Why not Norway? (ft. MisALBy)

Misery had adjusted quickly to the life beside Eamonn. He was equally experienced and intelligent; and though usually serious, he would humour her by cracking lame jokes and entertaining her own playful nature at times of privacy. As a partner he was polite and chivalrous, but after some time even the formal courting had become rather more comfortable. What he or she could not express physically they expressed in words; and after the initial tension, Misery found herself accepting of a fleeting touch, or giving into a gentle kiss. She grew closer to Eamonn in body as well as in spirit; and by the time she could call Eamonn her lover, she would have learned to call him her friend.

They rarely spent time apart; both were required to attend the same meetings, with the exception of the Council Eamonn held with the other Princes. At such times Misery drifted in meditations, sometimes taking a moment to contact family, at other times nursing new bonds she had made and checking up on the many vampires that were away from the mountain. When her mind tired of the many links she now held with nearly every individual in the Clan, she would explore the Vampire Mountain, until at last Eamonn was done with the Council.

Not everything was always fine, however. Misery sometimes felt trapped by the mountain; she was not quite at liberty to come and go as she pleased for there was danger of the vampire coven being discovered by outsiders. She would have liked to cast charms on herself, but she had neither her wand, nor were such things allowed. One of the highest vampire rules was such that those with the gift of magic were not allowed to use it inside or anywhere within a one-hundred meter radius of the mountain. Finally, she missed her friends; yet another ruled stated that no links with humans should be established inside the mountain.

These rules did not appeal to Misery at all, though she tried to live by them as much as she could. Eamonn had noticed her restlessness and requested passage at every given opportunity, but such were rare and they gradually discontinued. What was worse, Eamonn had to spend several weeks outside the mountain, and Misery was required to present in his absence. Her irritation had built to the point of breaking.

“You must let me take a couple of days away,” she told him. “I have not been outside in far too long. I have not seen my brother in months. If I get called up for another council I am sure I might go off.” Eamonn offered a comforting look and caressed her cheek as he often did when they were alone. “I do not like to see you away and I have only just come back,” he said. “Stay the morning with me. Go tonight if you must.”

She stood to kiss his temple, planting her lips against his headache. He closed his eyes and slipped fingers up her arm, keeping her close a moment longer.
“I will stay,” she said. “Shall I bring you anything?”
Eamonn was not hungry or thirsty, so rather they stayed to talk a while; and in the afternoon they took a walk. Finally in the evening she readied herself to leave. Eamonn did not see her off.

It took Misery a while climbing off the mountain; she had to reach a certain distance before she could shadow-cross, just another of those bothersome rules. After that she sought focus on London, and crossed quite near King’s Cross. From there she looked to the nearest pub and sat down for a cup of tea. People came in and went, and Misery felt quite content simply observing them for a while. Once her tea turned to nothing but a muddy liquid she closed her eyes and opened her mind to making links with her human friends. She tried Alexandra first, for she was long overdue contacting her. Unfortunately, and to Misery’s disappointment, she could not establish the link properly. No word came from that side.

She searched for Luke next. She had the advantage of a more recent meeting with him than she did with Alexandra; still it took Misery several minutes to link back to him. Among the mixing noises, somehow she found enough silence in her mind to reach him, but he was quite far away. She tried to be as gentle as could, so as not to startle him, but it never was easy when reaching into someone’s mind. Before speaking she made him gradually aware of her presence, then spoke softly: “Xander?”

“Hey buddy,” she played with her teaspoon, stirring the leftover tea and splashing the liquid along the inner sides of the cup. She saw inside his mind what surrounded him; a darkened room and an occasional flash of pure white at moments when lightning tore through the night sky. She could almost hear the drumming noise too. “Sorry about this,” she could feel his irritation, same as that which he always felt when she came in unannounced. However it seemed accompanied by delight, perhaps at word from her, which made Misery feel rather relieved despite the intrusion. “Thoughts travel faster than owls. I just got a couple of days off.”

She took a moment to ponder on his precise position, but there wasn’t much to go on without going deeper inside his mind. He had to be in some sort of a room, for the storm seemed to be raging outside from where Luke sat or lay. The weather was quite different from where she was; and though she could not quite read it in the clouded sky, she though that perhaps it was later in the day too.

Turning her gaze towards the window she looked to outside London; streets covered in a gentle blanket of freshly-fallen snow and slushy streets where the traffic never stopped. "So, where are you?"

Just as if her own eyes had turned outside again, the snow melted into the rainstorm Luke was seeing. Misery had never been to Rome herself, though she’d read some about it. She’d heard from Lilith, who’d visited Italy this past summer, that it was “nice, but smelled too much like fish”. Distracted by the thought, Misery hadn’t realized she was leaking too much of her own thoughts into Luke’s mind; but as she did, she promptly raised a wall against the doubts that had formed. Her mind was moulded to respond to vampire activity, but she hadn’t joined with a human in so long she nearly forgot to separate what she could share from that she could not.

She did not reply to his question at first, for she hadn’t quite the time; Luke interrupted himself with another and then jumped as if someone had aimed a stinging jinx at his backside. Misery sat back in her chair and laughed quietly to herself, drawing attention of several curious customers. A moment she let Luke continue flailing about the room, but had to cover her face with her hands once he tripped, so as to prevent bursting into giggles. It would have worked too, if his “I’m okay” hadn’t topped her off and she got up to exit the pub, shoulders shaking from stifled laughter.

“God I've missed you,” she thought back to him, casting her eyes towards a statue that stood some way off in the distance. “London, Leicester Square. I'll camp over by my buddy Shakespeare while I wait, yes?” As she said it she made way towards the said statue, brushing her blonde hair away from her eyes. She wrapped herself tighter in her robes and adjusted the bag on her shoulder; reaching Shakespeare, she waited.

The clearer the image was in her mind, so it would have been in his; and though his bore uncertainty at first, it cleared away as hers did not. She was there with him as he apparated, subtly guiding him to her. When his physical body appeared just a short distance away from her, she leaned away from the statue, ready to run and meet him. Her own bag fell from her shoulder moments after his hit the snow-covered ground, arms opening to welcome an embrace. She laughed as she moved towards him and he slipped on ice, and she laughed when at last his arms wrapped around her body. Misery could hardly remember the last time she felt the strength of a proper hug. Eamonn always touched her so gently, as if she might fall apart at anything else. The short moment in which she shared Luke's warmth nearly made up for all those months spent behind the walls of the cold mountain.

She stepped away to examine his face; little lines that had formed on his forehead, probably cause of worry; sharp nose and lips pulled at the corners; creases that had formed around his smiling eyes. Though Misery hadn't expected it at all, she noted the hairs powdering his chin and cheeks and cupped her hands around them to feel the new beard under her fingers. He looked older than she knew him to be, but his eyes shone clearer than they had in a long while, so she thought.

As for her own, she wore such a joyous grin that she likely resembled a child on Christmas morning. If the smile wasn’t proof enough; her eyes reflected the happiness she thought she saw in his. Fingers still pressed against his face, the soft beard was a new-found wonder for her. Perhaps she held on to convince herself he really was there, too. “Hi,” she tried in her typical cheery voice, and instead found herself slightly out of breath.  

The feeling of his arms around her remained even after the moment had passed. It was a strange, sort of tingling against her skin, despite the many layers of clothes. An odd thought struck her; if their friendship had never started, never grew into this, would she ever feel so safe in someone’s arms? She took a step farther away from him then, fingers retreating from his beard. The sort of thinking that stirred emotions brought her nothing but trouble in the past, and she had long since learned to cast them out of her mind. Certainly she never made sense of them; as they grew, she had decided they were no different than what she was feeling for any of her friends. Perhaps Misery simply refused to accept anything else. The one time the blue sand sorted out her thoughts for her, it made far less sense than her own reasoning. Besides, back then Luke already had someone, didn’t he? And now she had Eamonn. There was nothing strange about it. She’d feel safe in Eamonn's arms someday, too. But she had known Luke longer and he was possibly, probably her best friend, so it made sense.

The Christmas lights in her eyes faded slightly as she thought about his suggestion, feeling that it was perhaps something she had known, but forgotten. There was nothing familiar about the game he proposed, however, so with a slight narrowing of her brows she said, “I’m confused. Did we lose someone?”

The carefully formed lines of her eyebrows rose slightly while he laughed; and she waited until it passed, anticipating his reply. “Oh, how exciting,” she said in immediate response. “I might have known. Well of course I’m up for an adventure!”

She drew a hand through her hair; from the top of her head and along the length, shaking the snow from the golden curls. “In what form do your Waldos appear then?” Misery picked up her own bag, then followed him a short distance. She stopped as he turned again and returned with the bag he had dropped earlier. At the sight of the parcels her expression grew all the more intrigued; her eyes widened and shone with delight. She accepted the parchment with nimble fingers and unwrapped them carefully, glancing over the first page in silent awe. She could see the symbols clearly despite the poor light; and she could taste the age on her tongue. It mixed with the scent of present and the notes Luke had dotted along the script. “My… where do we begin?”

“What a silly thing to say!” she laughed again. “Were you planning on getting into trouble without me?” As for how much time it would take, well. She was sure Eamonn would understand. Probably. She hoped.

She met Luke’s eyes and winked. “No way am I missing out on an adventure with my best friend.” She checked the manuscript again, eyes wandering over names and descriptions. There was some mention of flowers she hadn’t heard of before; she’d have to ask Sorrow about that. A quick message through their mind link would suffice. She couldn’t understand all of it, but she picked from clues Luke had left on the margins and tried to make sense of it all. The air however was damp and the snow was beginning to smudge the ink on the parchment. She carefully folded the manuscript and handed it back to Luke. “We should go somewhere dry.”

Rubbing her hands together to ward off the cold she glanced around, almost as if she expected that a path should appear in the snow. “Sorrow’s looking up something for us; I asked him about the flowers that are mentioned in the manuscript. He suggests Norway if we’re looking for Horizon Blossoms. And he’s heard of the other two, but only in name, so it might take some time.” She had a contact in Norway, so if Luke was up to it they could probably go right away. Misery had never visited herself, but last time Lilith said Ylva had found them lodgings near the coast. If they were lucky they wouldn’t have to wait more than a couple of hours.