Fortis walked in wearing a tight, dark green wrap dress, and dark brown sandals. Her shiny black hair was as short as ever, parted to the side with little cute spikes in the back, and pulled back with the little silver bow barrette that Nova had given her. A small smile appeared on Nova's lips, seeing Fortis wearing the gift she gave her. Fortis had put on a little bit of makeup to try and cover up the pink scar across her dark blue right eye, but it wasn't really needed, and she had on some pink lip gloss.
No matter what Fortis wore, she was striking. Nova could look at her brown and blue eyes all day. Nova's heart ached while looking at her. She'd had a crush on Fortis ever since they'd met at the Vermilion Pavilion and after all of this time, it just seemed to be getting stronger.
That whole incident had been a nightmare come to life, but during that time, they had been there for each other. She couldn't believe her luck when Fortis had come to live with them. It was just that Erem and Bour treated Fortis strangely. She knew that Amber considered those twins her people. However, Nova didn't trust them, or like how they kept on eyeballing Fortis; like they wanted to jump her or something. It made her so nervous that she wouldn't allow the twins to be alone with Fortis if she could help it.
Meanwhile, Fortis had started treating her like a little kid who had a hero complex. At first, they had been best friends, and it felt refreshingly like Fortis was treating Nova like they were on the same level. More recently Nova started to feel the distance between the two of them growing. She didn't mind being taught by Fortis how to throw knives, but she hated how Fortis would pat her head for doing a good job afterwards.
This was Nova's first time feeling this way towards anyone and she felt completely humiliated. They spent all of that time together and even lived under the same roof, but it was still only her one sided love. After all, Fortis only saw her as the little girl from Nova's illusions. A bitter smile appeared on Nova's lips, as she watched Fortis sit down at a table in the back of the club, cast in shadows. Across from her, sat what could be considered a very handsome man. He had short black hair slightly parted to the side in the front. He was tanned and muscular with a strong jaw and wide shoulders.
One sided love was a bitter pill to swallow. It was better for her to try to forget about her love for Fortis anyway. After all, it wasn't exactly illegal for women to love other women, but it was definitely frowned upon. It was, however, illegal for a woman to live without a registered adult male guardian in this empire; be it her father, her brother, or her husband. So if you were kicked out of your family and you weren't married or sold, you were put up for auction. Although auctioning people publicly was illegal, rich nobles doing it in private was considered perfectly acceptable.
Arranged marriages for women were also common in Verglas. After all, women were generally treated like property here. It was how their fathers had trained their sons and daughters to behave, and their father's before them. It was accepted and expected. It was the 'proper' way to do things.
Nova watched Fortis sitting across from the man, drinking something from a blue magic glass that kept your drink perfectly cold. Nova saw Fortis slide her hand across the table top and the man reach over, taking her hand in his. Nova looked away from the sight, thinking that she had been foolish for even liking anyone. Who was she to like someone? What did she even have to offer that anyone would want?
When she looked back, she saw Fortis trying to shake off the mans hand, but he was holding tightly to her. She stood up, trying to get away from the man, but he yanked on her hand, pulling her back down.
Nova stood up from her seat and walked over to the table where Fortis and the man were sitting. She hadn't consciously been planning to do it, but found herself standing right in front of Fortis regardless. She glanced at the man, who frowned, and then handed her his empty cup. She looked at the cup in her hand with confusion. When she looked back at the man, he had disregarded her again, and went back to talking to Fortis.
"Even if you want to reject me, it only makes me want you more. You should know what kind of man I am by now. You'll only excite me more and make it harder on yourself later. You were mine from the moment that I first saw you and you can only be mine," he said while squeezing Fortis's wrist tightly.
Nova heard the bones in Fortis's wrist snap. Then she let out a pained whimper and gasped for breath.
"Please, just let me do my job. Please leave me alone," Fortis said while desperately trying to pry his hand off of her broken wrist with her other hand.
Nova's eyes widened at the scene. Before throwing the magic glass at the man's face as hard as she could. The glass broke, leaving a long shard jammed into his left eye. He instantly let go of Fortis while screaming like a mad man. Then he fell backwards out of his chair and onto the floor. The glass shards frosted once their magic was released, freezing the shard into his eye.
Nova grabbed Fortis's good wrist and pulled her to her feet, taking her out of there. She wasn't sure what had come over her as she pulled Fortis away, but she couldn't stop herself. All the while she felt foolish. Fortis blinked her eyes in surprise from being rescued, but she followed behind Nova anyway.
After they had walked to the other side of the block, where Nova knew there were magical buggies to rent, so leaned down, and placed a copper coin into the side of the round pod. The pod was a perfect sphere that worked through wind magic. They rested on these saucer platforms and went to another resting saucer platform in the area where you specified. They would only travel to other saucers, but they were at the end of almost every street. There were two person seaters and six person seaters, three of each kind.
Nova climbed into a two person seater transport pod and held out her hand towards Fortis. Fortis stood still, standing on the sidewalk, while looking down at Nova.
"Come with me, won't you? I promise that I don't mean you any harm. I just want to get you out of here and somewhere safe; where I can heal your wrist. It looks painful and you look scared," Nova said.
Fortis blinked her eyes. "I look...scared?"
"I don't mean anything rude by it, but you have been shaking for a while now. Let's get out of here, alright?"
"You want to...help me? Why?" Said Fortis.
"Do I need a reason?" Said Nova.
"...There's always a reason."
"Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I guess you can just figure that out for yourself. Either way, I have no plans of harming you. What could it hurt? These pods are only going to go to other saucers in public locations anyway," Nova said and then shrugged her shoulders.
Fortis looked at Nova while frowning for a moment longer, and then reached out her hand to take Nova's. Nova steadied her into her seat. As soon as Fortis was seated beside her, Nova pushed the button in the center of the dashboard.
"Where is your destination?" said a programmed woman's voice.
"Starlight Veranda," said Nova.