NOVPUB"Took you long enough."
She replied coolly, curtly, without fire.
A definition of indifference in the classic sense.
But Lyrium, in his darkened dorm room, saw differently.
The fact that she'd picked up on the first ring, the hesitation before she replied slight cracks in the ice she attempted to construct between them.
He smiled to himself.
"Ah? Waiting for my call, Big sister?"
"Don't flatter yourself."
A scoff.
"I was just wondering if you'd finally grown a brain cell and thought you should call."
Lyrium sat back on the bed, his eyes up at the ceiling.
This was nearly nostalgic.
Nearly.
Aside from the fact that any of this shouldn't have existed.
He wasn't Lyrium Blackwood.
Not exactly.
He was other, other than elsewhere, put in this body, to be a brother to a woman who, in the original novel, wasn't even meant to love him.
No, Rihana Blackwood was meant to be other's.
The hero's.
Silas.
She was one of his heroines, one of the big harem who would irrevocably fall for him in spite of initial reluctance.
Here, though, in this life, in this world where Lyrium was at most an extra, all had changed.
He took a deep breath.
"Mmm. That's very near to being concern."
"It's not."
"Obviously not."
It always was.
That never-ending back-and-forth game.
But Lyrium knew her better than she ever knew him.
He knew the plot (which had already fallen apart due to him).
He had read the pages where in she had unleashed her heart, those moments where in her frosty mask cracked before Silas.
He had witnessed her turmoil, her uncertainties, darkest regret things that she was not even yet experiencing.
And here he was, caught between the fantasy and the reality, talking to a girl who should never have been familiar with him.
"So?"
She grumbled, cranky. 𝘯𝑜𝘷𝘱𝘶𝘣.𝘤𝘰𝑚
"What do you want?"
Lyrium sneered.
"No, as it happens. Simply inquired about my lovely big sister."
"Tch. Don't prevaricate. You wouldn't have called unless something was wrong."
He laughed.
"You're attempting to make me appear cruel. Perhaps I simply miss you."
"Try again."
She replied with a sharp voice, yet he sense that small breathing in her voice.
It was a good grief, he'd been scrutinizing her too long.
"Okay, okay. You caught me. I heard you'd been keeping yourself occupied."
"None of it is your business."
"All things to you are my business."
A sneer.
"Do not be ridiculous. You're not my keeper."
"No, but I am your brother."
Silence.
She had not enjoyed that.
Lyrium understood why.
Because in the original tale, her life with her family had been cold-worst, tense-best.
She had fought so hard for years to keep people away, and she had genuinely believed that she was improved without them.
And then, along came Silas, and everything changed.
He was the one who was to penetrate her defenses, to teach her what it was to be loved.
And now?
Now, Lyrium was the one in that room.
"Alas."
She snapped him out of his reverie and laughed.
"Now, now. Ha… Sis if you are going to carry on like this, I am going to begin to think you really did not like me at all."
"I don't."
"Liar."
"Call it what you will."
She was glaring at him in the phone probably, but Lyrium could feel the tension simmering beneath.
He knows.
He knows, this wasn't how it was meant to be.
He wasn't meant to be here, he should've been somewhere else dying like in the original plot he wasn't meant to be interfering with the flow of the story.
And yet he had.
He leaned back again, resting his chin on his hard hand.
"You know what sis, if you really didn't care about me at all, you wouldn't have accepted the call you know."
Another silence.
A change in air.
Then an exasperated sigh.
"Are you done yet?"
"Not yet. I really enjoy conversing with you."
"That makes one of us."
He chuckled once more.
"Oh? Then why haven't you hung up?"
She didn't say anything.
But she hadn't hung up on him, either.
Lyrium's sneer deepened.
"That is the thing what I thought."
He leaned back in his chair again, gazing out the window, staring at the shiny and twinkle stars.
He really had no idea where this journey would take him, how much he could change, or if fate would have a means of nudging things back onto their course.
Then,
There was silence between them that became long, but not broken, and valuable.
Lyrium had a slight rustling on her end, maybe she moved position, maybe she held the receiver slightly too tightly.
Little things, easy to overlook on anyone else, but piteously glaring to him.
He was too familiar with her.
"Tch. You're a nuisance."
Lyrium leaned his chin in the palm of his hand.
"You're still here."
"Unfortunately."
A line rehearsed.
She always did have to be the one to dish out the last word, as if she alone was dictating the dialogue in their give-and-take.
But Lyrium had learned all of the chapters by heart, learned every dialogue in his mind.
This waltz of old between the two of them? It had been done before, it just was done with someone else.
"How's the academy?"
She asked, tone even.
Lyrium's brow creased.
"Oh? You're concerned now?"
"I just don't want you to sully the Blackwood name with your ineptitude."
"How sweet of you."
"Someone has to be."
He let out a low snort, allowing the conversation to proceed at its own speed.
It was unusual, actually, the way she went on making up excuses to allow him to talk to her on the phone.
If she didn't care in the least, by this time she would have hung up.
But she hadn't.
Because she cared.
She just didn't know how to tell him.
"Classes are fine,"
Lyrium drawled.
"Theory test coming up. Just not that I'm stressed."
"Hah. I'd be surprised if you were working on it."
"You wound me."
"You just stay alive."
The silence fell again.
But it wasn't uncomfortable.
If anything, it was comfortable.
Rihana Blackwood was not the kind of woman who ever wasted words, who would always rather be quiet than say meaningless things.
It made her hard to get close to, an invisible wall that kept everyone in their place.
In the book, the Silas had originally breached that wall.
Now, it was Lyrium filling in for her.
And he wasn't certain that was a good idea.
"Are you taking in enough food?"
She had said suddenly, as if the words sprang out before she could stop them.
Lyrium blinked.
"Oh? Now that is a surprise. Are you concerned about my well-being, sister dearest?"
"Don't be silly. If you trip and fall, it will be a bother to me."
"Aha, naturally. How considerate of you."
She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"Simply say yes or no."
Lyrium threw out his arms, feigning deliberation.
"Hmm… I believe I had a good meal today."
"'Believe'?"
"Memory's a little hazy."
A brief inhalation of breath.
"Idiot. If you don't watch yourself, don't expect me to pity you when you're dead."
"Recorded. But I'm actually very resilient, you see? A bit of starvation will not kill me."
"Say that when you're not as gaunt as a stick."
Lyrium smiled, liking how easily she fell into these little spats.
It was a game, one that is, in which she pretended to be indifferent when all the time revealing just how much she actually did care.
But he wasn't going to push her quite that hard.
Not yet.
"I'll eat as I should, don't you worry."
His voice less sharp now, without that teasing edge.
"Promise."
A beat, one of silence.
Then, hardly even an inaudible hum.
"Good."
So softly he came near not hearing it.
Close.
His smirk widened.
"See? You do care."
"Shut up."
He laughed.
"Okay, okay. I'll let you go now."
"You should have done it ten minutes ago."
"And yet you didn't hang up."
"I will now."
"Mhm. Goodnight, Rihana."
There was silence for a moment. Then…
"…Night."
The line hung up.
Lyrium just sat there gaping at the phone for a moment, then put it back on the table, slowly releasing the breath she had been holding.
This was really not the way things were supposed to be.
But perhaps that wasn't so terrible aswell.
Lyrium took slow breaths as the connection died, the gentle chime of disconnection a fading ghost in the quiet.
He relaxed back in his chair, rubbing his temples in the hopes it would somehow help alleviate the tiredness creeping into his very bone.
Then, as if not hearing, he said it.
"Arise."
A force he knew to be in his chest as air around him altered.
Something outside of this world, something other than visible, but all too real.
The sense of power coalescing, coursing through him like a snake coiled and waiting to strike.
And then—
Something shifted.
It was tiny at first.
A shiver along the back of his neck.
A sensation of something besides himself creeping into his very self.
But the instant his eyes dropped below, he drew a breath in.
His gauge had increased.
His fingers shook as he burrowed in, the raw energy beneath his skin making them cramp up on themselves.
He hadn't been anticipating it, not yet, at least.
He recalls that dude really well.
Nox Sillon.
"Damn high was that dude potential."
He just ground himself out while scowling at the screen
And yet.
Something had changed.
His head spinning, eyes wrinkling.
Leveling up between battles wasn't impossible, but the timing was too suspicious.
As though something had lain in wait, waiting for exactly this moment for so long now.
And his eyes came upon the name of his new authority.
Eve of Ruins.
His deep breaths, clenched hands involuntarily.
That gift.
That name.
It did not belong to him.
At least, not yet.
Eve of Ruins in the original tale was a gift which the protagonist had only received should he have successfully endured an apocalyptic battle.
A gift born of near-death, a gift that signaled the war's shift towards the light.
And yet, it was.
In his hands.
Too soon.
Too early.
A humorless, cold laugh escaped his lips.
"This world really does want me dead, doesn't it?"
He dragged his fingers up the dorsal side of his hand, attuned to this change weighing down upon him.
Whatever destiny had planned for him, it was no longer by design.
The story was unfolding, curving back upon him in unexpected ways.
And that?
That terrified him to death.
And exhilarated him.
