Sanguine Prince | Chapter 10: Remedies and Religion (Second Draft)

Arcturus vaguely noticed the light from outside the store dimming, but paid it no mind.

He was tired, tired of trying to pretend that everything was alright, that he didn’t miss his parents, that he wanted anything more than to see his father walk in and declare it was going to be alright. He had failed, failed utterly and completely, and with outstanding levels of ineptitude. He felt it welling up in him like magma in his gut, ejected by the twisting and churning maelstrom of his anxiety-afflicted stomach.

He wasn’t sure when Angela sat next to him; he couldn’t even resolve time beyond the fact that he existed, and his existence was in the then and now.

All he knew was the crushing horror of his death; the remembered and vivid panic, fear, and terror of knowing he was dying—feelings he’d never adequately addressed, never properly looked at or assessed beyond the surface. He’d been in motion for too long afterwards, first in The Highest and then when he’d eventually traveled to what he now knew to be Terra.

Too much. It was too much for him, all at once.

He was a college kid from Connecticut, not some sort of unflappable novel protagonist, no matter how much he wished he could just turn off his all-too-human reactions to life-changing trauma.

The sheer immensity of it all bore down as Angela’s left hand found his right, and he squeezed her fingers so hard he thought he heard her gasp, though she never pulled away. He felt his eyes burn, felt his breath hitch, and stared determinedly at the floor—fighting through rage, through fear, through a barely-adult’s overwrought sense of displacement as he relived the moment of being murdered over, and over, and over, and over again.

Arcturus wasn’t entirely sure how long he sat on the floor of Angela’s shop, or when she had left and returned, placing a steaming mug of something that resembled a more delicious version of hot chocolate in his hands. When he finally roused himself from his stupor with help from the gradual sips of his drink, he blinked up at the sight of pulled blinds shielding against sunlight and a locked front door.

She had closed the store to give him some measure of privacy.

The gesture was more heartwarming to him than any words ever could be.

So much for divinity-defying Willpower, eh? You’re still just a kid, Arcturus. Sometimes it’s okay to admit that, you meathead. Only a sociopath would be surprised by this reaction. Let it out, and then get your shit together.

When Arcturus turned his gaze towards the rest of the interior, he noticed a door that had previously been veiled behind a strategically placed curtain, leading into the back of the shop. Picking himself up off the ground and clearing his throat, he wiped his face and eyes on the sleeves of his coat, holding tightly to the mug in his hands and approaching the warmly lit area beyond the entrance. His right hand lifted to knock on the doorframe as he entered, and he tentatively ducked his head inside.

“Angela?”

“Come in, kid,” she answered back warmly, giving him the permission he needed to confidently enter the area beyond.

He immediately stopped to marvel when he did.

A massive workshop greeted his eyes as he crossed the threshold, the light from several wall-mounted sconces casting a brilliant glow across several large benches built into the walls of the ample square space. An arched entryway on the far side of the room led to what appeared to be a smaller space beyond, likely a sleeping area, and another archway—on the right as he entered—led to what he assumed were more rooms.

Angela was seated on a comfortable-looking stool, tinkering with what he assumed was some sort of metal box or rectangle he had no way to properly identify. 

“Thank you for the drink,” Arcturus said as he approached her, eyes taking in the well-maintained and clearly beloved workstations within the large room. “This place is amazing. Did you build all of this yourself?”

“I did!” Angela replied brightly, using what looked like a screwdriver with a glowing blue head to draw careful lines along the steel in her hand, leaving luminous veins in the tool’s wake.

“How long have you owned this place?”

“About three years,” she replied with the voice of someone concentrating intensely. “The previous owner was an armorer, funnily enough, so a lot of the foundations for the workshop were already in place. Plus, it had a Runic Forge, and that alone made the space perfect.”

“Runic Forge?” Arcturus asked, sipping his drink as he allowed himself to enjoy a conversation that didn’t make him think of—of things he’d rather not dwell on.

Her head tilted toward what he had previously just assumed to be a large jutting safe of some sort, though from his new position across the room from where he’d entered, he realised it was connected to both floor and ceiling. That connection was also built into the wall and hidden behind the shelves and benches, out of sight from the entrance.

“I take it that’s where you do your Aethersmithing?”

Your skills of deduction are awe-inspiring. Truly.

“Yep! That’s how I make all my rifles, armor, and weapons.”

“Is smithing difficult?” he asked, eyes trailing over the forge curiously.

“Depends on whether you have the natural affinity for it, I suppose,” Angela said after a moment of concentration, setting down her implement and turning to him. “Aethersmithing takes a very specific capability with magic, or else you’ll just create items more likely to detonate than help anyone.”

“How’d you learn?” Arcturus asked with interest, moving over to better examine the Runic Forge.

“After my aptitude was confirmed, I was apprenticed to a Master who taught me the craft,” she explained with a smile. “The Empire paid for my apprenticeship and gave me a stipend, since Aethersmiths are valuable and much rarer than other craftspeople.”

“That’s pretty much how a trade is learned where I’m from,” Arcturus agreed conversationally. “Though it’s less magical and more technological. We haven’t used swords in over a century or two.”

“No swords? That seems odd,” Angela said as she went back to her crafting.

“Not in the scope of my world,” Arcturus replied, his mood steadily stabilizing as he spoke. “Where I’m from, we have guns that use exothermic reactions from gunpowder, and fire little pieces of metal—usually lead—faster than the eye can see with enough stopping power to blow a hole clean through plate and flesh both. Guns are the only form of warfare that matters on Earth. Besides missiles, that is.”

“Missiles?” Angela asked with genuine curiosity.

“Yeah, huge combustion-propelled explosives that can travel across massive distances at hypersonic speed. They move so fast you can’t even hear them until they’re already gone, because they travel faster than sound,” he explained and reached out, placing his right hand on the Runic Forge. The subtle engravings around its top appealed to his curiosity, and his eyes traced over the thick black metal that comprised its exterior as he felt the grooves of the engravings.

“Your Earth sounds dangerous...” Angela said, turning to look at him with raised eyebrows. “But you sound like you miss it.”

“I do,” Arcturus replied, hand falling still on the Forge. “It’s home for me. I know that probably seems ridiculous to you.”

No more ridiculous than anything else you’ve said.

“Why would it be ridiculous?”

“Well, you called Earth a ‘source-shard’...” he said and lifted his mug to his lips with his left hand, sipping at the liquid within, while his right continued its exploration of the Forge. “The only time I’ve ever heard that said was when I was speaking with Order, and He implied—like you—that it means Earth is somehow inferior to Terra.”

A period of extended silence followed his words, and Arcturus turned to see Angela staring at him, pale-faced and gripping her scribing tool in a shaking hand. “Order?” she asked in a whisper. “Did you say Order? As in the deity in The Highest?”

“Yes
?” Arcturus answered warily, watching her with caution as she stared right at him unblinkingly. Did she not believe him? It wasn’t as if he had anything to gain from making it up. “I’m not lying,” he said evenly, perhaps just a little defensively. “Just like before, I’m not making fun of—”

Arcturus jumped when Angela abruptly bolted towards him, reflexively shielding his mug and extending his right hand to forestall her in priority defence of the blessed choccy milk, only to blink in stunned disbelief when she grabbed his hand and pressed a kiss to the top of it.

“Uh, A-Angela? What are you doing?” he asked in bewilderment, confusion dominating his expression.

“I know you aren’t lying,” she said in a voice of wonder. “I can see the truth in your eyes, and I’m beginning to realize that you aren’t someone who deceives people easily. Thank you for sharing that with me. Order is
 well, Order is a figure of great importance to many people in this world, and knowing that He’s real—that He’s truly there in The Highest
”

She reached up and brushed tears from her eyes.

“Thank you. Sometimes it’s hard to keep Faith, wondering if anything beyond the Source is actually real. The gift you’ve given me, the relief of knowing there’s something after all this
” she laughed, drawing a deep breath. “I’m in your debt.”

“I—Uh, you’re welcome?” Arcturus said uncertainly, extricating his hand from her grip and taking a long gulp from his hot chocolate to cover his embarrassment.

“Ah. I’m sorry. I ended up making you uncomfortable,” Angela said apologetically, and smiled up at him warmly. “I realize that you probably don’t understand how massive some of the statements you make are, nor the scale of the implications that come with them.”

She reached up and brushed some hair behind her ear when she finished speaking, her expression thoughtful.

“Do you want some advice?” she asked after a moment of consideration.

“Can’t hurt,” Arcturus said with a nod.

Truthfully, he’d take any advice he could get.

“Don’t talk about Order, or The Highest, or any of your experiences too liberally,” she said, and then smiled at his thoughtful expression when he weighed her words. “I can see you thinking it through already.”

“Yes,” he affirmed, mind already theorizing. “Given your reaction, it would make sense that casually dropping this world’s version of God as an acquaintance could have consequences I don’t really want,” Arcturus said, shaking his head and thinking back to Earth’s history. “The last thing I need is some Inquisitor calling me an Apostate, or Heretic, or something.”

“Yes, that’s a very possible eventuality,” Angela said seriously, “how did you know about the Inquisition?”

Arcturus stared at her for a moment, searching her eyes for any sign of a joke, and feeling momentarily alarmed and disconcerted in equal measure when he found none.

“Oh, come on!”