Vivi lost, but it was a far closer match than it should’ve been given that she’d needed to remember basic rules as she played. The next game was even tighter, and on the third, she managed to sneak a razor-thin victory from her foe.
“This Xun Vey finds it highly aggravating,” he said, rubbing his chin, “watching his opponent improve so fast when he’s spent centuries failing to do the same.” Despite his words, he wore an amused expression. “Alas, he will shamelessly retire while still in the lead. He foresees dangerous waters ahead.”
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” Vivi allowed, lips twitching.
He pulled out a deck of cards next and suggested some game she’d never heard of. The rules were simple, and better yet, his explaining them meant she didn’t have to scrutinize the words coming out of her mouth—since she was still worried about accidentally saying something revealing.
As the evening continued, Xun downed two and a half mugs for each of Vivi’s, and she couldn’t help but be a little impressed both at the pace and at how he seemed twice as steady as he ought to be. Though, ‘twice as steady’ hardly meant he stayed sober—a slur had invaded the edges of his words. For her own part, her head had started buzzing and she felt warmer, but she’d ignored Xun’s constant encouragement and kept a more moderate pace.
“All right,” he announced, slapping the tabletop seemingly out of nowhere. “I told myself I wouldn’t ask, but it turns out I can’t help myself.”
Vivi glanced up from her hand of cards and appraised the man. “You have a question?”
“A request.”
“What is it?”
“Inappropriate, for one. Especially since we’re still all but strangers.” He leaned forward and whispered, “I want to touch something of yours.”
Vivi gave him a flat look. “Try again without the innuendo, or the answer is no.”
He laughed and settled back. “Your sword,” he said. “I can tell you’re not keen on talking about it, but it seems I don’t have any restraint. I need to know… and maybe hold it myself, if that’s in the cards.” He waved the cards he had splayed out in his hand and grinned as if he’d made a pun.
Vivi frowned as she considered. She had found it conspicuous that Xun had dropped the line of questioning after asking about Nocturne. The man had self-admitted to having an obsession with swords—Alex’s collection was why he’d come to Meridian in the first place. Seeing how her voidglass blades were most definitely interesting weapons in their own right, then, she’d have thought the swordmaster would be all over them.
It sounded like he’d tried being polite up until now.
I guess it’s not that big of a deal, she finally decided. Some of her earlier caution had melted away. Xun wasn’t the only one drinking, after all, even if he was sprinting where Vivi was jogging.
…and maybe she wanted to show off the voidglass weapons herself. They were pretty nifty.
She pulled out the third strongest of the variants she’d made and set it on the table with its hilt facing Xun. Only belatedly did she think, Maybe I shouldn’t be handing out voidglass swords to a drunken swordmaster.
It was too late to withdraw the silent offer, though, since Xun didn’t hesitate to reach forward and wrap his hand around the grip of the weapon. He lifted the solid block of black-and-purple glassy material and inspected it with a real note of admiration in his eyes.
“How did you make it?” he asked. When Vivi didn’t reply right away, he said, “Suyin and I thought the swords had transformed somehow—something to do with the breach over Meridian, your possible participation there. But you told me that your version of Nocturne is a copy, so that theory clearly doesn’t hold. How, then?”
After a moment’s deliberation, Vivi said, “Eshara helped create it.”
“I figured. But it is made out of whatever those voidlings are, yes? I heard the Crown laid claim to the corpses, but obviously Vanguard’s blacksmith gets extra privileges.” He winked at her. “Though even if it were less than legal, you’d have my silence. That goes without saying.”
“It’s made from void material,” Vivi confirmed. She doubted Xun would be the only person to assume that, particularly once they started climbing the bracket. Might be worth throwing an illusion over them. She hadn’t thought too much about the issue, which she’d noticed was a recurring problem of hers.
“Fascinating.” Xun set his cards down on the table and slid out of his chair to properly hold the sword. He gave it a light flick, somehow so smooth that Vivi admired the casual action, then settled into a fighting stance and delivered a few more rapid slashes.
At the more enthusiastic movements, Vivi sat up straighter and eyed the man. He seemed perfectly in control of his body, but she had seen him down four or five hefty containers of ale over the past hour, and apparently he’d been ‘warming up’ before that too—so watching him handle a sword in the middle of a busy tavern felt dubious.
“Terribly balanced,” he remarked, “which hardly matters at our rank, but I feel the need to voice the objection anyway.” He held the sword back up, flat to his eye, and inspected the length. “Beautiful, though. What a strange material.”
He pressed the edge to his finger, and when he pulled it away, a line of crimson sprang up. He rubbed the blood between two fingers, then took out a handkerchief from his inventory along with presumably some healing salve to fix the cut. “And sharp.” His white eyebrows had gone up to his hairline. “Very sharp. It cut me.”
“That’s what swords do. And be careful with it.”
He paused at her words, then snorted. “I’m not going to trip and gut myself. You’re rather overprotective—I’ve noticed that.” A small smirk, with him looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
Of course, all he saw was her usual blank face. But she did feel a little embarrassed on the inside; he was right. The man hardly needed a lecture to be safe, not unless he was so drunk he couldn’t stand straight. Which might happen before long, but he wasn’t there yet.
Xun took his time appraising the sword, pulling a whole slew of items out to test its edge against. He grew more and more impressed as his experiments progressed, and he seemed to have to force himself to stop when the minutes started dragging by.
“Thank you for sating this old man’s curiosity,” he said with a bow, offering the sword back in both hands. The brief earnestness lasted only a moment, then was replaced by the man peeking up with a grin. “Any chance you could talk the Roving Justicar into making me one?”
“Like you said, it’s a restricted material, so I’m afraid not.”
“That’s a shame. Though I wonder why Vanguard is trusting you to be running around with it. Closer to them than you’ve implied so far?” He looked at her with keen interest.
Vivi put the sword away and only half answered. “I'm helping study how it responds to different forces.”
“I could do that too,” Xun said without missing a beat. At her unshifting expression, he added, “Please? This old man will beg if he has to.”
“Sit down, Xun. And play your hand.”
He made a show of sighing and slumping into his seat, obviously pouting. She almost rolled her eyes. It was clear that he genuinely did want to add a voidglass sword to his collection, but that wouldn’t be happening for any number of reasons.
Despite the melodrama, he thankfully dropped the topic.
The night continued, and the consequences of Xun’s rapid slamming back of drinks made themselves increasingly apparent. He cajoled her into a group table that was playing some variant of poker, and she didn’t hate it—she could stay quiet in the mix, and it didn’t come off odd, because apparently Xun only got louder and more outgoing the more he fell into inebriation. He supplied enough chatter for them both.
About an hour after that, she found herself sitting at the bar next to Xun, with the man properly drunk. A warm glow was coursing through her as well, though she didn’t plan on ordering another after finishing her current drink.
More importantly, the conversation had developed in a way Vivi found highly engrossing.
Xun was holding a small, spherical crystal between his thumb and forefinger, and it emitted light into the air to present a dark-haired girl around eight years of age. The girl had her hair tied back into a loose ponytail, and her brow was furrowed as she held a sword in two hands, gaze focused on an apple laid atop a post a dozen feet away. She took a deep breath, released it, then slashed. A white crescent flew out and severed the apple in two.
Her eyes widened at her success, then she spun, beaming toward the so-called camera the most enthusiastic smile Vivi had ever seen. There was a huge gap where her front teeth should be.
“It’s like I blinked and missed it,” Xun moaned, slumped over and staring up at the illusion ahead of him with an utterly pitiable expression. “I used to be the cool and mysterious swordmaster for her, Vianora, and you’ve taken that from me. I’ll get my revenge, this old man swears it on his name!”
“There, there.” She patted him on the back. “Don’t go swearing on your name when you’re drunk. And show me the next one.” She leaned forward in interest.
Xun sighed and summoned another illusion of kid-Suyin. In this one, she was a year or two older and the gap in her teeth was gone. Vivi could see a hint of the more serious persona developing, the girl in the projection a step closer to the Suyin of the present. Still, she was grinning from ear to ear, young and admittedly very cute.
“It really is the tragedy of a long life,” Xun said wistfully. “The years start to pass too fast, blend together. It’ll happen to you. You’ll turn a corner one day and realize that beastkin you’re mentoring is a grown woman now. It’ll seem like yesterday she came up to your knee.”
Well… setting aside the height bit, Vivi didn’t know if she could empathize with Xun’s plight. The last two months had been some of the longest of her life, not the shortest. And she wasn’t some ancient elf like Xun was assuming. She hadn’t hit three decades, much less centuries.
But she understood the sentiment. It was disorienting knowing she would survive for more than a millennium. Demons lived for a thousand years naturally, so with her outrageous levels added to the mix, time would likely never kill her.
Once Vivi had finished pestering Xun for his collection of kid-Suyin illusions, the man was well and truly out of it—the immense volume of booze he’d downed had caught up.
“Where am I taking you?” Vivi asked. The slumped-over man had his head on the countertop, and he mumbled something unintelligible. “Xun, what tavern are you staying at? Where’s Suyin?” She shook his shoulder to get an answer.
The Titled bladesmaster would hardly be in danger stumbling around drunk at night, but she felt like it was simple courtesy to ensure he got home in one piece. She was past tipsy too at this point, but still in control of herself. And maybe more accurately, she should say that rather than keeping him in one piece, she wanted to make sure he didn’t leave anything else in multiple pieces.
After enough badgering, she extracted the name of a tavern. Some of Xun’s liveliness returned after she forced him out of his seat and got him walking, and he chattered a half-coherent story about the time he’d faced down ‘the Mourner of the Broken Vigil.’ He seemed offended when Vivi didn’t recognize the title, but became distracted a moment later and promptly forgot the exchange entirely.
When she arrived at the man’s tavern, the barkeep recognized Xun and pointed her toward a room. Suyin must have heard them in the hallway, because the door across from Vivi opened, and the dark-haired disciple peeked out.
Suyin looked horrified at the obviously drunken state of her master.
“Lady Vianora! Please, I’ll take him from here.” The glare she delivered to Xun could only be described as disdainful, though more generously, maybe ‘long-suffering.’
“S-such a cold daughter she’s grown into,” Xun whined, leaning heavily against her as she took him from Vivi. “What have I—hic—done to deserve it?”
This doesn’t look like the first time she’s dealt with you when you’re barely functional, Vivi thought, but despite that mild disapproval, her opinion of Xun had generally risen after tonight.
“He behaved himself?” Suyin asked Vivi, forgoing the usual circumspect way she talked about Xun—always polite, since she believed in showing respect to one’s master.
“If he hadn’t, I would have left,” Vivi said simply, choosing not to mention the occasional innuendos. “It was… an interesting night, all things considered.”
Her favorite part had been the ‘baby pictures,’ of course.
Old Suyin really is a lot more serious. She didn’t have the glacial expression Vivi did, but she was definitely more on the grave side than carefree.
“Talking about me like I’m not even here…” Xun complained.
They ignored him. “Then this disciple breathes a sigh of relief,” Suyin said, bowing, which made the man in her arms do an approximation of the same. “I’ll see him to bed. Thank you for walking him here, Lady Vianora.”
“It wasn’t a problem.”
She finished her goodbyes with Suyin and Xun, and after waving them off, left to head home.