Baiting a deity of darkness into a conversation goes about as well as could be expected for Russo, much to his eternal frustration. Implied threats, heavy-handed puppeteering, half-truths and misdirection; nothing all that unexpected at this point. In need of a much deserved rest following his dealings with Dark, Russo is but of course denied the pleasure. Without so much as a chance to catch his breath, the poor mage reluctantly entertains his oft ignored and self-designated apprentice.

Before you go off and whack at me for taking my sweet time with this chapter, what with taking an extended video game break and all, give some thanks to  Kusanagi! He wrote this this delightful and completely canon story in the meantime! Heck, I even refer back to it.

Icon is courtesy of  demonroni

FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT

---

Chapter 47

Arm slung across his chest, Russo’s arm rose and fell in concert with his breathing. Eyes still closed, a gentle curtain of darkness draped along the back of the mage’s eyelids. He could swear he could make out patterns in the void that dominated his vision, blobs of blues and purples congealing and running together like a smoky stream. Motionless, he had remained in bed for hours; conscious thought faded in and out alongside restless bouts of sleep.

Clenching his peepers tight, the mage grunted after rousing himself awake. Sweat stained sheets matted against his back, prompting the human to roll over onto the other side of the bed. “What can the old man even throw at me this time? Arson?” That was all on Greg. “Reckless endangerment?” …Okay, Varun probably had a solid case for that. The air drawn in through Russo’s nose whistled against the moist cartilage walls of his nostrils. “Disobeying a direct order? Not like that’s the first I’ve done that.” Grimacing, the human scratched at his brow. Flakes of burnt and oily skin flicked off and collected under his fingernails. Ignoring Master Varun’s wishes had netted him little more than stern warnings and slaps on the wrist in the past but… even that grumpy and senile lightning mage could only be pushed so much. Russo exhaled heavily through his mouth, ribs sinking down into his chest.

“Guess I’ll find out soon enough,” he sighed. Nuzzling the back of his head into a flattened pillow, Russo waited for the dull and heavy weight of sleep to reclaim his limbs once more. “It’s the waiting that’s the worst fucking part,” he thought. For now, he could only hope the next time he opened his eyes there would be muted morning sunlight trickling in through the frosted windows to greet him. From there he could get whatever verbal lashing the old man had in store for him done and over with.

Flashes of whites soaked through the mage’s eyelids, and colored the darkness shrouding his vision shades of gray. “About damn time,” he mumbled while his eyes creaked open. The sight that greeted him was no different than what he had been tiredly staring at for the past couple hours. …That’s not right. Russo blinked rapidly in an effort to part the darkness that refused to leave his gaze. Open, closed, it made no difference as to the orientation of his eyes. Suffocating blackness was ever present regardless. “Shit.”

“Come now, you were the one who wanted an audience to begin with.” Two rows of gnarled, jagged teeth materialized before the mage. They hummed and flickered with energy, providing the sole source of light in the deity’s domain. Back and forth the pillars of bone clacked together as Dark spoke.

Russo’s heart pounding its way out of his chest drowned out whatever diatribes that monstrosity was lobbing at him.

“Deeper and deeper you’ve plummeted into my debt, Russo.” Tendrils and sinew snaked their way out from the roots of Dark’s teeth. Piling onto one another, they coiled and clumped together as his jawline came into being. “I’ll overlook your deliverance from Light’s wrath. After all, I should be thanking you for granting me the opportunity to deny her so.” A deep, reverberating rumble spilled out from behind the god’s pearly whites. “Where to begin tallying up… Well, we both know you benefitted immensely from that skirmish with the demon, walking away with an invaluable and well tested piece of magical armor.”

Dark’s newly formed lips curled down in aggravated displeasure. His forming threads of musculature slicked and slid over one another as an oily black muzzle stretched over his teeth. “Feh, at least I was able to get some use out of one of those wretched mistakes.” Shuffling past misgivings from his mind, the deity continued on. “On that note, can’t it be argued that your newly acquired armor then proved pivotal to that dragon’s defeat? Or at the very least it guaranteed your continued existence.” Further and further back the mass of coiling darkness extended out from Dark’s maw in order to give form and structure to the base of his skull. A crescent moon flickered to life in one of those half-formed eye sockets.

“It’s almost as if each hardship segues into the next, conveniently preparing you for what’s to come. Assuring you a flicker of a fighting chance at emerging victorious. I mean, it’s not as if I’m explicitly setting you up to fail, after all.” Teeth bared, the deity’s lips curled back into a sneer as a guttural growl rumbled through Russo’s ribs. “One can only wonder just what kind of trials would demand the use of your powerful new spell, hmm?” Veins arced down from Dark’s free floating neck, splintering and branching out into a pulsing skeletal structure.

Even taking into account the mage had been expecting another face to face, that didn’t stop these interactions from being any less unnerving. “You got what you wanted.” Russo could still hear his heart thumping in his ears. “Isn’t that enough?” Even though he already knew the answer, the human had to at least put in some semblance of resistance or defiance.

Dark’s caustic demeanor softened while he twiddled the fingers of an atrophied arm against his chin. That thin and bony limb throbbed and thickened as whatever lifeblood that kept that monstrosity running coursed through those snaking and intertwining veins. “...I suppose,” Dark replied with a half-hearted shrug.

The glowing crescent bobbed around in the jackal’s skull from one socket to the next. In the blink of an eye it had been obscured by the bridge of the deity’s nose, it had filled out to a half moon. “After all, there won’t be any need for me to interfere for quite some time.”

That... what should have come as a relief sent Russo’s stomach knotting in on itself. Rising to his feet, the human’s tired and battered knees wobbled upon the undulating landscape. Dark’s legs sunk into the fleshy blackness beneath them like roots. “Should I even ask?” With a grimace, Russo clutched at his bandaged chest. Huh. His fingers brushed against the oily tatters, scratching at the blots of black and crimson that soaked through them. Guess Jem must have properly patched him up at some point.

“All I’ve done thus far is open your eyes to, if not accelerate, the confrontations and tribulations that were likely to befall you. Make no mistake.” Dark glided towards the mage along the pulsing mass beneath them. “Thus far my interference has had absolutely no bearing on ‘if’ an event were to come to pass. I don’t conjure up dragons or demons out of thin air, you know.”

Russo circled the deity, none too eager to let him close the distance between them. Umbra he could understand. That psychotic was bound to hunt him down looking for a fight sooner or later, regardless of whether or not Dark was pulling at the strings. That whole mess with Kaya and Greg… “I can’t possibly be agreeing with him, can I?” Russo morbidly thought.

He swatted at the air before him to dispel whatever half-truths that freak was trying to drown him with. “So why bother with me at all then?” The simple act of throwing his weight around sent the human wobbling across the uneven landscape. Russo’s boots slid along the bilious tendrils knotted together like patchwork. Gah, he practically felt naked without the familiar weight of his cloak and gloves tugging down at his wrists and shoulders. “You would’ve gotten your shits and giggles regardless, since all of this was apparently going to happen no matter what.”

“Ahhh now where would be the fun in that?” Clasping his hands together, Dark’s pointed fingers burrowed into the paper thin gaps in his knuckles’ musculature. “As I said, I only work with what’s already available to me. I very well could arbitrarily craft these scenarios, but I find it much more…” He pulled apart his hands, weaves of sinew plucking apart as he did so, “Satisfying, when I work within and around self-imposed restraints.” Vines of blackened flesh dangled down from the deity’s arms, melding into the unnatural landscape. His body was tugged down into the blackness, unraveling and spilling out beneath the mage’s feet. “Some time before we became acquainted with one another, your actions and inactions set spiraling into motion a series of events that can only culminate in a violent climax. With you, Russo, these stories practically write themselves, keh.”

Ripples pulsed through the ground as Dark’s sneering visage was swallowed up by its gravitational pull. His teeth split apart and cut their way through the knotted tendrils before vanishing beneath the waves. Bobbing atop the undulating flesh, the half-moon that once resided within his empty eye sockets slowly slipped between the gaps. A dark of black magic that covered the upper half of its shining surface erupted into a purple conflagration that consumed the entirety of the celestial sphere. “Events are already playing out to my liking, without my guidance. So for the time being, I’ll stay my hand.”

Bathed in the flame’s eerie glow, Russo’s heart murmured uneasily. Tumultuous rumblings bellowed forth from behind and before him. “Now you’re just fucking with me.” The human chattered to himself, grunting at being unable to drown out the cacophony of tendrils squelching and sliding over one another in the distance. “Know what, you can just… you can just toss me back into the grinder.” For fuck sakes why did he even want to chat with this abomination to begin with?! Pulling at his hair, he realized had let himself be baited into this. Again. Dammit dammit dammit god dammit why did he keep giving Dark exactly what he wanted.

Sputtering and gasping its dying breaths, the purple inferno before the human faded into a pile of crackling embers. What little light there was in Dark’s realm ceased to be. “I can’t help but wonder if everything leading up to this has sufficiently prepared you?” An abrupt bellow rung out in the void, forcing palpable shockwaves of air throughout the barren emptiness. Russo was sent stumbling backwards, and his nerves were rendered frayed.

“What the… hell…” Indignation tapered off to subdued awe when the mage was finally able to comprehend the source of the disturbance.

“That you’ve survived this long is an accomplishment in and of itself. I’ll confess, I would have been disappointed otherwise if you hadn’t.”

A blinding sphere of light ruptured the suffocating darkness. The moon ominously announced its reappearance, bathing Russo in its reflective and eerie pallor. Craters and chalky mountains littered its surface in black and murky splotches. It consumed the entirety of the mage’s vision, stretching well past his periphery.

“Keh heh heh, ahhh so many possibilities laid out before you. Perhaps you are guaranteed to fail? With or without the practice of confronting some of the worst this world has to offer, it could make no difference either way.” The light of the moon revealed five pointed colossal spires had erupted forth from the black and fleshy surface floating in the abyss. “Or maybe you scrape out another victory by the skin of your teeth, without even having to rely upon your newfound spoils?”

“Quit telling me what can happen,” Russo thought. “And just spit out what you want to happen. So I can deny you the pleasure.” Limbs shaking, he swallowed hard and exhaled uneasily.

Four spires to his back and one far out before him and to the left, the mage noted as he surveyed his once more illuminated surroundings. Wait. Was… was he? A raucous rumble echoed out through all of Dark’s domain as the pillars of tendrils that utterly dwarfed Russo in size bent inward and curled towards the human.

“Then there’s always the outcome, however unlikely, that win or lose, you survive only because of the knowledge and skills acquired from what I’ve put you through.”

“You act like I should be grateful,” the human scowled. He glared back at the waning moon, darkness rippling down across its surface while Dark returned the gesture.

“Per usual, I’ll be keeping touch.” Tensing his monolithic fingers, the deity slowly curled his digits together. “And who knows? Seeing as how I won’t be preoccupying myself with puppeteering, I’ll be flushed with time. More than enough to answer those pressing inquiries of yours.”

Wrinkles in Dark’s palm folded together, transforming Russo’s foothold into a hilly and uneven landscape. The mage’s head buzzed. “You can’t even be assed to answer the question you used to bait me here? Shit, why I am even still surprised.” Overhead, the deity’s fingers replaced the bleak and empty sky with a fleshy roof collapsing downwards. The air displaced by those monstrous pointed spires whistled and rumbled louder and louder as the time to impact counted down.

“You’re referring to that trinket I pulled off that reanimated duo?” The moon’s surface paled. “It’s a memento, you could say, from an era long past. Back when Light and I were still formally acknowledged and worshipped by your lot. Before I can tell you that story…” Dark’s pointed fingers rolled together, clenched into a fist.

Russo’s eyes slammed shut in response to the walls of roaring wind flattening him against Dark’s grip. Teeth grit together, eminent doom sure was taking its sweet ass time. Sighing in frustration, the mage tepidly cracked open his eyelids when he became cognizant of an abrupt and tranquil silence that had punctured the discord. Early morning sunshine filtered in through the frost caked window, bathing the human in a gentle glow.

“I’ll have to regale you with another.” A familiar voice rumbled from beneath the bed. Tendrils could be seen flicking out from the covers draped along the floor. “Irreconcilable differences, Light and my own, go back millennia. Everything that your mortal mind could hope to fathom will find an answer in that conflict. It’s directly responsible for shaping the world into what it is today, after all. Keh, until then.”

“Awesome. I get to look forward to a history lesson then.” Sighing loudly at his own half-assed comeback, Russo pulled the itchy cotton bed covers over his head. A gentle rapping at the door saw to it that no rest would come to grace the wearied human’s shoulders.

“Russo?” Dax scratched lightly at the door. “Russo are you awake?”

“No.”

“Awwwwww.” Snuffling to himself in disappointment, the portly wolf pouted and gently kicked a thick paw against the heavy wooden door. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” In exasperation, the mage pulled out the pillow from beneath his head and smothered it against his own face.

A soft and defeated aroo carried through the door slammed shut.

“Oh for…” Russo breathed into the pillow, the warm moist air exhaled from his nose promptly puffing off the dimpled fabric and back into his eyes. “Dax.”

“Hmmm?” Pressed up against the wooden barrier, the aspiring mage whapped his tail against its frame. Muffled thumps and whumps reverberated through the walls.

“Does nothing about this conversation seem…” One hand still pressed against the pillow, the other flailed about above Russo. “When was the last time someone mouthed back at you in their sleep?” Dwelling on it, the wolf was probably the only person who wasn’t lined up to lecture, chew out, or antagonize him today.

An uncomfortably long lull followed the human’s mumbled inquiry. “Dax this isn’t supposed to be hard to answer.”

“Ummmm.” It dawned on the canine that he may have been led along. “P-people sometimes talk in their sleep!”

“In complete sentences?”

Another aroo tumbled out from between Dax’s lips.

“Yes, Dax, I’m awake.” Russo dragged the pillow down along his face and sighed. “What do you want?” Arching his brows, the human watched as the door creaked open. A grey muzzle dotted by a wet black nose shoved its way into the gap. “Would you just get in here,” Russo groaned.

Pouncing at the invitation, the wolf barged his way into the guest room and padded over to the human excitedly. “Russo, Russo, Russo, you’ll never believe what happened!” Bouncing on the tips of thick fat padded toes, the floorboards ached and sagged beneath Dax’s weight. “Nobody else does but you probably will!”

“Ooooooooookay.” He and Jem had been gone all of what, two, maybe three days? How much trouble could the wolf have gotten up to in the interim?

Dax grabbed at the sides of his patched together hand-me down cloak and wrapped it tight around his soft and pudgy form. “So there I was, eating away the loneliness after you and Jem ditched me again.” Wiggling to and fro, Dax’s tail swished furiously behind him as he giddily weaved his tale.

“Uh huh.” Russo grimaced subtly at the heaping helping of guilt.

“When suddenly, a dragon all loomy and doomy and terrible came out of nowhere!” Arms spread out wide, the canine flapped his cloak in the frigid air. Ripples cascaded across the fabric while Dax made various rawr and grawr noises in a poorly executed effort to convey how frightening and ferocious the beast was.

The human’s half lidded eyes slammed open. “What.”

“Yeah! He made a huge mess, gobbling down the entire market and all my favorite food stands! Probably smashed some other stuff too but that’s not as important.”

Russo flattened his brows and stared up at the ceiling, blinking repeatedly during Dax’s retelling. “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I would’ve had to fight a fucking dragon no matter what happened.” Internal screams that ricocheted around Russo’s skull drowned out the wolf’s retelling.

“And then he tried to fly away but he was too fat! I was kinda grumpy since he wasn’t supposed to take off with Mrs. Pelish’s entire foodcart so I got all giant and tackled him but that was bad because I’m not supposed to do that but no one was around so it was less bad. Then before that we had a super awesome fight where… well maybe it wasn’t really a fight since it’s not like dragons are all that tough anyway.”

Ever so slowly the sweat stained pillow made its way back up Russo’s oily and bandaged chest. Fingers clutched around its covered edges, the mage resumed his attempts at self-suffocation.

“Then again I haven’t told anyone else what really happened…” Dax carried on. Varun and the others had written off the dragon’s eventual disappearance as a stroke of good fortune. The wolf’s shoulders drooped in disappointment as he dwelled on the fact. “And I doubt I ever will. E-even so, I was brave and fought just like you or Jem would!” His posture straightened at the thought of knowing he had done a heroic and praiseworthy act, even if it came with none of the desired acknowledgement or recognition. “Does that ever happen to you, Russo? Where you do good things but can’t tell anyone else about them?”

“All the time, Dax.” Russo’s grip faltered. “All the time. You’ll learn how to suck it up and shrug off the disappointment.”

“Yeah…” Ears flat against his head, the chubby wolf plopped down at the foot of the human’s bed. The bed frame creaked and wobbled painfully beneath his added weight. “What do I tell people if they ask though? Everyone just kinda assumed I got scared and ran away.” Cheeks puffed out, the frustrated canine grumped out a bark.

“Ehhhh you’ll get a handle on how to lie your way through these things. Honesty is not the best policy. Not all the time, anyway.” What felt like waves of crackling static coursed over Russo’s squashed leg. Smothered under Dax’s posterior it quickly went limp and fell asleep. “Don’t correct people when they come to the wrong conclusion for one, you’re off to a good start there. It’s not so much lying as…” Russo twiddled his fingers against the top of the pillow. “Conveniently neglecting to correct people. Then you can always make shit up, that’s what I do.”

Dax cocked his head to the side. The human’s words hung heavily around his shoulders and prompted contemplation on the wolf’s part. “Does that mean you were fibbing when you said you toilet totaled that demon?”

“What? No. I mean, yes, that is admittedly outlandish but that was actually a thing that happened.”

“And when you blew up a mountain?”

“Yes. Wait.” Russo groaned and papped his hands against the pillow. “Was that yes to lying or yes to that really happened?”

“Ummm…” Barking softly, Dax bit into his lip. Filtering truth from fiction was proving much more confusing and mentally taxing than he thought it would be. “Yes?”

“Forget it.” Breathing in the stale air he had just exhaled into the covered flumpy fabric, Russo carried on. “I deal with such outrageous shit as it is everyone always assumes I’m lying through my teeth.” Like anyone would believe he hitched a ride on a dragoness. Much less that he was flung through the clouds in a stomach churning and nauseating aerial showdown. Looking back on it, it was obnoxious more than anything that these things happened with such distressing regularity.

“See this is why I say honesty isn’t always the best policy. Now that doesn’t mean you should never tell the truth. Just means you should alternate back and forth, mixing in the fact with the fabrications in the right amounts so people don’t always dismiss you.”

Lapping down every word, Dax nodded attentively. This was the most he had gotten out of his self-appointed teacher in ages!

In a rare moment of lucidity, it dawned on the mage what an atrocious role model he was presenting himself as. Who else could he shove the burden onto?

“Take uh… take Jem!” That fluffy collie is as good an example as any, Russo thought to himself. “He has it figured out. Lying by omission is a good approach. Hell that’s his bread and butter. Everything that comes out of that fluffy bum’s mouth is true. He just happens to leave out a bunch of the important and incriminating details now and then, so it can be pretty tough to tell when he’s holding out on you.” Sorta like how he probably gushed to the old man about killing old Greg. If Jem did blab, it was practically assured that he did so without mentioning the not at all pertinent fact of having swelled into a looming and hulking powerhouse to do so.

“Ask Jem how to fib, got it!” Tail wagging side to side, the wolf was exceedingly pleased with today’s progress. He may not have learned any new spells, but he did learn plenty about how to rise up to… err… okay maybe that wasn’t the right choice of words.

Hrmming, Dax crossed his arms about his broad chest. Rolls of soft blue fabric collected atop his sleeves while he pondered.

“Dax.” A leg shaped lump rose up from beneath the thick comforter draped across Russo’s bed. “Dax get off.” Kicking against the wolf’s side with his free limb, the waves of static coursing over his smothered appendage transitioned to a suffocating numbness. This was less his leg falling asleep and more a certain canine’s fat ass throttling its blood flow.

Jostling and jiggling side to side, Dax nuzzled his fluffy chin against his soft sternum deep in thought. Jem and Russo weren’t bad guys after all! Surely there was a better way to word this valuable life lesson.

“DAX.”

How to drag himself down to their standards? No, not quite. How about… aha! That’d work. Yes, that was what he was to take away from this. He would strive to learn how to match his friends’ lax moral standards!

“Well, Dark already gave me a new arm,” Russo forlornly mused as he wrote off any chance of walking on his own two feet again. Eyeing the ring of flesh cooked black that circled round his scrawny bicep, the human frowned at the crescent moon branded onto his person. “Wonder if he’d be up for giving me a new leg to boot.” Still, entertaining Dax’s whims as opposed to that deity’s was a welcome reprieve.

The wolf wobbled to his feet. A marked resolve held his hefty stature aloft. “How do you think I should get my practice in fibbing, Russo? Should I tell Master that you’re not awake?”

Swinging his freed legs out over the side of the bed, Russo uneasily placed his weight on them. “Might want to set your sights lower. Preferably on someone who can’t kick you out of the guild on the spot.” He slouched forward and rolled his shoulders. Up and down the mage tapped his right foot against the ground, a dull pressure radiating through his leg every time he did so. At least his limb still responded to his whims, even if he couldn’t feel it doing so.

“I take it the old man wants a word with me?” Dax’s head bobbed up and down in affirmation. “Thought as much. Did he sound… angry or anything?” Casting a wayward glance, Russo spied his crimson cloak draped over a post at the foot of his bed frame. Blackened splotches and sparkling fragments of scales still stained its surface.

“Master did sound frustrated when he asked me to get you.” The wolf stepped back as Russo shakily rose to his feet. “Did you do something bad?”

With a flump, the human fell back onto the mattress. Groaning, Russo turned back to see a cringe-inducing swathe of yellow and pink stains left behind. No doubt from his own lifeblood and whatever salves he’d been rubbed down with the night prior. “What I did wasn’t really bad, per se. I just never got around to asking for the permission to do so.” Not like I was going to waste my time uselessly going through the motions anyway, the mage mused. Especially when he already knew the answer would have been a resounding no.

He scooted along the side of the bed, yoinking his rumpled and dirtied cloak off its resting place. Sliding it over his bandaged shoulders, an immediate sense of relief washed over him. That familiar weight, albeit a little greasy and damp, did him good. “Might as well get my latest verbal lashing done and over with.”

“Aren’t you going to wash up first?” Dax stuck out his tongue and wrinkled his nose at the disheveled human.

“Pffft not like it’ll make a difference.” Russo ran a hand through his matted hair, patting down the errant locks and cowlicks jutting out. “Presentable or not, it won’t change what the old man has to say. I’ll let you know how it turns out.” If he wasn’t getting jettisoned from the guild outright the best he could probably hope for was being chained down to Dax indefinitely.

Peering down at his own attire, the wolf had to admit his teacher had a point. While functional and comfy as could be, his hand-me-down clothes weren’t exactly all that fashionable. “Don’t you want to catch breakfast first or or tell me-”

Russo pulled the door shut behind him upon departure, abruptly shutting down the socially starved wolf’s invitation.

“Arooo. Maybe next time,” Dax pouted.

---

Rhythmic thunks sounded through the wooden staircase leading up to Master Varun’s office, echoing out into the main hall. A handful of wandering eyes settled on the human ascending the steps at a plodding pace.

Hands shoved into his pockets, Russo exhaled loudly upon emptying out onto the landing. Groggy and shaken, he closed his eyes and counted the steps to the door. It wasn’t worth putting in the effort to maintain a combative or even defensive veneer. He’d just let old man’s pointed words bounce off of and wash over him best he could. “Hey it’s not like I listen to what he’s saying half the time as it is,” he told himself in reassurance.

Sharp and angular creases and folds in his pants cut against his legs as they swung forward. Having been soaked in snow the day before, the damp fabric had dried and settled into its current and irritating state.

“The door is unlocked,” Varun called out as his guest approached. Resting his cheek against a propped up hand, the old guild master briefly brought his eyes up from a mess of letters sprawled about his desk. His gaze dropped back to his desk, where a wrinkled finger tapped against the latest correspondence from Nadie.

“So.” Russo leaned back against the wall. “How much trouble am I in this time?”

“Still sorting that out.” Twiddling his bony fingers of his free hand against the faded parchment, sparks of static crackled at every digit’s fall. Arcs of purple and blue snaked across the paper, as if being drawn to the gaps between the lines. “Somehow you managed to make what was supposed to be a clear cut matter of disobeying a direct order into a muddled mess of moral greys.”

“I… what?”

Varun narrowed his gaze and continued to stare at the Yash guild master’s letter. “With you, it’s supposed to be easy to gauge whether or not you’re being a nuisance. Weigh how much gold you bring in for successfully completing a mission versus how much your recklessness forces us to pay out in reparations. When it’s a net gain, I can write it off as a cost of running this guild. When you start making us hemorrhage funds, that’s when I start to tighten your leash.” Gently shaking his head side to side, the old man hmmed as previously unseen letters flickered to life at his magic’s touch.

“Your last mission, hell, it was a favor I tasked you with, ended disastrously. I send you off to Nadie to deliver a letter and entire city blocks were burned down in the process. Although,” Varun sighed as he read between the lines, “That crazy panther didn’t seem to mind, far as I can tell.”

“And this time?” The fact he hadn’t been chewed out yet was… unsettling. Just get the punishment doled out and done with old man, don’t drag it out.

“Welp, this time around should have been easy. You disobeyed a direct order to abstain from taking on any missions? Your ass should’ve been gone then and there.” Eyes clenched shut, Varun couldn’t believe what he was reading. “Which ended up being what saved Jem from a surprise charity case gone bad. I mean sure we’ll take on a mission like that for the greater good, if we can, but at least be freaking upfront about it. You doing bad ended up doing good and I honestly don’t know what to do with you at this point.”

Unwilling to press his luck, Russo let the guild master continue on uninterrupted.

Absorbed with his correspondence, Varun let out a defeated groan. He may not have liked the Yash guild master’s proposal, good gods almighty there was far too much go wrong with it, but he couldn’t offer any acceptable alternatives. “Nadie may have a better idea than I do though, so perhaps I’ll leave it up to her judgment. That’s a talk for another time however.”

Whuh. Shoulders slumped, the mage’s arms hung uselessly at his sides. “Am I... am I off the hook?”

With a dismissive wave of his hand, the old guild master motioned for Russo to get gone. “Until then, do me this one kindness and try to keep a low profile. Better yet, entertain Dax until then and keep him out of my hair. If you can’t get Jem to fill in as his role model then at the very least you can be an example of what not to do.”

“R-right. I’ll uh, I’ll get right on that.” Fumbling with the door handle, he uneasily slid slid out of the office. Russo bolted before Varun could change his mind, the unnerved mage’s cloak nearly catching as the door slammed shut behind him.

---

FIRST, PREVIOUS, NEXT