DEMENTED | Romance | Fantasy | Slight Thriller

Chapter Seven: Confrontation

Chapter Seven: Confrontation

Ebony cowered in a corner as Shelly loomed over her. The woman was short, but the aura she gave off was more than intimidating. She'd just said something, and yet Ebony's mind had delved too deep into panic to register what she'd said.

"W-what?"

Shelly glared at her. "I said, How the hell'd ya get here?"

Ebony shrank back even further. "I can't tell you that." She'd promised the Goddess she wouldn't tell a soul about her task, and she didn't want to know what would happen to her if she broke her promise.

"Why the hell not?"

Ebony looked up at her, eyes wide and pleading. "Please, I just can't."

Shelly scoffed. "Surely you should be able to tell me how you got here, no matter whatever kind of shady business you've got yourself into."

Ebony frantically shook her head. "All I can tell you is that I wasn't meant to be here."

"Clearly." Shelly looked unimpressed. "You stand out like a misplaced gear."

Ebony wanted to run out the door Shelly'd slammed earlier, but she looked like she wasn't done asking questions.

"Please, ma'am, I could die a horrible death if I said a word--"

"It's Shelly," she corrected, seemingly softening up a little bit. "No ma'am or miss, any of that. Just Shelly."

She helped Ebony get up, and Ebony brushed off her skirts. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm not usually like that. It's just... you reminded me of someone I once knew."

Ebony looked at Shelly, curious. "Was she also an Absinthian?"

Shelly nodded. "She was. And in the same situation you were just in at my tavern, only back then it wasn't me running it."

"Can you tell me more about her?"

Shelly nodded. "But it's about time we head back to the bar. I'll tell ya more about her there."

She opened the door and gestured for Ebony to leave first.

When they returned, the bar was just like it had been before, only with a couple more people pulled up on the golden steam-powered brass stools. There, a lone robot stood, also coated in gold brass and a little rust, and gears clicked endlessly in the back of his head as he stood washing out beer mugs and plates at an industrial-sized sink. Ebony didn't remember seeing him before, and when she turned to Shelly with a questioning look, Shelly smiled a little.

"That's 27-C4-N, but we just call him C4-N [Pronounced CAN] for short. I rescued him from a junk pile and repaired him a while back, and he's been here ever since, covering for me when I need him and providing the always-needed extra hand."

She then nodded to an empty stool not far from where they stood. "Sit, and I'll tell you more about what happened."

"With the Absinthian girl?"

"Of course!" She exclaimed. "You didn't think I was gon' keep talking about C4-N over there, did ya?"

Shelly chuckled for a bit, then regained her composure. "Alright, I'll tell ya more about her."

Ebony leaned closer and mentally blocked out the surrounding tavern noises until the only voice she heard was Shelly's.

She stared out into the distance mournfully. "Her name was Izora, and we both fell madly in love. At least that's what I thought."

"We started off slowly, and definitely not as friends. She came here pleading for shelter, and since I was only an apprentice at the time my master decided whether she'd stay or go. And he let her stay."

"At first I thought it was a horrible decision. She was very noticeable in a crowd; her midnight-black hair and ash-hued skin differed greatly from that of an Aurian's chestnut-brown hair and olive skin. And Absinthians were just as illegal then as they are now, so I was extremely worried. But she stayed in the tavern at all times, and if anyone asked what realm she was from she'd call herself a mix between a Lyrian and creatures of the underground. No one has ever seen a native of Gaia, and no one thought to put two and two together with Absinthe, and she was able to live peacefully."

"So I tolerated her. Izora was kind to me, but foreign and unfamiliar, and only until I got used to waking up and finding her in the kitchen, cooking up some Absinthian breakfast with Aurian Spices, did I finally allow our friendship."

It was like the entire tavern was either listening to her story or just silent, for the only voice Ebony heard was Shelly's. The drawling way she spoke had vanished from her voice as well.

"Then as our master grew weaker, our reluctant friendship became more of a bond. We sat by him on his deathbed, holding his hand for all the night's long hours and simply watched as his soul passed to Janaria. It broke my heart, and Izora's more still, but nevertheless we continued on with the tavern, running it like we always did--only now we were no longer apprentices and had become potential teachers."

"And it was around that time we started becoming more than friends... we'd look each other in the eyes not just as lovers, but as sisters--we'd become inseparable and couldn't live without each other."

Shelly took a deep breath and wiped her eyes with a cloth she'd grabbed from nearby. "Then one night--the night I was planning to propose to her--she left.

"Didn't say anything, didn't leave a note or anything for me to find... strangely enough, she took none of her belongings with her. It was like she'd vanished into thin air."

"For days, weeks, months I was devastated. I'd just lost the love of my life, and all that time I'd thought I was hers. I wondered if she'd been kidnapped--I sent out search parties, used some of the tavern's personal savings to print up posters and signs on newspapers informing everyone to look for her... and nothing. I asked some of my friends down at the ports to look for her in Lyria or Gaia, wondering if she'd fled to any of those realms. Of course, I couldn't check Absinthe, but somehow I knew she wouldn't have gone there."

"And everything that came back was nothing. Nobody found any leads on her or had any idea what had happened to her. So I cried for a bit, and then considered her dead. That's what she was, for all I know."

"And ever since then... I've been here."

It was at that moment Ebony knew the tavern had been listening. There wasn't a sound in the room--everyone and everything was dead silent. Even C4-N had stopped scrubbing mugs and had craned his metallic neck to listen.

Then someone began sniffling, and the tavern slowly resumed to its normal noisy state, only now with a gloomy aura surrounding its chatter.

Ebony put a hand on Shelly's arm as she walked over behind the counter to begin working again. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

Shelly nodded, the normal way she spoke returning. "Thanks, miss. But that was nearly twenny years ago, and since then I've been... content."

As she walked away to attend to new customers, Ebony fiddled with her skirts. She'd always thought of Aurians as uptight snobs, but perhaps her perception of them was wrong. The emotions Shelly'd expressed when telling her story were nothing like she'd expected an Aurian to have, but maybe that was just Shelly.

But maybe it wasn't.

Ebony stayed at the bar for an hour after that, offering to help Shelly with the work and chatting with some of the kinder customers. She mainly felt guilty, for Shelly'd experienced horrible pain not knowing whether or not Izora was alive and if Shelly'd done anything wrong. At least she knew her mother's fate; what was left of her molding carcass buried in an obsidian crypt below Absinthe's castle grounds. Her father's newer carcass lay there as well, although she knew full well he did not deserve to be with her mother.

Ebony sighed. Her mother'd been a strong woman, but she was weak when it came to Ebony's father. And that was what brought upon her end.

Then a chill entered the tavern, and with it a tall, pale elegant man. Ebony's cheeks warmed despite the cold aura, yet turned shock-white as soon as he realized who he was.

"I'm looking for an Absinthian by the name of Ebony," the Prince of Death announced.