Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Twenty minutes of walking later, Evin found himself at the gates of the Borna manor. A servant seemed to recognize him and immediately let him inside. A guard – a beefy, yet short man - had some problems with this and demanded to see Evin's metal leg as proof of identity. Even after Evin did as the guard wished, the man still let out a grumpy harrumph, as if he really didn't want Evin entering the manor.

Evin didn't know what the guard's problem was, but he forgot about it soon enough, as the servant led him to Bella's room. The servant knocked, which prompted a lazy "Come in" from inside. Entering, Evin found his girlfriend and Rith lying in a bed, both of them staring at a different book in front of them.

"Good evening," Evin greeted,

"Oh, it's Evin," Rith greeted back. "Thought you'd spend the day at your mother's house, considering what happened."

"Well, she also has a family back there, so it's probably weird for me to just barge into their house and decide to sleep in it," Evin said, imagining the situation.

"What? That sounds so distant and, I don't know, prudent? Us Cosmics find relatives all the time. When I was only ten years old, I had only thirty siblings around me, but when I turned twenty, I suddenly had a couple hundred. And half of the new ones were older than me."

"What?" Evin couldn't help but ask, wondering if he heard wrong.

"Cosmics have litters much more often than humans, so their bloodlines are terribly confusing," Bella explained, her voice cold.

Evin noticed the subtle anger beneath her words and wondered what was the problem. Thinking about it, Bella was acting rather coldly ever since Evin chanced upon his mother.

'Is she feeling angry because of what happened with my mother?' Evin found himself pondering. 'I mean, I guess it makes sense if you were walking around town with your date and some random woman appears and declares that she's your boyfriend's long-lost mother. But Bella's not someone who would hold grudges over things like these… right?'

As he was thinking, Rith stretched lazily and sighed out. "Ah, this book's so damn hard… Evin can you give this one a read and give me an opinion? Usually, you give me an interesting perspective on things."

Evin did not know what Rith was talking about, but he did approach the book the Cosmic was reading. Rith pointed out at a passage, but the content definitely wasn't what Evin expected.

[Act natural and don't look confused, just act pondering. Now read. Bella very angry because your sudden incident with your mother took away your date with her.]

'What the hell is this? This is about Bella and me, right?' Evin frowned as he finished reading. 'If so, how did Rith write that out on the book?'

"Well? What do you think?" Rith prodded.

Evin paused, searching for a good way to respond. "Honestly, I couldn't understand half the words in that passage. Maybe I'm just sleepy."

"Really?" Rith sighed and closed the book. "Well, I'll ponder on it myself for a while. Enjoy your evening, you two. Don't do anything naughty~" the Cosmic said teasingly and walked out.

Evin did not even blush at her words and was instead left pondering on Rith's message and then, something Endra said to him a few months ago echoed in his mind.

'You can never assume that logic works on women. This is true for most humans as well, but it's especially apparent in women. And you can also never assume that morals would affect their moods. Sure, they can regret doing, saying, or thinking something immoral, but that's only going to make them angrier at themselves. And if they're angry at themselves, they usually won't think twice about taking it out on you.'

Evin suddenly realized what the problem was. Of course, Bella would be angry. Her date was ruined, but she couldn't do anything about it. She probably wanted to lash out at Evin or his mother, but that would make her look like a complete asshole. And the fact that she was even thinking about these things would make her feel guilty, which in turn would make her angrier.

Finally understanding what just happened, Evin approached Bella and joined her on the bed. She gave him a glance and instantly retracted it towards the book, as if she was trying to hide her discontent away. Crawling next to her, Evin grabbed her shoulders and sniffed her head.

"Sorry about today," he said simply. "I was really looking forward to our lunch together."

Thanks to Endra's random lecture on women and relationships (though Evin couldn't remember at all when and why Endra talked about all this), Evin knew it was best to not make excuses, even if they were valid ones. That would only serve to remind Bella of her not-so-wholesome thoughts of taking out her anger on Evin and his poor mother, and Evin didn't want that.

Instead, Evin simply slid behind Bella and put his head on her shoulders. He wanted to give her a kiss, but he decided it wasn't the time and settled himself with an embrace from behind. Bella seemed to like those a lot. And since Bella allowed him to do as he wished, it meant that she wasn't so angry. She was just pouting.

"I'm afraid I promised my mother to meet her at her house tomorrow. But after that, I'll be able to spend most of our two weeks together with you. I promise," he said and kissed her on the cheeks.

This was a promise that Evin wasn't allowed to break. And Evin didn't intend to break it. Perhaps Bella felt his sincerity, as she nodded sulkily and leaned her weight on Evin's body. Silence descended and Evin found himself lost in his thoughts again.

'You can break promises to women, but you need to know which of them you can break, and which you can't. There are the obvious actions you must avoid, like cheating and violence. But other than that, a lot of women would be willing to forgive a lot of things. Lies, jealousy, tendencies to control, arguments and yelling. Some are even willing to look over brutality and adultery depending on things.'

'But they all have a limit. There's a point when their patience runs out and they say enough. At that point, they will leave you. You can try to let them stay, promising them to do better and be better. Sometimes it will work, other times, not so much. You'll most likely fail if they have someone else supporting them. It could be their family, it could be their friends, or it could be another man, one who's better than you. I'm sure the same happened with your mother.'

Evin finally remembered when the Voice spoke of all this. It was when he was still not a mage, and was mad at his mother for leaving him behind, and mad at his father for letting it happen. It was a childish and stupid anger.

Thinking of his own father, Evin felt a sense of responsibility to do right by Bella.

'And that's by killing her father?' Evin found himself wondering.

Obviously, that wasn't the only thing, but it was definitely one of the things. One of the more important things too. And considering Bella's story, it wasn't something that Evin could convince her out of.

'Life is strange…' he found himself sighing.

"What are you thinking of?" Bella asked.

"I was just thinking that life is strange."

"You're way too young to be saying that."

"I guess you're right. In that case, I was having pretentious thoughts in my head. And I'm feeling embarrassed already."

"Are you feeling more adult than adults?" Bella asked, her toning turning more playful. "Apparently, it's because of something called puberty. Happens when you're ten or something and won't go away until you're 14 or 15 at the latest. Sucks to be you, but you're gonna have to deal with being pretentious and then embarrassed for four more years at least."

The two spoke nothings to each other for a while, before Bella said that she needed to meet her father. Evin asked if he needed to accompany her, but she shook her head and explained that he was going to talk to him during dinner, which was in one hour. She also said that the Mage Guards were attending.

But, Evin wasn't very worried about all that. He still had another matter to face before that.

<Endra?>