Chapter 202: Live a Little

The conversation with the staff left Theora wanting — they had done their absolute best to try to dissuade her from asking a simple, obvious question, and then essentially sent her off with nothing.

“You don’t want to find out.”

But Theora very much did want to find out. She was still brooding over it while Bell was finishing her early dinner — or perhaps it was a late lunch. They were alone in the diner for now; official food times would start later, but Entrichia had given Bell access to the kitchen on the lower floor to fetch prepared meals at odd times.

Theora fidgeted with her dress — she was wearing an emerald-coloured one with strips of fabric tied around her arms. She liked it, but impatience made these strips an easy target to run between her fingers. 

When Bell was finished, Theora could no longer hold back.

“Are we really satisfied with what they said?” she asked.

Bell gave Theora a puzzled look. “I mean, we got what we wanted? If you don’t disclose your abilities, you alone will suffer the consequences from that.”

“Yes.” That much was fine. It made sense. “But then they had to go and evade answering my obvious question.”

Bell scoffed. “‘What happens if you do the impossible’ is not an obvious question,” she murmured, more to herself than to Theora. “You are the only one who would consider such a thing.”

An unhappy grumble escaped Theora’s throat and she leaned back. “All I’m saying is — what if we tried it out?” She looked out the window, the clouds slowly moving by in the distance. “I mean, what if I just perform a small impossibility, like making myself immovable while sitting on a moving train.”

“Sounds great,” Bell snarked sarcastically. “Except you’re going to blow us all up.”

Theora tilted her head, unsure what to make of this accusation. “I meant in a way that doesn’t do that. I was planning to be gentle.”

Bell shrugged, and her tendrils stopped probing around the dining carriage to follow the gesture. She then retreated around half of them to form a braid down the front of her shoulder. “Well, you are free to do whatever you want. But that would have nothing to do with our investigation. What would be the point?”

Theora pouted and leaned back against the bench. “I mean, they just made me really curious. They could have just told us what happens, instead of trying to be all mysterious about it. But I suppose you’re right. It’s just, Raquina said, ‘You don’t want to find out’…”

“And that really makes you want to find out.” Bell sighed. “Yes, yes, I get it. But don’t you think antagonising the staff would make it difficult for us to figure out the mystery? I wouldn’t be against this if there was an actual justification for why this would help advance our case and not just get everyone mad at us for no reason. Maybe we should try not to get ourselves kicked out of the train just yet?”

Theora didn’t quite agree with that framing — she had no qualms with ‘antagonising the staff’; in fact it was the staff that had antagonised Theora first by blocking off potentially relevant knowledge. But before Theora could fully decide whether or not to concede the point, Bell raised a hand to stop further discussion.

“We can argue this further later,” she said, “because I have something more important for us to go through.” She shuffled a few tendrils under her white dress and produced a thick stack of paper. “I stole the passenger ability sheets from behind the bar while you were keeping the staff members occupied.” She flipped through the stack until her eyes landed on an especially large file. “Ah… they still have Fentanyle’s. That’s neat.”

And with that, Bell started greedily absorbing the words. Theora couldn’t share that enthusiasm; paperwork and reading had never been her strong suits. Still, she picked out a random file and started reading. 

“Finding anything so far?” Theora asked when she got bored.

Bell looked unimpressed. “We’ve only been at it for two minutes. But… so far it looks like what you would expect? She’s actually made of crows, so to speak. All the individuals from the swarm are her. Like a hive, of sorts. The sheet goes into great detail about describing crow biology… The main body doesn’t eat, only the crows do… they can move as far from the main body as they want. If a crow dies, a new one hatches in the main body to replace it. She actually has tons of eggs in her—” Bell cleared her throat, too embarrassed to say it out loud. “Either way, it also outlines Fentanyle’s pillar status, it seems…” She shook her head slightly, gaze trained on the paper, sucking in her lips. “This is so comprehensive. I’ll need a moment to digest it. But something doesn’t feel right about the description of the crows… Can’t put my finger on it yet.”

Theora flicked glances between Bell and Fentanyle’s sheet a few times. “You caught all of this in two minutes?”

“I mean, I’ve just been skimming. Give me a moment while I look through it some more.”

Soon though, the first passengers arrived for dinner, so Theora and Bell decided they maybe shouldn’t incriminate themselves right in front of everyone. Bell placed the stack into a little bubble full of mist so they could leave for the Lavish.

At its entrance they ran into Omi.

“Oh,” she let out, skittishly holding herself back from darting off. “Hi.” She forced a smile. “Sorry, got startled. What’re you up to? I was just about to join my girlfriends.” She pointed to the open door of the Lavish.

“Ah.” Theora cleared her throat. “I mean, we were planning to go to the Lavish too…”

Omi’s eyes brightened up a little before losing their spark again. “Want to join us? I haven’t gotten to talk to you much yet.”

That sort of went against their plans, but then again… 

Theora just nodded. Perhaps she could talk to the three while Bell did some sneaky reading?

This time, the Lavish was showing them a massive expanse of black marble ruins, stretched out beneath the shadows of giant sycamores. Poxie and Log were lying against the remains of a thick wall a few hundred steps in. Despite the canopies stretching over the entirety of the sky, Theora, Bell and Omi only passed a single tree on their way to them. 

“Log and Fen’s home world,” Omi said in a sad voice. “Everything’s bigger here.”

Bell perked up. “Log is from here too?”

“Yeah, but from a different continent. They didn’t know each other before meeting on the train. This reality has a lot of inhabitants and is fairly advanced in interworld travel.”

“But Log is still small,” Theora murmured.

“Yep! She stays small so we can interact easier. She’s got a size pendant.”

Theora wanted one too. Could it only make people smaller? Between this, meeting Fentanyle and shrinking Treeka down for travel, Theora was learning a lot on the topic of accommodating to different sizes. Perhaps she should ask Dema to give their house an area where Treeka could use her size illusion magic. 

“There we go!” Omi said when they arrived, throwing herself down on Poxie’s lap in a heap of wing fabric.

Theora sat down next to them on a large brick of the blackstone ruins, while Bell leaned against it from the far side so she was out of view — at least mostly. She made no attempt to hide her tendrils floating around above her and peeking out from behind the rock. After making herself comfortable, she pulled out her stack of documents and went on to continue reading Fen’s file.

Theora turned toward the others, trying her best to serve as a distraction. This spot was still better than the dining hall; they could have gone back to their own rooms too, but those were getting a little cramped after so much time theorising there.

Theora didn’t quite know how to break the ice, so instead she just watched Omi cuddle herself into Poxie’s belly. 

“Hey there,” Log said with a low-voiced chuckle when Omi wrapped her arms around Poxie’s back. “We’re in public.”

“It’s fine,” Poxie said calmly, despite looking somewhat anxious. “We’ve had to lay low for so long, I’m sure these two can bear it.”

“Really?” Omi asked. For a moment, a playful smile filled her face again, the same she’d worn on the day Theora first saw her. But it faded quickly.

“Really,” Poxie affirmed, pulling Omi toward herself. “You need some cheering up, right? How about it — you can touch me as much as you want today, and I won’t complain.”

Log stretched out her foot to nudge her girlfriends on the ground before her. “What’s gotten into you?” 

Poxie ruffled Omi’s hair and shrugged. “I guess I just want us to get to live a little. I’m tired of dwelling in fear.”

“Well then, get ready for public affection, Pox!” Omi let out and started to tickle her, earning a surprised yelp.

“Wait,” Poxie let out, laughing.

“You’re so weak to this,” Log mused. “You know, my working theory is that people are weak to being tickled if they didn’t get to share enough skinship throughout their life. So, we definitely need to fix that.”

Poxie smiled. “Yeah, maybe we do.”

“Yeah!” Omi shouted, digging her head into Poxie’s stomach. Poxie started laughing as well, and soon after, they merged into a ball of fabric rolling around in the grass. They came to a halt with Omi sitting on top, staring down. “Oh,” she said, throwing a mischievous glance at Theora before facing Omi again. “I’m going to do something I saw her do to her girlfriend on the day they joined the train! You ready?”

Poxie raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“This,” Omi said and planted a kiss on Poxie’s forehead with a giggle. “And this, and this.” She kept littering kisses over Poxie’s face, and Theora started blushing. She didn’t even remember having done that to Dema…

“And this—” Omi said, diving down for another peck.

Meanwhile, Log was staring at them mesmerised, her thick tail grazing over the grass behind her as she sat on a small piece of black rubble. After a while, she noticed Theora staring, and shrugged. “It’s rare to see Poxie so active.”

The two girls played around in the grass for a while longer until Omi got so out of breath she had to rest against a piece of marble. “Gosh,” she said, rubbing tears of laughter from her eyes, heaving breaths. “I’ve not had this much fun since…” Her face fell and she pulled her legs close to her chest. “Since before we messed things up with Fen…”

Bell froze, her tendrils stilling in the air.

Upon realising what she was saying, Omi froze as well. “Ah—” she let out, but it was too late. Bell got up to peek around the stone at the others.

Theora gave it a short moment. Then she asked, in a gentle voice, “What do you mean, ‘messed things up with Fen’?” 

Silence ensued. The three girlfriends exchanged a few hesitant and careful glances, but then Log shook her head.

“None of your business, sorry.”

She pulled Poxie up by her shoulder and gestured for Omi to leave the Lavish with them. 

Bell raised a sceptical eyebrow as she watched them leave. “Well, that wasn’t ominous at all. I wonder what’s making them keep quiet?”

“Who knows,” Theora said with a hum.

“Either way, I think I found something,” Bell said while fumbling behind the large brick with her tendril. She retrieved Fen’s sheet from the other side. “Remember how I said something doesn’t sit right with me?” She tapped against it and planted it in Theora’s lap while hovering a finger above the opened page. “There.”

Theora took a glance. It showed a large and long paragraph describing the sensory abilities of each crow, noting the amount of taste receptors in their beaks, the amount of nerve endings across their body, the acuity of their sense of smell… It was an overwhelming amount of information.

Theora swallowed. “We had to tell them how many olfactory receptors we have? I had no idea.”

“I don’t think so,” Bell said, waving off, so Theora stopped counting hers in relief. “This seems obfuscating. Fentanyle gave a lot of detail to hide the fact that she was actually withholding information. There.” Bell tapped a single word. Sight.

Theora skimmed the text. “It doesn’t tell us anything about the crows’ sight,” she summarised.

“Only that they have it,” Bell agreed. “So… my guess is, if something is missing from the sheet, it has to do with what the crows can see.”

“And if there is, Omi would probably know.” Theora sighed. If only the others hadn’t run away just now. “Do you think she’ll tell us?”

“At the very least we have a lead now. It does seem like something happened to Fentanyle that night. It might have been connected to Log, Omi, and Poxie, and there’s a possibility that it’s connected to whatever Fentanyle left out.”

That prompted Theora to give Bell a confident look. It was time.

Bell got wary. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“It’s time.”

“… Theora. Time for what.” Bell looked around nervously. “Time for what?”