“What is that?” Hecrux asked with more
venom in his voice than Graverra had yet to hear from him. And he was
still technically in the other room, so that felt like an amount of
verbal venom worth noting.
Graverra reached for the book she had
summoned but closed her fingers around nothing and drew back on second
thought. Maybe this hadn’t been the best idea. “A book. Nothing. I don’t
know. You should be sleeping. I thought you over exerted yourself,
darling.”
“Then wouldn’t it be cruel of you to necessitate my worrying like this, dearest?”
Graverra
frowned. Maybe she should have remembered there was a chance he would
notice, but... Hecrux had just spent plenty of mana on lots of things he
hadn’t even wanted to consult her about after the fact; forget about
telling her before.
The dungeon core grumbled, and Graverra
guessed that was about the slightly less mana they would be getting
back. The book vanished, her bedsheets smoothed again as if it had never
been there at all.
“Hey!” Graverra reached mentally for the prompt
to buy the book again. It had only been moments ago, so it was fresh in
her mind, and using her grimoire would take too much time. “You can’t
just disappear my stuff like that.”
The book fell back onto her bed with a
thump. This time, Graverra snatched it into her lap immediately. He
couldn’t do that again if she was in the middle of using it. She hoped.
“It isn’t your stuff, it’s our stuff.” Hecrux growled again.
The book disappeared again.
Graverra gasped as she closed her fingers around nothing.
“Yeah,
well.” Maybe he had a point there; it wasn’t like they had separate
inventory. And then what? Did she start drawing chalk lines through the
dungeon? No, because apparently she wasn’t allowed down there and they
already had separate rooms, but it was the principle of the thing. “It’s
still my mana you’re wasting.”
Graverra summoned back Malfunctions
of Magic and pulled it into her lap again. This time she opened it to a
random page and skimmed over the words—something about fireball. But
there, she was using it; he couldn’t put it back now.
“Our mana.” Hecrux countered, but the book remained in Graverra’s lap. For now. “Which you’re wasting by being stubborn.”
“No! You keep sending it back. So I have to keep getting it again!”
“You do not have to keep summoning the book.”
The
book disappeared again. Graverra growled. If she was quicker with
numbers, she might have tried to figure out how many more times they
could do this little song and dance... But no matter what, he could
always keep sending it back. She just needed to decide if she felt petty
enough to let him waste all her mana like this. Then what did he expect
her to do?
“He’s got a point there.” Capo chimed in during Graverra’s number crunching.
“Well,”
She shot a glare at the skull. Of course he would side with Hecrux; she
should have expected that. But that still didn’t make either of them
right. She was not the problem here. “I want it.”
“You don’t need it.” Hecrux sent the book away again.
“Yes, I do. You won’t let me do the tutorial thingie, you don’t like explaining anything, you-”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes,
it is!” Graverra balled her fists and punched the mattress on either
side of her. So now he couldn’t even let her finish her sentences? “You
just do things and you don’t explain and-”
“You have access to all
the same information I do.” The dungeon core’s voice remained even.
Unbothered. Graverra wished for all the trouble he was causing; he could
at least get mad about it. If Hecrux wasn’t actually, really, mad about
it, then why bother at all?
“And I am accessing it." She tried
matching the lack of affect, but that only lasted part way through the
sentence. “With this book!”
The book landed at the same time Hecrux
went inactive. Graverra yelped. Startled and a bit stunned. Usually she
was the one who made dramatic exits from arguments. And he hadn’t even
been arguing right!
“Hecrux!” She yelled next, but she still knew he
couldn’t hear her. Probably. Now that she thought about it, besides
spending an amount of mana the primary core didn’t agree with, Graverra
wasn’t sure how else to wake him. What if there was an emergency?
Graverra launched herself from the bed and stormed on towards the door between her chambers and his lair.
“We didn’t learn anything from the tentacle fight, huh?” Capo called after her.
It
gave Graverra the slightest bit of pause; she didn’t want to physically
fight with him over this... She wasn’t even sure if she could anymore,
without a skills roster. Her hand wrapped around the
doorknob—heart-shaped, like him. Noticing it then made Graverra want to
roll her eyes, but she had too much momentum going.
Graverra stalked across the dungeon core’s lair and jabbed a finger into his side. “Hey!”
“Ow!” Hecrux shied away from the poke as much as a giant floating heart could.
“We were not finished.”
"Yes,
we were. You determined you needed that book, and it didn’t matter what
I said. I would like to be left to recover my mana now.”
“Because
all you were saying was no. That’s not a reason not to do something.”
That would come back around to bite her in the ass; she already heard
it. “In this specific instance. One little book isn’t going to hurt
you.”
“It isn’t a little book.”
Graverra felt her brain might be
melting. How was she supposed to argue with that? And it wasn’t because
she was arguing for argument’s sake—Branimir liked to accuse her of
that. Branimir also used ‘because I said so’ a lot too.
“Why don’t
you want me to read it?” Graverra crossed her arms. That’s all she
wanted—a simple explanation. Even if he did let her keep the book—even
though there shouldn’t be a ‘let’—she would like to know his reasoning.
“Because.”
“Hecrux!” Graverra couldn’t believe him. He couldn’t think that would actually work.
But he only repeated her name as plainly as ever, “Graverra.”
Graverra
fought to find where even to begin; it was still the principle of the
thing; he couldn’t just declare things and not explain them, but she did
still want to read the book. But if he had a good reason for her not
to... then he should have just told her.
“I changed my mind.” Hecrux announced before she could start again. “You’re allowed to read it.”
Graverra hugged herself all the tighter. That just felt like a bid at shutting her up. “You don’t get to allow me anything.”
“Don’t I?”
It didn’t matter how genuine his confusion sounded; Graverra still let out and exasperated, “No!”
“Then you aren’t.”
Graverra scowled, trying to figure out where he’d lost her. Or where she’d lost him. “Aren’t what?”
“Allowed.”
“No, Hecrux-” Graverra pinched the bridge of her noise before dragging her whole hand down her face. “You’re killing me.”
“I’m doing no such thing.”
“You know what I mean.”
The dungeon core blinked. Graverra couldn’t decide what that meant.
“I
get to do what I want to do, you get to have an opinion.” She
explained, almost as much to recenter herself after all the confusion as
to just explain it to him. “Which I actually would have liked to hear
this time, but apparently you don’t want to talk about it. Which is
fine! But-”
“Is everything going to be a discussion then?”
“Well… yeah. I can’t read your mind.”
“Is this one nearly finished?”
Graverra
took a deep, calming breath before answering. “Sure. I’m keeping the
book. I’m reading the book. And you know, maybe if you wanted to explain
why you don’t want me to, then maybe-”
“Oh. Okay.” Graverra blinked, feeling a bit like crying for some reason.
Comments (1)
See all