Unpleasant Truths
When he finally schooled his expression, getting to this sobering thought, Samantha asked what had happened.
"Just something my Familiar said," he replied.
"Ah, is that who that Dracok was?" she asked curiously, the energy now in his tone not lost on her. He had lost his rude tone a few minutes into their conversation, but had still sounded reserved, as if speaking to a stranger. But now he was talking to her like a colleague, which was a welcome change.
Her own shoulders relaxed a bit as she realized this. Like Fate, she regretted the way she had acted as a child, but she had long put the past behind her. Or she had, until her engagement came to light.
"I've not known a Dracok capable of getting such a response out of someone. What did he say?"
"He just helped put some things into perspective for me," Fate replied, placing his empty tea cup on the small plate sitting on his chair's miniature table. "Do you have one? A Familiar, I mean."
"I do," she nodded. "He doesn't like going out during the day, though. He's a Zimdon, and he insists sunlight is 'bad for his levitation,' though our bond tells me he's just lazy."
As she frowned at what Fate assumed to be her Familiar berating her for 'false accusations,' he hummed to himself quietly and took a sip of his tea, which had been refilled when he wasn't looking, and fell back into those thoughts from a few minutes ago.
It was mostly his fault for the ugly way they parted ways. His pride had gotten the better of him and she merely reacted to his selfish decision with one of her own, cutting all ties with him.
Fate decided to start anew. He wouldn't immediately put her back on that pedestal from which he had just managed to tear her down, but he wouldn't treat her as a stranger, either.
He'd give her the benefit of the doubt, as he was sure she would do for him, and see how things went. If they became friends again, great. If not, they'd say their final goodbyes after they got out of this mess together.
His eyes widened in pleasant surprise as he felt his progress through the Journeyman Stage increase by a percent, bringing him to 8% through.
His surprise was amplified as he felt Samantha experience a similar breakthrough across from him, jumping up by 1.7%.
The two regarded each other with raised brows.
"Learn something about Temperature?" Fate asked with a small smile. "I didn't think it was that cold in here."
"It's… complicated, but Gevum helped me realize some unpleasant truths about myself. Gevum's my Familiar," she clarified, surprising Fate with her openness.
"Funny how they seem to know us humans better than we do," he said thoughtfully. "Sometimes I feel like Kravoss is more human than anyone else in Brergan, and even a few in Fonford. By the way, why did you wait until now to tell me about all of this? If you had said something a year ago, we would've had more time."
Samantha was one year his senior, hence why she was a second-year at the Academy and why she wasn't at the Familiar Ceremony he had gone to. That meant she was nineteen, so it wasn't far off to assume that she had stalled for an entire year.
"Teleportation between cities is expensive," she explained with a sigh. "And I didn't know if you had stayed in Brergan with how horrible it was there for the both of us. Also, I've been busy with acting and classes. Then I remembered what the old man had said about your eyes being a sign of a Facet, and decided to wait until it was Awakened.
"Knowing you, you wouldn't have passed up such an opportunity. I was planning on seeking you out next weekend when my schedule was less restrictive, but then I saw you in the audience and here we are.
"So, will you help me convince my father?"
"I think we're both too young for marriage," Fate said jokingly, then frowned. "And if I'm not mistaken, that'd mean I'd be a noble and have obligations and restrictions that don't sound appealing."
There were many advantages and disadvantages to being a noble, but for a free spirit like Fate, the latter heavily outweighed the former.
For one, nobles were the only citizens that had to pay taxes, being one of two sources of taxation for the Empress, with the other being businesses.
Then there were the politics, which was a headache in and of itself. He didn't care what most people thought about him, but if he was married to Samantha, everything he said and did would reflect on her, and vice-versa.
Ruining someone else's reputation because of his actions when that someone wasn't even involved would leave a bad taste in his mouth, even more so if it was his wife, whether he loved her or not.
Since he wasn't family by blood, he wouldn't have to run the family or anything like that. That was entirely on Samantha's shoulders as her father's heir, so at least there was that. He'd hate that kind of responsibility.
But he'd still have to attend banquets and the like that she went to, fight for her honor when it was slighted as long as his Facet was stronger – which he sorely disliked. Both of them could fight their own battles –, have to let her fight for his honor if she ever surpassed him, and many other inconveniences and anger-inducing things.
In comparison, the only good thing out of such a relationship that he could think of was money, which he wasn't hurting for and could do without more of. It was no noble's fortune, but his job was enough to live almost luxuriously for the rest of his life, and that was assuming he stayed Travis' apprentice that entire time.
"I can do it next weekend. You said you were free?"
"I am. Meet me at the Academy gates on Friday afternoon, and we'll go visit my father. I should warn you, though. This'll be difficult."
"Can't be harder than fighting an assassin two Stages higher than me," Fate thought aloud as he sipped his tea, not realizing he had spoken.
"What?" Samantha asked.
"What?"