Solo Burning Bridges

[Madeira Dusk]

30th of Summer, 518

It was just after the afternoon shift, and Madeira was on a date.

The Spiritist had promised to share a meal with Daniel after the sixteen-year-old gave her his shark tooth necklace as a gift. She didn’t mind; the boy was good company. He had a shy, quiet personality and a youthful energy about him. And though she did not return his affections, she found his crush on her somehow intriguing.

The two sat across each other over a rough wooden table. The evening meal was a thick pea soup, a healthy portion of boiled salted pork and rock-hard biscuits. After a few weeks of such fare Madeira was getting used to the heavy, salt-dense diet, yet every time a tray was set before her she couldn’t help but long for the fresh food of home. This was one of the few times she ever found herself considering Riverfall kindly. The port city still made her insides curl with hate, but it was undeniable that their strange southern food was delectable.

It was like this, with her eyes closed and remembering of the giant Riverfall peaches, that Daniel snapped his fingers and startled her awake.

“Jeez, Madeira. If you’re tired you should have said something.” Daniel was already halfway through his dry biscuits, washing them down with the small measure of rum the sailors were rationed. For moral, the captain had explained when she questioned why they were intoxicating the men responsible for driving the ship.

“Sorry! I spaced out there for a moment.” she waved his concern off, and tried to appear more alert as she dug her into the porridge-thick soup. “I thought you promised to tell me about your adventures.”

“I thought you promised to listen.”

It was then that she realized that her inattentiveness cut much deeper than she had first thought. She glanced at him over her spoon, reading the sulky tilt of his shoulders and how he was eating fast to fill the silence he was so sensitive to. Of course, he had a crush on her. Her attention meant much more to him than one of his other shipmates.

Tapping into the well of dijed inside her, she pushed it outward. It sat in her apologetic smile and beseeching eyes, and in the hand she reached across the table to rest just atop of his. He was not looking her in the eye, so she struggled to concentrate and wrap the suggestion around her words.

“I’m sorry. You aren’t boring me, I was just thinking.“

Be fond of me, she pushed the subliminal suggestion on him. Let it ride on the feather light touch of their connected hands. She could not tell if the magic actually reached him, but she hoped it did.

[Madeira Dusk]

When she retracted her hand, she was gratified to see him watching it go. She motioned between them with the bowl of her spoon.

“Lets start again. Hello, Daniel! I would be ever so grateful if you would regal me with tales of your adventures.”

The looked up and smiled at her, and she was quick to return it. He played along with her game, rolling his eyes skyward and rolling his shoulders back.

“Why hello, Madeira! I’d be pleased to be your entertainment this evening, for a price.”

She nodded seriously, her voice grave. “Very well. I can pay in gold, silver, steel, hearts and secrets.”

“I choose secrets.”

And it was the way his eyes were trained on hers, brown boring into blue, that told her he was not playing anymore.

She paused over her bowl of soup as the atmosphere in the galley twisted, the mirth bubbling away like the last sparkle in a glass of champagne. Daniel was a big lad, but he wasn’t imposing. He had the awkwardness of a boy who’s mind hadn’t quite filled out his expanding body. Shy and eager to please, she had never seen him question anybody. Yet he was looking her in the eye like he expected something from her.

And if that is the case, he was sorely mistaken.

She reached inside again, to the energy that sat deeper than her soulmist. From the very core of her she drew the dijed back out, pushed it out to her aura. She imagined it curling off her shoulders like a lick of flames, imagined it raising off her back like the hackles of a cat. Her mind contracted around the idea of intimidation. However vague, however subliminal, she let it be known through the tight set of her body and the dijed rolling through it that he was not welcome to any of it.

When she did not answer Daniel pressed on. “Come on. I’ve told you all about me these last few weeks, and I’m realizing I know nothing about you! I deserve to know.”

“That’s presumptuous of you.”

“What does that even mean.”

Madeira ran her tongue over her teeth, letting her hypnotism simmer away to nothing as her concentration turned to this new problem. They still had months left aboard this ship. She couldn’t afford to burn the bridge of the one sailor who didn’t regard her with uneasiness or complete apathy. She would miss his lighthearted company, his overeagerness to please her, and if she said the wrong thing now she would detonate the relationship. Then living on the ship would turn from unpleasant to unbearable.

[Madeira Dusk]

“I come from Alvadas. I’m a medium by trade…”

“Come on, that’s not what I want to know!”

She bristled, nettled by his welding voice. She needed to back him up somehow. This was the verbal equivalent of lobbing stones.

“Stop it, Daniel. You’re acting like a child.”

Direct hit. His self consciousness flared up as she highlighted his young age. He was the youngest of the crew by a long shot. Something he seemed determined to overcome by drinking his rum loudly and in public though he obviously hated the taste, and by shaving his smooth cheeks, making sure to knick his jaw every once in a while so everyone would notice he did. She watched as the tips of his ears turned red, and he hastily reorganized himself. When he spoke again his voice subconsciously dropped in pitch.

“I mean, what are your hobbies? What do you do in your cabin all day? Why are we taking you to Lhavit? Come on, I’m not asking for much. I just want to know you better.”

My hobbies involve too much bones and body fluid to speak of over dinner. My cabin is where I keep my ghost, my magic, the corpse of a Kelvic and my beloved freak. I’m going to Lhavit because I have no choice.”

“I like to make things in my spare time, or try to. I stay in my cabin because that’s where my friends and my pets are. I’m going to Lhavit because there is a career opportunity that was impossible to say no to.”

Her voice was clipped, her answers vague. She tried to nip his curiosity in the bud before it could run any deeper.

“Are you and Allister…”

Daniel’s voice flipped again, becoming higher and uncertain. The end trailed off with a tail of a question he seemed to expect her to fill out herself. He wasn’t looking her in the eye anymore, as his interest was suddenly grabbed by the dark rum still left in his tin cup. He set her up for this. Those questions before were just paving the way of what he really wanted to know. She kicked herself for being so blind.


She brought the sizzling dijed forward again. But her soul was exhausted by the effort of lifting the energy of her body. Her palm started to sweat as she held the magic out before her, had it invade Daniel’s aura. Unwelcome, she pressed the uneasiness into him. Let it work with his own uncomfortableness and embolden it. When she spoke she let it lace through the syllables like barbed wire.

“What about my bondmate, Daniel?” If he was going to ask she was going to make him say it out loud.

[Madeira Dusk]

“I… Um.” He blew out his cheeks, still looking somewhere over left shoulder. “I mean, what do you two…” he finally looked her in the eye, and something he saw there derailed him completely. The sailor quickly bent his head and attacked his bowl of soup. “Never mind.”

Madeira nearly sighed in relief out loud. Gods, the kid could be nosey. What went on between herself and her life partner was nobody’s business. Even bring it up crossed all sorts of lines she was not willing to acknowledge.

But this little misadventure, while successfully protecting herself from his needling interest, cost her dearly. The atmosphere across the table was strained and thick with resentment. If she wanted to save the relationship she would have to repair it, somehow.

“Hey…” She said softly, waiting for him to look her in the eye again. When he did he saw her expression soften, and the ice in her eyes melting under a warm kind of fondness. Her mind bent itself into uncomfortable shapes to rearrange the intent of her dijed. She moved it to her eyes, riding the suggested emotion out on the strength of her gaze. She wanted softness out of him, some show of tenderness, so she could reciprocate and build back that trust. “I don’t mean to be so selfish. But what I have to say isn’t nearly as interesting as your adventures. I’m just embarrassed to admit how boring I am.”

“I don’t think you’re boring.” he cut in immediately, then backpeddled to find a response that wasn’t so insipid. “I mean, It’s ok. I think you’re fun. And… sorry if I wen’t too far.”

That was just what she needed. She smiled and risked a little laugh, and was rewarded by a shy answering smile.

“I didn’t mean to call you childish. That was… childish of me.”

“Damn right. You look like a little kid down there. What are you, five foot?”

“Excuse you, I’m five foot four”, she latched on quickly to his easy, teasing tone and flung it back playfully.

And the meal went on like that, with easy banter that never went too deep. It was a pleasant time, with a few good stories and a lot of laughs. When they dumped their trays in the wide sink half a bell later, the young sailor was high off the attention of the older girl. And when he laid down to sleep that night, he had completely forgotten the way her eyes turned to ice and her shoulders to stone when he made the mistake of speaking Allister’s name.

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!

Madeira Craven

Skills

• Hypnotism: 4xp
• Socialization: 4xp
• Negotiation: 1xp
• Subterfuge: 1xp
• Intimidation: 2xp

Lores

• People: Daniel the sailor
• Hypnotism: using presence
• Intimidation: using hypnotism
• Lore of repairing friendships
• Subterfuge: concealment

Awards & Retribution


Notes