WW Chapter 87: Morning After (Patreon)

When the morning came, Ezra reread the letter and, after fighting against himself, constantly arguing on whether or not to include it, added another page.

He reread the words a dozen times over, and he couldn’t help but hate them more the more he read. Was he being the right amount of casual? Was he supposed to profess his love? That sounded stupid, especially when he wasn’t sure that he did love her that way. It’d be real shitty to mislead her for a long time simply because he liked being wanted. Finally, he settled on the final draft, even as he didn’t think it was any good.

Tilly,

Don’t worry about making things awkward. I’m good. I don’t mind if you’ve finally seen my charm for what it is. It is a joke. I think I feel the same?

I mean, I care about you. I’ve always loved you like a sister, but I’m not sure if it’s still just that. When you wrote about Georg, I think I was jealous, or maybe just protective. It’ll probably be easier for both of us when we see each other next. We’ve never had time to even think about anything more than just surviving, so it’s a weird thought to be adults, you know? Like, I know some people our age who have children and wives. That doesn’t feel like something that I could be near, but we never could do anything but fight to continue to survive. 

Anyways. 

I hope that Mabel’s right, that we see each other before too long. It’ll be good to be able to talk about “this”, whatever “this” is. I want to see you, and I’m looking forward to it.

Ezra.

He couldn’t help but scowl at what he’d written. They were… something uncomfortable. Maybe it was because they might be real instead of just some flirting to try to get his way. If it didn’t mean anything, if it wouldn’t go anywhere, but Tilly mattered. She wasn’t somebody he had a casual acquaintance with, and if he managed to fuck this up, it wouldn’t be annoying or frustrating, it’d be devastating.

He couldn’t treat this casually, and Ezra couldn’t help but feel some measure of gratitude for the excuse to gain a little bit of extra distance where he simply couldn’t even attempt to speak to Tilly. Maybe he’d feel a little bit more comfortable about having to talk after he had a little while to think about it.

For now, he pushed all thoughts about Tilly from his mind. Instead, he walked into Adonis’s room to bid his goodbyes. As always, his young charge was still sleeping, even as the early sunlight of summer had largely lit his room ablaze. Bright sunlight streamed between the curtains, and Ezra simply found a comfortable place to sit for a short while before he decided against waking Adonis up to say goodbye once his relief arrived.

He had plenty of time to make his way slowly out of the manor, waving good morning to the people he passed as he entered the path into the underground passage. Before he could arrive, though, Dominick found him, Basil standing behind the old man.

“Effective immediately,” Dominick said, without preamble, “you and Basil are buddies whenever you are not inside the manor. That means you’re eating meals together, you’re training together, you’re relieving yourselves together. In the event that something happens and you need to both hurry somewhere, there shouldn’t be a single fucking second that it takes for you to find each other. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Ezra saluted, and Dominick smiled once, the movement tight.

“Good man. I won’t have any time to train you before you go, so just take this: practice hard, practice every day. You’re making good progress, just don’t hurry too fast.”

Dominick didn’t wait for any answer before he turned and walked away. Once he wasn’t in immediate view, Basil smirked, just a little bit, his teeth shining in the shadow of his hooded cloak as he stepped forward with a hand outstretched.

“Yes,” Ezra laughed, reaching a hand out and clasping Basil’s wrist, “you’re gonna get me back. It’s just a question of when.”

“Yes,” Basil agreed. “But we are also going to have each other’s backs.”

“That too.”

Together, they walked through the security checkpoint and into the passage that connected the two locations. In the passageway, Basil loosened up even more, pulling his hood down for a short time and adjusting the neckline of his armor. Like all of the Pseudo-Knights, Basil’s equipment was high-quality, at least as high of quality as Ezra’s own half plate. However, since Ezra was a frontline fighter and Basil a stealthy sniper, where Ezra’s armor was bulky and bright, Basil was dark and utilitarian.

Boiled leather sections of additional padding were carefully stitched over the finely wrought chain mail armor, which was almost entirely invisible under camouflaging patterns and covering. Four quivers hung from Basil’s waist, two on each side, and the man seemed to relax into the relative darkness of the corridor, even as they were brightly lit by the major lights.

“Are you ready for this mission?” Basil asked as their steps echoed down the stone hallway.

“Honestly, no,” Ezra scoffed. “I’ve barely heard anything about this Ember Duchy, but what little I have heard seems to paint them as Brayton’s rivals, if not outright enemies. Then, you and I are going with both of the Duke’s sons to this unfriendly place, to try to get a Knight to follow us? I don’t know how ready I could possibly be.”

Basil laughed, the sound echoing through the hallway. Then, he shrugged and agreed.

“It’s not an easy situation to be in, that’s for sure. If there was some simple solution for it all, we wouldn’t be called the elite crack squad.”

“There’s no reason for anybody to even think of us as the elite crack squad,” Ezra griped back. “At best, we are the elite ass squad. Just slightly above the shitter.”

They continued their path, joking back and forth, and Ezra found that he was supremely grateful that Basil was the one coming along with him, not one of a couple of the other Pseudo-Knights he could think of. That said, with what Basil’s skills were, did this mean that, if something happened, Ezra was going to be in charge of holding the line? What kind of enemies could they potentially be facing? Would he even be capable of surviving if they had an infernal coming around?

As they got back into the garrison, Ezra started to walk towards the mess hall, then looked at Basil. The somewhat older man simply stood about half a meter away, his footsteps falling directly beside Ezra, each step keeping him close enough to embrace Ezra, if he wanted.

“Do you have to be that close to me?” The younger man demanded.

“No,” Basil laughed, immediately stepping back. “Just wanted to see how long it’d take to piss you off. Honestly, I’m going to stick around you, but I’m also going to stay out of people’s view, if I can manage it. The upper echelons already know what’s happening, while the rank-and-file don’t need to know, and having you not only get the training you’ve had until now combined with a Pseudo-Knight constantly following you around isn’t going to help.”

“That means I can’t tell my friends?” Ezra asked. He already had a fair amount of things he had to keep from them because of his assignment, though the fact that he was working in the Duke’s property hadn’t been a secret.

“Tell me who your three strongest options are to join the squad,” Basil shook his head. “Don’t tell them yourself, but there’s a good chance that the guys you hang out with can come along. Just about everybody gets along with me, so I don’t care who comes along. However, with you being along, anybody from the anti-Duke faction is straight off the table.”

“Good,” Ezra said. “If I had to travel with just a few of them for weeks or months, I’d lose my mind. As for who I’d like to have come along, I wouldn’t mind having every one of the people in the so-called commoner squad.”

“I doubt that’ll happen, so don’t get your hopes up. However, I’ll pass that on, let my own evaluations as well as others determine who ends up coming along.”

With no further conversation, Basil disappeared, stepping away and into a shadow. Even as Ezra knew he was there, something about the man seemed to force Ezra’s attention away. He didn’t care to continue to stare needlessly at the corner, instead making his way to the mess hall. His stomach was growling, and though it’d been less than a year since he’d first dreamed of Jormun and started eating well every day, he was used to eating until he was full several times a day.

The mess hall was nearly empty, as it usually was when Ezra got there in the morning. Unfortunately, somehow, Anders and a large portion of the anti-Duke faction were already sitting. Willem, as the strongest of the now three Adepts in the group of insufferable assholes, noted Ezra’s entrance and leaned over Anders. He whispered something, and Ezra didn’t try to hide his sigh as he realized that, as he was, to their perception, all alone and in a relatively open place, they were going to make nuisances of themselves.

Then, Ezra allowed himself a smile. Because he was never alone and the little jackasses were cautious, there was very little they could ever actually do to him. For the first couple of weeks here in the garrison, they’d been able to strike out at him during dueling practice, but no longer. He’d learned dueling fast, so now he was at least evenly matched against even the best duelists that Anders had under his control. Now, they could only mumble little insults when there wasn’t anyone close by. 

As he settled into his seat with his tray of food, Ezra could feel the whisper of wind accompanying the approach of Anders, Willem, Louis, and Matthias, the latest Adept among the group.

“Hey, Ezz,” Anders greeted, his supremely punchable face looming close. His tone was kind, as if he wasn’t the little asshole he was.

“Fuck off,” Ezra sighed. He acted defeated, knowing the effect it would have on the circling Adepts and their loser leader. Each stepped forward, looming closer as Anders continued his performance.

“Whose dick did you suck to get into the Duke's good graces? I know that you’ve been in the Duke’s manor. Why?”

“You think I’m going to tell you that?” Ezra laughed. “All prostitutes have the right to keep the names out of business. Plus, I know your mother wouldn’t want to hear whose dick is getting sucked.”

Anders flushed, his hand reaching to his hip. A knife hung there, and he fingered it as he snarled, “If I ask you the right way, yeah, you’re gonna listen.” 

“Try again, then. I didn’t hear a please or anything.”

“Shut up. Do as I say and you won’t get hurt. We’re not scared of getting this done here, so just fucking obey already. Why does the Duke trust you?” As he made the demands, a hand grabbed the scruff of Ezra’s neck, pulling on the hair there. “What’re you doing there? And we have something we need you to do there.”

With a grunt of pain, Ezra twisted his head out of whoever’s grasp that was as he spun and stood up. The four would-be bullies stared up at him as he stood, and Anders’s face twisted into an ugly smile. Before they could say anything, Ezra interrupted.

“I was hoping to draw this out longer.”

“What’s the problem, Ezz? We just came to talk!” He leaned forward to whisper as he continued, “There’s no proof here. You start something, you have to deal with the consequences, not us.”

“You might think that,” Ezra laughed out loud, his eyes flickering to the faint shadow at the edge of a nearby table. Then, without saying anything more, he raised his knee forcefully into Anders’s gut. His left hand twisted Anders’s away from the knife. Ezra’s metal kneepad punched the wind from the man’s chest, and he crumpled to the ground with a wheeze of pain, his knife forgotten 

“Violent fucker!” Willem shouted, bringing attention to the altercation as he raised a hand and chopped it down at Ezra’s arm. Water aura flowed into existence along the edge of his hand, and Ezra focused on that first. The other two men pushed forward as well, but Louis couldn’t use his shadow aura without impeding the others’ vision while Matthias’s wooden affinity wasn’t very good at fighting inside in close quarters like this.

Ezra, with his better understanding of shrouds, covered his left arm with whirling winds. He pictured Dominick’s defenses as he raised the arm. Willem struck, but Ezra’s aura was stronger. The water was turned to mist as wind sliced through Willem’s uniform’s sleeve. Blood misted for a split second as Willem pulled back with another shouted curse. 

“Attempted murder!” he screamed.

“Little bitch starts it and starts complaining,” Ezra chuckled, his vision going scarlet with rage. He didn’t often let himself get this angry any more. 

He let the beast loose.

Louis lunged forward with a small blade of his own. The thought of why the fuck these idiots were so desperate crossed Ezra’s mind, but he couldn’t actually think of that right now. They were going for blood. They’d get it.

His hand shot down, catching Louis’s wrist. He swung Louis around fast, smacking him into Willem as he gathered himself. Willem tumbled to the ground, stumbling over a still groaning Anders. Ezra’s knee raised again, smashing into Louis’s elbow. The joint snapped, and Louis screamed in pain as he tried to pull his limp hand out of Ezra’s grasp. Ezra drew on aura to keep the hold as he turned his shoulder to Matthias. The other Adept stabbed forward with a knife of his own, but Ezra’s movement made it slide off his pauldron.

With a twist of his hips, Ezra kicked hard into the outside of Louis’s left knee, bending it inward. The shadow-affinity Adept who hadn’t done much flopped to the ground with a groan, and Ezra was alone with Matthias. Now, armored and against a man with a single small knife, Ezra was in complete control. He heard shouting throughout the hall, but couldn’t understand it over the rushing of blood in his ears. Matthias glanced around, seeming to look for help, but Ezra didn’t give him time to get it.

He lunged forward, raising his left gauntleted hand to knock the blade to the side. His right hand, with wind aura pushing it faster, flashed forward and smashed into the side of Matthias’s jaw. With that single hit, he lost consciousness and fell to the ground in a heap.

His heart still rushing in his chest, Ezra had to hold himself back from kicking or stomping on the little fuckers, and instead, he realized he might have gone a little overboard. At least, he thought that for a second before he saw his buddy.

Basil stood nearby, a broad smile on his face as he stepped forward and threw his arm over Ezra’s shoulder.

“We’ve got the fuckers.”