Distance Expressed in Time
I have to push away these feelings that can’t be reciprocated.
But I want to push them away because I want to be closer, close enough for a hug to be safe. A want that is almost definitely from these feelings. How in the fuck do I work that out?
I want to pray to the Great Ring. Look up at. Not just empty words sung with the hope of it listening.
“I’ll miss you, blankets,” I whisper as I throw off the sheets and toss on underwear.
My dresses are still drying on the rack, so I actually dip into my old clothing before moving to the kitchen. The lights stay off—I’m not facing those pictures—and the window comes open.
That thin line in the sky sits off in the distance, proudly above us. Beautiful beyond what is human.
“Great Ring…” I slow down and take a breath of the cool night air, distant laughter echoing from a nearby street while an old steam car coughs.
“Great Ring, Mistress Vincenza told me that you brought me to her. I know I didn’t…
I didn’t intend. Not for anything. I just took the way that seemed longest. Did you design that?
Make the world just perfect so that I’d end up here? Was I her perfect apprentice?”
The Ring shines no brighter, no lesser.
Cautious not to let myself be heard by anyone else, I cut my voice a quarter.
“It’s hard to feel perfect, sometimes. I don’t know anything about who Mistress Vincenza loved in the past, but my heart wants to tell me that she had perfection.
A perfect love. A perfect life. Where do I come in then?
Why did someone have to die, have their perfect life ruined, and then… it’s me?
“I can’t even be the same thing for her. I’ll just be an apprentice. Do I help her find the person that will be? Is that what you want of me? I—Why was it just one of them that died? They both made the same mistake that you thought worthy of death. How come only some suffer it?
“But why—oh why… fucking why? Why do I feel so close to you when I touch her? You’re infinite and beautiful and could belong to everyone. What of my brothers makes them unworthy to touch you? What makes the Ringborn better? Nothing I could do would make me one—“ A chill falls down me.
Doubts cloud my mind. Strange doubts. I look down into the streets, suddenly wondering if that laughter was there or… something from a long time ago.
I slip down to my knees, leaving my chin on the sill. “I’m sorry, Great Ring. I shouldn’t be demanding answers for those. I love you. I’ll serve you forever. Tell me what to do to be happy, and I’ll do it. I’ll trust you.”
I catch my eyes staring at a steeple. Strings of lights keep it on display for everyone.
It’s not something I can know for sure, but I have to believe the Ring was why my eyes wandered.
And if it made me stare at the church, then that must be where I go—with Mistress Vincenza.
She asked me before; she might want to visit with me.
Then we can both find answers. If not from the Great Ring, then from its most loyal and educated servants.
“Thank you, Great Ring.”
I miss her.
I don’t know what I mean by that, but I do. She doesn’t even come out to introduce me to the day, just instead going straight to her office.
No opportunity for us to talk.
“Thank you.” I take the book from a patron, leaving it to my side for later.
The patron keeps looking at me.
“Uh, that was it. You can go.”
“Oh. That’s convenient.” She walks into the mess of shelves.
I drop my head into the table. My mind can’t get focused enough to read, but I need something so that I can stop thinking about her.
Maybe I can ask her to let me play the radio down here. Maybe we can talk about the stations she likes. Maybe one has great instrumental music for reading—or Lawrinian lyrics that I couldn’t decipher anyway. Maybe we’ll listen to it together…
And, fuck me, I’m thinking about her again.
That’s friendly! That’s kindly! I shouldn’t be imposing anything romantic on something as simple as sharing music interests.
Or, is friendliness the problem? Should we not be friends—that devastates my heart even more to think. I’m not working any worse than when we were strangers, and pursuing necromancy would be so convenient if I didn’t need to deal with dating.
Can’t friendly hugging work?
“Can I get this one?” The woman comes back, timidly placing down a smut novel.
I glance the title: The Succubus’s Admirer. “Oh, I loved that one.”
Not. The. Right. Thing. To. Say. Fuck.
“I—D-do you have a patron card?” I awkwardly ask.
“No. Do I need one?”
“You do for checking out. But you can read this here without one.”
“I’d rather check it out.”
I can believe that. “Patronage is one hundred crescents a season, requiring presentation of residential documentation to start. Benefits include priority access to parlour hosted events, written recognition at said events, research advice from”—I stutter for a moment, unsure if Mistress Vincenza is still a ‘mistress’ when I refer to her for other people—“Mistress Vincenza, and the right to the check out books. We have no present limit on the amount of books you check out, just a thirty day limit before you must return them, with the possibility of renewal if they’re not on hold for another patron. ”
“Hmm.” She grumbles, probably realizing that a hundred crescents is an obscene amount to part over such a small parlour. “What kind of events?”
And this will be how I give her a clean reason to say no.
Still, I dutifully recite, “we’re currently renting out a bar a couple days after the festival of lights—non-alcoholic. The servers will be animated by me under the training and supervision of Mistress Vincenza.” I smile, hoping that’ll overcome the slight issue of my inability to animate anything.
The woman leans forward, staring at my eyes with hers, hazel—like mine—but caught in a glowing dance. “She’s training a non-Ringborn?”
“Y-yes.”
She straightens back up, hand on her chest and face beaming. “My partner’s also a consort, and they’re just the loveliest! It’s so great to see you as apprentices. Is check okay?”
“Of course!” Now the smile’s embarrassingly real. “Would you mind if I grabbed my mistress to process this?”
“Not at all.”
I sprint into the back, knock on Mistress Vincenza’s door… and lose all my energy as I see her open it.
Her eyes are dramatically red. Common for necromancers—and I put makeup on to look similar—but her sclera has been bare of color since I met her. Not to mention how loose her hair looks, or how her posture is slightly hunched and uncomfortable, or how dead her face looks.
“What is it, Catarina?” she asks in a tone both out of it and annoyed.
“I-I needed your h-help. We have someone apply-app-applying to become a patron here. They wish to pay with check.”
“A new patron?” Her body shifts, eyes studying me like I could’ve lied.
“Are those… not common?”
“It’s been a long time.”
A long time… Like, since Nascia? I don’t have the confidence to ask, but the thought crawls uncomfortably in my gut.
Mistress Vincenza wastes no time to step past me and handle the proceedings. Her movements seem awkward; there’s a stutter sometimes, like she’s trying to remember the next step in the process.
But, I do manage to catch just that hint of a smile as she sends the woman off with her book.
I dare to stand next to Mistress Vincenza. “I think she wants to attend our event at the bar.”
“Does she?” Mistress Vincenza whispers. “Most of our interest was generated through those events.”0
“It’s good we’re having another one then, isn’t it?”
“It is good.” With a sigh, her face drops. “Call for me again if you need me.”
“Uh, M-mistress? Could I ask you for something?”
“What?”
“You asked me about which church I attended when you first interviewed me. I saw that there was one nearby. Could we go there?”
Her fingers curl. “They are Queen’s Orthodox.”
“Uh, what?”
“They are a branch of the historical Roversellan Orthodox Church of Avenale with integrated elements from the historical Lawrinian Orthodox Church of Mutkowo that endorses homosexuality and necromancy, as dictated by the Immortal Queens. They’re… a fine church, but tend to be conservative.”
“How conservative?”
Her head lifts and her eyes drift elsewhere. “The conservative members of the church didn’t stop going after the Immortal Queens ordered the expulsion of their old beliefs. Even now, some still attend… But, I assure that it’s a rare issue. The matron is kind and welcoming.”
“I think I’d take any church about now.”
Her fingers twitch. “I’ll take you after we close.”
“Thanks, Mistress.”
“Back to the desk. Now.”
I flicker a smile and obey.
I’m surprised by Mistress Vincenza letting me have the wheel. She hovers close to take over any moment, but there’s still a lot of trust in letting me drive on real roads.
“After this right, it’s just due west,” she states.
This thing’s stressful. Roversella isn’t hilly, so I don’t need to figure out how to slow it on a downhill, but that’s the absolute bottom of comfort and it’s all I have.
She wordlessly spins the wheel left to correct a small drift.
Great Ring, when I wished to be close to her, I meant in my heart and spirit. I feel distant even as her hands nearly touch mine.
Well, it’ll be time to pray in a moment. I think I more or less managed to park.
“You did fine, but you still need me with you while you drive,” she judges.
“That’s… good?”
“Very.” She hops out, leaving me to follow.
Not so many people enter this church—a circular building in orbit of an open and wonderful garden—at this hour. It almost feels dead as we peacefully wander through the courtyard.
Mistress Vincenza sits on a wooden bench next to an artificial pond. “This was my favorite spot to look up at the Ring and stars when I came here regularly. It’s early for that now—still bright—but it can be the closest thing to quiet anywhere in Avenale’s metropolitan area.”
I hesitantly place myself next to her. “Why did you stop?”
She blinks and looks at the ground. “I never once came here for myself.”
Oh.