FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 56: Speak Without Speaking

....

Monica lied in bed far longer than she ought to. It wasn't so much a lack of motivation, but the crushing weight of responsibility that kept her pressed to her mattress for minutes on end- interrupted by brief periods of anticipation for her Servant's return to her room, which she dreaded beyond belief. Perhaps she would've tried to fall back asleep and get some proper rest, she was already up earlier than usual after all, but two fears kept her mind spinning when she would rather it be still: first was the fear of the weasel-faced boy, the fear that her sleep would be once again interrupted. The second was the fear of Chrysaor's opinion, which she worried was now in a spiraling decline.

Instead, she wasted away scrolling on her phone, watching videos and checking social media for five, ten, over twenty minutes. She hadn't had much of any time to do this, and so took advantage of her procrastinatory lethargy to do just that. There was really nothing of note, except for the piling messages from her boss and coworkers. There weren't many, of course: few cared and fewer had the means to reach her, and besides, she'd only been gone for two days. For any normal person, two days without reply or alibi may warrant a missing persons report, or at least a knock on her door given that all the employees lived in the same complex, but such stints weren't so uncommon among their peers, and certainly not for her.

She recalled how, immediately after Rhiannon's suicide, she'd spent the better part of a week wandering the city in a dissociative stupor carried forward by reckless drinking and drug use- enough that it should have killed her, and, indeed, she spent some time in the hospital afterward. The one good thing that came from the experience, though she knew many who would consider it unfortunate, was that she could no longer stomach hard drugs- literally- and so had remained clean since, even of alcohol. Just the sight of either left stones in her stomach, and she saw both a lot, which might have explained her chronic lack of hunger, but that was besides the point.

There were a few scattered messages, one from her boss, which was really more of a warning then it was genuine worry, and another from a coworker with a more maternal attitude which came off as polite chastising colored with vague concern, but she, for her part, was concerned with neither, and cleared the notifications without even considering a response. There was only one thing that warranted a response right now, and that was her current situation: the two presumed enemies sitting in her living room.

...

Monica slowly opened the door to her room and peeked into the apartment. She noticed her Servant leaning against the corner between the living area and the kitchen. He watched her exit before returning his gaze to the couch, where their 'guests' almost certainly were. A flash of guilt cut through her chest as she wondered how long he'd been waiting, but even this was pushed deep down into her stomach so she could focus on the task ahead.

On the couch sat the Servant and Master duo, blankets still decorating the seat behind them, with Assassin on the left, nearer the bedroom door, and her Master on the right, nearer the balcony. Echo refused to make eye-contact, constantly looking to the side at some wall decoration that didn't actually exist- the kind of expression one would expect from a teenager. Her arms and legs were together in her lap, and no wonder, as they were still made of stone. Monica's eyes were keen enough to see that the stone had regressed enough for Echo to regain control of her shoulders and pelvis, but her arms and legs were still useless as anything other than glorified stilts, both remaining frozen in the drama of the previous night and contrasting with her serene, if slightly perturbed, expression.

While Chrysaor had a nasty habit of making the supernatural seem natural, Echo made it seem downright ethereal. To have such an impossibly beautiful woman-literally impossible, as women with indigo skin and pointed ears were rather rare nowadays- on her couch made her feel like she was in a bad sitcom, and that, at any moment, her sparkling skin would begin to flake away as nothing more than body paint. This was especially true given her outfit, which to her, even in her line of work, seemed like a teenager's bad joke. The sheer voyeurism of it, the cleverly folded sash and nothing else, caused mixed feelings to warm her chest, though Echo certainly didn't notice or care about the effect her indigo body, which sparkled as if stars laid just under the surface, would have on the average person, much less the average man. It occurred to her that her inordinate focus on Echo's clothes might have been spurred by jealousy, but she stubbornly suppressed that idea in her mind, as one usually does when suddenly confronted with the ugly truth.