9. But Oh, What Solace One Can Take
If you were smart, you would nod your head. You would take the perfect opportunity she is handing you. You would not risk rebuffing the first comforting touch you have had in years. You would stay safe, and in her good graces. You might even make a friend.
And you would have to pretend to be a murderer who lost self-control. A monster. Even if Bell wouldn't see you as that, you would. You don't think you could handle it.
You take a deep breath.
"That's not what happened."
Bell frowns, and you can see so much sympathy in her eyes that it stings. "Ythona, it's okay. You should admit it."
You shake your head. "That's really not what happened. You're right that I ran into the person that made these graves. But I—I didn't eat him."
Surprise lights up in Bell's eyes. She starts to say something, and then shuts her mouth. She looks out to the grave markers, and then back to you. "Did you... bury him?" She says it tentatively. Almost like she's worried she's accidentally insulting you with the suggestion.
Slowly, you shake your head again. "No."
She nods. And then, after a moment, her eyes widen. She purses her lips, and when she speaks, there's an edge in her voice again. "Ythona, did you fail to catch him?"
The thought crosses your mind that you could tell the truth. That you didn't fail. Part of you wants to, wants to trust Bell, wants her to trust you. To have someone here who could understand you. But you know she wouldn't. So you nod your head and lie. It's better for both of you.
Bell sighs, and then squeezes the hand on your shoulder tighter. She's staring straight into your eyes, and you feel like you couldn't possibly look away. "Okay. Ythona. I'm still on your side." She looks like she means it. Or is that only what you want to see? "So I need you to be honest with me. What exactly happened?"
You shift in place, and Bell's grasp on your shoulder tightens, just barely. You swallow. What do you say? The tension in her voice is clear. This isn't an unforgivable mistake, but it's one where she needs to impress on you the consequences. But if she figures out the truth, she'll... You need to lie, but... She's caught onto this much already, and it's only been a day. What if she sees through what you say? You need a good lie. You need to think, but you can't even focus. You're scared of what she might do, and you need distance to clear your head. Her hand is on your shoulder. You've been threatened so many times today. You want to be able to tell the truth, you want her to understand you, you want closeness. Her hand is on your shoulder.
"Ythona. Please."
You don't know what to tell her. You can't think of a lie. You don't want to lie, you want to be honest, you don't want to risk being caught. You just want her to understand. "Bell, I've never killed anyone."
Bell furrows her brows. The corner of her mouth twitches. Panic wells up in your chest.
And then she laughs, a short tinkling sound.
"I'm sorry." She shakes her head. "But... I just can't imagine being so soft. No wonder you wouldn't agree to leaving Fleshrender for dead. A human put a hole in you and you still couldn't bring yourself to kill him?"
You swallow. It takes you a few moments to give an answer. "I... hesitated." Bell's expression doesn't betray any sudden realization you just told a lie. You take a deep breath and try to calm yourself. "He got away."
Bell nods. "Okay. Did you say anything to him?"
"No." You shake your head, desperately hoping your face isn't betraying you. "Why would I?"
Bell seems to relax a little. "Okay, good. Well, no. This isn't good, you know that, but... It's a lot better if he thought you were only a ghoul. Well..." She takes her hand off your shoulder, and then points to your horn. "A weird ghoul, though."
You nervously laugh. You scratch at the side of your face, your claws more than suited to assuage the itch around its 'roots' in your face. When it's gone, you start to notice other itches, along your arms and face. Even in the shade, really? Then you speak, a little more confident your voice won't falter. "Yeah. I don't think he had any idea."
Bell shifts in place. She doesn't put her hand back on your shoulder, unfortunately. She looks over to the grave markers for a moment. When she turns back towards you, she looks stern. "So, there's not that much of a threat. That's good. But, Ythona, my wonderfully insane comrade." She claps her hand on your shoulder again, tightly. She grins, and there is no mirth in it. "You absolutely can't do something like this. If someone escapes you, you have to run back and get that to the master as soon as possible. He won't punish you for simple failure. But... Hiding a failure, hiding a threat? That puts us all at risk. You could get punished for that." Bell pauses for a moment, and takes a breath. "That could get you executed."
Your eyes go wide, and Bell quickly shakes her head. "Sorry, sorry, don't—you aren't in danger right now. Even if this time gets out. Just don't do it ever again. Okay?"
You take a deep breath. This is bad. If something like this happens again... You're going to have to hide it better. But how? You can't worry about that now. "Okay. If this happens again—" Bell frowns. "Which it won't, but if it does anyways, I'll tell Fleshrender."
Bell is halfway through nodding and then freezes. Then she mutters something under her breath—you heard it, you just couldn't understand it—and shakes her head. "No, no, that's... That's what we should do but we can't. If you eat someone, you can just tell him. But something like this, a failure... Today is a good example of how we can't trust him with that. He'll try to cover it up, because he thinks he'll get punished for it. And then he'll take out all that pointless worry on us. Even worse if there is a threat, because he'll eat up time we need to prepare. No, if this happens again, which we'll make sure it won't, you need to go over his head."
"That makes sense. I certainly don't want to repeat today. But... How do I get to the master besides through Fleshrender? I don't know my way around very well." You sigh. "I don't even know where to get a new curtain."
Bell thinks for a second, and then shrugs. "It's not that complicated. You just have to go further in until you can find someone to take the message the rest of the way. It wouldn't be us going directly to him to report." The idea of wandering in to randomly search for someone isn't appealing, but not having to report directly to the master is a relief. You wonder how wise it is on his part. Surely it would be better to ask questions right away? Bell eyes you. "But... If you ever need, I can help. Just get me. Okay?"
"Okay. Thank you. That means a lot to me." You smile wide. "This whole talk has." More than she can possibly know.
"I'm glad." Bell takes her hand off her shoulder and puts it in her lap, then seems to deflate. "Well, I'm not angry anymore. Guess you shocked that out of me. But I'm still hungry."
You nod. You're surprised you aren't wracked with hunger after everything today. You turn your thoughts to it, the same need coiled in your stomach as ever. Maybe it's the lack of ghouls. Maybe it's just that yesterday was so bad. But you can deal with this. You just want... A grin spreads across your face. You have one little way of returning the favor. "Bell, do you cook your food?"
She looks up at you with confusion written on her face. But after a moment she starts to laugh. "You're about to say you want to, aren't you?"
"Oh, no. I already do. I wanted to invite you, actually. I could cook your meat along with mine, and you could try it. And the others, too, if all of this hasn't changed their minds."
Bell cants her head. "You had me thinking I was special for a second." She doesn't sound very serious. "But... Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Is that what's up with you?"
"I'm sorry? What is 'up' with me?"
"There are several things up with you." Bell laughs at her own jab. "We just went over one. There's your horn. But one is... I don't know what you ate to spend three years in the bog without starving, much less to be more powerful than most naturals. You even feel stronger today. Honestly, I thought that was from eating the guy." Then Bell blanches. "Sorry, that's probably still not fun to hear, is it."
You shake your head. You don't know how to feel about that not being a subject that bothers Bell, but you aren't going to focus on that now. "I could almost never cook out in the bog. And most of what I ate was just meat I hunted. Like now, but... Not as much. And mostly smaller things. I don't think I had some secret to doing so well. Honestly, I have no idea how the master can get enough meat to supply all our rations every day."
Bell shrugs. "I never questioned it. I guess I thought it was like the light."
"The light?"
"Yeah, the light. All the tunnels are lit up enough to see, but I don't see any fires. It's not candles, or oil lamps. It's just..." She waves her hand. "There."
How have you never questioned that? There has to be something. But you can't think of it. And you would have noticed if there was something unusual glowing, wouldn't you?
Bell laughs. "See! Now you're trying to figure it out. The master is magic, Ythona. I wouldn't try to question just what he's capable of. It's enough to know he's very impressive. I mean, after all, he did make me." She puts a hand to her chest, and strikes a pompous pose with her chin.
You can't help but smile. ...Is that kind of bearing something she really could have learned as a wight?
Suddenly, Bell scrambles up to her feet, hissing. She's staring off the way you came, the way... If you strain your sense, you can feel his presence getting stronger. Getting closer. You wouldn't have noticed the change if you hadn't paid attention. But... "He's still not that close."
Bell shakes her head. "No, but now he's coming our way. He stalked off somewhere and I guess started sulking. He wasn't searching. Which means he's coming to chew us out or have another fit and if he tries to cow us all with his power again today I am going to try to eat him. Ugh." She shakes her head. "Ythona, you read the graves, right? Wait. Can you read?"
"Of course I can read. Do some wights... lose that?"
Bell shrugs. "I don't think so, but I thought a lot of humans couldn't read in the first place. I mean, I wouldn't know, but— Not the point. The graves. How many families were here? Is it likely to get expanded, setting aside, you know."
"Oh. Uh, several, technically. But it is mostly one family, and then several people that I would guess were defending the village from ghouls. Some of their relatives with them. It seems finished, for what it is."
"Okay. Good enough."
Bell starts off towards where Fleshrender is. For a second, you wonder if you should stay. You aren't supposed to leave your spot, after all. But you think back to Bell arguing with him earlier, and that settles that. You might need to interject.
You stand up and reluctantly step out of the shade. The itching spreads across your skin and then sinks down, settling out of reach of any possible scratching, starting to blossom into that phantom warmth. Why does it feel like this? You glance down at your hand for a second. Then you keep walking.
It doesn't take very long to reach Fleshrender. Even without him flaring his power, you're a little hesitant to get anywhere near him. But Bell isn't slowing down, and so you don't, either.
He's stomping towards you, and he's fuming. If he tried to calm himself down, he didn't succeed. Bell still just stomps right up to him. "Fleshrender."
After a full second he turns his head to look towards her and grimaces. Then his eyes flick towards you and he almost lights up. "Didn't I tell you to watch the graves? Wanted to test if I was serious about killing the next one to disobey?"
His expression twists into what looks like honest anticipation and it's enough to twist your stomach. You try to think of what to say, but Bell speaks up instead. "The graves were just for one family. It looks done. Our 'rat' isn't going to come back. Cut your losses."
And then the anger is back, and he's staring at Bell. "No." He takes a deep breath. "No. We're going to stay here until you fix the problem you made for me. I'm not going to take the fall for your incompetence."
Bell's back is to you, but you can all but see her grimace. "That isn't going to magically make this a problem we can fix for you. The longer you keep us all out here, the deeper a hole you dig yourself. I know you're stupid, but even you have to understand that on some level."
He scoffs, and then bends down to put his face level with hers. "I'm certainly not going to let you all run off without consequences to do this again."
"Then don't! If you want to avoid something like this happening again, do something that can actually help. Change how we patrol. Send us out in pairs, so we're less likely to miss things, if you're that worried."
Your stomach sinks. That's a very dangerous suggestion. If you encounter someone again and someone else is with you... But that's why she's proposing it, isn't it? In case you have another moment of weakness and hesitate. She's trying to help you, even as she solves this problem. It would be touching, but... It would put you in danger. It could cost someone else their life. And you're in no position to argue against it, even if Fleshrender would listen to reason.
You are jostled out of your worry by realizing Fleshrender is staring at you now. And then he starts laughing, turning his eye back to Bell. "What? Think I wouldn't guess why you're proposing this when you brought her along?" You don't know what he means by that. Even though he can't possibly know anything compromising, it's still unnerving. Maybe you shouldn't have come. "You think if you can just stick to your new favorite, you can keep her safe, and it'll work out better than the old one. Like I'm just going to fall for it."
Bell doesn't reply at first. She just stands there, tensed, snarling at him again. She looks like she's ready to attack him again.
And then you start to feel her power growing stronger, and hurry to her side. She is livid, and you notice tears on her cheeks. You need to step in and end this, before she snaps.
[] Back up Bell's idea. You can finish making the case. If he thinks Bell is proposing it so you and her can be together, then he can take the idea and never put you together, if he wants. He can think of it as a spiteful jab and decide he's won. It's frightening, it will be a problem, but not as much as letting this continue.
[] Get under his skin. Fleshrender doesn't listen to reason. He doesn't think right, seems to spite being told what best serves his interests. The only times he's ever listened to you are when you've made a demand or insulted his pride. He'll back down again. That, or he'll kill you. But that's where things are probably going if you don't act, anyways.
