TRACK 6
Cause we could stay at home and watch the sunset
But I can't help from askin', "Are you bored yet?"
And if you're feelin' lonely, you should tell me
Before this ends up as another memory
Will you tell the truth so I don't have to lie?
(Are you bored yet - Wallows )
********
"You are weird," said Steve suddenly in Douxie's direction without any play of words, seconds after everyone had settled down on the mattresses they had brought into the room.
That one comment led the appointee to look at him with a confused but partly amused expression. He lay there on his stomach, the book under his nose, with the familiar leaning against his side. "Thank you...?" he said.
"No, really," insisted the blond. And Jim could see him half melting his brains trying to explain anything he wanted to get at, even beginning to gesticulate, legs crossed under all his weight. "You're like... super cool. You kinda look like a sex symbol and an emo guy that you don't want to mess around with. The kind who always gets into fights. Like, I don't know, you probably would help your friends to hide a dead body. But at the same time, you're more responsible. And well, mysterious."
' Did he really just say that out loud?' Jim thought, surprised and weirdly amused.
Douxie arched his eyebrow, with something of a weirded-out look on his face. Then he smiled. "It depends on who's the corpse. And which hour you ask me."
Steve gasped. "Wha... really?"
"You should request an appointment, though. Work shifts leave me with a somewhat messy schedule." He tilted his head, then leaned his chin against his palm with a smirk that visibly tasted like soft teasing. "Previous clients have always paid me, but in case I can make an exception."
Jim couldn't help but snort.
Archibald made a hoarse sound. Claire and Toby had tightened their lips and were trembling, restraining themselves from bursting out laughing. The blond boy's shocked expression had been TV show-like, really.
"...You're joking, right?... Right?" Asked Steve, white in the face just like a sheet, looking at him mildly anxious, fidgeting on the spot, hardly knowing how to put his upper limbs together.
"Yes, Steve." Douxie ended up saying, sighing and shaking his head, a grin painted on his face, then returning his gaze to the book as all of them burst out laughing for good, some sooner and some later. "Of course I'm joking."
"So you've never buried anyone...?" He asked again after a while. "Dealt drugs? Never robbed a bank?"
"No, no, and no." The raven-haired boy started flipping between the first few pages nonchalantly.
"Never backed up a mafia boss?"
Douxie looked at him, saying nothing verbally, merely speaking through an offended look, both eyebrows arched. He seemed to say 'Who the hell do you think I am ?'
"Okay, no." Said the blond, raising his hands in the air, as if to show that he had raised the white flag, reminiscent of a thug ready for arrest. "But are you really a model, a college student, a waiter, a bookseller, a singer, and a magician at the same time? I mean, it doesn't seem possible. How are you still breathing?"
"It doesn't seem possible to you because it's not. And no, I am neither a model nor a college student. The rest, yes, but my jobs are part-time." He replied. He frowned in his observation of the page in front of him, almost caressing the paper.
Jim stared at him, very confused. "But at Arcadia they said you were? At least for the college student thing, if I remember correctly?"
Hisirdoux returned the glance, barely shrugging his shoulders. "They were rumors. You go one too many times looking for a ghost that haunts the bathrooms and the Chemistry classroom with another student and suddenly everyone thinks you're a local and starts talking, spreading fake news."
"Ghost?" Asked Toby, widening his eyes. "Whaaaat..."
"You really aren't a model?" Asked Steve instead, not even having stopped listening to the speech from there, showing visible shock. "How is that possible?"
Douxie closed the book, perhaps realizing that no one would let him read anyway. "Yes, a Ghost. She kept making vials and flasks explode and possessed students whenever her ex-boyfriend received interest from his classmates. It was a mess to try to convince her to move on." He asserted, moving strands of hair around, absentmindedly fiddling with them. "And again, no, I'm not a model. A couple of photographers and painters have tried to convince me over the years, but I never agreed."
"Why not?" Asked Claire, intrigued, stealing Jim's question, which had been on the tip of his tongue.
He was silent for a few moments, wrinkling his nose, his lips tight.
"Immortality. Eternal nineteen-year-old," he then said, suddenly serious, in an almost detached voice, as Archie went to move from his side to his arms, bringing the raven-haired boy to caress him, already appearing more relaxed just because of his presence.
"Wouldn't it be bad to find oneself on a calendar, a magazine, a flier or a painting from the nineteenth or early twentieth century... only to be found accidentally by someone who saw it, by internet or not, in the present, identical to how I was before? It is like leaving a trail. A trail to connect the dots of," a pause. "Of course, I could have simply said that the person photographed or painted was a relative, but... As extremely similar as they are, a parent and a child are never that much alike. And if someone who is very, very bad, who knows that most Wizards age more slowly or that they have the misfortune not to... If that someone did the math and came up with the correct numbers..." he did not complete the sentence, continuing to stroke Archie in silence.
And then he sighed before speaking again. "...It may sound silly and paranoid, but even a detail like that can cause huge trouble. I will gladly live without it."
'Oh .' Jim could not help but try to imagine the situation. It seemed distant and difficult to him, but he understood the need to hide, remembering how he had tried to avoid sharing too much about being the Trollhunter, even with his mom. Partly because no one would have believed him, partly because expressing it was more complicated than it seemed, and partly to avoid making new enemies.
"Like ending up in Area 49-B?" Asked Steve out of the blue. Douxie simply nodded.
"But you're a musician? Isn't that a problem, too, then?... If they were filming you..." Toby brought his hands to his knees and rubbed the fur between his fingers with slight nervousness, tilting his head.
"The Ashes Dispersal Pattern Group wears masks during their songs," Claire suddenly said, looking at her friend with the expression of someone who was calculating several things at once and then passing her gaze to Douxie, who nodded again.
"And they don't ask questions? The other members of your band, I mean. Except for the other witch." asked Jim.
"No. All four of us are strongly magic related... and we like our privacy," he shrugged. "The public doesn't mind so much, too. It heightens the suspense a bit."
"If you don't mind me asking, going kind of off topic," Blinky intervened. "How many wizards and witches are present in Arcadia, exactly?"
"Mmmmm... We are steadily increasing, but as far as I know, the Coven is ten members at the moment. There are a couple of loners, including myself... And a witch named Vanessa, who even came from a European city inhabited only by Mages, because she had heard how big Arcadia's magical community was getting, even living between humans."
Archie shot him a look as he paused.
"You're a loner?" Asked Steve. "So cool, bro!"
"Not really, but... I'm not the kind who stays somewhere for too long, so, yeah. I'm not one of the Coven." For a second, he had a weird look on his face. "But, whatever... Anyway, you may not realize it perhaps, but Arcadia Oaks is a can of worms when it comes to magical creatures. Some of which I, too, am not aware of. And perhaps neither are they."
They all gasped as if they had received an unexpected slap right in the face.
"Pepperjack had only been talking about Trolls, Creepers, Aliens, and Wizards," Steve quipped, his eyes almost out of their sockets.
"Well, he wasn't wrong. Those you just said, they are in there... though I haven't the bloody idea of who you mean by saying Creepers, exactly."
"By Creepers he means Goblins. And the Gnomes. And many other creatures at the same time." Said Claire in Douxie's direction.
He snorted. "Oh. Okay. Good to know," Douxie then chuckled. "Let's just say, though, that many species are really, really good at hiding. And it's actually normal that he didn't realize that they were in the city, too."
"Are they dangerous? Or are they friendly? What creatures are there?" Asked Toby.
"A mixture. Sirens, Nymphs, a few Kitsune, a Iemisch... In short, various kinds. Some just want to be left alone. Others can be quite annoying, but all in all, they're fine." Said Archie, starting to walk along the mattress, left and right. "Wizards, loners or not, are mainly concerned with driving out those who give trouble to the city they are in. And that could reveal them all."
"Yeah. Especially when it comes to Demons..."
"Those are more than troublesome. They are harmful."
"Like time bombs." Douxie agreed with a sour smile, like his own tone of voice.
"Demons?" Toby gaped, first almost frightened, then suddenly excited. "Does that mean Angels exist too?"
Douxie and Archie exchanged a look.
"We've never seen any of them, but as far as we know, they do exist, yes," said the dragon.
"Awesome Sauce!" Toby's eyes sparkled with happiness. The eagerness to see one showed in both his gaze and the movements of his body. Indeed, he had started to shake one of his legs intermittently, causing the sole of his shoe to rub on the floor and at times to tap against it.
"But is it normal that there are so many creatures in Arcadia? Is this common everywhere else in the world, or is California an exception to the rule?" Asked Jim, curious.
"There is a myriad of them around the earth," replied Douxie. "Some cities have more, some have less. It depends on the nature of the place, on the magical resonance... From the climate itself that you find in the country. Sure, there are fewer of them than how many there were before, but...Still enough." A small pause. "Here in Russia, there are several. St. Petersburg for example screams with magical resonance."
He looked at him with surprise. 'So it's...? ' He went to look and point to the map of the Continents. "Is that why the writing of some cities is so big? Because it is full of magic?"
He nodded. So did Archibald, adjusting his glasses on his snout, always moving uninterruptedly.
"The Shantar Islands are also written with large letters," observed Claire suddenly, passing her gaze several times between the parchment and the Wizard, her brow slightly furrowed. "Wasn't that one of our stops?"
"Yes. It is, and it's the one we'll end up at in a few hours." Douxie brought his hand to his chin, appearing thoughtful, still wrinkling his nose, before looking up again as a faint smile crossed his lips. "Are you finished with the interrogation or do you have more questions?" He asked in a slightly joking tone.
"I have one." Intervened Toby, almost jumping on the spot. "Do you happen to be hiding aces up your sleeve?"
"You mean hidden abilities except for magic...?" The raven-haired boy raised his eyebrow, the expression of someone who didn't know what exactly to answer, and suddenly something flashed inside his gaze.
Another fact that Jim would not have expected at first glance from him... but that, mixed with the speech he had given to Claire before agreeing to teach her, definitely began to remove the image of the boy-the extremely self-confident and blustery one-that he had built up in the beginning, smashing it to smithereens.
"No, no. I really mean the ace. In a literal way. A respected Wizard should have it!" He said. He looked at Douxie with satisfaction, pulling his own out of his shirt with a happy smile, making Jim laugh.
"You're not confusing him with the circus or fake magicians who do the tricks, acts, and all the rest?" Said Claire with a quizzical look, somewhat amused.
Toby tried to retort, but Archie interrupted him with a hoarse, choked sound, casting Douxie yet another accomplice glance, the kind the two were constantly throwing at each other. "The whole deck, too."
"More than one, too, then." Hisirdoux chuckled. And he started to make appear cards upon cards from both hands after a slight flick of the wrist, so much that they seemed to form a veritable three-hundred-and-sixty-degree fan, then leaving them on the low wooden table that was a short distance from him. "Trump, Uno, Poker, Tarot, and many others. You're welcome to play whenever you want."
" Bro ," said Steve, grabbing a few and looking Douxie in the eyes in bewilderment as everyone-including Jim himself, who didn't think he'd ever seen so many cards on a table at the same time, even in the movies-stretched out to look at the decks. Jim ended up with first the Temperance Tarot in his hands, then the Lovers' Tarot. " Wow..."
"Show us more! More magic! That's so cool." Toby was really, really excited. So much so that he blocked out anything the blond would have said next. And he put both hands together, almost as if he were praying, exhibiting puppy-dog eyes that Jim had seen him do on very few occasions. Mostly games related. "Please! Please, please, please!"
"Well, okay." Douxie replied after a moment of silence, his gaze resting on his rune bracelet. "But first, may I ask you something?"
Toby nodded quickly, smiling a toothy smile, already excited by the idea of what came next .
"Once, in the city, on my way back to my apartment, I saw you bent over a manhole in the middle of the street, while shouting at the top of your lungs the phrases engraved on the Amulet..." He tilted his head again but to the other side. Then let out a cough, visibly trying to hold back laughter. "What on earth were you doing on that occasion? Why inside a manhole of all places... and in broad daylight, risking being run over? I tried to imagine, but I swear I don't get it."
Toby blinked a couple of times, only to remember, probably, because he widened his eyes and gasped before speaking. "Ah! That! Basically, Jimbo had gotten a strange necklace that had half possessed him, making him become a whole other person, to the point where he actually went to challenge Bular in the sewers. That's all. I was trying to help him out."
Jim remained silent, confused. Then he mentally connected the image of the Grit-Shaka situation and slammed both hands in his face, blushing with embarrassment. "Ugh. Don't remind me."
When he looked around again, he found himself meeting the gaze of the raven-haired boy, who stared at him in confusion, but without saying a word.
Archie did not have the same delicacy of his Wizard. "Why?" he asked, showing in turn something of a weirded-out look.
Jim made a frustrated sound. "It was a self-confidence necklace, okay? There was the Romeo and Juliet kiss in the theater rehearsal, and I thought it was a good idea because I had been too tense. But it worked out too much and I almost killed myself because of it."
"So that was why you were acting so weird!?" Exclaimed Claire gaping like a fish out of water. "I thought you got your male periods that day. That you were simply acting stupid like every male teenager alive."
"Hey!" Exclaimed Steve and Toby at the same time.
"Sorry not sorry. It's the truth"
Jim did not respond at first, blushing even more. He felt his face go up in flames. "Yeah, well, no. My way of acting was just the consequence of a very bad idea. This is why I'd like us to cancel the topic and never return to it. But really never again, thank you."
"Whatever you say." Quipped Hisirdoux, as Steve instead said, "I'll mark that down." leading him to look at the blond crookedly and throw a pillow in his face, tearing a squeal from him.
"No, you don't." He blurted out, later taking the pillow back."I have enough blackmail material to throw at you, you don't want me to start trash-talking."
Steve went back to raising both hands in the air. "I have no idea what you're talking about. No, Sir."
"But, then... You were watching over us?" Asked Claire suddenly, blocking him from saying anything else.
"Not really," replied Douxie. "Archie and I were keeping an eye on the town and the forest in general. Being Vigilantes is our job, wherever we may be. We knew who the Trollhunter was and a lot of other things, but..." he shrugged, bringing his arm behind his neck and looking at the dragon. "Master Merlin made us promise in the Middle Ages not to meddle in Troll affairs until he decided we could. Don't ask me why, I don't know. But we were kinda busy anyway, so even if he hadn't made us do it, it was unlikely to happen."
"...Oh. And when we first met each other...?"
He shrugged. "It was just for the Battle of the Bands. I was supposed to come with Zoe, the Technomancer I already talked about, but she was pretty pissed off at the world that day, so to avoid scaring the fuzz out of people, I came alone," a pause. "Although I must say I was distracted to find out that there was a new Shadowmancer around. You lot are pretty rare, you know." He smiled a bit-Jim frowned just a little and shook his head to clean it from unwanted thoughts-then turned to Steve. "If you think I look like someone who gets into fights over nothing, I assure you, Zoe is worse. I look like one, she simply is. Even worse than a bloody chihuahua."
Steve opened his mouth and closed it. Then he opened it again. "Aja is my kicking-ass Angel, so I don't disapprove of that."
"Huh. Masochist. Good for you." Douxie grinned.
"...Magic?" Repeated Toby with a dreamy look, still showing his puppy-dog eyes as if they were his best weapon.
"Ah, yeah. Pardon me. Right away," he said.
And indeed, he did not make himself wait long. He immediately went to run his fingers over the rune bracelet, making them glow in the night.
The blue light accentuated the tips of his dark blue hair, while the black strands also seemed to turn bluish. It gave him something perhaps vaguely ghost-like, even highlighting the dark circles under his eyes. And it made the room luminescent, with shading so pronounced that what was around looked like a cave. The flames lit on the torches attached to the walls only increased the feeling.
In less than ten seconds, the boy created what seemed to be a cascade of blue light that appeared to swirl in the air, at first small and barely noticeable, then gradually growing larger and larger.
At first, except for the poetic and graceful appearance-seeing it move from one side of the room to the other like a raging river overflowing its banks-it did nothing much. Not that Jim would have complained about it; it was a beautiful sight.
But then it started to compact and destroy itself pretty quickly, rotating in and on itself, as if it were following a pattern. And then, again, started to show various images representing scenes or landscapes. Or even both at the same time.
People dance in fancy clothes. Birds taking flight and circling each other as if they were competing. Circus people performing their acts, including one who used his ring. Galloping horses that went skimming over the tidal waves. Fireworks. A moving snowman...
The images were clear, almost lucid. Jim couldn't help but allow himself to observe them, feeling a strong emotion that felt like inner peace. It started to run through him everywhere. It enveloped him from within, leaving him almost breathless.
For over a moment, he forgot the context in which he found himself, the dangers that were likely to follow, and all kinds of negative emotions he had felt during those weeks. Even fear was only a distant perception, buried a little more every second.
Jim felt free, light as a feather.
He shot a look at the Wizard, whose face had the softest smile. And another piece of his dislike shattered.
********
Claire was tired, but in very good spirits when it was over.
The mattress underneath her suddenly felt soft, although previously it had almost seemed hard. Compared to her bed at home, it was, but her momentary perception had improved. Perhaps it was because of how heavy her eyelids felt.
She knew it was her turn to stand to watch, theoretically, so she forced herself to stand to avoid giving in to sleep, leaning her back against the wall and crossing her arms.
Watching the room from there was fun. She felt like she was attending a sleepover instead of a potentially dangerous mission, with all those beds scattered around the room.
The last one she had been to had happened between her, Darcy, and Mary ... and all the talk had revolved around boys, school, cute clothes, and new TV shows. And partly about Not-Enrique.
A wave of nostalgia gripped her from head to toe just at the thought. She missed her school girlfriends. She missed her little brothers and her parents more than she would have liked to admit to herself.
She had always defined herself as a responsible person, an almost grown-up girl with clear goals and all the skills to be able to achieve them, but at times the visceral lack of her parents reminded her how young she still was underneath.
Not that young, of course. Not a child for sure, but still far from the status she wanted to achieve. She needed that something extra that adults seemed to have but that she lacked. That stability that made many things easy for them, that opened them up to possibilities and made them perhaps hesitate at times, but that underneath still led them to the destination they seemed to have wanted all along.
She tried to keep down her thoughts, swallowing hard, as if she were trying to gulp down food that she had not chewed enough and thus got stuck in her throat. It was hard, but it worked.
So her gaze returned to the others in the midst of the almost pitch blackness, lit by the blue flames that burned without making the slightest noise, simply moving just above their sticks. They were almost all asleep. Almost.
Blinky was awake, though not far from being gripped by the dream world, while Douxie was reading the giant book, having one of his headphones in his right ear and stroking Archie with the hand that was not busy turning pages, his left one. The familiar's purr could also be heard in the distance, loud and almost continuous.
She still had a couple of questions to ask him, in all honesty, but after all of them had almost bombarded him with them, she had chosen to defer to an imprecise 'sooner or later .' Maybe the next day, maybe the one after that... She would decide that later, depending on the turn of events. And not before her lessons on Shadowmancy. She would not postpone them for any reason in the world if that was possible, but even that depended on the generic progress of the journey of the castle from town to town... and the speed with which the Arcane Order was trying to gain ground on them.
Thinking back about the two half-goddesses and the Green Knight gave her the chills. An opposite feeling from the peace and instinctive sense of protection that rose up in her just by seeing Nari, increasing her desire to be able to help her. And the Shadows Portals were definitely one way, a more than useful weapon in her unfortunately limited arsenal.
She started to stroke her arm, then tightened the fur around herself a bit more, resting her gaze on the covered window and then moving again, opening it slightly. She sent a single glance over the landscape, before immediately closing it, leaving only the curtain aside.
The Jump would happen soon, she realized, even peering at the clock on her phone. After about ten minutes and little else, the castle would move on, taking one of the destinations off the list.
And of course, precisely because she realized this, time seemed to slow down, making the seconds so interminable that they almost had a weight in her head. Perhaps she should actually have found a way to keep herself busy, look for even a silly activity... or even just set herself to look at the decks of cards that, even at that moment, were resting on the table.
But she chose to lurk at the window a little longer, nibbling the inside of her cheek and making a kind of mental countdown.
As time proceeded at its unnatural slowness, she wondered what it would be like to meet the Keeper of Balance. She hoped he was not like Merlin. And that he was not even worse, like Morgana, even if she doubted it, since he saved his people. If he was like Douxie, that was perfectly fine.
Almost instinctively she imagined an old man like the Emperor from Mulan . And then the master of the Karate Kid , but with a pair of circular glasses on his nose. Then again, she wondered if perhaps he appeared younger instead.
And she ended up asking herself how exactly wizards aged. It was not at all clear, not having more than three examples to rely on.
'... Wizards age more slowly or have the misfortune not to ...' Douxie had said if Claire was not mistaken. 'But in what sense? In what sense did some have the jinx of not aging, while others could do so, albeit at a different rate than humans? ' She wondered then, still biting the inside of her cheek.
'Another question to add to the list, it seems. ' She thought to herself, returning to rest her eyes on Douxie almost instinctively, seeing him than stand up, massaging his temples with small circular motions.
She looked at him with a confused expression, especially at noticing him walking away in the direction of the door. She was tempted to approach him to ask where exactly he was going at that time of the night, but he made soft blue writing appear in the air before she could even try as if he was writing on a transparent blackboard. Or a directly invisible one.
' Bathroom. Be back later. ' He wrote, then made the writing disappear as quickly as it had appeared. She nodded, a bit slower than usual, to potentially avoid sudden dizziness.
Archie, meanwhile, merely sat down, wagging his tail nervously, watching his wizard with something unreadable in his gaze. A look he obviously returned before disappearing from the room, closing the door behind him.
And shortly after he did so, Camelot made its Jump , leading her first to look out the windows-after a short moment of unsettlement-then even to go outside once more to see the diversity of scenery, leaving the window ajar so that the cold would not enter.
They were high enough to show the entire archipelago, dotted with numerous trees, so many that they covered its surface in its entirety. The borders were so defined that they looked almost as if they had been drawn with a pencil.
Jim appeared on the balcony in turn, distracting her from the view that was proposed before her eyes. He was barely yawning and rubbing a hand over his eyes, trying to banish the sand from his eyes. In a rather tender way, really, mostly because of his hair, all in disarray, almost jaunty.
"Do you enjoy the scenery?"
She nodded.
"Can I join you?" He asked, flanking her, his chest against her back and his chin resting against the crook of her neck, blowing soft hot breath over her skin, tearing shivers from her and barely quickening her heartbeat as butterflies fluttered back into her stomach in total disarray.
She smiled, slipping her fingers between his. "Always," she said, stealing a light kiss from his lips.
********
Douxie was sure he had felt something wrong.
He had slipped out of the bathroom, enveloped by the scent of soap, of the pleasant sensation of water that had caressed his skin-he had hoped that it would make his agitation go away, just as he had hoped that using as much magic as possible to do soft materializations to entertain the group would tire him enough to put him to sleep anyway, nerves on or not. An utter failure. Both of them-and from the warmth of the spare clothes he had taken from one of the wardrobes-he had not yet ventured back to his old room. He did not find the desire to, for whatever reason.
And suddenly he thought he heard a faint, not totally unknown melody-he remembered it a little. But he still couldn't pinpoint where he remembered it from-coming from inside the castle.
He had looked around, very confused, partly wondering if his fatigue and the extra sensitivity that was brought on him at night were playing tricks on him, for he saw absolutely nothing alarming inside Camelot. Nothing at all in his view.
Just quiet eerie corridors in the dark and the magic armors around, echoing with the subtle, cold notes of his Master. No visible danger that could actually give reason to his esoteric ear, nor any other hints of Aura that followed the firsts.
He thinned his gaze anyway, unconvinced by the calmness, letting himself wander cautiously and silently, his rune bracelet on and his melody whispering sounds of tension and frustration at the same damn time.
He felt all his hair stand on end and goosebumps on his skin as his heartbeat rumbled like a drum. His blood rushed up and down, roaring inside his head like the sound of the sea.
It really could have been nothing. It could have been seriously his brain that had decided to tease him even more than it already did through all the unwanted flashbacks and mocking thoughts... but his instincts, all of them, whispered to him at the same time that it wasn't. That it wasn't just him being tired. And that something strange was indeed out there.
He just didn't know what. Nor where exactly to look at this point. All he knew was that that hint of melody had been one too many... and the idea that a threat had entered Camelot, but that he had not given a damn because he'd thought it was nothing, well, it didn't sit well with him. But like, not at all. It made him extremely angry at himself.
The facts were two, though: either he had really imagined it, or the possible enemy could hold his Magic well enough to make its Aura disappear into thin air. And that meant that they were powerful enough to do that. That they had clear control over themselves, over their own magical essence.
The thought only served to increase the chills that ran down his spine and to quicken the pace of his heart, which seemed to go crazy. So crazy that he wouldn't have been surprised if it actually broke out of the skin and leaped out, landing on the floor with a sick thud.
'Slavic legendary creatures... There are indeed many of them, some immigrating from other territories... But which exactly among them could they be, if there really was an enemy inside the walls of Camelot? And where exactly would they enter from?... The windows are all closed. The same with the main door, and there is a protection spell on the Castle... Am I really hallucinating out of stress or... '
He almost had a heart attack when he felt a heavy hand suddenly hit his shoulder, pulling him back a little with its strong dragging force. And stopped breathing.
Douxie spun around, so much so that he almost lost his balance in his movement, panic assailing both him and his melody, which was overbearing, turning up in volume so much that he could hear every tiniest tremor of the notes.
But instead of danger, he stood before Sir. Galahad. Sir. Galahad looked at him by staring deeply. Almost judging him silently.
A sigh of relief escaped his lips along with a nervous, partly hysterical laughter. He almost slapped a hand on his face.
"Are you all right, boy? Shouldn't you be in bed at this hour? Or are you on watch too?"
"Uh... No," he replied in a drawl, swallowing and bringing his fingers to his hair, still feeling his pulse, fast and aggressive... and the music, albeit this time lowered in volume, going back to their soft tunes.
"But I thought I was..." he began. Then he tightened his lips. The knight looked at him in confusion, his big untamed eyebrows covering half of his eyes. "...No, nothing. Just a silly thought."
"Would you like a drink? Some alcohol would do you good." Sir. Galahad extended the flask to him with a very quick flick of his wrist.
A second childish giggle slipped from Douxie's lips, but a little less bizarre and high-pitched than the previous one. "I don't think so, but thanks for the offer," he said. And paused. He still felt all of the knight's attention on him.
"I'll do a few more patrols and then go to bed," Douxie murmured in a partially convinced tone. Partially , indeed.
The rest of him begged him not to go back to that room again, not until he had really made sure there was no danger in sight.
Or perhaps not even after he had done so, perhaps letting himself fall asleep in an isolated chamber, hoping that no one but Archie would come looking for him. That they would forget he existed, as he was so used to people doing, sooner or later.
'Because, really, I don't think I'll get much sleep if I go back there... And I told myself and Claire that we had to be at our best. It would be hypocrisy to say such a thing and then ignore my own advice... And if I really tried to sleep there, I would only end up reading the book of Daoist magic again, hoping it could have a soporific effect, but ending up totally disappointed in my expectations in the early morning... ' he thought to himself. And sighed a bit.
"As you wish. The offer is still on the table, though." Sir Galahad said again. Douxie smiled a little.
"Thanks," he whispered.