Aida
She finally found Toma sitting by the hot spring, dangling his feet in the water and staring off into the distance with a scowl on his face. Despite what she had said to Lu, she had to admit Toma looked seriously pissed off about something. All Aida wanted to do in that moment was to kiss him until that tension melted away.
Probably not the most responsible way to address the situation, she decided. Besides, he was obviously keyed up. There was no way of knowing how he was likely to respond to her while in this state.
Instead, she sat down next to him with her legs crossed and propped her elbow on her knee. Resting her chin in her hand, she regarded him for a few minutes. Finally, however, she got tired of being ignored.
“Care to tell me what crawled up your ass?” she said.
Her voice must have startled him, because she felt the air crackle with his magic as he flickered out of sight for an instant.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that.” He grumbled darkly, still staring steadfastly at the tree line.
“I’m sorry I startled you, but I’ve been sitting here for the last 5 minutes waiting for you to notice me.” Aida responded serenely. She was disturbed to see Toma like this, but she was certainly used to dealing with patients who weren’t in the best mood. So she adopted her healer voice, and tried to ignore the urge to wrap her arms around him.
“What’s on your mind, Toma?” she asked gently. “You’re obviously really upset. So, talk to me.”
If it was possible for Toma to get even more tense, he did.
“It’s nothing important,” he said after a long time.
Aida sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Toma, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But don’t lie to me. It is very clearly something important to you.”
Toma met her gaze for the first time since she had found him. “Aida, I…”
She smiled at him, hoping that he would find some comfort in her words “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me. You don’t owe me explanations or anything of the sort. I do hope someday you’ll trust me enough to share whatever it is, but I’m not going to push you.”
She took a deep breath and continued. “That being said, I do think you need to talk to Lu. The way you stormed off after her story, she was very worried that she had made you angry.” Toma blinked in surprise.
“Of course she didn’t make me angry! What the hell made her think that?!?” he exclaimed, sounding genuinely appalled.
Aida smiled again. “You ran out of the house like you had a hellhound on your tail pretty much as soon as she finished speaking. She’s a sensitive little girl even in the best of times. It wasn’t hard for her to come to the conclusion that she upset you. I told her that you weren’t, but I don’t know if she believed me.”
“Well, fuck that. I’ll go talk to her.” He started to stand up, but Aida pushed him back down again.
“We need to talk about something else before you do that. She’s occupied playing with Shadow right now anyway, so we have a while yet.”
Toma looked like he was going to argue, but then thought better of it. He settled back into his seat.
“We need to figure out what our next step is.” Aida said once she was sure she had his attention. “Despite what your instinct is probably telling you, it is way too risky to try and go to the village. Magnus will be waiting to pounce as soon as we show our faces there. And it isn’t going to be safe here much longer either. Say what you want about the man, he’s as smart as he is ruthless. It’s only a matter of time until he figures out this place is here. We’ll need to move on soon.”
Toma narrowed his eyes and rubbed his jaw absently as he considered what she said.
“You’re probably right” he conceded finally, “but we also have to try to get the kids back home if we can. We have to at least find out if they even have a home anymore. From the sounds of it, there may not be anything left for them to go back to. In which case, we’ll need to find them someplace safe where they’ll be taken care of.”
Aida nodded. “I think I know of someplace we can go that will keep us all safe for a while, and will get us some answers at the same time. I mean, we haven’t even talked about what it means that you’re a wild mage too. I want to know how the hell you exist when everything I’ve ever been taught says you shouldn’t.”
“And where are you planning on getting that resolved, exactly?” asked Toma skeptically.
“We’re going to see my teacher. The only person alive who has ever met another wild mage.”
Toma
After Aida had finished explaining about her mentor, they had sat quietly together by the water for a while longer. Even though Toma knew she was still concerned about him, she hadn’t pushed him to speak any more about his overreaction to Lu’s story. All she did was sit there and watch the steam rising off the water. Eventually, he decided he had spent enough time sitting here, although he was enjoying the companionship. So he quietly reached over and slipped his hand over hers. Before she had a chance to react, he pulled her arm towards him and brushed a kiss over the skin of the back of her hand.
“Thanks.” He said, meeting her gaze for a long moment.
Before he fully considered what he was doing, he turned her hand over, and placed another kiss on the inside of her wrist. She shivered slightly, which made him smile to himself.
Satisfied with her reaction, and not trusting himself to keep his hands to himself when there were kids around, Toma stood and brushed the dirt off of his pants.
“I’ll go talk to Lu, and then we’ll get ready to head out. Sound okay?”
Aida nodded, cleared her throat and took a deep breath before speaking.
“Have the kids and Shadow come with you and meet me in my bedroom.”
~~~
The chat with Lu went way better than Toma had expected. The little girl was very sweet, and once he reassured her that he hadn’t been angry with her, he saw her visibly relax. Apparently, Aida had already spoken with her, and he simply confirmed what she had said. After that, they more or less just played together for a few minutes, until finally he found himself on the bottom of a giggling squirming pile of children and cat.
Once they all caught their breaths, Toma told all three of his charges that Aida was waiting in her room for them. To be honest, he wasn’t sure why she had chosen the bedroom of all places to get two kids and a cat ready for travel, but he wouldn’t be surprised to find there was a reason. Aida struck him as the kind of woman who usually has a reason.
Without any more ado, he hearded the group up the stairs where they found Aida sitting on her bed waiting for them. She smiled at them as she stood.
“Okay everyone. My teacher is expecting us, so we need to get going.” Aida looked at Charlie “ She’ll be able to keep you guys safe and contact your family.”
Toma frowned. How could this teacher already be expecting them? Magic, he assumed, but if so it had to have been a very powerful magic. This teacher was sounding more and more unusual by the minute.
Very interesting indeed, he mused again as Aida walked over to a large wardrobe on the far wall of the room, opened the door and stood beside it as if it were a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
“In you go, everyone.”
Shadow, for his part, bounded forward and vanished into the wardrobe the moment the door was open. Toma and the children, however, took a little more convincing.
Aida smiled.
“I know it’s a little odd, but trust me. This is the fastest, safest way.”
Lu seemed to think for a moment, then scampered through the door. Charlie shrugged his shoulders and followed.
Aida’s smile grew as the older child disappeared into the folds of the clothing, then she looked at Toma.
“Ladies first.” He said with a grin
“Thank you, sir.” She returned. “Pull the door closed behind you, okay?”
Toma nodded and stood aside for her to pass, then followed her into the wardrobe.
The door snapped shut firmly behind him.
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