¤ Brandon

Silver relaxed as she let her feet guide her to her room. Having gone this way so many times in the past, she felt sure that she could make her way there now blindfolded. As she moved along the corridors, she recognised several familiar faces, most of them belonging to librarians and Adventurer Librarians that had been apprentices together with her. At her approach, however, most of them seemed to divert their gazes away; only a few openly met her eyes and returned her greetings.

Hearing the hushed whispering that seemed to follow her now, Silver felt a surge of unhappiness swell at her throat. Don’t tell me they still remember, after all this time? Or am I just being paranoid? Brushing away that thought, she fixed her gaze to the floor and continued resolutely on her way.

Reaching a doorway at the end of the corridor that opened to a staircase, she hesitated for a moment, a slight frown appearing on her forehead. In that moment, the darkness in the spacious stairwell seemed to leap at her, taunting her with the shadows that it held.

For heaven’s sake, get a grip. It’s been so long already! Irritated at herself, Silver gritted her teeth and entered through the doorway. Even so, she jogged quickly up the flights of stairs and unconsciously heaved a sigh of relief when she finally emerged at a well-lit landing. Forcing herself to look away from the dark staircase, she laid eyes on the corridor before her. And froze suddenly.

A familiar figure was leaning casually against her door, its face turned upwards to regard the warm light hanging from the ceiling. Although dressed in loose blue robes that identified him as an Adventurer Librarian, the figure still cut a distinctive silhouette, a toned body filling up the robes in a pleasing way that made more than one girl take a second look.

‘What in Balrog’s name are you doing here.’ Silver asked curtly, carefully keeping her voice emotionless.

‘Silver.’ The man stood up, and padded gracefully towards her. He walked with an admirable economy of movement, powerful muscles moving under his robes immediately betraying his identity as a skilled warrior. ‘They said you were coming back, but I had to make sure.’

‘I said, what are you doing here.’ Silver brushed past the man, and unlocked her door with a key she withdrew from a side pocket in her backpack. She entered the room, not bothering to invite him inside. ‘Just answer my question, Brandon.’

‘I wanted to see you, Silver. I came back to the Library once I heard that you were returning.’ The man named Brandon gestured easily with his calloused hands from where he stood at the doorway. His coal- black eyes held a hopeful expression. ‘I was hoping you would want to see me too.’

Silver let her backpack fall to the floor in a crash. She spun to face off with Brandon, her Olympus bow now tightly clenched in one fist. ‘Do. You. Think.’ She spat out each word, cold fury in her grey eyes and every line of her body. ‘That I would want to see you after what you did the last time?’

‘Look, I told you I was sorry about that-‘

‘I know you, Brandon. You will never be sorry for what you do. Not even after you had hurt someone that trusted you so much, and then left her to die. What about all those rumours you spread about me? I’m not the only one who has not forgotten them!’ Silver hissed.

‘Silver-‘

In a flash, the huntress had drawn her bow, a single glowing Soul Arrow strung on the bowstring. ‘Leave now. Or I swear, to the heavens, that I will send this straight through your black heart.’

The warmth in Brandon’s black eyes disappeared immediately. Silver thought they looked as flat as those of a snake. I was so bloody blind. She kept her aim on Brandon steady.

‘Have it your way, Silver. You were always this stubborn.’ Brandon said, his fists clenched at his side. ‘If you think you have just shown me that you have truly forgotten about us, you have only proved that you still carry the scars,’ he said in a hard voice, before turning around stiffly to leave.

With an emotionless face, Silver watched him turn the corner, before gently loosening the tension in her bowstring. The Soul Arrow vanished with a small fizzle. She entered her room, and shut the door loudly behind her.

She felt her knees tremble in weakness, and succumbed to them. Huddled at the bottom of her door, her Olympus discarded next to her, Silver hugged her knees to her chest and stared out into the window at the far wall.

‘If you think you have just shown me that you have truly forgotten about us, you have only proved that you still carry the scars!’ Brandon’s last retort rang again in her head. And I thought I had really forgotten. She squeezed her eyes against the tears in them, and against the ghosts of the past that now whispered in her mind. Her hand unconsciously traced the scar on her ribs through her Piettra top. Some scars really never go away.

It took her a while before Silver regained sufficient control of her body to unfold herself from her crouch on the floor. Slowly, she moved over to the cabinet in the room, and drew open its single door on creaky hinges to reveal several sets of Adventurer Librarian robes, dangling on their hangers like pale blue ghosts. Still in a half-trance, she removed one set, and changed into it, the cotton cool against her bare skin as she drew the robes over herself and fastened the cord around her waist.

She regarded herself in the mirror set behind the cabinet’s door. Her forearms were bare now, without the long sleeves of her Piettra top and her gloves to cover them. The sleeves of her Adventurer Librarian robes stopped slightly above her elbows, showing a glimpse of darkened scar tissue at her right elbow.

Mechanically, Silver pushed up her right sleeve, to reveal a set of four scars that started just below her right upper arm and ran all the way to the shoulder, roughly parallel to each other. She touched the raised ridges of the scars in detached fascination, staring blankly at their image in the mirror as she ran her fingers up every familiar groove and misshapen bump in her pale flesh. Scars. I’ll give that misbegotten son of a Cursed Eye scars.

What had happened didn’t unfold at all like how she had always imagined her first confrontation with Brandon would be, Silver thought angrily now, her eyes narrowing at her own reflection. She had gone through so many possible words that she would yell to his face to shame him, went through countless of times what she would do to bring him to his sorry knees to really plead for her forgiveness. She had even dreamt of it, all those long nights in the past when she had laid awake, racked by pain from the old scars.

And now, all she said was… that? Briefly, Silver wondered what Jaysen would have done if he had witnessed the confrontation just now.

What’s the point of dwelling on it? I can handle this alone. At that, Silver’s eyes hardened again, the grey in them the shade of cold stone. She jerked her sleeve down, then pulled open a drawer at the bottom of the cabinet, revealing some fingerless gloves cut out of black Drake skin. Silver drew one onto her right hand now, the long gloves ending above the elbow to conceal the horrific scars.

Preparations complete, she shut the cabinet and exited the room briskly, whatever shakiness remaining from earlier on lost in the cold fury that burnt in her once again.

¤ Stop Staring, Jaysen

‘The green robes are Apprentices, the greys are Masters, and the yellows are plain old Librarians like yours truly. Finally, the blues are Adventurer Librarians.’ Rei pointed out the different coloured robes the flitted around the mess hall as they stood at its entrance, waiting for Silver. ‘But we usually call them Ad Libs, to save us the tangled tongues.’

‘Mm. Good point there.’ Jaysen nodded, trying to commit it all to memory. ‘There aren’t a lot of ah, Ad Libs around, are there?’

Rei shrugged, pushing up his glasses again. ‘They have the title of Adventurers for a reason. They are usually travelling around the islands on their Projects, and only come back for short periods of time. Some don’t even return for years at a time.’

‘No wonder you were all so happy when Silver returned.’

‘She returned sooner than we all expected, especially after-‘ Rei suddenly stopped speaking, and hurriedly covered up his slip of tongue. ‘But that’s not for me to say.’

‘Come now, wise old Librarian.’ Jaysen folded his arm. ‘Please enlighten this ignorant bandit about the strange enigmatic references you, Grendel and Silver keep making about her past.’

‘Flattery doesn’t work with this wise old Librarian, I’m sorry.’ Rei shook his head stubbornly. ‘I can only say that something so bad happened, she nearly left the Library after that. You want to know more, you ask Silver about it.’

‘Ask me about what?’

‘Silver, the light of my life!’ Jaysen spun around and cried, then his mouth fell open when he laid eyes on the girl before him. Brushing her loose silver curls away from her face, Silver stared at Jaysen staring at her, puzzled and mildly irritated. ‘What, did I grow an extra head while I was gone?’

‘You’re in a dress.’ Jaysen merely said, his light blue eyes amazed. Silver indeed looked quite different in her Ad Lib robes, her slender frame made more feminine in the loose robes that were cinched around her waist with a plain leather cord.

‘So are countless of other girls in here.’ Silver said in exasperation, tugging at her waist cord awkwardly under Jaysen’s stare. ‘Quit looking already.’ She brandished a finger at him threateningly.

‘How can this beautiful damsel deny my pining heart of that particular pleasure?’ Jaysen said, grinning now. Embarrassed now, Silver brushed past him and went into the mess hall.

‘Eh, you heard her. Stop staring already, it’s rude.’ Rei nudged Jaysen.

‘Why does she have that glove thing? No other Ad Libs have it.’ Jaysen noted, pointing at Silver’s single black glove that covered her entire arm.

‘It’s some arm guard archers use to protect their arms from the bowstring.’ Rei replied smoothly.

Jaysen frowned. ‘But Silver uses her right hand to draw her bow, shouldn’t an armguard be on the left?‘

Rei shrugged and shoved Jaysen playfully. ‘That’s her business. Are you moving or not?’

Lightning fast, Jaysen had his arm around Rei’s head in a loose chokehold. ‘This will teach you to challenge your elders, young Rei.’ He chuckled as he dragged Rei along into the mess hall.

‘And you were calling me “wise old Librarian” just minutes ago!!’ Rei protested, his glasses knocked comically askew by the brief tussle.

After the meal, the trio left the mess hall, chatting lazily on full stomachs. ‘Where did you say Wing could be found again?’ Silver asked as they wandered along one of the emptier corridors that led to the lift lobby.

‘Near the bottom of town, I think. To the eastern side.’ Rei said, rubbing his temple as he recalled.

Jaysen spoke up. ‘Let me come with you, dear lady. I want to hear what he has to say too.’

‘Mm, shouldn’t be a problem.’ Silver stroked the tough Drake leather of her glove. ‘I think-‘

But Jaysen never found out what she thought as she abruptly cut off her sentence, staring hard at someone further along on the corridor. Rei saw that someone too, and cursed under his breath.

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Sighs. My apologies, people. That was a scene with such potential, and I went and screw it up. I could have handled it better, imo. Oh well.

And I just embarked on the writing of a romance part for this story. And now, Redemption needs a PG rating. >.< Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Mocha Chip Cookies for today! ^^ <3 for you too, dear reader.