Tamani was sitting in a clearing in the woods, next to the unlit bonfire. He knew he had to get ready soon, the gathering would be starting in about an hour. Aislyn had told him and the others yesterday that she would be getting back in the morning yet it had past midday.
Groaning, he turned to Jackson who was talking to some of the other pack members, "Hey Jack, it's-"
All of a sudden, he could hear a series of loud bangs.
"What's that?" Shouted Jackson.
As everyone spun around, trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, Tamani's heart skipped a beat, "It's coming from the direction of the Community house!" He yelled, breaking into a run.
Running around to the back of the house, he skidded to a halt at the sight of Galen sitting cross-legged in the front garden, head resting on his hand, dripping wet.
At this point, Tamani had realised that the loud noise was, in fact, coming from inside the house. He walked slowly over to Galen, eyes never wavering for the scene from inside.
"Uh Galen, what the hells is going on?" He asked.
On the other side of the door, Aislyn was dancing around the kitchen, hair swishing, thumping two tin pots against each other.
Even from where he stood, he could hear her singing, no -bellowing- a song, madly out of tune.
"We had a race back to the House. I lost and she locked me out. She does this every fucking time," grumbled Galen, looking bored
Picking up a small pebble he launched it at the window. "Twat," he yelled at her.
Tamani threw himself on the ground next to Galen and was watching Aislyn with an open mouth, who had stopped long enough to spot everyone, blow them a kiss and began to spin around.
"Wait for it, here comes the guitar solo," warned Raven.
As Aislyn continued her performance, Tamani watched her in wonder. This wasn't the person who had sat, not even twelve hours earlier, in front of him retelling her troubled past.
"How is she making so much noise?"
"I have no clue."
Tamani let out a chuckle and shook his head.
As Aislyn's performance ended, she opened up the window and rested her elbows on the windowsill, "Oh sorry, I didn't see you there."
Rolling his eyes from behind Tamani and Galen, Jackson called out, "The bonfire starts in a few hours. You're still coming aren't you?"
"I said I was, didn't I?"
"Yeah, but you also said that you'd be back this morning."
Sighing, Aislyn ran her hand over her damp hair, "I didn't realize work would take me so long. I'll take a bath and a quick nap, then I'll meet you there okay?"
"Sure."
Jackson made to turn around but he halted midway. He paused for a moment and then turned back to face Aislyn again. "Why's your hair wet?"
"Oh, I- uh, just bathed."
Jackson narrowed his eyes and replied, "But you just said you were going to take a bath?"
Aislyn eyes widened and she puckered her lips together
"I did, didn't I? Uh, well, I need another one, you know, a second wash..."
"Why?" echoed Jackson, Tamani and Galen, the latter grinning ferociously.
Aislyn could only think of one topic that would stop the questions.
"Uh... Aunt Flo is visiting- like just this minute."
Jackson, face a picture of confusion, scrunched up his nose and said, "We don't have an Aunt Flo."
"Well you don't," Aislyn muttered under her breath. Raising her voice again she said, "The painters are in."
Jackson and Tamani shared an equally bewildered look. "Dom and Ralph? I just saw them-"
"Oh, for the love of the seven holy hells," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air.
She briefly disappeared from view as she paced behind the window. Returning, she had to avoid looking directly at Galen who she could see from the corner of her eye, had his face lifted to the sky. A signature move of his to avoid anyone seeing his laughing face.
"I've got my monthly flow!"
Immediately, a red-coloured stain spread across Jackson and Tamani's faces. Both, in their manly set ways, coughed and grunted.
"Oh," muttered Tamani.
"Hmm," echoed Jackson.
"In fact," continued Aislyn, getting a dose of amusement at seeing their awkwardness, "I might even be bleeding on the floor right now."
To cement her point, she leant back from the window and made a big scene of studying the floor.
"Oh hells," grumbled Jackson, running a hand through his hair and half-turning away from the House.
"Hmm, I think you've gotten lucky. Can I go take my bath now or would you care to delve further into my personal feminine hygiene business?"
"Go, go," waved Jackson, not even being able to bring himself to look her in the face.
Tamani mimicked Jackson's sentiments as he got to his feet and shoved his hands in his pockets.
"Okey-dokey, I'll see you later!" called Aislyn gleefully and disappeared from view.
"Wait!" Yelled Jackson, "Come back here Aislyn."
An exaggerated sigh was heard before Aislyn reemerged.
"What is it now? Do you actually want me to stain your floorboards?"
"Uh, n-no. I was just going to tell you not to not to talk about the hells like that."
Aislyn's response was to throw her hands up in the air and run upstairs, with a roll of the eyes Jackson ignored.
Once they were left alone again, Jackson and Tamani both looked at each other and then towards the House and then to Galen and then back to each other.
And blushed... again.
"I had better go get started on the bonfire," said Jackson, not really directing the statement to anyone in particular.
"Hmm," responded Tamani, "I'll go help the fishermen finish up for the day."
Both nodded at each other and departed in separate directions leaving Galen sitting alone.
With a chuckle, he got to his feet and went to the front door. He tried opening but quickly realised Aislyn still hadn't unlocked it. He pounded his fist on it once. Even standing outside, he could hear Aislyn's cackle of laughter trickle out of the window she had left open earlier.
Sighing, Galen made his way over to the window and hauled himself through it. His height made it so the window only came up to his waist, but his burly figure made for a tight squeeze.
Managing to get through, ignoring the scrapes of his backs obtained by the protruding window latch, Galen went straight upstairs and into Aislyn's bedroom.
Both the door to her room and to her washroom were open and he could hear a gentle splashing. And leading to her washroom were her clothes lying in a way that he could tell she had merely pulled them off and dropped them to the floor on the travels.
"Would it kill you to pick up after yourself?" he remarked, stooping and picked up her clothes, folding them neatly.
"I'd rather not find out."
Galen walked into the washroom to see Aislyn lounging in the clawfoot bath that stood in the middle of the room, steam already misting the air.
From where Galen was standing, the bathwater was a royal blue colour, rich and deep enough that Aislyn naked body was invisible underneath; a nifty power of illusion she had picked up from her travels.
Aislyn watched Galen disappear back into her room to reemerge a moment later, bare-chested and holding a chair. He made his way over to the tub, grabbing a flannel from the cabinet and sat down.
"Really? Aunt Flo?"
Aislyn shrugged. "I didn't think that they were going to ask any questions about why I threatened to bleed all over the place."
"But you're taking a tonic."
"Ah, but they don't know that," she winked.
For a while, they just sat in amicable silence; Aislyn soaking in the hot water powered by the fire she had conjured to burn inside the very water itself and Galen dipping his flannel into the water to cleaning his upper-half of his body.
Aislyn slowly sank down beneath the surface, its thrumming silence, save for the rippling caused by Galen, a comforting sound. She rose back up when she saw Galen slapping the water.
"Don't do that," he fussed, "it freaks me out."
Aislyn's reply was to stare intently at him and open her mouth a sliver so that the water that had collected in her lungs could trickled out.
"Don't do that," repeated Galen, throwing his flannel into her face with a resounding slap.
Aislyn only chortled at his discomfort.
She lifted her finger and began drawing mindless doodles on the surface of the water.
"Why Luzora?" She asked Galen, looking up.
"Huh?"
"Why would the Necromancer be going to an Offshoot? I mean, I know there's an infamous Trade Centre there but I don't think they sell children... do they?"
"Not that I've heard of."
"So why Luzora then? The hells-damned place is in the middle of a desert. The nearest Communities are Siwnar and Maien and even they are more than a days ride away. Luzora is tiny; barely longer than a sole street with a couple dozen stone buildings. Why would he be going there?"
"Maybe he's going there because it's tiny. Less witness and Offshooters that could be paid off."
"And why not do whatever he needs to do in the Facility?"
The 'Facility' was the name Aislyn and Galen had given the place they had been held captive.
From Aislyn's brief look at the place the day she broke out, it was a long underground passage with small, square rooms with steel doors. The only way in and out was up a long staircase with a single door at the top. Another reason they still hadn't found The Facility; It's hard to find a single door in the middle of the forest in the middle of the world.
In her whole time there, Aislyn had only seen a few other people- although, for all she knew there could be far more- all dressed the same; a thin, white long coat, a full-face white hood and white gloves. As she was being transported on a wheeled bed from room to room, she had caught glimpse of those people all going into the same room. She didn't have a chance to look into it as she was escaping- actually, she melted the handle so the door couldnt be opened. But why go out in public when you already had a secure location?
She relayed all of this to Galen who braced his arms against the edge of the tub and began to think. She watched as he tilted his head to the side and how his eyes narrowed.
"How many other captees were there when we were there?" He finally asked her.
"Hard to say," she replied, repositing herself so that she could sit up straighter and hug her knees, "When I busted out of my room, only one out of the four surrounding rooms was empty. I didn't have a chance to properly count but I'd say there were about fifteen other rooms, excluding The Room and the one I saw people go in and out off. So, eighteen rooms, you, me, Finn, Kaighen, Nik... ten, maybe?"
"But that was three years ago. What if they're expanding and need new places or new recruits?"
"Fuck," she replied, drawing out the word. "That would complicate things a shit-ton."
"Mm-hmm."
"So what do we do? Do we start looking around Luzora or do we stay here and carry on looking for the facility?
"Maybe I should go."
"Huh?"
"We've got a month before he is meant to be there, maybe I should go and stake the place out. See what's going on, see who the people are."
"I don't like the sound of that, Raven," said Aislyn, spinning so she could face him straight-on.
"Why not? We've been looking for The Facility for the past two years and we haven't found anything. And that was when we both looked together. I doubt you're going to be able to slip away for a day, or weeks, at a time now that you're back home. I might be able to find something out there."
"You think you could just disappear for a month and live in an Offshoot? One that you've never gone to and one with Luzora's reputation?"
"Yeah, if you haven't forgotten, I managed fine by myself the last six months."
"Okay, hun," snorted Aislyn, "I saw the blanket and pillow on the floor in that building. The empty cans and bottles."
"That's because I was visiting your sorry arse in prison. We've always looked together, maybe that's why we never found anything," argued Galen.
"And maybe the reason we're both still here is because we did things together."
"Or maybe we got lucky... Or unlucky. Having you there made no difference to Nikolas."
At seeing Aislyn physically recoil, Galen realised what he had just said. And he could kick himself. He immediately reached out to touch her arm but stopped at seeing her flinch.
"I'm sorry," he told her, eyes pouring over her face, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for it to come out that way."
Galen thought Aislyn would pull away. Become the cold and distant person he had met in the last year. The one who had taken his sarcastic, funny, fearless best friend away from him for ten months.
But he was surprised when she looked him in the eye and smiled.
"Don't stress about it."
"If you don't- if you don't want me to go. I'll stay. I'll stay here with you."
"No. You were right. The smart thing to do would be stake out the location and see if you can gather any information," she told him, nodding.
"Are you sure? Maybe you were right and the reason we're still alive is because we stuck together."
"What a day!" She exclaimed, "Did you just say I was right? Hold still, I need to paint this moment so I can treasure it forever."
Galen smirked and swatted at the water, spraying her in the face.
Aislyn laughed with her and then pointed to where she had left her towel.
"Grab my towel will you?"
Galen pushed himself off his chair and grabbed the green towel hanging from behind the door. He held it up in front of the tub and wrapped it around Aislyn when she stood up.
"You go to Luzora," she said to him, hugging the towel tightly, "You were right. Just be careful. If you get killed, I will personally bring you back and rekill you."
"You could try but there ain't no way you can beat me."
"Is that a bet? Well-"
The rest of Aislyn's retort was cut off by her yelp of pain. She stumbled forward, slipping on the slippery surface of the bathtub but Galen was there to catch her. She wrapped his arms around her middle, pinning her own arms which were still clutching at her towel, and lifted her out the water.
When he placed her back onto the cool tile of the floor, she hissed in discomfort. She looked down at her lower legs and feet and could see the angry red colour they had turned.
"What happened?" Asked Galen, following her line of sight.
"I-I don't know."
Their attention was drawn to a sudden noise where there had been nothing before. The water in the tub, back to its normal hue now that Aislyn had dropped the illusion, was boiling. Thick clouds of steam shot up, hitting the ceiling and exploding across the room and fat bubbles rose to the surface bursting hard enough to send droplets flying towards them.
Aislyn and Galen jumped back to avoid the scorching water.
"I didn't mean to- Its not me, I didn't do that."
But even as she said it, the bubbles had slowed and the steam from the water had gone down.
Galen turned to look at her and then turned back to look at the tub.
"It's getting worse," he said, worry evident in his voice.
"I know," she muttered in reply.
She sucked in a deep breathe and mustered up a shaky smile, "just another issue we have to deal with, eh?"
"Hmm."
"Come on, lets take a quick nap before this bonfire. Maybe it just got out of control because I was tired."
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