THE FORTUNIST

31. Rayton

“Lemohn's Mirror takes the form of a mirror.”

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The red haired girl giggled and smiled bashfully. "I'll buy this place someday," she confidently said, "then you can waltz in anytime you want and stare at her as long as you want."

"Wouldn't that make me a creep?"

"A palace servant all the way in Xri for love? No way, you'd be the sweetest creep. People would write songs about you." …

Rayton wakes up with a feeling of no breath in his lungs. In genuine panic, he greedily draws in air as he opens his eyes, instantly remembering the moments leading to his abduction.

What in the Fortunist's name?

"You are awake."

Rayton realises his hands are bound behind him as he rests against the trunk of a sturdy groovy tree. "Is this really necessary?" He calls, tugging against the bonds.

"I'm up here."

He looks up and spots his kidnapper dangling from the tree branches. When she first spoke, he had picked up her voice to his right. How did she get to the tree so fast? She jumps down, landing smoothly on her feet front of him. She stoops low and their noses almost touch. Strands of her fiery red hair tickle his face. She pulls back and scrutinizes him.

"How long have I been out?"

"Twenty minutes give or take."

With how groggy he feels, he would have sworn it was twenty days. "Anarella," he drawls for want for words, "you certainly didn't change much."

"Aah," her lips tilt in a one sided smile, "you remember me."

"You're not really a type to forget. The question should be the other way round." Anarella is taller and muscularly slender now, but the faint drawl of Cailis accent still lurks under her otherwise accentless tone. Her hair is just as bright, her disposition just as fierce.

"The creep who fell in love. He cried so much and called Cailis the most horrible place," Anarella says wryly.

Rayton blushes. Apparently, Anarella might actually recall every single second of their brief encounter thirteen years ago. Those are memories Rayton does not want to remember however and Anarella ignorantly teasing him about it might displease him and cause him to do something he might regret— like getting out of the restraints.

Rayton never told Anarella his true identity when they first met. He would have, but she'd already seen him through Thwein's eyes as a servant who had fallen hopelessly in love. The illusion could have been the only reason Anarella had pitied him all those years ago and Rayton automatically guesses that the young woman would not take likely to being the brunt of deceit.

"So we remember each other and there's no enmity between us. There never was. Can you untie me?"

"You used to be just a servant shirking his duties for love and now you are a soldier. A soldier with this," she whips out the half burnt advertisement drawing of her as a bounty hunter.

"That… that's not… I left that at…"

"You left it at my restaurant. MY restaurant," she smiles in fake amicability. "I'll be sure to return it before Meda sees it's gone."

"I'm not the one who burnt it if that's what you think," Rayton feels inclined to claim. "I met some kids lighting them up and they ran away when I came along."

"Damn that Thornton boy," Anarella says to herself looking up to the sky while giving an exasperated roll of eyes. Anarella does not know that Rayton's hearing is way above average so that he hears her private cuss. She focuses her attention back to him as she crumples the piece and shoves it roughly into her sleeve. Rayton finds himself wincing on the paper's behalf and Anarella cusses more about delinquent boys not knowing the exorbitant price of paper.