The Prison

[Ander]

Like a good display of false chivalry, Ander motioned to courteously open the door for Sophia and allow her passage into the mansion first, but as his hand grasped the handle, the door flew open and slammed right into his face, sending him stumbling backwards. Somebody rushed past, somebody neither of them noticed, an angry and bewildered girl with blond hair.

“I’m okay,” he quickly assured, placing up a palm while pinching the bridge of his nose. He managed to stay out of the way as a second person followed the first, and the thief looked sharply towards the fleeing figure, catching glimpses of black silk and wispy trails of blue hair, knowing instantly to whom they belonged.

“Sage!” Ander called after.

“That was Sage?” Sophia questioned, somewhat confused. Ignoring the obvious line of questioning that would inevitably follow, the former priestess joined in his shout as she hollered, “Sage, what’s wrong?”

The girl either didn’t hear them or didn’t want to hear them, balking momentarily at her choice of direction until she bolted behind the house. Ander suppressed a growl that threatened to rumble out from deep within his throat.

Bad timing bad timing bad timing, he cursed internally.

He shook his head in irritation before smoothing over his features as he shrugged helplessly towards Sophia.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he stated, sounding almost surprised at his own election of action.

The healer jerked her thumb in the direction the ice maiden had vanished. “Well she’s a friend of mine, I’ll go with you.”

He quickly waved her off with a gesture of his hand. “No, no, this is something I have to do.” He glanced hurriedly towards the corner, knowing that every second he wasted would be a second harder to find her again, and then looked back to Sophia, hating the choice he was letting himself make between the two. The thief held out a hand imploringly towards the blond. “Listen, um, just take a look around the mansion, and uh, I’ll be right back okay? Don’t like, run off on me or anything, because it’s really nice meeting you and you seem like a wonderful, lovely person and it’d be nice to talk and…” Ander’s pressured brain ran out of cheap yet flattering words to say to smooth over the situation, so he simply decided to quit while he was behind. “Ugh, I’m really sorry!”

The nomad bolted off in Sage’s direction, leaving behind an utterly lost Sophia.

God damnit!

He moved with fleet of foot, yet his steps fell silently as he followed the ostensible trail of tracks left behind by the two women. When he finally happened upon his target, he realized his momentary delay with Sophia had cost him discovering the true nature of the sudden outburst, so instead he watched silently as Sage summoned a medical kit and started patching herself up from something that screamed suspicious. Finally, he cleared his throat, and their unconventional reunion started to awkwardly unfold.

“I… um… it was… Magnus,” Sage managed. “He… he attacked us.” Her voice suddenly became very somber. “He killed the little boy. Wolfgang.”

Ander had no idea who Wolfgang was, or why he was killed, and truthfully, while death was always a sad and tragic occurrence, he didn’t particularly care. He didn’t know Wolfgang and the kid had no personal meaning to him, so he couldn’t really be expected to be affected by the loss of a stranger’s life. Instead, what leaped to the forefront of his mind was their previous conversation, and where it had ended, brought back to life all too vividly by her telltale trembling.

“Is that why you’re shaking?” he asked casually, pretending to study the empty blue skies.

Sage unconsciously looked away, managing only a nod. But she didn’t have to say anything; her evasive body language gave everything away. He could read her like a book. The thief decided to just cut his usual song and dance and get straight to the point. After all, he hadn’t entered this foray in the best of circumstances... or of moods.

“Had any Valium today?” Ander questioned, almost as if he were inquiring about the weather.

“I… I d-don’t know w-what you mean,” Sage murmured, her stutter yet another flashing sign.

Ander snorted, not amused by her incredibly poor defense. “You know, that line usually works best when you haven’t already admitted to doing it.”

“D-doing wh-what?” the girl clumsily tried again.

“I’m not stupid. Answer my question. Have you or have you not had any Valium today?”

Sage shuffled uncomfortably, rising to her feet, and Ander immediately mirrored the movement. “O-oh... yeah... I, um... I’d kind of hoped you’d forgotten about that...” she mumbled.

“Oh I’ve got a long memory,” the thief smiled humorlessly.

“N-no...” Sage finally admitted.

The dune dweller didn’t let it rest at that. “Is that the only kind you take?”

“I don’t think it’s your place to...” Sage started, her uncomfortable disposition gradually treading into one of annoyance. As the words spilled out, she attempted to slowly slip away, but the thief grabbed her by the wrist before she could complete her retreat.

“Don’t try to walk away from me,” Ander warned, his face stern.

The cryomancer didn’t take as kindly to this touch as she had the first, her annoyance readily dropping into full-fledged defensive mode as her mood instantly flipped from Quiet Sage to Angry Sage. “D-don’t grab me like you think you can hold me. I’m tired of people thinking I’m helpless!”

Ander’s tone rose steadily to match her own as he barely contained the edge in his voice. “Don’t put words in my mouth, I never said that, because I don’t think you are helpless. But for somebody’s who’s not, you sure have a funny way of showing it. If you’re not helpless, why would you take drugs?”

“I told you, it k-keeps me normal,” Sage replied.

Ander roughly yanked her closer, his features etching more and more into indignation, his eyes challenging her own as his words grew in pacing and intensity with every measured moment. “But it’s not real! It’s fake! How much more would it mean if it was just you? You and nothing else that was normal! People who aren’t helpless don’t need that crap! Where do you keep it, huh? You got a dealer or something? Give you a good price? Have a variety inventory? Huh? Tell me Sage, am I getting warm?!”

“How dare you! It’s none of your business anyway!” the woman growled, tugging to release her wrist and failing. “Who the hell do you think are? Why should you even care?”

The thief’s voice finally elevated to a full shout. “Because I’m trying to figure out why somebody who cares about life as much as you do would destroy their own body! Why would you do that to yourself? You’re strong, I know you are, why do you think you need it?!”

Sage squeezed her eyes shut and shouted right back. “You could never understand the things I’ve been through!”

“You need to stop picking and choosing when you’re helpless and when you’re not! Either you are, or you aren’t, and people who aren’t helpless don’t use an empty crutch like that! Stop pretending like you can’t pick yourself up when you fall down, because you can! It’s pathetic and just another piss-poor lie of yours!”

Sage shook her head, violently, completely and fully under the thrall of her bipolar withdrawals. “You haven’t seen me when I did! You haven’t seen what I can do. You and everyone else!” Angrily, she raised up her other arm and wildly beat at his chest until he grabbed that wrist, too. She struggled against his hold, but he was locked on and wouldn’t let go, and she didn’t have the physical strength to overpower him. So instead, she simply thrashed futilely.

The thief had no idea why he was so angry. It could have been many reasons, had he actually the time or the frame of mind to think about it. She confused him on so many levels; she had to have an ulterior motive. Everybody did. And he hadn’t quite figured it out yet. He didn’t understand why she spared his life with absolutely no reason to do so; he didn’t understand why he continually made decisions contrary to his own best interest when she entered the equation. In some way, he supposed he probably hated it, and wanted to simply find her inevitable flaw that cracked that seemingly innocent surface so he could throw her away just like everybody else. But he couldn’t, because Sage reminded him so much of his hidden frailties, of those painful feelings. He spoke his words not for her, but for himself, about relying on oneself and being strong on your own. He spoke them because he had to believe it. He had to convince himself it was true. He had to believe in a person’s own strength. If he didn’t, he would have given up and gone crazy or gotten killed a long time ago. If he didn’t believe it, he would have nothing… be… nothing.

So, after some twisted fashion, he’d found a way to use her beyond her initial usefulness after all, and she was just too naïve to see it. She was almost symbolic to the very idea behind what kept him motivated to become powerful.

“So what are you going to do, Sage? You can’t run away from me and you can’t stop me. What are you going to do about it since you don’t have one of your little pills to pop?” he demanded, foolishly, daringly. In one instant, she could skewer him just as easily as she had done before.

And then she glared at him with what he could only presume as intention of violence, but it turned out to be something else entirely. Tears welled up in her rosy eyes, and she started to cry. Ander’s eyes widened, almost as if in denial, an unhappy smile forming on his face as he instantly released her and started to shake his head.

“Oh no, no no no no no no,” he chuckled humorlessly. “Oh god, not this.” He looked around nervously, all too aware of how loud it must have been. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Shhh! Be quiet! Somebody’s going to hear you. Stop, please.” No avail. He stole another quick glance around the corners of the gorgeous house, and then lowered his voice to a gruff command, punctuated with a militant pointer finger. “I order you to stop! Right this instant! Cease! Desist!” He paused. “…Arrêtez de sangloter tout de suite!” She kept on crying, oblivious to his insistences. Ander looked skyward, and growled low between clenched teeth, “I hate crying.”

He placed his hands on his hips, completely helpless in the situation. Since forcing her to stop didn’t seem to be working, he mustered up what little talent at condolences he had. The thief gingerly reached out his hand and stiffly tapped her twice on the shoulder, as if she were going to spontaneously combust at any moment. “There, there…” he attempted, his words falling lamely and woodenly.

The poor endeavor at consolation elicited yet another unexpected reaction, as the girl interpreted the gesture as an extended invitation for physical comfort, and she surprised the thief by glomping him and flinging her frail arms tightly around his neck, as if he were the only rock against the powerful undertow in a vast and unforgiving ocean. Too tightly, in fact, as Ander felt the flow of oxygen cut off from his lungs.

“Sage,” he choked. “I ca-I can’t breathe!”

He reached around his back and grappled for a firm hold, and pried her locked limbs off, then gripping her tightly by the shoulders as he held her rigidly away from him at arm’s length as if dealing with a large, undesirable child.

You really are more trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you? Ander winced.

Through it all, Sage did not stop blubbering. He carefully started to move her, and she did not resist as he positioned her against the mansion’s luxuriously painted wall, against which the doctor sank miserably. Ander sat down next to her, watching as stoically as possible as she buried her face into her knees and hugged her legs, muffling her sobs and hiding her puffy, reddened cheeks as her blue hair riffled over the sides of her head. The nomad tilted his head back, staring silently up at the breezy atmosphere.

Don’t give in. Don’t you even frickin’ do it.

It only took a minute or two for her unremitting bawling to finally break him. He sighed, relenting guiltily against the piteous nature of her emotional state.

“Okay. All right, all right. Come here,” he said reluctantly.

She glanced up from beneath her protective enclave, coral eyes glassed over in a sheen of tears as she continued her woeful weeping. He met her uncertain gaze and jerked his head ever so slightly to the side, and Sage took the hint without any further hesitation, scooting over and leaning against his shoulder. Ander simply sat there, unmoving, harboring a defeated look as his jacket slowly stained with salt water and possibly the leftover blood on her dress.

Definitely more trouble than you’re worth.