Chapter 9 Your Future
Story by Khaesho Scorpent on SoFurry
I'm sorry that this chapter's shorter than the previous two. Not because I wish I'd written more, but for exactly why it's truncated. You'll see.
Not much else to say about this one. Getting tired now, but I certainly don't want to leave on THAT cliffhanger. That'd be monstrous of me. Even more so than starting yet another project, promising I'd finish it, then forgetting about it. Pretty sure I have at least 4 or 5 of those floating around this place, and I'm hoping to keep this from being number 6.
Shouyousei nodded slowly. She regretted asking now, but she couldn’t quite reconcile the idea with the being before her. Him? Artificial? Was it even possible to create a soul like that, much less encode it with intelligence and personality? And creativity as well… he wasn’t just swapping between different masks, each one was unique, even when displaying similar emotions. “Sorry… It’s, uh, it’s your turn.”
He nodded, and seemed to relax. Shou felt an almost literal tension leave the air… in fact, it might have been literal. When she focused, she experienced an odd cross between seeing and feeling magic energy, and she thought she was feeling his moods more than seeing them.
“I do wonder where you go when your eyes lose focus and you drift off like that.” His voice snapped her back to reality.
“I’m sorry, I just get… carried away. I get sidetracked easily as you, um, noticed. Is that your question?” She wasn’t sure she could answer if it was.
“No no, of course not. My final question is this… what does your future hold? And before you say you can’t see the future, the choices you make will control the shape of the rest of your life, even if you can’t control the details. Where does your path lead?” He steepled his fingers, leaning forwards, mask unreadable.
Her future… now that was a question, and one that she honestly didn’t feel she could answer. “I honestly don’t know. I don’t have any terribly large plans… for right now, I’m living my life and enjoying it. I imagine once I’ve hit some arbitrary number in my bank account, I’ll retire early. Move back into my parents’ old house, and try and find a cute guy to settle down with, one who’ll help me fix the place up.” She let it end there, but Kalokin was still waiting with anticipation. The silence held for a few moments more before his mask wavered.
“That’s it? What happened to that grand statement about needing to chase dreams? I was sure there’d be something in there about trying to squirrel away some of my mana so you could learn to cast, considering your interest in it previously.”
She laughed and waved him off. “Oh nonono, I’ve had enough of dream chasing for now. When I retire, I’ll probably pursue painting, maybe try my hand at writing. Do artsy stuff. If it gets popular, great, if not, well, I paint for myself and for nobody else. If there’s any dream I’d chase, it’s to be happily married and raise a loving family.” Her eyes grew a bit dreamy, but sadness followed soon after, as it always did. There was a reason she’d left her parents’ house abandoned; she didn’t think she could face it alone. Too many memories.
“And if that cute guy happened to be my Vash? Does Khaesho appear in your future?” His mask didn’t change, but the question almost startled her out of the couch.
“Wha- I mean… maybe? It’s waaaaay too soon to… I mean he’s nice and strong and thoughtful, but-” she could feel the blush spreading over her face, and she stole a glance towards the bedroom where he was still hopefully sleeping. “The affairs of my heart are hardly your concern, oh mighty Stráž.”
His mask shifted to a slight irritation. “Yet the affairs of Khaesho’s heart most certainly are. Do you intend to seriously romance him, or is he just a one night fling?” Kalokin read indecision mixed with embarrassment on Shou’s face; he’d correctly guessed that this was certainly not the first gentleman she’d brought home. He was pressing a bit hard though, so he backed up and softened his voice. “Please… I need to know. There’s a reason you had a nightmare about him leaving you.”
There was so much to unpack from that last sentence that Shou decided to just throw away the suitcase and take it at face value. She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I can hardly know that after the first date, but… I think so? He’s what I’d look for in a guy, and… yesterday was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, but three days ago I didn’t even know he existed.” She sensed that wasn’t quite the answer Kalokin was looking for. “At the very least I know I want him to stick around. Is that enough?”
The puppet nodded, sighing with relief. “It’s enough.” That had been a risky gamble, but it looked like it paid off. All he needed was for her to contemplate romancing him, and if she wasn’t averse to it, that would be enough to convince-
“Paenitentia to Kalokin! Hellooo!” When his illusion snapped back into focus, she giggled. “Looks like it was your turn to space out.”
He coughed and muttered under his breath for a moment. “My apologies… Your turn, one last question.”
“You know, you remind me of an old legend, the kind that’s been passed around for ages. There’s a story of a blue genie who live in a lamp lost in a desert, if you find it and rub it he’ll come out to greet you, and thank you for freeing him. He’d promise three wishes in gratitude, but before you get them you must answer three questions. If he likes you and your answers, he’d grant you any three wishes, anything your heart desired, but if he judged you to be unworthy, he’d make your wishes come true in such terribly ways that you’d regret ever finding his lamp.”
Kalokin grinned as he spoke. “That does sound like something I’d do, honestly, but I’ve certainly never hid in a lamp. It’s likely a work of fiction, but famous enough to become legend, I never granted wishes.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, you’re more of a gambler than a wish giver. It’s an old legend, too… older than you even!”
“Really? Your wish-granting genie pre-dates the dark ages?” His mask shifted to… studious curiosity. More so than she expected.
“I’m no historian, but it might. I know it’s an ancient tale from the eastern desert kingdoms that got made into a movie recently. Past that, who knows.”
“Fascinating… but it’s still your turn for a question, and I’d like for you to ask so that I may answer. I don’t like owing debts, even one as small as a question owed.”
After his first comments, she had intended to ask about mana. If it was even remotely possible for her to learn how to cast and control it. It still seemed like a fairytale to her, and that was a dream she could very well chase, but now… “What happened to Khaesho?”
Kalokin feigned ignorance, though he knew quite clearly what she was asking about. “Please clarify, quite a lot’s happened to him.”
“Why’d he leave Ingha? I can tell he misses his home… what happened that was so catastrophic that he had to walk hundreds if not thousands of miles east and live in a cave?”
Kalokin almost answered, but his eyes snapped to the side, and Shou became keenly aware of a presence behind and beside her. She hadn’t heard him wake up, but she felt his presence there, and her head snapped around to look at him just in time for Khaesho to answer.
His voice was curt, strained with anger, and he punched his consonants like they were nails in an enemy’s coffin. “I swallowed a demon and killed some people. Then I danced in their ashes while onlookers screamed.” If not for his deadly serious demeanor, she’d have thought he was joking, but he strode right past her, grabbing Kalokin out of the air as he did. “Come, Kalokin, we’re leaving.”