Chapter 44 - The First Plank in the Bridge

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Characters – 

Erik Morsin: Heir to the Duchy of the Emerald Isle. Just wants to play his violin.

Alexandria Renard: Wants to be the next Morgana Le Fay. Can’t speak louder than a whisper. 

Vivian Merryweather: An expert on all things color, fashion, and of the heart. Gets seasick easily.

Lance Thalorien: Grandson of the headmaster. “Just wait until my grandfather hears about this!”

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The whispers changed. No longer just “the bastard boy.”

Now: scrapper, brawler, breaker of teeth.

One eve, a corpse-walker from the old barrows crept into the village, shrieking with death-runes and rot.

While men hesitated, Bjorn leapt.

With fists like thunder and a heart of stone, he tore the thing apart - and bore the death-taint in his blood.

But he spat it out, laughing, and stood.

Healed by rage alone.

The skalds took note.

The Saga of Bjorn, Verse 8

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It had taken years of failed letters, a week at Camelot, multiple visits to the hospital wing, and a knee to the groin, but Erik was finally, finally, sitting down with his fiancee and getting to know each other.

“Hi!” He stood up from his breakfast, extending a hand and a winning smile #8 to Alexandria as she approached. “I know we’ve bumped into each other now and then, but it’s great to finally, properly meet you! I’m Erik.”

The table was decorated with unicorns, and the smell of strong spices was inadvertently flavoring all the breakfast options. Erik was looking forward to trying them all this year.

“I know who you are.” Alexandria grumped as she sat down across from Erik. He let his disappointment show on his face.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, looking everywhere but him. “I didn’t mean to be a raging bitch about it. I just…”

Erik put quite a few points together. A few of the old warriors, the ones who’d lost limbs and taken horrific injuries, were perpetual fonts of anger and bitterness, taking their pain out on the world around them. Alex’s scars were written across her face and throat. She wasn’t the same age as the grizzled warriors, hadn’t taken wounds in the same way, but was clearly still injured. Still hurting.

Fine. Prickly, hurting, did he have anything for that?

The answer was yes, but ‘hi, here’s a potion’ wasn’t the most social or graceful way to go about things. It was a bad look until they built up enough trust. From what little he knew of Alexandria, she’d assume he was just trying to get her to drink a love potion or something like that. It happened often enough in arranged marriages - heck, it was the classic use-case for love potions - that it wouldn’t be a leap for her to assume.

Also, he hadn’t known how bad Alex’s case was. If he had, he wouldn’t have given away his vial of Pychos Apokathistemi to Hazel. He needed to figure out a way to tell Alex that before it blew up in his face. 

The political part of his mind reared up, and reminded him that Alex was already tied to him, and he had quite a few chances to bring her over to his side. Hazel was extremely powerful and utterly unmoored, and spending the potion in that direction was the best use of it.

Erik swiftly pushed that part of his mind back down. It wasn’t his reasoning, it wasn’t why he’d done it.

“It’s alright.” Erik said. “I can’t say I entirely understand, but I’d like to believe I’ve got enough empathy to cut you some slack. Odin knows you need it.”

Alexandria’s knuckles went white around her fork.

“I don’t need your pity.” She hissed at him.

“I wasn’t pitying you.” Erik retorted. “That’s not the same thing as empathy. Understanding just a tiny fraction and saying ‘yeah, that sucks’ and being willing to ignore, forgive, forget, and move on is not pity.”

Alex fractionally loosened her grip on her fork.

“Fine.” She whispered, stabbing a bite. She then paused, and smacked her forehead.

“Right. Heard this works better when hungry.” She took out her wand, and started swishing it over her food, muttering spells as she did so. Erik had a quick bite, then leaned in.

“What are you casting?” He asked.

“Trying to levitate it into my mouth.” Alexandria grunted. “Figured being hungry will motivate me.”

Erik seized the common ground between them with the same ferocity that Bjorn seized Dublin.

“Personally, I’ve found about an hour after I’ve eaten to be the best time to learn things.” Erik said. “Not so full that moving’s awkward, but not so hungry as to be distracted. I suspect that simply having the food there isn’t helping. I don’t think you can trick your brain into ‘magic or die’ like this.”

Alex glared at Erik, and the moment dragged out awkwardly. The Morsin heir decided to take a bit of his food while Alex was glaring at him. Not in a mean way, not making a point, just getting some food.

Eventually, finally, her glare softened a hair.

“Fine. You’re probably right.” She whispered. “But the moment I can cast the spell…”

“I volunteer my lunch for your practice as well.” Erik delivered the joke in a perfectly joking tone, but also left it open for Alexandria to accept. A peace offering, a branch extended, the first plank of a bridge.

Alex studied him for a moment before smirking. It wasn’t a particularly nice smirk, but Erik was willing to take it.

“Yeah, that way we’ll both end up with egg on our faces.” She whispered.

The moment was ruined by Lance showing up next to them.

“Morsin. My grandfather would speak with you now.” He sneered at Erik. “Probably to rectify the mistake of you being admitted. Candlewax, your face is throwing off everyone’s breakfast. You should leave so the rest of us can enjoy our meal.”

With one last disdainful look, Lance turned away with a sweep of his robes, and stalked off. 

Erik could see the fragile glass mask that was Alex’s face. She wanted to cry, scream, and rage at the insults. Insults only directed towards her because of him. Violence towards Lance right now would be unwise, but the Morsin heir didn’t have the memory of a goldfish. He’d remember, and he’d get even. He stood up and quickly pocketed a trio of croissants.

“Come on, walk with me?” Erik swiftly walked around the table and offered Alex his hand. She stared at it for a moment.

“TAKE IT!” Vivian half-screamed from across the room. It wasn’t that unusual in the noise everyone else was making, and got no looks. Alex jumped though, and looked around before spotting her honey-blonde friend. She slowly and deliberately mimed casting a spell with her fingers, which resulted in a single finger being directed Vivian’s way. The girl laughed and turned back to her breakfast and friends. They tried to be subtle about it, but they kept glancing in Erik and Alex’s direction.

Alex slapped her hand in Erik’s so hard he first thought she was slapping him away, but then her grip tightened and she leveraged herself up.

There was a commotion by the buffet table, as Lance went down hard.

“You tripped me!” He raged as he scrambled back up, spitting at Sora.

“Me?” She opened her eyes as wide as she could, looking around. Erik did not see a long and rich career in acting in the half-Korean girl’s future.

Nobody seemed eager to jump to Lance’s defense or snitch on Sora. Lance looked around at the uncaring students.

“When my grandfather hears about this…” He muttered darkly.

“Let’s go?” Erik tugged on Alex’s stiff hand. He didn’t hold onto her tightly, letting her slip away if she wanted to, nor did he try to break the grip himself. Still, he could feel just how incredibly tense the girl was the entire way.

They made it a corridor before Erik paused, and disengaged.

“Here, I grabbed some breakfast to go.” He said, pulling out the croissants from his pocket.

“Smashed pastries.” Alexandria whispered in a deadpan.

Erik grinned.

“Only the finest dining for you.”

Alex snorted and rolled her eyes.

“By the gods, nobody ever told me you were a huge dork.” She whispered, snatched the offered breakfast.

Erik seized the moment. High risk, high reward.

“What?” He said, cupping a hand over his ear. “I couldn’t hear you!”

Alex stared at him, and Erik felt a brief moment of panic, thinking he’d misjudged it. Then she slowly smirked at him.

“You’re not that cute, Morsin.” She whispered, then stole his croissant. “See you in class.”

Erik grinned all the way to the headmaster’s office.

Ha! She totally thought he was cute.