Good morning, adventurers! It’s time for another trip to magical boarding school! Even though we’re actually still at a party at our parent’s house! Last week, you had just told Eli that you had a connection to the Order of the Sphinx — he doesn’t know that connection is you — before seeing Drusilla gesturing for you to come talk to her. With a serious majority of 63%, y’all chose to C. Walk over to Dru. She obviously has something important to tell you about Eli.
Let’s see what Drusilla has to say for herself!
Chapter 07: Everybody’s Talking At Me, I Don’t Hear a Word They’re Sayin’
You swing your legs out of the hot water, and gracefully spring to your feet. Yeah, I’ve still got it, you think. Which is a relief, because lately it seems like any time a certain necromancer is around, you find yourself behaving in a very un-Tabitha Whitley fashion.
You leave a shell-shocked looking Eli sitting at the springs to ponder over your last statement, and saunter over to where Dru is gesturing to you, signaling her with your eyes to tone it down a little bit. Sometimes having her as a BFF really messes with your cool.
You notice Dru glancing behind you, and look over your shoulder to catch Eli’s eyes traveling up your legs to your backside. He has the decency to blush and look away when he realizes you’ve caught him, before looking shyly up at you under surprisingly thick lashes. Shizzam! Nothing Dace had done in the entire time you’ve dated has ever made your skin feel like it’s sizzling the way one look from Eli does.
You realize you’re going to have to do something about that… situation, but for now, you need to play it cool, so you arch one eyebrow in Eli’s direction and continue on to where Dru is standing by one of the side doors to your parent’s mansion.
After following Dru inside to one of the massive bathrooms, you demand to know what’s so important.
“Well,” she sits on the edge of the bathtub with a flourish, and you know this is going to be good. “before you get all abra-kapokery with necro-stud, I wanted to tell you what I found out about him.”
You roll your eyes at her insinuation, but it doesn’t feel convincing enough, so you toss your shiny hair over your shoulder and add an “As if.”
“Tabs, Eli really doesn’t like the government.”
You feel your shoulders drop at the complete obviousness of this news.
“AND, there’s a reason he doesn’t,” she continues, trying to draw out the drama.
“Either tell me your big news or don’t, Drusilla, but stop wasting my time. I’ve got party guests to attend.”
“Okay, okay!” She holds up her hands, trying to placate, before taking a deep breath.
“Eli spent most of his life in Gainschwitz.” Dru pauses a minute to let that sink in, pretty much for effect. But she needn’t add any dramatics for that sentence to make you feel like you’ve been hit with kiktuthagut charm.
Gainschwitz prison was only shut down a couple of years ago, and was one of the catalysts behind the desegregation, when it was discovered that certain high-ranking magical government officials had been wrongly imprisoning whole necromancer families to force them to do all sorts of illegal necro stuff. You shudder. Rumors of the torture that went on in that place…
Dru’s next words cause your head to snap up so quickly your teeth clack together.
“And his mom died there.”
But you just saw… leprechaun turds. That’s why she looked so young. He’s raised his own mother to help him bring about justice.
Waves of compassion for the boy you only met a few days ago surprise you, and then you also wonder what kind of mommy-issues Eli might have, and if that would get in the way of a relationship…
Whoah! Hold on there! Definitely NOT going to be thinking in that direction.
You square your shoulders and look back at Drusilla.
“Well, sucks for him.”
She seems disappointed by your apparent lack of interest, so you decide to throw her a bone.
“Thanks for telling me, Dru. Not that I was thinking about him in any other way than that of a fellow student, but I certainly don’t want to get myself mixed up with a head-case. So thanks for the warning.”
You’re surprised that Dru doesn’t seem any more pleased with this reaction, but shake it off as you head back to the party.
Once outside, you scan the back yard for Dace. You need a distraction, and that water-into-wine spell is wearing off.
You stomp back inside as you weigh the possible social damage that breaking up with Dace would cause you, but then you have to laugh at yourself, because breaking up with the fastest jock on a broom had nothing on what it would do to your social status if you started going out with a necromancer! You shake your head to clear your mind, just as you open the door to your bedroom, where you thought you might find Dace… and there he is.
Playing swish and flicker with Adam Voltairre.
For the first time in your life, you are stunned into silence, as you stand there, not quite able to believe what you are seeing, while simultaneously realizing how much sense this was all starting to make.
Dace has obviously been otherwise occupied, but glances up to see you, a startled oath coming from his lips.
“Tabitha, wait!” You don’t even realize you’ve been backing away until he calls to you.
Dace follows you down the hall, still trying to button his trousers.
“Tabs!”
You turn on him.
“Seriously, Dace? In my ROOM?!!!!” You feel some satisfaction that he backs up as you advance on him.
“Please, Tab…” You realize he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, and feel a second wave of compassion in one day, as you take in this overgrown jock, always trying so hard to be the manliest man…
“Listen, Dace,” Your will your voice to be a little bit harder, “I won’t tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. But you should seriously consider coming out the broom cupboard.” You turn to go, “And clean up my ROOM!”
Ugh. Cheating on you with the second most popular boy in school was one thing, but doing it in your room? Really, a girl can only forgive so much.
You feel conflicted, and suddenly kind of lonely, as you wander around the new allakamansion your parents just built. You preferred the old house. Sure it was smaller, but it had character, history.
You find your father standing at the railing of the second floor landing, looking down on the kids milling around.
“Tabitha! So glad you could invite all of these wonderful young friends!” He has a strange look in his eye, and there he goes again, being excited about kids from your school.
“And how lovely for you to have invited the necromancers. What I wouldn’t give to pick one or two of their brains…” He’s staring at one of the girls you sat with at lunch, glassy-eyed, and suddenly you HAVE to get away.
Maybe you’re just spooked because of what Eli said, or maybe your dad is really acting weird, you don’t know, but you just wind your way to the back of the house, downstairs toward thedoor that’s close to the woods.
A walk outside sounds like just what you need, but you should probably empty your bladder before you go outside, so you quietly slip into the bathroom near the back door, locking the door behind you, before turning around… to see Eli, his back to you, rivulets of water running down his bare back, as he wraps a towel around his waist.
You don’t immediately catalogue that he is naked, however, because you are distracted by his back, itself. Scars criss-cross the entirety of it, covered only by a tattoo across his shoulders of a snake eating its own tail.
Eli turns around and sees you, and you’re not sure which one of you is more shocked. You’re feeling some overwhelming emotions about what might have caused those scars on his back, as well as being freaked out by your possibly-pod-person father, and having just caught your gay boyfriend (who you kind of wanted to break up with) in the act of cheating, and the fact that Eli apparently has secret muscles, because while he looks lean and lanky in his school robes, without a shirt on, the boy has definition.
And that’s when you realize he’s naked. Under that towel.
A look of embarrassment crosses Eli’s face before it goes stony, and he stands a little straighter. “What are you doing, Tabitha?”
Trying to draw your eyes away from his abs, you:
A. are overwhelmed by all of the conflicting emotions you’re feeling, and start crying. A girl can handle only so much shock in one night.
B. say, “I’m ready to do the spell on my dad. He’s really wigging me out.”
C. turn around and get the heck out of there, because if you stay, you just might do something rash and start kissing him or something.
