Put back together

18. Magic, I guess?

After about half an hour of tense silence between the three of them Virgil came back.

He had some how removed the shell and unceremoniously dumped the chopped up meat into the soup.

"That should take like... ten minutes? Who knows," he said but it seemed more like he was talking to himself than them.

Despite the cold fear that crept up Patton's spine whenever Virgil came too close, he was grateful for the broken silence.

He wasn't sure why Virgil seemed so much more dangerous than Remy.
Maybe it was the fact that he actually had seen Virgil use magic.

"Why are you people even here?", Virgil asked biting at his thumb. He looked tired, his eyes small from exhaustion and dark rings underneath them.

"It's... complicated," Roman said hesitantly. His voice sounded heavy.

"Oh, I see. Didn't have to get that specific, you know?", Virgil deadpanned.

Roman clicked his tounge in slight annoyance: "The short version is that we are looking for something and are being chased by people who will most likely kill us when they get the chance."

Virgil's eyes narrowed.

"What people?"

There seemed to be something else in the question like an underlying threat.

"Revolutionars."

"Where are you from?"

Roman glanced over at Patton and met his eyes for a moment.

"Patton and I are from Sallerow-"

"Where is that from here?", Virgil cut him off.

"West," Logan answered. "Same direction as Natica."

"Natica is south from here. West is just more dead land," Virgil frowned. "Which one is it?"

An irritated or maybe confused look crossed Logan's face.

"I'd guess it's south then but how can Natica be south from here? The bridge we crossed leads north, sure, but we ran East for quite a while. It should at the very least be Southwest!"

Virgil shook his head.

"These Islands don't do logic. They're cursed. There's a reason people call them that. You can't expect everything to work the way you think it should around here."

Patton's hand wrapped tightly around his amulet.

"Then how did you know what direction it is?," Roman asked.

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?," Virgil looked at him like he was the insane one. "Magic, I guess?"

"Why do you live here?," Patton asked and wished he hadn't when Virgil's eyes focused on him.

"I don't know. Very few visitors, lots of cool plants and animals and stuff and lots of magic in basically everything," he shrugged.

"What do you mean by that?", Logan asked. "'Magic in basically everything'?"

Virgil frowned and gestured vaguely: "It's like- There was a mage here, who cursed the Islands and the animals and some of the people and like- basically everything. So now... there is magic - from the curse - in everything. Does that make sense?"

More than most if the stuff you've said, Patton thought.
He just nodded instead of saying that though.

"There were people cursed?", Logan asked. He sounded surprised.

"Yeah, I guess. Seems a bit unlikely that every fucking bug was cursed and no human, don't cha think?"

Logan nodded seemingly deep in thought.

Virgil turned his attention back to the pot stirring a little in it with a wooden spoon.

Patton turned to Roman who was leaning against the stone wall and frowning at Virgil.
Well, at least he wasn't the only one uncomfortable around the mage.

"Do you know who cursed the Islands?", Roman asked.

"What is this? Twenty questions? And how would I know? I haven't always lived here!," Roman looked taken aback by the suddenly aggressive answer.

"Dinner's ready," Virgil muttered and the pot moved away from the fire landing in the middle of the 'room'.

Virgil disappeared behind the curtain and came back a moment later with a few mismatched bowls and spoons. One was made of porcelain with a beautiful pattern of silver and blue, two were made of wood, one carved unevenly obviously by a beginner, the other was smooth with what looked like letters around the bottom and the last bowl looked like glass but Patton doubted that. Glass for a bowl. That was ridiculous.

Virgil handed three of the bowls to Patton, keeping the badly made one for himself.

Logan took the other wooden one and Patton noticed him inspect the letters on the bottom curiously. So they were letters then. He wondered what it said.

Roman took the probably-not-glass one with some hesitation and shot Patton a questioning look to make sure he was fine with that.

He was.

He had never eaten out of a porcelain bowl before - the material was way to expensive for him to afford - and he preferred it over something that most likely had been made with magic.

Virgil filled their bowls and told them to take more if they wanted to before plopping down near the fire.

The soup smelled weird. It wasn't really a strong smell, only really noticeable from up close, but it was foreign and Patton couldn't even place a single ingredient.

Hesitantly he nipped at the milky liquid.

The taste was a foreign as the smell but surprisingly good.
It was warm but somehow not hot anymore and tasted like nothing Patton had ever eaten before.
It was also weirdly thick but somehow that wasn't bad.

He tried one of the pieces of monster meat swimming in the soup.
It was soft and tasted similar to duck meat mixed with hazelnut.

Weird.

Weird but somehow good.

His stomach only now seemed to realise that he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast (it felt forever ago) and he emptied two and a half bowl before he finally felt full.

Roman and Logan seemed to be just as hungry while Virgil barely ate at all, instead  he just watched them.

Patton tried to ignore it as best as he could.

When they all had finished Virgil took the bowls back to where ever he had gotten them from and came back with a bunch of blankets. At least twenty.
Patton wondered why he had all this stuff if he hated having guests and lived alone.

With a mumbled "Goodnight" Virgil disappeared again and they were on their own.

Roman took initiative and laid out a few blankets as makeshift mattresses.
It was warm enough due to the fire so each of them only took one blanket and the rest made for a pretty good bed.

Patton took the spot between Roman and Logan. On one hand because he didn't want them to tear eachother apart in the middle of the night, on the other hand it gave him a sense of security.

Win-win.

He fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the long day.

He woke up again with both Logan and Roman hugging him and if he pretended to be asleep so he wouldn't have to move, then frankly that was his business and no one else's.