Return of the Runebound Professor

“What, are you trying to drive me insane by reminding me of things my brain censored out?” Noah asked, more baffled than anything else. “What’s the point of doing all that just to look through my memories? You’re not getting any freer if I go nuts.”

“Not looking through – and you’re already, as you would put it, nuts,” Azel corrected, raising a finger into the air. “You’re right. I already saw your memories – the ones that take place on Earth or in the Arbalest Empire, that is. But I’m not talking about memories. I’m talking about emotions.”

“You’ve been… looking at my emotions?”

“Releasing them, more accurately. Your mind muted huge aspects of yourself as a survival mechanism. Your desire to eat. Your feelings toward life – both your own and other’s. A dozen others, all core parts of human life. Every single little thing that you should have loved was stuffed away and sealed, so that their call just a faint whisper.”

“I never felt like I wasn’t feeling what I should be.”

“Of course not. You don’t know what’s missing when you don’t have it.”

Noah’s brow furrowed, but the pieces of what Azel was saying finally slid into place and understanding washed over his features.

“Have you influenced how I feel about–”

“Not in the slightest.” Azel’s grin grew wider. “That’s all you. I just opened a few things up so you could actually feel them again. Aren’t emotions wonderful?”

“I don’t understand what you get out of this.” Noah pointedly ignored Azel’s question. “And how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Because you’d have done a whole lot more by now if I was actually messing with your true feelings rather than moment to moment nudges.” Azel crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Seriously. Even with me setting everything back up how it should be, you still refuse to act like a normal human. But at least you’re on the track to being less like some soulless monster. I can’t say I’ve loved all the emotions you’ve handed me as of late, but anything is better than nothing.”

Noah opened his mouth, then frowned. “You feed off of what I feel. That’s why you’re doing this.”

“Ding! Very good, Vines. Even after the nudges I gave you, your emotions were so muted that I was starving to death. Now, why don’t you say thank you?”

“Not going to happen.”

Azel glared at Noah. “Ungrateful. Do you realize how long you would have been stuck the way you were if I didn’t start pulling this tapestry of mental scars apart?”

“I never asked for you to change anything. How am I to know you won’t make things worse, Azel? My emotions are mine. I don’t want you touching shit in my head and changing how I feel.”

“Not once have I ever changed how you feel. I’ve only exaggerated things. You do all the rest for me.”

Noah paused for a moment, then tilted his head to the side. At least as far as he knew, Azel wasn’t lying about that. Every time Azel’s influence had come in, it had only exacerbated his anger, not generated it from scratch.

If Azel has the power to mess with my emotions like that, why hasn’t he done more? It’s not because he respects me, that’s for sure.

“You can’t consume emotions that you create, can you?” Noah realized. “That would just be a self-sufficient cycle. That’s not possible. You need them to come from someone else.”

Azel’s smile slipped away.

“Correct. You came to that conclusion slower than I’d hoped, but at least you got it without me spelling it out. We’re stuck together, Vines. I don’t like it. You don’t like it. At any point, either of us could kill the other, but we’d go down together. And, just like me, I know you want to live.”

“And it doesn’t hurt that, the more attached I am to life, then the less likely I am to kill both of us, huh?”

“Not in the slightest,” Azel agreed. “We aren’t allies, Vines. I eagerly await the day I can rip you apart, but for the time being, I’m stuck in this wretched head of yours – and that means I’d actually like to enjoy the experience.”

“Considering you thrive off hatred, I’m not inclined to help you there.”

“Now that’s hardly a fair assessment. Hatred is only one tiny, tiny part of anger, and I’m so much more than that. Give me a little room to work here. After all, we’re in this together. I only want the best for you – right up until I free myself from this prison and we can rip each other apart to our heart’s content.”

Noah didn’t trust a single word that Azel said, but to his annoyance, the demon did have a point. He’d never admit it out loud, but in spite of the things that had been happening as of late, he really was having more fun – and eating felt considerably better than just surviving off killing monsters.

Getting used to relying on Azel is a great way to start slipping down a slope that’ll only continue to get sharper. But… damn it. He might have genuinely done something useful.

“And I’ll admit that I appreciate some of what you’ve done.” Noah heaved a sigh. “I didn’t miss the implication that I probably wouldn’t have told Brayden the truth if it wasn’t for you – and that was something that had to be done. The same goes for the other things that have been happening as of late. So, just this one time, I’ll say thank you.”

Azel blinked, taken aback.

“Don’t get used to it,” Noah added. “I’m going back to sleep. There are very few people that I want to spend my entire night thinking about, and you certainly aren’t one of them. It’s just too bad that you can’t feed off a more useful emotion like gratitude. Maybe that would have made you less insufferable.”

With that, Noah pulled out of his mindspace. His body vanished, leaving Azel alone in the expanse of darkness, a small frown on his smoldering features.

***

For once, Noah woke up early. The sun’s rays had just barely started to poke through the window, and Lee was still burrowed under her sheets like a lump. She’d likely gotten her fill of exploring the city for the time being.

Moxie leaned against Noah, her chest rising and falling in slow breaths beneath the covers. Even though Azel had yet to say anything, Noah instinctively pushed the demon back. He’d had more than enough conversation with Azel the previous night and had no desire to hear his less than welcome suggestions.

There was no way Noah was going to get out of bed in his current position, so he settled for relaxing where he laid. His eyes closed and his breathing stilled to match Moxie’s as he started to meditate, calling on his Runes to slowly pull energy from his surroundings.

It had been a while since he’d actually tried to do meditation, and he took things even slower than normal, not wanting to cause a significant shift in the temperature by drawing too much.

The extra energy was nice, but he was meditating more to justify why he was staying in bed than to actually grow his Runes’ capacity.

Almost an hour passed before he opened his eyes again, only to find himself looking straight into Moxie’s eyes. They both froze. Then, in her usual manner, Moxie arched an eyebrow.

“You don’t look very asleep.” Moxie said, her tone low to avoid waking up Lee.

“Neither do you. You’re usually the one that wakes up first, aren’t you?”

“Maybe I wanted to sleep longer.”

“You weren’t sleeping.”

Moxie opened her mouth, then paused. Then she prodded Noah in the stomach, causing him to double over with a surprised huff. “What was that for?”

“My brain wasn’t fully running yet. I’m not above using cheap tactics to win, though.”

Noah rolled his eyes. He was midway through searching for a response when a tiny patch of beige caught his eye. There was a piece of paper on the ground, just on the inside of their door. Moxie caught the change in his expression and followed his gaze.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope it’s not more work.” Moxie sat up and brushed her hair out of her face. “For once, I’d like to actually have nothing happening. Is that too much to ask?”

“Yes,” Noah said, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably. Moxie flicked him as he slid out of the bed, padding over to the piece of paper. Noah knelt beside it. There were two small puncture holes at the top of the paper, which turned out to be a letter. Noah was fairly sure someone had just delivered it to the wrong room, but that didn’t stop him from reading it.

I’ve had some time to think over what we spoke about yesterday. Not as much as I would have liked, as we’re leaving Dawnforge today, but time enough.

I am unsure how I should feel about this. I miss my brother, but it struck me that I have not had meaningful interaction with him ever since Father got him properly started on that fool’s quest.

When we met after your little incident with the Hellreaver, I was delighted. I thought Vermil had finally overgrown his issues and become something of a respectable – if odd – man.

Father always focused on Vermil more than me – something which I am ashamed to be thankful for. I won’t claim that Vermil would have grown to be a perfectly respectable man if he’d been left alone, but we’ll never know for sure. Father ensured that Vermil would be who he needed him to be.

I had thought that Vermil had finally broken just a little bit of Father’s influence over him. Over the past few months, I felt like I had gotten my brother back. But it strikes me that it was not him that I spoke with – it was you.

It is an odd feeling to realize that you were not speaking to the person who you thought you were. However, that does not change the facts. Vermil is dead, killed by Father’s actions. Karina helped, but she is as much a victim of Father as Vermil was.

I believe I have started to ramble. I wrote this letter to say that we are not brothers. You are not who you claimed to be. I understand why you did what you did, but the love I had for who Vermil could have been was reserved for him alone. He was family.

But you – I think, after some time, we could be friends.

P. S.

I gave your cat this letter. I hope the damn thing delivers it. It was batting things off my shelves for an hour while I wrote this.

The letter wasn’t signed, but it didn’t need to be. At some point while he was reading it, Noah had sat down. He stared down at it, emotion roiling in his stomach – which ones, he still wasn’t sure.

Moxie walked up and leaned against him, peering down at the letter over his shoulder. She remained silent, but Noah appreciated her presence nonetheless. He turned the letter over to see if anything else was written on it, then froze.

It wasn’t mere paper that he held – it was Catchpaper. And, shimmering with energy on its other side, was a Space Rune.

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