Story Excerpt: The Lost Panther, Chapter Two, Part One

I was poking through some old stuff while I started working on an outline for a new story, and I decided I didn’t hate the next bit of this as much as I thought. If you’ve enjoyed Chapter One, Parts One and Two, hopefully you will find this part just as appealing.

The Lost Panther Excerpt

Chapter Two, Part One

When she opened her eyes, she felt the same as she always did.

“I’m not impressed.”

Divanilan all but rolled his eyes.

“It might take an hour or more to take effect. But since you have accepted my proposal, you will need to sign a contract.”

“Contract?” Alek sat up. “Contract? A contract stipulating what, exactly?”

“I know you can read, Alexiana. The short version is that, as a Willwisher’s apprentice, certain activities are required of you and certain ones are also forbidden until your apprenticeship is up and you move to the next level.”

“Won’t I be a Willwisher?”

“Not necessarily. I hadn’t realized that most of you Madrigals didn’t know this, but many of your attendants—those who are not Willwishers—are former apprentices. They made it to the next level, to journeyman, but did not continue forward by choice or by failure to test well. This means they have the knowledge—most of it, anyway—but are forbidden to use it. They attend to Willwishers as well, being as they know what is required for our duties.”

“Fine. So what are Willwishing apprentices forbidden from doing? And what are we required to do?” She lifted an eyebrow at Divanilan.

Her life was a padded box of have-tos and can’t-dos. Would anything Divanilan offered her be worth it if she was just trading one routine for another? Being a Madrigal had not struck her as being a prisoner, insofar as she could organize her thoughts and try to assess her life outside of the hallucinations her own mind afflicted her with despite the exceedingly dull and regular routine of her day-to-day experiences. But while being an apprentice might be different in theory, it might also be just as pointless if it was only another walled path. Did she even want to be a Willwisher? She had always been alone, but not lonely. No one had cared for her particularly since she had shown up, memoryless and smiling, on the doorstep of the orphanage at age twelve. She had not needed anyone’s care, because her mind took care of her: even as her hallucinations grew stronger over her teenage years—up until she was committed as a Madrigal at fifteen—they were always for her, and not anyone else. She did not have multiple personalities like some of the others, but she often thought that her mind was her best friend, always looking out for her in ways that no one else could even begin to understand.

Why would she even try Divanilan’s treatment? The sticky sweetness of it clogged her throat and had made it hard to swallow. Was she so afraid of descending into the lifestyle of a Falsetto? Water. She needed water.

Something white and fluffy flickered on Divanilan’s desk for the briefest of moments. A rabbit? The rabbit? It did not coalesce, and she saw it was just a piece of paper.

Divanilan had been speaking the entire time, and she only then began to listen: “…You don’t have to prepare my meals, but an apprentice usually gets up earlier for some studying. I will leave a brief lesson out for you, and it will form our morning discussion. In sum, as part of our contract, I cannot violate any of your rights as an Auroran citizen, but you cannot otherwise refuse anything I ask of you. Now, as for what’s forbidden: really, not much, but the primary one is the formation of romantic relationships. Please understand me: sexual congress is allowed, but it must not become something more, and if I think it might become so, you will be unable to continue seeing that person at all. We know that everyone needs some kind of, er…release, but the energies required for a long-term emotional relationship drain too much of the energies required to learn Willwishing. To that end, having too many friends is also discouraged, and any you do have ought really to be fellow apprentices.

“Are we agreed, Alexiana? Naturally, I will give you a night to ensure the decision is the one you want to make and to read the contract in full.”

Alek let her eyes wander the walls of Divanilan’s office while he tried to make eye contact with her. The room had a low ceiling and walls paneled in a warm honey-colored wood. A profile portrait of Divanilan was mounted on one side of the room, and on the opposite wall was a piece of thick, creamy paper mounted in a frame. Squinting, she could make out that it was the certificate verifying Divanilan as a master Willwisher. Almost no other personal items were in the room. A large, green-bound book sat on his desk with Harbingers’ Forays and Chronicles, 903 – 1103 V.A. stamped in silver on the spine. A comb of honey rested in a dish next to a crudely-made clay-colored mug, clearly not standard issue.

Alek, still ignoring Divanilan, looked over her shoulder at the open door and the hallway that stretched beyond. She wished she could see the rabbit.

PLEASE…LEXI….

Then her head was empty and silent.

“Alright, Div, let me see the contract.”

As she accepted the moderate-sized pile of paper from the Willwisher, a black shape appeared on his desk.

“Ack! Tieg! Get down!” He swatted at the cat, who was not concerned but hopped down anyway.

Alek slammed her back up against the chair as Tieg trotted towards her. He seemed about to leap into her lap, but instead half-stood and rested his front paws on her knee. His touch was soft and he directed a blank look up at her, but Alek darted out a hand with stiffened fingers and pushed him away.

“No. No touchy.”

The distant ring of a bell vibrated down the hallway and into the office. Breakfast was over, and Madrigals would be climbing into the oxen-powered wagons that took them to the Outer Ring for the day’s work.

Alek jumped up. “I have to put this in my room before we leave. I will talk to you about it tomorrow. Good-bye, Div!”

“Wait, Alek—you’re on light duty today, because of your finger, remember? I’ve arranged for you to work in the Library Archives, so take those papers with you. You shouldn’t be asked to do much today.”

Alek nodded, turned, and sailed down the hallway at a light jog, slowing to a stiff, fast walk when Mistress Halinena narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at her.

---

The Library Archives were dustier than they ought to have been. Whoever had had duty here recently had not been doing his or her job. This must have been why Divanilan ensured her light duty would be spent here—no one seemed too concerned for the Archives worker’s productivity, and she had only seen an attendant when it was lunchtime.

She had tried to read the contract before lunch, but the words wiggled and danced before her eyes. She had even tried to dust, until she snorted up a couple of gray-brown globs from her nose and throat. It seemed like a good time to try again, with her stomach full of cold cuts of ham, some fresh-picked summer tomatoes, and thick slices of crusty brown bread. Meat was not altogether common for Madrigal meals and must always be savored. She had not experienced a bad day as a Madrigal when a meal included some kind of meat.

The Archives were in a square and not particularly large room. The only books available to the Madrigals were of three kinds: dry informationals covering topics like farming or gardening, under-complicated short works of fiction, and some journals from deceased Madrigals. The walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and the middle of the room was broken into five narrow rows of shorter bookshelves and two rectangular tables with bench seats. Many Madrigals did not care for reading, or found it worsened their affliction, but Alek expected a handful would show up at the end of the workday to check out books. That meant only a few more hours for uninterrupted perusal of the contract.

She sat down at the table where she had left it. She considered that perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to leave such a thing out in the open. Much too late for that thought now. She cleared her throat, and picked up the first of twelve pages:
Divanilan Elk, Willwisher on primary duty with the Madrigals, herein arranges with Alexiana None, formerly Alexiana Madrigal, to have her as his apprentice for the duration of at least two years, but longer as deemed necessary by her progression….

On and on, the contract continued in the same tone. No doubt Divanilan had written each word himself, rather than hiring a magistrate of any kind. She captured some of the requirements that she had missed Divanilan saying that morning: she must study six days out of seven, each work day began at the crack of dawn and ended when he said it did, she would shadow him in his duties five out of the six work days, the sixth day would be actual practicum of her lessons, at no other time was she to use her Will, and on.

Her nose was an inch from the paper, her eyes scanning the words on the second to last page. She was ahead of schedule, but she wanted to be done with the damn thing. If she was leaping out of one cage into another, fine fine fine, as long as she didn’t have to read any more contracts.

A low screech came from behind Alek. As she tried to turn to meet it, someone grabbed her shoulders and dragged her out of the bench. She was tripped, and just after she landed on her outstretched hands—a fire of pain whooshed up her injured finger—the someone grabbed her shoulders again and flipped her onto her back.

Alek tried to get her bearings by grabbing her attacker’s wrists. Her own hair flew in a wild cloud around her head, obscuring whomever it was that was trying to scrub her out. She sneezed and huffed in a truly pointless fashion. Her assailant’s wrists were bony, but long white fingers gripped like claws and squeezed her shoulders past bruising, to the point where she thought nails might break skin. She determined not to cry out.

She had only half-formed the thought when she raised her own head and smashed the top of it into the other person’s face. No solidarity there—a wailing yelp flew from what were definitely female lips. As the woman fell back, Alek pulled herself up.

The once-full lips were sunken and cracked and decorated by dribbles of blood from the woman’s mess of a nose. Her hair was the same shoulder-length as Alek’s, but in a straw-colored tumbleweed tangle.

“Svirani?” whispered Alek. “Why?”

She wondered when her own hallucinations had made her forget Svirani, once a mentor and a lover, now a Falsetto and, apparently, a fighter. She always knew she had had friends, made when she had first arrived five years ago, but they seemed to fade in time as each either crossed over to the catatonic chaos of a Falsetto or paled in comparison to her own hallucinations. Perhaps she ought to have been declared a Falsetto ages ago. People had not struck her as real and immediate for….

“Alek, I haven’t seen you in months. I thought you didn’t exist.” Svirani’s voice was a croak.

“Oh. Months. It’s only been months.”

“I wasn’t so bad until you stopped coming. I thought…I don’t know…I thought you had never been real.”

“I forgot about you.”

“Sunshine on my soul, don’t pull any punches.”

Alek allowed her eyes to drift from Svirani’s head to her exposed collarbone, her heaving breasts. “To start, you just said you thought I wasn’t real and have, in fact, actually punched me. Or close enough for it to not matter.”

She realized Svirani was looking at her now, perhaps in a way she hadn’t bothered to before.

“Alek, where’s the rest of you?”

“Gone away. They gave me something. And I’m leaving.”

She shouldn’t have relaxed. She almost bent a knee in the exact wrong direction as Svirani tackled her again, pulled her arms up over her head and weighed them down at the wrists. The Falsetto leaned forward so that the pendulums of her breasts brushed Alek’s own pancaked tits. Her any-colored eyes were slanted to the side, a conscious effort to avoid Alek’s gaze.

“I know you’re leaving. I want to say good-bye. Sometimes…sometimes I know you’re real. Or I think you are. And I want you to be real for a long time, but nothing ever fixes that long. I just want….”

Svirani’s lips were dry and salty with blood, but her tongue was wet. The kiss lasted almost too long, according to her stale breath. But Alek did not begrudge her that and could not convince herself to encourage Svirani’s departure when the other woman sat back against Alek’s bent knees. Alek thought about touching the curve of her round face—she licked the tips of her left fingers, thinking she might wipe away some of the blood—but Svirani levered herself up by crushing Alek’s wrists against the hard Archives floor.

“Good-bye, Alek,” she said.

Alek sat up, rubbing her wrists, and watched Svirani trudge away.

“How did she know I was leaving?” she said to no one at all.

“Divanilan is not keeping his silence, or not keeping it at a low enough volume to keep the news from spreading like wildfire,” said Reria as she appeared from behind one of the bookshelves.

Alek wanted to be startled, instead just feeling abused. She opened her mouth, but her face must have been enough of a question.

“I wanted to check on your finger. And make sure they gave you something to work on today that wouldn’t make the healing process any worse. Also,” she paused to squat by still-sitting Alek, “I decided you should keep your fingertip.” She handed a small leather pouch to Alek. “I did a few things to it that should help preservation, but the most important is that you don’t touch it. Just leave it in this pouch. Also, keep it dry.”

“Real?” asked Alek as she took the pouch from Reria. The leather was butter-smooth but a little fuzzy.

“This is real, Alek, I promise. I feel it’s the least I can do since you have always been one of the least-troublesome Madrigals to treat. You’ve been so withdrawn for the last few months, I thought…I just don’t want you to forget what it’s like to be here when you are a full Auroran again. No one will try to understand you like your fellow Madrigals and those of us who work here every day.”

She leaned forward and planted a quick and efficient kiss on Alek’s cheek.

“Do you want help up?”

Alek shook her head. Two kisses in one day. She should think about leaving to be a Willwisher’s apprentice every day.

---

The next morning, Alek did not wait until after breakfast. As soon as the hall monitors fetched the Madrigals to the breakfast hall, she veered off towards the Willwishers’ offices. An attendant at the dining hall doors impeded her path.

“Madrigal, you need to eat breakfast. You can see a Willwisher afterward, if one is awake.”

This fellow must be new if he didn’t know her name.

“I’m not a Madrigal. I’m a Willwisher’s apprentice now.”

A braying laugh escaped him and he gestured to her clothes.

“You’re wearing blue. Want to know what’s real? You being a Madrigal.” His expression switched from mirth to severity. “Now go get some breakfast and sit down and eat it.”

Alek thought about waiting, doing as he said, eating breakfast first. She thought about sneaking out another exit. What she did was lurch forward, slamming her shoulder into his and darting through the doors behind him.

“Hey! HEY! Disobedient Madrigal heading to the offices!”

A pitter-patter of pursuing footsteps followed Alek as she ran in long strides down the hallway.

“Div!” she yelled. “Div! Open the door!”

The door at the end of the hallway swung open. Divanilan’s face, wearing a bemused expression, appeared out of it.

“Alexiana, show some decorum.”

“No! Tell them! Tell them I’m a Willwisher’s apprentice!”

She stared into his eyes as two attendants caught up to her, each grabbing an elbow and pulling it back.

“Are you?” he asked.

“What?”

“Are you my apprentice? You never quite answered that in full, remember?”

“Div, for sunshine, yes! You know I was going to, I was always going to, and you already told certain individuals that I was leaving. I’m the coy one here, so don’t you start with me.”

“Gentlemen,” said Divanilan with much less ire than she would have preferred, “please let go of my apprentice. But let’s keep in mind that she’s not as coy as she claims to be.”

Muttering, the attendants allowed her arms to go free and headed back to the dining hall at Divanilan’s reassuring nod.

“Where’s the contract?” he said once they were out of earshot.

“I, uh…I suppose it’s still upstairs, under my pillow.”

“Ah, so you did sleep on it.”

She was alarmed rather than amused by his wink.

“Should I not have? Is it bad for the paper?”

He sighed. “Alexiana, don’t get anxious on me now. And no, it’s fine. Just grab the contract and bring it back here. I will fetch us an appropriate witness.”

One hour later, all of the Madrigals had departed for the Outer Ring and the sun was just beginning to light the City in gold and red. Alek stood in Divanilan’s office, wearing loose brown trousers, a billowing white shirt, and a too-small brown vest that she’d had to leave unbuttoned. Divanilan said she would soon go to the tailor for a suit of her own clothes. She would not be starting her lessons for a few days, however. He said he had a pile of books she could start reading, but he wanted her to feel what it was like to actually live in Aurora again. He was familiar with her past through her file—so as familiar as anyone except her would be, because she never divulged more than was in the file—and thus knew she had no memory from before age twelve. For all intents and purposes, she had only been an Auroran for three years before she was committed as a Madrigal.

Some part of her wanted to be worried about being in the City in a way that wasn’t on the back of a jouncing wagon in the pre-dawn or post-twilight darkness. The rest of her was excited about being able to have meat in her meals more often. Her mouth watered at the thought of the seafood she could have access to, something that was truly a rare treat for the Madrigals: crab. Not too mention shellfish, shrimp, fresh-caught fish….

“Alexiana! Do you need another dose?”

Alek realized Divanilan had been yelling at her.

“You said once a week. I don’t need a dose, I was just thinking about eating some crab.”

“Would you like some for lunch?”

“You’re serious?”

“Very. It is one of my favorites, and I think you deserve everything you were denied for being cooped up in this miserable environment.”

It was the first time Alek had heard Divanilan express a fully negative sentiment.

“Why does everyone think being a Madrigal is such a poor situation?”

Divanilan looked first incredulous, then resigned. “Come eat some fresh crab and then you’ll know why.”