章 65: Ch 65: A Park Date
Not too far from the Zeerous offices was a decent sized park. Baldeur walked a bit stiffly as Arisha hung on his arm. Her head was resting near his elbow since she was shorter than him.
"We haven't hung out just the two of us in ages. I wish you'd stop avoiding me." Arisha said.
"I'm not avoiding you exactly. I have just been busy the past few weeks." Baldeur glanced down to see her glaring up at him.
"Okay, I have been busy the past few years." He said.
She stopped her glare after a few more seconds and sighed.
"You know I can easily tell when you're lying. You avoid me. We both know it, so why lie about it."
"I just don't want to hurt your feelings. We've known each other since we were children. You're my oldest friend." Since she was not trying to hide behind anything, he decided to be fully honest with her.
"I don't want your pity friendship. You mean more to me than you can imagine. I know I'm not good with social things and people find me creepy. But I want us to have something genuine. After the walk today, if you still don't want me around, I'll leave you alone." She said.
"It's not that…" Baldeur looked down as he felt her glare again as he was about to sugar coat a lie to make her feel better.
A habit he'd picked up over his lifetimes was to just go with the flow. His parents brought her into his life as a childhood friend so he'd always treat her as such. It had been years since she had done anything traumatic to him so why abandon what was a simple relationship.
Unfortunately, she could see through his indifference with her Psychic Source.
"You were very rough as a child and what else do we have in common?" He said plainly.
She stopped walking and let go of his arm. After a few moments of silence she spoke.
"It's just that wrath demons use violence to show they like someone and at the time I hadn't realized that we weren't demons any more." Arisha said.
"What did you say?" Baldeur went wide eyed.
"I should have realized you wouldn't remember me. You were my light in the darkness, my solace in eternal torment. But I was probably just another screaming voice in that mess."
Baldeur's mind was trying to process what she was saying. Was she with him on Tartarus? Was she part of that Gluttony Abomination? Was she like him with multiple Sources and lives to go with each of them?
"Arisha, do you know what Tartarus is?" He needed to establish a few facts before revealing anything.
"It's where we were before we ended up being born in this city."
"Did you have any other lives before then?"
"No, I'm not like you. I just remember that life and this one. Though I wish I could just forget…" She shivered as the memories that she constantly kept in check resurfaced.
Baldeur understood that look, as it took him years to deal with the trauma of being mixed mind and soul with so many others for years on end. He also realized that her current powers gave her a perfect memory.
Unlike his memory where he had to recall things consciously, she remembered everything all at once all the time. It had to be pure torture for her to always be reliving that hell.
An admiration grew in him for what she had to be dealing with. But he still had a few more questions.
"What do you mean, you're not like me?"
"Well when we were a part of that thing… I saw all your other lives. Your memories were so fascinating that they kept me somewhat sane. I did lose myself a few times but then I'd find you again and I'd have the closest thing to peace that I could hope for."
"Arisha, have you told anyone about this?"
"No. I kept it to myself. And don't worry even if you want nothing to do with me after this, I'll keep it to myself. I owe you that much."
Baldeur looked at the young woman in front of him. Her eyes were downcast but he could tell they were filled with tears.
He pulled her into a hug.
"I don't know what type of relationship we'll have going forward, but like I said, you are my oldest friend. And it turns out our friendship is older than I thought it was."
She sniffled a little with her head buried into his chest. After a few minutes they separated and she looked up at him with red eyes and a huge grin.
He wiped away her tears and turned to continue their walk when he noticed that the area around them had a strange haze to it.
"Arisha, do you know what's going on?" Baldeur began to form spells in case they were about to be attacked.
"Oh sorry. I'm usually better at maintaining my mindscape."
"Wait, when did we enter your mindscape?"
"When we started talking about private stuff. I didn't want anyone to overhear us."
The world around them rippled slightly and he could tell that they were out of her mind.
"That's very impressive. I didn't even notice you took me in."
"It's always been that way. It's also really easy for me to pull you in."
"Wait, how often do you pull me into your mindscape?"
"I used to do it all the time when we were kids. I didn't even know I was doing it at first. But I haven't done it since your sister got really sick that one time."
A number of things started to make sense to Baldeur. If every time she rough housed him, which now he realized was just demonic flirting, she pulled him into her mindscape, no one else would have seen it. Since they didn't see it, they couldn't stop it.
"Can you do it like that with other people?"
"No. Everyone else takes effort and they can resist. You just slide right in if I want you to."
"Let me try something." Baldeur placed his hand on her shoulder and cast a Refreshment spell with Anodular.
He cast it as a self buff which is easier than casting it on someone else and was surprised at how easily the spell worked on her.
"I think this can go both ways. Maybe our time in the Gluttony Abomination connected us somehow." He said.
"What about the others? Do you think they are also connected to us?" She said.
"I hope not. That could be complicated."
"Hmm, I don't think you have to worry about it too much. Most of those that were with us should be insane. I was only able to handle it because I had you."
"I guess that's a possibility."
The two of them continued their walk through the park and it continued as Baldeur ended up walking her home afterward.
At her front door he gave her a hug and she used that opportunity to give him a quick peck on the cheek before running inside.
Walking back to his apartment, Baldeur had a lot to think about. It wasn't just that his view of Arisha had suddenly and vastly changed not too long ago.
There were thousands of other souls trapped in that abomination with them. How many had been born in the City of Gates? Would they be able to recognize him like she had? And would he have the same weakness to their magic that he apparently had with Arisha?
These questions weren't going to be answered anytime soon and he had a dinner to get ready for.
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