Mages of Rubia ✔️

25

"And this child just showed up at the forge?" I ask Ravana as we drive the car somewhere I can blow it up.

"Yup. It's his cousin. She's a sweetheart."

"She's horrifying."

"You're horrifying. I told you we needed you to dispose of a stolen car and you brought explosives. How many times have you done this?" Ravana asks.

"Mm I dunno, three? I'm people's go-to for disposing of things, it isn't my fault."

I can see Ravana's question. I wait for him to ask anyway.

"Have you ever disposed of bodies?" he asks.

I roll my eyes. "It's rude to ask someone's body count like that, you know."

He frowns at me. "Are you a murderer?"

"I'm a con-man, Ray, I don't kill people. I just have some contacts I have to keep happy and apparently I'm naturally talented in the disposal of illegal objects and corpses."

"God, Arden, that's awful."

"I don't mind it. When a person's dead they're just meat, you know? Are you a murderer?"

Ravana winces. "I don't know that we need to discuss that."

"I don't mind if you are. Is killing fun?"

"God, Arden, please."

Ravana has said the g-word a couple times now. He rubs at the sensitive parts of his skin where the burning from it is worst. He says that word a lot when something startles him. I think its a leftover instinct from when he was human.

"No, tell me about it. I already know how you are with some forms of violence, is killing similar?"

Ravana sighs. "It's dependant on who I'm killing. With demons dying isn't a big deal--you just lose your physical form for a couple hundred years. Sometimes killing is consensual down there. That's fun enough. When it isn't consensual it's fun in a different way. It's revenge. I'm good at revenge."

I nod. "Right. You've mentioned revenge before."

"Yeah."

"So you've never killed anyone unprompted?"

"Well who would?"

I shrug. Certainly not me. I may be curious about killing but that doesn't mean I would harm anybody unprovoked. I'll probably have an opportunity to kill whenever this destiny happens.

"You're twisted," Ravana mutters.

I push him out of my thoughts. "Stay out of there, dick, I'm trying to drive."

We get to a field far away from any people. I drive off the dirt road into it, the bumping and rattling clearly startling Ravana as he starts swearing up a storm--which is really unusual for him. I think it's kind of interesting.

I stop in the middle of the field where I can't see the road anymore, and scramble through the open window and onto the top of the car before Ravana even catches his breath. I stare out into the field, seeing emptiness, plants, a couple distant trees, and the tire tracks the car left.

If it weren't for the feeling of Ravana's still-jumbled thoughts brushing against mine, I would think I was the only person in the world.

"One would think you'd slow down, not speed up, in uncertain terrain," he growls.

"Well, yeah, if I wasn't gonna blow the car up I'd be more cautious, surely."

"Do you not get nauseated from that?"