“Well, ain’t this just dandy,” Gell was moping. “Stuck in the middle of godforsaken who-knows-where, some kinda crazy fool with a robot arm and a fistful o’ evil witchcraft on our tail, I can’t so much as hold a weapon, and I ain’t had any supper yet.”<\/p>\n
“Relax, Gell,” Thierry consoled, not for the first time, nor likely for the last. “Blackwell won’t find us. And the arm is going to be fine; not for a while, mind you, but there’s no permanent damage.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“That ain’t a comfort. Reckon you haven’t much noticed, but ‘a while’ ain’t on the list of things we got. Can’t you magic this up? Make it go faster?”<\/p>\n
“Gell, we’ve been through this. You’re highly resistant to magic. I can’t overcome your resistance enough to accomplish anything. On the bright side, it’s why your arm is still there at all — otherwise, your best option would have been to ask Blackwell for prosthesis advice.”<\/p>\n
“Har-de-har. Figures; the one time in my life I actually want somethin’ from damn magic, it can’t deliver.”<\/p>\n
Scarlet leapt down from the branch she’d been perched on to confront him. “Think about it, Gell. We’re fugitives. We’re being hunted by the most powerful group of wizards in the world. You really think it’s wise to start using a lot of magic? Like they’re not watching the flow? Please. You’ll have worse than Blackwell to deal with.”<\/p>\n
“Rather face an army of wizards with Saturnine ready to go than get hunted down by one and I can’t do nothin’ about it.” Gell turned away from them and began walking into the woods.<\/p>\n
“Gell! Where do you think you’re going?” Scarlet demanded.<\/p>\n
“Got some business needs takin’ care of. Private business, if you catch my meanin’. Won’t be but a few minutes.” He disappeared into the trees.<\/p>\n
Scarlet cursed under her breath. “All he’s done for two days is whine. Why doesn’t he do something useful for a change?”<\/p>\n
“Be charitable, Scarlet,” the old wizard replied. “He’s in a lot more pain than you realise, and he’s worried. If you or I sustained injuries and couldn’t fight, we have other skills to fall back on — specifically, we could hide. Gell doesn’t know hiding particularly; fighting is all he has.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, well. Sometimes I wonder if he even has that. He had two opportunities to kill Blackwell during that fight, and he didn’t take them.”<\/p>\n
“Everyone makes mistakes, Scarlet. Particularly in the heart of battle.”<\/p>\n
“Mistakes? No, there were no mistakes. He knew exactly what he was doing. He let Blackwell live on purpose.”<\/p>\n
“What makes you say that?”<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of a kick he’s on lately — like he’s having some big moral crisis. Can you imagine that? Gell, having a moral crisis!”<\/p>\n
“He… certainly has picked a curious time for it.”<\/p>\n
“Tell me about it.”<\/p>\n
“And yourself? Do you never question the morality of your path?”<\/p>\n
“Oh, don’t start. I’m a thief and an assassin. I got to grips with that a long time ago.”<\/p>\n
“And you’re comfortable with your mission?”<\/p>\n
“I am resigned to my mission. The fate of the world is at stake, Thierry. No price is too high.”<\/p>\n
“Then, if you’ll forgive my asking, why haven’t you carried out your orders yet? Why haven’t you killed him?”<\/p>\n
“Well, I need to… to wait for the right moment,” Scarlet stammered. “I can’t beat him head-on.”<\/p>\n
“Poppycock. Gell hasn’t so much as been able to lift a sword in two days, much less fight off an assassin. Now, don’t you try to tell me you’ve overlooked that — I won’t be fooled. No, there’s another reason, and I think we both know what that reason is.”<\/p>\n
Scarlet flushed with anger. “Listen, mage, I am an operative of the Hand, and I will not have my dedication called into question!”<\/p>\n
Thierry arched his eyebrows. “You’re sure? There isn’t even a hint of moral crisis? Perhaps personal attachment, then?”<\/p>\n
“Absolutely not! I have never allowed, and will never allow, personal feelings or indecision to prevent me from getting the job done!”<\/p>\n
With that, she whirled away from the mage and stalked off into the woods. She wanted to be alone for a while; alone with her vivid remembrance of the last time she allowed personal feelings and indecision to prevent her from getting the job done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Well, ain’t this just dandy,” Gell was moping. “Stuck in the middle of godforsaken who-knows-where, some kinda crazy fool with a robot arm and a fistful o’ evil witchcraft on our tail, I can’t so much as hold a weapon, and I ain’t had any supper yet.” “Relax, Gell,” Thierry consoled, not for the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.perfectlydarien.com\/storytime\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}