The runes shimmered.
Name: Noble
True Name: Child of Promise
Rank: Ascended
Attributes: [Clarity] [Quick Study] [Kingdom Keeper] [Happy Together]
Aspect: [Mentalist]
Aspect Rank: [Sacred]
Innate Ability: [Window to the Soul]
Aspect Abilities: [Light as a Feather] [Hidden Feelings] [Weight of Doubt]
Everything looked normal except for one thing.
"Happy Together..."
She had gained an Attribute! The Spell hadn't announced it, but the professor could easily guess when it appeared. Noble looked more closely at the new set of lines.
Attribute Description: ["We're together until the end. With you here, nothing can go wrong."]
Noble blinked.
'What kind of description is that?!'
Who was speaking? What did it even mean?
If Imagination had made the item as Syrce claimed, had she made it for herself or for someone else?
'Together to the end? I don't like that at all.'
There were many kinds of ends, and Noble didn't want to be with Flint for most of them.
"You can see it too, then?" Flint furrowed his brow.
Child of Promise shook her head. "How does that even make sense? An item that can create an Attribute?"
"Unless the Spell lost its marbles and decided to give out Attributes for free, I can't think of another explanation, can you?" Flint scoffed. "Happy together. Ha! More like a ball and chain. If I had wanted to be married, I would have picked someone better."
Noble glared at him. "Like who? Queen Bee?"
"Don't be ridiculous! She's already taken." Flint struggled against the leather belt. "Seriously, if we can't get out of this, the Spell should have named the Attribute: till death do us part. In fact, that's not such a bad idea…"
The man got a dangerous gleam in his eye. He called forth a small Memory, and a bubble of silence surrounded them.
Noble held up her hand, ready to defend herself.
"Don't even think about it! Syrce already threatened to do the same to you. You don't want to mess with her."
The other master shook his head.
"Like usual, you misunderstood, Blondie. Murdering a cohort member is not my style. I'll change the tether to someone else in the Nightmare, then I can kill them and set myself free. They are just figments of the Spell anyway."
Noble furrowed her brow. That was dangerous thinking. Killing an innocent person, whether or not that person was real, would affect the murderer on a deep level.
"That's a very slippery slope, Flint. Can you even bring yourself to do such a thing? Wait, don't answer! I don't want to know." Noble regrouped. "Even if you could stomach it, I don't think Syrce would approve of you sacrificing one of her people. And even if she did and you went through with it, there is no guarantee that the belt won't just latch onto the next closest person."
Flint looked ready to argue, but he puffed out his cheeks instead.
"Fine."
"Fine?" Noble raised her eyebrows.
"I am not ruling out the option, but I will entertain other solutions." The surly Master scoffed. "I'd rather save my blade for any of these monsters they've been talking about anyway."
"Maybe you can latch onto a monster and kill that instead…" Noble mused.
"Perhaps," the man conceded. "We won't know until we find one. Besides the Pink Ones, of course. Those things give me the creeps."
"I didn't think you were afraid of anything," Noble teased. But deep down, she knew what he meant.
Despite their friendly nature, something about the creations of Imagination was unsettlingly unnatural.
They did not feel dangerous exactly, but definitely not quite tame either. Maybe it was just their size and odd coloring. Noble wasn't sure. She couldn't deny that they had been useful…
"Afraid?" Flint crossed his arms. "I am not afraid of anything. That doesn't mean I can't have a healthy wariness of things inside a Nightmare."
"Fair enough. As long as you aren't planning human murder, I will be happy to explore other options with you." Noble looked up at the sky as her companion continued.
"If I do try your suggestion, it would have to be a little monster. I think tying myself to something so big and then trying to kill it would be like riding on the back of a bull." The man frowned at the thought.
"What do you mean?" Noble had only seen livestock up close a few times before fleeing North America. While she knew people used to ride cattle for sport, she didn't see how it applied here.
"That tether would be a rope that it can pull, and I cannot. If the creature figured it out, it could simply take off and I would be bucked in any direction that suited its fancy. I can tell you from experience that it is less than ideal."
Noble didn't want to know what he meant, but his words had given her an idea. "Sure, a monster could drag you along the ground, but what about the air?"
"I can't fly..." Flint looked at her like she was stupid.
"Exactly. Would gravity win or the bond? Maybe if I move far enough away from you upward, the tether will release on its own, and you can get off the belt before I come back down." Noble smiled as the surly Master nodded slowly.
"It is worth a try."
Summoning a Memory, the professor placed half of [The Other's Voice] in Flint's palm.
"Tuck it behind your ear, and anything you want to tell me, I will hear like you are next to me."
The Memory did not have a huge range, but it would be enough for their experiment.
"Frilly little thing, isn't it?" Flint rolled his eyes and took half. 'If you can hear this, get it over with. I haven't got all night.'
Noble smiled at him. As Flint deactivated the bubble of silence around them, the woman lifted off the ground and took to the sky.
'Here I go.'
The camp began to shrink below her. She spared a glance to see Flint watching her with his arms crossed.
Noble shifted her gaze toward the horizon.
This was as good a chance as any to check out the land. If she could get a rough map of the area around their current location, perhaps Flint could help her get her bearings.
'Or if I can see Bastion from here, I won't need his condescending help at all.'
Unfortunately, the starlight was too dim to give much definition to the world below. There were patches of light and extremely dark grey, with some black spaces looking gone altogether.
'I wonder what colors they are in the daytime?'
Noble had already run into the Wonder Woods. What was next? A lake the color of honey?
Above her, the sky shifted in response to her presence. A small beam of light raced across the heavens before splitting and heading back the direction from which it came.
It was so brief that Noble almost missed it.
'What was that?'
She continued to rise, wishing she could reach high enough to examine the strange event.
'Blondie?'
Noble continued to stare at the last point where the light had been.
'Did you see it?'
'See what? Focus! It's like your head is in the clouds, Blondie. Just a little more and you'll be at the end of the range, so we can find out—'
Flint never finished his sentence.
Instead, all Noble heard was his blood-curdling scream.