Lille sighed. “Well, it was certainly a nice change of pace while it lasted. But there’s more than meets the eye to those Frelsian folks. They’re not nearly as polite as they make themselves out to be.”
Three days now since Lille had graced his new cabin. Bern still could not stop basking in the miracle of her presence.
Her hair was shorn short as part of the humiliation Luther had so unnecessarily inflicted on the refugees who had made their way down out of the hills. Convinced they were spies or saboteurs he had them locked away in the depths of his new city until his advisers convinced that defectors and dissidents were a resource not a threat.
As she rattled on over tea about Sanctuary society and politics, Bern registered only the occasional sentence, his eyes fixated on this apparition before him, this mythical creature he was sure he would never glimpse again.
Lille’s flesh-weaving had regressed a bit so that her burn scars were again visible. Bern was happy to see it, actually. Those scars were part of her. They were what made her his Lille. but on the positive side, most of her neuronal manipulations had reverted. Her sass had returned with a vengeance, though her wits remained perhaps a tad more dulled and slower than before the Frelsians had laid their hands on her, but it was only a matter of time before she regained her senses. Thankfully, the craft of flesh weaving was entirely reversible when neglected.
The window of neglect that enabled her old self to take root again coincided with the aftermath of James’ raid on the Sanctuary. With half of Frelsi destroyed, the populace and their overseers became consumed with rebuilding and the rehabilitation of Hemisouls became a lesser priority.
This allowed her personality to revert to enough of its former self to realize it was no place she had wanted to be, especially not without Bern. So she had wandered away from a Sanctuary-sponsored nature walk and continued down the mountain, through the battlefields with corpses still unreclaimed, swam across the river still burgeoning with flood waters though the rains had nearly ceased.
And now here she was, in Bern’s new cabin, across a swath of pitted plain from Luther’s new village built now on an artificial hill looking like a cross between Montmartre and Mont Saint-Michel. They were enjoying they’re third cup of tea that day while their bodyguard Quentin patrolled the garden with a pair of pruners and a battle axe.
Lille went on endlessly about Sanctuary intrigue, the political maneuvering, trysts and betrayals as they happened both before the raid and after the turmoil that had perturbed the social equilibrium and interrupted the regularity of her schedule of beauty treatments and brainwashing sessions.
Bern registered only about one out of every three words as he basked in the sight of the most significant and magnificent soul in his existence. His soul mate returned. He had honestly never expected to see her again for eternity.
She was dead now. Her soul free thanks to the services of an assassin/facilitator. It made Bern anxious now to realize that now there was no chance his soul would end up with hers once his living body died in prison. There were ways to remedy that, but not without the assistance of Frelsi.
It took a few moments to realize that Lille had stopped talking. In fact, she was now frowning at him.
“Blah-blah-blah. Are you even listening to me, Bern? The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Isn’t that right, Bern?”
Bern noted the twist in her lip and recognized from experience the imminence of danger. Luckily, he had chosen the right moments to be attentive.
“Utter nonsense. I happen to know it falls mainly in the mountains. The Pyrenees, to be precise.”
