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Claudia is still while Soren approaches the hideout she’s made for herself. A home, really, but it functions just as well as a hideout.
It functioned well, she supposes, because now it’s just a place where she might be discovered.
She’s not sure why or what led Soren to this place – or even who may have led him here – but she’s not in the mood to deal with him or anything else.
She was minding her business in this small, abandoned den in the woods, and trying to organize her mishmash of herbs with her little Adoraburr by her side. What else would a self-proclaimed healer have to do in their free time? It’s not like anyone in the surrounding area knew who she was, and helping people gave her something to do. Something that didn’t make her feel icky in the long hours of the night when the world was silent and she couldn’t sleep and was forced to think.
Claudia hated thinking, and thinking about thinking made her angry; seeing Soren here was not helping. She was hiding in plain sight— a quick spell that hadn’t used up her energy, her Adoraburr on her shoulder just happy to be here. Then Soren had made his appearance known. She rolls her eyes at the way Soren is being careful in each step, as if something would jump out and scare the wits out of him at any moment.
Maybe she would do that just to get back at him. Just like the good ol’ days.
“Corvus,” Soren whispers in his not-whispery voice, turning towards the door and he motions for another figure to come in. Corvus sticks his head in and raises a brow. “I think someone was here.”
Corvus heaves a great sigh, and Claudia rolls her eyes again.
Right on the mark, Soren.
Corvus and Soren look around her home; admittedly, everything is a bit… original. The table is a large tree stump with two smaller tree stumps serving as chairs; there aren’t any cabinets, but all of her herbs are in small jars scattered across the floors; there are no windows, only a hole in a side wall where Claudia has boarded it in a way so that light always shines through but the rain gets in. She hates that. There’s a hammock for her bed, and no mirror. Claudia doesn’t like mirrors; they break easily.
It’s in this small home she has managed to made livable for herself that Soren and Corvus are thinking a trap is waiting for them, which is rude considering that Claudia wasn’t expecting them to come here and bring their shoes inside.
Please.
Soren is looking everywhere, and Corvus is following him like his shadow. Soren looks under the table and pokes at the jars with his sword. “Do you think Claudia would be here? It doesn’t look…” he trails off and glances around. “Claudia-istic?”
“Claudia-istic?” Corvus rolls his eyes and makes his way near Claudia’s bed. He unfolds the tangled covers and gets straight to organizing them. “I feel bad that we’re in someone’s home, but how would a home let you know Claudia is there?” He sees Soren’s expression sour, and sighs, “She could be anywhere, Soren. It’s been at least several years since we last saw her and we…we don’t even know if she-”
“No,” Soren’s voice has gone hard, and Claudia has to pause. He has a frown on his face. “She’s still alive and well, and unless we find reason to believe otherwise, I won’t accept that.”
“But,” Corvus has fixed up Claudia’s bed; secretly she’s grateful. “We’ve gotten little to no trace of her, or anyone who’s even seen her in all the time we’ve attempted to find her.” He walks over to Soren, placing his hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we just need to accept that she might never be found.”
From where she’s standing near the window, Claudia sees Soren’s face crumple. She almost wants to reach out and tell him that she’s here. Soren, I’m right here. Don’t make that face.
She doesn’t do that, and Corvus seems to do the comforting for her. How many times is she supposed to feel grateful that he’s here? She doesn’t want to start counting.
Claudia sighs and reaches a hand towards the Adoraburr on her shoulder and pets it. The action soothes her somewhat, the Adoraburr purring in her ear. She had always imagined the day where she would see old faces again- she knows they wouldn’t be kind to her, and she doesn’t expect them to be. Maybe she imagined the battlefield one time, but fighting for what, exactly? She didn’t think that far.
But here was Soren now, right in front of her, and she couldn’t say hi because she didn’t want to. Here was Corvus, who had fixed her bed for her and was being careful not to step on any jars, and she couldn’t thank him.
Would Soren point his sword at me?
Claudia can imagine that happening. She can imagine the moment where he sees her and is happy for a moment before remembering that she is his enemy now; she is a danger to everything he has trained and sworn to protect. It’s that thought that makes Claudia’s insides curdle, and she wants them to leave her home. They have no right to be in her home and fix her bed, or see her jars or her bland walls. They shouldn’t be here.
They shouldn’t be here.
Claudia bites her lip to keep from yelling at the pair to leave. They look around some more, and then Corvus says they should leave, and Claudia sighs in relief. She picks the Adoraburr off her shoulder and holds it in her hands, and gives it a small smile.
Finally, peace.
Then Soren stops at the window on his way towards the door.
“Corvus, look over here.” Corvus walks over to Soren, and Claudia moves to see what Soren has found.
Underneath the windowsill is a single petal from a purple plant that Claudia had used in one of her many unknown concoctions. Claudia holds in her breath, and the little Adorapurr senses her unease and hops away, her spell doing its job and silencing any sound it could make. Soren reaches towards the petal and sniffs it- Claudia scrunches her nose at that because she knows it smells bad- and he passes it to Corvus.
“Do you know what this is?” asks Corvus, turning it this way and that.
Soren shakes his head. “This whole place is full of random plants and things,” he pauses. “If this were Claudia’s place, we wouldn’t find herbs, but living things she could suck energy from.”
Not sucking, Claudia wants to say. Re-purposing.
She knows exactly how that sounds, but it’s the truth. She’s not sucking life for fun out here, okay? She has a purpose, but she’s on vacation.
Corvus nods thoughtfully, and Soren gets into his thinking pose; in a way, Claudia feels relief at seeing that some things don’t change.
“I think,” Corvus starts, “that Claudia wouldn’t be careless enough to leave behind any of her… resources that she gets her magic from. She’s smarter than that, especially if she thinks people are looking for her.” He looks at the petal in his hand. “I think we should head out and look somewhere else. This place isn’t abandoned, and we might be trespassing.”
Yes, Claudia blinks hard even though they can’t see her. Leave. Go.
Soren sighs and takes the petal from Corvus. “I really just want to find her, Corvus.”
“And what will you do when you find her? If you find her?”
“Don’t do that,” says Soren, frowning again. He sighs. “I don’t know how I’d react, but I… I know she might not be the same Claudia I knew, that I love and care for. I mean, I care for her regardless.” Claudia’s breath hitches. “I just want to see her. That’s all I want, and that would be enough. I haven’t figured out what I would do past that, and I’ll think about that when I get there.”
Claudia has nothing to say to that.
Somewhere, she thinks, I care for you too. I do care for you. I want to see you too.
But she thinks the magic has drained her too, and her heart doesn’t beat as easily anymore. She doesn’t even know what she’s thinking right now- she doesn’t want him here; she wants them to leave, she wants them to stay, and she wants to say she’s sorry; she wants to claw out their hearts until there’s nothing left of the two people intruding on her home.
Corvus sighs and nods, and then he pats Soren on the shoulder. “I know. You have me, and we’ll figure this out together, okay?”
“Like usual?”
“Yeah.”
And Claudia feels it in her gut; the realization that she doesn’t have a place in Soren’s life anymore, and that he doesn’t really have one in hers either. Isn’t that sad? Maybe even now, she would do anything for him — maybe — but right now, she just wants him to leave.
She hasn’t actually given much thought to Soren in these years; only how he might stop her one day. Part of her is itching for a fight: maybe because she’s furious and upset when she thinks about how he had run after her the last time they’d seen each other with a sword in his hand, maybe because she wants him to defeat her just so he can be miserable forever the way she is; maybe because she’s not in her right mind and these days she feels violent over her practiced calm.
The other part of her that she wants to bury into the ground only wants to hug her brother and cry. Not with the bloody tears that run down her cheeks from pain or hunger or whatever other feeling she doesn’t know the names of anymore; regular tears that taste like salt when they hit her tongue. She wants comfort from her brother, and she wants to pretend they’re a family again.
Claudia grimaces at both of these trains of thoughts. Neither of them sound appealing, and she doesn’t want to think anymore. God, why she can’t she just not think right now?
It feels like forever, but Claudia knows it’s only a few seconds before both men turn to the door and walk towards it. Soren glances back, and Claudia meets his eyes- but it’s not like he can see her looking right back at him- and closes the door on his way out.
Claudia stands still for a bit longer, waiting for her defenses to settle and her magic to tell her that the intruders have gone.
Intruders, she thinks, because they haven’t been safe in a long time.
The moment is interrupted by the Adoraburr bouncing on top of the windowsill, and it lets out a chirp once the men have left the perimeter. It turns to Claudia, and she feels all the tension in her body leave her. She walks to the Adoraburr, and picks it up.
“You,” she gives it a kiss on its fuzzy little head, “are the cutest and smartest thing ever. Thank you for being here.”
In response, the little creature nuzzles her cheek, and bounces off and makes its way to Claudia’s bed to settle in, and Claudia looks outside. She drops her spell and stretches her limbs, lays in her neat looking bed that Corvus made, and stares at her ceiling.
She stares and stares and stares.
And eventually, the darkness that she’s grown accustomed to and considers a friend takes over- and she slips into a dreamless sleep.