and some of that "between a rock and a hard place" + eloriel
am i going to use this fruit to make a samson - regina spektor smoothie why yes yes i am. am i going to boost this smoothie with backstory protein? yes and i will do it with the enthusiasm of a frat bro after he benchpressed less than he tells people he does
(for context, this takes place three years before the ritual. It was fun to play with who they were at that time!!)
The chime of the bell when he opens the door to the magic shop Asra told him about rings loudly in Muriel’s ears, too loudly. Stars are swimming before his eyes and he feels dizzy, but he promised he would run this errand for him. He’s not going to let a coliseum fight stand in the way of that.
As he steps inside, someone shrieks, and he winces.
“Are you okay?” the girl behind the counter says, slightly panicked in her concern.
He frowns when he looks at her. The outline of her is blurry, but he’s pretty sure this is not the middle-aged stout woman Asra told him about. The only similarity he sees with the description he was given is the long silvery hair, longer than his own. The girl before him is much younger, he’d say younger than him but maybe older than Asra.
“I’ve been worse,” he clears his throat, and advances to the counter to rest his hands on there, taking advantage of a surface to hold on to.
The girl’s eyes grow wide. “You’re covered in blood,” she states matter-of-factly.
He looks down to his chest. Covered is an exaggeration, but he’s not exactly spotless either. He groans. This is not the discrete no-questions-asked task he was promised.
“It’s not mine,” he mutters. “Mostly.”
Something in his shoulder throbs, and he can’t help a wince. The girl steps away from behind the counter and comes up to him. He’s wary as he watches her approach, startles when she lifts to her toes and reaches to grab his chin and swipe her thumb on his chapped lips before tilting his head at an angle.
“You’re dehydrated,” she frowns as she studies him. “You’re clearly unwell. I’m training to be a nurse, let me help you,” she says, letting go of his head.
“I’m just here to pick up stuff for my friend,” he huffs, taking a step away from her. He pulls out the list Asra gave him. “Here,” he hands it to her.
She takes it, goes back and forth between looking at him and the paper.
“My aunt makes this special blend of restorative tea,” she says, “at least let me brew you some to drink while I get all this ready.”
A wave of vertigo hits him, and he clutches the counter harder. Perhaps resting just a bit might not hurt.
She smiles victoriously and sets the list down on the counter. “Here, follow me, the kitchen’s in the back,” she says, and he walks behind her to a room further down. “You can sit over there,” she says, motioning to a bench seat lining a windowed alcove, covered in cushions. It’s an odd shape, too big for any type of seat, but he settles on the edge regardless.
He shuts his eyes and focuses on his pained breathing as she puts a kettle on the stove. Feeling her eyes on him, he opens his eyes back to look at her.
“What,” he says, not so much a question as a mark of annoyance.
“Are you one of those gladiators? From the fights at the coliseum?” she asks, squinting slightly.
Does she not recognize him? Any answer he might have for her is cut short by a burst of light-headedness. Seeing his malaise, she dampens a washcloth and brings it over to him, pressing it to his forehead herself.
“You should lie down,” she says, her voice lower than earlier.
He doesn’t have it in him to fight back. Besides, lying down seems wonderful right about that moment. She arranges pillows for him to lean back on, and he clumsily lifts himself deeper into the benched alcove. The kettle starts to sing, the sound unbearable to him in this state.
“Gods, make it stop,” he complains.
She walks hurriedly to the kettle, and he watches her pour the hot water into a sturdy-looking teapot, before dumping in a generous amount of dry herbs. He shuts his eyes and drifts dangerously close to sleep until she brings him a steaming mug.
“Careful, it’s hot,” she cautions him, offering it to him. She reaches to lift the washcloth on his forehead and touch underneath. “You’re burning up,” she tells him, concern evident in her eyes. “Whatever you did to strain yourself like this, maybe don’t next time?”
“Mmmh,” is all he’s able to muster. Carefully, he takes a sip, and grimaces not at the warmth but at the horrible taste. “That’s disgusting,” he chokes.
Her mouth quirks into a smirk. “I’m sure you can handle it. Come on, drink up. I’m not getting to the order until that mug is empty.”
He rolls his eyes, but he obliges. The tea tastes horrible, but he’s so thirsty it’s not too hard to ignore its flavour. He ends up downing it quickly. She smiles, satisfied as she takes the cup back from him.
“I’ll refill this for you, and then I’ll get those items ready for you,” she says, going back to the teapot. “Don’t you dare get up until then.”
Even if he wanted to, he’s not sure he could. He’s so exhausted, on top of everything else. By the time she’s back by his side with a filled mug, he’s already knocked out cold, slouched on the cushions. The last thing he remembers before drifting away from consciousness is her running the washcloth into his hairline, pushing his hair out of his face.
It’s the middle of the night when he stirs awake. His head is throbbing. His shoulder is sore. He groans as he tries to sit up.
“Hey hey hey, not so fast now, easy,” he hears her say, walking up to him.
He’s so disoriented, he knows where he is but also has a hard time wrapping his mind around it. He sees the open book laid spine-up on the chair by the stove. Has she been… watching over him?
“How do you feel?” she asks him softly.
The shop is eerily quiet in the dead of night, candlelight casting a warm glow on the walls.
He grunts, rolling his shoulders as best he can. His stomach churns. “…. Hungry.”
She chuckles softly. “Okay, hold on,” she tells him before going to what he assumes is the pantry.
She comes back moments later with dry toast and more of that horrid tea.
“It’s not much, but let’s not risk bringing on nausea into the mix,” she says, handing him the plate.
“That tea’s gonna do it more than anything else,” he mutters, reluctantly taking a sip.
“You’ll be grateful in the morning, I promise,” she poorly stifles an amused smirk.
She goes back to her chair as he slowly eats. He still feels terrible, but at least now his vision isn’t spotty anymore, and he’s no longer caked in grime - wait. He looks down at his torso, clean of any dried blood or dirt.
“Did you clean me?” he asks, appalled and feeling a significant amount of heat creep up his neck.
“You had cuts all over,” she shrugs, not even looking up from her book. “I couldn’t leave you like that, they were going to get infected.”
He doesn’t even know what to say. He’s not sure whether he’s thankful or disappointed he was asleep for it. She notices when she looks up to see him staring at her indignantly.
“Oh, calm down,” she sighs. “It’s not like I bathed you, I simply removed all that filth with a rag and applied a bit of balm on the cuts. I told you, I’m going to be a nurse soon, I know what I’m doing.”
He takes a long sip of tea.
“Your hair’s a mess, though, you should let me do something about it,” she muses.
He nearly spits out the tea.
“When’s the last time you cut it?” she persists.
He doesn’t answer, bites down harshly on a piece of toast. She looks at him, insistent.
“I don’t know how,” he admits.
He braces himself for her to mock him, but she doesn’t. She just keeps staring at him, tilting her head slightly.
“I’d be happy to do it for you,” she simply reiterates.
He shakes his head. “Why? Why would you do that?”
She seems to actually ponder her answer. “I guess you look like you could use a break,” she says. “When’s the last time you let someone take care of you?”
He almost wants to laugh. He doesn’t answer. Asra and him look out for each other, but he suspects that’s not what she means.
“Listen,” she says, gentle, “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to, obviously, but think about it. Offer doesn’t expire,” she stifles a yawn.
He finishes his almost-meal in silence. He doesn’t even know her name, he realizes. What is he even still doing here? As if on cue, a sharp pain in his shoulder answers that question. He finds himself actually considering her offer. If he doesn’t let her, will it ever happen? His hair seems to hang heavier on his head as he reflects on his choices.
“Okay,” he finally sighs. This is stupid. I shouldn’t trust her with this.
“Uh?” she asks, looking back up from her book.
“Don’t make me say it,” he groans.
Her brows shoot up. “Oh! Okay! Do you, uh, are you up for washing your hair first then?”
He inhales deeply. Absolutely foolish. “Now?”
She smiles, a twinge amused. “Do you have anything better to do?”
“Stop squirming!” she laughs lightly, the sound clear as it rings out, filling the room.
The towel around his shoulders is damp from his clean hair. He feels like his entire scalp is numb, from the way she’s just pulled at it so hard, battling to untangle his hair. The dull scissors snip close to his ear, sending a shiver down his spine.
“Have you even ever done this before?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer. He hears another shearing noise.
“This was a mistake,” he groans.
“Shh,” she half-chuckles. “You’ll be glad when it’s over.”
She runs her fingers through the hair she has yet to cut. A different kind of shudder runs through him. What was he thinking, agreeing to this? Agreeing to stay for her stupid tea in the first place?
“What’s your name, by the way?” she asks him. Snip.
“I’m cutting your hair free of charge and nursing you back to health after you nearly fainted in the middle of my aunt’s shop,” she points out. “The least you could do is tell me your name.”
He sighs. She’s right. “Muriel,” he mutters.
“Muriel,” she echoes. “It’s a soft name, for someone like you.”
He tenses. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She stills. “You’re, uh,” she stutters, “big.”
That much is pretty self-evident. So then, why does she sound almost flustered saying it? Why does he care?
“What’s your name?” he asks her after an awkward silence.
“Elora,” she says as she keeps cutting away.
“Uh,” is all he’s able to reply. “It’s a, erm, nice name.”
Nice name? Really? he chastises himself. He’s glad she’s standing behind him, that she can’t see his face.
“If this is your aunt’s shop, then where…?” he trails off, unsure why he even asks, just desperate to have the conversation move on.
“She’s in Prakra,” she answers. “She had to go replenish her stock of some rarer ingredients, or at least that’s what she told me. I’m only keeping watch while she’s gone.”
A longer silence stretches, only disturbed by the shearing of the scissors. When he glances to the floor, it’s littered with dark hair. Only then does it sink in, that she really is cutting his hair, that he won’t have this heap of hair to apprehend anymore.
“Can I ask you why you do it?” she asks softly. “Why you fight?”
He never answered her earlier question about the way he wound up like this, but he realizes it didn’t stop her from drawing her own conclusions.
“Let’s just say I don’t have much of a choice,” he sighs grimly. “I don’t like it. I hate it, actually. But things would be worse if I stopped.”
“Oh,” she simply replies. “I guess you could say you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, then.”
“I guess you could say that,” he agrees without much enthusiasm.
They don’t speak much more as she finishes her work on him. He can feel her cutting it shorter than what he had in mind. It makes him slightly anxious, wondering what he’ll look like after this.
“Okay!” she exclaims at last, startling him. She walks around him to look at the whole thing from the front. “I think I’m done,” she says, examining him. “Do you want to see?”
He nods, gulping. She reaches for the hand mirror she kept close through the whole thing.
“I hope you like it,” she says, and he hears her nerves in how her voice trembles.
She lifts the mirror and he’s taken aback when he sees his reflection. He looks older, for one. His hair is now short enough that it won’t be falling on his face until it grows back out, and it’s an odd feeling. It’s so different, he doesn’t know how he feels about it. It’ll be more practical, that’s for sure. Won’t get impossibly tangled anymore.
She hands him the mirror as she sweeps the hair fallen to the ground.
“What do you think?” she chews on her lip.
He’s still contemplating his reflexion. “It’s… different.”
She nods, understanding what he means. She seems about to say something but stops herself.
“I think it suits you,” she bites her cheek, not meeting his eyes. “You look, uh, handsome.”
She might as well have punched him in the stomach; he feels like all the air has left his lungs. When’s the last time someone has called him handsome?
“…. Thanks,” he flushes red. “I, uh, I guess you did alright.”
She smiles at him, but it’s quickly overtaken by a yawn. She stretches out her arms. “Maybe we ought to get some sleep now.”
“Uh uh,” he agrees, still slightly reeling.
She picks up the dustpan and tosses his hair away. It’s an odd feeling.
“My bed’s upstairs,” she pauses to yawn once more, “But feel free to wake me up if you need something. You don’t mind sleeping in the kitchen, do you? There are no extra beds.”
“Okay,” he nods, fully knowing he wouldn’t wake her unless the entire shop was burning. “And yes, the kitchen is fine.”
“Good night, then,” she smiles as she heads for the stairs.
His throat tightens as he tries to figure out what he wants to say. “Elora?” he says tentatively.
She turns back around to face him. He’s struck by the realization that she might actually be the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. It ties his tongue in a whole new way.
“Thank you,” he clears his throat. “For everything.”
She smiles, and it mirrors in her eyes. “Don’t mention it.”
In the morning, Muriel is awoken by voices in the front of the shop. He blinks as he catches the bright sunlight through the windows. How long has he been sleeping for?
“… seen my friend, maybe? Really tall, usually prone to brooding, he was supposed to stop by here,” he hears a familiar voice.
Asra? He gets up in a hurry, too surprised to notice just how much better he feels compared to last night.
“Might ring a bell,” he hears Elora say, and he doesn’t even have to see her smirk to know it’s there.
He steps out of the kitchen. “Asra?” he asks, rubbing his brow, voice still hoarse from sleep.
Asra lets out a deep sigh of relief. “There you are! Do you know how worried I was when you never came home? What- woah, what happened to your hair?”
Muriel instinctively runs a hand through what’s left of it. He only just now remembers it’s shorter now, much shorter.
“Doesn’t it look good?” Elora interjects proudly.
“Did you do this?” Asra asks her, incredulous.
Asra whistles. “It’s… different. I like it.”
Muriel is, frankly, a bit overwhelmed by all of this. The events of the night seem so improbable he’s not even sure anymore what’s real and what was a dream.
Elora fishes out a paper bag from behind the counter and sets it before Asra.
“Everything on your list is in there,” she says. “I’m guessing it was your list?”
“Correct,” Asra smiles at her, before he squints slightly. He’s making that face when he’s trying to remember something. “I’m sorry, this might come off as weird, but have we ever met before? You look familiar.”
Elora shakes her head. “Unless you have a habit of going to Nopal, I doubt it. I’m usually only ever in Vesuvia for the-”
“The masquerade,” Asra completes, realization dawning on him.
Muriel’s stomach churns. Surely, she can’t be-
Elora’s eyes grow wide. “It’s you,” she breathes. “The boy from the bubble room.”
Usually, that’s where Asra would quip something funny, perhaps even teasing. But he’s just staring at her, jaw slack with shock. Muriel feels like he’s watching a meteorite crash to the Earth, something powerful and inevitable he has no control over. There’s a bitterness that blooms in his chest against his will.
Muriel’s heard Asra’s story about the girl from the bubble room a thousand times already. How for three years now, he’s run into her there at the masquerade, always at the stroke of midnight. The first year he danced with her. The second they talked all night. Last masquerade, he’d brazenly kissed her on sight. Every year, she’d slipped away into the night, anonymous, and Asra wouldn’t shut up about it for the weeks to come.
And now he’s found her. And now Muriel feels foolish, to have thought even in the back of his mind that she was his in any way, shape, or form. His stranger who took him in and healed him and cut his hair and told him he was handsome.
He can see it plain as day, from the way that they’re looking at each other now, that this is their moment. That in the grand scheme of things, he only ended up here so Asra would find her, not so that he would meet her.
Makes more sense that way, he thinks to himself. Won’t get fooled again.
