Buried Stars

CHAPTER THREE: RUMOURS

Still unsettled by his sudden appearance, I nodded curtly, before asking a question of my own.
"Um," I began, "but, why, exactly?" He didn't reply. He pulled out what looked like some sort of post card, dropped it on our table and walked away.

I called out to him, but he ignored me and walked up the glass staircase, up to the Hellens-only section. Guess that solved the question of what kind of guy he was.

"Frank?" John called. I looked at what he was pointing to: a large E in what was unmistakably Edie's handwriting, as well as a date and place: February 8, 08:00, Kenshaw, B.S.

"What's the Kenshaw, B.S.?" Fives asked.

"It's, um. Well, this was written by her. Edie, I mean," I said, looking up from the letter to John and Fives. "Kenshaw's my, er, our, hometown. I, uh, don't know what B.S. is."

"Oh. Shit." John said. I turned the card over, and there it was: the symbol of the Legionaries.

"Legionaries? The hell they got to do with this?" John exclaimed, confused. I didn't know much about the Legionaries, but I did know that they were dangerous and supposed to have been killed off almost twenty years prior.

"Shhh! Shit, want to get arrested or something?" said Fives. Just the mentioning of the Legionaries outside of strictly government-sanctioned situations was punishable, up to ten years. "Put that away!" he said to me.

I quickly stuffed it into my pocket, looking around to ensure that no one else saw the logo. Despite the noise that John managed to make, barely anyone in seemed to have noticed.
John quickly put down twenty shells on the table, more than twice what the bill actually was, and we made our way out of the Tavern.

Once we were safely out of earshot of anyone, we turned into a nearby alleyway and I pulled the letter out again.

"What in the hell is this?" John said, echoing all of our collective thoughts.

I looked back at the letter and ran my finger across the Legionaries symbol. It was a relief, the symbol protruding where the Old World Greek helmet was, flanked by two slightly less protruding swords. I was too young to remember anything else about the Legionaries outside of what I was taught at school. And from that alone I had zero intention of wanting to mess with them.

"It's, well. Written by her, I guess?" I offered weakly.

"What kind of... you were supposed to meet her, like, tomorrow, right?" Fives asked. I nodded.

"Weird," he said, shaking his head.

"She must've... I dunno. This shit reeks." John said. "She could have just messaged you, right?"

"I guess," I said. Thinking about it, she indeed hadn't texted me in a while. "I'm just. I dunno. Why would she send, this? I don't..." I trailed off, the thoughts entering my mind too unpleasant to heed much thought at the moment.

John nodded and slapped my back. "Yeah dude. It's, um. I don't know what this is. Maybe she just wanted to drum up some excitement? Didn't want to message you directly about not visiting the bubble?"

That last part did make me laugh despite myself. It was true enough that Edie would go to great lengths to try to change something without actually confronting it head-on, yet this felt different to me somehow. Granted, it always did feel different with her, and usually wasn't, but this was even more different than usual.

"Let's head back to the apartment," volunteered Fives. "It's getting late enough as it is. Maybe she's left you a message, and it will explain everything." It actually wasn't late, at all, it being maybe five o' clock or so, but I was honestly not in the mood to do much of anything anymore.